After Tuesday’s announcement that Bartholomew, Jackson and Jennings counties, plus Edinburgh, will share in $30 million in state development grant funding, Columbus Mayor Jim Lienhoop said, “I think the future’s pretty bright for our region.”
The key word there is “region.” For the South Central Indiana Talent Region, the grant culminates a long process that encouraged local leaders, stakeholders and the public to look beyond city and county lines for the betterment of the larger community.
Our region didn’t get all of the nearly $50 million it requested in its thorough application, but it did get grant money for key projects that will be matched by local and private funding. The highlights include:
n A research and development test complex at the former Walesboro airport property. The Mobility Test Park and Proving Ground will be used by Cummins and Faurecia as a test track. There, those companies and others plan to redevelop the complex to test autonomous, electric and alternative-fuel vehicles.
n The NexusPark project planned at the former FairOaks Mall in Columbus, in which the city parks department and Columbus Regional Health propose a complex of indoor athletic facilities and medical offices, among other uses.
n Expansion of the Seymour High Schools Owls Manufacturing Program.
n Broadband access in rural Jennings County.
There is so much more. Details, including the entire plan, are available at southcentralreadi.com.
These grants come from the state’s READI program, which stands for Regional Economic Acceleration and Development Initiative. The parameters of the program were broad, challenging communities to define unmet needs for everything from economic development to improving housing stock to amenities that boost quality of life. READI grants put money behind longstanding efforts to get communities to think more in regional terms.
And the regions responded! Statewide, the regions asked for nearly three times money the state budgeted for the program.
Gov. Eric Holcomb and the Indiana General Assembly are to be credited for this initiative, which seeded $500 million in state grant money around Indiana to boost fundamental needs. And this truly has been a grassroots effort, with plenty of opportunity for input from anyone who had ideas about their region’s needs.
State leaders also found a winning formula for boosting regional planning statewide, and we hope the legislature will take Holcomb up on his request for a larger pot of money for this program in future years. State investment in so many projects around the state will be met by greater local and private investment in worthy projects that otherwise might never get off the ground.
A negative nostrum for far too many in our cynical age argues government can do no good. But government is at its best when it is of, by and for the people. Here, with these READI grants, Indiana and its communities have taken bold steps to address their communities’ needs from the grassroots.
We can think of few better uses of taxpayer money. State leaders can best serve the people by putting more money behind READI grants and similar programs that allow hometown Hoosiers a say in determining the projects that best meet the needs in their communities.
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