1. Art and Diseño

ON THE
REVERSAL
FROM YEARS AS BACKUP
CHANGE
ACCENT, A6-A7
COURT
Area teams face off
SPORTS, B1
LEADING
DAILY JOURNAL
dailyjournal.net
MAP, PAGE A8
POLICE NEWS
Greenwood man arrested
in theft of appliances
SAVE THE DATES
Revamped Center Grove plan would shift about 500 children
Here’s an updated timeline for
Center Grove’s redistricting plan:
BY TOM LANGE
Feb. 20: Parents should receive
the details for Center Grove’s
updated redistricting plan.
March 4: Center Grove will
host a second community
meeting.
March 19: The school board
will vote on the plan.
Kitchen appliances stolen
from two model homes
showed up in a house that
is being remodeled.
When the homeowner,
who had heard about the
model home thefts, was
offered a deal on nearly
new appliances that
seemed too good to be
true, he called police.
Police arrested Brian
Wynne, 50, of Greenwood,
on a charge of theft.
Wynne was doing remodeling work at a home in
Franklin and came to the
home Sunday with nearly
new appliances, quoting a
price of $1,100. He told
the homeowners he could
get slightly damaged appliances from an acquaintance for cheap and put
them in their garage,
according to a report from
the Johnson County
Sheriff’s Office.
Edinburgh
Sharon K. Lucas, 72
Franklin
Rachel Howard, 92
Gerald L. ‘Jerry’ Sargent, 89
Whiteland
Thomas A. Raasch, 58
school was part of the redistricting plan proposed in January,
but parents told Arkanoff that if
Center Grove is going to redistrict either middle school it
should be done now, not in a
year or two.
Parents should receive an updated redistricting plan from the
school district this month, and
(SEE MOVE PAGE A8)
Accident
victims
had met
recently
Whiteland senior
struggles to recall
events of evening
BY JULIE MCCLURE
FOR THE DAILY JOURNAL
N
Road
Upper ShelbyvilleNeedham
Elementary
School
Webb Elementary
School
U.S. 31
WEST SIDE
EAST SIDE
Jeffe
Eastview Drive
DEATHS
schools if enrollment continues
to climb, Arkanoff said. In all,
about 500 elementary students,
or close to 15 percent, will have
to change schools under the new
plan, he said.
Center Grove officials also are
reviewing whether changes are
needed at the middle schools but
don’t know how many students
that could affect or when, Arkanoff said. Neither middle
Franklin city and school officials are considering intersection improvements, new crosswalks, added trails
and new and improved sidewalks as part of an overall plan to make walking and biking to school easier.
44
rson
St
N
Custer Baker
Intermediate School
King Street
Intersection improvements
needed
Crosswalks needed
New trail proposed
N
31
reet
Creekside
Elementary
School
44
Police questioned Wynne,
who said he let an
acquaintance borrow his
van and then bought the
appliances off him. He told
the homeowner a different
name for the man who
borrowed his van from
what he told police. When
police asked him why,
Wynne said: I just lie a lot.
Wynne, 212 Westridge
Blvd., was released from
the Johnson County jail
on $2,400 bond.
More Center Grove elementary students would transfer
schools under an updated redistricting plan.
Center Grove has to move
students who live on the south
side of the district to other
schools because Center Grove
and Maple Grove elementary
schools are running out of
room. Originally, school officials planned to move about 100
students from Maple Grove, but
now the plan is to move about
200 students, Superintendent
Richard Arkanoff said.
Moving that many students
creates a domino effect at the
other four elementary buildings
to ensure there’s room at all five
STEPS AHEAD
The homeowner later read
about the thefts from the
Westport Homes model
homes in the Center Grove
area. About $30,000 in
items were damaged or
stolen, including appliances. Witnesses saw a white
cargo van, similar to the
one Wynne drives. The
homeowner called police,
the report said.
The serial numbers on the
appliances matched the
ones stolen from the
model home, and police
also found two countertops
inside the van that
matched the description of
ones that were stolen, the
report said.
DAILY JOURNAL STAFF WRITER
[email protected]
Intersection improvements
needed
Crosswalks needed
New trail proposed
New sidewalk
Mallory
Parkway
Grizzly Cub Drive
Today
Skies: Clouds, sun
Temps: High 39; low 31
More students on the move?
Tracy Miles Road
WEATHER
75 cents
Johnson County, Indiana
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 2015
Northwood
Elementary
School
Franklin
Community
Middle School
New 8- to 10-foot median
New crosswalk markings
Reconfigure entrance to
Franklin Community Middle
School
Reconfigure Grizzly Cub Drive
Sidewalk to Northwood
Elementary School
Sidewalk to Franklin Community
Middle School
of improvements
Franklin, schools develop Bevy
targeted at U.S. 31
plans for safer walking routes M
I
f students want to walk or bike to
six of Franklin’s schools, they
might have to cross
INSIDE A8
a major street.
