Sports Stadium Proposal At Airport Takes On More Intrigue

Earlier today, we discussed the unusual development plan for a sports medical facility that the Indianapolis Airport Authority approved for redevelopment of the land encompassing the former airport terminal. In addition to a hotel, the developer also has plans to construct a 20,000 seat stadium as a multi-purpose sports facility for pro/college/youth-related activities. The Indy Eleven's owner, Ersal Ozdemir, has hired a team of lawyers that have spent the past couple of years trying to convince state lawmakers to approve public funding for a new soccer stadium of similar size for its use in the downtown area. New reports yesterday said little about that unusual stadium proposal. The Indianapolis Star is now focused more on it.

The Star's John Tuohy learned the developer, Athletes Business Network, has been in discussions with sports organizations outside of Indiana, both professional and amateur. A spokesman for ABN, Craig Sanders, says his company has had no discussions with Indy Eleven. A statement The Star obtained from Indy Eleven indicates the team's owner, Ersal Ozdemir, is still pursuing a downtown venue for a new stadium. If Ozdemir is not a part of this proposal, it is curious why the law firm that's helping him lobby for a new stadium downtown, Ice Miller, would be a partner in a project that includes a stadium that would seem to imperil his plans to obtain funding for his downtown soccer stadium.

Tuohy notes in his story that the city's minor league hockey and baseball teams recently entered into long-term leases for their facilities at The Coliseum and Victory Field, respectively. Additionally, both Mayor Joe Hogsett and the CIB's executive director, Barney Levengood, say they had no prior notice of ABN's plans to build a 20,000-seat stadium as part of its $500 million development plan. What professional team would want to use this facility besides a soccer team? Can Indianapolis support two professional soccer teams?

Hotelier James Dora, Jr., who is a CIB board member, doesn't seem to excited about any new hotels being built out near the airport. "We've already got a lot of hotel rooms at the airport, and there is not a lot of business because there are more hotels Downtown now," said Dora, president of General Hotels Corp., a hotel management and development company. Dora said he could see some utilization of the hotel by patients' families and physicians, but he could not see the need for 182,000 room nights a year.

Tuohy also learned the paltry sum ABN will pay the airport authority to lease the land rather than purchase it outright from the authority. "The ABN would enter a 50-year lease agreement with the airport and pay $378,400 per year in rent for the phase 1 property and $637,500 a year for phase 2," he said. "ABN would be responsible for maintenance and operating costs and for installing or connecting utilities," he added.

Indianapolis Star Finally Discusses All The Free Colts Tickets For The Insiders

People who've followed my blog for a long time know how often I've talked about the role all of the free sporting tickets given out to the Indianapolis Colts and Indiana Pacers games have in influencing key government decision-makers in their generous use of our taxpayer dollars to benefit the billionaire owners of the professional sports teams. Many of these free tickets are controlled by government-run or government-supported agencies and only get disclosed if an elected representative voluntarily reports them on their statement of economic interest or the media convinces the agencies passing out the free tickets to disclose the recipients of those tickets. The Indianapolis Star for the first time in its history broached the subject of who gets free tickets to suites for Indianapolis Colts games controlled by the Capital Improvement Board and Visit Indy.

The Capital Improvement Board, of course, is the municipal government that is run by unelected board members appointed mostly by the mayor but also the City-County Council and the county commissioners. It's actually controlled by the billionaire sports team owners and the downtown mafia, but you already knew that. It has an annual budget of about $150 million and oversees Lucas Oil Stadium, Banker's Life Fieldhouse, Victory Field, the Indiana Convention Center and several parking garages downtown. Visit Indy gets close to $10 million annually from the CIB to promote Indy's convention business. Both enjoy the use of suites at Lucas Oil Stadium, which The Star tells us have a market lease value of about $166,000 a year. The two organizations each pass out dozens of free tickets to each game, although their record-keeping is sloppy at best and the transparency in identifying the recipients leaves much to be desired. Visit Indy redacted the identity of most of its recipients, Those identified were mostly board members and their spouses or family members, employees and elected officials like council members or state lawmakers.

The Star report places no total value on the tickets. Judging by the price of prime tickets to Colts games, the value of those tickets each season easily reaches into the hundreds of thousands of dollars. Catering costs to the CIB's suite totaled $19,000 over the three years examined by The Star (2012-14). The most frequent ticket-takers of the CIB suite tickets identified other than staff members were board members, including attorney Milt Thompson (99), Bose McKinney lobbyist Doug Brown (89), City-County Council President Maggie Lewis (75), Sheet Metal Union executive Jay Potesta (67) and IURC Commissioner Carolene Mays (48). Potesta actually lives in Washington, D.C. so he must be a frequent flyer between Indianapolis and the nation's capital so he can zip into town to attend board meetings and Colts games. Visit Indy CEO Leonard Hoops, who also sits on the CIB Board and earns close to $650,000 a year got free tickets to every single game. Presumably, the persons whose names Hoops thought needed redacted from the list he provided to The Star included the names of all of those convention decision-makers Visit Indy lavishly entertains at the public's expense to bribe them into hosting their conventions in Indianapolis instead of some other city.

Former Mayor Greg Ballard's name is not identified on any of the lists, although his office gets tickets to all of the games. The Star included a quip from Ballard when he honored former CIB board president Ann Lathrop at her last board meeting. "This almost looks like a Colts suite in here," he said, drawing laughter from the people in the room. "You're on the record, mayor," the CIB's attorney cautioned. That's Toby McClamroch, a partner at Bingham Greenebaum Doll, which bills the CIB about a million bucks a year for its legal services. His law firm also has its own suite at Lucas Oil Stadium, but McClamroch, too, was a frequent recipient of the CIB's free tickets, bagging 20 free tickets over the 3-year period.

The board members, naturally, defend the practice and assure the public the free tickets don't in any way influence how they vote as board members. "I am very very careful with respect to my 40 years of law practice to know the ethical lines between fiduciary responsibility and what's considered some sort of benefit," Thompson said. "Had I been asked, I would have given names of everyone that was invited (to games). No one ever asked me." Thompson, by the way, also serves on the board of the Indianapolis Indians, which got a generous, long-term lease agreement with the CIB for the use of Victory Field. Thompson assured The Star he played no role in the negotiations of the lease and abstained from voting on it. The fact he serves on the Indians' board alone should disqualify him from serving on the CIB's board.

The Star got an obligatory comment from Common Cause's Julia Vaughn, who is apparently the only person in the Star reporter's Rolodex to contact when such issues arise to speak from the public's perspective. "The board members making decisions regarding these teams and their facilities can't be objective when they are accepting expensive perks," Vaughn said. "It's a practice that needs to stop. At a minimum, the CIB board members who take advantage of these privileges should be required to fully disclose who they bring along for the free ride." I wonder if the CIB and Visit Indy were required to start issuing 1099s to the recipients of free tickets so they would have to pay income taxes on their value, they would be so quick to reach for them.

The CIB's CEO for life, Barney Levengood, naturally defends the practice. "Our Board members serve at no pay and spend hours of time tending to the critical business of the Capital Improvement Board," Levengood said. "We often have leaders of the civic, municipal, and convention sectors in our suite — maintaining and building our convention and tourism industry requires this work. Our guests also frequently include representatives of conventions that are considering Indianapolis as a destination." That's a load of crap. Check out the archived meetings of the CIB on Indy.gov. Their meetings rarely last more than 30 to 45 minutes. You don't get appointed to the board unless you're a rubber-stamp person who understands the drill. Everything on the agenda has been decided before the board convenes. The board members don't even put on a pretense by faking a few questions here or there. They aren't good stewards of the taxpayers money. If someone has been using the CIB's largesse to misappropriate our tax dollars for their personal benefit, these empty suits sitting at the table would be the last to know about it. Remember how they unanimously voted to build Lucas Oil Stadium and then pleaded ignorance after the fact when they told us their was no funding mechanism to pay for its upkeep?

