A Citizen's Guide to Indiana

SB 60, introduced by Senator Steele, creates the judicial computer systems commission to evaluate and analyze the computer systems used by courts and law enforcement agencies in Indiana.

Presumably this commission is a response to dissatisfaction with Judicial Technology and Automation Committee (JTAC) progress over the years. There is and has been a statewide court computer system in the works for years. A lot of money has been spent and the progress has been spotty, at least to the outside observer. Looks like some legislators want to get a look at what’s going on.

Delaware County is apparently having some difficulty borrowing money, according to a story by Nick Werner of the Muncie Star Press. Bank of America sent Delaware County an e-mail explaining why it was reluctant to loan money to the unit of local government.

The e-mail expressed concern that Delaware County was a risky investment, citing several key points, including recent publicity surrounding the financial difficulties facing both county and city government.

The e-mail specifically referenced a Nov. 25 article in The Star Press wherein county council President Chris Matchett was quoted as saying the county council had to authorize the borrowing to keep it from locking the doors and turning out the lights.
. . .
“While this is a potential overstatement, waiting so long to address the shortfall leads to questioning management strength/skills of the county administrators,” the e-mail said.
. . .
“It appears that Muncie, the principle municipality in the County, is facing some dire economic conditions, to the point they have closed fire stations, cut police force and actually contemplating turning off 1/2 the streetlights in the city,” it said.

Some of the troubles have to do with a software conversion that is delaying the property tax process. But, looking in from afar, I get the sense that a lot of the troubles also have to do with political posturing in Muncie and Delaware County that has been detrimental to the actual business of administering those units of local government.

The Tiernan Center, Richmond High School’s gigantic sports complex, is now twenty-five years old according to an article by Josh Chapin in the Palladium-Item. The official capacity is 8,100 people, but I’m fairly sure they crammed a few more people into that December 10, 1987 game between #1 Richmond and #2 Muncie Central, easily the most exciting sporting event I’ve ever had the pleasure of attending. It was a Thursday night. I remember our physics teacher, Mrs. Shuck, offering the opinion that school should have been canceled after a game like that. In any case, it’s the fifth largest high school gym in the country. (Indiana has 8 of the 10 largest.)

The rationale for the mega-gyms seems to have faded a bit with the end of Indiana’s basketball tournament. The whole idea was to build yourself a mega-gym, secure home court advantage through regionals, and get to semi-state. With the imposition of class-basketball system, Richmond isn’t even guaranteed a home sectional game.

I wish the article had discussed how the gym was paid for. Having the 5th largest high school gym at a “dropout factory,” strongly suggests some misspent resources. Still, it worked for me. I got a good education and got to watch some fine basketball games.

The Indy Star (and lots of others) are reporting that the Senate has passed a health care bill. It still needs to be reconciled with the House bill. In all likelihood, the final product will look more like the Senate bill. The liberal Democrats and the Blue Dog Democrats are like a dysfunctional couple. The person who wants the relationship least has the most power. The Blue Dogs are the most satisfied with the status quo and, therefore, have enormous leverage. This is Joe Lieberman and Ben Nelson’s bill. The Republicans have chosen not to have a role in shaping the policy because they would rather have the health care bill as a campaign issue than help craft its contours. Any Senate Republicans who chose to break ranks would have a lot of power to demand changes of various kinds and would, at the same time, reduce the leverage of Lieberman and Nelson.

I’m torn. The status quo is broken. As a nation, we spend an average of $7,200 per person per year on health care compared to about $3,600 in countries with health care models that are “too expensive.” We spend 16% of our GDP compared to much less in other countries. Our pricing system is opaque. We will provide charity care when people show up at the emergency room with critical, expensive health problems; but there is no real process for treating people earlier in their illnesses when outcomes could be better and cost less. There is every incentive for someone facing a ruinous health care bill to try to cast blame on someone else and litigate in efforts to get their bill paid rather than lose their house or file bankruptcy.

On the other hand, the “fiscal conservatives” have seemingly opposed most of the measures that could be expected to contain costs. There is no public option to hold the profit-motive of insurers in check. There is no provision for the government to negotiate rates with pharmaceutical companies.

What I fear is a forced transfer of wealth from the public to insurers with no reduction in health care costs or improvement in treatment or outcomes, just another one of Taibbi’s great vampire squids wrapped around the face of humanity.

Still, I get the sense that the Senate bill is essentially as good as it’s going to get. It’s either that or the status quo. Which is preferable?

I won’t comment too much on this since I’ve been known to practice a bit of hog-related litigation, and if this ends up being as big as the article hypes it up to be, I guess it’s not out of the question that I could get drawn into it one way or another.

