How can we get attention? (11/15/05)

Sometimes you have to wonder: What does it take to get the state capital's attention?

Several months ago, the Daniels administration announced, to some significant fanfare, that it would be giving special economic development attention to companies working in the motor sports industry.

Locally, a small cheer arose.

After all, Moser Engineering, Portland Forge, and Qualtech Tool and Engineering have been an "informal cluster" dealing with the motor sports industry for a few years now.

There was every reason to expect that Jay County would soon be near the top of the agenda for the Indiana Department of Commerce.

Yet, weeks passed. Months passed.

And state government, despite what was waiting in its own back yard, was slow to catch on.

You want motor sports here? We've got them.

Portland Forge supplies the basic axles, Moser Engineering re-splines them for motor sports use, and Qual-Tech handles the final machining.

What could be better than that?

And if you extend the definition just a bit, you grab even more of the local industrial base. For instance, FCC Ltd., parent company of FCC (Indiana), has deep roots in the motorcycle racing field in Japan.

You also grab XPLEX and perhaps companies like Alphabet and others which are part of the consumer auto production world.

But still, the state's motor sports initiative had minimal interest for state government until Lt. Gov. Becky Skillman paid a visit to the county and saw things first-hand.

So what's the problem? Our guess is that it's the state's natural Indy-centric nature, which has been worse than ever under the current administration.

If you're more than 30 minutes away from the Statehouse, it seems, you are only of interest as a revenue source.

We'd like to think we're wrong about that.

Our guess is that we're all too right. —J.R.[[In-content Ad]]