Hogsett Turns To Usual Suspects For Capital Improvement Board Appointments

Mayor Joe Hogsett has quickly moved to replace five of the six board members his predecessor named to the Capital Improvement Board, which we know is really his number one priority like all mayors of Indianapolis under UniGov. They include a corporate executive, two big firm attorneys, a union boss and the wife of a best friend.

His appointees include: Melina Kennedy, former Democratic mayoral candidate and Cummins executive; David Corbitt, a partner of Krieg DeVault and son-in-law of the late Bill Mays; David Ruhmkorff, IBEW union vice president; Michael Terrell, a partner of Taft Stettinus and Hollister; and Mary Ann Fagan, who is identified as a long-time St. Margaret's Hospital Guild member.

If Fagan's appointment seems peculiar, let me share this with you. I'm pretty sure Fagan is the same Mary Ann Fagan married to Dan Fagan, a partner at Bingham Greenebaum Doll where Hogsett was formerly a law partner. Hogsett many years ago was roommates with Fagan when they were both still single. Dan's law firm, of course, has been the long-time general counsel for the Capital Improvement Board. I don't see any conflicts of interest there. Do you? Wouldn't it have been nice if Hogsett appointed at least one token member representing the public at large instead of the vested interests these conflicted appointees represent?

Hogsett retained Ballard appointee and General Hotels CEO James Dora, Jr., whose family business has a vested interest in the continued investment of our tax dollars in CIB facilities that directly benefit his hotel business. Doug Brown, a lobbyist with Hogsett's former law firm, Bose McKinney & Evans, remains on the board as the appointee of the Marion Co. Commissioners. City-County Council President Maggie Lewis represents the council on the board. Brenda Myers is the token appointee of the surrounding counties which were dumb enough to levy food and beverage taxes on their residents to pay for Lucas Oil Stadium and the expanded Indiana Convention Center. CIB President Earl Goode, Carolene Mays (niece of the late Bill Mays), David Shane and Milton Thompson, were replaced by today's appointees.

Indianapolis Indians Get 20-Year, Rent-Free Lease, $9 Million In Improvements

There is no limit to what Indianapolis' Capital Improvement Board can do for the professional sports teams. In yet another slap in the face of hard-pressed taxpayers, the CIB entered into a 20-year lease with the Indianapolis Indians under which it will pay no rent and receive up to $9 million in new improvement over the next few years, for such amenities as: a new digital scoreboard and ribbon board; improvements to suites and premium seating area to accommodate the wealthy and the privileged; and an expanded administrative office.

It's hard to fault the Indianapolis Indians ownership for seeking public subsidies. The oldest franchise in the city has paid its way for years, while the billionaire owners of the Colts and Pacers have picked taxpayers for well over a billion dollars in public subsidies for their for-profit professional franchise teams. The Indians had been paying $500,000 a year to lease Victory Field, in addition to cover annual operating, repair and maintenance expenses.

The Indians will continue to pay those ongoing upkeep expenses without the additional rent payments. Even without the subsidies, the AAA minor league baseball franchise has turned a profit year after year. Unlike the Colts or Pacers, their financial information is made public in annual disclosure to its shareholders. The Indians note their annual rent payments have helped retire the $18 million bond debt issued to build Victory Field. Ownership of the stadium reverted back to White River State Park when the bonds were retired; however, the state is leasing the stadium back to the CIB for the Indians' use free of charge.

Meanwhile, Indianapolis neighborhoods continue to deteriorate as residents' property and income taxes climb and they are hit from all directions with new fees imposed by city government, very little of which seems to get returned to these neighborhoods to pay for basic city services. The only folks who count, the downtown insiders, continue making off like bandits.

Downtown Mafia Now Wants To Expand The Convention Center Again

Last year, the Indiana Convention Center built with taxpayer dollars saw an occupancy rate of just 54%. Nonetheless, the corrupt downtown mafia that is holding our city hostage is now demanding the convention center be expanded yet again to keep up with expanding convention centers in other cities, which are now playing the same game they play with professional sports team owners. Yes, force the public at large to dig into their pockets to ensure great wealth and success for the few. The IBJ's Anthony Schoettle shares with the business newspaper's readers the whispers of those ready to cash in on another expansion.

Critics are warning that as cities nationwide continue expanding their convention centers to play to a bigger audience, the trend within the convention industry is to demand huge subsidies from host cities to land conventions. Some cities are no longer charging rent to conventioneers to offset the costs of operating their convention centers simply so the publicly-financed facilities don't sit empty. But that's not stopping the taxpayer-paid puppets whose strings are pulled by those profiting handsomely from Indianapolis' convention racket to sing the tune, "Bigger is Better."

. . . “We almost doubled the space, and we’ve been able to fill it with meaningful events,” said Barney Levengood, executive director of the Indiana Convention Center and Lucas Oil Stadium. “It’s very, very encouraging.” . . .

Levengood isn’t the only one talking expansion. So is Visit Indy President Leonard Hoops.

Indeed, the two say the numbers demonstrate the need for an eventual expansion.

In early 2011, Visit Indy and the city’s Capital Improvement Board, which owns the convention center, raised the curtain on a $275 million, 400,000-square-foot expansion.

Combined with the 2008 opening of the adjacent Lucas Oil Stadium, the expansion rocketed the center from 32nd largest in the nation to 16th . . .

Trepidation about filling the center coming out of the Great Recession has given way to confidence as the economy grows . . . 

Time needed for conventions to set up and tear down makes 100-percent occupancy impossible; 70 percent is considered a full house. In 2007 and 2008, before expansion construction began, the convention center’s occupancy ran at about 60 percent; last year, it was 54 percent . . . 

In 2008, the facility hosted 42 national conventions; in 2014, it hosted 106. Attendance from those events grew from 317,815 in 2008 to 635,701 in 2014 . . . 

To his credit, Schoettle talked to a critic of these convention expansions who wondered just how much Indianapolis is paying to land big conventions. The critic noted what I've discussed previously on this blog about the Chicago Sun-Times' reporting on the massive public subsidies Chicago officials are now offering to lure big conventions to the Windy City. The Sun-Times uncovered the fact that Chicago officials had spent $27 million over a 3-year period to land conventions, and are now spending about $15 million annually for that purpose. "Indianapolis officials—for competitive reasons—declined to say what incentives they offer," Schoettle writes. Sigh. Hey, it's our money they're spending. Don't take no for an answer. Demand they provide the information or file a lawsuit to force its disclosure. Indianapolis taxpayers have a right to know how much of our money Visit Indy is spending annually to bribe organizations to host their conventions in Indianapolis.

Schoettle's story also notes that other cities that have expanded the size of their convention space have actually experienced a decline in use, including big cities like Atlanta, Chicago and Las Vegas. The problem is that convention center space is rapidly growing, while demand for their use is remaining stagnant. But since we're spending other people's money, the CIB and Visit Indy have no qualms about borrowing more money and expanding the growing subsidies to Indianapolis' convention/hospitality/entertainment industries to the detriment of the rest of the city, which derives absolutely no value from more convention business. Why? Because the convention center pays no taxes,  and taxes paid by new hotels and restaurants built within the downtown area are virtually all consumed by either the downtown TIF district or the CIB. Indianapolis taxpayers get stuck footing the bill, though, for increased public safety and infrastructure costs needed to support the free-loading industries that benefit from this massive public investment.

CIB Officials Still Don't Know Cause Of Falling Bolts From Stadium's Retractable Roof

More than two weeks after bolts from the retractable roof at Lucas Oil Stadium broke and rained down on fans causing injury to three while the roof was retracting during a pre-season game, CIB officials still are unsure of the source of the malfunction but assure the public the facility is safe for use with the roof remaining closed. That was the official line given at a press conference conducted yesterday by the CIB's executive director Barney Levengood and the state stadium authority's John Klipsch.

