August 10, News

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KCT takes a trip back to1962 with ‘Hairspray’62nd season kicks o Aug. 12

She’s overweight. She’sinsecure. But all shehas ever wanted to dowas dance on a local TVshow. So when she winsa chance to star on theshow, her dreams begincoming true.

Aer starring on theshow, she not only be-gins to gain condence,but Tracy Turnblad alsolaunches a campaign tointegrate the show andhelp beer 1962 Balti-more.

This story hasbeen performedon Broadway,made, and thenremade, into mov-ies, and now, theKokomo CivicTheatre is bringing“Hairspray” to Ko-komo this weekend.

“It’s a big, fun mu-sical. I think a lot ofpeople are familiar witheither the John Travoltamovie or the Broadway

show, so it should be agood time,” said SteveHughes, director of theKokomo Civic Theatre.

Landing the lead roleof pleasantly-plump Tra-cy Turnblad is 17-year-old Morgan Michel, whois new to KCT.

“I was so excited thatI was able to get the leadin this show because it’ssuch a big opportunitysince I’m only 17,” saidMichel. “That was re-ally big.” Michel landedthe lead aer having per-

formed only in one show,“White Christmas,” be-fore auditioning.

“It has been amazingworking with everyone.

We’re like a fam-ily,” she said.

Speaking of family,Doug Harvey is taking

the motherly role in theperformance as EdnaTurnblad, Tracy’s moth-er. Although he’s a veter-an to KCT shows, he hadto learn some new tricksto perfect this role—in-cluding wearing dresses,walking in heals andmastering a womanlywalk.

On being a girl, hesaid, “It’s very dierent.It’s fun. It’s just dierent.It’s so weird because Iwant to stand like a guyand walk like a guy. I get

correction and directionfrom the others, but I’mhaving a blast doing it.”

As Tracy’s ctionalmother, Edna gets to

watch Tracy grow andmature into a strong,young woman through-out the show.

“Tracy is one of thosepeople who’s afraid toleave the house at rst

because she’s so big anddoesn’t really have awhole lot of self-worthuntil people start tell-ing her to stop listeningto what people are say-ing and to listen to herheart,” Harvey said.

As Tracy works to in-tegrate her community,Hughes worked to inte-grate the KCT cast.

“The exciting thingfrom our standpoint is

we have a lot of newpeople, and because it’s ashow about integration,

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Construction woes get costly in countyLocal ofcials point out problems, but INDOT is making it right; work still on pace or 26 and 31 projects

Road construction isn’tan exact science. Mis-takes are made. Earlierthis year, it was discov-ered that an overpasscrossing the new U.S. 31at County Road 50 Eastwas mis-designed, caus-ing the work to be re-done. But that wasn’t theonly error.

Last week, actingHoward County Survey-or Greg Lake disclosedthat additional miscuescosting in excess of halfa million dollars recentlywere discovered. Fortu-nately, local taxpayersshouldn’t feel too muchdiscomfort. The Indiana

Department of Transpor-tation (INDOT) is takingresponsibility for ensur-ing the work is doneright and stays on sched-ule, and insurance is inplace to cover the cost.

“The last two weeks, Ihave been called out toU.S. 31 project and theState Road 26 project,”Lake told the HowardCounty Drainage Boardon Aug. 1. “The concernsI have been talking aboutall year long is I need to

be out there, looking atthis. It nally came topass. They put a coupleof our regulated drainsin backwards, where theslope was going uphill.One of our large box cul-verts -- a very expensiveproject -- they put in over

2½ feet too high.“All of these items I’m

making them take outand put back in correctly.It has been a huge nego-tiation with a lot of prob-lems.”

Lake took his concernsto INDOT immediately,through the weekly part-nership meetings heldwith the state, the con-tractors and sub-contrac-tors and even interestedmembers of the commu-nity if they so desire. Ac-cording to Harry Magin-ity, public informationocer for INDOT, thestate will make thingsright.

“Anything that he hasa problem with is be-ing worked out with theproject engineer,” said

Maginity. “We have agreat working relation-ship, and when we dosomething wrong or ourcontractor does some-thing wrong, it gets right-ed. Yes, things go wrong,and they get taken careof. We respond, and wex it.”

In the case of the boxculvert, which is thestructure that allows adrainage ditch to owunder a road or drive-way, Lake said he caughtthe bad installation whileit was being performed.But its existence, coupledwith his inability to con-stantly monitor the con-struction, has the actingsurveyor worried aboutwhat else might be goingwrong.

“I am concerned thatwe have missed a lot,”said Lake. “The threesites that I have been to,

one of them had inversegrade on our county tile.

August 10, 2011

by Pat MunseyEditor

[email protected]

DO-OVER — Recent mistakes in road constructionconcerning drainage likely won’t delay the completiondate o the projects, ofcials say.

