Motorsports Investment District/Slush Fund

I read a great piece of reporting in the Speedway Town Press the other day regarding the proposed expansion of the "Motorsports Investment District." Being the curious and nerdy person that I am, I started looking into exactly what this "MID" is.

The first place I looked was in the Indiana Code of state laws. I found a few interesting tidbits:

For starters, this entire thing is a vehicle by which our legislature showers our tax dollars on private enterprise. Please remember this the next time Senator "Small Government" R. Michael Young talks about his "conservative values."

Next, this golden shower of taxpayer coin is available for "Qualified Motorsports Facilities," a term defined by statute to mean a race track that is at least 2 miles in length and holds at least two events per year, the combined attendance at which is at least 200,000. Hmmmm. Can't imagine who that's directed at.

The law creates the Indiana Motorsports Commission, which is empowered, among other things, to receive federal pork and incur debts. It is also authorized to request money from the State, not to exceed $5,000,000 per fiscal year.

The entirety of the statute is available for viewing at Indiana Code 5-1-17.5. Here is a link to the Indiana Code.

My point in this is not to trash IMS, which I believe to be a wonderful partner in our community. Given the largesse showered upon the Pacers and Colts, not to mention seemingly every casino project in the state, I can't blame them for trying to get a piece of the action.

The real blame lies with our state legislature, which has never encountered a piece of corporate welfare that it could resist. Remember, these people sell themselves as fiscal conservatives and then turn around and give your tax money away at every opportunity.

As they used to say at the poker table, "put up or shut up." Mike Young, show your fiscal conservatism or shut up about it. I would say the same thing to the remainder of our state legislature. Until you show some balls and forego the opportunities to shower well-heeled interests with public funds, your "fiscal conservatism" should be regarded as the sick, hypocritical joke that it is.

For more reading on the subject, I suggest reading Paul Ogden's blog or the late great Gary Welsh's Advance Indiana.

Unenforced Laws

When I taught, I often lamented that a student handbook was pointless if nobody was going to enforce it. In other words, it is better to have two laws that are always enforced than to have 2,000 laws that are sporadically enforced.

It is in that spirit that I bring you section 9.16.010 of the Speedway Municipal Code:

Every dead tree in excess of two and one-half inches in diameter at the base thereof and located closer to either a public street, sidewalk, alley or other public place than the height of the tree is a public nuisance.

Huh. How about that? Perhaps there is more in this part of the Muni code that will explain why the 60-year-old dead ash tree leaning over my house is still there. I bring you section 9.16.030:

Every owner of land upon which a public nuisance exists as declared in either Sections 9.16.010 or 9.16.020 shall abate the same his own expense.

OK. So my neighbor is supposed to abate the problem at his/her own expense. Fine as far as it goes. Let's keep looking at the code, shall we? How about section 9.16.050:

If any owner fails to abate a public nuisance which he is obligated to abate under either Sections 9.16.030 or 9.16.040, the town marshal or one of his deputies shall serve upon the owner a notice describing by street number or legal description the premises upon which the nuisance exists and the nature of the nuisance and demanding its immediate abatement.

I'm looking at you Speedway Police Department! Where are you? What if they're too busy to address this? Well, I bring you section 9.16.060 (in relevant part):

If any owner fails or refuses to abate a nuisance for a period of five days following the receipt of proper notice as provided in Section 9.16.050, the town attorney is authorized and directed to bring suit in any court of competent jurisdiction to enforce the abatement of the nuisance.

So, if I read this right, I have to wait on the Speedway Police Dept. to address the nuisance issue and, if they don't, I have to wait for the town attorney to bring suit to require the tree be cut down.

A few nerdy legal questions:
1. Does this preempt a common law nuisance action?
2. If this tree falls on my house, does this preempt my right of recovery?
3. If it does not preempt my right of recovery, does it implicate the Town of Speedway?
4. Do I even have standing to bring a common law nuisance action?

Aside from my nerdy legal questions, I can't help but feel that a refusal to enforce this law imposes burdens on our neighborhoods. My neighbor's dead tree puts me in a real bind. Consider:

• It is well over 80 feet tall
• It is entirely dead
• It is within a 10 feet or so of my house
• I don't believe my neighbor can afford to cut it down (the tree is not on my property)

I am left, so far as I can tell, with the following options:

a) keep rolling the dice with the safety of my family and the biggest investment I've ever made (my home); or

b) reach out to my neighbor about the dead tree, and when my neighbor indicates an inability or unwillingness to have the tree removed, I can threaten to sue my neighbor over it.

