The AP is reporting that the LaPorte County commissioners are considering an attempt to acquire the Toll Road whose operators have gone into bankruptcy. ITR has filed bankruptcy, and Gov. Daniels was incorrect when he said in 2006 that “even if they go under, we have our money and we’ll still own the toll road” and in 2008 “the leasing consortium goes bankrupt, the toll road reverts back to the state’s control.”

The Indiana Finance Authority has declined to take action to take control of the road, apparently reasoning that the road requires maintenance too extensive for the state to afford despite the doubling of the tolls that has taken place since 2005.

With respect to the seven county effort to take over the toll road:

[LaPorte] County Commissioner Da­vid Decker said having a nonprofit comprising the seven counties through which the 157-mile road passes – Lake, Porter, LaPorte, St. Joseph, Elkhart, LaGrange and Steuben – bid on the lease would be better than allowing another private firm to gain control of the road.

The consortium is engaging consultants to help them out.

The Associated Press has an article entitled “Toll Road An Epic Mess, Donnelly Says”. The operator to whom we leased the Indiana Toll Road for 75 long years has gone bankrupt about 10% of the way through the lease term. One of the selling points, back in 2006, was Gov. Daniels saying “if the leasing consortium goes bankrupt, “the Toll Road reverts back to the state’s control.””

Because this is not, in fact, true, the AP article says that Gov. Daniels “misspoke.” It’s plausible that Gov. Daniels believed that to be true but was wrong. But, even if we give him that benefit of the doubt, I still wouldn’t call that “misspeaking.” He said what he meant to say.

I have not driven the Toll Road in years. (Once again, a big thanks to the motorists of Northern Indiana for subsidizing the roads of southlanders like me. That’s mighty nice of you.) So, not having seen it, I can’t say first hand what it’s condition might be. Political opponents of the toll road deal have an incentive to paint the conditions as a scene out of the Road Warrior, soaked in the urine of hobos.

Sen. Joe Donnelly called the situation “a mess of epic proportions” and has asked the Indiana Finance Authority, which owns the toll road, to ensure that road conditions are safe, toll booths are staffed, and rest plazas and restrooms are clean.

“The people of northern Indiana and the entire state of Indiana deserve better and were promised better,” he said.

Travelers have complained of long waits at toll plazas, bridges that haven’t been repaired in more than a year and rest stops that reek of urine, Donnelly told The Times in Munster.

According to the article, however, the State gets the road back only if the post-bankruptcy, restructured entity defaults on its obligations. My sense (without having read the lease in several years) is that, absent a pretty bright line default, getting the road back for subjective concerns about road conditions would happen only after lengthy, scorched earth litigation.

On July 28, 2010, the Indiana Court of Appeals handed down the opinion of Putnam County Sheriff v. Pamela Rice. It continues what I see as a trend of judicial decisions eroding the immunities available to Indiana’s law enforcement officers under the Indiana Tort Claims Act. As I suggested in an earlier post, the more this continues, the more inaction by law enforcement is the safer liability option. In other words, if police officers sit on their hands, they are much less likely to be sued successfully.

The most recent installment involves a cold November morning at 5:30 a.m. where a Sheriff’s Deputy responded to an accident involving an icy roadway. Turns out the local water authority had a pipe leaking across the road. He called in the situation, and the local water authority that owned the pipe, among others, were notified. But, he didn’t hang around the site until the problem was fixed or stick around to wave off other motorists. Then, at 7:15 a.m., another motorist had an accident at the icy spot. The Indiana Court of Appeals held that the Sheriff could be liable for the second person’s injuries because, it concluded, “the Sheriff has a duty to warn the public of a known hazardous condition.” The court further opined that this duty was not closely enough related to things like preventing crime and providing emergency services to afford the Sheriff the immunity available for those activities.

I think the legislature needs to step in and clarify its intent with respect to the immunities available to law enforcement officials. The nature of the job is that police officers have to get involved in situations where bad things are happening – meaning, a disproportionate number of people injured in one fashion or another. The less they are protected from claims of negligence – resulting from the fact that the government has deep pockets more than from any notable wrongdoing – the more the incentive is going to run toward inactivity.

The General Assembly’s “summer” study committees are kicking into gear. Information on the committees is available here.

