I predict weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth by government, library and school officials and others affected by Tuesday's release of the report from the Indiana Commission on Local Government.

It has come up with ideas that are bold and far-reaching, yet practical to implement and designed to drag Indiana from the 19th into the 21st century.

If you're moaning about your property tax increases, county income taxes and a proposed state sales tax hike, you know in your heart something like this has to be done.

It comes at the cost of essentially blowing up the existing system under which Indiana has labored since before the Civil War and replacing it with something in line with the 21st century, which will make local government squeal.

The subtitle of the study is, "We've got to stop governing like this."

Indiana is ready for reform. If it does not reform, it can continue to expect the brain drain that now saps so much of the home-grown talent that is driven elsewhere by Indiana's unwillingness to change due to selfish political considerations.

In Lake County, for example, the surveyor is neither a licensed surveyor nor a civil engineer. The Lake County assessor isn't trained to assess. Throughout Indiana, the sheriff is elected, but none of our cities and towns elects its police chief. So tell me again why we need an elected sheriff? Or an elected coroner rather than a hired, trained medical examiner?

Small school districts, such as Boone Township in Porter County or Dewey Township in LaPorte County, which has only 156 students, would be forced to consolidate with adjacent districts under the proposed plan.

I predict squealing like that of a thousand stuck pigs and righteous indignation that this removes the voter from the "public servant." That is bull. How much farther removed from the voter can our elected officials be, the ones who fill their own cars at county gas troughs and cry like babies when they can't get a county-owned car to drive?

What it will do is create more responsibility. With fewer people in elected office, we as voters and taxpayers will know with whom the buck stops. There will not be the finger-pointing every time someone is caught with his hand in the cookie jar that "everyone does it" or "it's her fault."

The plan calls for running a county like a business, and giving an elected county executive and stronger council greater latitude in deciding who is doing the job properly.

Now, if we find out our elected officials are clowns we can no longer tolerate, we have to wait months, maybe years before we can vote them out. And by that time, they are hoping, we will have forgotten all about it.

History proves them right. Remember the 2003 outrage over the property tax increases to homeowners while the billion-dollar multinational companies on the lakefront got big tax breaks? If you don't, look up House Bill 1902 and House Bill 1858.

There was outrage, and the incumbents were all quaking in their boots at election time. Needlessly, as it turned out, because we voted them back in like the lemmings we are. They must have been laughing among themselves, asking "What does it take to get beat?"

They're not laughing at me. I voted against them all. And maybe you did too, but enough of you out there pulled the lever for the same old, same old -- and that's what you got.

A voice crying in the wilderness is Lake County Councilman Larry Blanchard, R-Crown Point, one of three who voted against the proposed county income tax and says he will continue his opposition.

"Why pass the tax?" he said. "We haven't even tried to cut anything yet."

If the county does not pass the tax, its ability to levy new taxes would be frozen by the state. Blanchard is unrepentant, and says it is not even really a threat.

"We should, we could be able to live within that," he said. "If this tax passes, any (property tax) saving will be consumed by the regular cost of business in a very short time, four years at the most, and we will be stuck with the income tax."

I hope it finds a more receptive audience than the Good Government Study done for Lake County earlier this year.

That study on streamlining and cost savings was immediately met by howls from officeholders, and the county's elected pigs continue to grunt, "Where's mine?"

Unless we reform, that should be our official motto.

The opinions are solely those of the writer. He can be reached at markk@nwitimes.com or (219) 933-4170.