‘Smoke free’ needs to be the law in all Hoosier public places
If Indianapolis is going to be a first-class city, it needs to have a comprehensive smoke-free workplace law.
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New hotel tax in Johnson County would fund horse park, tourism bureau
Johnson County officials this month approved a 7-percent tax on hotel-room stays.
Appeals pay off for biz owners
More than one in four Marion County commercial and industrial property owners has appealed its property tax assessments this
year, and the challenges often are paying off in a big way.
Smoke Free Indy advocates mount new campaign
Anti-smoking advocates are organizing a new attempt to strengthen Indianapolis’ ban against smoking in the workplace.
Communities making tough choices will be better off
During the coming weeks, a number of Indiana cities and counties will be coming to terms with their new budget realities.
Residents to decide fate of township assessors
In this election, citizens must decide whether the assessing duties of the elected township assessor in the township should
be transferred to the county assessor.
‘Rollcrete’ might provide alternative to pricey asphalt
Cities and counties are looking for alternatives to asphalt as the price soars for the oil-based material and threatens
to bring paving projects and contractors skidding to a halt. The city of Indianapolis may have just found
one viable alternative that goes down like asphalt: roller-compacted concrete, or "rollcrete."
Flood of appeals expected after rushed biz property-tax assessment
In 2005, assessors valued the 559-acre Indianapolis Motor Speedway at $34.4 million for property tax purposes. According to
the latest Marion County reassessment, it now has a market value of $170 million. Thousands of other businesses also would
see extraordinary spikes in property values, according to an IBJ analysis of the latest assessment data.
Aging IT system contributes to property-assessment woes
Indiana deliberately chose not to invest the tens of millions necessary for technology that could provide an accurate property-tax
forecast. Instead, the state relied on an aging patchwork of property tax software that allows officials only to guess whether
assessed valuations of homes and businesses are correct.
Three-decade landfill battle rages on
World War II could have been fought seven times over since Ralph Reed and sons first tried to build Mallard Lake Landfill
outside of Anderson. The Reeds’ dream of big cash from trash has
upset hundreds of residents in subdivision-dotted fields since the family asked Madison County to rezone their 254-acre farm
in the 1970s.
Mass transit’s catch? Paying for it
The idea of rapid transit is popular locally, but there’s no consensus on how to finance it. For construction alone, it would cost at least $546 million for suburban express bus service up to $1.4 billion for an "automated guideway" system similar to a monorail. And that's for only one corridor.