Mayor Greg Ballard worries his predecessor, Bart Peterson, may have overreached with his ambitious tax-increment-financing district for the last phase of Fall Creek Place. That phase of the renewed urban neighborhood isn't producing enough revenue to support its $6.2 million in outstanding bonds. And Ballard is not sure all of Marion County's 37 other TIF district are necessary, either.

Cities and counties are looking for alternatives to asphalt as the price soars for the oil-based material and threatens to bring paving projects and contractors skidding to a halt. The city of Indianapolis may have just found one viable alternative that goes down like asphalt: roller-compacted concrete, or "rollcrete."

Maybe it's a stray dog rooting through your garbage. Perhaps someone has abandoned a car amid the potholes riddling your street. Either way, Indianapolis offers a one-stop shop for irate residents to complain. Just dial the Mayor's Action Center at 327-4MAC. Then get ready to wait. And wait. So long, in fact, that close to half of the MAC's callers hang up in frustration.

Cleaning crews are wiping construction dust from the 63,000 seats in Lucas Oil Stadium, prepping for the public's first peek at the $720 million venue Aug. 16. But the hard work is only beginning for the city's Capital Improvement Board, the entity charged with operating the stadium. The fumbling point: CIB is anticipating a $20 million operating deficit for Lucas Oil Stadium in 2009.

After Mayor Greg Ballard's upset victory at the polls last November, local arts leaders were in a panic. They worried the no-nonsense former Marine would put public safety on a pedestal and slash Indianapolis' funding for cultural groups.