The White House held a summit Thursday on how to create jobs in this economy.  I have a plan that can do it in four easy steps…

1. Cut taxes.
2. Cut spending.
3. Cut red tape.
4. Watch economy grow.

Easy.

A new survey says Indianapolis residents feel more safe and better about the city than they have in years.

The IUPUI Department of Tourism, Conventions and Event Management sampled nearly 600 people over three weeks at City Market.

Nearly 55-percent of respondents said they felt either safe or very safe in the downtown area after dark.  That number was 34 percent in 2008 and 2007;  38 percent in 2006; and 44 percent in 2005.  The number of people who reported they felt very unsafe downtown was under 4 percent.  That was down from 11 percent in 2007.  An overwhelming 86 percent of respondents said they felt safe or very safe in the downtown are during the day; a five-year high.

A record number of respondents also said they said they felt good about the way the city looks and feels in regards to issues relating to crime, theft and police presence.

So if all this is true, who should get the credit?

I’ve got some legal and teaching responsibilities to take care of, so today will pretty much be an open forum for you to discuss whatever is on your mind.   Here are a few topics to start.

1. The President’s plan for Afghanistan.  Good or bad?
2. State Senate hears property tax caps.
3. Speaker Pat Bauer unveils his ethics proposal.
4. A new study from IUPUI says more residents feel safer and better about Indianapolis than they have in the past five years.

Play nice.  I’ll be checking in from time to time.

Now that the Indianapolis City-County Council has sent the proposed tougher  smoking ban back to committee, there’s an opportunity for Councilors to work out a reasonable compromise that can address secondhand smoke without implementing a draconian ban.

Don’t think it’s possible, of course it is.  Here’s how you do it.

• Exempt private clubs, tobacco shops and cigar bars.
• Ban smoking in bowling alleys that allow children.
• Create an on-line job board of non-smoking bars so that servers and waiters who don’t want to work in a smoking environment don’t have to.
• Work with state and local health departments to create a tobacco cessation hotline where smokers who want to quit can get help and work with bar owners to publish that number in their establishments.
• Eliminate the “no-smoking within 25 feet”  of a non-smoking building because at that point you’ve turned an ordinary citizen walking down the street smoking a cigarette into a criminal.
• Issue tobacco licenses to every bar and tavern that allows smoking.  As long the owner has the license, he or she can have smoking.  If they sell the business or transfer ownership the license goes back to the city which it can hold or sell.  This way, no one has to change their business model and anyone going into the bar business know exactly what they’re getting into.

I think these suggestions are pretty reasonable and can reduce the amount of tobacco consumption (a goal of the anti-smoking crowd) and still adhere to the free market and allow business people to make their own decisions as to how they want to run their establishments.  The trick will be to keep the zealots away from the table.   And seeing how they’ve been pushing this issue since March and have had no success, hopefully that won’t be too hard.

My friends at the Indy Star are reporting what I’ve been hearing for about a week now, the proposed expansion of the smoking ban is likely going back to committee.   You can hear my heart breaking.  Supporters hope to bring it back another day, but I doubt it will come back because the votes aren’t there.  Hopefully, this fight is over and I hope there are some lessons to be learned from all sides.

Council Republicans

• This whole thing should have never seen the light of day in the first place.  All this did was divide the GOP over an issue that wasn’t a problem.  My advice, go away for a weekend, kiss, make up and plan a real agenda for the city for 2010.

Council Democrats

• It’s one thing to push a plan because you believe it’s the right thing to do.  It’s another thing to push something for the simple reason that you want to embarrass the incumbent Mayor.  If you’re going to do that try doing it over an issue where 80-percent of the public doesn’t agree with him.

Mayor Greg Ballard

• Once again, this entire ordeal could have been avoided in the first place had there been better communication with the Council.  I’d join them on their weekend excursion.  And as far as political ramifications go, anybody who says they won’t vote for you because of your threatened veto of the current smoking ban, probably wasn’t going to vote for you anyway.  So you really haven’t lost anything.