But, Seth Slabaugh, writing for the Muncie Star Press reports on “multiple lawsuits” that are planned by individuals seeking to challenge the confined feeding business model.

Neighbors who are fed up living next door to factory farms have found three high-powered trial lawyers who vow to make Randolph County “ground zero” in a courtroom food fight over how Indiana produces pork and milk.
. . .
The trial lawyers are bringing multiple lawsuits challenging Indiana’s industrial or factory model of producing milk and pork in concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) promoted by Gov. Mitch Daniels’ agriculture department.
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The defendants include Vreba Hoff Dairy, an Ohio-based firm that has brought large Dutch dairy farms to Indiana, Ohio and Michigan; Maxwell Foods/Maxwell Farms, a leading, North Carolina-based pork producer that has been expanding into Indiana; Harrisburg, Pa.-based pork producer Country View Family Farms, and various local operators. Most of the cases are being filed in Randolph County, though one is being filed in federal court in Indianapolis.

I was researching something and stumbled across some more florid than usual language by Judge Mote in an Indiana Supreme Court case from 1967:

This Nation and its local units of government have come upon hard times. Depressions, wars, lack of exercise of governmental talent, political, social and economic maneuvering have taken their toll. Increased spending, waste and outright mismanagement, or worse, by the Central Government almost have crushed the back of the American taxpayer in attempting to satisfy the voracious appetite of the bureaucrats who appear to have produced a super government and have become untouchable. As a result, the physical plants of our local governmental units-our schools, highway systems and streets, public buildings, sanitation departments, water resources and almost every enterprise of such nature-are completely inadequate or worn out. Necessity for finding new means of providing continuously inflated dollars to maintain and improve the local public facilities for an ever expanding and demanding population has created almost insurmountable problems. The final outcome may be doubtful, but we now find ourselves on a treadmill from which there appears to be no escape until and unless the hearts and minds of men and women resolve honestly and sincerely, with a really dedicated purpose, affirmatively to do whatever may be necessary to halt the changes in governmental concept now so apparent to objective thinkers. This will not be easy; it will be worth the effort.

Hawkins v. City of Greenfield, 230 N.E.2d 396, 411 (Ind. 1967).

The case was brought by a taxpayer seeking an injunction against Greenfield and its Economic Development Commission preventing the appropriation of funds for the economic development commission, the issuance of economic development bonds, and a variety of other expenses associated with the economic development commission. The Court refused to grant the injunction finding that the economic development activity was within the authority granted by the legislature and not in violation of the Indiana or U.S. Constitutions.

The Associated Press has an article on an Indiana Department of Correction program administering a federal grant to train inmates as coal miners.

Vincennes University will hold coal mining classes for three to 15 students at the medium-security Branchville Correctional Facility in southern Indiana.

The state Department of Correction said the school will offer classes in underground and surface mining. Prison staff will review inmate records and assess career interest surveys to determine which offenders can participate.

I don’t know that coal mining is the most flexible skill set you could give a guy, but it is important to make sure prisoners are employable when they get out. I say this, not out of sympathy for them especially, but because the rest of us are better off when folks who are willing to commit crimes when they get desperate have some chance of becoming productive members of society instead. Additionally, it seems to me that a fair amount of these folks get into trouble simply because their lives are so chaotic. Jobs provide structure for those who can muster up the discipline to stick with them.

Time has labeled the 00s as the Decade from Hell. And, for the U.S. on a macro level, that’s pretty accurate. As the article points out, the economy was book-ended by recessions, we inflicted that god awful 2000 election upon ourselves, we lost the World Trade Center and 3,000 lives on 9/11/01, Katrina mostly destroyed New Orleans, we invaded Iraq for no good reason, and our economy continued to rearrange itself in less than pleasant ways – housing bubble burst, some enormous Ponzi schemes, and general high level looting. It was bad enough that Anthrax and Afghanistan almost became afterthoughts.

Nevertheless, I can’t help but look at how my own life has changed in the last decade and call it a win for me personally. I married well and became the father to two wonderful children. I became a partner in my small law firm. I became a home owner. I started this blog. I ran a couple of half marathons and climbed a couple of 14ers. Those are the highlights. Sure, there has been day-to-day frustration, and I’m certainly omitting any number of life’s small joys which are probably more important, ultimately, than some of the benchmarks.

So, there you have it, the aughts were generally a bad decade for America and a good decade for me. Stealing a page from Sen. Franken, maybe we should make the 10s the Masson Decade and see where that takes the country? Probably a bad idea.