FOP  PRESS RELEASE April 17, 2014

 While  the Evansville Fraternal Order of Police PAC has historically not made endorsements in the primary races,we decided after great consideration to take this unprecedented step.  We believe that the contested seat in both the County Commissioner and County Council Election will have a significant impact on the citizens of Vanderburgh County.  After interviewing the candidates, the Evansville Fraternal Order of Police PAC endorses Bruce Ungethiem for County Commissioner and Pete Swaim for County Council Fourth District.

Bruce Ungethiem was a strong ally with the local Evansville FOP, Lodge 73 in defeating the Referendum regarding consolidation in local government.  Ungethiem is a forward thinker, fiscally responsible and has an

abundance of life experience that would benefit Vanderburgh County.

Pete Swaim was a U.S. Marshall, has been a life-time member and Past President of the Evansville FOP. Lodge 73 while serving as a Deputy with the Vanderburgh County Sheriff’s Department, and is currently serving as the Fourth District County Councilman.

By  Dave Stafford , www.theindianalawyer.com

Offenders ordered to forgo alcohol in order to stay out of prison now have a powerful incentive to stay sober – they hold the key to their freedom in their hands.

Marion County and a few other Indiana localities are on the cutting edge of monitoring, having adopted a handheld, portable breath-test device that’s gaining favor among community corrections officials.

Emerge Monitoring’s RADAR – real-time alcohol detection and recognition – is a proprietary technology seen as an improvement over current monitoring that typically takes place at an offender’s home, usually on a set schedule. The new system allows community corrections to send a vibrating signal prompting a user to submit a breath test, results of which are immediately available.

Brian Barton, director of Emerge Monitoring’s Indianapolis office, demonstrates the company’s RADAR portable alcohol monitoring device. (IL Photo/ Dave Stafford)

Also available immediately is the location of the user, because RADAR relays GPS data every time the device is used.

Marion Superior 18 Judge William Nelson presides in one of three Indianapolis courts where the devices are being used. He conveyed the story of a person sentenced to 90 days of monitoring who completed the program without a positive test.

“He asked me to keep him on it,” Nelson said. “He said, ‘Judge, it worked. It kept me sober for 90 days.’ He thanked me for it.”

Nelson’s court is assigned Class D felonies, so he hears a fair number of repeat operating while intoxicated cases. He said those are the bulk of people he’s sentenced to community corrections with orders they submit to alcohol monitoring. About 60 offenders in Marion County are currently using the portable devices.

Before last summer, those people would have used home monitoring. “The home unit is usually scheduled three times a day – when they get up, when they get home
from work, and before they go to bed,” Nelson said.

“With this unit, it’s going to be at least three times a day, but because of its portability, it’s going to be more random,” he said. Community corrections officers may schedule RADAR tests at specific intervals, order random tests or test on demand.

“I prefer this,” Nelson said of RADAR. He said the units are more affordable and afford flexibility and discretion for users who continue to work, for instance. The units are funded through user fees, and in Marion County that can range from $1 to $12 per day based on ability to pay. That’s the same fee arrangement as for home monitoring.

“It’s a constant reminder of their need for sobriety,” Brian Barton said of the device that program participants must carry with them. Barton was director of Marion County’s Community Corrections for a dozen years before joining Emerge as director of the company’s Indianapolis office.

“Marion County has always relied heavily on alcohol monitoring,” Barton said. Because of jail crowding and other factors, he explained, Indianapolis has one of the largest community corrections programs in the nation.

Still, Barton said, “there was a hole in the alcohol monitoring in terms of real-time monitoring.” The home-based units created lag time because results of breath tests had to be downloaded before officials would be notified of a violation.

Notice now is instantaneous. Barton said if a user presents a positive test, additional tests are taken to confirm the result, and violations can include sanctions up to revocation of community corrections and execution of a prison sentence.

