There are a couple items to report to get the week started and both, in a sense, are related to each other. First, Mayor Bart Peterson’s campaign has been push-polling over the weekend. I’ve got a number of e-mails from voters who were annoyed at the calls. They say the pollsters talked about Greg Ballard’s […]

Like most of you, I’ve been dissecting the Indianapolis Star’s latest poll on the Mayor’s race. It shows incumbent Bart Peterson leading challenger Greg Ballard 43-39. Libertarian Fred Peterson polls at five percent. Some are criticizing the poll saying it under-represents African-American voters, so the Star did some adjustments based on 2004 voting patterns. With […]

I know a lot of you are getting burned out on the election. We spent a half hour this morning talking about Dunkin’ Donuts coming to town. Democracy isn’t easy, but I think I have an idea to keep voters more engaged. Allow only people who pay taxes to vote. No! I take that back. […]

The critics are already coming out of the woodwork to attack Governor Mitch Daniels’ property tax reform/reduction plan. The plan would reduce property taxes by 35 percent by 2009 by capping a home’s property taxes at one percent of its assessed value, raising the sales tax one percent, the state would assume the costs of […]

Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels tonight unveiled his plan to reduce Hoosiers’ property taxes by an average of 35-percent in 2008. In a live broadcast tonight Daniels said a one-percent cap on residential taxes and a one percent increase in the state sales tax would help provide Hoosiers with more than three billion dollars in tax […]

Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels will announce tomorrow his plan for property tax reform. Daniels will make the announcement at 6 p.m. for broadcast and over the Internet. No one in the Governor’s office is commenting, but from what I’ve been able to gather Daniels will not call for the elimination of property taxes, particularly residential […]

There are a few items from around town today that are worth mentioning… What Property Tax Relief? State Senator Luke Kenley tells me he hopes to have a list of recommendations to reform Indiana’s property tax system by the middle of November. One recommendation that won’t be on that list is the elimination of property […]

In the interest of full disclosure, I admit to stealing that title from a local blog. But as the old saying goes, good bloggers borrow, but great ones steal. But I digress. City-County Council Attorney Aaron Haith is about to revisit his past and return to a place he’s been before, appearing in front of […]

I attended a peace march and rally this afternoon at 38th and Illinois. Local community activists and residents were protesting the string of killings in the area. Three people have been murdered in the area over the past couple weeks. One person conspicuously absent from the march was Council President Monroe Gray. The killings all […]

I’ve been looking at some of the footage from last Wednesday’s mayoral debate. Incumbent Bart Peterson and challenger Greg Ballard both made the usual claims regarding taxes, crime and quality of life. And while no one lied, per se, there were a few gaps that needed to be filled in. For example, the Mayor talked […]