Gov. Mitch Daniels has proposed capping residential property taxes at 1 percent of a homeâ??s assessed value,
rental properties at 2 percent and businesses at 3 percent.
Now state Sen. Luke Kenley says the bipartisan commission on taxes he heads will…
Stunning victory a call to change But Ballard shouldn’t forget past The shock has faded and reality is starting to set in. Indianapolis really will have a new mayor in 2008. Republican Greg Ballard’s victory over two-time incumbent Mayor Bart Peterson was more than an election stunner of historic proportions-it was a rare case of voters turning over a city to someone they knew little about. Ballard, under-funded and under-supported by his own party, pulled off his epic upset for…
A public library preserves the record of humanity’s intellectual, scientific and artistic achievements, as well as its failures. Those records and the people who facilitate the community’s access to them support democracy, encourage economic development, sustain lifelong learning, and foster an information- and technology-literate community. A community’s investment in its public library system symbolizes the importance of the civic role of public libraries in ensuring an informed society. In our community, the Indianapolis-Marion County Public Library Foundation raised more than…
Seeking to increase its efficiency, Marion County government is enlisting a group of volunteer business experts. Their recommendations could lead to lower taxes and better service-just the sort of initiative incoming Mayor Greg Ballard says he wants to embrace. The new High Performance Government Team was approved last month by the City-County Council. Created on the recommendation of the Greater Indianapolis Chamber of Commerce, it is modeled on a similar effort in Fort Wayne, where Mayor Graham Richard, a Democrat,…
Based on a couple of recent Indiana cases, it seems someone has parked a “No standing” zone around the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. The first case involved Indiana Right to Life and its judicial candidate questionnaires. The group claimed two provisions of the Indiana Code of Judicial Conduct violated the First Amendment by preventing judicial candidates from answering questions about topics such as abortion and other social issues. Although a federal district court judge agreed with the group’s arguments,…
After Tuesday night’s vote tallies, after the candidates’ acceptance and concession speeches, after Wednesday’s Indianapolis Star trumpeted Greg Ballard’s upset of Mayor Bart Peterson in 120-point type, I pulled from my bookshelf my copy of John F. Kennedy’s “Profiles in Courage.” There were two courageous acts on the Indianapolis mayoral stage this year. First, there was courage by Ballard. When all the prominent Republican politicians chose not to challenge Democrat Peterson; when most of the usualsuspect Republican donors gave to…
Power is typically understood by those who wield it and those who operate under it. If I took a survey that asked who the most powerful person in the world is today, there would be two or three common answers. But there is a person who is just as powerful, and perhaps more so, than the few names that immediately come to mind. I am talking about Rex Tillerson, chairman and CEO of Exxon Mobil. Up until Nov. 5 (more…
The election campaign of 2008 can transform our state if the candidates focus their attention on children. We can develop a healthy economy and become a model of civility if we focus systematically on our children. Many people are convinced government spends too much. What they mean is that government spends for services that don’t benefit them or services they wish they did not need. Who wants to spend money on juvenile corrections or adult reading programs for prisoners? Who…
Election Day was no high point in the annals of Indianapolis media. How could we have missed such a big
story, that Greg Ballard was about to upset incumbent Mayor Bart Peterson?
Local news organizations treated Ballard as an afterthought until…
Dating at least to the â??60s, when Richard Lugar was mayor of Indianapolis, the cityâ??s comeback has been
driven by nationally renowned cooperation between government and business.
Business interests came out of the woodwork to support Lugar, and subsequent mayors William…
Now that Greg Ballard has pulled the big upset, how will Indianapolis be different under his administration? Is his election
good or bad for business?
The race between Indianapolis Mayor Bart Peterson and his Republican challenger, Greg Ballard, became interesting
in the final days, and not just because Ballard suddenly got traction in a widely publicized poll.
In the past few days, two prominent arts leaders…
This is why I like Mitch Daniels. Speaking about his property-tax program, he said, “When Indiana acts this time, and act we must, our steps must be fair, far-reaching and final,” Look at that alliteration … “fair, far-reaching and final.” Who else in public life gives us sentences like that? Look at his idealism: “fair, far-reaching and final.” Our state is known for its persistent lack of fairness, its shortsighted special-interest legislation, and its neverending tinkering. Mitch thinks he can…
The office was abuzz when I walked in on a Monday morning in late August 2006. The Indiana Economic Development Corp. staff was upset and it didn’t take long to find out why. The Indianapolis Star had published their names and salaries as part of a lead story launched from the front page of the Sunday edition. “Is it the solemn civic duty of the Star to let the world know what I make?” our receptionist asked, crying. A member…
In the 10 years since Indiana’s property-appraisal system was ruled unconstitutional, taxpayers have spent perhaps $1 billion to remedy the situation. That’s more than $350 per household, and more than we spend on environmental protection each year. “Wowser” is the only printable exclamation I can muster. Among other things, Gov. Mitch Daniels’ tax plan proposes the elimination of the township assessors (there are 1,008 offices statewide). According to a 2004 Chamber of Commerce study, streamlining the system would result in…
For Mike Wyman, a devastating fire that gutted the family home during his teen-age years laid the foundation for a rewarding career in construction. The 41-year-old Wyman climbed from carpenter to become a leader of projects at two of the city’s largest commercial developers before launching his own company in 2005. WDG Construction & Development Services Inc. on East Washington Street downtown has since grown into a firm that expects to top $30 million in revenue next year-double this year’s…
In the face of a slumping local economy in the early 1980s, several national construction firms packed up and left Indianapolis. One locally based salesman, Len Liotti, was given a choice-move to St. Louis along with his job at tunneling contractor Affholder Inc., or set out on his own. Seeing the void the big players would create when leaving, Liotti started Midwest Mole Inc. in 1982 to fill it. Twenty-five years later, the privately held firm is thriving thanks to…
Gov. Mitch Daniels unveiled a tax proposal Oct. 23 designed to remedy a number of widely held concerns over property taxes in the state. In a nutshell, his proposal reduces property tax collections by one-third and generates additional revenue by increasing the general sales tax 1 percentage point. His plan offers a three-tiered property tax rate-1 percent residential, 2 percent rental and 3 percent commercial-and moves taxation (and perhaps budgetary decision making) from the township to the county level. It…
Corporate transactions, such as the sales of Peoples Bank and First Indiana Bank, as well as mergers of utility companies, benefit no one. For example: Retail customers: No evidence exists that consumers benefit from these transactions. Companies might argue that fees and prices rise more slowly in larger organizations, a result of efficiencies, but no proof is available, and the principle of diminishing returns suggests that, at some point, the cost of running a large entity becomes proportionately greater than…
Teaching kids about finances used to be as simple as giving them lunch money. With credit card debt and bankruptcy rates soaring among young adults, however, there’s a new push nationwide to help kids get smart about money. Experts say even kindergartners aren’t too young to learn the ins and outs of spending, saving, borrowing and budgeting. One local program is hoping to do all that in a fun, informative setting. The Money Bus, a sort of traveling classroom, visits…
