SB 313: Mayor Greg Ballard's Attempt To Make Victims Of Crime Pay For Police Runs

There are many neighborhoods  in Indianapolis where the crime is as bad as the worst neighborhoods in Detroit. Mayor Greg Ballard has a plan to tax the owners of property in high crime areas based on the number of police runs to investigate criminal activity that has taken place on properties in those areas. SB 313, sponsored by Sen. Mike Young (R), would permit the City-County Council to levy a fee of up to $100 if police are sent on runs to investigate criminal activity at your property at least five times within a year and a police report is filed substantiating criminal activity occurring on your property.

The Law Enforcement Run Fee ("LERF") can be collected each subsequent time police are sent on a run to your property once the 5-run threshold is reached within a period of a year. If the fee isn't paid by the property owner, it becomes an enforceable lien on the property no different than property taxes. So if you have a rash of break-ins or vandalism at your property, don't bother calling IMPD if you don't want to be hit with fees for having the misfortune of being the repeated victim of criminal activity. The fees would be deposited in a dedicated fund for the benefit of law enforcement agencies.

Apparently every time Mayor Ballard has a bad idea for legislation he takes it to Sen. Mike Young, who gladly sponsors it. The number 313 is appropriate for this legislation. According to Wikipedia, it's the telephone area code for Detroit. Frame 313 in the Zapruder film is the money shot of Kennedy's head being blown off. And the license plate number on Donald Duck's car is 313. In the past, the City has brought public nuisance lawsuits to shutter motels and other commercial businesses that have been the site of multiple police runs for criminal activities. The Law Enforcement Run Fee provided by this legislation is not limited to business properties. I'm guessing the fee won't be assessed against any of Simon Property Group's malls, such as Circle Centre Mall, where police make frequent runs to investigate criminal activity.

City-County Council Committee Postpones Vote On Subsidized Luxury Apartment Building To Ensure More Kickbacks To Minority Firms

The Metropolitan and Economic Development Committee last night heard Proposal 366, which authorizes the issuance of up to $23 million in bonds by the downtown TIF district for the construction of a 28-story, $81 million luxury apartment building by Flaherty & Collins. When you factor in interest costs on the borrowing and the value of the free land the city is donating to the politically-connected developer that stuffs a lot of money in the politicians' campaign committees, taxpayers are essentially funding at least 45% of the $81 million cost. The City's economic development guru, Deron Kintner, told the council members that unless taxpayers made this minimum contribution to the developer's project, the building could never be constructed because the downtown market doesn't support high enough rents to generate sufficient revenues from apartment rental to justify a luxury apartment project of this scale. In other words, a city like Chicago has a market for high rise luxury apartments with rents of at least $5,000 a month, while Indianapolis is lucky if it can find a sufficient number of tenants who will pay $2,500 a month for high-rise luxury living downtown with comparable amenities. If the market can't support a luxury apartment building, then why are taxpayers forced to fund the project? And these are the same assholes that keep complaining that there isn't enough money to fund public safety because we aren't paying enough in taxes.

Interestingly, Kintner pointed out that the land in question, the former site of Market Square Arena, is not within the downtown TIF district since it has been owned by the Capital Improvement Board and no property taxes have been paid on the parcels for decades. Although the downtown TIF district is responsible for repayment of the bond debt, Kintner told the council members that it is so cash rich that it can afford to repay the debt even though the new property tax revenues paid on the luxury apartment building will be allocated to other taxing districts. A suggestion by the committee that the city's contribution be converted to an interest-free loan rather than a grant was a non-starter according to Kintner. Eventually, the committee chose to postpone action on Proposal 366 only because my council member, Vop Osili, didn't believe the private developer was utilizing minority hiring for at least 40% of the project, a goal he had written into the TIF ordinance when he successfully pushed for the expansion of the downtown TIF district a year ago. Taxpayers should know that Osili, an African-American, owns an architectural business that makes money from compulsory set-aside work for minority firms. Presumably, the extra time afforded before a vote is taken by the committee may help certain individuals ensure that certain businesses get their share of the work on Flaherty & Collins' latest project being built courtesy of Indianapolis taxpayers.