The CIB says there was actually just one bolt that broke and fell. That one 7/8" bolt broke into several pieces. Officials also discovered at least seven other bolts that were loose upon further inspection. Klipsch assured reporters a problem of this sort for a 7-year old stadium is not unusual, although he conceded the mechanism should have been inspected prior to its use during half-time at the pre-season game on the orders of the billionaire Colts owner Jim Irsay. “It’s a huge building,” Klipsch said. “All brand new structures have a loose screw or bolt after seven years. It’s not something that’s unusual in all construction or manufacturing.”

I came across this video Uni-Systems, the company that designed the retractable roof, posted to YouTube. It says four camera had to be installed on each of the roof's retractable panels to show the retractable roof's progression during opening and closing. In the event of a malfunction, the cameras wirelessly transmit the video to the stadium's control center. Someone from the media should ask the CIB to release to the public those video feed's the stadium's control center received at the time of the malfunction. That's assuming the cameras are still operable after 7 years.

Advance Indiana also recalls the CIB approving the awarding of a costly contract this past year to an Illinois company to repaint all of the steel trusses supporting the retractable roof. Who was monitoring the progress of that work. Who inspected the work to assure it was done in accordance with the CIB's requirements? Is it possible damage to the retractable roof might have occurred during the repainting project?

Lucas Oil Stadium Roof To Remain Closed Indefinitely

Officials for the Capital Improvement Board that leases Lucas Oil Stadium from the Indiana Stadium and Convention Building Authority and, in turn, leases it to billionaire Jim Irsay rent-free, still have no idea what caused steel bolts supporting the retractable roof to break off and fall into the stands during the Colts' final pre-season game 11 days ago to cause injury to three fans struck by the falling debris. While the investigation of the cause of the malfunction continues, CIB officials have decided the retractable roof will remain closed for the time being.

Colts owner Jim Irsay had ordered the roof opened at half time during the Thursday night pre-season game on September 3, not before the game had started. A change in NFL rules this season allows stadiums with retractable roofs to be opened after the game has commenced. A previous league rule required the roof, if opened, to remain open the entire game. "We're going to bring everybody together and make absolutely sure we do have the correct answer," the CIB's Barney Levengood told the Indianapolis Star. "That takes time."

Whatever it takes to determine the cause of the problem and repair it, we know one thing for certain. Jim Irsay won't be picking up the tab. Irsay demanded the retractable roof as an added feature after striking a one-sided stadium financing agreement the CIB entered into with the Colts and state officials, which omitted a source of funding for ongoing repair and maintenance expenses. The retractable roof added as much as $70 million to the stadium's overall $720 million initial cost. CIB officials later obtained state legislative authorization, which was approved by the City-County Council, to raise a series of new local taxes to pay for the ongoing maintenance and operating expenses. Food and beverage taxes had already been raised to pay for the stadium.

Three Colts Fans Injured By Falling Debris At Lucas Oil Stadium

Something went wrong when stadium officials decided to open Lucas Oil Stadium's retractable roof at last night's pre-season game against the Cincinnati Bengals. Fans heard a loud popping noise before objects began raining down on fans below. The Capital Improvement Board confirmed three fans were injured by falling debris, two of whom were transported to the hospital with non-life threatening injuries. The Capital Improvement Board released the following statement regarding the incident:

“With approximately two minutes remaining at half time at the Indianapolis Colts vs. Cincinnati Bengals game this evening at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, there was an occurrence with the movement of the retractable roof. The roof was in process of being opened for the second half of the preseason game. A bolt from the fixed structure sheared and dropped into seating section 248 (located in the northwest corner of the lower seating bowl). Once the stadium authorities were notified, the movement of the roof was stopped immediately.

On-site medical personnel deemed all injuries to be non-life threatening. One female and one male were attended to by I.U. Health medical personnel and then transported to a local hospital for further evaluation. The third person was a male who was treated and released on site.”

Now CIB officials release a statement saying a full roof inspection by experts is being performed to ensure fan safety:

"The Capital Improvement Board and the appropriate contractors are assessing the causes of the incident during the roof operation at last night’s preseason game," reads a statement released on behalf of Barney Levengood, executive director of the Capital Improvement Board. "The safety of everyone who attends and works events at Lucas Oil Stadium is our top priority. Once the full inspection of the roof has been completed, more information will be made available."

$26.5 Million Refresh Of Banker's Life Fieldhouse

The Capital Improvement Board is signing off on the first of what is expected to be $26.5 million in "refresh improvements" at Banker's Life Fieldhouse as part of that $160 million in additional taxpayer subsidies pledged over the next 10 years for billionaire Herb Simon's Indiana Pacers. The Indianapolis Star is naturally very excited about the changes. Star Publisher Karen Ferguson Fuson is married to Pacers Sports & Entertainment CEO Rick Fuson, a fact the unethical newspaper always omits when discussing public subsidies for the for-profit NBA team. Ordinary taxpayers can only look at the list and wonder why there's no money for street-lighting in their neighborhoods, to repair crumbling sidewalks or patch pothole-filled streets. Among the improvements to be made at the Fieldhouse are:

• New locker rooms for the Pacers players, training room and equipment
• Renovated box offices
• Concession stand and equipment updates
• Refurbished locker room for the Fever players
• Three club level sections to be replaced with new, more costly loge box seating that will diminish less-costly seating at the Fieldhouse
• Convert six existing club level suites into a high-end, all-inclusive club room for people who can afford court side seating in rows 1 or 2
• Recreate the Locker Room Restaurant experience for those fans who can afford court side seating in rows 3 through 7
• Make other modifications designed to benefit larger group entertainment
• Information technology upgrades, including network fiber upgrades, re-cabling, phone refresh, network infrastructure improvements and data center relocation
• Furniture replacement, new high-speed overhead doors, escalator cleaning machines, snow removal equipment and entry pavilion fans
• New LED boards and window coverings.

As you can see from the description of the improvements, it's all geared towards improvements that benefit high-roller fans and the Pacers organization. Fan segregation is critical. Businesses and individuals spending big dollars to attend Pacers games want as little interaction with ordinary folks as possible. When the Fieldhouse was originally built, the CIB's selling point to the public was that there would be more seating at affordable prices than there was at the old Market Square Arena. Slowly but surely those affordable seats are being displaced in favor of higher-priced seating, and further segregation of fans is occurring based on a caste system to maximize the dollars the Pacers can extract from a smaller fan base at a supposed public facility that is increasingly looking more like a private club for the wealthy to hang out. 

Joe Hogsett Won't Do A Damn Thing About Blue Indy

Radio talk show host Amos Brown interviewed Democratic mayoral candidate Joe Hogsett yesterday afternoon, and he did an excellent job setting up a question for Hogsett at the top of the interview concerning the corrupt manner in which the Ballard administration went about establishing the Blue Indy electric car sharing monopoly business for the French company Bollore. Remember, Hogsett is the candidate running TV ads saying he's going to put an end to the downtown insiders cheating the system and stealing our tax dollars. What Brown's listeners heard from Hogsett was nothing short of a complete let down.

Hogsett completely side-stepped the question of what he would do about Blue Indy, saying that was something the council had "already engaged in" without success I would add. What followed showed in no uncertain terms Hogsett has no intention of doing a damn thing about the illegal Blue Indy deal. "I really want to be the kind of mayor for our city who looks to the future and looks forward," Hogsett said. "When we focus on the past and mistakes that have been made or omissions that have been incurred . . . we're really holding ourselves out from reaching out to those in the most critical needs in neighborhoods that have been overlooked over time," he added. That was after Hogsett prefaced his comments with praise for Ballard's focus on green energy initiatives.