Perspective Photo / Alyx Arnett

— WOES - A2

— HAIR- A2

Familiar ace rejoins

surveyor’s ofceJake Grimme hired to pick up slack or missing surveyor Dan Minor

Now this is awkward.The Howard County Sur-veyor’s oce has beenhobbled or the past twoyears as its elected o-cer, Dan Minor, has beenrequently absent withhealth concerns. Theproblem is so acute thatHoward County Storm-water program directorGreg Lake has had to

serve as the acting sur-veyor or the bulk o Mi-nor’s term.

The county’s businessisn’t geing done, andLake has had to workhundreds of hours with-

out compensation to

cover the short stang.It all came to a head twow e e k sa g o .Lake in-formedt h eHowardCountyD r a i n -a g eBoard onAug. 1 that he had to hiresome help.

“With Dan not avail-

able, per our memoran-dum of understanding, Idid hire a part-time per-son to run the state roadprojects,” said Lake. “Hewill drive every construc-tion site at least once a

week. He’ll look at all the

drains and report backto me if anything isn’tlooking right so that wecan get on top of it andprevent these half-mil-lion-dollar catastrophes.That’s a huge amount ofmoney to start rippingstu out.”

When pressed aboutthe hiring, Lake disclosedthat he had chosen to hireformer county surveyor

Jake Grimme.“He’s already out there

looking at drains, andwe’ve already had to getthe aention of the state,”said Lake. “They’re call-ing me now on any tile

by Pat MunseyEditor

[email protected]

Grimme

by Tim TurnerDigital Media Manager

[email protected]

— MARKET- A7

— OFFICE- A8

by Alyx ArnettFeatures Reporter

[email protected]

GOOD MORNING,

BALTIMORE — The Koko-mo Civic Theater is readyto rock the town with itsrendition o “Hairspray”this weekend.

Perspective Photos / Provided



we denitely have anintegrated cast and a lotof new performers fromthe African Americancommunity who may not

have participated in thepast. So, we’re excitedabout that,” said Hughes.

Other roles in the showare Rex Swank as WilburTurnblad, Chad Hu asLink Larkin, Jillian LaD-ow as Penny Pingleton,Eric Evans as SeaweedStus, David Douceeas Corny Collins, TonitaPrice as MotormouthMaybelle, Darrian LaD-ow as Amber Von Tussle,Beth Metcalf as VelmaVon Tussle and CristianaTate-Price as Lile Inez.

The high school coun-cil members who appearon the Corny CollinsShow are Marlea Dun-can as Lou Ann, DannyFleenor as Sketch, Bren-dan Hawkins as IQ, JesseSalinas as Brad, EliseSchimmelpfennig asTammy, Nolan Vent asFender, Victoria Walte-math as Brenda and Ash-

ley Walton as Shelly.The Dynamites, a sing-

ing group reminiscent ofthe Supremes, are beingplayed by Brooke An-derson, Shay Hinton andBriany Ussery. Otherkids at Motormouth’s re-cord shop are Telisha Da-

vis as Lorraine, KirstenMartin as Cindy, BrycenMorgan as Duane, PeairRichardson as Gilber andTaleah Thurman as Ste-e.

Other adult charactersinclude: Anita Burkeadas Prudy Pingleton, JePyke as Mr. Spritzerm,Steve Bachmann as Mr.Pinky, Elizabeth Fink asthe gym teacher and Ra-

chel Bates as the jail ma-tron.

Show times for “Hair-spray” are 8 p.m. on Fri-day and Saturday, Aug.12 and 13 and 2 p.m. onSunday, Aug. 14. Ticketprices are $15 for adults,$14 for seniors and $10

for students (throughcollege). Tickets may be reserved by calling765-454-8800. The Ha-vens Auditorium box of-ce will also be open 6p.m. to 8 p.m. Tuesdaythrough Thursday, Aug.9 to 11, and one hour be-fore each performance.Season tickets are alsostill available for $40.

kokomoperspective.com/news

Page A2 Kokomo Perspective August 10, 2011

Two of the utilities wereon top of our tile, whichwe demand them to betwo feet under our tile.We have a 12-inch gasmain on top of a regu-lated drain. We have aber optic cable laying ontop of a regulated drainwhere it is running par-allel with it. I have a gasline on State Road 26 thathas cut through one of

our regulated drains andhas water backed up justabout a mile to the south.It’s blowing up our coun-ty tile. And then there isthis culvert situation.”

Lake estimated thatthe cost to correct theproblems could exceed$500,000. This cost, how-ever, will not have to becovered by taxpayers, asinsurance policies are inplace to cover construc-tion errors.

Lake is not the onlycounty ocial with con-cerns about the construc-

WOEScontinued rom page A1

SHOW-STEALERS — Morgan Michel and Doug Harveystar as Tracy Turnblad and her mother, Edna.

