Ballard Looks To Salvage Electric Car Sharing Plan By Hook Or Crook

In his final months in office, Greg Ballard has become Rod Blagojevich on steroids. Unlike Blagojevich, Ballard has no fear of a prosecutor looking over his shoulders and can count on the Indianapolis Star to create faux stories to distract the sheeple as he continues to plunder as many public tax dollars for the benefit of his political cronies in what's left of his shameful tenure as Indianapolis mayor. Ballard is unfazed by the IURC's refusal to allow IPL to levy electric rate increases on all Indianapolis ratepayers to pay for another one of his P3 kickback schemes--this one involving an electric car sharing program.

A story buried in the Indianapolis Star among the avalanche of reporting over the manufactured public outrage over RFRA is how Ballard is doing all he can to salvage his plan to force the public to finance the BlueIndy electric car sharing scheme. The Star laments the fact that "compact, zippy and colorful" electric cars are just sitting like "museum exhibits" downtown. Ballard now claims he was close to a deal with a French-owned firm he met during one of his overseas junkets funded by the same political insiders who financially benefit from virtually every decision he makes as mayor--yet another blockbuster story the Indianapolis Star and the rest of the Indianapolis media have covered up throughout his two terms as mayor--when his deal-making was interrupted by the RFRA uproar. Ballard said the talks were progressing steadily up to last week.

"We were close," he said. "We had most of the parties together on it."

Then, Ballard said, Gov. Mike Pence signed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, and city officials were overwhelmed with containing the fallout, as companies threatened to boycott the state.

"That's taken all our attention," Ballard said of the law, which opponents say would allow businesses to discriminate against gays, lesbians and same-sex couples.

Ballard said BlueIndy was a perfect example of the type of program that appeals to young, upscale and diverse workers the city is trying to attract. Those residents are also the type to be most upset with the state for passage of the RFRA.

"It threatens what thousands of people have spent 40 years building," Ballard said of job opportunities, cultural attractions and housing choices designed to attract young workers the city has been cultivating.

Still, Rosenberg said, BlueIndy remains "a top priority," and the company has not been dissuaded by RFRA.

"They are aware of it (RFRA), but they know what the mayor is about," Rosenberg said.

Rosenberg is the same cake boy Ballard put in charge of the P3 criminal justice center project, which this blog has proven was nothing more than rigged bidding process from the beginning intended as yet another scheme involving bribes, kickbacks and payoffs, all of which is being ignored by your lamestream media as they distract your attention on faux news stories like RFRA that complicit members of the Indianapolis City-County Council are all too happy to play along with as a diversion from the issues that should concern the public the most. I wouldn't be surprised if Ballard doesn't wind up tapping his downtown TIF slush fund or money generated from his other corrupt P3 deal that privatized the city's parking meter assets. Who cares whether there is any money to repair pothole-filled streets, broken sidewalks and other crumbling infrastructure? As long as there is still some money to be made for a few insiders at the public's expense, that's all that matters.