A Citizen's Guide to Indiana

Mooresville Six more BMV branches to close: the Mooresville, Middletown, Morristown, Newburgh,
Ossian and Rockport branches will close for good Sept. 17. Once they do, it will bring the number of branches closed to 21 since June, leaving 147 statewide.

Dan Shaw for the Journal & Courier has an article on the time zone hearing in Tippecanoe County. Basically, the web poll and phone poll broke about 2 to 1 in favor of Central time whereas the speakers at the hearing last night were just slightly over 50% in favor of eastern time. The players and their arguments seemed about what you’d expect. Chamber of Commerce types pushing the party line; folks who don’t want their TV schedules changed; people who see that Indiana is far into the natural Central time zone; people who figure we’re closer to Chicago than to New York.

Another entry in the fetus wars, I suppose. Brian Zimmerman, writing for the Richmond Palladium-Item has an article on the upcoming trial of Richard Bishop for the attempted murder of his ex-girlfriend, Tiffany Watkins and the murder of her 28-week old fetus, Jake.

I don’t have a problem with the guy doing a whole lot of time for his attack on Ms. Watkins. I don’t even have a problem if there was an aggravator for attacking a pregnant woman. But don’t call it “murder.” Attacking a woman who happens to be pregnant is just different from attacking a woman and also attacking her baby. Both are repugnant, but they’re different.

Andrea Neal, former of the Indy Star editorial page and currently a columnist with an outfit called the Indiana Policy Review Foundation has a column in the Evansville Courier Press which essentially concludes that Dept. of Corrections Commissioner J. David Donahue’s privatization plans are an unadulterated good. Doubtless they have much to recommend them, but according to the column, there is no apparent downside.

Of more interest to me was the commentary with respect to work-release programs as a means by which to reduce recidivism among inmates.

Current practice is to hand an inmate about $75 in cash “and say good luck” as he walks out the prison door, Donahue said. Effective work-release programs make it possible for inmates to truly begin anew with income necessary to support themselves and a family. In Indiana, work-release took on an unjustified black eye in 1989 after an inmate named Alan Matheney killed his ex-wife while out of prison on a weekend pass. Although the pass program was different from work-release, Gov. Evan Bayh essentially shut down state community-based correction programs in response.

Let’s cast our memory back to 1989. Was there anything notable or possibly infamous in the news with respect to letting inmates out into the community before their sentence was complete? Do the names George Bush, Michael Dukakis, and Willie Horton ring a bell? Of course, Gov. Bayh stopped that stuff. Back in ’89, Republicans had a field day beating up on Democrats as soft on crime. If you weren’t foaming at the mouth to execute every jaywalker, you might as well be inviting them to rape your wife. Now you hardly ever hear about getting tough on crime. Now terrorists are the boogeyman. Before that, it was the Communists. But I digress.

According to an article in the Journal Gazette: Indiana household income has taken a dive.

Hoosier income has dropped more than 5 percent since 2000, one of the largest declines in the nation, according to census figures released Tuesday.

With a median household income of $42,195, Indiana had the seventh-largest income decline among the states when adjusted for inflation, according to U.S. Census Bureau estimates. Mississippi had the biggest income dip at 12 percent.

. . .

The figures are from the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey, which replaces the census long form. Along with the ACS, the bureau released its Current Population Survey, which reported that its two-year average for Indiana’s uninsured rose from 12.4 percent of the population (2001-02) to 14.2 percent (2003-2004), or about 872,000 people.

Nationwide, median household income remained unchanged between 2003 and 2004 at $44,389. More than half of the states in the Midwest had median household incomes below the U.S. median.

Meanwhile, the nation’s poverty rate rose from 12.5 percent in 2003 to 12.7 percent in 2004. Poverty rates for counties surveyed ranged from 2.6 percent in Johnson, Kan., to 43.6 percent in Hidalgo, Texas.

In addition, the percentage of the nation’s population without health insurance coverage remained stable, at 15.7 percent in 2004.

The USDOT docket has a letter from Representative Jeff Thompson (R-Lizton) who represents parts of Boone, Hendricks, and Montgomery counties. The letter is addressed to Governor Daniels and was copied to the USDOT. He asks that the Governor use his influence to put Indianapolis, and therefore, much of the rest of the state, on central time.

His rationale:

1. Economic development – The west is the fastest growing area of our country. It would make more sense to always be two hours ahead of California than three hours. It would be 1 1 :00 A.M. in Indiana before a business opens in California if Indiana is placed in the Eastern Time Zone. If we are three hours ahead of California it will only be 1:30 P.M. in California when a business in Indiana will be closing if Indiana is in the Eastern Time Zone.

2. Northwestern Indiana – The citizens of Northwestern Indiana are aligned with Chicago. If Indiana is placed in the Cental Time Zone these citizens will be on the same time as Indianapolis. If Indiana is in the Eastern Time Zone then these citizens will never be on the same time as Indianapolis.

3. Safety of our school children – If Indiana is placed in the Central Time Zone, school children will be getting on school buses in daylight. This is an important safety issue. As the father of five and a school teacher, the safety of our children is of great concern to me.

Makes sense to me.

Dan Shaw for the Lafayette Journal and Courier has an article entitled DST hearing tonight. The Tippecanoe County Commissioners will receive public input with respect to what time zone Tippecanoe County ought to be in. So far, the public input has been 2/3 in favor of Central — though the polling has certainly been informal. (It may well be that those who favor a change to central time are more motivated to comment than those who would like to stay on eastern time.) So far, the most common reason has been sentiment that it makes more sense for Tippecanoe County to follow Chicago than New York. However, the article suggests that a primary consideration will likely be to follow the lead of Indianapolis. At the time zone hearing tonight, the commissioners would like to receive information directed at the criteria important to the US Dept. of Transportation:

1. Where do communities get their supplies and ship their goods.
2. Where communities receive their news and television.
3. Where does the community get its bus and rail services.
4. The nearest airport.
5. What percentage of the community works outside the community and where do those people work.
6. If residents leave the community for school, recreation, healthcare, or religious worship, what standard of time is used in the places where these people go.

The Indy Star has an editorial entitled Give parents place at roundtable. The roundtable has been reduced from 40 to 30 members. One of the cuts was to eliminate the representative of the Parent Teacher Association which, the editorial feels, is a mistake if we really want more parental involvement in our schools. I wonder if the local branch of Brother Dobson’s Focus on the Family still has a place at the table. It’d be a shame if parents were forced out but local theocrats were still at the trough.