It's hard to believe any of this is legal. Only in Indianapolis are taxpayers expected to provide substantial subsidies to virtually every major development project that occurs within the city limits. The city's taxpayers have given away billions of dollars to private developers over the past several decades. Countless number of pay-to-play contractors have been made multi-millionaires thanks to this corrupt policy adopted by our city leaders, which prosecutors turn a blind eye towards. I would highly encourage corrupt developers to relocate to Indianapolis from other cities like Chicago where you can grease the right palms and get public funding for your projects that require the taxpaying public to shoulder all the risks so you can live the life of the top 1% without fear of being prosecuted for crimes that are prosecuted almost anywhere else in this country. It's pretty disgusting that I'm represented on the council by someone whose only concern with the public subsidizing a luxury apartment building to this extent is that it include the compulsory hiring of a certain percentage of minorities. Detroit South is becoming a more appropriate name for Indianapolis with each passing day.

Autopsy Report Claims Heart Disease Free Hawaii Health Director Died Of Irregular Heart Beat Following Plane Crash

I could have predicted this before the release today of the autopsy report on the cause of death of Hawaii Department of Health Director Loretta Fuddy following the crash of a small commercial passenger plane a month ago in which she was a passenger, which was caused by a catastrophic engine failure. The state medical examiner's autopsy report lists the cause of death for Fuddy as an irregular heart beat. Fuddy's brother, Lewis Fuddy, told the AP that his sister was healthy and had no known heart problems. "She wasn't an anxious person," he said. "To be head of the Health Department, you have to have some cool nerves."

Fuddy became engulfed in the national debate over President Obama's eligibility to serve as president after her agency vouched for a long-form birth certificate produced by the White House in April, 2011, claiming his birth to Barack Obama, Sr. and Stanley Ann Dunham in Hawaii. Legitimate document experts quickly determined that the birth certificate produced by the White House was a bad forgery. Obama's true biographical origins remain a mystery.

There are serious questions about whether Barack Obama from Kenya was his true biological father. His Indonesian school records identify him by the name Barry Soetoro. Skeptics point to documents contained in the elder Obama's INS file showing that he filed personal information with the agency in connection with his student visa file which contained no mention of a son he had with Dunham but which mentioned his son, Roy, he had with his Kenyan wife. Obama's autobiography, "Dreams From My Father," has been exposed as containing dozens of factual inaccuracies concerning his biographical narrative, and Obama pal and former Weatherman terrorist Bill Ayers has claimed that he ghost wrote Obama's autobiography. The elder Obama was brought to the University of Hawaii to study as part of a program sponsored by the CIA. Dunham's parents, Stanley and Madelyn Dunham, both worked for the CIA according to former NSA analyst Wayne Madsen, as did Dunham. Obama's first job after graduating from Columbia University was for a CIA front company in New York known as Business International Corporation.

Fuddy was the lone fatality of the plane crash that included eight passengers and the single-engine Cessna plane's highly-experienced pilot, Clyde Kawasaki. None of the plane's occupants were injured following an explosion that caused a catastrophic failure of the plane's engine shortly after take off. Kawasaki, also an experienced glider plane pilot, managed to calmly land the plane on the ocean's surface close to shore despite choppy waters. He then assisted all of the passengers, none of whom exhibited signs of injury from the crash, in putting on their life vests before opening the plane's exit door and lowering the passengers into the water. The passengers clinged to the plane's wing while it remained afloat for at least 25 minutes. One passenger in his 70s swam to shore.

Reports indicated that Fuddy held the hand of her deputy director, also a passenger on the plane, for a period of time before letting go. She was found unresponsive when rescue responders plucked her and the other passengers from the ocean 80 minutes after the plane crashed. It's unclear why it took rescue workers so long to respond given the fact that an emergency distress signal went out immediately upon the plane's engine failure. A pilot in the area quickly located the plane and radioed rescue workers of the plane's location.

Of course, President Bill Clinton made sure that nobody looked for John F. Kennedy Jr.'s Piper Saratoga plane after someone apparently took control of it remotely and dove it into the ocean shortly before it was scheduled to land following a short trip from an airport in New Jersey to Martha's Vineyard despite his uncle, Sen. Ted Kennedy, spending hours on the phone throughout the night with officials demanding a search for the missing plane. The elimination of Kennedy as a potential rival for the U.S. Senate seat in New York being sought by Hillary Clinton paved the way for her election in 2000. Like Kennedy's plane crash, the National Traffic Safety Board is doing its best to cover up the truth, declining an on-site investigation, including recovery of the plane that was fully intact before sinking. There has been speculation that Fuddy may have been wavering in her earlier assertions regarding the files on record in Hawaii regarding Obama's birth. As they often say in public corruption crimes, follow the money:

Since her death, portions related to Loretta Fuddy in the sealed affidavit filed in U.S. Federal Court have been made public. Of particular interest are her financial reports detailing her income and expenses in 2011 and 2012. Each report is filed in January for the previous year.

