As Armando Corpuz gleefully blew up his kazoo at the corner of Hohman Avenue and Fayette Street in Hammond Tuesday night, he wondered what the donors were eating at the digs across the street.
Corpus, from Highland, is the chef at the St. Joseph Catholic Church cafeteria, located a block from The Banc, where the NWI Development Group and the Indiana Republican Victory Committee (PAC) hosted a $10,000-a-plate dinner for Gov. Mike Brown. For the 200 people who pass through his food line, $10,000 “would do a lot of good.”
“In a city that's trying to rebuild, this is pretty darn rude,” Corpuz said of the dinner. “We must seize every opportunity to challenge this regime.”
About 30 protesters braved cold weather outside the nearly $20 million mixed-use complex that formerly housed Calumet Bank while Brown and his sponsors dined inside for $10,000 a head. Hammond police closed Fayette Street, which runs perpendicular to the building, and protesters, who at one point stood in the building's lobby to keep warm, were moved across the street.
Absent from the peaceful protest was its original leader, Mayor Thomas McDermott Jr. McDermott posted about the event over the weekend and said Brown's camp reached out to his chief of staff, Scott Miller, several times to tell them his posts posed a “security risk,” which McDermott strongly disagreed with because he was within his First Amendment rights.
When McDermott received the message Tuesday night, he was less defiant.
“I was strongly discouraged from attending the protest … so it was best for me to leave it to the Democratic officials who were leading the protest,” McDermott said, referring to Hammond Common Councilman Alfonso Salinas, D-3; and Scott Rakos, D-6.
Earlier Tuesday morning, McDermott announced on WJOB that he and Brown were meeting at Meats in Linz, which would be the first in-person meeting between him and the governor, according to what McDermott told the Post-Tribune on Monday. When asked if the meeting was related to his no-show Tuesday night, he demurred.
“I really can’t go into detail… without getting myself into even more hot water,” he said.
But McDermott's absence did nothing to dampen the protesters' good time. Bob Cavallo, of Hammond's Hessville area, tried to find a ticket to the party to talk with Brown and others about the redistricting battle going on in the Indiana House of Representatives earlier Tuesday.
“If I had $10,000, I would go there for a drink. – Cavallo said jokingly. “But this redistricting is bullshit. I looked at the new map and knew it was going to be bad, but this shocked me: There are 150 miles between one corner of Lake County and another corner of Marshall County.”
Rakos noted that the city learned at Monday night's Common Council meeting that it will not receive a matching public crossing grant for its roads in 2026.
“It’s not just about shenanigans,” Rakos said. “The governor didn't pay attention to Hammond and won't work with the mayor, and now we're losing (Community Crossings). It's a mess,” he said.
“There are kids starving and they're paying $10,000 a plate. It's a shame,” added Jessica Morgan of Cedar Lake.
Javier Silvarez, of Highland and Corpus soup kitchen volunteer, joined him on the kazoo. He was born in Spain and knows what authoritarianism looks like.
“I was born under (Spanish dictator Francisco) Franco, and I saw what the first stages (of authoritarianism) looked like,” Silvares said. “The United States is considered the richest country in the world, but the difference between classes is so huge that it cannot be called fair.
“But I do think we are making a change by being here.”
Michelle L. Quinn is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.