What this tells me is that the words Hogsett speaks in his TV ads about putting an end to the downtown insiders cheating the system and stealing our tax dollars is just talk. Of course he's not going to cut off the hand that feeds him. You only have to look at who is bankrolling his campaign to know that he's not about to stop the gravy train a few downtown insiders enjoy at the expense of the rest of the city. I also highly suspect that the law firm where Hogsett is a partner now has a connection to representing parties involved in Blue Indy. Their officers are just separated by a few floors in the Chase Tower. Like so many issues, Hogsett cannot speak his mind without running afoul of his law firm's representation of its clients. Blue Indy has no real incentive to work with the council at this point given Hogsett's hands-off position.

So when Hogsett becomes mayor in January, which I believe is a foregone conclusion, he's going to tell the members of what will likely be a Democratic-controlled council to lay off this issue. Will there be some tinkering? Perhaps. City-County Councilor Kip Tew (D) plans to introduce an ordinance that will require Blue Indy parking spaces exclusively reserved for the private company's electric cars to be accessible to the public so long as there is more than one open parking space at any of the hundreds of power charging sites that are being installed around the city. Blue Indy plans to have a fleet of 500 cars so it's highly-unlikely there will be very many open parking spaces at those charging stations, particularly in the high traffic areas like downtown and Broad Ripple where the cars, if they are utilized, are most likely to see their busiest trade. Additionally, it is Blue Indy's intention to allow non-Blue Indy electric car owners to purchase memberships to use their exclusive stations for charging stations. If non-electric cars are using up the spaces, then its profit-making scheme just got overturned. What's not clear is if Tew's plan would require the re-installation of electronic parking meters that have already been yanked out since the Blue Indy cars aren't required to feed those meters.

Tew's proposal is hardly a solution to a far greater problem created when our mayor broke numerous laws to steal the most valuable public parking spaces in the city and give them to a foreign-owned business for its exclusive for-profit use. The council has done very little other than provide lip service to the public to date. They insisted the mayor couldn't spend $6 million out of the parking meter fund and whatever other funds he chooses to tap to give to Blue Indy. The administration delivered the council the middle finger again this week when it had the Board of Public Works approve that expenditure and inform the council it required no further authorization from it to go forward with its plans. Since our federal and state prosecutors refuse to prosecute the public corruption occasioned by this deal, the public will just have to pucker up and move on like we're always told to do in what has become a Nazi-styled government.

UPDATE: The Indianapolis Star, which is a cheerleader of every crony capitalism deal our corrupt politicians can think up, has a story that reads more like a press release regarding the Blue Indy service that will be available at the airport.

The BlueIndy electric car-sharing service will have space for 20 electric vehicles at Indianapolis International Airport, four times as much as its standard stations.

The electric plug-ins will be on the fifth floor of the parking garage, across from the terminal. Traditional rental cars are parked on the first floor of the garage.

Airport officials said BlueIndy also will pay airport fees, just as Enterprise, Hertz and other rental companies do . . . 

Airport executive director Mario Rodriguez hailed the addition of BlueIndy as a convenient transportation choice for airport travelers.

“This exciting partnership with BlueIndy will allow us to provide a new transportation option to our customers, while doing so in a sustainable and economical way,” Rodriguez said in a prepared statement.

The reporter, John Tuohy can barely hide his excitement for Blue Indy and his contempt for those who criticize the illegal manner in which the deal was accomplished. The reporter wants you to know that you the cost of taking a Blue Indy car to the airport is only about $12 if you have an annual $120 membership compared to the $30 to $35 you will spend if you take a taxi. Of course, he's assuming a drive to downtown since The Star's primary focus is on the convenience of these cars for our out-of-town visitors, not the inconvenience and business harm they are causing Indianapolis business owners and residents.

The BlueIndy proposal has not moved forward without controversy. Earlier this month, the City-County Council backed off on an unusual threat to tow five BlueIndy demo vehicles from a Downtown site. The council also says the BlueIndy funding proposal was never properly vetted and allege it has been rolled out in violation of city procedures, a charge the mayor’s office denies.

You would think it's at least up for debate that Mayor Ballard broke multiple state and local laws, but Tuohy isn't about to give you that impression. Is there a reason this reporter refuses to talk to attorneys knowledgeable in the law to determine the facts? Does he think a long-time attorney like Fred Biesecker just makes up lies about what the law requires when he offers opinions on these matters? Apparently so.

I wonder if Visit Indy and the CIB have started fretting yet over a reduction in car rental taxes. Tuohy makes it sound like Blue Indy is playing on a level playing field with companies like Hertz. What he neglects to mention is that Blue Indy is exempt from paying the onerous 17% car rental tax. Perhaps the car rental companies should be filing a lawsuit against the City on the basis that the exemption for Blue Indy is unconstitutional. Why should Blue Indy rentals be exempt from the car rental tax and not other rental vehicles? Under the one-sided agreement Ballard signed with Blue Indy, city taxpayers will be required to reimburse the company if taxes its agreement with the city exempted it from paying are ever levied against it during the 15-year term of its contract with the city. How do you like that?

CIB Greenlights Pacers' Latest Deal With No Debate

The greedy billionaire NBA team owner and his trophy wife

UPDATED
I've told you before that by the time another giveaway by the CIB to one of the billionaire sports team owners becomes known to the taxpaying public, board members have already been thoroughly briefed behind closed doors and given their marching orders before it ever appears as an item on a board meeting agenda. History repeated itself today when the board conducted a very brief meeting and said, hell yeah, let's give away CIB property to Herb Simon's Indiana Pacers for the next 50 years rent-free to build new offices and practice facilities for his NBA team, along with a bunch of free parking spaces. They didn't have to debate it or learn any new information because they already knew how it was going to go down before they walked into the board meeting this afternoon and wrapped up their discussion in under 30 minutes. So much for our state's Open Door Law.

CIB President Earl Goode, a curmudgeonly, political crony of Mitch Daniels, immediately dubbed the plan a "win-win" proposition. Herb Simon gets a 40-year rent-free ground lease on the property across from Banker's Life Fieldhouse to build what is described as a $50 million, 130,000 square-foot, five-story building that will include a practice basketball court and training facility for the Pacers, office space for Pacers Sports & Entertainment and a parking facility for Pacers players and employees. The CIB is gifting the Pacers 204 city-owned parking spaces in the Virginia Avenue parking garage to make up for lost parking spaces the Pacers will lose because its building this new monstrosity on existing free parking space the CIB gives to the Pacers.

Noticeably missing from today's discussion after this important item was leaked to the media only yesterday afternoon was who the secret tenant was that Herb has lined up to fill the fifth floor of this new building. Why hasn't the tenant's identity been made public? How much rent will they pay Herb Simon? Incredibly, CIB officials could not answer whether this new facility to be owned by the Pacers will be subject to property taxes. The Indiana Constitution mandates it be taxed, but it also mandates that property taxes be paid on Lucas Oil Stadium and Banker's Life Fieldhouse since both facilities are occupied and operated exclusively for for-profit businesses but property taxes are not paid on either of those facilities. You see, in Indiana, if you're a billionaire sports team owner, none of the laws that apply to ordinary citizens apply to you.

The rationale for this latest giveaway is the same at it's always been. All NBA teams are owned by billionaires just like Herb Simon, who by their nature are the most greedy, selfish reptiles known to mankind. Their spokesman feeds us this meme about how we are dealing with "elite, elite athletes who require state-of-the-art facilities" and good basketball players come from colleges with "incredible state-of-the-art facilities." In other words, the existing practice courts and training facilities in the Fieldhouse don't measure up anymore. All the other NBA teams are building new, state-of-the-art practice facilities and we've got to keep up with them in order to remain competitive; otherwise, Herb will take his team elsewhere. If there was anyone ever at the table negotiating for taxpayers, these BS arguments wouldn't get anywhere. But our negotiators are always on Herb's payroll so we get the deal he wants no matter how bad it is for us. The Indianapolis Star, predictably, gives a pro-Pacer view of the project without disclosing the fact the woman who runs the newspaper is married to the man who runs Pacers Sports & Entertainment:

Taxpayers won’t foot the bill for any of a new $50 million practice facility being planned by the Indiana Pacers, city officials said Monday . . .

