surprise. i liked it! i wont bore you with all of the details...just the interesting points. but if you want all of the details their is a print version of the speech circulating (likely somewhere on go hammond if you look hard enough) and will be rebroadcast sometime friday morning on wjob.
first of all. im not sure if it was the setting...or a whole bunch of things...but this felt like a much more formal speech than any ive seen mcdermott give before. that is a really cool room for events such as this.
easilly a few hundred in attendance. food was great. yet markovich didnt show! (i lost money on that one)
sue brown was there so look for the times to cover this event sometime early next week. i have the verbatim speech here in front of me...so ill be able to directly point out any misquotes by ms brown
speech was about 40 minutes long...with several dozen breaks for applause. all city elected officials present minus chico (working) and markovich (hiding) not sure about harkin. i didnt see him but i wasnt looking for him either.
speech covered a lot of hammond history. the hammond historical society pres helped out on the research. tidbits from the hammond pros, the depression era of the 30's, hammond's oldest surviving business...that sort of thing intermixed with relevant applications for today.
mcdermott championed his administrations past 5 years and reaffirmed its current course and goals, such as expanding the tax base, developing the wolf lake area, and all of the gateways to the city. one of the biggest applause moments of the night was regarding tough decisions to hold the line on the budget through consolidations and reduced spending. the list included the health dept, reduction of city health insurance benefactors, and the seperation of the sanitation and recycling depts from the city and into sanitary district.
more applause for the mayors praise of city services during the flood issue last august, and his vowing to work downstate to get funding for the cal basin commission "pointing fingers, laying blame, and threatening to close the northcott bridge are counterproductive and will not protect anyone from the next flood which could happen at any time. if we work regionally we can get this project completed."
other news.
the mayor encouraged people to attend the governors appearance in griffith friday and ask him to rethink his proposal to eliminate local idem enforcement.
the wedgewood field sight (girls softball) is moving to the new expanded caldwell little league sight and will become a new subdivision modelled on the parrish view sight plan.
things still look very good for the new theatre at the kmart sight.
in summation. more than a news breaking speech...this speech seemed as it was a highlight package for the administrations first 5 years...and a direction setter for the next 5 years as well as moments and memories from hammonds past. the administration seems intent on recapturing and reveling in some of hammonds history and past glory, while also focused on improving the city so that it will have many more historical and glorious memories in the future.
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