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Smoke carries economic toll: Ban backers cite health, productivity costs

The annual cost of treating the secondhand-smoke-related illnesses of Marion County residents likely exceeds $16 million, a cost borne partly by businesses that provide their employees health insurance. Businesses also shoulder harder-to-calculate costs in the form of lost productivity and absenteeism, according to a 2002 study for the Marion County Health Department believed to be the best estimate yet of the local impact of cigarettes. But backers of the proposed City-County Council ordinance that would ban smoking in Indianapolis’ bars…

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STATEHOUSE DISPATCH: Lawmakers likely to resurrect best bills in second half

The second half of the General Assembly’s “long” session is now upon us, even though it doesn’t quite feel like it had closure to the first half. Unless you were in Florida or Arizona watching baseball’s spring training games, you are well aware of the House Democrats’ tactics that resulted in a lack of quorum on the final days for passage bills from their chamber of origin. The lack of a quorum meant more than 130 bills died ignominiously on…

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Marketing plan takes bad bounce: Owners of local IT firm, ABA pro hoops team get caught in snare of negative publicity

Unfortunately, the stories have focused on a series of bizarre events surrounding the team and its owners. The Rhythm’s third owner, recording artist Sally Anthony, Bucher’s wife, found herself at the center of several of the stories. Neither Bucher nor Christian returned repeated calls seeking comment for this story. Anthony was also unavailable for comment. The trio initially made a series of savvy moves, including filling the team roster with top talent just short of making the NBA. The owners…

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City should prepare for energy shortage:

Indianapolis city planners should begin planning for a declining energy future. “Peak oil” and natural gas (generally, the point at which worldwide production begins to decrease, and the resource subsequently depletes)-are well-documented and loom directly ahead. Yet local plans are silent on the subject. Long-term impacts on our economy and community fabric will be significant. Mobility and development patterns will be heavily affected. Politicians and the media need to inform the public and properly plan for this sobering eventuality. The…

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Department store consolidation likely means loss of major revenue source for newspapers:

Shoppers and mall owners aren’t the only ones preparing for fallout from the planned merger of Federated Department Stores Inc. and May Department Stores Co.-the advertising world is bracing for the impact, too. Newspapers will bear the brunt of it, experts predict. Observers need look no further for evidence than the Sunday circulars or the midweek pullout sections preceding a big sale. Locally, Macy’s, formerly known as Lazarus, and L.S. Ayres are both among the top 10 advertisers with The…

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Unifying Indiana’s IT efforts: State’s new CTO plans to centralize computing

Indiana’s state Web portal, access-Indiana, won at least a dozen awards over the last four years. It was frequently lauded as a model of modern government efficiency-robust, reliable and user-friendly. But, according to new Indiana Chief Technology Officer Karl Browning, the reality was only skin deep. Certainly, accessIndiana is the handsome public face of state information technology. But beneath the surface, there’s a tangled mess of unconnected systems, each managed independently by a separate agency. Gov. Mitch Daniels, a Republican,…

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STATEHOUSE DISPATCH: At half-time in the Statehouse, it’s politics 1, people 0

This column is typically devoted to the intersection of politics, government and business (with an occasional tortured sports analogy tossed in). We don’t usually address the higher order of the universe, but after last week, we find that we must delve into the field of metaphysics to provide you with some perspective on legislative events. March 1 marked the halfway point in the 2005 session of the Indiana General Assembly. But with more than 130 bills dying for lack of…

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SPORTS: Tournament committee ready to pick and defend

He describes the experience as gutwrenching, intense, agonizing and exhausting. But also, some kind of fun. “It’s like going off to basketball junkies camp for a week,” said Jon LeCrone, commissioner of the Indianapolis-based Horizon League. “Camp” convenes this Wednesday, when LeCrone joins nine other members of the NCAA’s Division I men’s basketball committee to select, seed and bracket the 65 invitees to the tournament, aka the Big Dance. To be sure, it’s not Camp Granada, with rustic cabins, bunk…

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Republic Airways ponders employee concessions: But union complains about ‘disingenuous’ memo

A memo by Republic Airways warns of the need for employee concessions if ailing partner U.S. Airways ceases operations, Teamsters officials said. The union representing 1,000 cockpit crew members and 600 flight attendants at Republic’s Chautauqua Airlines unit has found itself-not the Indianapolis company-on the defensive, however. Union leaders are wrinkled at what they say is a disingenuous memo Republic CEO Bryan Bedford sent to workers about seven weeks ago, alleging that the union has withheld information from pilots and…

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TV weather war becoming a race for arms: Local TV news ratings, advertising dollars at stake VIPIR attack

A storm is brewing. But the weather-related tempest has as much to do with television viewer ratings and advertising dollars as it does with tornadoes and hailstorms. With an array of new forecasting technology hitting the market, Indianapolis’ four local TV news operations are arming for a weather war that would make Dorothy and Toto run for the nearest Doppler radar. “The weather is an enormous driver in local TV news ratings,” said Bill Perkins, president of locally based Perkins…

