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Web demand by the disabled likely to increase: Accessibility rally aims to boost Internet access

There are 54 million Americans living with disabilities. Apparently, most U.S. businesses don’t want their e-commerce. Right now, universal Internet accessibility is a distant dream for the blind, deaf, handicapped and otherwise-disabled. According to local assistive-technology provider Attain Inc., less than 10 percent of Web sites are built with their needs in mind. But Attain is hoping to help change that. On June 11, Attain will stage a local “Accessibility Internet Rally” in conjunction with the national event’s original organizers…

Mission to Mexico to promote business: City officials, corporate leaders to take part in trip

Most Hoosiers visiting Mexico spend their time on the beaches of Cancun, Cabo San Lucas or Puerto Vallarta. But this fall, an excursion of a different kind will take local business and civic leaders south of the border to explore new opportunities for commerce and trade with Mexico. The week-long mission, scheduled for early September, is the brainchild of Sergio Aguilera, Mexico’s consul general for Indianapolis. He hopes that exposing Hoosiers to all facets of Mexican life-from government and the…

VIEWPOINT: We need Social Security as a safety net

The proposed use of personal savings accounts for Social Security tax investment fundamentally changes what Social Security was meant to provide. It was meant to be a minimum guaranteed platform of financial security in old age. If everyone could and would save a material amount of their lifetime earnings, investing in a disciplined diversified manner, we wouldn’t need Social Security. But the reality is, that’s never going to happen. The poor, non-earners and the profligate simply aren’t up to the…

Top-producing broker returns with strings attached: Marc Jaffe has restrictions he must abide by in new job

A top, albeit troubled, Indianapolis stockbroker has re-entered the investing arena via a Florida-based employer and a new restricted license. However, Marc Jaffe’s fresh start includes a couple of clouds carried over from his past two jobs: lingering criminal charges for some alleged threats and a lengthy consumer complaint list. Jaffe, 49, started working last fall for Tampa Bay, Fla.-based GunnAllen Financial Inc. from a 96th Street office in Indianapolis a few months after he was fired by his previous…

VOICES FROM THE INDUSTRY: Protecting property rights means thinking globally Effect on Indiana business Taking action

Last month, 10 members of the U.S. House of Representatives asked the Bush administration to initiate trade disputes before the World Trade Organization and to identify nations that don’t protect intellectual property rights under U.S. trade law. The Representa tives pointed to a number of countries-Brazil, China, Pakistan, Russia and Thailand-that have been identified in the “National Trade Estimate Report on Foreign Trade Barriers” as having poor enforcement of trademarks and copyrights. While the lawmakers’ concerns are valid, the expression…

As market correction plays out, good buys remain INVESTING Keenan Hauke:

It’s week five of the correction that began in early March. Major market indexes have declined anywhere from 3 percent to 8 percent, and the selling may not be over. Does it matter? Is this simply another minor setback on the march to new highs? It definitely matters. As I’ve said since January, the bull market that began in March 2003 has now changed so that you can’t depend on the broad rising tide to bail you out. Micro-cap-size companies…

NOTIONS: A passionate, personal plea for public smoking ban

I’d rather not be here today. And I don’t mean just this public hearing. I mean if I weren’t responsible for two sons and 27 employees, I’d rather not be anywhere. Since you began this process, I’ve watched your proceedings on TV. I’ve heard folks question one another’s statistics and call one another names. I’ve heard the Indianapolis Chamber of Commerce, of which I’m a member, say we must “balance” human health and corporate profit. And I’ve had Council members…

Special Report: Flawed funding: Years of guaranteed increases set stage for school crisis

Indiana’s decades-long effort to protect shrinking school corporations from drastic cutbacks may well backfire on the very districts that most depend on it-including Indianapolis Public Schools. Critics say the promise of more money regardless of enrollment has allowed some school systems to bloat their budgets, and now state legislators are poised to let the air out. School funding already represents more than one-third of Indiana’s $24 billion, twoyear budget, and lawmakers want to rein in expenses and eliminate a projected…

CHRIS KATTERJOHN Commentary: Be yourself-maximize your assets

Be who you are. Conversely, don’t try to be somebody you’re not. Focus on what you do best, and you’ll succeed. When we think of people who excel at anything … Joshua Bell playing the violin, Reggie Miller shooting three-pointers, Dr. Lawrence Einhorn treating cancer … we understand they have achieved their success by focusing on their God-given talents, developing them, and practicing, practicing, practicing. Communities are much the same, though the philosophy could be amended to read a more…

Changes sought in Citizens Gas pipeline project: Industrial customers argue that alliance drives up cost

Citizens Gas & Coke Utility should build a new pipeline to reap cheaper wholesale gas from the West and Canada, but it should ditch its unregulated partner on the project, say industrial customers and the state’s utility consumer watchdog. The Citizens Industrial Group and the Office of Utility Consumer Counselor don’t want Citizens Gas’ ProLiance Energy subsidiary to be involved in certain financing, ownership and management aspects of the proposed $17 million pipeline. They say the joint venture, known as…

