Usually the elections to run a legislative body are pretty mundane; not so much in Indianapolis. Although Monday night’s election of Republican Ryan Vaughn seemed pretty nonchalant on the surface, there was actually an attempted coup behind the scenes.  The original plan, hatched by Democrats my sources tell me, was to elect Barb Malone President […]

To be honest, it wasn’t Monday’s 75-23 vote in favor of putting property tax caps into the Indiana Constitution that surprised me the most.  What caught me off guard somewhat is the argument by House Speaker Pat Bauer that local governments hadn’t come out and made the case against property tax caps.  It was a […]

It was a busy day over at the Statehouse. Property tax caps passed the House 75-23. Ethics reform passed the House 97-2. Even elimination of township government by local referendum passed out of a House committee 11-0. All that and it’s only week two.  I’ll have some analysis tommorow.  Off to go exercise and then […]

The last chapter of the most useless form of government in Indiana may be written this legislative session.   Township government is getting it from both the left and the right and from both the Indiana House and Senate. Several bills have been introduced that either eliminate township government altogether or put the question on the […]

I’ve noticed lately that some of the comments in my blog posts have nothing to do with the topic at hand, so I’ve made a command decision on how to deal with them. For the time being, if I think the comment is completely irrelevant to the conversation I’m going to delete it. Now before […]

You would think that one of the last places a person would find racial issues would be the Indianapolis Chapter of the Indiana Democratic African-American Caucus.   That wasn’t the case on December 19th. That was the day the group held elections for some tightly contested offices.  Who ran and who won is not important, what […]

In my continuing efforts to present all points of view, I recently had three of my “liberal blogger” friends on the morning show. The guys from The Bilerico Project and Chris Warden of iPOPA. It was a fun discussion over state and local issues.  We obviously disagreed, but it was a lively, spirited and respectful […]

Indiana lawmakers moved another step closer Thursday to giving Hoosiers a chance to vote on putting property tax caps in the Constitution.   HJR-1 came up on second reading and three amendments were offered to the proposal, none of them passed. HJR1-01 – William Crawford, Failed 31-68 Deletes the St. Joe and Lake County provision  exempting […]

I’m dealing with weather today so this morning’s post is more of an open forum.  Here are some topics for discussion. Have local governments failed to make a case against property tax caps? Will ethics legislation create real reform or bigger loopholes? Will tax caps pass and by what margin? How much government reform will […]

Indianapolis Water officials told me this morning the problem with non-working hydrants are likely the result of them being opened and closed improperly. Communications manager Paul Whitmore says when hydrants aren’t accessed and closed right it can result in drainage which can cause them to malfunction. Fire destroyed three businesses on East Michigan Road Tuesday night.  IFD […]