At a presentation recently to Marion Superior criminal judges, some expressed concern that the device might be handed off to someone else to administer a breath test. Emerge officials explained that the device contains two independent biometric measures – a breath print and a pulse wave, both calibrated to the assigned user.

RADAR portable alcohol monitoring device. (IL Photo/ Dave Stafford)

Someone else using the device would trigger a false test alert, Barton said. Emerge officials told judges they were aware of two cases in which a participant claimed in court that someone else had provided a positive alcohol breath test. But when told that allowing someone else to use the device was a program violation, the offenders recanted and acknowledged the positive tests were theirs, company officials told the judges.

Wells County Community Corrections Executive Director Blake Poindexter said the northeastern Indiana jurisdiction was one of the state’s first to test and deploy the RADAR device. “We were looking for a portable device we felt comfortable with,” he said.

“We’ve been very pleased with the accuracy and the ease of use for the offenders,” Poindexter said, adding that the county hopes to phase out its current in-home monitoring system. There currently are about 20 offenders using RADAR devices in Wells County.

The device also allows monitoring of offenders when they violate restrictions on their movements, for example. “Officers in the field after hours can check things out if we don’t have compliance,” Poindexter said.

Like Marion County, Wells County funds its program through user fees. The charge is $13 per day, but the county has established a fund for indigent users. “I did not have to increase that daily amount for newer technology,” Poindexter explained.

Poindexter agreed that the units are beneficial for offenders who want to embrace a change in their substance abuse. “I tell them it’s as much for their protection as it is for the confirmation of the court order.”

When Rush County set the groundwork for a community corrections program that began last July, Director Ashley Stevens said staff members tested the devices. A pilot program is monitoring two offenders with the devices.

Stevens said the device’s portability, real-time reporting and GPS features are among the most useful.

“We’ve worked with several different alcohol monitoring devices,” Stevens said. “RADAR is exciting to us and adds a lot of elements that haven’t been available in the past.”

St. Petersburg, Fla.-based Emerge is a subsidiary of Bankers Financial Corp., one of the nation’s largest providers of surety bail bonds, according to Barton. He said the Emerge technology represents part of the company’s efforts to reinvent itself.

He said RADAR offers a combination of technology that’s unique in the marketplace and easily adaptable to work with interlock devices installed on vehicle ignitions to require breath tests.

“I foresee a time that RADAR will be the device that we watch clients with,” Barton said. “It allows people to go to work, have a family and strategize to stay out of jail or prison.”•

By Jacob Rund
TheStatehouseFile.com

INDIANAPOLIS — Former legislator Peggy Welch, a Democrat, accepted a nomination from Republican Lt. Gov. Sue Ellspermann on Monday to become her director of intergovernmental relations.

Welch assumes office July 7 and will serve as the lieutenant governor’s liaison to city, town and county elected officials. She will serve as a member of Ellspermann’s management team.

“I am so pleased that Peggy Welch has accepted this important position in our office,” Ellspermann said in a press release. “I met Peggy when we served in the Legislature, and I developed a great respect for her commitment to serve the people of Indiana.”

Welch is currently the executive director of the Indiana Device Manufacturers Council and previously served as a registered nurse at IU Health Bloomington Hospital for 18 years.

Welch’s government service background includes time spent as the first director of the Monroe County Probation Department, a staff member of U.S. Senator Thad Cochran, and as a member of the Indiana House of Representatives. She was first elected to the House in 1998 and served the state in this position for 14 years.

During her time as a legislator, Welch served on the Ways and Means, Public Health, Government Reduction, and State Budget Committees and was considered to be one of the most conservative democrats in her caucus.

“In both her professional life and her numerous community activities, Peggy has been a model of servant leadership that is so important for our administration,” Ellspermann said in a statement. “As a legislator for 14 years, she also learned the value of maintaining communications and partnerships among all levels of government.”

