Here are a few items of interest to tide you over this afternoon…

• If they’re going to be on the hook, some members of the City-County Council say they want more say in how the CIB negotiates its sports deals.  Although details are not available at the moment, plans are being drawn which would give the Council more control and oversight over how the Capital Improvement Board negotiates deals with the Colts, Pacers and Indians.  Details are expected later this week.
• Although the IPS Teacher’s Union has yet to answer my inquiries, I have pretty good confirmation the Union and IPS have reached an agreement.  The Union has scheduled time at Arsenal Tech High School from 11 a.m. – 5 p.m. on Friday reportedly to discuss the deal with membership and possibly vote that day.
• Marion County Sheriff Frank Anderson may have some explaining to do.  Word is the MCSD commissary budget is broke and Anderson is looking at turning its operations over to a private company.   My question is if this is true, would this explain the dozens of new police cars MCSD Deputies are driving around in?
• The first public debate for the 5th Congressional District has been scheduled August 25th.  John McGoff, Brose McVey, and Mike Murphy will discuss the issues at the Dan Quayle Vice-Presidential Learning Center in Huntington. According to a news release,  Luke Messer and Dan Burton declined to attend. The debate is being hosted by Internet blogs Hoosier Access, Hoosier Pundit and Huntington Politics.

Last week on my morning radio show I put an offer on the table that not a lot of listeners took me up on, so I decided to see if I would have better luck here.

In the wake of the “Beer Summit” between the President, Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates and Cambridge Police Sergeant James Crowley, I decided to ask the audience if they would be willing to be Black for a year?

My logic being was that even though we have made tons of progress in this country when it comes to race relations there are still some things people who look like me have to deal with that people who look like my best friend from college don’t.

Now a lot of people said they would be willing to take the challenge if they could be Will Smith, Kobe Bryant or Colin Powell.  Uh, no.   You can be Willie Smith, Kenny Bryant, or Charles Powell, but you can’t be famous, wealthy or politically influential.

You can keep your name, current address and all that other stuff, you just have to have darker skin and kinkier hair.  If you’re light-skinned with straighter hair you might be able to pass and that would ruin my experiment.

If you decide to live in the “hood” I’ll throw in first and last month’s rent and a couple weeks worth of spending money to get you started.  But that’s it.

So, who’s up for the challenge?  For anybody who thinks there’s no difference, I think you might be in for a, pardon the pun, enlightening experience.

In my younger days, I wanted to be a teacher when I grew up.    I had excellent teachers in elementary and high school who were challenging and fun at the same time.  When I got to college with the idea of teaching high school math and science.   I had an aptitude for both and was a pretty good communicator who could connect with people so I figured it couldn’t be that difficult.  What the heck was I thinking?

You can imagine how surprised I was to find that in order to become a teacher, I had to take more teaching classes than math and science.  That made no sense to a bright 20-year old.  I asked the advisor why did I have to take so many teaching classes than and not so many math and science?   And to be honest, she couldn’t come up with a straight answer either.

So I laugh at the opposition to Dr. Tony Bennett’s efforts to put more emphasis on teachers learning their subject than the methods of teaching.  Looking at the reaction of the education establishment you would think Dr. Bennett was promoting pay for performance and eliminating tenure in public schools.

I am not saying everyone who is proficient in a subject knows how to teach it.  There are methods courses everyone needs and teachers should be instructed on how deal with difficult students, special education, learning disabilities, etc.  But do you really need to spend a semester on how to put together a lesson plan, much less two years? Under Teach for America, a program that recruits professionals to become teachers, applicants are taught how to teach in five weeks.

My father was an accountant for 35 years and trained other accountants, he had degrees in math, accounting and economics, and he also raised 12 children, but was told he couldn’t teach in any of those areas because he didn’t have a teaching degree.  Come on.

By the way,  I’ve been teaching college and grad school for more than six years now.  Never had a teaching class in my entire life and my students learn the material and have quite a bit of fun in the process.

We need to take good teachers where we can find them.  And to paraphrase a good friend, “if all you know is content and not method, you can be a bad teacher, but if all you know method, you can never be a good teacher.”

