Congressman to host Economic Forum

From the New Albany Tribune
By DAVID MANN
David.Mann@newsandtribune.com

Rep. Baron Hill, D-Ind., is organizing a forum on energy, health care and economic issues. The event is 9 a.m. to noon Friday at the Ogle Center on the campus of IU Southeast in New Albany. It’s open to the public.

Panelists from across the region will discuss economic matters at IU Southeast on Friday.

The Southern Indiana Economic Forum, organized by Rep. Baron Hill’s office, will feature experts from several areas, including health care, energy and the Southern Indiana economy. The forum will be from 9 a.m. until noon Friday at the Ogle Center on the New Albany campus. The public is invited to attend and question and answer sessions will follow each of the panel discussions.

Michael Dalby, executive director of One Southern Indiana, an economic development agency, will moderate the first panel discussion, which will be an outlook on the Southern Indiana economy. Dalby could not be reached for comment on the matter Monday afternoon.
Panelists in that discussion will include representatives from Indiana University’s Business Research Center, the River Hills Economic Development District, the Indiana Economic Development Corp. and the Southern Indiana Minority Enterprise Initiative.
The second panel discussion will be on health care and will feature representatives from Hoosiers for a Commonsense Health Plan and the Indiana AFL-CIO. Lastly, the discussion will turn to energy independence. That discussion will feature an IU physics professor, a city of Bloomington council member and corporate representatives from Duke Energy and General Motors.

According to Hill’s office, the forum is designed to highlight the attributes, challenges and opportunities that exist for the economy in Southern Indiana, while bringing the two policy issues — health care and energy independence — to the discussion. The goal is to increase awareness of the issues and provide feedback for Hill as the issues are debated in the Congress.
Katie Moreau, a spokesperson for Hill, said in an interview Monday that “he’s done forums in the past, though not really as extensive as this one.”

She said he was encouraged to do the forum by the Democratic caucus because “Democrats are not typically associated with economic issues.” She said it was an opportunity to discuss the political issues without partisan debate.