Hammond Mayor Thomas M. McDermott, Jr. delivered his annual “State of the City” address to members of the Lakeshore Chamber of Commerce on Thursday at Dynasty Banquets in Hammond. Instead of delivering a prepared speech, McDermott spoke on a broad range of topics presented to him by Chamber Executive Director, Dave Ryan.
“This is always a great opportunity for the mayor to talk about what’s going on with economic development, different projects going on within the city and other things that he might want to highlight,” Ryan said.
“We always have a great turnout when the mayor comes to speak,” said Ryan. “We’ll have close to 300 people here today. The mayor and I have been doing this for twelve years. We go through a lot of topics and start at the top and go all the way down and see what’s going on. There’s a lot of investment going on in Hammond all over the place. College Bound is a huge program that the city does and you won’t believe how many students have gone through it. There’s a lot of good stuff going on and it’s always a fun time.”
Mayor McDermott, who presides over the 5th largest city in Indiana, has been in office since 2004. He is the longest serving mayor in Hammond’s history and recently won a fourth term in the 2015 general election. The mayor began by speaking about Wolf Lake Park and the Regional Development Authority.
“When I first took over as mayor we designated north of 129th Street to be green space and we followed through,” McDermott said. “I’ve been mayor for twelve years now and when we had opportunities to acquire properties we’ve acquired them. The Port Authority was our lead dog on the project. It certainly helped when the Regional Development Authority granted us $34 million to help us with that project. It was the first big grant from the RDA. At the time it was, and it still might be, the biggest grant, when you’re talking about shoreline redevelopment, that the RDA has ever given. The RDA has been good to Hammond. We’ve developed a strong friendship and we’ve done a lot of great work up there.”
McDermott was then asked about downtown Hammond and the prospect of moving City Hall downtown.
“Downtown Hammond needs help,” said McDermott. “I don’t foresee downtown Hammond being like it was in the 1950’s or 60’s. I foresee downtown Hammond to be more centered around white collar jobs. Think about successful downtowns in the region. Valparaiso. Where’s their city hall? Downtown. Crown Point. Where’s their city hall? Downtown. The list goes on and on when we talk about successful downtown city locations. Where is their city hall? Downtown -- it just makes sense.”
“City Hall is a traffic generator,” McDermott continued. “People come to us. If you're coming to us to go to work, if you’re coming to us to pay bills or if you’re gonna go to a meeting or see the mayor or a department head you’re coming to city hall. But we’re no longer putting our money where our mouth is. Quite frankly, City Hall is not a palace right now. Do we spend $4-5 million to fix the current City Hall or do we spend $10 million to move to downtown Hammond? We know we have to spend money right now whether we’re moving or staying and that’s the dilemma right now. The City Council has been excellent, asked the right questions and has been open minded. I really want to thank them.”
Mayor McDermott also touched on a range of topics including the 165th St. Sports Complex, Riverside Park, and the South Shore expansion project, as well as the HUB of Innovation and the College Bound Scholarship Program which has seen 5,320 students move through the program and continue their education since it began in 2006.