McQuillen Uses His Sgt. Schultz Defense On Property Tax Revenue Diversion To CIB.

As the blogs first reported, Mayor Greg Ballard's administration rammed a secretive plan through the Metropolitan Development Commission, which was drafted by attorneys at Barnes & Thornburg, without any public discussion to begin funding the CIB with $8 million annually in property tax revenues derived from a downtown tax increment financing (TIF) district. City Controller David Reynolds tells WRTV's Kara Kenney half of the that amount of money, or $4 million, has already been transferred to the CIB, which the CIB's Ann Lathrop claims is being used as a dedicated revenue stream for the ICVA. There's only one problem with that story. The ICVA has been funded since its inception with revenunes the CIB  derived from from other local taxes, such as the innkeepers' tax, food and beverage tax and car rental tax. It had a dedicated revenue stream; no revenue stream existed for funding the $33.5 million Pacers subsidy. When Kenney contacted City-County Councilor Mike McQuillen to discuss the transfer, he put on his best Sgt. Schultz "I know nothing" defense. "City-County Councilor Mike McQuillen, who serves on the CIB, said he did not know much about the transfer when contacted Friday afternoon, but said he would look into the situation," she reported

Ordinarily, the City-County Council President sits on the CIB as the council's representative, but because Ryan Vaughn's law firm represents the Simons, he appointed McQuillen to serve as his stooge on the CIB. McQuillen is totally beholden to Vaughn and his law firm, which handles all of his campaign finance reporting for him. McQuillen, who makes a living trading in political campaign buttons, meets regularly with Vaughn to receive his marching orders on CIB matters and council-related issues. McQuillen chairs the Municipal Corporations Committee. It stretches credulity for McQuillen to think he can profess ignorance of the plan to shift these property tax revenues to the CIB. The property tax revenues were shifted to the CIB so it could afford the $33.5 million it agreed to give to the Simon-owned Pacers as an additional public subsidy. When the council approved new taxes and borrowing last year to fund a bailout of the CIB, Councilor Robert Lutz, who chairs the Rules & Public Policy Committee, insisted none of the new revenues would be used to pay for additional subsidies to the Pacers. As it turns out, he was correct. The Ballard administration with the full knowledge of Vaughn and McQuillen concocted the property tax revenue transfer scheme to pay for the Pacer subsidy despite Mayor Ballard's insistence no property tax revenues were being used.

This latest backroom deal authored by Barnes & Thornburg's Bob Grand and Joe Loftus to aid another one of the firm's clients with the assistance of Vaughn and McQuillen has presented a golden issue for Democratic mayoral candidate Melina Kennedy. "How is it that we can prioritize using property tax dollars at an unprecedented level to fund the CIB and not step up and do something about libraries closing on certain days?" Kennedy asked Kenney. She "wants the city to open its books and further explain why it is using the funds for tourism promotion instead of parks, buses and other basic services." This is an issue that will resonate with the voters. It is obvious Mayor Ballard is allowing valuable city resources to be used solely to benefit Barnes & Thornburg and their clients. What is particularly disgusting about this transaction is how Vaughn's law firm was actually paid with our taxpayer dollars to draft an interlocal agreement that so obviously is intended to help one of its own clients. This is a new low in self-dealing, not that there hasn't already been plenty of other cases heretofore during this administration.