Perspective Photo / Provide

No winners in debt dealRepublican chair says nothing was fxed; Democrat

proessor sees political trouble on the right

Congress ended itsMexican stand-o lastweek and agreed toraise the ceiling on thenational debt. Conserva-tives howled that enoughwasn’t cut from the na-tional decit as part ofthe deal. Liberals up-braided their leaders forcompromising too much.

Nobody was happy,and that usually meanssomething went right forthe nation. But not thistime. The stock marketand certain commoditiesimmediately went intothe tank. Uncertainty andfear threaten to extin-guish the timid economicrecovery of 2011.

They don’t like itThe deal, it seems, did

nothing to solve the na-tion’s problems beyondthe moment.

“It’s like eating cold

mush,” said Craig Dunn,Howard County Repub-lican Party chairman.“We are going to have a$1.6 trillion decit thisyear. Even under this bill,the decit continues togrow. A $1 trillion imme-diate decit reduction,and even if you throwin a couple more trillion,doesn’t put a dent in thereal problem.

“They didn’t addressany of the fundamentalproblems that exist. Thisis a Band-Aid solutionwith no pain on the front.Basically, it didn’t accom-plish anything other thanmaybe calming someof the public they hadwhipped up in the rstplace.”

Dunn said he was“grossly disappointed”

with the bill that passed b o t hh o u s e sof Con-g r e s sl a s tw e e k .T h emessages e n tto theworld by the inabilityof the U.S. governmentto nd real solutions isthat theAm e r i -can peo-ple nol o n g e rhave thedesire toc ha ng etheir de-structiveways.

“Unfortunately, theAmerican people have-- even in the face of tre-mendous crisis -- no will-ingness to make sacricesat any level anymore,”

said Dunn. “Even if thepain is spread equally, Idon’t think we have thewill to do it.

“The people who are beneciaries of tax cred-its and depreciation al-lowances and extendedweeks of this and thatand ination adjustmentsto this and that and free-

bies handed out likecandy to cities and states-- nobody wants to giveany of that stu up. As

a result, the problem justgets worse.”

Allen Maxwell, profes-sor emeritus of PoliticalScience at Indiana Uni-versity Kokomo, agreesthat the legislation passedlast week will help noth-

ing and will mean suer-ing for the nation.

“I think neither party brought honor to itselfin this whole mess,” saidMaxwell. “The stockmarket is obviously im-pacted by this. The reac-tion is that they are notsatised that this is goingto do very much. It’s not

bringing about a long-range solution.”

Maxwell predictablypointed the nger at theRepublicans for com-mingling issues of thenational debt versus thenational decit. By wayof comparison, he lik-ened the right’s eorts toa household that tries tocut o spending by notpaying its mortgage.

“What the Republi-cans did was connect thedecit to the debt, and Ithink that’s not wise,”said Maxwell. “Theyneed to deal with thedebt. It’s what we alreadyowe. The decit is whatwill happen in the next

months and years andneeds to be dealt withseparately. We should notthreaten the credit of thecountry by talking aboutnot paying debts that al-ready have been incurred

by Congress. To suggestthat we shouldn’t paythat doesn’t make a lot ofsense.”

Maxwell accused con-gressional Republicansof forcing concessions onthe decit by puing the

risk of default on the debtinto play, thereby shak-ing global condence inthe U.S. It may be one ofthe reasons that the mar-ket reacted so negatively

by Pat MunseyEditor

[email protected]

— DEBT - A7

Dunn

Maxwell

tion taking place. How-ard County Highway

Superintendent Ted Cainreported to the HowardCounty Commissionerson Aug. 1 that he has beenless than satised at timeswith how the projects areimpacting county roads.

“We’ve had issueswith the state’s portionof the U.S. 31 bypass atState Road 22,” said Cain.“They closed roads thatwere our detour routes.It’s been an ongoing prob-lem. County Road 200North should be open inabout six weeks. They’regoing to x some spotsthey tore up in our countyroads.

“This week, I have ameeting with (the designsubcontractor). I’m tiredof this stu happening.They’re trying to go toofast, and that’s why mis-takes are being made.”

Maginity vouched forthe local ocials’ assess-ments, but he is condentthat construction will re-

main on schedule despitethe diculties.

“Greg is a good guy, and

I would trust that what hesays has some accuracy,”said Maginity. “Mr. Cainis very painstaking in hisapproach to your county’sroads, and that is a creditto your community. He isreally involved. We workwell with the surveyor’soce. INDOT supervisesconstruction for qualityand adherence, and wemake sure the contractoror their subs do not vio-late the standards that areset. We have an oversightresponsibility.

