Warrick County – Effective immediately, Lincoln Avenue will be closed to thru traffic between Bell Road and Frame Road. A physical barrier located just west of Brandywine will prevent thru traffic. Motorists needing access to residences west of Brandywine will have to enter Lincoln Avenue from Frame Road. Motorists needing access to Brandywine and all points east will need to enter Lincoln Avenue from Bell Road. Motorists that must enter this area are encouraged to reduce their speed and keep a watchful eye for construction workers. Lincoln Avenue between Bell Road and Frame Road is expected to be closed for approximately three weeks.

INDIANAPOLIS – I get this question a lot…at Third House meetings, from people I meet on the street, from members of my own family.

“So, what are you guys doing up there in Indianapolis?”

I want to be optimistic and tell them that we are making strides on helping the middle class, improving the quality of education in our local public schools, and just making life in general better for Hoosiers.

But it gets tough after weeks like the last one.

Early last week, the Republican chairman of the House Ways & Means Committee strolled to the microphone at the end of a session day and told the members that he was not going to hear a bill that would expand affordable health care to more than 400,000 Hoosiers and provide the means to give 30,000 Hoosiers jobs.

Rather than taking advantage of the federal health care expansion – which would bring close to $10.5 billion back to our state, by the way – the governor has chosen to try to convince Washington to expand a statewide health care plan that cannot come close to providing the level of coverage that can come from the federal Affordable Care Act.

And if the federal government says no to the governor’s plan? There is no backup plan. And that is my major complaint with the process-no backup plan for the legislature to discuss!

Where does that leave Hoosiers wanting to cut medical expenses and avoid using the emergency room as their primary health care option? No one knows, which is more than just a little scary to think about.

When the House majority wasn’t turning its back on health care, it was approving a proposal that places almost complete control of our state’s largest city in the hands of its mayor. If this legislation becomes law, the mayor will be the ultimate authority over the purse strings and the policy, without any need for input from other locally-elected officials on the city-county council.

By any definition that you choose to use, this is a power grab by majority Republicans to help the Republican mayor of Indianapolis. It is a slap in the face of home rule, locally elected councils and any other standard of local representative government that comes to mind.

And while you’re thinking about that, think about how easy it would be for lawmakers to try and install a similar system – one person controlling everything – in other communities?

But if you think all the news last week was bad, I want to end on a slightly more positive note.

Over the past couple of weeks, you probably saw the news about a proposal to require that every single public and charter school have at least one armed employee roaming its halls each day.

We all want our schools to be safe, but this plan offered no explanation how we would pay for the plan, or how these people would be selected or trained.

As time went along, legislators on both sides of the aisle in the House began to consider the enormous risks involved in this plan, and it was decided to take some time and give us a chance to study the proposal in depth over the summer. If it makes sense, we can come back in 2014 and take further action. We need to think long and hard about what we are doing when it comes to improving the safety and security of our schools: Now we have the time to do exactly that.

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As always, please contact me if you have any questions, comments or concerns related to our state government. Here is how you can stay in touch: call my office toll-free at 1-800-382-9842; write to me in care of the Indiana House of Representatives, 200 W. Washington St., Indianapolis, IN 46204; or email me at h77@iga.in.gov.

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State Representative Gail Riecken
Indiana House District 77

STATEHOUSE — House Enrolled Act (HEA) 1111, which deals with tactical emergency medicine, was signed into law today by Governor Pence. State Representative Wendy McNamara (R-Mount Vernon) authored the measure along with co-author, State Representative Ron Bacon (R-Chandler).

With the enactment of this law, trained SWAT professionals will have the authority to use their tactical medical skills during an emergency when EMTs have not yet arrived. The SWAT team will now have the go ahead to act instead of waiting for others to assist them.

“It can be difficult to fully prepare for an emergency, but providing trained professionals with the authority to assist when needed is a great start,” said Rep. McNamara. “This legislation will give trained SWAT officers the ability to use their tactical emergency medicine skills instead of waiting for EMTs to arrive.”

HEA 1111 allows an individual to practice tactical emergency medicine if the individual:

1. is an emergency medical technician, an advanced emergency medical technician, or a

paramedic;

2. is employed by a law enforcement agency or an emergency medical services agency to

provide retrieval and field medical treatment to victims of violent confrontations; and

3. has successfully completed an accredited educational training program in tactical

emergency medicine.

“In Indiana, there are many qualified people who have received tactical emergency medicine training but, due to inconsistencies, they cannot use these skills to the full extent of their capability,” said Rep. Bacon. “This legislation seeks to allow for the use of tactical emergency medicine by setting three guidelines in order to do so.”

“Time is of the essence during emergencies and can make the difference between life and death. I am glad to see this legislation become law as a means to save lives in case of dire circumstances,” said Rep. McNamara.