“I thank Lt. Governor Ellspermann for this opportunity to work with local government leaders to enhance partnerships and collaboration with State government,” Welch said in a press release. “The agencies of the Lt. Governor’s office offer many valuable programs that I am eager to help promote throughout the state.”

Jacob Rund is a reporter for TheStatehouseFile.com, a news website powered by Franklin College journalism students.

By Erika Brock
TheStatehouseFile.com

INDIANAPOLIS – More than 300 schools were named Indiana Four Star Schools for 2012-13 by the Indiana Department of Education Tuesday.

“I am honored to name these (311) schools as our Four Star Schools for this year,” Glenda Ritz, Superintendent of Public Instruction, said in a statement. “Winning this award required excellent work by teachers, administrators, students and parents throughout the year and on behalf of the entire Indiana Department of Education I send them my sincere congratulations.”

To achieve this designation, a school must rank in the top 25 percentile in three ISTEP-based categories. To be considered in the calculations, a school must have at least 10 students tested in each subject. Only students enrolled for 162 days during the 2011-2012 school year were included.

Karen White, principal at Saint Lawrence School in Lawrenceburg, said the quality of their teachers is what made them successful.

“The teachers have high expectations and they hold those students to those expectation,” White said.

Saint Lawrence has been an Indiana Four Star School in previous years, but for some schools – such as East Washington Elementary School in Perkins – this is the first time.

East Washington’s principal, Lisa Thomas, said the school had been working diligently at aligning curriculum to what students needed and to help them succeed.

Thomas said the school strives for a family atmosphere, so that “when a student comes to school they just aren’t a student of the school, but they are our student.”

The complete list of the 311 Four Star Schools for 2012-2013 can be found here.

Erika Brock is a reporter for TheStatehouseFile.com, a news website powered by Franklin College journalism students.

By Ally Marlow
TheStatehouseFile.com

INDIANAPOLIS – Gov. Mike Pence told an audience of business and government leaders gathered Wednesday in Berlin that the mutual values and goals of Germany and Indiana will allow an already stable relationship to keep flourishing and help everyone reach prosperity.

Gov. Mike Pence joined executives from the Jäger Group in Hanover, Germany, on Wednesday to announce the company’s plans to expand operations of its subsidiary Jaeger-Unitek Sealing Solutions in La Porte, Ind., creating up to 52 new jobs by 2016. Photo courtesy of the governor’s office.
Gov. Mike Pence joined executives from the Jäger Group in Hanover, Germany, on Wednesday to announce the company’s plans to expand operations of its subsidiary Jaeger-Unitek Sealing Solutions in La Porte, Ind., creating up to 52 new jobs by 2016. Photo courtesy of the governor’s office.
“In America we speak of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” Pence said during a trade mission stop. “In Germany it is expressed as unity, justice, and freedom.”

Pence said in prepared remarks that international trade and relations are vital to global economic success. He asked for his audience to support the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership – a proposed free trade agreement under negotiation between the European Union and United States – in order to strengthen the already strong economic bonds that American has with Europe. Pence said he believes doing so will create security and combat with Russia’s recent aggression.

“International trade is vital to our mutual prosperity and leads to good paying jobs on both sides of the Atlantic,” he said.

Pence also lauded already strong ties between Germany and Indiana – and reiterated that the ties should and could extend across Europe and the United States. Germany is Indiana’s third biggest foreign trade outlet. More than $2 billion of goods from Indiana gets exported to Germany – a number that is constantly increasing.

Pence thanked the Germans for this commitment to Indiana product, but also asked for them to keep working towards a brighter future.

Common values and a dedication to freedom is what Pence said cemented the relationship between Germany and Indiana. He said all Europeans should use those same values in an effort to combat Russia.

“Especially now, I believe it is imperative that we who believe in democracy and freedom, stand against the forces that would reshape Europe by aggression,” Pence said. “As some claim territorial gains, they forfeit moral ground.”

Ally Marlow is a reporter for TheStatehouseFile.com, a news website powered by Franklin College journalism students.