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Chronic underfunding frays public safety, penal systems: County faces big questions about jail overcrowding, lack of funds for police, prosecutors and public defenders

In 2005, the city of Indianapolis will spend $277 million on public safety. Marion County will lay out another $186 million. It’s not enough. While $463 million may sound like a lot of money, it has to pay for every aspect of local public safety. Every uniformed cop on the street. All the judges, public defenders and prosecutors in the courts. Jail guards and probation officers, not to mention forensic researchers, city firefighters-even dogcatchers. Decades of neglect have left the…

Weight center waits: Bariatric surgery hospital had been scheduled to open in mid-2004

Michigan-based Forest Health Services LLC launched plans in 2003 to build a two-story inpatient bariatric hospital at Intech Park off 71st Street and then applied a year ago for a license to operate it. The hospital would treat people with severe weight problems. Workers completed most of the construction on the 37,000-squarefoot building last spring, but little has happened since. A letter filed last January with the Indiana State Department of Health said Forest Health anticipated a June or July…

NOTIONS: Do national brands make city grand or bland?

Bruce Hetrick is on vacation this week. In his absence, this column, which appeared on Jan. 28, 2002, is being reprinted. Dave Thomas, the founder of Wendy’s, died this month. Most folks remember Dave for his TV commercials. I recall hometown pride, because Dave learned the restaurant business from a Fort Wayne chicken establishment I frequented in my youth. Over the years, I helped build Dave’s fortune one “single everything, no onion” at a time. Wendy’s ads-especially the ones before…

Federal grants are flying to Indiana airports: Record money a boon for capital improvements

Indiana airports landed record federal grants of $61.9 million in fiscal 2004 for everything from building taxiways to extending runways to transmitting weather data to pilots. The $17 million, or 38 percent, increase from 2003 could bode well for economic development in cities with growing airports, such as Columbus. “About 65 percent of our traffic here is business during the week. The more accessible we become, it’s bound to have an impact,” said Rod Blasdel, manager of Columbus Municipal Airport….

‘Works’ proposal would overhaul Unigov: Yesterday’s system isn’t keeping up with current makeup of Marion County

Three decades ago, before Republicans conceived the local government consolidation they called Unigov, Indianapolis was the sleepy burg folks drove through on their way somewhere else. Once city and county government began working together, Indianapolis enjoyed dynamic growth. Today’s vibrant, modern metropolis is consolidation’s direct legacy. But in 35 years, Unigov has ossified. Most Marion County residents now live outside the old city limits. Yet the tax structure maintains the fiction they don’t. Old city residents shoulder the burden of…

EYE ON THE PIE: Let’s explore options to finance stadium

Phinneas Phogghorn, Indiana’s third U.S. senator, was home for the holidays and in fine voice at the Dixie Donut Shoppe. “Rubbish,” the jewel of Jeffersonville intoned to his assembled admirers. “Unadulterated rubbish is all I can say about the view held by too many Hoosiers that a stadium for the Indianapolis Colts is not for the benefit of all the people of Indiana. The Colts are more than a mere symbolic representation of the state in the minds of football…

Mayor seeking broader control: Indianapolis Works proposal gives Peterson more authority over suburban budgets

Some parts of local government are financed by the city. Others are the bailiwick of the county or the townships. For years, the split didn’t much matter. Today, it means everything. While they held sway during the first three decades of Unigov, Republicans could iron out financial wrinkles behind closed doors. But the 1999 election of Mayor Bart Peterson, a Democrat, provoked a turf war. It escalated in 2003, when Democrats won their first-ever City-County Council majority. Now Democrats dominate…

ECONOMIC ANALYSIS: Prices recover in 2004; expect same in 2005

A few weeks of big price changes, particularly on the up side, and the armchair economists seem to really come out of the woodwork. Oil prices peaked in October at levels 40-percent higher than in July, and so did rumblings about conspiracies, windfall profits and pricegouging. To hear some lunchroom conversations, as well as the saber-rattling of some attorneys general around the country, the only thing that keeps businesses of all kinds from fleecing the American public with unconscionable prices…

Growing convention business creates tough decisions: Mayor outlines possible solution for expanding center and adding stadium, but funding battle looms ahead

Consider Indianapolis a victim of its own success. The city’s efforts to make a name for itself as a convention destination have worked-almost too well. The Indiana Convention Center is at capacity with 40 major events a year, and two of its biggest customers are moving to roomier digs. What began as a “what if” discussion about adding space to accommodate more business has turned into a “must do” conversation about keeping what’s already here. “That’s what really drove it…

Stressed college grads

A new poll shows college grads are worried about finding jobs â?? no surprise there, considering the sorry
state of the economy.

But the poll, taken by Edison Media Research, also shows a third of them fretting about their…

The recession hits churches

Churches, which tend to ride out recessions better than many other institutions, are struggling to finish building projects, reporter Kathleen McLaughlin writes in this weekend’s IBJ.

The recession and stock market downturn have forced parishioners to scale back commitments, resulting in…

High court sides with business

Business has won two important cases in the U.S. Supreme Court in recent days.

Today, the court ruled in favor of white firefighters in New Haven, Conn., who claimed they had been unfairly denied promotions due to their race….

‘Alleys of devastation’

Plenty of stories have been published and aired in recent days about migration patterns in Indiana. People in the early part of the century are moving to the Indianapolis suburbs, particularly Fishers, Noblesville, Greenwood and Carmel, the Indiana University study…

Hamaker plans

“It’s just a building that hasn’t had any TLC in 30 years,” he said.

The Carmel Redevelopment Commission recently voted unanimously to accept Keystone Group’s proposal to redevelop an entire city block in Old Town Carmel. The four-story mixed use development will include 150 luxury apartments, high-end shops and restaurants plus a…

Around town retail roundup

More Mini-Medical Clinics Coming. A Tennessee-based company that operates small healthcare centers in nine states plans to open so-called Little Clinics in at least three local Kroger grocery stores. It filed plans this month to open the roughly 300-square-foot clinics…

Too self-serving?

Property Lines

Mr. Schouten does what every reporter should do: He tells his readers things they don’t already know. He does it with quick hits – two or three sentences about the latest land deal, the newest restaurant or the…

Should Simon be afraid?

Conservative groups are threatening to boycott the hundreds of malls owned by locally based Simon Property Group over the company’s decision to not renew the lease for a kiosk called Free Market Warrior Concord Mills Mall.

kiosk is essentially a billboard,…