According to Mr. Vogt, a large and as yet unanswered income disparity was found between the two reports. In short, during her first year as Hawaii’s Director of Health, which is also the time she authenticated Obama’s COLB, Ms. Fuddy’s gross income was reportedly less than $100,000. Nonetheless, her financials show that she apparently paid down her mortgage and decreased her liabilities by at least $50,000 and perhaps as much as $75,000 more than what she grossed that year. Where did that money come from? While there may well be a legitimate explanation for this disparity, it was not disclosed on the financial forms she filed with the Hawaii State Ethics Commission. 

Loretta Fuddy was one of nine people aboard the Cessna 208B traveling between the islands of Hawaii on December 11, 2013. She was making a much publicized, well known, annual trip to Kalaupapa, where the state exiled leprosy patients until 1969. That area is accessible only by plane or mule. By plane, the travel would require travel over the Alenuihaha channel, also known as the “I’ll-end-you, ha-ha” channel. Out of all the places around the Hawaiian Islands for a water landing, it is the worst of all possible locations due to the “wind funnel” effect in the channel. The channel is more than a mile in depth at its deepest point and is generally regarded as one of the most treacherous channels in the world by the United States Coast Guard.

Were it not for another aircraft flying in the vicinity of the water landing, it is possible that the passengers of the plane would not have been found until they failed to arrive at their destination. Josh Lang and Jaimee Thomson witnessed the Cessna making the water landing and were able to call for help. Within 90 minutes, a C130, two U.S. Coastguard rescue helicopters, one U.S. navy rescue helicopter, and one fire department rescue helicopter were on the scene . . .

Incredibly, one of the plane's passengers, Ferdinand Puentes, filmed the entire ordeal with his GoPro Camera. He was sitting just two rows behind Fuddy on the opposite side of the aisle during the flight. Fuddy is visible inside the plane and later in the video floating in the water with the other passengers. At one point, Puentes turns the camera to show his own face, which reveals him wearing a U.S. Marshal's cap. I'm wondering what kind of a financial deal Puentes worked out with GoPro to promote its camera before he waited a month before releasing the video he took of the plane's crash. I'm sure President Obama got his rocks off watching Puentes' snuff film just like he enjoys watching video of the drone strikes he's authorized during his presidency that have killed thousands of innocent civilians, including American citizens.




Ferdinand Puentes Wearing U.S. Marshal's Cap

More Militarization Of Local Police Departments

Photo by Michael Heinz (Journal & Courier)

The consequences of the Middle Eastern wars brought on by 9/11 continue to lead to increased militarization of our civilian police forces here at home under the guise of protecting homeland security. As the wars have wound down in Iraq and Afghanistan, surplus armored vehicles used in those efforts are being dispersed among civilian law enforcement agencies across the country. The Lafayette Journal & Courier reports on the acquisition of this heavy mine resistant ambush protected ("MRAP") vehicle by the West Lafayette Police Department, one of 13,000 such acquisitions by local law enforcement agencies in all 50 states.

According to the Journal & Courier, the police department acquired the MRAP for its SWAT team. It remains the property of the U.S. government, which can reclaim it at any time according to the report. "Is it overkill?," Police Chief Jason Dombkowski rhetorically asked. “Probably, but it was the resource available to us at a very cheap price." The police agency invested about $4,000 in modifications to the vehicle, including painting it black. The 2008 vehicle has about 11,000 miles on it but was never used in combat.

ROC Investigative Commitee: Little Progress In Unraveling A Major Scandal

The special council committee tasked with investigating the controversial lease agreement that we are led to believe that former Public Safety Director Frank Straub unilaterally entered into with a company controlled by businessman Alex Carroll for space within the former Eastgate Consumer Mall for the Regional Operations Center met again last week. As I noted in a previous post about a news story by WTHR's Sandra Chapman, the City has still not turned over the most pertinent documents related to the highly unusual lease agreement. The corporation counsel's office and the Office of Finance & Management didn't review the legal documents before they were signed off on by Straub, the City-County Council and the Board of Public Safety. According to the Office of Corporation Counsel, files related to the deal went missing when Straub departed the City so it has become necessary to obtain those documents from third parties. OCC says it needs another 30 days to track down the documents that have been sought by the committee for months now. Interestingly, the council's counsel, Fred Biesecker, also informed members of the committee that when he sought the archived video of the relative meetings of the Board of Public Safety where Straub discussed the ROC deal with members of that board, he learned that no recorded videos exist for those meetings.