“That doesn’t mean

that everything happensperfectly on construction

jobs; it certainly doesn’t.There are mistakes thatcan be made, but gener-ally things are going verywell with construction onU.S. 31. It is being con-structed ahead of sched-ule and under budget,which is really nice.”

The same goes for StateRoad 26, according toMaginity. In fact, a clo-sure on the highway will

take place on or aer Aug.10, involving a 1,000-footstretch from 3rd Streetheading east. This is thethird and nal phase ofconstruction directly af-fecting Russiaville, andthat work is expected to

be concluded this year sothat the town will not bedisturbed in 2012.

However, the StateRoad 26 project does en-compass 7.38 miles ofimprovements, and the

highway will go underthe knife next year to theeast of Russiaville, termi-nating near the intersec-tion of Dixon Road. Mag-inity said that the entireproject is still slated toconclude on Oct. 30, 2012.

HAIRcontinued rom page A1



Taylor Townshipprides itsel on its volun-teer re department. Ithas serviced the commu-nity o Indian Heightsor decades, but soonthat area will all withinthe Kokomo city limits.However, the city andthe township just signedan agreement to allow

the Kokomo Fire Depart-ment to service the area beore the annexationtakes eect in January.

According to TaylorTownship Trustee Di-anne Kuntz, the agree-ment, which is valid

through March 1, 2012,will give Kokomo re-ghters an opportunityto get amiliar with Indi-an Heights’ labyrinthinestreet layout beore theyassume ull re protec-tion service.

But there was a sec-ondary motivation orthe agreement: ambu-lance service.

“They wanted a tran-sition period to get into

the Heights and becomeamiliar with it,” saidKuntz. “It shows thatwe’re willing to negoti-ate. The main reason Idid this is we are work-ing on an agreementto allow Taylor Town-

ship to continue ambu-lance service in IndianHeights. You give a little,you get a little.

“The city will have In-dian Heights in Januaryanyway. Hopeully, I cancontinue to provide thecitizens with ambulanceservice.”

Kokomo Mayor GregGoodnight echoedKuntz’s statements, ex-plaining the concerns

that motivated the cityto enter an early serviceagreement.

“On Jan. 1, IndianHeights will come intothe city o Kokomo,”said Goodnight. “Theyhave a large volunteer

re department, and wehave the new re stationthat will open in the nexttwo to three weeks. Theconcern was, once weopen, that there could

be a re within eyesighto our station, and wewould not be able to re-spond to it.

“The original discus-sions centered aroundmaking sure that we hadan agreement to cover

this area between nowand the rst o the year.We were able to do that.Once the station in open,

both Taylor Townshipand the city o Kokomore departments will re-

Pierson was an early radar specialist in Italy

Russell (Russ) M. Pier-son of Greentown wasthere at Stornara, Italyin WW II. In the sum-mer aer the bombing ofPearl Harbor, and whilestill at the Eastern IllinoisUniversity, Russ enlistedwith the aviation cadetsfor electrician and radiowork. The army let himcontinue his education atthe university until theyneeded him. In January1943, the United StatesArmy Air Corps calledhim for ocer training atBoca Raton, Fla. He wassent to Yale Universityfor electronics schoolingand on to the Massachu-ses Institute of Technol-ogy at Boston Harbor forradar training. He wastransferred back to Boca

Raton, Fla., for teachingelectronics, but insteadwas sent to Norfolk,Va., to be transportedoverseas. He boarded aFrench Liner bound forItaly and landed in Na-ples. He was then sentto Stornara, Italy, the lo-cation of the 456th Bom-

bardment Group of B-24Liberator aircra. Hewas assigned to the Ra-dar Maintenance Groupof the 456th , where he re-paired electronic circuit-ry systems.

While at the 456th atStornara, Italy, he lived ina four-man tent that hadcots and open shelvesfor storage. Their lightswere overhead electriclight bulbs. The tent washeated by a 50 gallondrum half connected bypipe to an outside 50 gal-lon drum of gasoline. Thegasoline would drip into

the inside half drum linedwith a few bricks, andwhen ignited gave oheat. He ate his meals atthe ocer’s dining facil-ity. He said that the 456th had a dentist assigned totake care of any dentalor simple medical needs,and they had a clothingstore for spare uniforms.There were a few Italianfamilies that would takein the airmen’s washings,

but restaurants and barswere o-limits to the airforce in order to avoidany problems. (The Ital-ians were allies of theGermans during in WWII.)

Prior to the spring of1945, aempts to foul-up German anti-aircrare consisted of drop-ping strips of aluminumfoil into the air by theaircra. The anti-aircraguns were located on

the ground and wouldautomatically re in thedirection of metal (foil)in the sky. A new radardetection system wasmade available to Ameri-can aircra. Russ and hiscrew installed this newradar detection systeminto their B-24s. This newsystem involved the op-erator of the radio tuningin until he found the fre-quency that the Germanradar was operating.He would tune his threetransmiers to that fre-quency, which renderedthe anti-aircra trackingsystem (guns) useless.

