Friday, April 27, 2012

Frank Straub's Tumultuous Tenure Comes To An End

Mayor Greg Ballard today accepted the resignation of his embattled Public Safety Director Frank Straub. Ballard released the following statement to the media a short time ago:
“Frank Straub came to Indianapolis facing the difficult task of updating and modernizing the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department at the same time preparing for and successfully hosting the highest profile event in this city’s history.  It hasn’t always been easy but meaningful reform seldom is.  
During Frank’s tenure criminal homicides are at their lowest levels in 15 years, the city’s integrated public safety model is receiving national and international recognition, IMPD and IFD training is being modernized and steps are being actively taken to improve the diversity of hiring and promotions in our public safety departments.
Frank Straub’s work set the stage for the Department of Public Safety and all of its divisions to proudly serve this city in a positive fashion for years to come.”
In his resignation letter, Straub told the Mayor that he had "accomplished his mission" to "build a new public safety department, to re-engineer the police department, to enhance the operations of the police department, to enhance the various operations of our various divisions, to protect the Super Bowl, and other large public events." He actually patted himself on the back a lot more than that, but it's too long, self-serving and boring to read in its entirety.

UPDATE: There's a rumor circulating that Ballard Chief of Staff Chris Cotterill, a former Barnes & Thornburg attorney, will be stepping down and be replaced by another Barnes & Thornburg attorney, City-County Councilor Ryan Vaughn, who is a bit bored these days serving as a mere minority caucus member instead of council president.


3 comments:

CircleCityScribe said...

Frank Straub will be remembered only for the corruption from the east coast he brought to our city! This NY Liberal started out by remodeling his suite at taxpayer expense, at a cost more than most homes in our city. Then he began creating a bureaucracy, in fact the LARGEST personal staff ever in the history of our city's Public Safety Dept!!! (In NY tradition) Of course, he had to have a chauffeur that not only had a driver's license but was a police officer removed from police duty to drive Hizzoner around. We never had a Public Safety Director with a chauffeur before did we?

OUR public safety budget goes to him & his cronies salaries, perks, & benefit (NY tradition) instead of public safety hiring, training or salary...much more than questions have come up about crime stats and the alleged "lower" crime rate. It has been suggested that the "lower" crime rate has something to do with false reporting/downgrading crimes from what they are required to be titled. Frank Straub rewarded his east coast cronies with lots of Indianapolis tax money funneled to the east coast cronies for "contracts" and "consulting."

Frank Straub also had East coast hire-ons at big salaries in make-work positions.

After two years he has not established a management team...it seems nobody wants to work for him and they keep stepping down!

Frank Straub thinks we live in a rural area, where the sheriff sends a deputy to the area with trouble. Well Frank this is an urban city, the largest in Indiana. We need police resources spread out throughout the city for quick response to where ever the emergency may be. Frank wants us to expect life & death response times to be dramatically increased thanks to Straub's new zone placement of police.

And don't anyone forget the electronic eavesdropping device found in the Deputy Chief of Police's office! (in east coast tradition) Frank Straub then immediately seized personal control of the police unit that finds eavesdropping devices immediately after that one was found.

I was told that the Consolidation ordinance requires an AUDIT of Public Safety. It will be interesting to see what a complete financial audit shows he has done with OUR tax money!

guy77money said...

UPDATE:' There's a rumor circulating that Ballard Chief of Staff Chris Cotterill, a former Barnes & Thornburg attorney, will be stepping down and be replaced by another Barnes & Thornburg attorney, City-County Councilor Ryan Vaughn, who is a bit bored these days serving as a mere minority caucus member instead of council president.'

Vaughn isn't bored he has just been told by B&T that they need to keep control of the mayors office so they can find some new creative way to rape and pillage the citizens of Indianapolis.

artfuggins said...

Ryan Vaughn only does what he is told to do. He has no independent thoughts. If he does leave the council, it is because he was told to by someone in some large law firm downtown.