BEHIND THE NEWS: Great Lakes board battled for sweet price from suitor Bulriss not talking Legal costs singe ITT

Great Lakes Chemical Corp. shareholders have had a lot to feel disappointed about in recent years. But there’s no way they can feel let down over the board’s handling of the company’s $1.5 billion sale to Connecticut-based Crompton Corp. A new regulatory filing shows directors of Indianapolis-based Great Lakes went to extraordinary lengths to extract every penny possible from Crompton before sealing the sale March 8. A blow-by-blow account contained in the filing shows the Great Lakes board first began…

Accounting firm looks overseas for help: Sarbanes-Oxley business sparks need for extra hands

Zietsman is one of several employees of PricewaterhouseCoopers who are in the United States to temporarily help the global accounting firm complete client audit work created by the 2002 Sarbanes-Oxley corporate-accountability law. One rule, Section 404, requires corporations to assess the internal accounting controls they have in place to ensure their financial reporting is accurate and reliable-and requires accounting firms to vouch for those controls. Many public companies had to devote thousands of employee hours and millions of dollars to…

Departure of ATA exec still cloudy: Chief financial officer alleged termination was retaliation

When ATA Holdings Corp.’s chief financial officer “left the company” last June, as management ambiguously put it, many suspected the insider saw bankruptcy looming and wanted to bail out before the crash. David M. Wing, 53, may have seen something else that troubled him, suggests ATA’s most recent financial report filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. “Wing contends that he was terminated in retaliation for exercising his rights and obligations under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act,” states a settlement agreement Wing…

BULLS & BEARS: Where Weebles wobble, investors see opportunity

Remember the toys back in the ’70s called Weebles? They were little egg-shaped people weighted so they would always stand upright. The manufacturer’s advertising slogan was, “Weebles wobble, but they don’t fall down.” The stock market has wobbled like a Weeble for six years. For stocks, the first quarter ended with a thud with the Standard & Poor’s 500 down about 3 percent and the NASDAQ down 8 percent. The price of oil went up more than 25 percent during…

WIP Downtown: Salon combines talented stylist, savvy tech guy 40 percent of appointments are made online

You won’t find People magazine in the waiting room at the WIP Downtown hair salon. “That magazine just encourages gossip,” explained co-owner Jeff Demaree. Contrary to the stereotype of hairdresser as therapist, Demaree wants his staff “to avoid discussing personal problems with customers because it makes the atmosphere more stressful.” Instead, Jeff and his wife, co-owner Kimberly Demaree, suggest discussing current events, politics-if they know they agree with the customer-TV, or recent WIP accomplishments such as photo shoots. “We want…

Charter school leaving train station location for its own ’empowerment center’:

21st Century Charter School is pulling away from Union Station. Nearly three years after reinventing 17,000 square feet of space that once housed a bar and Hooter’s restaurant, school sponsor Greater Educational Opportunities Foundation has plans to build a stand-alone facility about five miles to the north. GEO has agreed to buy a two-acre parcel at 25th Street and Capitol Avenue that was to be the site of the Fall Creek Retail Center, an ill-fated project that fell apart in…

Indiana’s annual exports hit another record high: State sent $19.1 billion in goods to other countries

Boosted by a strong fourth quarter, Indiana export sales jumped significantly in 2004, hitting a record high of $19.1 billion, the Indiana Economic Development Corp. reported. Indiana’s 2004 export total was 16.5-percent higher than 2003’s figure of $16.4 billion, exceeding the national pace of export growth of 13 percent. Indiana exported $4.9 billion worth of goods in last year’s fourth quarter, 22.7 percent more than in the third quarter of 2004 and 16 percent more than the fourth quarter of…

Cook treading into new territory: Bloomington medical firm makes move toward untapped stent market

Cook Inc. plans to slide its coated-stent ambitions from the heart down to another region of the body where a multimillion-dollar market awaits. The Bloomington-based medical-device maker recently started testing a product that uses the same drug Cook put on a coronary stent it tried to develop a couple of years ago with Guidant Corp. Instead of treating arteries near the heart, the Zilver PTX stent targets blockages in the major artery that runs through the thigh. Cook is the…

Navigating a painful journey: St. Vincent Pediatric Hospice helps families cope

Erin Sammons knew nothing about St. Vincent Pediatric Hospice when she gave birth to her son, Hart, last November. She just knew that Hart had a chromosome disorder, and doctors expected his life to last only minutes or maybe days. The hospice offered help, so she took it. Hart lived for almost a month, and Sammons said the hospice staff walked her family through every step of that journey. “It was a tragedy, and my heart breaks every day ……

New rules, players mean different conference session STATEHOUSE DISPATCH:

This is about the time each year when I write about the advent of the conference committee process, the black hole that not even the Stephen Hawkings of the legislative process can fathom. Just when you have figured out the session dynamics-leadership, partisan mischief, interconnections between issues and bills, and the relationships among key lawmakers-conference committees begin and all your presumed understanding flies out the window. Regardless of all the pablum you may hear about rules, what issues may be…