HEA 1111 will be enacted July 1, 2013. To learn more about this bill and others, visit www.in.gov/legislative.

The Voice of the Common Man, a Sit-down with Councilman Al Lindsey by Zach Stuard, for the City County Observer

City Councilman of the 6th Ward Al Lindsey is a humble man from humble roots. Councilman Lindsey was born in Owensboro, Kentucky and graduated from South Spencer High School in 1973. Lindsey’s parents both attended a one room school in Kentucky and his father was both a farmhand and a union worker. Lindsey is the oldest of 5 siblings.

Lindsey believes there are both those people that talk about change and those people who try to be a part of change. Lindsey constantly strives to be a person who is a part of change, and because of this he has led a very active life when it comes to the community. Lindsey joined the Army National Guard in 1975 towards the end of the Vietnam War and Lindsey completed his basic and advanced training at Fort Polk, Louisiana. After returning home he moved to Evansville in 1976. It was in Evansville that he married his first wife in 1977, and here they decided to raise their family. Both of his children attended Mater Dei High School and now live on the west side and have started families of their own. Lindsey has currently been married to his wife Krista for 15 years. She is also a Veteran and has served 23 years in the Air National Guard.

Al Lindsey first campaign for City Council in 2003 against City Councilman B.J. Watts was unsuccessful and served as a learning experience for Lindsey’s future campaigns. In 2011 Lindsey defeated Watts for his first seat on the City Council. Lindsey ran to bring change and better representation to the 6th Ward. Lindsey has proven that he has his community’s best interest at heart and he believes that our city has to have people in office who care to serve others rather than themselves. Mr. Lindsey wishes to be the voice of the common man and to bring a sense of fiscal responsibility to the council. It is this same belief that has led Lindsey to advocate transparency in all forms of office. Councilman Lindsey said “I believe the Mayoral position in general holds too much power. All of the appointed boards have too much power and none of these boards should be able to spend a penny without coming through the council first. We are a very small city and need to operate as such. We have to be smarter with our money as well as with the social issues that we face as a community.”

Councilman Lindsey also said and I quote “the city needs more professionally qualified people to serve as department heads and professionalism should supersede political patronage”. Lindsey also believes that city council should have experts with experience to serve the council when needed. The council itself is a part time job and occasionally the council may require insight from experts in fields that members of the council may not have experience in or knowledge of. This would help the council in their endeavor to make responsible and informed decisions.

Mr. Lindsey currently serves as a firefighter on the Evansville Fire Department. He has served for over 27 years and presently holds the rank of Captain. He uses his experience and knowledge of the department to work in conjunction with the department and city officials to optimize firefighters ability to do their jobs both safely and effectively. Currently he is working with the department and officials in an attempt to bring extractors and dryers to all of the firehouses around the city. Research shows that firefighters face an increased risk of cancer due to a high concentration of carcinogens from the smoke of the fires they fight. The carcinogens build up on their gear and are passed through contact with skin while the suits are worn. The extractors and dryers effectively remove these carcinogens from the equipment serving to increase the useable lifespan of the equipment as well as decreasing the risk of cancers for the men that protect our communities.

When the Councilman finds time to relax he enjoys spending time with his family and watching his grandchildren play ball. In closing Lindsey told me, “Whether I have the ability to influence or not, I just want to be a voice for the common man. Because of the many hats I have worn and because of my personal experiences in many of the issues that come before the council I feel as though I can relate, understand, and vote accordingly. As an example, I was the lone vote against the raising of tap in fees and meter fees for the water department because even though they were presented as nominal increases I knew the impact they would have on people with fixed incomes or the very poor.”

It is this voice that needs to be recognized just as much as any other and it is safe to say our community is better off having the likes of an individual such as Councilman Lindsey who is willing to stand up for what he believes is best for everyone even if that means standing up to the Mayor and his administration if their policies are not in the best interest of the city and its citizens.

The University of Evansville’s Department of Creative Writing, with generous support from the Efroymson Family Fund, will host a two-day symposium on April 19-20 dedicated to the life and work of world-renowned author Joyce Carol Oates.

The symposium includes the following events, all of which are free and open to the public:

• A reading by Joyce Carol Oates at 7:30 p.m. Friday, April 19 in Eykamp Hall (Ridgway University Center), followed by a book signing and reception

• A question-and-answer session with Joyce Carol Oates at 9 a.m. Saturday, April 20 in Shanklin Theatre

• A writers’ panel on Joyce Carol Oates at 10:30 a.m. Saturday, April 20 in Smythe Lecture Hall (Room 170, Schroeder School of Business Building), featuring writers Pinckney Benedict, Laura Benedict, Laurence Goldstein, and Margaret McMullan

• A young writers’ panel on Joyce Carol Oates at 7:45 a.m. Saturday, April 20 in Smythe Lecture Hall (Room 170, Schroeder School of Business Building), featuring four UE creative writing students

• A screening of the film “We Were the Mulvaneys” at 1 p.m. Saturday, April 20 in Cokes Lecture Hall (Room 126, Hyde Hall). The film is based on the novel by Joyce Carol Oates and stars Beau Bridges and Blythe Danner.