Clearly, there must be a better way.

Thoughts on Strip Malls

Both readers of this blog are likely aware of my thoughts regarding strip malls, particularly the monstrosity of a strip mall that is located on Crawfordsville Rd., roughly between Lynhurst and High School Rd.

Local attorney and law professor Paul Ogden had a recent blog post that nicely encapsulates the problem with malls in general. Rather than try to repeat the general point, here is a snippet:

The structure that is the mall, as well as the large parking lots surrounding the building, consume a considerable amount of real estate.  When those malls fail, they become extremely difficult to repurpose.  They often end up being a blight on the neighborhood for years. 

If this was the only problem with malls and strip malls, it would be a huge problem. However, problems abound:

It would appear that in searching for gimmicks to drive foot traffic to the retail stores, mall owners are fighting a losing battle.   With the exception of certain consumer items, consumers prefer the convenience of shopping from the convenience of their homes.  That is a niche that Amazon has cornered, although even that company faces growing competition when it comes to online retail.

But as one looks to the future of retail, one wonders if even the Amazon model might be outdated.  The Amazon approach right now is for wholesalers and manufacturers to ship goods to the company which it then stores in incredibly large "fulfillment centers."  Then when a customer orders the item from the Amazon website, it gets shipped once again, this time to the customer.  Amazon became popular because it enhanced customer convenience by eliminating the need to visit a brick and mortar store to shop.  But the Amazon retail approach, which requires considerable overhead, doesn't provide much in the way of cost savings to the consumer.  Eventually Amazon may be replaced with a web-based shopping approach that links customers with wholesalers and manufacturers so that items may be purchased directly, saving consumers a substantial amount of money while cutting out brick-and-mortar online retailers such as Amazon. 

While I don't have any unifying theories as to how to address the immediate problem of post-mall blight, suffice it to say that this is a problem that can't be indefinitely ignored. The sooner we start considering possible solutions, the better.

UPDATE:

While I generally try to avoid comment sections if I can, this caught my attention:

Anyone with a mind only functioning at half-speed understands the day of the big mall passed long ago. That the billionaire Simon family was allowed to walk away from its aging, dilapated, increasingly vacant Washington Square with the effective outcome of saddling the City and Her taxpayers with an ugly architectural and financially losing behemoth is a crime against the east side, the City of Indianapolis, and human decency in general. 

Anyone with a mind only functioning at half-speed also understands Castleton is the new Lafayette Square and I can only surmise from the lessons of history that Castleton Square Mall will one day in the not too distant future look exactly like the monstrosity beached near W. 38th Street and Lafayette Road.

Sometimes all you can do is tip your cap. Thank you, to the anonymous poster who made this comment.

High School Hours

I am a former high school teacher and, accordingly, take a particular interest in many things "educational."

I saw something on CBS this morning about how middle school and high school kids aren't getting enough sleep, and I was utterly unsurprised. I spent numerous years seeing kids come in groggy eyed. Now, of course, I don't completely excuse the kids themselves in the following analysis . . . I know, it's shocking to think that there might just be a certain amount of laziness in teenagers.

BUT

It makes a lot of sense to consider pushing school back 2-3 hours. Teenagers require 8-10 hours/night of sleep, and it is simply not reasonable to expect them to get to bed every night by 10 p.m. When I taught, school went roughly from 8-3. Why not push that back 3 hours?

School starting at 11 a.m. would not necessitate a shortage of sleep.

My experience is that most "teenage trouble" happens from the time they get out of school until their parents get home from work. It certainly did for me. If I got out of school at 6, when would I have had time to get into trouble?

As far as sports and extra-curricular activities go, they could either be scheduled after school, until 9 o'clock or so, or in the morning. Exercise in the morning is good for teenagers, and may help cancel out negative effects of having to get up too early.

Now, of course there is the drawback of not having mom and dad there to make junior get up and go to school in the morning. However, methinks that the kids who would just skip school likely don't have a lot of parental enforcement of school attendance in the first place.

