The Conscience Of The Indianapolis City-County Council: Christine Scales

The only real Republican on the Indianapolis City-County Council, Councilor Christine Scales, explains why it is foolish and irresponsible for city government to get into the business of funding early childhood education when our state laws vest the responsibility for educating our children in the state's Department of Education under the elected Superintendent of Education and local school districts run by elected boards of education. As Scales explains, it was Mayor Ballard who promised last year to dedicate the more than $7 million the City would save by eliminating the homestead property tax credit on hiring of more police officers. Now he wants to use that money for a brand new city program for pre-K learning and hike the local income tax another 10% to hire more police officers, a move which ironically takes millions of dollars in funding away from local school districts that they will have to look elsewhere to replace, most likely higher property taxes.

Every single council member jumped on the bandwagon to promote education and ignore their responsibility to fund basic city services by supporting the mayor's latest initiative to shift attention away from the fact that he has broken his promise to make public safety job one for his past 7 years in office, except for Scales and Ginny Cain (R). The other City-County Council members effectively violated the oath of office they all took when they were sworn into office by blowing your taxpayer dollars on something that is not the responsibility of City-County government, which can't even adequately take care of its statutory obligations.

Incidentally, the Republican council leader, Mike McQuillen, who can't get enough of shooting spitballs at Scales during council meetings, used introductions at the beginning of the council meeting last night to introduce a guy by the name of Tim Craft. Keep an eye on this guy. The Republicans met behind closed doors and drafted Craft, an associate of CB Richard Ellis, to run against Scales in next year's Republican primary as punishment because she votes like, well, like a real Republican would vote. Of course, Craft's Democratic business associate at CB Richard Ellis, Gordon Hendry, who served in the Peterson administration, and his wife, Jennifer Wagner, did all they could to stop Ballard's election in 2007. They couldn't say enough bad things about candidate Ballard in 2007.

Hendry's and Wagner's sentiments toward Ballard took a sudden 180-degree turn. Not too long into Ballard's first term, Wagner deleted all evidence of her "Accidental Mayor" blog from the Internet, which had excoriated Ballard's leadership on a daily basis. As the worm turned, no-bid city contracts started dropping into Hendry's lap. According to the IBJ, CB Richard Ellis' contract to advise the City on the poorly thought out boondoggle of a project on Mass Avenue to relocate IFD's headquarters, Station 7 and the Firefighters Credit Union could net his firm at least $1 million to perform work that could have and should have been done by more qualified employees at DMD. Ballard also gave a no-bid contract to Hendry to select the most suitable site for a new criminal justice center. In a thoroughly discredited study taxpayers paid dearly to get, Hendry inexplicably gave top billing to a site on the county line adjacent to the Indianapolis International Airport. Public outrage over the choice forced the Ballard administration to settle for a site closer to downtown at the site of the former GM Stamping Plant. So I guess we shouldn't be surprised that Republicans would team up with an associate of one of their Democratic allies to defeat one of Ballard's biggest and well-deserved critics on the council, Christine Scales.

As you can see, these folks are devoid of any political principles. The Rs and Ds behind their names are nothing more than a mirage to fool the uninformed voter into thinking they are offered choices between the two parties. Their only interest in politics is financial self-enrichment, and running government is their tool of choice to reach that ends. Christine Scales is a pariah in the local Republican Party because she stands on the core principles she was taught to believe the Republican Party represents. As many of us have discovered, true believers are persona non grata in the local Republican Party. Unless you are someone who is financially beholden to the downtown mafia and who can be as flexible as Gumby depending on the flavor of tea being served on any given day, your services are not wanted. These corrupt people who run both local political parties in Marion County will do whatever it takes to demoralize you and personally destroy you so that you leave politics for good.

People who believe in good government regardless of your political party should stand behind Christine Scales. She's one of the few voices left in City-County government that can be counted on to make informed choices based on the best information available that will serve the general public the best. These people are so threatened by what Scales represents that they banished her from the caucus and refused to let her sit on the same side of the aisle with them, behaving no better than petulant elementary school kids taunting a classmate with cries of "she has cooties." For that, we should all claim Scales as a friend and wear it like a badge of honor.