Russ said that beingassigned to an aviationgroup was never dull,and you soon learned toexpect the unexpected.He recalls one day whena plane blew a tire whiletrying to land, and whileveering o the runway,

missed the radar build-ing by one foot and thenproceeded to the Radio-Conning tower (whilemen were jumping out)and tore it down. Whenthe war was over Russdidn’t have enoughpoints to return back tothe USA, so he was sentto another ghter wing

in northeast Italy. He waslater put on a ship boundfor the Philippines. Whenreaching the Panama Ca-nal, they learned the warwas over, so they thensailed to Boston, Mass.Russ feels his servicetime was important, andhe was proud to haveserved his country.


August 10, 2011 Kokomo Perspective Page A3

TAKE BACK THE NIGHT — Dozens o Kokomo residentsturned out at Bon Air Park on Aug. 2 to celebrate“Take Back the Night” with the Kokomo Police Depart-

ment. The event was one o several held across thecity which saw hundreds o people interact with policeofcers while enjoying ood, music and un. Other lo-cations included Kokomo Beach, Dunbar Court, PineValley Apartments, Garden Square Apartments andseveral other park and public housing locations.

Perspective Photo / Pat Munsey

by Joyce AlpaySta Writer

[email protected]

— FIRE - A8

Kokomo, Taylor Twp. reach fre agreementCity will provide service to Indian Heights as soon as new south

station opens; Taylor ambulance agreement in the works

by Pat MunseyEditor

[email protected]



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in the days following thedeal.

“I’m not sure we cantell why the market isreacting this way,” said

Maxwell. “My guess isthey don’t see that thedeal solves the problem.On the other hand, tosolve the problem, if it in-volves current cuts, theywouldn’t have liked that,either.”

What Dunn is certainwon’t be liked by themarket is the nation’sunabated march towardinsolvency. He believesCongress’ inaction onthe larger concerns of the

day puts our future secu-rity in jeopardy.

“It is a mathemati-cal certainty that unlessyou change the curve interms of the trajectory ofthe federal debt -- unlessyou bend it down and

sustain it -- at some pointyou will reach the statusof Greece,” said Dunn.“We are puing a loadedrevolver into the handsof people who would liketo do us harm -- Russia,China, Middle Easternoil empires. The day theystop buying our securi-

ties, they can bring us toour economic knees.”

Tea Party troubleThe deal pushes the

debate on the debt ceil-

ing past the 2012 electioncycle, which should be agood thing, according toMaxwell. There are manymore pressing concernsto be aced by Congressand the president. Jobsand the economy are stilllacking strength. He alsosees a political problem

suracing or the Repub-licans who must now bal-ance the demands o thear-right Tea Party cau-cus against the more cen-trist views o the nation.

“One allout may bea black eye or the TeaParty,” said Maxwell. “Ithink they put sel-inter-est beore national inter-ests. They came to Wash-ington to have an eect,and they certainly hadthat. From what I see, thepublic is upset with the

lack o compromise.“It’s awully early, and

voters have a very shortmemory. By next No-vember, they aren’t go-ing to remember the debt

ceiling debate. The majorimpact will be a leery at-titude toward the TeaParty. I think they’ll beseen as obstructionists.”

Maxwell believes theTea Party will have asignicant infuence onthe Republican primarynext spring, and that may

very well mean rousingvictories or the Demo-crats in 2012.

“I they nominate alot o Tea Party people, Ithink that will hurt them

in the all,” said Maxwell.“In the primaries, it is theTea Party who are activ-ists and get their peopleout to vote. They maywin there, but in the allI think the more mod-erate Republicans maysit on their hands or noteven vote. (Tea Party

presidential avorite)Michelle Bachmann maywin in Iowa, but she hasno chance o winning thepresidency.”



DEBTcontinued rom page A2

MARKETcontinued rom page A1



spond to any re.”Goodnight explained

that the city re departmentwill not respond to medi-cal runs during this transi-tion period. All services oaylor Township to Indianeights will remain in-

tact through the lie o thisagreement.

Kuntz said the city hasdrated a letter o intent toallow the ambulance ser-vice to continue beyond theannexation date. She didnot have a time rame orwhen this letter might benalized and signed.

“This is still in the dis-cussion stage right now,”said Goodnight. “Through

the end o the year, TaylorTownship will continue toprovide ambulance service.

We’re sitting down to see iwe can reach on agreementon this and a couple o otherissues.”

Goodnight was compli-mentary o Kuntz and thenegotiation process, whichwill result in secured protec-tion or local residents.

