Indianapolis is My Home

29
Jul

Lead Foots Beware – Smokey’s Got a Brand New Car

Author: Jason Bean, Category: Areas, Government, Indianapolis Star, Traffic & Transportation

The Indiana State Police are the proud owners of 18 new, unmarked, 2008 Mustang GT’s to patrol Indiana highways. One car has been assigned to each of the Indiana State Police posts, but they also hunt together in “wolf packs” to catch speeders. It seems to be working.

The officers of the 18-car Mustang Unit wrote more than 4,600 speeding citations in June. That averages to about seven tickets per day, per car.

I passed two of these cars last week on the southwest side of I-465. A red one and a blue had pulled over a red pickup truck. My standpoint still remains the same. I’m regularly pushing the speed limit by 5-10mph but I also accept the fact that if I get pulled over I’m speeding.

The topic of law enforcement and speeding has been a popular one on this site. Anyone think it’s unfair for the police to use these types of unmarked cars? In the IndyStar story they mentioned one speeder going 127mph in his Corvette on SR37. That’s along my route to home and work so getting that guy in the pocket book sounds good to me.

17
Jun

Take a 10-yr Old’s Advice - It’s worth it!

Author: Jason Bean, Category: Elementary, Environment, Government, Indianapolis Star, Local Businesses, People, Students

Wynn Brower isn’t really the person you’d expect to be taking advice from these days but it turns out this Bloomington resident has got some stuff many of us should probably be thinking more about.

For a class science project he determined that his family could save a $1/day by just turning off their computer at night. Multiply that be how ever many computers you’ve got going while you sleep, multiplied by the number of homes like yourself and you’ve got a big savings in energy every single night.

It doesn’t stop there though, what if the city governments did it as well?

Wynn demonstrated how he used a device to test the energy use of a laptop and desktop computer, then extrapolated the results to the county’s 550 computers. He came up with a savings of $25,000 a year if all computers were turned off at the end of the workday.

Lot’s of people talk about being "green" and conscious about the environment. I think there are loads of opportunities out there for everyone to make an impact in our city that don’t require buying a hybrid or installing solar panels on our roofs.

Why aren’t we hearing more about these little ways we can all do our part?

10-year-old tells county how to save $25,000 | IndyStar.com | The Indianapolis Star

07
Jan

Warm Indianapolis Weather

Author: Jason Bean, Category: Government, Indianapolis Area, News, Weather

Can you believe how warm it is in January? If you’ve lived here very long you probably can, nothing too surprising here for residents of Indianapolis and Indiana.

I was driving in to work today at 7:30am and had my windows down in the beginning of January! It goes both ways though, I remember one year getting a couple of inches of snow in April!

I’m sure we’re not over winter though by any means. Good thing too, my son is eagerly awaiting building another snow fort together after the first good snow this year.

Although I couldn’t really get the information from the website. The photo above appears to be the local offices of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration here in Indianapolis.

Photo Source: NOAA.GOV

03
Jan

Bad Timing on Indianapolis Headlines

Author: Jason Bean, Category: Areas, Elected Officials, Government, News, People, Politics

Trying to catch up on local news stories and working through my Bloglines reader and saw that the following two stories were right next to each other. I thought that was pretty ironic don’t you think?

• Ballard says crime will be top priority
• Indy police sergeant faces DUI charge

You may want to start looking around the offices there first for things to clean-up.

03
Jan

Hoosiers Among Those in Kenyan Turmoil

Author: Jason Bean, Category: Charities, General, Government, Indianapolis History, News, People, Politics, Volunteers

When news about Kenya arrives via the TV or Internet, I perk up a little more now than in the past. I’ve got a couple of web clients that are either directly located in Kenya or have strong ties to the area. My parents have been in some of the areas that are at the epicenter of these riots and turmoil as well. After college I had the opportunity to live in Nairobi and work for an undetermined amount of time at a local university there.

