Bloomfield News Blog

Tuesday, November 25, 2008
By Timberly Ferree, Staff Writer

Bloomfield Superintendent Dan Sichting explained, “What we are looking at doing … is applying through INDOT (Indiana Department of Transportation) and the Safe Routes to School for a grant that is awarded to provide sidewalks in areas of Bloomfield that don’t have any sidewalks.”

Specifically, Cleveland Street.

“Obviously, we think we would have a strong case. Cleveland Street is well traveled by students. The town pool is also located on Cleveland Street,” Sichting explained.

But the grant application process is lengthy.

“It won’t happen overnight. The people that I’ve talked to … it took them a year to compile the things that they needed for the grant.”

So, in the next year the Bloomfield School District and the town council will work together to get the necessary information for the grant.

Photos of students walking to school in various conditions on Cleveland Street will be submitted along with the grant application, Sichting noted.

Originally, a school board member approached Sichting with the idea.

He has already approached the Bloomfield Town Council and received positive feedback on the idea.

“They (Bloomfield Town Council) are interested,” Sichting said.

If awarded, the grant could provide up to $250,000 per sidewalk project and an additional amount to other things such as hiring a crosswalk guard, he noted.

The Safe Routes to School program is a federal program that administrators grants to schools through the Indiana Department of Transportation.

Posted November 25, 2008
By Chris Buhneing
bloomfiledin.com

Well it is that time of year and Santa will arive at the downtown “Santa House” Nov, 28 at 10am, hours are listed below.

The Santa house is located in the same place, in the downtown area on Main street across from the Chinahouse resturant and next to the Family Life Center.

Santa will be making his apperance on the following days:

Friday, Nov. 28: 10 - 1
Saturday, Nov. 29: 10 - 1
Saturday, Dec. 6: Santa Train will be rolling in.
Saturday, Dec. 13: 10 - 1
Saturday, Dec. 20: 10 - 11:30
Saturday, Dec. 20: Noon - There will be a Soup Lunch held by the Methodist Church
Sunday, Dec. 21: Last day Santa will be starting to get ready for christmas.

Monday, November 24, 2008
By Nick Schneider, Assistant Editor
Members of Indiana National Guard Combat Team Alpha 1-151 based in Linton, who have been serving in Iraq for the last nine months, are scheduled to return Friday.Staff Sgt. Jeffrey Lowry, of the Indiana National Guard headquarters in Indianapolis, told the Greene County Daily World on Monday morning that the local Guardsmen are slated to return on a flight that is expected to land sometime Friday.
The exact time of the flight has not been announced.

He stressed that the flight schedule is tentative and was subject to revision, but as of Monday, the flight was still on the manifest to happen on Friday.

The Guardsmen will land at Indianapolis International Airport and then be transported by bus to Stout Field on Holt Road, where a reception will be staged with family and media.

The Greene County Daily World has previously reported that the Guardsmen will not be released to return to their respective homes upon their return to Indianapolis.

Lt. Col. Ronald Westfall, commander of Task Force 151, says the soldiers will be reunited with their families for an approximate one-hour period in Indianapolis upon their return. At the completion of that hour, the soldiers will be bussed directly to Camp Atterbury near Edinburgh to begin their demobilization process.

This process is expected to last from three-to-five days or until complete. Once the unit has completed demobilization, then the soldiers will be released on Terminal Leave, the commander said.

The approximate 140-member local guard unit was activated Dec. 10, 2007 and deployed Jan. 2.

They went to Fort Steward, Ga., for about a month of additional training before heading to Iraq.

While in the combat zone, the troops have been escorting convoys and carrying out a variety of humanitarian missions.

More details of the return will be released by National Guard officials closer to the date of the arrival.

The Bloomfield Police Department was informed of a speeding vehicle through a report made by ambulance personnel, explained Bloomfield Town Marshal Ken Tharp in an interview with the Greene County Daily World.

“The vehicle was called in by one of the ambulance crews,” he said, adding the speeding vehicle passed the ambulance on State Road 54 near the J.L. Wilson Bridge east of Bloomfield.

The vehicle was then clocked by Bloomfield Deputy Marshal Holt at 45 mph in a 25 mph zone, Tharp said.

“The vehicle headed on south (U.S.) 231 and then Deputy Holt flipped his lights on. … He ( Keith) tried to get away. It (chase) was 100 miles per hour plus,” Tharp said. “He (Keith) then tried to hide. He went down County Road 700 South and pulled into a roadway or driveway and shut his lights off.”

