“A key concern is the potential for CAFOs (concentrated animal feeding operations) in this zoning category,” Munson said. “That’s not the only concern, but it’s a major one.”

The owners of the proposed ag park have said they don’t intend to develop any CAFOs, and they plan to write covenants prohibiting them. In addition, the owners point out that CAFOs could be built on the site now, because CAFOs are allowed in the farming zone.

The only restriction on CAFOs in Delaware County is they are prohibited within 200 feet of a dwelling, school, church, or hospital.

 The public is invited to a public meeting and hearing concerning an application for a permit modification for lateral expansion of the Randolph Farms Landfill at County Road 600 South, ½ mile east of State Road 1, in Randolph County.

Randolph Farms, Inc. submitted the permit modification application to IDEM in January of 2005. IDEM’s permitting staff conducted a completeness review and are now accepting public comment prior to making a final decision concerning an approval or denial.

A representative from Randolph Farms, Inc. will give an informal presentation concerning the proposed modification beginning at 7 p.m. Immediately following the presentation by the applicant, IDEM staff will hold a formal, public hearing to receive written and oral comments concerning the proposed modification.

IDEM will also be accepting written comments until close of business on Monday, September 12, 2005. Comments may be addressed to:
John Hale
IDEM Office of Land Quality
100 North Senate Avenue
MC 65-45 IGCN 1101
Indianapolis, IN 46204-2251

The Commission on Judicial Qualifications now has 30 days to file its own recommendation with the Supreme Court. If the recommendation involves loss of office, Pfaff will be suspended with pay pending final action by the Supreme Court, according to commission lawyer Meg Babcock.

 

When Earlham College got into a dispute with the Indiana Attorney General over its management of the charitable trust responsible for running Conner Prairie, which I have discussed extensively, over here, I questioned whether the actions of the AG were justified in the absence of any allegation of theft or abuse on the part of trustee. Maybe a charitable trust is not a good vehicle for good intentions.  What about a private foundation?

If the Journal Gazette is correct in this story,  something funny may be going on with the Olin B. and Desta Schwab Foundation.  Schwab created the foundation during his lifetime with several million dollars aimed to help school kids pick careers. 

The foundation had its office in Fort Wayne.  It had a board of directors, staff, ran programs with guidance counselors and gave grants to further its charitable purpose. But since Schwab’s death in 1991, its board had shrunk, its office was moved to the office of a local attorney, Richard Blaich, who Schwab put on the board of directors, and who drew up the governing documents.  The board has been trimmed down.  The staff has been fired. The foundation itself, which started out as an Indiana non-profit, is now a Nevada corporation. And most troubling, the foundation purchased a 1.5 million dollar luxury home in Nevada, and is spending $100K per year to maintain this residence, which is being used by Blaich and his family.

As the paper points out, it is entirely possible that all of this was done legally. Meaning that it was done in accordance to the governing documents.

Schwab, ironically enough was concerned with just this scenerio.:

Schwab himself, in a 1988 Journal Gazette article, said he created the foundation because he didn’t trust other people – even other charities – with the money he would be leaving behind.

“I had no one to leave it to, no obligation of heirs,” Schwab was quoted as saying. “I didn’t want to leave it in a trust for charities. …You have no idea what (bank officers) are going to do with it. I’d like to see that what I’ve accumulated goes for some good purpose rather than something I may not ascribe to if I were here.”

The outcome of his efforts, a foundation whose assets benefit primarily those who control it, would seem to contrary to his expectations. It makes you wonder if it is even possible for someone’s good intentions to be maintained after their death:

Evelyn Brody, a professor at Chicago-Kent School of Law and a national expert on tax-exempt agencies and the laws governing them, said some foundations now are designed to go out of business after a generation just to avoid situations like this one.

“There are some people that have such low expectations of the legal structure that they put sunset provisions on their organizations,” Brody said. “You have one generation of management, then you get into a situation where nobody knew the donor and what he wanted.”