Details
on
And the trip still
might not be easy
planned
once students get past
projects
traffic. There are no
sidewalks or trails leading to the
buildings on U.S. 31 and Eastview
Drive and potentially unsafe routes
to others.
That’s the challenge facing city
and school officials, who want to
encourage students to walk or bike
to and from school.
A list of 25 projects to improve the
safety for students walking to and
from school has been compiled by
the school district and the city. If all
of the projects were finished, it
would total more than $2.7 million,
but neither the schools nor the city
has the money to do the projects all
at once. But officials hope to do
some of them over the next decade.
During the past year, school
personnel, city officials and parents
teamed up to look at the routes
students would take to get to school
and identified the key intersections,
crosswalks and sidewalks that need
upgrades. The projects include
adding new sidewalks and trails,
ore than 400 children
attending two
Franklin schools
could walk or bike to class,
but officials are worried
about their safety with a
highway only feet away.
The lack of sidewalks
along U.S. 31 in Franklin has
been a concern for both city
and school officials for
years. City officials have
talked about their concerns
and possible projects,
including the idea of a
pedestrian bridge, repeatedly
over the years since people
(SEE BEVY PAGE A8)
(SEE ROUTES PAGE A8)
Elsewhere
Marcia M. Sweet, 95
STORIES BY ABBY ARMBRUSTER ■ PHOTOS BY SCOTT ROBERSON
INDEX
It was just supposed to be two
teenagers, both co-captains of
their respective
basketball
teams, hanging
out and getting
to know each
other.
But
within
minutes
of
meeting at the
Speedway gas
station
near McCRACKEN
Taylorsville on
Sunday night, Columbus North’s
Josh Speidel would be critically
injured after a car accident near
Taylorsville.
And his passenger, 18-year-old
Kaylee McCracken, Greenwood,
can only remember the minutes
before it occurred, leaving the
KFC drive-thru where the two
had picked up soft drinks.
McCracken, a senior, returned
to her classes at Whiteland Community High School on Thursday.
She received cards and well wishes, and some of her teachers
cried when they saw her, she said.
Speidel is in critical but stable
condition at Methodist Hospital
in the intensive care unit, having
sustained a skull fracture and
broken jawbone, and undergoing
a procedure to relieve pressure
on his brain. He has been in a
medically induced coma.
The paths of Speidel and McCracken, and that of their families, met over a shared love of
basketball and a chance meeting
of the two teenagers at the Columbus North-Whiteland boys
basketball game Saturday night.
McCracken’s stepfather, Rick
Stephens, explained that the
two really didn’t know each other at all.
How they connected
McCracken
had
watched
Speidel play Saturday night but
didn’t talk to him there, she said.
After Saturday’s game, they
talked on Twitter, exchanged
telephone numbers and agreed
to hang out Sunday night,
she said.
(SEE VICTIMS PAGE A5)
Accent........................A6-A7
Classifieds..................B6-B8
Comics.............................B5
Editorials...........................A4
Obituaries.........................A5
Police, fire..........................A3
Sports........................B1-B4
Southside.........................A3
TV listings..........................A7
Weather............................A8
DAILY
Space dispute stalls addition of downtown Franklin parking
BY ABBY ARMBRUSTER
DAILY JOURNAL STAFF WRITER
[email protected]
If you’re continually trying to
catch that last open parking spot
in downtown Franklin, more
spaces could be available off Jefferson Street later this year.
But first, local officials need to
agree on who should be allowed
to park there. A dispute about
how many spots should be reserved for county employees who
work downtown has put the work
on hold.
The city wants to tear down an
unused portion of the Johnson
County government east annex
building, at 101 E. Jefferson St.
The demolition, along with work
to reconfigure the parking lot,
would cost about $100,000 and
add five more parking spaces in
the lot around the building,
which is also near restaurants
and shops east of the courthouse
along Jefferson Street.
But whether the work will be
done comes down to numbers —
of parking spaces.
The current parking lot has 29
spaces, with five of those reserved for the Jefferson St. Barber Shop next door. Currently,
only county employees and people doing business in the east annex can park behind or beside
the building. With the reconfiguration, the parking lot will include 34 spots total. The project
would include tearing down the
drive-thru portion of the east annex building, which was used
when the building housed a bank.
The city has agreed that not
all of those spaces will be for
downtown shoppers and visitors.
The plan was to have 17 spots reserved for county employees, 17
open to the public and the five
public spaces currently reserved
for the barber shop, next to the
east annex, remaining reserved
as they are now.
“We’re trying to get more
parking. That’s the main thing,”
city council member Steve Barnett said.
The city also wants to keep as
much parking as possible open
for shoppers and downtown visitors, which was why officials
wanted the county to agree that
the 17 spaces in the reconfigured
parking lot would apply to their
overall requirement to have 97
parking spaces set aside for
county employees who work
downtown, Franklin Mayor Joe
McGuinness said. The city must
provide 97 parking spaces downtown for county employees under
a 2011 agreement in which the
county swapped land with the
city, including the former Oren
Wright property and the former
G.C. Murphy building.
(SEE PARKING PAGE A8)