Council Allows Vision Fleet A Do-Over On Illegal Electric Car Contract

The Indianapolis City-County Council had the Ballard administration nailed to the wall for entering into an illegal contract with Vision Fleet, a company that sprung into existence for the sole purpose of executing an extremely one-sided contract with the City to lease a fleet of electric and hybrid cars that left the City few, if any, remedies to unwind. Despite the fact the contract was void as a matter of law because public procurement laws were ignored in their entirety, and the council had filed a declaratory judgment lawsuit to have the contract so declared, we now learn the council has folded and allowed the mayor's office and the company to complete a do-over to make what was clearly an illegal contract legal.

Fox 59 News says under the terms of an agreement reached between the council, mayor's office and Vision Fleet, a new 4-year contract will be executed in place of the void contract, the fleet of electric and hybrid cars to be leased by the city will be frozen at the 212 vehicles of which the city has already taken possession, and the city will be let off the hook for the remaining 213 vehicles it contracted to lease under the terms of the original 7-year lease. In addition, all future acquisitions of vehicles must be undertaken through the normal competitive bidding requirements mandated by state law, a process the administration sidestepped entirely when it first entered into the contract. The fact that civil and criminal laws were broken in the process is all forgiven. I guess we won't find out the identity of the political insiders who own a beneficial interest in Vision Fleet either, no thanks to federal and state prosecutors who refuse to investigate what was clearly a corrupt and illegal undertaking by Mayor Greg Ballard.

“All parties acknowledge that the public interest is best served when substantial contracts such as these are procured through an open and competitive process whenever such a process is possible,” reads the new agreement in stark opposition to the streamlined non-competitive manner in which the Ballard Administration awarded the original contract to Vision Fleet, a start-up with no other customers, in 2013.

“On behalf of the Mayor’s Office and the City-County Council, it is our mutual desire to put our public disagreements over the Vision Fleet contract behind us,” reads the joint public statement which dismisses the lawsuit council members filed against Ballard to force compliance with city purchasing rules and a re-examination of the original agreement.

I would once again extend my invitation to all of the corrupt pols in Chicago to relocate to Indianapolis where you can steal, bribe and profiteer to your heart's content at the public's expense without fear of prosecution and even manage to get a pat on the back by our local useless media, which seems more interested in aiding and abetting the politicians and their political cronies in the theft of public assets than exposing them.