Menard’s, Kohl’s, Frisch’s and Walgreens are on their way to Richmond. The Richmond Advisory Plan Commission’s final approval for Richmond Village on Thursday night gives a Cincinnati company the OK to develop 33 acres of Hayes Arboretum land. The four new businesses on the city’s east side could be operational by fall 2006.

An ethanol plant is a “chemical refinery,” Rybarczyk said during the meeting organized by citizens. “Mr. Russell, have you ever worked in a chemical plant? Have you ever seen a refinery explode?” Angry residents who live near the proposed ag park pointed fingers and shouted at Russell at the meeting. The professor called soy biodiesel and ethanol plants “hard-core industry that belongs in an industrial park, not out here” in farm fields.

Back in Blackford County, the Dutch couple seeking to install a 2,000 cow CAFO gain approval of their permit to operate the farm from the Indiana Department of Environmental Management, but the earlier decision of the local BZA will still keep them from openning.   This article pints out that if Blackford County had not acted to amend the local zoning ordinances to require specific approval (based on control of noise, odor and air pollution) by the BZA, the state permit would have been enough to get the farmers a building permit for the CAFO.

Opponents say the $13.5-million project, which would generate sales of at least $6 million a year, would stink, contaminate waterways with manure, make noise, attract rats, employ low-paid immigrants, lower surrounding property values and impair the quality of life.

Rae Schnapp, the Hoosier Environmental Council’s water policy specialist, said the hog production goals of the state’s “Plan for 2025″ will inevitably cause more pollution from runoff of manure that can harm waterways and taint groundwater.

“While scientific advances in reproductive technology now afford individuals previously unimagined opportunities to become parents,” wrote a dissenting justice, Kathryn Werdegar, “the same advances have also created novel, sometimes heartbreaking issues concerning the identification of the resulting children’s legal parents.”

“It is unprecedented around the country to have a state’s highest court recognize that in the absence of an adoption and even in the absence in some instances of a domestic partnership agreement that two men or two women could be the full legal parents of a child born through assisted reproduction,” said Joan Hollinger, who teaches adoption law at the University of California, Berkeley.

 

“You’ve essentially begun to undermine and unravel the family,” said Mathew Staver of Liberty Counsel, a law firm that submitted briefs arguing against the recognition of two same-sex parents.”Today’s ruling defies logic and common sense by saying that children can have two moms,” said Staver. “That policy establishes that moms and dads as a unit are irrelevant when it comes to raising children.”

The California Supreme Court, in a 4-2 decision, ruled for K.M. notwithstanding a state law that says a man who donates his semen to impregnate a woman who is not his wife is not a legal father. Werdegar, dissenting, suggested that treating the donation of sperm differently from the donation of an egg “inappropriately confers rights and imposes disabilities on persons because of their sexual orientation” and so “may well violate equal protection.”

Here we learn that a “motion to intervene” does not qualify as a “complaint” under the mechanics lien statute.  Wachstetter recorded his mechanics lien

Sex discrimination suit against the DNR.

A pro Se post-conviction action. No relief, and not good reading.

I have no idea where the title of this case came from since the hospital is named in the opinion.  Anyway, this case says that patients suing a municipal hospital do not need to comply with the Indiana Torts Claim Act.  Such an action is governed by the Indiana Malpractice statute. 

This case underlines the importance of liquidated damages clauses.  This is a real estate purchase agreement.  The developer purchasing the property of the Marcums could not complete the deal and the Marcums sued for specific performance plus damages.  The Court held that the liquidated damages clause determined the nature of the relief in the event of breach (forfeit of the earnest money), and the Marcums could not escape this clause despite apparent disparity between the liquidated damages and the actual loss of the benefit of the bargain. 

It is amazing the lengths people will go over a very little amount of money.  This is an landlord/tenant case out of small claims, and a must read for you owners of rental property as it is one of the rare cases where the Court explains the workings of Indiana’s security deposit statute.  The general rule in that area is “landlord beware.”