The meeting last week was quite lengthy. I've provided the video above of only Biesecker's presentation of what he's learned about the lease agreement to date given that all of the key financial documents are still missing. As he notes in his presentation, the agreement is more akin to a borrowing agreement than a true real estate lease, which is why the lease agreement reads more like a bond indenture. The City obligated itself to this borrowing agreement before it formally entered into the lease through the execution of a development agreement with Lifeline Construction Services, LLC under which the City began advancing funds to Carroll for the build-out of the tenant space before the lease agreement received final approval that detailed a more than $14.2 million project that mentions a $1.1 million upfront payment to Carroll's business entity. As soon as the lease agreement with 401 Public Safety, LLC was executed, Carroll assigned his interest in the lease to Wells Fargo, which advanced him an unknown sum of money at the closing in consideration for the City signing some long-term financial commitment to repay the funds advanced to Carroll's business entity. The City is on the hook to pay at least $18.2 million in lease payments over the life of what is essentially a 25-year credit lease agreement; however, when you factor into consideration other financial obligations with respect to the leased space, the obligation is closer to $24 million. Particularly troubling are the "hell or high water" one-sided terms of the deal outlined by Biesecker in his presentation that gives one cause to question whether anyone representing the City's interest was present at the table during negotiations.

As a Republican, I'm appalled by the dismissive attitude and seemingly stone-walling attitude of several of the Republican committee members appointed to this investigative committee. In the case of a couple of the council members participating in the investigation, it is the equivalent of permitting E. Howard Hunt and G. Gordon Liddy to investigate Watergate and their actions to date as members of the committee only serve to reinforce that notion. Let there be no mistake. This a major scandal that has not been accorded the attention it deserves by the local news media, particularly the Indianapolis Star, which is asleep at the wheel as usual when it comes to good investigative journalism. It is unimaginable to me that this is not a criminal matter. There are no indications that either the Marion Co. Prosecutor's Office or the U.S. Attorney's Office has opened an investigation of the ROC, which is equally troubling given the amount of money taxpayers are on the hook to pay. It's just sickening how easy it is for some people to defraud the taxpayers in this city on a regular basis without any threat of criminal prosecution. Keep in mind that these are the same people who want you to entrust them with using a private developer to build, own and operate a new criminal justice center for Marion County using a similar mechanism.

If You Have To Explain What Your Marriage Amendment Means . . .

State Rep. Eric Turner (R-Cicero) and his gang of anti-gay supporters who are seeking to enshrine Indiana's current statutory ban on same-sex marriages have re-introduced their proposed constitutional amendment as HJR-3. They've also introduced a trailer bill that seeks to explain why the second paragraph of the proposed amendment really doesn't mean what it actually says. I would link to it, but the General Assembly's horribly renovated website isn't allowing me access at the moment. The Lafayette Courier-Journal Dave Bangert explains what's in the trailer bill, HB 1153, which provides assurances that shouldn't be necessary if the amendment had been crafted to do what its authors have claimed all along was their actual intent behind the amendment: ensure that Indiana only provides legal recognition to marriages entered into between one man and one woman.

But if it wasn’t clear before that HJR-3 is on shaky ground, House Bill 1153 was 2½ pages of stammering proof that the more you have to explain, the weaker your premise.

And that’s no position to leave a two-sentence constitutional amendment.

HB 1153 attempts to parse the proposed marriage question into what the General Assembly intends the constitutional amendment to be and what it doesn’t intend it to be.

Intended: Reaffirm Indiana’s existing law on marriage, which limits the definition to one between one man and one woman.

Not intended, according to HB 1153: To limit health benefits offered by private or public employers, to stop cities from adopting equal opportunity ordinances, to block anyone from terms of a will or power of attorney, or to affect Indiana’s domestic violence laws.

General Assembly leaders, including House Speaker Brian Bosma and Senate President David Long, said they stood by the addendum to the marriage amendment, seemingly persuading themselves that they’d given themselves a constitutional out from HJR-3’s criticized second sentence: “A legal status identical or substantially similar to that of marriage for unmarried individuals shall not be valid or recognized.”

(Then again, Bosma famously offered this gem during a different fight in January 2012: “It’s not our job here to determine the constitutionality of something before we vote on it.”)

Rep. Turner can't help himself, but as an attorney, Bosma should be totally ashamed of this gibberish being seriously offered for consideration to the state's voters for the worst of reasons. Is it your intent to give the opposition all the motivation they need to drive voters to the polls this fall to unseat as many of your legislators as possible? Let's hope that cooler, more rational heads in the caucus prevail at the end of the day and put an end to this inevitable train wreck. 

