Community loses by closing post

We’re all for government consolidation where it makes sense and where public safety isn’t affected.

Close license branches in counties that have multiple branches? Sure, that makes sense, just as it did when the Indiana Bureau of Motor Vehicles chose to close the Brownstown license branch and others around the state in 2005. Yes, some folks had to drive a little farther than they were accustomed to in the past.

But consolidating the Indiana State Police Post at Seymour with the Versailles Post and assigning those responsibilities to an office in Ripley County doesn’t make sense to us.

From what we’re hearing, the decision to close the Seymour Post was a surprise to area lawmakers and local government officials on both sides of the political aisle. We understand Gov. Mitch Daniels and his administration may have wanted to avoid the prolonged beating they took over license branch closures,  but this move appears to smell. Public input should have been sought. Financial numbers should have been crunched — it appears they have not been crunched.

Granted, we may be a little prejudiced on this since the Seymour Post is in our own backyard, or actually our frontyard. More on that later in this editorial. But we think public safety will be jeopardized for residents who live in Bartholomew, Jackson and Jennings counties, the three counties served by the Seymour Post.

Yes, technology exists to make the consolidations possible. But as Jackson County Sheriff Marc Lahrman said for a story that appeared in Friday’s edition of The Tribune and online at TribTown.com, dealing with the public in need of emergency help and dispatching that aid can be very personal, very human and very local.

Can you imagine a Ripley County native answering an emergency-911 call from a Brownstown resident in need of help and saying they live off Slaughterhouse Road? How will that dispatcher know where Slaughterhouse Road is since there really is no such road? Local, experienced dispatchers would know.

And if this consolidation is a matter of saving money, where’s the savings? The state couldn’t answer that Friday. Where’s the savings versus moving operations from Versailles to Seymour? The state couldn’t answer that Friday. How is that possible?

It seems to us having a post on Interstate 65 makes more sense than in Ripley County. Maybe we’d feel differently if we lived in Versailles, but we’d still like some answers. No discussion of actual savings and comparisons between the two locations was offered when this decision was released Thursday because those figures don’t exist.

Back to the post being in our frontyard. That’s exactly where the Seymour Post is — sitting on some valuable U.S. 50 frontage, adjacent to some other valuable U.S. 50 frontage that already sits vacant — the former Indiana Department of Transportation district office and garage that becomes even more of an eyesore with each passing day, month and year that it sits idle.

If the post at Seymour is going to close, Mayor Craig Luedeman, Seymour Common Council, Jackson County Board of Commissioners and the area’s state lawmakers — Democrats and Republicans alike — need to press Daniels and his administration on guarantees that the post and former INDOT site will be quickly cleaned up so the properties can be marketed. Putting those properties into private hands — where they can be marketed at the highest, free-market values possible — will ensure that they are developed and join property tax rolls.

Neither site should be allowed to languish. That’s accomplished nothing with the former INDOT district office and garage.