page_title: Joe Kernan (politician)
section_title: South Bend mayoralty
hierarchical_section_title: Joe Kernan (politician) / Political career / South Bend mayoralty
caption_attribution_description: a NICTD EMU at the South Bend Airport train station of the South Shore Line
context_page_description: Joseph Eugene Kernan III was an American businessman and politician who served as the 48th Governor of Indiana from 2003 to 2005. He served nearly a year as a prisoner of war during the Vietnam War.
  After graduating from the University of Notre Dame, Kernan joined the Navy in 1969. A naval aviator, he was shot down in North Vietnam and taken prisoner in 1972. After his release, Kernan continued on active duty through 1974. A member of the Democratic Party, Kernan served as Mayor of South Bend, Indiana, and then as the 47th Lieutenant Governor of Indiana from 1997 to 2003. He became governor on September 13, 2003, upon the death of Governor Frank O'Bannon. He lost an election to serve a full term as governor to former Office of Management and Budget director Mitch Daniels on November 2, 2004. Kernan returned to South Bend and retired from politics.
context_section_description: Kernan was elected mayor of South Bend in 1987, 1991, and 1995. In 1995, he won 82% of the vote, a record for South Bend mayoral elections.
  Kernan was the longest-serving mayor of South Bend, until his tenure was surpassed in length by that of his immediate successor Steve Luecke.
  As mayor, Kernan worked on long-term job creation efforts, made efforts to improve public safety, and strengthened the finances of the city.
  Kernan came to office shortly after a number of companies had left the city or closed, such as South Bend Toy in 1985 and Wheelbrater-Frye.
  As mayor, Kernan worked to create a better working relationship between South Bend and the nearby University of Notre Dame.
  At the time he was mayor, Kernan was praised for his ability to attract economic development to the community. Among the major developments he was able to garner South Bend was the securing of the city as the location for the College Football Hall of Fame. Kernan had been instrumental in getting South Bend selected over 89 other cities as the site for the College Football Hall of Fame. Among the developments of which Kernan was particularly supportive was the Blackthorn development, a multimillion-dollar golf course and office park development. In 1992, he had touted the concept that became Blackthorn as a "pump for future development." Some of the developments that were initially regarded as successes for South Bend when Kernan was mayor ultimately fell short in the long run, however. For instance, the College Football Hall of Fame never met its initial attendance projections. By the late-90s, it already had begun to be criticized as a failure, due to a lack of corporate sponsorship and poor turnout even during special events. The Hall of Fame would ultimately leave South Bend for the city of Atlanta in the 2010s. The Blackthorn, particularly its golf course component, fell short of expectations as well. However, Kernan, as late as 2015, defended the Blackthorn development, having regarded it, personally, to have been a success.
  In 1988, taking advantage of a decline in interest rates, Kernan refinanced Coveleski Stadium through the newly-created South Bend Redevelopment Authority.
  In December 1988, a fire that destroyed the Morningside Club Residence, an apartment hotel, displaced more than a hundred residents. Kernan was able to persuade the then-unopened Center for the Homeless to rush its opening in order to accommodate some of these displaced residents.
  In 1990, Kernan joined then-lieutenant governor Frank O'Bannon and other Indiana mayors on a trade mission which traveled to Poland, Soviet Union, Ukraine, and Yugoslavia. It was during this trip that Kernan and O'Bannon would develop a camaraderie which would later lead to O'Bannon asking Kernan to be his running mate in the gubernatorial election six years hence.
  The loss of $20 million annually in federal funds which the city had received prior to Reagan and Bush budget cuts to urban programs had taken its toll on South Bend's infrastructure. In 1992, Democratic presidential nominee Bill Clinton proposed a $200 billion ($20 billion annually) plan for infrastructure. Mayor Kernan declared to the media that under Clinton's plan, in which a city of South Bend's size would have received at least $5 million annually, South Bend would have been able to complete critical road construction and complete reclamation on hundreds of acres of former industrial property.
  Among the infrastructure projects that took place during Kernan's tenure as mayor was the shifting of South Bend's South Shore Line station from a facility shared with Amtrak to a new location at the city's airport, which opened at in 1992. In 1993, Kernan testified before congress that this move had been partially responsible for a 73% increase in ridership from South Bend, attributing this to the fact that the previous location of the station was in an area, "isolated and very difficult and perceived to be unsafe"  Plans to move the South Shore Line station to the airport, creating an air, bus, and rail intermodal terminal, had dated 
caption: The construction of a new South Shore Line station took place during Kernan's tenure as South Bend mayor
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