Indiana lawmakers are deciding whether to allow Sunday alcohol sales in grocery and liquor stores.

Proponents say Hoosiers want to be able to buy beer, wine and spirits on Sunday, opponents say it will lead to more alcohol-related problems and that mom and pop stores will lose money from having to be open an extra day.

I have never quite Indiana’s alcohol laws to be quite frank.  It makes no sense to me that I can’t buy liquor at the grocery store on Sunday, take it home and enjoy it.  But I can go to the local bar, get all good and liquored up, get behind the wheel of my Mitsubishi and play Speed Racer.

Liquor store owners say if alcohol is sold on Sundays they won’t be able to able to compete with the bigger box stores.  I respectfully disagree.  First of all, if you are providing good service and have loyal customers they are going to stay with you, regardless.

Second, some liquor store owners say they don’t want to work on Sunday.  Tough.  In the 21st century we all have to work when we would rather be doing something else. And there’s no law that says you have to be open on Sunday if being open is going to cost you money.   There are a number of establishments in Indianapolis that are closed on Sundays but still manage to compete just fine with businesses that are open.

It’s time to bring Indiana’s alcohol laws into the 21st century.  Who wouldn’t drink to that?

I don’t have much use for Gary Welsh, but sometimes even a blind squirrel finds a nut, or vice versa.

Eli Lilly announced more than 5,000 layoffs Monday, many of which will impact the Indianapolis area.   If Lilly goes forward with the job reductions will it have to payback some of the money it received in tax incentives over the years which were predicated on job creation?

From today’s Star…

From 1999 to 2004, the expansion added about 9,000 new Lilly jobs in Indianapolis and secured more work for the company’s 7,000 vendors in the state.

Since 2004, Lilly has shed 2,000 jobs and never reached the target of adding 9,500 new jobs in Indianapolis by 2009. That target was set in 2004 when Lilly applied for tax breaks and incentives totaling $1.6 billion in exchange for its expansion.

Scaling back now has little to do with the recession. [John] Lechleiter said the restructuring would have happened anyway, to speed up the pipeline, which has sputtered in recent years.

I have no desire to kick a major employer when they’re going through issues, but it is a fair question to ask, especially during these tough financial times.

If the Indiana Pacers wanted to break their contract with the Capital Improvement Board because of their failing financial health, they could do so.

That’s according to CIB officials.  However the Pacers would have to pay a penalty which could be used to conceivably keep Conseco Fieldhouse open for years.

CIB Vice-President Pat Early has been heading up negotiations with the Pacers and saus while they aren’t engaging in negotiations, they are having “discussions.”  Early says the Pacers have submitted financial reports which show them losing money and those reports allow the Pacers to exercise an early termination clause in their contract with the CIB.   If the Pacers were to exercise that clause they would be on the hook for the millions of dollars.

Early cautions however that if the Pacers left, the city would still have to find a way to keep Conseco operating with no primary tenant.

The CIB approved a budget this year that did not include any money for operating Conseco.

Negotiations are expected to begin in earnest later this year.

You can hear all of Early’s comments below.

Pat Early

As I watched some of the coverage of the tea party rally in Washington D.C., one thing that crossed my mind was “where do these guys go from here?”

I ask that question because attending a rally is a relatively simple thing to do, all you have to do is show up.  The hard part is what do you do afterwards. And I wonder if the tea party folks will form their own third party?

I say this because the core beliefs of the tea party activists has been cut back on spending, fight corruption and follow the Constitution.  Many of them also say their movement is not about Republicans or Democrats, but liberty and freedom.  So if the movement isn’t about political party, which someone should tell Dick Armey and Richard  Behney, wouldn’t a third party be the next logical step?

If both main parties have dropped the ball then why would you want to go back and play with them?  Why now start your own?

So what are you people waiting for?

Now that the wedding stuff is over and my new wife and I have started to settle into a routine, I can now get back to the business of paying closer attention to local government.

I’ve found most of the budget hearings to be pretty mundane and nothing out of the ordinary, with the exception of two areas; parks and the Capitol Improvement Board.   Both of these areas caught my attention because both are possible targets of privatization.

Now many of you know my thoughts on privatization, if a private company can provide the same service cheaper and/or more efficient than the government, then I frankly don’t have a problem with it.   The job of government is to provide services, not keep people employed in perpetuity.

However, I admit to being somewhat surprised at the votes in a recent Parks budget meeting by Democrats Bill Oliver, Vern Brown and Monroe Gray.   They voted against a measure that would transfer more than $600,000 in funds from the contractual services category to the personnel services category.    The money was originally put into contractual services so the parks department could bid out mowing and other services.  However Democrats and their  union supporters complained the Ballard administration was making a foregone conclusion that the city would outsource those services, even though the union employees could have formed their own organization and bid on the contract.

Councilor Susie Day proposed the amendment to transfer the money into personnel so that if there was no acceptable bidder no money would be moved.  The Democrats on the committee voted against that proposal, therefore voting against their own constituents, the union, and voting for privatization.

That struck me as rather odd, seeing how traditionally urban Democrats have opposed privatization efforts.  One would assume that they would have jumped at the chance of  taking a step to further ensure the protection of union jobs from private interests.

But then again, all my married friends have told me that things change once you tie the knot.  I just figured that adage would only apply to my personal life, not to Marion County politics.

Today marks the eighth anniversary of 9-11.  We can all remember what we were doing that day when the Twin Towers were struck.  I was driving on I-55 from Springfield to Bloomington, IL to buy a new car when I heard about the event on the radio.  It wasn’t until I got the dealership where I could actually see the damage.

