Sound of silence
Voters must decide the fate of property tax caps this November, a decision that carries massive future implications for Indiana education funding.
By amending the Indiana Constitution, the 1 percent cap on residential property, 2 percent cap on rental property and 3 percent on commercial and industrial property will become permanent.
It was expected that there would be major publicity campaigns on both sides of the issue during the fall campaign, but two key players may opt out of the debate.
Last week, the Indiana Chamber of Commerce and the Indiana Farm Bureau announced they would not wage a campaign against the amendment. Both organizations attempted to block its passage in the Legislature.
The Chamber, however, likes the limiting effect the caps have had on local government spending, and the Farm Bureau has already convinced the Legislature to treat agricultural property as a special category.
Without the funds both organizations could pump into a campaign, the constitutional amendment question could be a low-key affair.
Rokita again
Although Indiana Secretary of State Todd Rokita is nearing the end of his eight years in office, he continues to press for redistricting reform.
As would any politician wanting to redraw voting districts, we take the hyper-Republican Rokita’s professions of non-partisanship with a grain of salt.
Rokita says he wants to keep communities of interest together, create more compact and geographically uniform districts, follow known political boundaries, such as county and township lines, and “nest” two house districts within the existing lines of a senate district, among other proposals.
He sent a letter to state legislators this week, outlining his ideas.
The party that wins the Indiana House this year will get to redraw legislative districts for the 2012 election cycle.
Caucus date set
A group of four Democrat precinct committeemen will decide the next 4th District Kokomo Common Councilman at a 4 p.m. meeting Sept. 16 at Howard County Democratic headquarters, Democrat chairman Rick Ward confirmed Friday.
Dan Haworth, who was in his third term, passed away in August, and it is expected family member Donnie Haworth will win the vote to take his place on the council.
“[Donnie’s] name will come up at the caucus, I’m sure,” Ward said.
Radio radio
The line to purchase low-cost weather radios at City Hall subsided somewhat after Monday’s big initial rush, but every time the Public Eye went to City Hall this week, there was still a line. The city had gone through about half of its initial allotment by Wednesday.
The mistaken impression adapters were included made the Public Eye go back and check to make sure we hadn’t inadvertently caused a false rumor to spread. As it turns out, we hadn’t. People simply made assumptions.
But we did receive one e-mail that kind of fit with our general impressions of Kokomoans complaining about anything and everything. Remember that the radios cost residents exactly $6.41.
“I have another weather alert radio that I have used for four years and the quality is so much better. I for one, if had to depend on this radio that the city wants everyone to purchase to notify us of approaching bad weather, I would rather take my chances then [sic] try and listen to this noise and static,” the gentleman wrote.
We didn’t ask how much he paid for his good radio.
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