Council's Attorney Tells Council Members Everything About Blue Indy Deal Is Illegal

The Indianapolis City-County Council's attorneys Fred Biesecker told members of the Public Safety Committee yesterday evening that virtually every aspect of the one-sided agreement with Blue Indy is illegal.  Technically, the agreement is not fully-executed because the controller has never signed the agreement. Yet public property all over the city has already been seized and is in the process of being converted for exclusive use by Blue Indy's electric car sharing service. Its illegal cars have sat illegally parked advertising the monopoly franchise they've been illegally granted on Washington Street for over a year now.

Indianapolis is described as the showcase city for the French-owned company Bollore's electric car sharing service, but it's not getting off to a good start in America when it chooses to do business with the most corrupt mayor in the United States who is willing to break every law imaginable to provide the company a monopoly franchise agreement to operate its electric car sharing business in this city.

Essentially, the agreement entered into between the Ballard administration and the City provides an exclusive agreement to Blue Indy for a minimum initial term of 15 years to operate its electric car sharing business on city property. Mayor Ballard gave the company $6 million from the City's parking meter fund and IPL is kicking in over $3 million to install the power charging stations, make sidewalk improvements and other infrastructure improvements for the 200 sites being set up throughout the City to support a fleet of at least 500 Blue Indy electric cars occupying up to 1,000 parking spaces, including the most prime parking spaces in the City. If members of the public want to use the power charging stations for their electric cars, they have to sign an exclusive subscription agreement with Blue Indy to use the charging stations built with city tax dollars using city property.

The Ballard administration relied on its authority to grant encroachment licenses to private property owners, which Biesecker told council members is not applicable to exclusive franchise agreements. The encroachment license authority only gives the City authority to grant non-exclusive use of public right-of-way space. Biesecker says it is "nonsense" to say this can be done under an encroachment license. Biesecker noted encroachment licenses can be terminated at any time and are for one-year, renewable terms. The Blue Indy agreement can only be terminated by the City if Blue Indy mutually agrees to terminate the agreement or materially breaches the agreement with the City, whatever that means since very little is imposed upon Blue Indy by the one-sided agreement. Biesecker described the terminated clause as "embarrassingly weak." Biesecker repeated the point that the administration lacks authority to convert non-parking areas to parking areas for exclusive use by Blue Indy in violation of existing city ordinances.

The only favorable term for the City is the potential for a 15% revenue sharing if the company at some point becomes profitable. IPL will get reimbursed $4 million off the top, however, before the City would ever get the opportunity to share in any of those revenues, and it gets 2/3 of the following $4 million of profit-sharing (1/3 for the City). Blue Indy claims its investing $40 million of its own money. The way the term profitability is defined by the agreement is based on "cumulative net profit," which Biesecker suggested could take many years before the company shared its first dollar of profit with the City since it will be allowed to recoup its investment as well before profit sharing occurs.

This is the real kicker that shows just how criminal and illegal this deal is. The agreement makes Blue Indy exempt from all property taxes, parking taxes or any other tax that might be imposed on the company, and to the extent the company is required to pay a tax, the City is required to reimburse it for the amount of those taxes. Mayor Ballard has absolutely no authority to grant such an illegal, unconstitutional tax exemption. It is beyond outrageous that this man and the people working for him signing these illegal and corrupt deals have not been hauled away in handcuffs and charged with the multiple felonies they've committed. By the way, the administration gave this cake boy, David Rosenberg, who now has the title of "deputy mayor" authority to sign this agreement. Since when does a deputy mayor not even subject to confirmation by the City-County Council have legal authority to enter into one-sided, 15-year exclusive agreements with a private company on behalf of the City?

As I've said before, the rule of law has completely broken down in this state and this city. Special laws spring into existence for the benefit of political insiders who are permitted to steal our public assets for their exclusive personal use with the assistance of people who supposedly took an oath of office to uphold the constitution, state laws and local ordinances that supposedly govern us. There is no transparency in any of these arrangements. We have no idea who all owns a beneficial interest in these companies, but human nature tells us that certain individuals stand to make substantial sums of money illegally as a result of this and other illegal deals this administration has carried out the past eight years. Like I've said before, if you want to steal from the taxpayers, come to Indianapolis. There is nobody minding the store to stop you from doing it.

UPDATE: The Public Works Committee approved a resolution Thursday night calling for the towing of Blue Indy cars that are illegally parked on Washington Street in a no parking zone, which will now go before the full council for a vote.