An Elwood, Indiana man stopped for gas in Taylorsville Wednesday morning, only to have his vehicle stolen when he went inside to pay.

The Bartholomew County Sheriff’s Department says they received a report of a vehicle theft in the 10000 block of North U.S. 31 at about 9:02 a.m. yesterday morning. The 64-year-old victim left his keys in the ignition of his pickup and saw it drive away, including an attached flatbed trailer, when he went inside to pay.

A 60-year-old Taylorsville man saw the theft and followed the stolen vehicle into a nearby restaurant where he blocked the vehicle in until authorities arrived.

31-year-old Timothy E. Wilder Jr. of Edinburgh was arrested on a charge of auto theft.

Sheriff Matt Myers cautions that if you see a crime in progress, make sure to keep yourself safe, gather information and report it to law enforcement.

Indiana State Police are promoting a Johnson County resident to head up the agency’s Benefits and Employment Services Section and the Human Resources Division.

Sergeant Ronneal L. Williams is being promoted to the rank of Lieutenant, according to State Police superintendent Douglas G. Carter. Originally from Gary, Williams graduated from Merrillville High School and IU with a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice. He is a 2012 graduate of the Indiana State Police Academy.

During his career, Williams has served the Indiana State Police as  Field Training Officer, Tactical Intervention Platoon, Emergency Vehicle Operations Instructor, and Advanced Crash Reconstructionist.

Williams and his wife live in Johnson County.

The Bartholomew County Circuit Court Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative will be holding a workshop on improving police and community relations Thursday evening at The Commons.

The session is open to those 13 or older and is designed to promote a better understanding between the community and law enforcement. Residents will also learn about their role in crime prevention and what they can expect from the police.

A boxed dinner and snacks will be provided. The session will run from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. in the Nugent Custer Performance Hall at The Commons. If you have any questions you can contact Bobbie Shake at 812-565-5641.

Photo courtesy Carol M. Highsmith, from the Library of Congress collection.

A contingent of parents turned out at this week’s Bartholomew Consolidated School board meeting to urge the school district to end COVID-19 restrictions for the upcoming school year.

The governor has given school officials, starting on July 1st, the mandate to make community-by-community decisions on what restrictions will be in place for the next school year.

The BCSC parents that spoke Monday night about the upcoming decisions were largely united in their desire to end the wearing of masks and not to require vaccines.

Parent Kelly Wheeler said that parents are responsible for their children’s health, safety and education. She talked about her family’s decision:

Parent Christy Stackhouse said that masks once made sense because at the time there were no other ways to protect from the disease.

Parent Megan Johnson pointed out that the state has school recommendations but said that ultimately it is a parent’s decision.

BCSC plans to make decisions for the 2021-22 school year at its July 19th meeting, according to school officials. Preliminary recommendations will be released the week of July 5th.

A new format for Ethnic Expo will kick off this weekend in downtown Columbus with the first of four multicultural events over the next few months.

Robin Hilber with the city’s community development department said the decision to break up Ethnic Expo into smaller events came after last year’s event had to be canceled due to the pandemic.

This year’s festivities will also be moved from City Hall to Fourth Street:

Haley Anderson with the Columbus Area Visitors Center talks about the partnerships the city is building to present Ethnic Expo in the new format.

Juneteenth will be held on Fourth Street from 2 to 9 p.m. Saturday and will feature African-American culture and cuisine organized by the Columbus and Bartholomew County NAACP. It will feature food and information booths, a DJ and main stage performances including dancing, music, drill team and spoken word.

The other three events will be the Chinese Expo on August 28th, Ganesh Festival of India on September 11th and Fiesta Latina on October 2nd.

You can get more information online at ethnic expo dot org

The Yellow Trail Museum in Hope will be crowning the fourth annual Little Miss Sparkler and Mr. Firecracker during the Old-Fashioned Independence Day festivities on July 2nd.

Area children between 3 and 10 years old are invited to take part. To win votes, decorate cans for donations and place them around town, or solicit donations from friends and family members. Every penny raised counts as one vote.

Turn in your can to the Yellow Trail Museum before Wednesday June 30th. All proceeds benefit the Yellow Trail Museum. The winners will be announced at 6:15 p.m. on Friday July 2nd on the Hope Town Square. They winners will then then lead the bike, trike and stroller parade around the square.

Flambeau is planning a $700,000 investment that will bring manufacturing work back to Columbus and add 10 jobs in the city. The company asked Columbus City Council for a tax abatement last night.

According to documents filed with the city, the $700,000 will go to new manufacturing equipment including presses.

Company officials told City Council that last year they had to outsource about $3 million in business because they didn’t have the press capacity needed locally. The additional presses will also make the company more competitive in bringing in automotive business.

The company said 120 jobs will be retained by the additional equipment and 10 new jobs would be added by the end of the year, with average wages of $15.65 per hour.

A tax abatement is a tax break that allows a business to phase in property taxes over a 10-year-period on new equipment or property purchases, rather than paying the taxes immediately.

The city calculates that the tax break will save the company nearly $40,000 in abated property taxes but it will still pay nearly $27,000 in property taxes on the new equipment.

Updated:

Power has been restored to most Duke Energy customers in Columbus. If your power is out, you should contact Duke at 1-800-343-3525.

Earlier:

Duke Energy is estimating that a power outage affecting about 960 customers in central Columbus should be repaired by 5 this afternoon. The outage area is affecting customers roughly from 21st Street to National Road and between Washington Street and Central Avenue.

The outage was first reported at about 2:10 p.m. this afternoon.

Chip Orben with Duke Energy says that there is a circuit out near 23rd Street and Central Avenue, and crews are on scene. But they do not yet know what caused the circuit to go down.

This comes on the heels of an earlier outage that affected the east side of Columbus this morning, leaving more than 800 customers without electricity in an area south of 10th Street and centered around Gladstone Avenue.

If your power is out, you should contact Duke at 1-800-343-3525.

A new type of traffic camera will be reading the license plates of every vehicle entering Bartholomew County on Interstate 65 and U.S. 31, under a proposal approved by the County Commissioners Monday. However, the county promises not to use the devices for traffic enforcement.

Capt. Chris Roberts with the Bartholomew County Sheriff’s Department presented an agreement that would acquire four of the cameras at a cost of $11,000. The cameras have the ability to read license plates and quickly process those against a database to alert deputies with various pieces of information, such as the plate of a stolen vehicle, or a vehicle suspected in a child abduction or missing persons case. That information would be processed within moments and then forwarded to on-duty deputies via a computer program in their vehicle, Roberts said.

Roberts said it would be used as an investigative tool and a deputy would always be assigned to further explore the information provided. Roberts and County Commissioner Tony London stressed that the system would not be used for traffic enforcement such as automatically writing speeding tickets.

The county plans to get four of the cameras and position them to survey the north and south entrances to the county on U.S. 31 and Interstate 65. If successful, the county could add more cameras at other strategic locations, Roberts said.

The county will have a 60-day trial period with the cameras and then a full year contract.

Commissioners voted to approve the agreement with Flock Safety at their Monday meeting.