Anti-Smoking Ban Advocates

• Nice job of being organized, especially when it comes to bar owners, who by their very nature have trouble working well with others.  You guys held together and have done something no other major city has ever been able to do, you beat back the anti-smoking zealots who wanted to impose their will on everyone else.

Smoke Free Indy

• I’d like to say I feel sorry for you, but I don’t.   You majorly underestimated the mood of the public, which is odd because your own survey showed 80-percent of Marion County residents like the current compromise.   Of course the problem with zealots is that they tend to hang out with each other and their world view is clouded.    My advice is maybe work with bar owners on getting people to quit smoking, rather than ban smoking in bars.  My second piece of advice is hire an attorney, because you guys are being looked at by Marion County Grand Jury investigators to see if you used public money for political purposes.

I know we’re just a couple days into the holiday season, but it’s never too late to start talking about the “War on Christmas”.   You know the time when people get upset because someone wished them “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas”.    They then go on ad nauseum to say America is continuing to slide away from it’s Judeo-Christian foundation.  Well, being the agnostic-Muslim that I am, I decided to remind folks that a lot of  the things rooted in Christmas tradition (courtesy of  The History Channel) have nothing to with Jesus.

December 25

First of all Jesus was not “born” in December.  Most scholars believe he was born in the Spring, likely March by our calender.  December 25 was chosen by Pope Julius I to coincide with the Saturnalia, a pagan winter festival to mark the Solstice.  Julius believed Christianity would be a lot more accepting if Christmas was held at the same time as the winter event.  If you can’t beat them, co-op them.  And just so you know, early Christmas celebrations were more like Mardi Gras parties.

Early America

In the early days of America, Christmas wasn’t even a holiday.  The Puritans banned it.  And Congress was even in session that day.   It was illegal in Boston from 1659-1681 because people would get so out of control.   Christmas didn’t become a federal holiday until 1870.  So much for our “long standing tradition.”

The Tree

Early pagan cultures believed the evergreen tree would keep away witches, spirits and other evil items.

Santa Claus

He is actually closer to the religious meaning of Christmas than the tree and the date. St. Nick is based on the monk St. Nicholas who was born near Turkey in the 4th century.

Blatant Commercialization

Go to the mall in mid-October and look at the Christmas decorations for sale. Nuff said!

Now does any of this take away from the meaning of Christmas, not really.  Messages of hope are always welcome, but I figured sometimes it’s best to nip this nonsense in the bud before it gets started.

I want to take a few moments to wish all the readers of  Indiana Barrister a Happy Thanksgiving.

This will be a special one for me for a couple of reasons.  This will be the first one with my lovely wife and as some of you may be aware, my Dad has serious health issues this year, but is doing great now.  I’m thankful for both of them, as well as my friends and close family.

I’m also thankful for all of you who read the blog, listen to the radio show and watch me on television.  Enjoy your Thanksgiving.  I’ll be back with more gossip, rumor and blatant innuendo next week.

Gobble!  Gobble!

There’s a story about a guy who works on a sheep ranch.  That day his wife tells him they have a dinner party to attend that evening, but he has to work later than usual, so he takes his suit with him.   After spending the day working, the man gathers the sheep in the barn.  He then takes off his clothes to jump in the shower and change.  While he’s in mid-change, the farmer walks in and sees him naked in a barn full of sheep.  You can imagine the image. 

I bring this up in light of the FBI raid of the downtown offices of  local businessman Tim Durham.   Durham, who is known for what we call in the old neighborhood, “a big pimpin’ lifestyle” is being questioned by authorities regarding the sale of investment certificates.

What makes this broader story is that Durham has given money to Democrats and Republicans and is good friends with Marion County Prosecutor Carl Brizzi.  (In the interest full disclosure, Brizzi and I are good friends as well).    So now the political brouhaha can begin, Democrats can call for Republicans to give back any money they may have received and the GOP can spend time crafting a response. 

