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Chris O'Malley

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Tiptoe through the toxins becomes walk in the park: $600,000 in federal, state grants fund initiative to turn former industrial sites into recreation areas

Take a deep breath of that air, wafting with the fragrance of methylnaphthalene. And those violets-must be the lead and arsenic in the soil that give them such a lovely glow. Nothing quite refreshes like a stroll through a hazardous waste site. Or, in the eyes of state planners, make that a former hazardous waste site. The Indiana Brownfields Program will create the Indiana Brownfields Trails & Park Initiative. It will assess abandoned industrial and commercial properties with real or…

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D’Amico responds through lawyer to being snubbed

Carol D’Amico has been publicly silent since the board passed over her for president of Ivy Tech Community College in March.
But a letter her attorney dashed off a day after the vote says she deemed neither of the finalists for the job qualified and
the selection process ripe for a lawsuit.

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Coal vendor not digging coke plant closure: Virginia firm sues Citizens Gas for breach of contract

Citizens Gas & Coke Utility faces the first big fallout from a vendor involving the planned closure of its coke manufacturing plant. A breach-of-contract lawsuit by Bristol, Va.-based Central Coal Co. could make the plant even more of a money pit as Citizens seeks to cut its losses and escape the problems caused by falling coke demand and rising environmental compliance costs. Central Coal says it’s out almost $831,000 because Indianapolis Coke failed to buy all the coal required under…

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Contamination reconsidered: Developers show more acceptance toward environmental trouble spots When property is scarce, mitigation becomes viable

When property is scarce, mitigation becomes viable The plan to close Citizens Gas & Coke Utility’s coke manufacturing plant this year has already brought a few inquires about its reuse potential. But perhaps the biggest impact of the foundry fuel-maker’s demise will be stoking discussions over whether other environmentally scarred properties are ripe for redevelopment. Until recent years, many developers regarded any property with even a tinge of environmental contamination as if a parcel in Chernobyl. The coke plant “illustrates…

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Ex-execs return to Adesa

Less than two years after being driven out of Adesa Inc. as unceremoniously as a Buick down its auction lanes, James Hallett
is back behind the wheel of the nation’s No. 2 wholesale vehicle-auction company.

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Group training for national dash: Not-for-profit wants to take race beyond hometown

A 2-1/2-year-old Indianapolis not-forprofit that funds melanoma education and research through an annual race hopes to extend its footprint around the country. Outrun the Sun Inc. has had preliminary talks with a race management firm in Los Angeles, said co-founder and Executive Director Anita Day. Los Angeles is the headquarters of Neutrogena, which recently agreed to sponsor Outrun the Sun’s annual race. Momentum to take the organization national also picked up this year when it landed Shape magazine and Subaru…

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Transit junkie boards IndyGo: New VP of operations hails from Columbus, Ohio’s bigger bus line

Milwaukee native Trevor Ocock figures his interest in transit dates to age 3. At least that’s what his mother tells him. But the transit bug overtook him at Franklin University in Columbus, Ohio, as he was earning a degree in business administration and human resources management. Soon, he was washing buses for Ohio State University’s transit line. Later, he drove an OSU bus-met lots of ladies that way-and eventually became its operations manager. “I have always liked to be around…

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Parker suits up for change at Kiwanis International: New CEO reaching out to younger generation, trying to reverse years of membership declines

To some of the leisure-suited old guard at Kiwanis International, it must have seemed as if a biker gang member had rolled into the executive suite and popped a wheelie. One of the first things new CEO Rob Parker did was to trash an old lounge where managers reclined for a meeting every month or so. Out went the chairs-managers would now stand around the table during a “daily huddle.” And if they didn’t want varicose veins, they’d better keep…

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Entrepreneur sees niche for for-profit law school

But Mark Montefiori wants to create a law school to train perhaps hundreds more lawyers each year. He plans to share
with potential investors his vision for The Abraham Clark School of Law, named after one of the lesser-known signers of the
Declaration of Independence, May 10 at the Indianapolis Marriott North.

