The City of Indianapolis' lobby registration law is extremely weak and exempts the registration requirement in many instances as evidenced by the fact there are only 26 individuals currently registered to lobby the city. Just recently, one of those lobbyists updated his registration to include one for WMB Heartland Justice Partners, the entity controlled by Paris-based Meridiam Infrastructure, which Mayor Greg Ballard announced yesterday had been awarded the public-private partnership agreement to construct and operate the proposed criminal justice center.
Ice Miller's Tom John, the former Marion Co. GOP Chairman, is the sole lobbyist currently registered to lobby the mayor's office, the Department of Public Safety and the Marion Co. Sheriff. The online registration information does not state the date he filed his registration, although it had to have been made just recently. Lobbyists are permitted to update their registrations online with little transparency concerning the timing of those changes. Greg Hahn and other lobbyists for Bose Public Affairs Group began lobbying City-County Council members for the past year to support the proposal under a $750,000 contract awarded to it by the Ballard administration, which the administration says will eventually be reimbursed, along with over $12 million in professional service fees incurred by the City for this undertaking, by the winning bidder if the council approves the deal.
Those of us who know of these people [like TJ], those of us who opened their eyes to what was readily apparent in virtually everything connected with the MCRCC, those of us who saw up close and personal what a group of scoundrels almost all of these people were/are... well, the news about TJ [and insiders like him] is not at all surprising. Sadly, Mr. John is far from being the only connected Republican (or Democrat for that matter) financially benefitting from overt and covert political and "legal profession" relationships.
ReplyDeleteI long ago lost respect for the legal profession (save Mr. Welsh and Mr. Ogden) and I have absolutely zero respect for ANY of the morons who call themselves Indianapolis CC Councilors (save for Christine Scales).
A more useless group of people sucking paychecks and lucre from the taxpayer would be challenging to find.
We have a City Councilman in Carmel, Kevin Rider, who will vote on Monday to give his Restaurant's business partners from Pedcor millions of taxpayer money. He insists he has no conflict. Indiana laws are useless.
ReplyDeleteWhy was Tom John never disciplined by the Supreme Court after he admitted forging his ex-wife's signature on loan documents? They suspended Paul Ogden 60 days for criticizing a lazy judge who wasn't doing his job, and this sleazebag committed a felony and nothing happened to him.
ReplyDelete