“Dianne deserves kudosor sitting with us and work-ing out this agreement,”said Goodnight. “Dianneis very passionate aboutthe work Taylor Township

does. It was important toher to extend the agreement

beyond the rst o the year.That just provides an extralevel o coverage or peo-ple in that area. We’re verycomortable with that.”

Delphi demonstrates new technology at ride-and-driveRetired racecar driver Lyn St. James experiences innovative systems frsthand

You’re driving down the

highway happily cruisingalong at 60 mph when a carpulls in front of you goingat a slower speed. What’smore annoying than theslower driver? Your messedup cruise control.

Wouldn’t it be nice ifyour vehicle could magi-cally adjust to that car’sspeed and then return tothe speed you set your con-trol at once the vehicle is nolonger in front of you? Well,Delphi says it can.

Adaptive Cruise Control

(ACC) was just one of venew products Dephi dem-onstrated last Tuesday at aride-and-drive presentedfor veteran racecar driverLyn St. James.

Delphi has put more than50 years of cruise controlexperience and more than20 years of radar experi-ence into the developmentof its innovative Adaptive

Cruise Control System. Thesystem is designed to makecruise control more usablein most trac conditions,resulting in a more relaxed

driving experience.“Adaptive cruise control

is a stop-and-go system,”said Delphi senior systemengineer Mike Pawlowski.“If you’re following a vehi-cle that stops at a light, it’llactually bring the vehicleto a complete stop. Whenyou start again, apply gas,and it’ll ramp back up tospeed.”

The system is designedto operate under a widerange of environmentalconditions, such as dirt,

ice, daylight, darkness, rainand fog.The other products that

were demonstrated wereMyFi, rear and side detec-tion, collision mitigationand parking guidance.

The MyFi system is be-ing designed as a result ofusers being overstimulated

by devices such as smart-phones. The system takes

the information straightfrom the device and dis-plays it exactly how it lookson the phone onto thedashboard on a large touch

screen.“Most people can’t leave

home without their smart-phones. They like the con-nectivity. They like the in-formation that’s provided.Well, we also want to besafe. We want to merge thatall together,” said KeenanEstese, engineering generalmanager.

But even when thephone is made more user-friendly, it is still a source ofdistraction, said Estese. Tocounter measure that, en-

gineers have looked to anIR camera as a possible an-swer. The camera monitorsthe driver’s eyes and headposition. When a driver haslooked away for too longor becomes o task, LEDlights ash to capture thedriver’s aention.

The next feature that wasdemonstrated was the Rearand Side Detection System

(RSDS). This systems sits ona vehicle’s dashboard as arectangular box where dif-ferent positions light up toshow where other vehicles

are in relation to it.By providing an alert

when cars are around orapproaching, RSDS helpsgive drivers more time toreact to obstacles that may

be in blind spots or are dif-cult to see.

One of the alerts on theRSDS is a lane changemerge assist that lights upto show that a car is rapidlyapproaching from behindthe vehicle. If this light ison, the driver should waitfor it to pass or be cautious

before changing lanes.“It’s also good for back-ing out of a parking space.If you have two big SUVsparked beside you, you cansee who’s coming down theaisle,” said advanced en-gineering developer WaltKosiak.

Another new type oftechnology that was dem-onstrated was the Collision

Mitigation System (CMS)can, depending on the car’sspeed, completely stop orslow a vehicle to prevent ormitigate collisions.

CMS uses input from itsvision and radar sensors toallow full automatic brak-ing power when it senses acollision with objects suchas other cars, pedestrians,and animals.

The last feature that wasdemonstrated was a Park-ing Guidance System (PGS)that uses a rearview cameraand advanced algorithmsto help make parking easi-er.

“The parking system wasincredibly helpful. It’s like

having another set of eyesout there,” said St. James.“If you have to parallel parka lot, then that’s a fantasticfeature. If you don’t, thenit’s still nice to have.”

This system is said to beaordable and easy to im-plement into most vehicles.

“If we can make the ve-hicles smarter and providethe mechanisms in the ve-

hicles to augment the users’ability to be aware of theirsurroundings, and whenthere’s a situation that de-mands it, get them backon task. That’s what it’s allabout, and that’s what we’retrying to achieve here,” saidEstese.


Page A8 Kokomo Perspective August 10, 2011

that is hit, whether its regu-lated or private.”

Board members askedLake how the arrangementwas made with Grimme.At present, he is using hisown vehicles to perform hiswork, though he declinedadditional compensationfor doing so.

“I talked to him aboutthat, and he didn’t care to becompensated,” said Lake.

“His hourly rate was ac-ceptable. I estimate he willwork two to three days aweek, initially, just to get allof the projects looked aerand to nd all of the prob-lems. Aer that I would an-ticipate maybe two days a

week, tops.”Drainage board member

Paul Wyman asked how

Lake monitors Grimme toensure the needed workis being completed, towhich Lake responded thatGrimme documents his in-spections with photos andnotes and is in regular con-tact with the oce.