Another idea is to have the school open for 10 hours and simply require that teenagers get 7 classes in during that 10 hours. That would probably be something teachers would like, presuming that they aren't required to teach 10 classes per day and keep their current classload. Some teachers, based on the demand, would get in early and off early. Some would get in late and off late. It kind of seems like an efficient use of capital goods (classrooms) and flexible use of human capital.

I wonder how the community would react if Speedway H.S. went to this kind of a schedule. I would certainly be supportive, but I notice that many people think that high schools should simultaneously be (a) exactly like they used to be back in "the good old days," and (b) perfectly suited to modern requirements and knowledge. (Kind of hard to be both)

Todd Young - Political Prototype

I am at a point where I really can't tell the difference between Evan Bayh and Todd Young, other than the letter next to their respective names. They both have that "too slick to be believed" manner about them; they both appear to have precisely zero principles; and they both have the prototypical politician's resume, by which I mean "lawyer who never practiced law."

Evan Bayh had a daddy who was the governor of IN. He then graduated from law school, joined Barnes & Thornburg and quickly made partner (can't imagine why the biggest law firm in the city, with extensive lobbying business, would want to hire the son of an ex-governor, but I digress). Thereafter, he became IN's governor, then Senator. Then, amazingly, he went to work at McGuire Woods, an even larger law firm than B & T, only located in Washington, D.C. He joined their "government relations" practice group. Huh. Frankly, I think he deserved to lose his last race in IN, as he has been the Eddie Haskel of IN politics long enough.

That crown has now passed to the new Eddie Haskel of IN politics: Todd Young.

Sen. Young has one hauntingly familiar item on his resume: lawyer who never really practiced law. Believe it or not, it is a matter of public record how many cases Todd Young ever appeared in. He earned his law degree in 2006 and appeared in a whopping 11 cases in the ensuing years before going back on the taxpayer's dole.

I will have more thoughts in the future, rest assured.

"Characters"

Some very dear friends of mine, over the years, have come to believe some rather crazy things. For those wondering, here is a primer of things that people believe that are not true:

• The government is not creating a weather machine;
• There is no PBS conspiracy to turn your kids gay;
• There are no secret socialist messages contained in the facades of historic buildings;
• Obama was never going to come for your guns

The list goes on, but I think my general point holds. It is interesting to note, now, that one of the foremost purveyors of what can colloquially be called "crazy shit" has now stated in open court that he does not believe anything he says.

At a recent pretrial hearing, attorney Randall Wilhite told state District Judge Orlinda Naranjo that using his client Alex Jones’ on-air Infowars persona to evaluate Alex Jones as a father would be like judging Jack Nicholson in a custody dispute based on his performance as the Joker in “Batman.”

“He’s playing a character,” Wilhite said of Jones. “He is a performance artist.”

So, what I am to understand from this is that Alex Jones is no more a crazy right-wing conspirator than Mick Jagger is a street-fighting man. He doesn't believe a word of what he's saying, regardless of all the people he influences who believe him, chapter and verse?

Irony Alert: I don't listen to Alex Jones if I can help it, but I have heard enough right-wing bloviation over the years to hear my fair share of lectures about how (insert hip hop/rock n' roll/popular culture/liberalism) is a rot on our culture and the purveyors of this rot are cynically exploiting and hurting our society to make money. Hmmmmm. Perhaps he's not the only cynical member of the right-wing infotainment complex. I'd comment on the left-wing infotainment complex, but this is IN and there is no such thing here.

Anyway, I can't help but wonder who's cynically exploiting whom? And who is being exploited?

As my first boss in litigation told me, if you look around the room and can't figure out who the sucker is, it's you.

Any thoughts, dear reader, on Limbaugh, Hannity, Garrison, Glenn Beck, Pat Miller (in Ft. Wayne), Abdul Hakeem Shabaz, etc.?

Easter and the Decline of Religion

It is a beautiful day today. Happy Easter! I have been thinking about the general decline in religiosity in America recently, and I have a theory for why so many people have been turned off from church: partisan politics and certain churches' embrace thereof.

I don't go to church to be told that my liberal views disqualify me from heaven. I'm sure my conservative friends feel much the same.

