“It’s not in my makeup to run against a former boss,” said Brizzi, who worked in the 1990s as an investigator for the U.S. House Government Reform and Oversight Committee, which Burton chaired. “It was definitely something I was thinking about as a possible option, and I wanted to see where Congressman Burton was on that.”
Brizzi, Marion County’s prosecutor since 2003, says he hasn’t yet decided whether to run for a third term in that office next year. He filed his Congressional candidacy in part so he could keep his options open and raise federal contributions, which he says can be spent in both federal and state races.
Citizens for Brizzi, his campaign committee, held a birthday fundraiser for him Tuesday night at St. Elmo Steak House.
Wednesday, March 04, 2009
Brizzi's Non-Announcement For Congress
Marion County Prosecutor Carl Brizzi has announced his candidacy for the 5th congressional district seat currently held by his former boss, U.S. Rep. Dan Burton. There's one catch. He will not be a candidate if Burton runs for re-election. Burton has already stated his intention to run for re-election. I think this statement is intended to dissuade one or or more persons from entering the increasingly-crowded race for Burton's seat. The Star's Jon Murray writes:
Invest In This Pool
A newly-created state investment pool into which local governments and school districts can deposit their funds has tanked according to the AP:
There's a story behind this so-called investment pool. Back in the 1990s when I was lobbying for small community banks, State Treasurer Marjorie O'Laughlin was rapping up her last year in office and had this big legislative proposal she wanted enacted before she left office. She wanted to do away with a state law that required local units of government to deposit public funds on a pro-rata basis with area banks and create this state investment pool under the State Treasurer's office whereby a private investment manager would be contracted to invest collective investments of participating local governmental entities. One of her employees at the time, Brian Burdick, helped put this idea together and it promised much greater investment returns for the participating local governments.
The small banks I represented at the time went ballistic. They pointed out that local governments and school districts were their largest depositors. If these funds were pulled out and put in this pooled investment fund at the state level, their loan-to-deposit ratio would be adversely affected, meaning that fewer funds would be available to extend loans to local homeowners and businesses. As I explained to lawmakers at the time, it would result in a shift in investments from main street to Wall Street. Additionally, there had been debacles in Orange County, California and elsewhere with local governments being enticed into these alternative investment schemes such as something called derivatives and the taxpayers wound up holding the bag. The conservative-minded legislators agreed and Marje's big retirement plans were dashed.
A short time after the legislature adjourned that year I was at a friend's party. I find myself in a discussion with this guy who used to work for Sen. Lugar. As soon as he heard my name, he went ballistic. "You're that guy who killed my business plan," he shouted. As he explained it, Bob Grand had it all set up. As soon as the legislation went through, his business would get the contract with the Treasurer's Office to manage the investment pool and he would make all kinds of money. I did such a good job misinforming the legislature about the virtues of his investment pool plan that I caused the idea to be defeated. O'Laughlin didn't go away quietly. Until the final day of the legislature, she could be seen with Grand and Burdick at her side button-holing legislators and trying to find a vehicle bill on to which to sneak her proposal. O'Laughlin later that year was replaced by Joyce Brinkman and Brian Burdick went to work for Bob Grand at Barnes & Thornburg. Brinkman refused to go along with the investment pool plan and wouldn't allow Grand to control all of the bond work for her office as he had intended. Grand vowed to make her a one-termer and, indeed, he succeeded in that, although Joyce played her own part in hanging herself politically.
I had pretty much forgotten all about the investment pool legislation until I read today's AP story. Yeah,Bob Grand and Brian Burdick finally found a State Treasurer and a complicit legislature to go along with this ill-conceived idea. "Nearly 130 schools and local governments are investing in the account, said state Treasurer Richard Mourdock," the AP reports. "He's been pitching the plan to local leaders, but said it's been difficult persuading them to become new investors." "There's a natural pushback," Mourdock said. "At some point — we're not there yet — it will be selling itself based on the word of mouth of its users. We have to keep earning credibility every day." My message to all of you local government officials--keep pushing back. Invest your money in local banks that offer assurances of making loans to help your own communities. A statewide investment pool is nothing but an invitation for all of the Bernie Madoffs of this world to crawl out of the woodwork and screw over not so savvy government officials charged with investing these funds.
State officials had high hopes for an investment pool created last year to give Indiana's school districts and local governments a safe, short-term place to deposit taxpayer money and earn interest.
Then the economy tanked.
The account's daily interest rate fell from 3.23 percent last February to just 0.53 percent today. Its balance dwindled from a peak of more than $1 billion in December to $473 million — and that includes $200 million the state government invested to demonstrate that the fund is secure.
There's a story behind this so-called investment pool. Back in the 1990s when I was lobbying for small community banks, State Treasurer Marjorie O'Laughlin was rapping up her last year in office and had this big legislative proposal she wanted enacted before she left office. She wanted to do away with a state law that required local units of government to deposit public funds on a pro-rata basis with area banks and create this state investment pool under the State Treasurer's office whereby a private investment manager would be contracted to invest collective investments of participating local governmental entities. One of her employees at the time, Brian Burdick, helped put this idea together and it promised much greater investment returns for the participating local governments.
