'I-69 Road to democratic ruin'

I-69: Road to democratic ruin - A pivotal year

publisher — Sun, 12 Oct 2003 00:09:58 -0600

This is the last in a series of stories on the history behind Interstate 69 in Indiana.

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The chasm between Indiana Democrats and ordinary citizens on the economic wisdom of building an interstate highway from Evansville to Bloomington developed in the earliest days of the I-69 struggle. Landowners, business people, and at least one politician sounded the Indiana-can't-afford-I-69 alarm early, and often.

"Where's all that money going to come from?" Peggy Hunter, the owner of a Morgan County motel, asked during an interview for a December 1991 Herald-Times year-in-review story. "It's our money, isn't it?"

I-69: Road to democratic ruin - Donohue

publisher — Sun, 03 Aug 2003 00:40:05 -0600

This is the second in a series exploring the history behind Interstate 69, Indiana's Billion-Dollar Boondoggle.

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Like newspapers everywhere, the Bloomington Herald-Times views the world in starkly geographic terms. For both circulation and newsgathering purposes, the H-T editors subdivide the paper according to the map: Bloomington, Monroe County, the Region, the State, the Nation, and the World. The Region consists of the surrounding counties - Morgan, Owen, Greene, Brown, and Lawrence.

So, in the early 1990s, when Gov. Evan Bayh sent out the first signals of his intent to build a four-lane highway from Evansville to Indianapolis via Bloomington, the facts be damned, the H-T editors assigned the story to Region reporter Laura Lane. She covered Greene County, through which the proposed Bayh highway would pass over new-terrain on its way to Ind. 37 south of Bloomington. Laura covered I-69 when it was called the "Southwest Indiana Highway." I picked up the story when it became I-69.

I-69: Road to democratic ruin - Introduction

publisher — Sun, 13 Jul 2003 00:40:18 -0600

First in an occasional series exploring the history behind Interstate 69, Indiana's Billion-Dollar Boondoggle.

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Phil Schermerhorn is the only person I've ever talked to about I-69 who claimed to know when and where Hoosier politicians got their first whiff of the pork now popularly called Indiana's "Billion-Dollar Boondoggle."

Schermerhorn had spent most of his long career in state government promoting and defending I-69 as a political appointee in Evan Bayh and Frank O'Bannon's Indiana Department of Transportation (INDOT). He rose through the ranks to the post of deputy commissioner, the agency's No. 2 position. I considered him a reliable source on the subject.