Grimme’s hiring could be viewed as ironic oreven poetic by those whounderstand the dynamicsat work. Grimme was thecounty surveyor from 1995until 2010, losing to Minor

in what some believe wasa campaign enshrouding apersonal conict betweenthe two men.

Because Minor has beenfamously absent and inef-fective in the 19 months ofhis term, Grimme’s hiring

to pick up the work le un-done by Minor could proveto be a sore point.

But there are plenty ofsore points to go around inthe surveyor oce. How-ard County Aorney LarryMurrell pointedly askedLake during the drainage

board meeting to detail the burden Minor’s inability toperform the duties of his of-ce has caused.

“Even though you’vehired this extra help, isn’t afact that you’re still materi-ally under-staed becauseof Dan’s absences for what-

ever reasons?” asked Mur-rell. “Aren’t you strugglingto keep up?”

“I’m not keeping up; it’sthat simple,” said Lake. “Asof last year, my time wassignicantly over the allot-ted hours. I ended up losing

all of that time. This year, iis dicult to nd me at thend of the month. I’m tryin

to be at zero at the end. Lasmonth, I lost eight hours.That pushes any work tothe next day.”

In 2010, Lake worked 128hours without compensation. That’s in addition tothe 80 hours that the countagrees to compensate employees for additional workover the course of a year.

At the close of thdrainage board meeting,Wyman, Murrell and boarmember Tyler Moore coul

be heard openly discussing how to handle Minor’chronic absences. Whilnothing ocial was stated,the trio agreed that thsurveyor should be approached to discuss his lackof performance.

OFFICEcontinued rom page A1

FIREcontinued rom page A3

by Alyx ArnettFeatures Reporter

[email protected]

ROBO-CAR — Delphi’sMiFi, collision mitigationand parking guidancesystems were on displayat a special event lastweek.

Perspective Photo / Provide



School consolidation gets ailing gradeCCC to examine fre protection on Aug. 10 at IUK’s Kresge Auditorium

The Citizens Consoli-

dation Committee (CCC)wanted some input romthe experts on the topico consolidating HowardCounty’s ve public schoolsystems. They got it, but itwasn’t avorable to the idea.

School superintendents board members warned thecommittee that the risk olosing quality and undingis present at the heart o thedebate. And one speaker-- Indiana University Ko-komo Chancellor MichaelHarris -- proposed that the

CCC wasn’t looking at theconsolidation issue in theproper scope.

“The structure o localgovernment is anachro-nistic and obsolete,” saidHarris in his introductorycomments to a crowd oabout 50 interested citizensand committee members.“We’re dealing with struc-tures that were ormedyears ago when it was adierent world and a di-erent economy. In orderto compete and assure theAmerican dream or tomor-

row, we really need to thinkin terms o regions.”

Northwestern SchoolsSuperintendent Ryan Snod-dy represented the county’sve school systems in hispresentation to the commit-tee, enumerating the manyways in which the schoolsalready cooperate and col-lectively seek out savings

and eciencies. From in-surance and school buses topencils and paper, it seemsthat the schools nd part-ners to help bring down

purchasing costs.When it comes to savings

rom consolidating admin-istrative stas, Snoddy ex-plained that the superinten-dents compared HowardCounty to school systemclosest to its total popula-tion -- Elkhart Schools.

“At the time -- a ew yearsago -- they had about 12,000students, and combinedHoward County had justunder 12,000,” said Snod-dy. “Elkhart had about thesame amount o general

und money to spend as theve Howard County schoolsystems.

“The interesting thingwas, as we looked atwhere their expenses went,Elkhart had over 20 moreadministrators than the veHoward County schoolsystems.”

Snoddy proposed thatthe real savings rom con-solidation comes rom a-cility closures. A centraladministrative oce wouldsave some overhead costswhen it comes to maintain-

ing one building insteado ve. But it is the actualclosure o school buildingsthat holds the real potentialor savings.

“This room isn’t bigenough or the crowdyou’re going to have i youstart that,” said Snoddy.

Kokomo-Center SchoolsSuperintendent Je Haus-

wald warned about oneo the unintended conse-quences o consolidation-- ederal unding loss.Kokomo-Center receivesa huge amount o undingrom the ederal govern-ment because 70 percent oits students live at or belowthe poverty level.

“I we were to consoli-date and our poverty ratewould go down, we wouldsee a serious decrease in theamount o money we get

at the ederal level,” saidHauswald. “When I saydecrease, I mean millions odollars.

Hauswald later pointedout that consolidation oschools is actually the op-posite o what the state oIndiana currently is ad-vocating, thanks to the si-phoning o tax dollars into

school voucher programsand charter schools.