Of course, this is not an indictment of all, or even most, churches. However, it is an indictment of some of the loudest voices in the room, so to speak. When Ralph Reed, or some other know-nothing jackass, purports to tell me that my behavior disqualifies me from the life everlasting, I am offended; particularly when this charlatan can't be bothered to speak out about Donald Trump's series of marriages and general habit of screwing people over.

My own church is remarkably abstinent when it comes to hot-button political issues: no talk of guns or abortion; prayers for peace; etc. This is not to say that my church doesn't address difficult subjects, but it is an equal-opportunity scold. Not everything is the fault of godless liberals or heartless conservatives. We are all terrible in our own unique ways.

Some thoughts, scattered and incomplete per usual.

Thoughts on United Airlines Video

Unless you've been living under a rock somewhere, you have no doubt at least heard about this video:

No doubt, this video is shocking and appalling. I have seen an interesting explanation for why this is necessary on Vox, written by Matt Yglesias (a fine writer who I cannot recommend highly enough).

However, I have some thoughts on the practice of overbooking in general that differ somewhat from Yglesias' explanation for why this was "necessary."

Necessity aside, I think that there was a simple market solution to this: offer people more money to give up their seats. If nobody is willing to get off the plane for $100, offer $200. If that doesn't work, offer $300, and so on and so forth. Sooner or later, the price will get to the point where somebody is willing to accept the offer. Problem solved.

If offering so much money for a passenger to give up a seat on a flight renders the practice of overbooking unprofitable, GOOD! STOP OVERBOOKING!

I recognize that running a profitable airline is difficult, but so is running a profitable lawncare service or law firm. Difficulties in a business model do not confer on a business the right to unilaterally rescind contracts with, or assault, its customers.

If the free market is as magical as people say, perhaps that magic needs to work for all people, not just wealthy incumbent economic actors. In other words, don't preach the virtue of the free market when it's convenient only to disregard the vice of the market when such vice invariably rears its ugly head. Sauce for the goose, sauce for the gander, etc.

Possible Parking Solution

For all of the talk about the Wilshaw and the possible parking problems it will create, it seems to me that the debate could be more constructive if we focus less on recriminations and more on offering solutions. Here is but one solution among many that occurs to me: Speedway public transit.

We could have a "free" streetcar/trolley that runs basically from McGilvery's to Big Woods in the evening and on the weekends. The trolley could go through the neighborhoods, perhaps once per half hour, between 6 and 10 p.m. during the week and 5 and midnight on the weekends. How much could that really cost? Inasmuch as people want to come to Main St. and dine, drink, etc., they could park essentially anywhere in Speedway and be transported to their destination of choice. Similarly, any resident of Speedway could simply hop on the trolley and be taken across town: no parking concerns, no drinking and driving concerns.

Taken a step further, I see no reason why the free market couldn't provide this service as well, though they would have to limit service and charge fares. A free market solution would likely just run from Kroger to Main St., as Kroger has an abundance of parking. That would be more directed at visitors only, whereas the public trolley would also benefit residents.

A flawed and not-fully-developed plan to be sure, but ideas have a way of refining themselves over time.

Some food for thought.

Civic Participation

As a follow up to my post about the Board of Zoning Appeals, I can't help but think that people don't participate in civic matters largely because such matters are so fragmented.

As an example, I believe that Meadowood Park has no fewer than 20 trees that need to be cut down, as they are dead and represent a hazard. How do I get that to happen?

Do I go to a town council meeting?

Do I talk to the Speedway Town Trustee?

Do I speak with the town manager?

Parks Department?

It is likely that there are possibilities that I am missing, but I think the point is clear. There are so many conflicting and different layers to government bureaucracy that most people just throw their hands up and decide not to participate.

I could say something similar with respect to elections. How many people actively learn about the town councilors they vote for? How many people could name all 5, or even a majority, of them? How many people just blindly pull the lever for their preferred party? Not to mention, why do we need elections 3 out of every 4 years? We just had a presidential election. I am not aware of any 2017 elections, but the 2018 election will determine ongoing control of congress. 2019 will see the election of a new mayor in Indianapolis and a new town council in Speedway. Is there any reason why our town council election is not held on the day of the presidential election? Certainly that would boost voter turnout; perhaps that's why it's not held on that day. I don't know.

More scattered thoughts on why, perhaps, people are discouraged from actively participating in their own democracy.