Larry DeGaris, professor of sports marketing at the University of Indianapolis, said “there is an element of truth to the keeping up with the Joneses argument.”

“Even colleges now have palaces to practice in,” he said.

But DeGaris said the Pacers may also be eyeing the facility as a big money-maker off the court. The top floor of the proposed building would be a space for an outside tenant, whom Benner wouldn’t identity.

Fellow blogger Pat Andrew makes a good point about the 40-year length of the rent-free ground lease for the CIB property, noting the Pacers would only commit to remain in Indianapolis for a period of 15 years (9 years remaining) after the CIB enticed them with an additional $200 million in incentive payments. At the end of the 40-year term of the lease, the CIB would own the building unless the Pacers opted to up the agreement for an additional 10 years, in which case it would not become the property of the CIB until 50 years into the future. So what happens to this new building if the Pacers walk at the end of the current 15-year agreement? The CIB can buy back what Herb Simon in reality built with our taxpayer dollars for the market value of the property with the improvements. And you can take it to the bank that contrary to what is being represented to the public the CIB will be billed for any extraordinary expenses related to the upkeep of this new building, just like it always was with Banker's Life Fieldhouse until the Pacers were able to offload all of those expenses for maintaining and operating the Fieldhouse at the same time it slow-walked its way towards offering over $200 million in incentive payments to the greedy NBA team owner.

Word to Gov. Mike Pence. It doesn't help your street cred with conservatives that you utilize the same person the CIB relies upon for their press spokesman, particularly when the person scoffs at all of the conservatives in your party.

UPDATE: So the tenant heretofore not identified is St. Vincent, which will have medical offices in the building. I suppose that's Herb Simon's way of trying to cast the entire project as public/nonprofit use to convince the assessor the property shouldn't be taxed. They're even naming the building The St. Vincent Center.

The 130,000 square-foot St. Vincent Center will be built in a pie-shaped space on Delaware Street immediately east of Bankers Life Fieldhouse and adjacent to the Virginia Avenue Parking Garage. The space is currently an employee parking lot.

“I am thrilled that St. Vincent is going to be providing ease of access to high-quality care for those living, working and visiting our great city,” said Mayor Greg Ballard. “St. Vincent Center will be another important piece of the development in that growing area of downtown.”

 “St. Vincent is a tremendous partner and we are grateful for their continued support of our franchises. The St. Vincent Center will allow for greater and more varied uses of Bankers Life Fieldhouse in the future,” said PS&E President and Chief Operating Officer Rick Fuson.

The St. Vincent Center will provide primary care, cardiovascular and sports performance services available for athletes and the general public. St. Vincent Sports Performance will offer sports medicine physicians, sports nutrition, sport & performance psychology, sports science and physical training, which the program currently offers to athletes of all ages ranging from middle school to professional.

Primary care services will also be available to the general public, including preventive care. Board-certified cardiologists will treat patients with cardiovascular disease while offering access to the nationally recognized comprehensive services, specialists, technology and compassionate care of St. Vincent.

Hogsett Wants More Streetlights, Herb Simon Wants And Will Get A New Practice Facility For The Pacers

One of the things that surprised me soon after I moved to Indianapolis was that if residential neighborhoods in this city wanted streetlights, they had to collect money through a neighborhood association to install them and pay for their upkeep. The sky is the limit when it comes to meeting the many demands for improving downtown, but residential neighborhoods are pretty much on their own as far as the downtown power brokers are concerned. I think Hogsett hits on an issue in his latest in a string of TV ads that probably resonates with a lot of neighborhood activists. He says he's going to reverse a decades-old policy and start spending money on neighborhood street lights if he's elected mayor.

Meanwhile, billionaire Herb Simon is demanding and the CIB has already secretly agreed to build for him a new practice facility and offices for his Indiana Pacers on Delaware Street across from Banker's Life Fieldhouse for an untold sum just because the greedy bastard owns our elected officials and can get them to spend our taxpayer dollars however he wants so he can keep his billions to spend on his trophy wife and other objects of the life a dirty old rich man like him leads. There is no public process to these matters. When it's finally leaked to the public, it's always a done deal. Life in Indianapolis. The Simons own Joe Hogsett just like they own Evan Bayh, in case you didn't know, but it always sounds good to pretend to relate to the little people. Check who is bankrolling his campaign if you doubt me.

Hogsett Pledges Same Ethics Reforms Ballard Promised But Failed To Deliver Upon

Indianapolis mayoral candidate Joe Hogsett (D) announced a series of ethics reforms he would implement if he becomes mayor. They make for good talking points, but if the past is prologue, little change will occur if he is elected mayor. Why? We've heard the same promises before and not delivered upon. Our local news media isn't real big on making ethics an issue so the politicians can talk a good game without delivering and never worry about suffering any negative consequences.

Hogsett wants to put restrictions on lobbying, provide greater transparency by making information easier to access on the city's website and curtail the use of no-bid, professional services contracts. If it sounds a bit familiar, it's because Greg Ballard made the exact same promises when he first ran for mayor in 2007. Yeah, he made a few changes here and there, but in the final analysis, those changes provided no real benefit and city government only became less transparent, not more transparent as promised.

Ballard set up an online lobby registration and reporting system that exempts many lobbying activities and the law's enforcement mechanisms are so weak that few, if any, persons lobbying the legislature bother to comply with the registering and reporting requirements. Yeah, Ballard set up an online database of all contracts, but the searching capability of the database for users is so byzantine that it's almost like looking for a needle in a haystack to find a contract contained in the database. Hogsett says he's going to create a "Disclose Indy" website where the public can more easily access contracts, ethics statements, campaign finance reports, crime stats, budgets and other public records. It sounds a lot like what Ballard promised and never delivered upon.

Hogsett picks up on the weak reporting under the city's current lobbying law, noting that only two gifts have been reported and no enforcement actions taken in the five years since it was first enacted. One of the problems is that there are a large quantity of free tickets being handed out for events at Lucas Oil Stadium, Banker's Life Fieldhouse and Victory Field that are funneled through the mayor's office, the CIB or Visit Indy, which current law seems to exempt. The mayor, members of his administration and council members are receiving thousands of dollars a year each in free tickets that are never reported because they aren't covered by the law. The statements of economic interest forms themselves are not designed to provide the public any useful information to detect many conflicts of interest that might arise while officials are carrying out their public duties.

Hogsett also says he will turn down free memberships at exclusive country clubs like Mayor Ballard and previous mayors have accepted. He also says he will avoid taking taxpayer-paid trips. That's not ethics reform in my mind. Ballard claims that the dozen or so junkets he and his wife have taken during his time in office were paid for by private donors of Develop Indy, not taxpayer dollars. It just so happens that those private donors are the very same people who are making off like bandits with those no-bid contracts and public subsidies Ballard has doled out to his campaign contributors. I don't see Hogsett proposing any curtailment on campaign donations from city contractors, which comprise most of the more than $2 million in campaign contributions Hogsett has received to date.

Hogsett talks about enacting a one-year cooling off period for city employees who helped oversee companies to which city contracts were awarded. If it's anything like the state's cooling off period, it's not going to be worth the paper on which it's written. He also wants to resurrect the city's two-term limit for mayors, which was repealed to allow former Mayor William Hudnut to serve longer than two terms in office. He served four terms altogether. That's an easy promise for Hogsett to make. I seriously doubt he wants to stay in the office for more than one or two terms. He doesn't seem to be the type who is content working at one place for a long period of time.

Finally, Hogsett is proposing a "top to bottom" audit of city finances. Ballard promised the same thing. Remember all of that "fluff" he promised to eliminate from the city budget, in particular all of those professional service agreements? It didn't take Ballard long to figure out those contracts were the bread and butter for his campaign fundraisers. That campaign promise, like most of  his campaign promises, fell to wayside before his first day in office.