I came across an article in the IndyStar today that also let me know there are a number of Hoosiers that are also in the midst of the political strife happening right now in that country.

“I took heart in an ER this morning when I no longer needed to step over a body,” wrote Indiana University’s Dr. Joe Mamlin, who works at Moi University School of Medicine in the western Kenyan city of Eldoret, where about 50 people were burned alive Tuesday inside a church where they had sought shelter.

Hopefully things will calm down and everyone can get home safely. Hopefully the people and government of Kenya can get their own arms around this situation and determine the best solution to bring peace back to their country as well.

News Story: Dozens of Hoosiers stuck in Kenya
Photo Credit: Yahoo News

02
Jan

Lilly Bribed Saddam Hussein’s Administration

Author: Jason Bean, Category: Business, Government, News

Lilly should be giving some “Answers That Matter.” to the British pretty soon. It appears they, along with some other major drug manufacturers are being investigated for bribing the administration of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.

The investigation focuses on contracts that companies won with Iraq as part of the Oil-for-Food program, which the United Nations launched in 1996 to soften the impact of economic sanctions placed on Iraq after its 1990 invasion of Kuwait.

The investigation began in February, following a 2005 finding by a U.S. probe that more than 2,200 companies paid nearly $1.8 billion in bribes to win Iraqi contracts, Bloomberg reported.

That just seems to weird to be true. I’ll say that I’m completely ignorant of how the Oil-for-Food program operated though. It seems to me that if 2,200 companies were doing it, there could be some confusion in the law and legal process. Yet, that flies in the face of what our grandmother’s told us by saying “just because everyone’s doing it doesn’t make it right”.

Full Story: Lilly to cooperate with British investigation

28
Dec

New Mayor Elect - Greg Ballard Announces Team

Author: Jason Bean, Category: Elected Officials, Government, News, People, Politics

The upcoming replacement for Mayor Bart Peterson is Greg Ballard. Ballard won an election on a fraction of the financial backing that Peterson had in his campaign. The win was attributed to face-to-face campaigning by hitting the streets and neighborhoods.

I don’t have much loyalty for Peterson per se, but with all the complaints, I thought he’s done a tremendous job of improving our city during his tenure as mayor since his initial election in 1999.

I’m hoping Ballard will do a fine job, but I think Bart Peterson was voted out of office more than Ballard was voted in. Ballard announced his administrative team, which includes the individuals listed below:

• Olgen Williams, deputy mayor for neighborhoods
• Paul Okeson, chief of staff
• Chris Cotterill, corporation counsel
• Carolin Requiz Smith, director of Latino affairs
• John Cochran, special counsel to the mayor
• Greg Wilson, director of minority business development
• Marcus Barlow, press secretary

I’m looking forward to a new year and seeing just how things work out for the city. I think there are good years to come with big projects in the works and new developments from a commercial standpoint.

Team List Source: IBJ Daily
Photo: Ballard for Mayor website

18
Dec

Indiana Representative Julia Carson Passes Away

Author: Jason Bean, Category: Elected Officials, Government, News, Politics

Long-time Indiana Congress woman Julia Carson lost her battle with cancer this past weekend. She had been ill for quite some time and had been missing quite a bit of her duties and responsibilities due to her health issues.

The Washington, D.C. office and the district offices of the Honorable Julia Carson will continue to serve the people of the 7th Congressional District of Indiana under the supervision of the Clerk of the House of Representatives. Representative Carson died on December 15, 2007. The vacancy became effective December 16, 2007.

Carson has been a representative since 1997 when she was elected as the first woman and African-American that has ever been elected to represent the Indiana 7th District.

Our condolences to the Carson family.

Sources:

• House of Representatives - Office of the Clerk
• Julia Carson on Wikipedia

13
Dec

Gasoline Per Gallon Price Tag of Pain

Author: Jason Bean, Category: Areas, Business, Education, Government, Politics, Shopping

At one point the image above seemed funny. Now I’d just about give my arm and a leg for a gallon of regular gas to only be $1.72.