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Flood of traffic latest twist in RiverPlace battle: Indianapolis planners find traffic impact study for Fishers project leaky

Environmentalists who lost a court battle to stop RiverPlace on grounds it will cause flooding upstream along the White River have been buoyed by concerns raised by Indianapolis officials that the 69-acre development could create a torrent of traffic trouble. Last month, in a letter sent to Fishers’ public works director, the Department of Metropolitan Development cited numerous shortcomings with a traffic impact study commissioned by RiverPlace developer Centre Properties. Indianapolis-based Centre has asked Fishers to rezone the property, just…

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Charity sees hope in Third World ‘micro’ lending

In the village of Armenia, in western El Salvador, the Barahona Bautista family last month got a $246 loan to start a pig
farm from Ambassadors for Children. Micro loans are new to Ambassadors, which assists children in more than a dozen countries.

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Comcast poised to debut business phone service: Cable giant, already a player in residential market, plans to use low prices to win customers from AT&T

The turf war between what used to be clearly defined as phone and cable companies will heat up this summer, when Comcast Corp. plans to launch phone service to businesses in the metro area. Philadelphia-based Comcast already offers residential phone service and highspeed Internet to most of its Indiana customers. Those have long been the bread and butter of phone giants such as AT&T. In the tit-for-tat nature of the blurring product offerings between cable and phone, AT&T late last…

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Ivy Tech: new community college with long history:

Indiana was on the verge of creating a statewide community college system 40 years ago, but Hoosier politics and university turf wars got in the way-stomping a seed that in recent years has flourished in other states as a sort of economic tree of life. Community colleges increasingly are called on to train new workers and retrain existing ones for a high-tech economy. But the thinking back in the 1960s, said then-freshman legislator John Mutz, was that a community college…

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ATA parent sees potential in World Air, despite its woes: Impact of deal on Indianapolis headquarters unknown

The biggest acquisition in the 34-year history of ATA Airlines will steer it closer to its charter roots and further from a scheduled-service binge that led to bankruptcy three years ago. Analysts say the $315 million deal to buy Atlanta-based World Air Holdings will broaden the revenue base and bring economies of scale for ATA’s newly renamed parent, Global Aero Logistics. It also hands ATA a cargo business worth $100 million in 2005. The deal should give the Manhattan vulture…

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Ivy Tech boasts healthy enrollment, but most students wither on vine

Ivy Tech Community College–charged with cranking out workers to fill high-demand jobs in critical occupations–has an output
rate reminiscent of an old, state-owned Soviet assembly line. Incoming President Thomas Snyder is taking over a community
college system that graduates only 12 percent of its students within three years.

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Indianapolis loses coveted bond rating

Moody’s Investors Service today downgraded the city’s financial rating, citing "significant challenges funding its public safety, justice and other social service functions." The city’s underlying general obligation rating was bumped down to Aa1 with a stable outlook, from AAA with a negative outlook. The rating involves $289 million of outstanding debt. The New York ratings […]

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Citizens Gas proposing billing overhaul

Citizens Gas & Coke Utility has revived its pitch for a regulatory plan that would fundamentally change the way it bills customers,
helping it cover rising expenses as gas sales fall. The plan would create an expanded energy conservation program that could
include rebates for customers who buy gas-efficient furnaces and appliances.

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UPDATE: Citizens shuttering dinosaur coke plant

Hammered by foreign competition, declines in heavy industry and rising environmental costs, Citizens Gas & Coke Utility said today it plans to close its 98-year-old Indianapolis Coke plant, eliminating 300 jobs. The utility said today it was unsuccessful in finding a buyer for the southeast-side plant despite interest from about 20 firms over the last […]

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Year after smoking ban, only 9 businesses have been fined

County health inspectors have hardly blown the door down on huffers and puffers a year into the city’s smoking ordinance.
The Marion County Health Department took 209 complaints and issued citations against only nine businesses for fines totaling
$1,000 during the first year of the law.

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Snubbing of ‘queen of the skies’ to save millions: Airport decides it can’t justify taxiway upgrades with FedEx cancellation of ‘super-jumbo’ Airbus A380

Not only did airport tenant FedEx cancel its order for the cargo version of the “superjumbo” last November, but no other carriers have indicated they’ll likely use the super-jumbo here, said airport Director Patrick Dooley. Nor, Dooley added, is there a compelling case to be made for taxiway upgrades merely as a contingency for A380’s being diverted here occasionally from Chicago’s O’Hare International or other airports. So managers are removing all references to the A380 in a long-range airport plan…

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