Video Of Plane Crash That Killed Hawaii Health Director Emerges

A video of the single-engine Cessna plane crash in Hawaii last month that claimed the life of a single passenger, Hawaii Department of Health Director Loretta Fuddy, raises even more questions about what caused Fuddy's death. The video was taken by Makani Kai passenger Ferdinand Puente as the plane glided into the ocean just off Malakai and furnished to KITV News. The video clearly shows that the plane's skilled pilot was able to gracefully glide the plane into the ocean very close to shore as all of the passengers remained totally calm after the plane's single engine suffered a catastrophic failure following a loud bang. All of the passengers emerged from the fully intact plane wearing life vests to await help from emergency responders. Some of the passengers held on to the plane's wing as it rested on the ocean's surface before sinking after about 25 minutes. One elderly passenger even managed to swim ashore before help arrived.

The video raises serious questions about why it took so long for emergency responders to arrive on the scene and what actually caused Fuddy's death. Rescue workers didn't arrive to find an unresponsive Fuddy until 80 minutes after the plane crashed into the ocean. The medical examiner has not ruled yet on the cause of Fuddy's death. Fuddy has been at the center of Obama's birth certificate controversy after she vouched for a long-form birth certificate claiming to prove Obama's birth in Hawaii that legitimate document experts quickly discovered was a bad forgery. One of those document experts, Doug Vogt, had filed a seal affidavit with one of the courts hearing legal challenges to Obama's eligibility to serve as president. He speculates in this interview below that someone leaked the contents of his sealed affidavit to allies of the President, which he blamed for Fuddy's untimely death. Near the end of the interview, Vogt discusses financial anomalies he uncovered in the financial disclosure statement Fuddy filed with the state of Hawaii in the year following the release of Obama's long-form birth certificate. He asserts that Fuddy received compensation from a third party source that was used to pay down the mortgage on her home. Keep in mind that a forged birth certificate does not stand alone as proof Obama wasn't born in Hawaii. It's my personal belief that the document would have been forged because information contained within his original birth certificate didn't marry up with the narrative that the American public has been fed, largely based on Obama's autobiography, "Dreams From My Father," which Bill Ayers now claims that he ghost wrote for Obama, and which has been proven to contain multiple factual errors.

City Spent Nearly $1 Million Last Year On Regional Operations Center It Can't Use

Who knows how much money the Ballard administration is going to drop down this rat hole known as the Regional Operations Center before someone comes to their senses. WTHR's Sandra Chapman learns that nearly another $1 million got spent last year to pay for 24-hour fire protection services ($70,000) and another $57,000 a month for rent on a building IMPD can't use because of unsafe conditions ($700,000). At one time, the City planned to ask the building's owner to pay for the fire protection services, but that's now off the table.

"There were just bigger fish to fry and bigger things to go after," said Deputy Public Safety Director Valeria Washington. She says the fire watch money was negotiated away.

Last year, the city made lease payments of $57,000 a month for a total of nearly $700,000.

Where did the money come from?

Washington says IMPD is footing part of the bill for leasing space at the ROC.

"We did have to shift some things around," said Washington. "Having to budget for $700,000 is a pretty good chunk of change, so there are some things that we've probably had to reprioritize."

A council oversight committee established to review the ROC deal is being stonewalled, and Republican members of the committee appear determined to ensure that all of the corruption surrounding this deal gets swept under the rug.

"We don't have the basic loan documents detailing how much Mr. Carroll and his entities borrowed," announced Councilman Fred Biesecker, who says he has been asking the Office of Corporation Council since November 15 to turn over key documents.

City attorney Andy Siehart says he took over in July of last year and shares the committee's frustration.

"Some documents we simply don't have. I don't have the loan documents," he told the committee. "There's no file that I can go to to say, 'Here they all are.'"

I hope to have more information in the near future about former Public Safety Director Frank Straub's unclean hands in this sordid matter. Meanwhile, Mayor Ballard will go on blaming the taxpayers for not paying enough in taxes as the reason there isn't enough money to fund public safety.

Judge Kimberly Brown Suspended With Pay

The Indiana Supreme Court issued an order today suspending Marion Co. Superior Court Judge Kimberly Brown with pay based on findings of the special masters that she committed 80 rules violations while it determines final action in her case. Quoting from the Indiana Lawyer:

“The final disposition of the matter by this court will occur in due course,” Chief Justice Brent Dickson wrote for the court in an order issued Thursday. “In the interim, because the (Judicial Qualifications) Commission has made a recommendation of removal, (Brown) ‘shall be suspended with pay” pursuant to Admission and Discipline Rule 25V(B).