I had an interesting discussion with my boss over lunch the other day. It centered around the following question:

“How much would gas have to cost for purchasing it to be painful enough to change your behavior?”

Right now gas is averaging about $3/gallon in Indianapolis.

• Have you changed your driving behavior?
• Has it even crossed your mind?

What if gas were $5/gallon?

• Would you start driving less?
• Would you stay home more?
• Would you put a for sale sign on your SUV and start looking at alternative fuel vehicles?
• Would you start asking friends about car-pooling?
• Would you start demanding public transportation options to be made available to you?

My boss suggested that we immediately at a tax to every gallon of gas that would bring the price to a painful threshold for the average person. The money collected from the additional tax would be used to start funding the building of mass public transportation and to research and further develop alternative fuel vehicles.

He said it’s got to be an immediate change-over and not a gradual increase so that we immediately feel the pain and start looking for solutions. Think about lifestyle. If you’re currently spending $150 a month on gas for your car, would spending $300 force you to do something different? Would the change you make just involve cutting out other expenses so you really wouldn’t have to change your driving habits?

What if this change encouraged the widespread change in our community that would push the development of commercially connected neighborhoods again? If you could actual walk to your grocery store, bank, drug store and hardware store. Would you stop driving? I would.

What if we built smaller schools and they were more widespread so that 70% of the students were walking to school and reduced the fleet of gas guzzling buses to just a few.

What would it take for you to change?

12
Dec

I Need Me a Township Board Position

Author: Jason Bean, Category: Business, Elected Officials, Government, Politics, South Side

I’ve gotten quite a bit more involved in my local community over the past year or so and have become friends with a great group of individuals who are themselves active. One of the people I’ve met wrote an interesting letter to the editor into a local, south side newspaper. The topic involves a local township government board who barely works yet receives a king’s ransom in benefits for the time invested. How’s $4,000/yr and full health benefits for your entire family for $50/mnth sound?

Below is the text of their letter to the editor:

I attended the Perry Township Advisory Board meeting on 11/13, and I was appalled at the behavior of some board members. Evelyn Sayers and Marvin Hawkins seem very unwilling to listen to advice or to allow conversation regarding a merger between PTFD and IFD. Mayor Peterson and Mayor-Elect Ballard both support merging township fire departments with IFD to save money and better protect the citizens. Perry firefighters and Trustee Coons also want to move ahead with merger talks, as do two board members, Decker and Kirchhoffer. One might wonder why other board members stand in opposition, until the underlying facts are examined.

A merger would all but eliminate the need for township government. Each of the 7 members of this board, who meet for less than 24 hours for an entire year, is paid almost $4000 apiece for their service. More shocking is the fact that each board member is eligible for full family health care at a cost of only $50 per month..for the whole family! The remaining cost of this insurance is carried by the taxpayers of Perry Township. Now you know why this board does not allow constituents the right to speak and is unwilling to listen to talks of merger. They have a sweet deal at the taxpayer’s expense, and they want to hang onto it.

Evelyn Sayers indicated that she was concerned about a fellow board member who is self employed, has several children and cannot afford insurance on his own. President Marvin Hawkins indicated that he will be financially hurt by losing the insurance coverage. Welcome to the real world folks! Many of us are self employed. Many of us feel the pinch of high insurance premiums. Employers often provide health care to their full-time employees at a reasonable cost, and when family members are added, the costs skyrocket. Why should the members of this board be allowed any insurance at all on the taxpayer’s dime? Perry Township Advisory Board members work less than one full work week for the entire year! This board needs to immediately vote themselves into an ineligible class and stop this wasteful spending of taxpayer dollars!

Okay, I’ve got to get me one of those jobs. If you know of any openings like this, just look for my resume on Monster, HotJobs, CareerBuilder or IndianapolisHelpWanted.