by Cmdr. John Pickerill There has been discussion recently over a possible wind farm in my county. Residents close to the proposed turbine towers are concerned about the health effects, about disrupted rural landscape and about what it will do to their property values. Some are suggesting that newly proposed countywide zoning would have excluded the turbines or minimized any harm. They are wrong. Both a former county councilman and the mayor brought up a relevant point in separate articles for the local newspaper:…

by Craig Ladwig Looking over the raw data of contributions to a typical Indiana mayor, you are struck by the massive amounts coming from those involved in construction, architecture, engineering, etc. It is not an encouraging experience. For that is how progress is defined today. It is not in an increase in middle-class expendable income, and certainly not in happiness or even security. Rather, it is in commanding the building of new things, steel and…

 by Andrea Neal After Indiana Attorney General Curtis Hill penned an op-ed article urging state lawmakers to resist the push for legal marijuana, he faced predictable outrage from a lobbying group that will say almost anything to sway public opinion to its side. Predictable because the pro-marijuana faction mastered – years ago – a public relations strategy based on immediate repudiation of claims that marijuana is harmful to individual users or society in general. The…

THE FATES OF INDIANA AND ILLINOIS could merge, literally, bailing the one out of a financial mess and filling a power vacuum in the other. Some think it a joke, but after watching the experts at my city’s public hearing testify in favor of a multimillion dollar (cost yet to be determined) riverfront development along our chocolate-colored, high-embanked and oddly pungent waterway I’m not so sure. John Kass, a Chicago Tribune columnist, reports that similar…

  IT TOOK AN OUTSTATE EDITOR, Dan Carden of the Northwest Indiana Times, to compile the 45 different tax increases approved this year by the Republican-controlled General Assembly. And he tells us his count does not include allowing the Natural Resources Commission to increase 25 different fees or include a variety of increases for gaming and corporate securities. In all, there is cause to reassess why you registered with the GOP in the first place. But it would…

Talking Points • Indiana Doubles Down on Warm Beer — I don’t see this fight over liquor laws as a case study in cronyism. Here we have competing economic interests of approximately equal economic power fighting over public policy in an open forum subject to close public scrutiny. The author ignores the fact that large corporate-grocery, convenience- and drug-store interests are just as generous with their campaign contributions as the liquor-store owners. In my view this…

READING RECENT REMARKS on the state economy by the president of the Indiana Chamber of Commerce, you are right to be troubled, even take offense. Was he saying that the problem with Indiana is Indianans? “It is evident that a lack of (skilled) workers, unhealthy lifestyle choices and limited Indiana-based funding to grow promising companies is keeping the state from realizing its full potential,”  he was quoted as saying by the Goshen News. That can be…

 by Ryan Cummins What will it take for my town — or for your town — to be what the people who live there believe to be best? A hint: It is not parks, jobs, housing, industrial parks, downtowns or any of those things, although you might find them in the better cities and towns. It is when the great number of citizens believe they are responsible for themselves, their families, their neighbors and not…

MY MAYOR is the fellow you would like living next door — cheerful, thoughtful and civically involved, and his family until recently owned a tavern. So some of us were conflicted this week reading his uncharacteristically strong statement on the U.S. withdrawal from the Paris Climate Accord. He opposes the decision, we learn, because he is “deeply concerned” about saving the planet. Frankly, it didn’t sound like him at all. His friends at the Green Frog Inn might…

 by Maryann O. Keating, Ph.D. Is there a link between good local governance and the self-reported well-being of residents? An article in the summer Indiana Policy Review surveys the research and outlines existing data for 45 cities and towns across Indiana in 2013-2014 to weigh factors associated with self-reported levels of well-being. The goal of the study is to find patterns between Indiana towns to assist officials and the general public in realistically assessing and…