When it comes to the blogosphere there  are a lot of days when I think I’m the only person who can grasp the obvious.  Luckily, today is not one of them.   Former WXNT-AM producer and now current Indiana Libertarian Party Executive Director Chris Spangle  penned a blog post this week basically telling the Capitol Improvement Bankruptcy advocates to get a clue.

You can read it here.

The Indianapolis City-County Council is currently moving forward with a plan to increase the hotel tax by one percent, in order to close the C.I.B.’s funding gap.

Spangle reminds the bankruptcy crowd that it is not an option because under federal law, the state would have to give the CIB authorization to file, which is not going to happen.  In addition, Spangle makes an excellent point by reminding readers that the full implementation fo property tax caps kicks in next year  and there is no way the Legislature is going to give local governments that type of out.

He also points out the practical effect of bankruptcy, because anyone who thinks that would drag the Colts back to the table to negotiate would have the unitended consquence of having every other booked convention looking for ways to get out of their agreements and likely scare off any future prospects.

Spangle closes his blog post by encouraging Libertarians to come up with viable alternatives other than bankruptcy such as privatization, more openness and reform of the C.I.B.

It’s defiinitely a piece worth reading.  And although it states the obvious, sometimes it’s necessary to point that out especially when all people see is everything except what’s actually there.

But I told you so.  32-year old Shanisha Davis was atacked at the I-69 and Keystone off  ramp by a panhandler while trying to give him some money.   According to police reports, the woman  saw the man with a sign that said will work for food, tried to give him $5, but but he pulled a knife on her and forced his way into the car.

Luckily Davis managed to get out with just a minor cut on her hand and police are still searching for the man and the stolen car.  But this situation could have been a lot worse.  The woman may not have been able to escape and something else could have happened.

I bring this up because I hope this will give the opponents of an anti-panhandling proposal something to think about.  The measure which failed to pass last week would have banned panhandling at off ramps and near intersections.  Democrats and Libertarians opposed it saying it restricted speech and intruded on the panhandlers liberty rights.   Sorry folks, there is no right to carjack a woman at an off ramp.

Now there are those people who will say that an ordinance would have not made a difference.  I disagree.  Had their been an ordinance, the police would have had the authority to tell that panhandler at I-65 to get lost and go somewhere else and beg. But instead opponents are more concerned about his rights than those of the begger than people like Davis.

Well I hope they’re happy.  And who knows, maybe the next woman who’s attacked by a panhandler at an off ramp won’t be so lucky.

A few items of note to start out your morning.   Take them for what they are worth and feel free to discuss any of them.

• Indiana Congressman Dan Burton has his name attached to two pieces of legislation regarding the President and that silly birth certificate issue.  On the one hand, the Congressman is co-sponsoring a bill that would require candidates for federal office to show their birth certificate to prove their citizenship.  On the other hand, Burton co-sponsored a House Resolution that would declare the President a natural-born citizen of the United States.
• Indianapolis City officials are cautious about a new grant that would fund 50 new police officers for the next three years.  Acting Public safety mark Renner says the problem is that the city would have to keep the officers after the grants and that would put a strain on the budget.
• Republican State Senator Mike Delph may have challenger in the next election.  Word is that Democrats are trying to recruit Democrat City-County Councilor Jose Evans to take on Delph in the next go around.
• Stonewall Democrats says when it comes to David Orentlicher’s race for Marion County County Prosecutor, they’re just friends.   Members of the group sent out an E-vite for a fundraiser for Orentlicher.  When asked if it was an endorsement, a spokesman for the group says Orentlicher has been a friend of the LGBT community and they are just expressing their gratitude and that they would be willing to hold events for prosecutor candidates as well.
• Speaking of Prosecutor’s race, there’s some talk that Marion County Democratic Chairman Ed Treacy is trying to recruit Marion County Clerk Beth White to run for Prosecutor if Linda Pence gets the appointment to U.S. Attorney for the Southern District.
• If  local attorney and Capital Improvement Board irritant Paul Ogden decides to run for Mayor as he has been hinting at on his web blog, he won’t get any help from the Libertarian Party.  Executive Director Chris Spangle says Ogden is a Republican and his party is about electing Libertarians.
• And here’s something you don’t hear everyday.  Indianapolis may host the World Cup sometime between 2018 and 2022.  Local officials say they received an inquiry about Indianapolis hosting World Cup Soccer and they plan to follow up.