Indy Eleven Stadium Bill Dead

The proponents of the taxpayer-funded soccer stadium for Ersal Ozdemir's Indy Eleven have declared the legislation dead for the second year in a row after passing the House and the Senate by wide margins. The stadium's biggest cheerleader says legislators couldn't agree over which pot of taxpayer monies should be used to pay for the new stadium. They'll be back next year. You can count on it. Knowing how the Capital Improvement Board and the Ballard administration operates, it wouldn't be shocking for them to find some other way of financing it with existing city and CIB revenues before Ballard's term ends this year. The Star's sports columnist, Gregg Doyel, suggests Ozdemir might move his team elsewhere. LOL. Words coming from a reporter with no historical perspective on how things happen in Indy.

Gregg Doyel 

✔@GreggDoyelStar

Not sure this owner will take this sitting down. Look to leave? RT @brianeason: Indy Eleven stadium bill is dead http://indy.st/1GG3Kv6 

2:50 PM - 29 Apr 2015

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Indianapolis Star Misrepresents Key Change Made By Senate Amendment To Indy Eleven Stadium Bill

Just like The Indianapolis Star printed false stories about the impact of the RFRA legislation contained in SB 101, it is now printing lies in its newspaper about HB 1273, the legislation that provides for public financing of a new $83 million soccer stadium sought by the shadowy Turkish immigrant owner of the Indy Eleven. The difference portrayed by Star reporter Mark Alesia about a key change made by an amendment adopted by the Senate on second reading today is the difference between night and day.

Sen. Brandt Hershman stripped the original language contained in the House-passed version, which put taxpayers entirely on the hook to build an entirely new soccer stadium for the Indy Eleven. Hershman's committee amendment replaced the bill's original language with bond authorization granted to Indiana University of up to $20 million to renovate Carroll Stadium on IUPUI's downtown Indianapolis campus where the Indy Eleven currently play. Hershman's amended bill, he said, would allow Carroll Stadium's seating capacity to be expanded from 12,000 to 18,000, just 500 shy of the seating capacity of the $83 million stadium sought by Ozdemir. Members of the Senate committee that heard HB 1273 expressed their view that if Ozdemir wanted anything better than what the $20 million would provide, he should pony up his own money for the renovation project.

After the bill hit the Senate floor, Sen. Hershman filed a floor amendment that changed references in the bill to Carroll Stadium to include "or its successor." Sen. Hershman in a telephone interview with Advance Indiana Monday morning said he offered the amendment after talking to representatives of IU, who he explained were working on a design plan with Indy Eleven that would relocate the track and field component of the stadium, which was the original purpose it was built to serve, to a nearby location. Hershman said Indy Eleven had prepared renderings showing Carroll Stadium replaced by an entirely new stadium absent the track and field facilities to allow seating closer to the field of play. Hershman also said a new stadium would be configured with a playing area running north and south at its current location instead of the east and west direction of the current field of play. This bait-and-switch flew in the face of the desired outcome of making the facility a multi-purpose facility. Either Lucas Oil Stadium or Victory Field could have accommodated play for the Indy Eleven, but the demanding minor league soccer team owner viewed such reasonable and prudent suggestions as insulting.

Commenting on the proposed amendment in this week's edition of the IBJ, Mayor Greg Ballard's chief of staff, Jason Dudich, told the IBJ the City was prepared to step up and provide the necessary funding to pay for the new stadium to augment the $20 million in bonding authority included in the bill for IU, which is not required. Dudich defended city funding for a university-owned stadium on the same basis the City used last year for dipping into the downtown TIF fund to pay tens of millions to the university to renovate the nearby Natatorium, which IU allowed to fall into disrepair after the Lilly Foundation and others donated generously to build the facility, to attract national diving and swimming competitions. The City used the newly-built natatorium, which was considered the best in the country at the time, to help land the Pan Am Games in 1987.

Despite the IBJ's reporting and Hershman's explanation of it to Advance Indiana, this was how Alesia grossly misrepresented the changes in the bill adopted by a voice vote in the Senate today in his news story on The Star's website:

Amendments to House Bill 1273 passed on the Senate floor Tuesday involved financial reporting and clarifying language. An amendment on the use of minority- and women-owned businesses for the stadium at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis failed after a brief debate on whether it was repetitive of existing law.

Clarifying language? It's only clarifying language when it allows the track and field facilities to be displaced, the entire stadium razed and replaced with a brand new stadium exactly to the design specifications demanded by Ozdemir, a businessman about whom very little is known other than he suddenly fell into large sums of money that he started spreading around to all of the politicians about a decade ago after bankrupting a prior business he owned? Large campaign contributions have translated into hundreds of millions of dollars in public contracts and public subsidies being handed out to Ozdemir by state and local governments in Indiana. At least two lawmakers, House Speaker Brian Bosma and State Rep. Greg Steuerwald, have been put on Ozdemir's payroll, a fact neither bothered to disclose to the public last year when the House passed in record time legislation granting Ozdemir everything he demanded after very little public debate. Senate President Pro Tem killed that legislation when it arrived in the Senate.

The handwriting is on the wall that Ballard intends to use the unelected, unaccountable Capital Improvement Board to finance the balance of the cost of a new stadium without even seeking the city-county council's approval. Thanks to a state law Ballard got state lawmakers to enact, the council has less control over the CIB's finances, which continues to grow by leaps and bounds due to its increased taxing authority and additional state funding it has received under a professional sports development area established under state law that allows the CIB to capture state income and sales taxes to support its sports palaces and convention center. You can bet IU has no intention of paying the costs of maintaining and operating a new soccer stadium. The CIB will wind up paying 100% of those costs just like it does with Lucas Oil Stadium and Banker's Life Fieldhouse for the Colts and the Pacers. These are facts The Indianapolis Star is hiding from the public because it is quite obviously a co-conspirator with the folks who get very rich off the billions the City invests in anything related to sports. If that means telling the public something other than the truth, then so be it.

Perhaps it's time the public demanded to see a copy of the lease The Star signed with the Simon-operated Circle Centre Mall (built with taxpayer dollars) for its new digs. We'll presume the lease wasn't an arm's length transaction until proven otherwise, particularly the way the newspaper has pimped for giving billionaire Herb Simon hundreds of millions in public subsidies for his NBA team, The Star's publisher, Karen Ferguson, started dating Pacers CEO Rick Fuson soon after she moved to Indianapolis from Scottsdale, Arizona. They seemed to be an item even before her divorce with her ex-husband was final. The Star's new offices puts her and her newspaper's staff just a stone's throw from Banker's Life Fieldhouse.

Senate bill to renovate IUPUI stadium for @IndyEleven moves to senate vote after only slight amendments.
— Mark Alesia (@markalesia) April 7, 2015

Story on latest move forward in state legislature for @IndyEleven getting renovated stadium at IUPUI. http://t.co/wv31Grdoj2
— Mark Alesia (@markalesia) April 7, 2015

Lawmakers Pull Bait-And-Switch On Indy Eleven Stadium Deal: Amendment Will Allow New Stadium With City Money

Ersal Ozdemir (Indianapolis Star Photo)

The hope that the shadowy Turkish immigrant owner of the Indy Eleven, Ersal Ozdemir, and his powerful team of State House lobbyists hadn't bought off the Senate like we knew they had the Indiana House of Representatives, appears dashed. Under a plan included in a Senate amendment offered by Sen. Brandt Hershman, the $20 million in state financing to renovate Carroll Stadium could be scrapped and replaced by the brand new $83 million publicly-financed stadium sought by Ozdemir. Mayor Greg Ballard's administration is already working behind the scenes to cobble together a funding proposal that will force Indianapolis taxpayers to pick up the balance of the tab for the stadium under the auspices of the Capital Improvement Board, which will also be stuck paying 100% of the operating and maintenance costs on the stadium just like is the case with Banker's Life Fieldhouse and Lucas Oil Stadium.

