Jefferson Shreve's Eligibility To Serve On City-County Council Must Be Challenged

Perry Township Small Claims Court Judge Robert Spear Swearing In Bloomington Resident Jefferson Shreve as Indianapolis City-County Councilor

Former Indianapolis City-County Councilor Jeff Cardwell couldn't wait to post on his Twitter account this photo of the swearing in of long-time Bloomington resident Jefferson Shreve as his replacement as District 23 City-County Council member in Indianapolis. In e-mail communications with precinct committeepersons prior to Saturday's caucus election to fill the vacancy, Shreve readily admitted that it wasn't until "two years ago" that he chose to "base [his] life back out of Indy rather than Bloomington." Although Cardwell had encouraged Perry Township Advisory Board member and 2011 at-large CCC candidate Michael Kalscheur to seek his seat before he made the announcement public that he was stepping down to work in the administration of Gov. Mike Pence, Cardwell, along with the Marion Co. GOP leadership and Mayor Greg Ballard, backed the Bloomington resident over the only legitimately qualified candidate.

If the Marion Co. Republicans have any integrity, they will lay out for public inspection immediately any proof they have that will establish that Shreve was a resident of District 23 at least two years prior to his election at the caucus held yesterday. Michael Kalscheur is entitled to take this seat if it is shown that Shreve does not meet the residency requirement as the only other candidate considered at Saturday's caucus election. Right now we only have a voter registration record saying he registered to vote on October 17, 2011. It's an absolute insult to the residents of Marion County that someone could simply take up residency, start throwing thousands of dollars in campaign contributions around, and then be named as a City-County Councilor a short time later. At a recent City-County Council meeting, Republican councilors refused to vote for a Board of Zoning Appeals appointee of the Democrats because they said she hadn't lived in the city long enough. Will they tolerate the seating of someone who may not even meet the legal residency requirement to serve on the City-County Council, who then as one of his first acts will get to vote on two new tax increases proposed by Mayor Greg Ballard?

UPDATE: By the way, I've confirmed that Shreve has already stated that he gladly plans to vote to raise both the admissions tax and the auto rental tax for the benefit of the CIB as one of his first acts as a councilor. He'll vote just the way he's instructed to vote by the downtown mafia, from which he purchased his seat on the council. Apparently Kalscheur's mistake was to say that he would vote against those two taxes and had serious reservations about Mayor Ballard's multi-billion dollar, tax-raising mass transit plan. Fiscal conservatives are now officially banned from serving in public office in Marion County. Hell, let's just elect Democrats to every single office. They won't vote any different than the tax-and-spend liberals who dominate the Marion County Republican Party under Mayor Greg Ballard.