Tuesday, June 26, 2007

Ballard Blasts Peterson For Lobbying Handouts To Political Cronies

GOP mayoral hopeful Greg Ballard blasted Mayor Bart Peterson (D) for blowing $324,000 in taxpayers dollars to reward political cronies at two major lobbying firms. Ballard said, “Mayor Peterson demonstrated, yet again, his poor judgment and failure to make crime his top priority when he chose to spend over $300,000 on outside lobbyists last year, instead of hiring police officers," said Ballard. Ballard pointed to lobbying reports filed by the City of Indianapolis with the the state lobby commission, which shows the City spent $324,400.39 in the past twelve months to compensate lobbyists. "The lion’s share of that money went to the law firms that currently employ the Mayor’s campaign manager and his former top city attorney."

Bose Public Affairs Group employs former Peterson deputy, Mike O'Connor. The city also paid Baker & Daniels and Ice Miller to lobby for the City this past session. Baker & Daniels employs former Peterson deputy, Melina Kennedy, and the city's former chief legal counsel, Scott Chinn. Ice Miller formerly employed Mayor Peterson. Peterson political crony Lacy Johnson, an Ice Miller attorney, is a lobbyist and partner at Ice Miller. According to a Star report on Sunday, the expenditures on lobbying by the City made it the third biggest spender at the General Assembly this past session among all lobbyists. This comes at the same time Mayor Peterson is seeking yet another $85 million tax increase from the city-county council.

Ballard thinks that money would be better spent on more police officers on the street. "A recent report showed that the new Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department (IMPD) is well over 100 officers short at best,” said Ballard. “Violent crime is growing throughout the city. And how does the mayor spend our hard earned tax dollars? On political cronies who are now highly paid lobbyists.” "This offends me,” Ballard added. “While the City needs a strong presence at the General Assembly, I don’t think the Mayor went about it the right way at this time. With more than $2 million dollars worth of staff on his office’s payroll, couldn’t he, through good personnel management, have found competent City employees for this part-time task?”

Ballard called on Peterson "to place public safety ahead of all other city priorities and political considerations.” “We need to hire more police officers and we need to reopen some of the important community police posts like the North District substation." Commenting on the City's waste of taxpayer money to reward Peterson's political cronies, Ballard said, "We didn’t get lower property taxes." "We didn’t get more efficient government." "We didn’t get more police on our streets." "We did get his pledge to raise our income taxes by $85 million when we can least afford it.”

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

Peterson isn't about crime prevention, he never was. Its simple. BART LIES!

Anonymous said...

From the Mayor's state of the city address this year.


Mayor Peterson said, “Homicides were up 25% here in Indianapolis”. Hum...well, Mayor the actual increase was more like 50%. Indianapolis is county wide now, except for a few mini-towns.

Mayor‘s quote: “And did I mention that the Indianapolis Colts are World Champions?! Now, that was fun. But it was yesterday. What matters now is tomorrow. As we look forward to the remainder of 2007, our clear priority is the war against crime.“ Is the Mayor admitting that “Football” was more important than keeping Indianapolis safe?

Mayor’s quote: “If the legislature approves our proposals, I want to reserve up to $5 million a year to fund initiatives like those recommended in the Community Crime Prevention Task Force Report released last month.“ Mr. Mayor what will happen if the funding is not approved? Is there another Peterson Plan?

Mayor’s quote: “The Task Force recognized that we cannot win this war simply through enforcement.” What enforcement? We need 200+ new officers NOW!

Another quote: “if we do not make a stronger commitment to fighting the causes of crime, we will continue to lose ground and the future of our city will be at risk.” Mayor Peterson admits in this statement that we (He) haven’t fought crime as hard as was needed.

Best quote yet, “Some have suggested to me that because crime has increased, and because its effects can be so devastating to a city, I should only work on the war against crime, only talk about crime, only think about crime. Well nothing affects me as viscerally as the recent rise in crime. Crime often means tragedy for people. It can affect the morale of a city. So crime will always be the top priority for me and my administration.”

Let’s break this down.
“Some have suggested to me that because crime has increased, and because its effects can be so devastating to a city, I should only work on the war against crime, only talk about crime, only think about crime. ” Wouldn’t hurt Mr. Mayor. Take a week or two and see what happens. Oh sorry, I forgot your running for re-election. I should have known that’s much more important than the escalating crime or a few inter-city folk’s murders.

