Tuesday, July 21, 2015

Will It Take A Harrisburg-Style Financial Collapse To Get Justice In Indiana?


Former Mayor Stephen Reed was popular with the voters and the media folks who covered him during his long tenure as Harrisburg, Pennsylvania's mayor, where he easily won re-election to office every time he faced voters until the City found itself in financial ruins and was eventually forced to file bankruptcy. Last week, a state prosecutor brought 499 felony charges against the former mayor for what she described as corruption spanning decades. Among the charges Reed faces are allegations he diverted city funds intended for other projects to purchase millions of dollars worth of artifacts he planned to put in museums he planned to build, which he kept for himself after losing re-election in 2009. State prosecutors say Reed used his "gregarious" and "charming" ways to cajole and bribe members of the city council with jobs and other favors in exchange for approving increased borrowing through a series of bond issues that led the city to bankruptcy. State prosecutors say Reed's indictment is the first of many it plans to bring.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow... it's almost as if one could delete in this article every mention of former Harrisburg PA mayor Stephen Reed's name and then insert the name "Greg Ballard" without at all changing the point of the news story.

WHY WILL DEMOCRAT MAGGIE LEWIS'S COUNCIL NOT STOP GREG BALLARD'S CEASELESS CORRUPTION?!? ROC, P3 schemes, Vision Fleet, Blue Indy, ACS 50 Parking Meter Slavery, ad infinitum...

Anonymous said...

Jim Brainard was the first Indiana mayor who came to my mind when I watched the video.

Anonymous said...

The Eastern District of Pennsylvania's U.S. Attorney must be as useless as the Southern District of Indiana's U.S. Attorney.

Anonymous said...

8:20 here... yes, Anon 8:36 more salient point than mine. Former Brookshire (Carmel) homeowner here who witnessed it all from the authoritarian know it all Jane Reiman- whose insistence that "business" be penned in to the now failing and mostly empty Merchant's Square- to the completely corrupt Jim Brainard who made a mint off his personal property deals/re-sales using insider knowledge and who encumbered Carmel with debt the Carmelites refuse to acknowledge or even comprehend no matter how right John Accetturo was about the corrupt Brainard's devious financing schemes.

Anonymous said...

http://www.indystar.com/story/news/crime/2015/07/21/impd-chaplain-charged-patronizing-prostitute-intimidation/30461715/

IMPD has had a busy year.

Anonymous said...

Car-Mel is lost in a debt wilderness. The all new "Brainard bobble-head" council combined with the new, know nothing Clerk Treasurer, Brainard's minions continue to ignore financial ruin.

How about all the new "TRENDING" real estate values in Car-Mel? Not all Car-Melites are happy campers, just the carpetbaggers who continue to be subsidized by the City Council and the minions.

Anonymous said...

No doubt Indy has its own issues, Carmel certainly popped in my mind when reading this. So many similarities. The other shoe just hasn't dropped yet.