At the end of the day, unless someone goes to jail, the political fallout will be minimum.  I say that because most regular people couldn’t tell Tim Durham from Bull Durham.  However if Durham ends up on tape somewhere doing the perp walk things change, because although elected officials or candidates had nothing to do with his business dealings, it won’t matter what it is, just what it looks like.

As Indianapolis Public Schools look to cut $12 million from their budget, I decided to take a look at the salaries of the district’s more than 5400 employees.  The highest paid salary was Dr. Eugene White who makes $240,640 in salary and benefits.  The lowest paid employee is Devonna Craig, a food service employee who made $7,483 in salary and benefits. The top 10 salaries are listed below.

1. Eugene White, Superintendent – $240,640.
2. Willie Giles, Deputy Superintendent  – $189,361.
3. Li-yen Johnson, Associate Superintendent – $163,862
4. Jackie Clency, Assistant Superintendent – $151,645.
5. Jane Kendrick , Assistant Superintendent –  $151, 645.
6. Wayne Wellington, Chief Vocational Career Tech – $151,645.
7. Dorothy Crenshaw, Chief Information Officer – $150,548.
8. Douglass Ann Kincaid, Chief of Staff for Development – $150,548.
9. Jane Ajabu,  Chief of Human Resources – $150,548.
10. Steven Young, Chief Facilities Manager – $150,548.

Here’s a breakdown of the rest of the employee salaries…

• There are 173 employees who make between $100,000 – $150,000 annually in salary and benefits.
• There are 171 employees who make between $90,000 – $99,000 annually in salary and benefits.
• There are 944 employees who make between $80,000 – $89,999 annually in salary and benefits.
• There are 621 employees who make between $70,000 – $79,999 annually in salary and benefits.
• There are 531 employees who make between $60,000 – $69,999 annually in salary and benefits.
• There are 673 employees who make between $50,000 – $59,999 annually in salary and benefits.
• There are 1430 employees who make between $40,000 – $49,999 annually in salary and benefits.
• There are 531 employees who make between $30,000 – $39,999 annually in salary and benefits.
• There are 720 employees who make between $20,000 – $29,999 annually in salary and benefits.
• There are 133 employees who make between $10,000 – $19,999 annually in salary and benefits.
• There are 12 employees who make less than $10,000 annually in salary and benefits.

If were an IPS parent and the school was threatening to cut my kids programs, I’d be furious.  IPS looks like it spends a lot of money on things it can outsource or privatize and save money.   The district spends more than $850,000 on painters.   It  has more than 70 employees classified as “head custodians” and spends nearly $4 million in salary and benefits annually.  The head custodians should not be confused with the 260 odd “staff custodians” whose salaries alone top $10 million annually.  It has more than 80 police officers which is bigger than some Indiana cities, that cost by my estimate, more than $3.7 million.  The list goes on.

If I can get my blog to work right in the next couple of days, I will upload the list so you can see it yourself.  But for a district that spends more than $317 million on salaries and benefits alone, I have a hard time believing it can’t  find $12 million in cuts (less than 4% of the total budget) that won’t harm kids.

Although 2010 is a few days away, it never hurts to take a sneak peak at 2011 and the Indianapolis Mayor’s race. Here’s what I’ve heard so far.

Brian Williams has put together what could be considered the first political ad of the season.

Melina Kennedy is touting another Union endorsement, that makes two if you’re counting.

Expect a formal announcement soon from Jose Evans on his candidacy.

I hear former Lt. Governor and Indianapolis City Controller Kathy Davis may be getting in the race.

Contrary to some wishful thinking,  7th District Congressman Andre Carson is NOT endorsing any Mayoral candidates anytime soon.

Someone out there is polling for Mayor on the Democratic side.  Not sure who it is, but I’ll find out.  The results should be interesting.

And speaking of polling, incumbent Greg Ballard is polling about 50-percent in the African-American community, a key constituency for Democrats.