The Lafayette Journal & Courier has a story on how gas prices have jumped in Lafayette, a subject near and dear to my heart since my present commute to work is about 25 miles. However, I’m moving to Lafayette in about 2 weeks which will cut my commute to about 3 miles. So each increase in gas prices make the enormous hassles of moving seem more worthwhile.

So, while I might find a short-lived and perverse sort of silver lining, on the statewide scale, it seems possible that the ever upward march of gas prices could tarnish the two brighter lights of Indiana’s economy in the news today: Toll Road privatization money and the new Honda plant. With increasing tolls and increased gas prices, driving on the Toll Road is a far more expensive proposition now than it was, say 6 or 7 years ago. Presumably increased gas prices will also reduce the demand for automobiles, even if the one’s produced by Honda in Greenville are comparatively more gas efficient.

With respect to these stories, mainly, I suppose, the cost of gasoline calls into question the wisdom of spending the Toll Road privatization money on more roads. I can’t say I know what the correct expenditure would be — I guess that’s where vision and leadership come in handy. (And judging from the quote in the toll road story, we’re not likely to get it from Pat Bauer any more than we’ve gotten it from Gov. Daniels. Bauer complains that, while we’re making interest on the privatization dollars, the foreigners are making a bunch more money. I don’t think foreign businesses making money is the problem — it’s the fact that Hoosiers are going to be paying an ever-increasing tab for the next 70 years. The two are related, of course, but I think it’s important to articulate what the real beef is. )

Representative Dvorak has posted a list of topics to be studied by legislative interim study committees which I will shamelessly cut and paste:

Interim Study Committee on Public Health and Safety Matters
-Railroad labor camps
-Coal mine safety
-Smoke detectors and sprinklers in health facilities
-Food handling regulations for tax-exempt organizations

Interim Study Committee on Government Administration and Regulatory Matters
-Impact of privatization of non-health related services performed or administered by state agencies
-Impact of privatization on state employees who have been laid off
-License branch operations and closings
-Eminent domain issues (including the use by small, private utilities)
-Various matters involving non-profit entities

Interim Study Committee on Criminal Justice Matters
-Rights of “next of kin” in situations involving criminal activity
-Improvements to Indiana’s background check system
-Coroner qualification issues

Interim Study Committee on Children’s Issues
-Child labor
-Children’s health issues with emphasis on diabetes and obesity

Interim Study Committee on Alcoholic Beverage Issues
-Alcoholic beverage display requirements
-Clerk licensure and training
-Other various issues that were not resolved during the last session

Statutory Committees

Code Revision Commission
-Using respectful language when referring to people with disabilities in code

Counterterrorism and Security Council
-Security at ports, freight yards, and rail yards

Commission on Courts
-Appelate issues
-Establishment of a dedicated fund for court fees
-Establishment of a court with exclusive jurisdiction over commercial driver’s license cases

Indiana Economic Development Corporation
-Whether to develop incentives to encourage film, television, and new media production

Environmental Quality Service Council
-Indiana’s impact on Lake Michigan water quality and participation in the Great Lakes Protection Fund
-Regional sewer districts

Health Finance Commission
-Cost of delivering health care to diabetics
-Health coverage systems used in other jurisdictions
-Monitor and report on the impact of the privatization of health services performed or administered by state agencies (including the impact on laid off employees)
-Advisability of a certification program for surgical technicians

Health Policy Advisory Committee
-Restraint of trade issues associated with contact lenses
-Advisability of consolidating all the various health-related study committees

Select Joint Commission on Medicaid Oversight
-Medicaid reimbursement rates

Commission on Mental Health
-Social, emotional, and behavioral health screening of children

Natural Resources Study Committee
-Park issues, including development of Rail/Trail corridors

Pension Management Oversight Commission
-Police and fire pensions
-Factors used to compute public employee pensions
-Funding sources for pension relief for municipalities
-Issues related to the 1977 Police and Fire pension and disability fund

Regulatory Flexibility Committee
-Renewable energy development

Sentencing Policy Study Committee
-Impact of sealing and expunging criminal arrest and adjudication records, including the impact on employment and recidivism rates

Commission on State Tax and Financing Policy
-Eligibility for certain military benefits
-Expanding eligibility for the property tax deduction for low-income senior citizens by removing AV criteria
-Child welfare system funding
-Issues pertaining to public transportation and commerce