In April 2012, the Department of Creative Writing received a $10,000 grant from the Efroymson Family Fund to help fund the Joyce Carol Oates Symposium, which follows the tradition of the successful Arthur Miller Symposium that took place at UE in 1998.

“The Arthur Miller Symposium showed us that an artistic event of this caliber has the power to make a lasting impact on UE students, faculty, and the community at large,” said William Baer, UE professor of creative writing. “A visit by Joyce Carol Oates, made possible by the Efroymson Family Fund, will be a significant event in the history of UE, and an extraordinary opportunity to raise awareness of the critical importance of the arts in our lives.”

Oates is one of the world’s most distinguished writers, having been nominated three times for the Nobel Prize. Born in upstate New York in 1938, Oates earned her Bachelor of Arts from Syracuse University in 1960 and her Master of Arts from the University of Wisconsin in 1961. She is currently the Roger S. Berlind Distinguished Professor of the Humanities at Princeton University.

Her literary accomplishments have been recognized by numerous awards, including the Fairfax Prize for Lifetime Achievement in the Literary Arts, the PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in short fiction, the Rosenthal Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and the O’Henry Prize for Continued Achievement in the Short Story. In 2010 she was awarded the National Humanities Medal by President Barack Obama.

The symposium falls on the 50th anniversary of Oates’ first published book, By the North Gate (1963), a collection of short stories. Since then, Oates has published over 80 books in numerous genres: novels, short story collections, poetry, plays, literary criticism, children’s books, mystery and horror novels, various anthologies, and even a book-length essay entitled On Boxing. Her works of fiction include: Them, winner of the National Book Award; Black Water, nominated for the Pulitzer Prize; Zombie, recipient of the Bram Stoker Award; What I Lived For, nominated for the PEN/Faulkner Award; Blonde, nominated for the Pulitzer Prize; You Must Remember This, praised as “an American masterpiece” by James Atlas; The Falls, recipient of France’s prestigious Prix Femina; We Were The Mulvaneys, selected as an Oprah Book of the Month and subsequently made into a movie starring Beau Bridges and Blythe Danner; and the New York Times bestseller The Gravedigger’s Daughter.

The University of Evansville wishes to thank the Efroymson Family Fund, a fund of the Central Indiana Community Foundation, for its support of the arts at UE. Since the fund was established in 1998, it has awarded more than $70 million to nonprofit organizations in central Indiana and beyond. For more information on the Efroymson Family Fund, please visit www.cicf.org/efroymson-family-fund.

In 1991 Congress proclaimed the second full week in April to be National Telecommunications Week to recognize the importance of those special individuals who coordinate the efforts police, fire, and EMS workers as they perform their duties. Telecommunications operators are the unsung heroes of public safety. To the public they are faceless voices heard over the scanner. To public safety workers they dispatch for, they are a lifeline. Governor Michael R. Pence has proclaimed the week of April 14-20 as Telecommunications Week in Indiana (See Photo #1).

Telecommunications is a function that operates 24 hours per day, seven days per week and 365 days per year and can be very stressful. One minute an operator can be communicating a routine function to an officer and the next minute they may be coordinating a high speed pursuit, dispatching emergency assistance to an accident scene, or coordinating a situation where police officers are involved in a gun battle.

All Indiana State Police telecommunications operators must pass a written test, a typing test, appear before an interview board, and go through a background investigation before being hired as an ISP telecommunications operator. Once hired, they must then endure at least 12 weeks of intense training and continuous in-service training throughout their careers to maintain certifications and keep up-to-date on the latest communications technology and procedures.

Indiana State Police Telecommunications Operators now work from Regional Dispatch Centers in Bloomington, Versailles, Ft Wayne, Lowell, Bristol (Toll Road) and Indianapolis. They are responsible for dispatching troopers and motor carrier inspectors to calls for service in their ISP Districts which cover all 92 counties in Indiana. Currently at each Regional Dispatch Center, there is one dispatch center manager, three telecommunications supervisors, and several telecommunications operators.

A list of all Indiana State Police Telecommunications Operators along with their pictures is available upon request. Please contact your ISP Public Information Officer at http://www.in.gov/isp/2365.htm#
and click on your home county for their contact information.