State Spending Priorities Gone Amuk

This came across my email stream yesterday and I reprint it here with permission of Tom Tokarski, its author. Tom and his wife Sandra, have been stalwarts in the now decades long fight against a new terrain route for the extension of I-69 and for the common sense route of using the existing I-70 and upgrading US 41. The Tokarski's are the pulse of the statewide organization, Citizens for Appropriate Rural Roads (CARR).

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Indiana is in fiscal crisis. Education funding is being slashed while social services and unions are under severe attack as an excuse to save money. Indiana’s roads are potholed like Swiss cheese, 4000 bridges are structurally deficient or obsolete and now we hear that sidewalks around the state are crumbling. Meanwhile, huge sums of cash are being pumped into one project—I-69.

The state plans to spend over $3 BILLION on a highway that will destroy thousands of acres of prime farmland, bisect a major wildlife refuge, divide rural communities, fragment large forests, condemn over 400 homes and relocate or destroy around 125 existing businesses. Something is seriously wrong with this picture.

Indiana’s priorities, led by Governor Daniels, are distressingly warped. The reason that a hugely expensive highway is so important that it can siphon money from transportation projects across Indiana while vital services are being cut is clear--POLITICS.

If you think there are better ways to spend $3- $4 BILLION than laying more asphalt while destroying Indiana’s valuable resources, please contact your state legislators and tell them – stop wasting money on I-69! Political self interest must not override fiscal, social and environmental responsibility. Indiana Deserves Better than I-69.

Submitted by Thomas Tokarski
February, 2011