Tuesday, December 09, 2014

Whatever Happened To The $100 Million IMS Subsidy?

About 18 months ago, lobbyists for the Indianapolis Motor Speedway descended on the State House after months of secretive talks to announce a deal with key lawmakers to give up to $100 million to the Hulman-George family to make improvements to the IMS track and surrounding properties we were told were critical to keep up with newer and supposedly better race tracks in other cities around the country. With very little public debate, the General Assembly approved the deal, allowing the state to borrow up to $100 million for said purpose, and Gov. Mike Pence quickly signed the measure into law without blinking an eye. According to the latest information available, no official action has been taken to issue the bonds for these desperately-needed improvements after the Indiana Motorsports Commission rubber-stamped a track-improvement plan prepared by the IMS last year. Anyone else find it a little odd that this much time has gone by without any action given how little time the issue was pondered before being approved by state lawmakers?

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Since we're speculating, the France family is continually rumored to be interested in buying IMS. Perhaps some wrinkle in ownership is affecting upstream deals.

Had Enough Indy? said...

Shhhh - maybe they forgot.

Anonymous said...

And why no scrutiny on Sen. Turner on this deal as well? Ethic's committee? Grand Jury.