9-11 impacted all of our lives, however eight years later does it still have the same impact or has time started to take its toll on the day?  Are we now at the point that 9-11 will now be regulated to 10, 15 and 20-year anniversary remembrances?   Have we gotten over our irrational fear that anyone named “Abdul” or “Muhammad” has a bomb strapped to their chest and that it’s behavior that we should profile?  Have we conceded that we are going to have a presence in Iraq and Afghanistan for a very long time?

So many questions, eight years later.

Okay, the President spoke last night about health care reform.   We all know what he said.   However, here’s my question.

If you don’t like his plan, which is cool, what do you suggest we do to reform the health care system?

• For example, if you’re going to advocate tort reform, be specific.  Do you want caps on all damages or just non-economic ones?   What standard of negligence should we adopt?
• If you support a mandatory insurance provision, then how do you collect from those people who won’t pay into the system voluntarily?  Details.
• How should we deal with the fact that most of the health care we consume is at the end of our lives and should those resources be used to prolong life or merely make us comfortable in our last days?  Enlighten me, please.

I ask these questions, because frankly the shouting has gotten a little old and it’s time for reasonable people, of good will and differing opinion, to come to the table and act grown ups.

Who’s ready to sit at the big kids’ table?

I’ve finally had some time to get caught up on the little news stories from in and around the area.  Here are my thoughts.

CT Time

A group of parents are advocating Indiana move to the Central Time Zone so kids don’t get hit by buses and cars in the morning when it is dark.  I guess they feel better about kids getting hit by car and buses in the afternoon, because it gets darker earlier in the Central Time Zone.

Pornocopia

A federal appeals court ruled last week that the city of Indianapolis did not present enough compelling evidence to demostrate the need for a ban on adult book stores operating 24 hours a day.   The ordinance was one of the early hallmarks of the Peterson administration.  I was actually somewhat surprised that any adult book store is still open in the age of the Internet.  Why go out when you can get it at home?

1825 days Later

This week mark my 5th anniversary of hosting the morning show at Newstalk 1430, WXNT.  And as much this probably kills people like Gary Welsh and Mike Young (who really look cute together if you put the two of them next to each other),  everyday is a blast and a lot of fun.  I love covering local and state issues that matter to you.   Also doing morning talk radio also allows me to do all the other things I enjoy doing.  Thanks for listening, even when you don’t agree and I’m right.

It’s amazing what happens when you spend a few days away getting married.

I’m doing my regular Internet-news cruising when I come across this silliness that some parents are actually taking their kids out of school today because of President Barack Obama’s 18-minute address to the nation’s students.

The speech, which is pretty innocuous from what I’ve read, tells children to stay in school and work hard.  And this is bad why?

Now I know some parents were worried the President would try to use the 18-minute window to turn their children into mini-Marxists.   No offense, but if your kid is capable of having his or her entire belief system, which you instilled, changed in 18 minutes, maybe you’re just not doing your job as a parent and you should seek some counseling.

I am shaking my head at this “outrage”  because I don’t recall this happening when Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush both addressed the nation’s school children when they were President.

You may not like the President and disagree with his policies, but a smart parent would use this opportunity to begin a dialogue with their kid as to why they subscribe to the political philosophy that they do instead getting their tighty-whities in an uproar.

But then again, maybe these parents didn’t spend enough in school when they had the chance and want to pass those values onto their children.

Just a thought.

And you guys thought marriage would mellow me out.

The following is a guest blog by City-County Councilor Jose Evans.

We know what the problem is: our children are not graduating from high school at acceptable levels. IPS has arguably one of the worst high school graduation rates in the country.  Students are not buying into the system – we are failing.

People are addressing this problem, however.  IPS Superintendent Eugene White, who was superintendent of Indianapolis’ heralded Washington Township Schools when he became the leader of the struggling IPS, has introduced a number of changes from magnets to dress codes.

Indianapolis Mayor Greg Ballard has increased the number of charter schools that began under former Mayor Bart Peterson.   Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony  Bennett has led a number of reforms in his first year, often invoking the name and efforts of President Barack Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan.

David Harris at The Mind Trust, a nonprofit agency dedicated to improving education for underserved children which grew out of Mayor Peterson’s charter schools initiative, is pushing bold new initiatives into the national spotlight.  The Friedman Foundation and the National Council on Educating Black Children are located here, too, and we now have Teach for America. The Chamber of Commerce has the “Common Goal” project and the United Way of Central Indiana touts its program, “Ready to Learn, Ready to Earn.”

Education reform is happening in Indianapolis. It’s also happening at the Indiana Statehouse, where the big education debates this past session were over the school funding formula and a cap on charter schools.   No cap was placed on charters, but as is evident by the lawsuits filed by several Indiana school districts seeking equal funding, it is clear the debate over the current school funding formula isn’t over.

So, even with all these reform efforts, why are we still failing our kids and our community?  Should we combine IPS with surrounding township districts or break it up?  Should we combine the mayor’s charters with existing school districts?  Can we better engage our parents and students by giving them greater influence with new school boards at each school?  Should we lengthen the school day and the school year for more instruction? Finally, how do we create schools where students want to be? Let’s start the discussion about these and other big ideas. Cities around the country have given control of their school systems to the mayor to better implement reforms.  Can that work in Indianapolis?

With the talk of changes to the school funding formula, education reform advocates now have a fresh opportunity. Let’s put all the ideas and options on the table to find out what’s best for our community and our children.

Evans represents District 1 which is located in Pike Township.   He was elected in 2007 He can be reached at e at info@evansforindy.com.