This sounds like a good idea:
Do you have a stack of old parking tickets lying around your home? Perhaps collecting dust and overdue fines.
How would you like to pay those tickets without paying any of the late penalties that come with them?
That's what Fort Wayne City Clerk Sandy Kennedy is proposing.
I'm not sure what to make of the new poll of Hoosiers by Ball State University. It found that we would support higher state taxes -- by margins ranging from 58 percent to 70 percent -- to fund public schools, colleges and universities, health care and environmental protection. On the down side (if you're a public official):
I have a new favorite Hoosier public official:
Discussions regarding traffic-watching cameras at stoplights might creep back into the state legislature this year, but two local officials are dubious as to their potential.
Terre Haute Mayor Duke Bennett said he's not surprised the idea is being brought up again as the state begins its Jan. 7 legislative session, noting that he's not in favor of it.
When our immediate reaction goes against our philosophic inclinations, we have to ask ourselves if we've encountered the exception that proves the rule or whether we're judging by different standards because the issue hits too close to home. I'm actually talking about my reaction to this:
The Indiana Veterans' Home has a new full-time superintendent, and he already has his hands full.
At some point, a president's contemporaneous critics have to let go so the history books can start having their say. What can be said about a president who: 1) lied to get us into a war in which our soldiers died pointlessly, 2) left what had been a promising economy in an absolute wreck, 3) talked a good conservative game but governed more like a liberal and 4) took the world stage with a naivete that took us to the scary brink? But enough about LBJ, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and JFK. What about George Bush?
Nothing is quite as entertaining as Chicago politics:
Rep. Bobby Rush says he doesn't think any U.S. senator would be caught turning a black man away from serving alongside them.
[. . .]
Darn, just when I was thinking about investing in Soylent Green:
Citing the impact of the recession, Indiana's environmental agency has halted funding for state grant and loan programs that support recycling and pollution prevention -- a cutoff that will persist through at least through summer 2010.
[. . .]
This change has been needed for a long time, so three cheers to Gov. Mitch Daniels for proposing it:
INDIANAPOLIS - Indiana allows local government employees to serve on their own governing bodies -- meaning they can vote to raise their own pay or give themselves other perks at taxpayer expense.
This isn't exactly the shock of the century:
The number of crashes at Houston intersections with red-light cameras doubled in the first year after their installation, according to a city-financed study released Monday.
But Mayor Bill White argued that the cameras' presence prevented even more collisions and that the study proves the monitoring program is keeping drivers safe.
Two different ways to face tough economic times. Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels:
No money for new state programs. No money, potentially, to fully fund some existing programs at current levels. And no money for state pay raises.