“When you look at thecharter and voucher leg-islation, we just createdhundreds o new schoolsystems,” said Hauswald.“So, in reality, as we’veought our way down to292 public school districtsin the state, we’re going todouble that number in thenext year. And the nan-cial statements released lastyear show that it’s about

2.3 to 2.5 times more spenton administrative costs incharter schools comparedto public schools.”

The CCC meets againthis Wednesday evening at7 p.m. to discuss county-wide re protection. Theorum will be held at IUK’sKresge Auditorium.

Haynes-Apperson

turned a proft

Paul Wyman, Chair-man of the Haynes-Ap-person Festival, sat downwith the Kokomo Perspec-tive to discuss how wellthe festival did and tolook at the festival’s nan-cial information.

Kokomo Perspective: How well did the festivaldo this year?

Paul Wyman: I don’thave nal numbers foryou. Overall the festivalwas a big success this

year. We don’t have all thenal numbers crunchedyet, but it looks like weare going to be protable.Hopefully we will be ableto make a donation tothe Automotive HeritageMuseum and have somemoney le over to investin next year’s festival.

KP: How much do youdonate to the AutomotiveHeritage Museum?

PW: It ends up beingbased on how well we do

as a festival. The boardwill make that determi-nation next month at theboard meeting.

KP: There was somebad weather during thefestival. Do you think thataected aendance at all?

PW: Rain moved inlate on two nights rightat the end of both of ourconcerts. Overall it didn’thurt our festival numberstoo bad. We are real for-tunate that the rain didn’t

come during all of the ma-jor events.KP: How is your rev-

enue generated?PW: Our revenues are

generated by sponsor-ships, the rides and ven-dors. Then we have someother miscellaneous wayswe raise revenue.

KP: The festival hasa large cash reserve --around $60,000. How doyou determine how muchyou keep in reserve?

PW:We maintain re-serves in case we run

into a festival where wehave inclement weatherand our revenue is waydown. One of the thingsthis board did when wetook over this festival wasto apply some businessprincipals and part of thatbusiness principal was tocreate a reserve accountso that, during the yearswhere we don’t make thekind of money that weanticipate, we can coverthose years so the festivalcan continue on.

We are not raising mon-ey for any specic organi-zation or to raise moneyfor day to day operations.We raise money to put thefestival on, and that is it.We have built up somereserve accounts to makeup for a year where rev-enues may not be as highas we anticipated. Thereis no real magic formulabecause we don’t have

an annual operating bud-get from a standpoint ofsalaries and overhead.We have set aside money

in casethere isa yearw h e r ewe arehit hardf r o mride rev-e n u e ,sponsor-ships orvendor revenue.

KP: Looking at yournancials, some of thereserve money gets rein-vested into the festival…

PW: We take a portionof it and put it in reserves,and a portion of it gets re-

invested into the festivalfor the next year. If youlook at the festival overthe last eight years, thereason it has grown to thelevel it has is because ofthe reinvestment of thosedollars into the festival.

Our August boardmeeting is generally arecap for the festival thisyear, and we begin plan-ning for next year.

KP: Doesn’t the citypay for the reworks each

year? Are those the onlypublic dollars invested inthe festival, and is therea goal to phase out thepublic contribution to thefestival?

PW: The city is a bigpartner for the festival.They help us with thereworks. The street de-partment guys are reallyhelpful for us. When wehad the very rst meetingwhen the Haynes-Apper-son festival was cancelled

in 2002, we had a commu-nity meeting with busi-ness people and electedpeople. We decided atthat meeting, for the festi-val to be successful, it re-ally needs to be a public/private partnership. Themayor at the time felt likethe city would contribute

by providing some be-hind-the-scenes supportand the reworks. That isthe commitment the citymade then, and they have

honored that commit-ment all the way through.And it has been a greatsuccess for us.

KP: How important arethe reworks to the festi-val?

PW: It helps the festivaltremendously. A lot of thevendors like to see that onthe agenda because that isa huge draw for people.

KP: The city is trying tomove most of the down-town events to FosterPark. Is that somethingyou can do in the near fu-ture?

PW: We have been dis-cussing it for a coupleof years now. We havelooked at a variety ofplans to do so. It is toughto move it over to FosterPark now because the in-frastructure is not there.We are open to ideas. Wearen’t saying no, but weobviously have to main-tain the integrity of thefestival.

The pavilion is beauti-ful, but it is a lot largerthan our entertainmentevents.



LEARNING EXPERIENCE — CCC chairperson IsabellaChism makes opening remarks at the committee’sschool consolidaton orum.

Perspective Photo / Pat Munse

WYMAN

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[email protected]

by Pat MunseyEditor

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August 10, News

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