Wilshaw, Board of Zoning Appeals, and "Inside Baseball"

So, last night, the Speedway Board of Zoning Appeals held a hearing on 5 specific variances that the developers of the Wilshaw wanted from local zoning codes.

While I tended to disagree with the remonstrators' comments against the development, one thing that I noted was the difficulty of being heard in the right forum about the right topic.

Frankly, I don't know what the solution is. However, I noted that most citizens who spoke up about their concerns were not doing so in the right forum . . . they all wanted to discuss the bond that was under consideration a few weeks ago. To the contrary, the meeting was about five specific things that the Wilshaw developers wanted to do that were technically in violation of local zoning ordinances. The meeting had nothing to do with the bond, and the Board of Zoning Appeals does not (to my knowledge) have anything to do with floating bonds.

I understand the frustrations felt by people who feel like the game is rigged and show up to meetings that sound like so much "inside baseball" to the average citizen and provide little opportunity for input or feedback, as the meetings are about specific, discrete issues.

About that Pesky "Private" Property Thing

There has been some discussion recently on Nextdoor about what to do regarding the eyesore strip mall that extends from PetSmart, through Kroger, and all the way to Donato's and the Speedway Chamber of Commerce.

As much as I'd love to suggest things the Town could do, unfortunately, hands are basically tied.

I read an interesting article out of northwest Indiana recently about similar troubles. I highly recommend it.

A few highlights:

With Kmart closing its Merrillville location in December, town officials are concerned what will happen with the vacant building. 

How long that building at 101 Lincoln Highway will go unused is unpredictable. A Kmart building near 95th Avenue and U.S. 41 in St. John has been unoccupied since October 2012. 

Sounds hauntingly familiar, no?

Officials in both towns might look into what Valparaiso did when the city faced a similar situation with a former Walmart at U.S. 30 and Ind. 49. That structure remained vacant for a long time before being torn down. A Tractor Supply Co. store was eventually built in its space in 2005.

 

Valparaiso city officials around that time decided to create a Big Box Abandonment Prevention ordinance that includes a plan of action in which the owner of the property must meet with the city and file a plan of action for reuse of the property. It includes maintaining the property, reuse of the site by the existing owner or active remarketing of the facility.

The ordinance, which Valparaiso has not had to put to use, states the property owner must file monthly reports with the city that detail, among other things, listing agents for the property, maintenance activities to prevent blight and decay, and improvement activities related to reuse of the property. Failure to file this plan, a binding contract with the city, would mean the city could provide notice of its intent to condemn and demolish the property and charging all costs to the owner. 

Often lost in the discussion of how to develop land as quickly as possible is what happens when the structures near the end of their useful life? Rest assured, property owners want to squeeze every last bit of value out of structures before tearing them down. I can't blame them, but when that desire results in costs that the property owner does not bear, then there is a problem.

Kil said the Kmart property is owned by Garden Properties in New Jersey, and they have no plans to sell it. He said he was told by one of its representatives that it is the policy and business plan of their company to not sell their properties. 

"They will only enter into long-term leases with what they consider to be blue chip tenants," he said. "They are willing to sit on properties for decades if that's what it takes."

Kil said he was given an example of a vacant property the company owns in Chicago's northwest suburbs that "took them 10 years to lease." 

"Their policy is real clear," he said.

When contacted by The Times, Garden Properties said there was no update regarding Kmart and they had no other comments.

It seems to me that there ought to be a mechanism in place whereby a community can force a property owner, be it a homeowner or the owner of a big box store, to maintain property in a manner so as to not negatively affect the surrounding properties or be subject to condemnation. In the case of a home, that probably means such things as keep the grass mowed. When it comes to retail space, that probably includes keeping the place generally occupied. It seems that this would compel all property owners to tend to their belongings or risk losing them.

These are scattered thoughts, of course. However, they seem pertinent in light of ongoing efforts to improve Speedway. Not only do we want it to be nice for 2017 and 2018, but also for 2030 and 2050.

Short-sightedness is no virtue.

Guitars (nerdy)

Please bear with me.

I don't know if anyone reading this gets into guitars, but there is and has been an ongoing debate between what I will, as shorthand, call the Les Paul crowd and the Strat crowd. I might even broaden it to the Humbuckers vs. the Strats.