But Deputy Holt found him anyway.

Keith was transported to the Greene County Jail at 2:30 a.m. on Sunday. He was then released at 11:50 a.m. on Sunday after posting 10 percent of the $4,500 bond.

Local cops will write citations under town ordinances

BLOOMFIELD - As soon as the fine envelopes are printed, local law enforcement officers will begin citing motorists with violations of town ordinances - instead of writing tickets for breaking state laws.
In a move that will both drive revenues for the Town of Bloomfield and decrease the cost of tickets for local motorists, the town council on Tuesday adopted the majority of the Indiana Traffic Code as town ordinances.
The move allows Bloomfield Police officers to write motorists tickets under the town ordinances, instead of state statutes - as they do now.
This also means that the Town of Bloomfield will be able to keep the lion’s share of the money generated by the tickets.
Currently, the town receives less than $5 per traffic ticket in most cases.
“The cheapest speeding ticket I can write under state law for speeding is $128,” Marshal Ken Tharp said. “Of that, we keep about $3.”
Under the new plan, all traffic tickets written by Bloomfield Police officers will be $65, with a graduated fine scale for speeding tickets of $65, $75, and $85, depending on exactly how fast the driver was going when caught.
A seat belt violation in Bloomfield will be $25.
Currently, the City of Linton and the Town of Worthington both employ similar strategies when it comes to dealing with errant drivers.
The ticket envelopes currently being printed will also be used for any and all local ordinance violations - including loud noise violations ($100 fine).

Bruce Moore convicted in 1992 of sexual felonies

LINTON - A Linton man convicted in 1992 of child molesting has been installed as president of the Linton Civitan Club.
Bruce Allan Moore, 56, of Linton, was recently installed as president of the community-service organization.
On Jan. 27, 1992, Moore was charged with one Class C felony count of child molesting, one Class D felony count of child molesting and one Class D felony count of child seduction.
According to court records from the time, Moore was convicted on the Class C felony child molesting and Class D felony child seduction charges.
The probable cause affidavit from then-investigator Herman Funk states that Moore had sexual intercourse with a young girl on numerous occasions over a period of several years.
He was also accused of fondling another young girl’s genitals during the same time period.
During that time, Moore was an adoptive parent, and was a caregiver in the foster care system.
“(The victim) stated that she had sexual encounters with Bruce Moore since she was 12 years old,” Funk’s affidavit states. “When (the victim) was 13 or 14 years of age, Bruce started having intercourse with her, and this went on for a period … from 1985 to 1991.”
The victim told investigators that she and Moore had been having sex on a weekly basis during that time.
On Jan. 9, 1992, Moore was taken to the Evansville Post of the Indiana State Police for a polygraph examination.
Funk’s report to the court was that “Moore denied the allegations.”
According to polygraph examiner Joseph Vetter, “the results of the polygraph examination show that Bruce Moore was not telling the truth.”
During a jury trial later that year, Moore was found guilty of two of the three charges, and on Jan. 7, 1993, Special Judge Elizabeth Mann sentenced the man to five-and-one-half years in prison.
The sentence was later modified to two years incarceration - with credit for 83 days he already served.
His file at the courthouse is jam-packed with letters of support from church members and friends in the Linton area - seeking lieniency before he was sentenced in 1993.
Moore had to register as a sex offender for a period of 10 years - which ended on Oct. 16, 2003.
Had the offenses occurred with today’s laws, he would have been classified as a lifetime registrant on the sex offender list.
According to members of the Linton Civitan Club, Moore was installed as the group’s president about two months ago.
Civitan International’s mission statement says the group’s main function is, “to build good citizenship by providing a volunteer organization of clubs dedicated to serving individual and community needs with an emphasis on helping people with developmental disabilities.”
Ironically, the official Creed of the group states that, among other pledges, a Civitan member’s ears are used to “hear the cry of children and the call throughout the world for peace, guidance, progress and unity.”
Civitan International President Danny Jackson of Nashville, Tenn., said Tuesday afternoon that he was unaware that the Linton club had elected a convicted sexual felon as its new president.
“We will get on this and check into it,” he said in an exclusive interview with the Bloomfield Free Press. “I was completely unware of this.”
The Linton Civitan Club performs a number of community services throughout Greene County - including its annual Clothe-A-Child program, which seeks funding for winter clothes and toys for less fortunate children in the area.