It was a vote nobody wanted, but by 5-1, the City-County Council Rules and Policy Committee moved forward tonight with a plan that would increase the local hotel tax by one percent to help bail out the Capitol Improvement Board.

Republicans dominated the committee but each one said they were not crazy about raising the tax, but it was the only option given to them by General Assembly.   Democrat Angela Mansfield was the only “no” vote. Democrats Joanne Sanders and Monroe Gray were not at the meeting.

Republican At-large member Barb Malone said while she would vote to get the measure to the full Council, she said there was no guarantee she would vote for the measure once it got there.  And committee Chairman Bob Lutz said there was a 50-50 chance the measure would pass the full council.

Lutz said the City was dealt a bad hand by the General Assembly and it was the only hand they had to play.  If the full Council passes the measures it opens the door to other state funding for the CIB.

Opponents of the measure offered their criticism of plan but short of calling for bankruptcy, which state law does not allow, they were short on alternatives to the current proposal.

You can hear interviews with all three Councilors below.  A full Council vote is slated for next month.

Bob Lutz

Angela Mansfield

Barb Malone

Another day, another Indiana School District referendum.   This time it’s the Hamilton Southeastern School District.  The HSE Board voted Monday night to ask the taxpayers for a $5.5 million tax increase to make up for a funding shortfall.

In Marion County,  Franklin and Perry Townships as well as Beech Grove are asking for more cash for schools and Wishard Hospital is asking for voters to approve hundreds of millions of dollars for a new Hospital.

I will admit to not being a huge fan of government by referendum and California is my example where people vote in programs but also vote against paying for them. But I actually think  in this case, a referendum is a pretty good thing.   Many local governments whine about being strapped for cash because of property tax caps and that the situation is only going to get worse when the full caps kick in in 2010.  So the legislature gave them the ability to go to the voters and ask for more money.

Local governments are going to have to really make the case for these referenda if they want them to pass, but past history hasn’t been too kind. According the State Department of Local Government and Finance, only five of the last 17 school referenda in Indiana have passed.

With any luck, these school referenda will go down in flames, the locals will be strapped for cash,  and then they will have focus on the “c” word as a way to stay open; c, of course, being consolidation and the madness can stop.

Tomorrow’s scheduled committee vote on a hotel tax as part of the state-city plan to address the the Capitol Improvement Board $47 million deficit may not take place until next Tuesday.

The measure is slated for a hearing by the Rules & Policy Committee, however Chairman Bob Lutz says some committee members may need more time to digest the proposal so he’s willing to wait a week.   However, for the city to capture the hotel tax revenue by September 1st, it would have to pass the tax increase by August 10th.

The tax has been controversial for a number of reasons.  Some Republicans have taken a no new tax pledge.  Democrats are still feeling the burn from their 2007 County Income tax increase vote.  And some sectors of the public are not thrilled about what they see as a plan to bailout sports teams owned by billionaires.

File this one under some people just don’t get it.  An Indianapolis woman is upset that flyers have gone up in her neighborhood labelling her 17-year old son “dangerous.”

Now at first glance you might think the woman had a point until you realize her sone has been arrested 22 times over the last three years for crimes ranging from burglary to theft to escape.

My colleague Jack Rinehart at RTV 6 reported more than 100 flyers accusing the kid of being a thief and a drug addict went up in the neighborhood, but the mom tore them down.

She’s quoted as saying,  “He is a minor. Kids do have problems, but it’s not right for people to hang posters like that.”

Okay, let’s try to figure this one out.  We have a kid that literally gets arrested about every other month for the past three years.   One of the neighbors gets mad and decide they’re not going to take it anymore and put posters up warning everyone, please note the poster is factually accurate.  And the mom of the juvenile delinquent makes excuses for his behavior.

What’s wrong with this picture?  Have at it,  folks.