On the humbucker side, we have all of the big Les Paul guitars that were ever made, by and large. We have most of the hollow-body and semi-hollow guitars, including the one and only Lucille (B.B. King). We also have the Flying V, Explorer, and Thunderbird. All of these are fine guitars with big, fat sounds. Such legends as Duane Allman, the aforementioned B.B. King, Warren Haynes, Jimmy Paige, Slash, Billy Gibbons, Ace Frehley, Angus Young, Albert King, Tony Iommi, Lonnie Mack, Randy Rhoads, the list goes on and on and on and on . . . they all played humbuckers, almost exclusively. It is perhaps one of the pinnacle achievements of man to listen to the sound of a good humbucker through a vintage tube amplifier with just the right amount of reverb and distortion (and maybe just a pinch of delay).

Then, there's the Strat.

As an initial matter, lets all agree that the Strat is not just the Stratocaster but instead is the world of tinny, single-coil, slappy, twangy guitars out there, particularly including the Telecaster. It also encompasses the world of wannabe single-coil Strat/Tele style guitars on the market. This is much more so than with humbuckers because the humbucker either achieves its end or it doesn't. One of the amazing things about the single-coil guitar is its ability to paper over other flaws in the guitar by virtue of its tone.

Strats tend to sound better clean than dirty also. As above, the sound that one can produce via some reverb and just the right amount of delay is a wonderful thing. Strat/Tele afficionados include such lightweights as Stevie Ray Vaughan, Jimi Hendrix, David Gilmore, Mark Knopfler, Buddy Holly, Keith Richards (Telecaster), Waylon Jennings (Telecaster), and on and on and on.

The electric guitar is something in which America can and should take great pride.

Sen. Donnelly (D-IN)

Soon-to-be ex-Senator Joe Donnelly will not be receiving my vote in November, 2018. I would rather vote for my neighbor, or brother, or that crazy Tea Party/Trump guy I saw in front of the statehouse the other day. At least they have a spine.

Joe Donnelly does not.

I can't think of one instance of Joe Donnelly standing up for progressive values. Gun Control? Obamacare? Crickets.

Now, he has indicated that he will refuse to stand with the Democratic filibuster of the stolen nomination of Neil Gorsuch. Let's never forget that the American people decided who they wanted to choose Supreme Court Justices in 2016 . . . in November, 2012. For those who forget easily, that person was President Obama. He nominated Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court. Mitch McConnell et al decided that didn't count. Joe Donnelly is now complicit in this.

You own it Joe, but you will never again own my vote.

Your cowardice will garner you not a single vote from those who would fault you for filibustering this stolen nomination.

It will, however, earn you a "present" vote from me. I doubt I'll vote for your opponent, but how can I vote for you, Sen. Donnelly, when I know that you refuse to stand up for progressive values when it counts? Either you disagree with me on foundational issues (i.e. stolen Supreme Court nominations) or you simply refuse to stand up for what is right.

Neither rationale convinces me that I should vote for you. So I won't.

Prayers in School

I watched Indiana Lawmakers last night, and there was a very thoughtful discussion about prayer in school. As a former educator, I have some thoughts on this topic.

For starters, the Indiana General Assembly needs to stop addressing the issue (seemingly every session). Moving targets are hard to hit, and changing rules make for difficult compliance.

Also, most advocates on any side of the issue need to be mindful of a few parameters.

First, because a school is a government institution, it has to be careful that it does not suppress students' right to religion. This means that students can pray in their own time and space; students can do projects on religion to the degree that they want to; they can write essays about their religious experience; and the bible can be used as a primary source for literature lessons, should students choose to use it.

Of course, there's also another side to that coin.

Again, a school is a governmental institution and it needs to be careful that it does not endorse any particular religion or selectively allow student religious expression. To the degree that a school allows for students to write about their religious experience, this becomes problematic when the school allows the Christian student to express religion but disallows the Muslim, Jewish, or Hindu student from doing so. Further, the school itself can not be seen to be endorsing religion. This includes such things as having explicitly Christian-oriented events, i.e. a "Christmas" program.

We need to be mindful of the balance, and I believe that 50 years' worth of 1st amendment jurisprudence is reasonably clear.

I could write much more on this, i.e. perhaps it's inappropriate for the Speedway Town Council to conduct official prayer sessions? However, this is a fraught topic and it seems that the more it's discussed, the less people agree on it.