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As leaders argue, local crime rises: Inner-city residents fear police consolidation, but city says it can’t afford current structure

Despite Mayor Bart Peterson’s addition of 200 cops in 2000-which gave IPD the strength to try community, or preventive, policing-crime jumped 11 percent over the last two years. Between them, the Indianapolis Police Department and the Marion County Sheriff’s Department responded to 5,487 more offenses last year than in 2002. Unless new money is found, Peterson has repeatedly warned, the cash-strapped city soon will be forced to fire IPD officers. Marion County Sheriff Frank Anderson already struggles to fight suburban…

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CLOUD OF CONTROVERSY: Suburbs might follow city’s lead Backers: Tough Indy ban would sway others

The City-County Council’s handling of a proposed smoking ban has implications well beyond Indianapolis, to neighbors poised to adopt their own laws but watching the outcome in the state’s most populous city. If Indianapolis doesn’t enact a smoking ban, or adopts one that’s politically unpalatable to neighboring cities and counties, those communities might adopt a confusing variety of laws, observers on both sides of the debate say. They say a lack of uniformity could even spawn a migration of bar…

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INVESTING: Big investors make Time Warner, Comcast look good

Two weeks ago, I was talking to one of my analysts and he brought up a couple of stocks he thought could be really interesting over the next 12 months. Remember, I am a technician and not a fundamental analyst, and the analysts I trust are all technical guys. He said these two stocks showed solid bottoming formations on their charts in the fall, which could lead to solid gains in the next year. When he mentioned the names, I…

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Radio Slayer?: The 3.6-ounce iPod could become a 500-pound gorilla

The 3.6-ounce iPod could become a 500-pound gorilla Radio’s death knell has tolled before. In the 1950s, television was supposed to kill radio. And in the last 30 years, there have been a cavalcade of challengers from cassette tapes and Walkmans to compact discs and portable disc players. Even though a record $20 billion was spent nationally in radio advertising in 2004, a new predator on the landscape has the potential to take a serious bite out of the industry’s lifeblood….

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Johnson County gets major gated community: Development planned next to The Legends golf course

Johnson County is set to get its first major gated housing development, and The Legends of Indiana golf course-coowned by former Indiana University basketball coach Bob Knight-should reap a much-needed financial boost. Construction on the $35 million project on 35 acres in Franklin is set to begin this spring. The project, consisting of 144 homes and condominiums, will be constructed between the front nine and the back nine of The Legends’ Jim Fasiodesigned championship course. There will be 38 single-family…

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SPORTS:

After spending much of his adult life with a stopwatch, Duke Babb knows something about time. In this case, it’s his. Having just turned 70, he says it is time to get off this “great ride” through football he’s been on the past 50 years. Time to let someone else tend to this behemoth he’s created, which is popularly known as the NFL scouting combine. Time to still have the energy to “kick the dog a little bit.” That’s figurative…

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VIEWPOINT: Get ready for big-time public art

As president of Central Indiana Community Foundation, I get challenged by a lot of people who have a lot of questions. “Why can’t we have some of the cool stuff other cities have, like major public art?” a CEO of a public company asked me the other day. This time I was pleased to be able to answer not only that we can, but that we will. The Indianapolis Cultural Development Commission, with generous support from the Deborah Joy Simon…

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New suitor sees future in Standard: Investor says he’ll leave life insurance arm in Indy

John Franco left Kentucky-based ARM Financial Group Inc. more than a year before it imploded, and he sees Standard Life Insurance as his ticket to re-enter the insurance market. ARM Financial sank a few years ago under the weight of enormous losses, bankruptcy, shareholder lawsuits and insurance downgrades. Franco and others say he had nothing to do with the demise of the company he helped found. “After I left, the company pursued a very different path and the rest is…

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Artsy edge propels Y&L: Agency shows its creativity with 2nd Globe

But Indianapolis-based Young & Laramore needed more than the “I think I can” mantra of bedtime stories to make tracks for the big time. It needed a plan. The four-part strategy was simple in concept, if challenging in execution: Attract the talent necessary to do national-caliber work, put it to good use, get results and earn widespread recognition. “I’m a big believer in developing plans for growth and working hard at them,” said Paul Knapp, a lawyer by training and…

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CHRIS KATTERJOHN Commentary: Does good biz mean good guv?

CHRIS KATTERJOHN Commentary Does good biz mean good guv? It’s already crystal clear that Gov. Mitch Daniels intends to live up to his promise to shake things up in Indiana government. It’s even clearer that he believes the people who will help him succeed in doing so are people who have been successful in business. I’m guessing a large number of IBJ readers are eating this up. For as long as I can remember, businesspeople have complained about government bureaucracy…

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