“Well nothing affects me as viscerally as the recent rise in crime” Recent rise? Are you kidding?
Mr. Mayor, not taking crime to task has only accounted for a steady increase from 2000 until now.
Mayor Peterson have you ever wondered why crime dropped from 1996 to 2000, but has increased every year since you have taken office? Some of us do.
(The link below will take you to IMPD’s 10 year Crime Trend Chart.)
"http://www.indygov.org/eGov/IMPD/Crimes/10-year.htm”

“ So crime will always be the top priority for me and my administration.” Mr. Mayor if you believe this statement then YOU need to get busy. So far you have only moved around a lot of hot air and done nothing more.

LIES LIES LIES

BART LIES

Anonymous said...

ballardformayor.com

Visit. Volunteer. Contribute.

Wilson46201 said...

It's almost a full moon tonight - the pack of anonymous nobodies are out howling already!

Unknown said...

Obviously, Wilson, anyone who doesn't come up with an Internet name for themselves has no right to comment on political issues.

Anyway, if Ballard wants to have any chance at election, he needs to branch out to some other issues besides crime. His constant harping on Peterson about the crime and law enforcement is getting tiresome. And I'm saying this as someone who definitely wants Bart out of office.

Anonymous said...

"It's almost a full moon tonight - the pack of anonymous nobodies are out howling already!"



And being heard.
The tide is shifting Wilson.
Your guy might win but he will be exposed for what he is, a bold face liar.

Anonymous said...

And Ballard would never give a single penny to a lobbying firm. Give me a break.

Anonymous said...

From a Democrat who will vote for Bart:

1. Ballard is spot-on with this criticism.

2. Nutterballs and geniuses post anonymously...for good reason, David and Wilson. Stop bashing them. They did nothing to hurt either of you.

3. Anonymous posting does not diminish credibility or facts. It does protect identities, and personal lives as well as jobs.

4. Ballard has to try for free media because he has no paid media money, and Bart just dumped a hundred thousand or so into paid media.

5. Any Republicans who whine about Bart's paid media: revisit Reagan's "City on a Hill." Pablum designed to distract.

6. Bart wins at least 60-40.

7. There is no tide turning. Won't be a tide turning.

The real question? Will Bart have 17, 18, 19 or 20 Council members to support his platforms, or just 16?

Will the Dems wake up and realize that Monroe Gray and his ilk are not heling the city?

Anonymous said...

* "helping" noe heling

Unknown said...

Nutterballs and geniuses post anonymously...for good reason, David and Wilson. Stop bashing them. They did nothing to hurt either of you.

My comment was sarcasm.

Anonymous said...

Gotcha David. Didn't then, do now.

:-)

garyj said...

Wilson is, once again, saying that people who disagree with him are wrong.
You have brought up some valid points in the past, Wilson. As I'm sure you will in the future. Do people need to prove to you that Bart has lied in the past? All you have to do is read his "Peterson Plans" I & II and see that Bart had some good ideas, but thats all they are. He was too busy getting his friends richer while making Indy more dangerous! Do you go out unarmed, Wilson. If not, you're foolish. Indy is dangerous, especially for seniors, because Bart wants it that way!

Peole post anonymously for several reasons, Wilson. Look at what happened to Rick Skirvin. He was terminated for saying the truth. He was an asset to this city by volunteering his time, bi-lingual skills, and dedication to help the officers who will try to keep you from being a victim. Even you have posted anonymously, on Indyundercover, because you are afraid of being identified. Why is that? You actuall make intelligent, thought provoking statements, when you are not calling people "mudslingers" and "nutterballs"
Use your open mind and see both sides, Bart is not the God you think he is. Mitch has a few faults as well, his turn is coming when his term is up!
Get with the program Wilson, open both eyes, you may be surprised what you see.

Anonymous said...

Mayor Peterson,
I'm sure one of your staff reads this blog and i would appreciate a response to flipper@iquest.net
My question is. Why did you have to give Jim Ursay 40 million dollars for breach of contract and still build him a new stadium. Couldn't someone in the city administration negociate a better outcome? How many millions has the city spent on design, attorney, or other fees for the stadium. you gave the good old simon boys 6o million to kill off the last few square feet of green space in downtown indy and build an office building. My math says that is over 100 million dollars. Probibly way more than that you have given away of the citizens of this county's hard earned money.
Now you want to raise my taxes for public safety!
I used to work for your father and also 35 years as an IFD firefighter. i'm sure he would be appauled to see how you have treated the citizens on this once great city.
I'm just ashamed to see you chop this once great city up for the gain of the developers, many i'm sure are friends of yours, and the rich business owners.
I would appresiate a reply to flipper@iquest.net if you or any of your staffers have some common decency to address my issues.

Thank you

Tim Dugan
flipper@iquest.net

Posted by: Tim Dugan | June 27, 2007 04:44 PM
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