Even though the City pleads poverty when it comes to spending money maintaining neighborhood streets and sidewalks, parks and other basic city services, Ballard's chief of staff Jason Dudich tells the IBJ there's no problem finding city dollars to pay for the new stadium, which wants to ensure the Carroll Stadium makeover is "no humdrum makeover." "We're still committed to helping out," Dudich said. The mayor's office isn't saying just how much the City is willing to chip in to enrich Ozdemir's Indy Eleven professional soccer franchise. The City is defending the use of money on a facility owned by Indiana University, noting the City already agreed to provide tens of millions of dollars from TIF funds to renovate the university's Natatorium facility, which sits just to the west of Carroll Stadium on the university's campus. "The mayor wants a multi-purpose facility," Dudich said. "This investment not only helps Indy Eleven, it also helps a bunch of other organizations." I suspect there are some others who would disagree with that assessment since a new facility is likely to draw business away from other publicly-financed facilities which the City is already hard-pressed to maintain due to its sweetheart deals with billionaire professional sports team owners.

The IBJ says the mayor's staff is working closely with Ballard's former chief of staff, Paul Okeson, who was hired away by Ozdemir in a high-paid, six-figure job several years back in consideration for all of the public tax dollars Ballard steered towards the shadowy businessman the public knows little about. A short time after Okeson started working for Ozedemir, Ballard announced that the first funds to be spent from his corrupt privatization deal of the City's parking meter assets, which was brokered by the law firm which employed then City-County Council President Ryan Vaughn, would go to Ozdemir. The City gave Keystone Construction $6.5 million to build a new parking garage and commercial space in Broad Ripple, which he owns entirely and retains all of the revenues generated from parking and commercial leases. According to Ozdemir's former business partner, Keystone Construction inflated the construction costs on the project substantially by charging a multi-million dollar development fee he paid to himself.

Ozdemir's rise to political power has been meteoric. A construction company he previously owned went bankrupt a little more than a decade ago and his Carmel home was placed in foreclosure, while he was sued for failing to perform on several construction projects, including public library projects. Virtually overnight, Ozdemir appeared to be swimming in cash, becoming one of the largest campaign contributors to various Republican politicians and assuming the role as finance chairman for the Greater Indianapolis Republican Finance Committee after disgraced Ponzi schemer Tim Durham was forced to step down from that role. The Marion Co. GOP moved its headquarters into a building owned by Ozdemir which houses corporate offices for Keystone Construction and the Indy Eleven. Both Mayor Ballard and Carmel's Mayor Jim Brainard have lavished public dollars on sweetheart development projects awarded to Ozdemir's construction and real estate development companies. Nobody seems to care much about claims made in separate lawsuits pending in Hamilton and Hendricks County where his former business partner, Jason Ellis, has accused Ozdemir of defrauding him out of his ownership interest in his business and accused Ozdemir of inflating subcontractor bills and billing his construction company for costs associated with building a multi-million dollar mansion he built for himself in a gated Carmel community next to IBJ publisher Mickey Maurer.

As a result of Advance Indiana's exclusive reporting, it was revealed that Ozdemir had placed House Speaker Brian Bosma and another member of his House leadership team, State Rep. Greg Steuerwald (R-Avon), who chairs the House Ethics Committee and serves as Assistant Caucus Leader, on his payroll. The House rammed through the House approval of  a public financing deal for a new stadium for the Indy Eleven last year before the minor league soccer team had even played its first game. Neither Bosma nor Steuerwald, both of whom are attorneys, disclosed the fact they were doing legal work for Ozdemir. Bosma was hired to perform trademark work for the Indy Eleven, while Steuerwald had been employed by Ozdemir for several years to represent his interests in the ongoing litigation with his former business partner in Hendricks County. Both belatedly acknowledged their relationship with Ozdemir and abstained from voting on the legislation this year but only after Advance Indiana blew their cover.

One doesn't have to study too closely the recent indictment federal prosecutors brought against New Jersey Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ) on bribery and honest services fraud charges, or any number of cases federal prosecutors in Chicago have brought against multiple public officials to wonder why no prosecutions are being brought in Indiana. One of the serious problems in Indiana in getting federal public corruption cases pursued lies in the U.S. Attorney's Office, which are occupied by political appointees signed off on by the senior senator whose party controls the White House prior to their presidential appointment. Indiana's senators, Democrat and Republican alike, only choose political hacks to fill that role in the Southern District of Indiana, unlike the Northern District where we've seen some tough prosecutors appointed willing to take on public corruption cases regardless of political party.

Most recently, whistle blowers complain that former U.S. Attorney Joe Hogsett, who is now running for Indianapolis mayor, killed multiple public corruption cases during his tenure, some believe in exchange for a deal he made with the Republican Party under which Mayor Ballard agreed not to seek re-election, and the Republican Party would throw the mayor's race to him. This seems quite plausible considering the rampant corruption in Ballard's administration and that of former Marion Co. Prosecutor Carl Brizzi, which Hogsett swept completely under the rug. Similarly, one of Hogsett's predecessors, now U.S. Rep. Susan Brooks, stunned local FBI investigators years earlier when she tossed in the waste basket a major corruption case in Lawrence where former Mayor Tom Schneider illegally entered into a deal with political cronies that allowed them to walk off with control of the city's water utility company, along with millions of dollars in cash and assets. Schneider's successor had to spend a tremendous amount of taxpayer money in legal expenses trying to unwind Schneider's corrupt deal. The law firm Lawrence fought was Ice Miller, the same law firm which is lobbying on behalf of Ozdemir for this corrupt stadium funding deal. Brooks, herself a former Ice Miller attorney, was later rewarded with a high-paid job at Ivy Tech following her tenure as U.S. Attorney, while her husband's law firm made off well from work steered to it by Republican power brokers, including the redrawing of Indianapolis' city-county council districts. Those same powers lined up to back Susan's successful bid to represent Indiana's Fifth District in 2012. Not surprisingly, Brooks quickly rose to the inner circle of House Speaker Boehner's extremely corrupt leadership team in Washington.

Folks, this is the sort of thing you should be reading about on the front page of the Indianapolis Star. Sadly, the newspaper is more interested in faux news stories manufactured by its disingenuous reporters and editorial staff. The taxpayers of this state and city are literally being raped by political insiders who care only about lining their own pockets at the public's expense. I can't keep count of the numerous e-mails and phone calls I receive from citizens complaining that they were turned away by reporters at The Star and our local TV stations when they have attempted to blow the whistle on all of the public corruption taking place. It really is depressing. I'm more than happy to use this blog as a venue for airing what should be reported by the mainstream media no matter how many enemies I make in the process. I frankly don't give a damn what they think about me.

UPDATE (4-6-15): Sen. Brandt Hershman contacted me this morning to clarify the purpose behind his amendment. He explained to me that folks at IU working on the proposal had mentioned their interest in having the option of relocating the track and field component of the existing Carroll Stadium to a different site, which would allow fan seating closer to the soccer field. There are apparently also renderings that  would shift the playing field from running east-west to a north-south configuration. Hershman's main concern is that it remain a state-owned facility with minimal state investment, and that he's not in any way trying to dictate, what the city and/or the CIB wind up contributing to the facility or what their ongoing role in maintaining it will be; rather, that's for IU and city officials to work out. I told Hershman I thought this undermined the city's argument that it wanted a multi-use facility if the track and field component was being removed entirely. If multi-use means hosting concerts at the venue, then why is the state-owned White River Park working with Dave Lucas to build a new outdoor venue at the old GM Stamping Plant site, which would be yet another facility competing for downtown concerts? The bottom line is that we won't wind up with a renovated Carroll Stadium; Carroll Stadium will no longer exist and we'll wind up with the new stadium envisioned by Ozdemir, plus a new track and field facility built at a separate location.

Indy Eleven Publicly-Financed Stadium Gets Worse, House Ethics Committee Chairman Abstains Following Advance Indiana Disclosure Of Conflict

The Indiana House of Representatives is doubling down on its efforts to totally screw over state and local taxpayers to publicly-finance a new soccer stadium for the shadowy Turkish immigrant who owns the Indy Eleven minor league soccer team, who by all appearances has bought off corrupt members of the Indiana legislature lock, stock and barrel with his team of high-powered lobbyists. The House approved an amendment to HB 1273 sponsored by Rep. Todd Huston (R-Fishers) that further exposes public liability for the riverboat gamble the massive $90 million investment in a new stadium for a little-tested professional sports franchise represents.

Huston's amendment adopted on a second reading would create a new White River Revitalization District, which would encompass the former GM Stamping Plant site where corrupt Ballard administration officials are pushing to redevelop the land for the new privately-built Marion County Criminal Justice Center and a new outdoor concert venue promoted by Dave Lucas, one of those 15 people the Gannett-owned Indianapolis Star told us to watch in 2015--obviously having advanced pre-approved knowledge of the massive taxpayer heist planned for this year's legislative session. The revitalization district, which would be bound by the White River on the East, Harding Street on the West, Washington Street on the North and I-70 on the South, would be entitled to capture all incremental state and local income tax revenues within this development area, which will be used exclusively for infrastructure improvements of up to $5 million within the development area.

The amendment gets worse. It presumes a major expansion of Indianapolis' massive downtown TIF to encompass all of the undeveloped property surrounding Lucas Oil Stadium bounded by the White River on the West, East Street on the East, McCarty Street on the North and Raymond Street on the South. If the consolidated allocation area is expanded to include this territory, $10 million is to be deposited into the neighborhood stabilization fund to fund infrastructure improvements within this expanded TIF area. That's a massive expansion of the downtown TIF district that will siphon off property tax revenues from any new development for decades to come. This amendment seems to pave the way for the new soccer stadium to be built either near Lucas Oil Stadium or at the GM Stamping Plant site where Lucas wants to build his outdoor music venue, which is needed no more than the costly new stadium. This expanded TIF area is premised on an agreement being reached between the CIB and Indy Eleven to issue bonds and build the 18,500-seat stadium proposed by the team's owner, Ersal Ozdemir, who has unleashed a team of powerful lobbyists on the General Assembly the past two years to force taxpayers to build the stadium he has demanded.

An amendment adopted to HB 1273, at first blush, appears to help protect taxpayers by forcing Ozdemir to have some "skin in the game" as the pols use that term over at the State House; however, it's really just an empty promise. Rep. Ed DeLaney's amendment provides that "the owner of a professional soccer franchise that would be the primary tenant of a facility or complex of facilities constructed in the tax area; the professional soccer franchise;  the professional soccer league in which the professional soccer franchise competes; or any combination of the owner, the franchise, and the league; have guaranteed at least fifty percent (50%) of the amount that is financed under this chapter for a facility or complex of facilities that includes a soccer stadium. That offers no real protection to taxpayers. The franchise owner's newly-created business entity could simply file bankruptcy and walk away, leaving taxpayers holding the bag. DeLaney knows his amendment is nothing more than a phony attempt to reassure taxpayers, but that's just the kind of crafty lawmaker he is. An amendment offered by Rep. Cherish Pryor to give the City-County Council an opportunity to review and approve any stadium deal was voted down overwhelmingly.

Advance Indiana exclusively reported on the financial entanglement the House Ethics Committee Chairman, State Rep. Greg Steuerwald (R-Avon), has with Ozdemir. Steuerwald has been immersed as one of several attorneys representing Ozdemir in contentious litigation between Ozdemir, his various companies and a former business partner, Jason Ellis, who has accused Ozdemir of defrauding him out of his 20% stake in his business, along with other serious allegations of wrongdoing. Ozdemir is also represented by Barnes & Thornburg, which is also one of sevearl law firms lobbying on behalf of Ozdemir's Indy Eleven soccer stadium deal. Despite his glaring conflict of interest. Rep. Steuerwald supported and voted for legislation last year pushed by Ozdemir's lobbyists to pave the way for his publicly-financed soccer stadium.

When amendments were heard on second reading today, Rep. Steuerwald asked to abstain from participating in those votes, a request granted by the Speaker with the understanding he would put his abstention request in writing. The State House news media, which excoriated former State Rep. Eric Turner's conflict of interest over nursing home legislation affecting his family's business because of their animosity towards him stemming from his opposition to same-sex marriages, has been noticeably silent on Steuerwald's equally-troubling conflict of interest, particularly as the key lawmaker tasked with hearing an ethics complaint against Rep. Turner and helping craft tougher ethics rules for lawmakers in the face of public outcry over lax ethics rules that permitted Turner's self-dealing.

The House will hear HB 1273 on third reading final passage tomorrow. I presume its passage is a foregone conclusion since this corrupt body passed similar legislation last year with even less review than they've taken this year and could give a damn less what their constituents think. The bottom line is that your legislators auction off state and local tax dollars to the highest bidder in exchange for campaign contributions and other benefits shielded from public disclosure. In the absence of any real federal or state prosecutors to act as guardians of the public, a total free-for-all atmosphere permeates our State House hallways. Why is nobody asking any serious questions about who Ersal Ozdemir is? Where is all of his money and clout being derived? Where have all the State House investigative journalists gone?

UPDATE: This online story on the Indianapolis Star's website can be described as nothing but a deliberate misrepresentation of what the Huston and DeLaney amendments to HB 1273 accomplished. Here's how Mark Alesia describes Huston's amendment:

Another amendment--introduced by Huston--that passed included language to prohibit stadium money from going toward Ozdemir's hotel.

Well, duh, that was never in the original proposal. What was done in committee was language was added to the bill to allow state and local tax revenues generated by Ozdemir's hotel to be captured by an expanded Professional Sports Development Area, which allows the CIB to capture up to $5 million in tax revenues annually to apply towards the debt on the stadium bonds from the area developed for a new stadium and his hotel at an entirely different location. Of course, nothing in Huston's amendment prevents Mayor Ballard from passing out money for Ozdemir's hotel from his TIF slush fund he uses to reward his campaign contributors. The DeLaney amendment is similarly mischaracterized.

The House is scheduled to vote on the Indy Eleven stadium deal on Wednesday, after an amendment passed requiring the team owner to guarantee half of the debt . . .

The purpose of this amendment is simply to make sure the public is left to foot the bill for an underused stadium," Rep. Ed DeLaney, (D-Indianapolis), said Tuesday on the House floor. 

DeLaney said he didn't ask for a 100 percent guarantee because he wanted "a fair and measured approach."

"A fair and measured approach" would require the owner to build his own damn stadium, not force taxpayers to build another costly sports stadium when there are already costly, under-utilized sports facilities available to the greedy team owner for his team's use at which he's turned his nose down. Quite arrogant, we might add, for someone who only recently immigrated to this country and about whom little is known other than much of his business endeavors to date have been publicly-subsidized by politicians upon whom he's showered campaign contributions and other gratuities hidden from public disclosure. What DeLaney's amendment reinforces up front is the fact that all concerned already know that the taxes generated from this new soccer stadium and his totally unrelated hotel will, at best, generate half the cost of paying debt service on the bonds issued for the construction of the stadium. That guarantee does NOT extend to the multi-million dollar a year ongoing maintenance expense we already know taxpayers will be shouldering just like we do for the stadium and arena used by the billionaire owners of the Indianapolis Colts and Indiana Pacers. If Indy Eleven fails as a sports franchise, Ozdemir can walk away without owing a dime with or without DeLaney's amendment. Only the full faith and credit of Indianapolis taxpayers will backstop unfulfilled expectations.