The small banks I represented at the time went ballistic. They pointed out that local governments and school districts were their largest depositors. If these funds were pulled out and put in this pooled investment fund at the state level, their loan-to-deposit ratio would be adversely affected, meaning that fewer funds would be available to extend loans to local homeowners and businesses. As I explained to lawmakers at the time, it would result in a shift in investments from main street to Wall Street. Additionally, there had been debacles in Orange County, California and elsewhere with local governments being enticed into these alternative investment schemes such as something called derivatives and the taxpayers wound up holding the bag. The conservative-minded legislators agreed and Marje's big retirement plans were dashed.
A short time after the legislature adjourned that year I was at a friend's party. I find myself in a discussion with this guy who used to work for Sen. Lugar. As soon as he heard my name, he went ballistic. "You're that guy who killed my business plan," he shouted. As he explained it, Bob Grand had it all set up. As soon as the legislation went through, his business would get the contract with the Treasurer's Office to manage the investment pool and he would make all kinds of money. I did such a good job misinforming the legislature about the virtues of his investment pool plan that I caused the idea to be defeated. O'Laughlin didn't go away quietly. Until the final day of the legislature, she could be seen with Grand and Burdick at her side button-holing legislators and trying to find a vehicle bill on to which to sneak her proposal. O'Laughlin later that year was replaced by Joyce Brinkman and Brian Burdick went to work for Bob Grand at Barnes & Thornburg. Brinkman refused to go along with the investment pool plan and wouldn't allow Grand to control all of the bond work for her office as he had intended. Grand vowed to make her a one-termer and, indeed, he succeeded in that, although Joyce played her own part in hanging herself politically.
I had pretty much forgotten all about the investment pool legislation until I read today's AP story. Yeah,Bob Grand and Brian Burdick finally found a State Treasurer and a complicit legislature to go along with this ill-conceived idea. "Nearly 130 schools and local governments are investing in the account, said state Treasurer Richard Mourdock," the AP reports. "He's been pitching the plan to local leaders, but said it's been difficult persuading them to become new investors." "There's a natural pushback," Mourdock said. "At some point — we're not there yet — it will be selling itself based on the word of mouth of its users. We have to keep earning credibility every day." My message to all of you local government officials--keep pushing back. Invest your money in local banks that offer assurances of making loans to help your own communities. A statewide investment pool is nothing but an invitation for all of the Bernie Madoffs of this world to crawl out of the woodwork and screw over not so savvy government officials charged with investing these funds.
The Folly We Call The CIB
Our esteemed leaders of the Capital Improvement Board of Managers went before the Municipal Corporations Committee of the City-County Council yesterday and put on their little dog-and-pony show. You can view the entire hearing by clicking here. If you can imagine a first-grade school teacher teaching arithmetic to her students, you could appreciate the level of the conversation. CIB Executive Director Barney Levengood did most of the talking while CIB President Bob Grand and Treasurer Ann Lathrop looked on. Barney explained to his students that we've got a home, and we've got all of these bills, like the electric, water, etc. that we have to pay each month to keep it going and then there's this mortgage we have to pay if we want to continue living in our house. Barney first explained a few pesky problems with the mortgage, which went something like this:
I found it fascinating that throughout this presentation Bob Grand just sat there and deferred to Barney or Ann. Bob Grand is a self-described public finance expert. He makes a living as a bond lawyer. Why would he not be the person to explain the CIB's financial problems, particularly as it related to the bonded indebtedness? Ask which law firms and which attorneys have been providing advice to the Indianapolis Bond Bank the last few years for your answer. Ask why we opted for funding schemes that proved extremely costly and risky to the public. Ask how much those funding schemes cost the public in fees for the professional advice we followed in undertaking those risky funding options as opposed to traditional, more sound forms of public financing. Grand did say near the close of the presentation that he was talking to the Colts and Pat Early was talking to the Pacers about possible concessions from the sports franchises, but he reminded the Committee that the CIB could not unilaterally alter a contract with the team owners. Remember, that right is only reserved to the team owners, both of whom have exercised it in the past to demand more money from the CIB at a huge cost to taxpayers.
The really frightening aspect of this presentation was not the explanation offered by the CIB for this mess, but the complete blank stares of the Committee members and Chairman Mike McQuillen's astonishing compliment for the transparency the CIB had provided to the public. Did you know about the interest rate swaps and variable interest debt before this presentation? Did you know the CIB received a $17 million emergency loan from the State last year after paying a $5 million termination penalty on another debt instrument? Did you know that the CIB had taken out a $34 million short-term loan from Circle Centre's investors to build Conseco Fieldhouse and had defaulted on its repayment in 2007 and had to receive a 10-year extension before the IBJ reported on it a few weeks back?
The questions the council members asked of the CIB leaders were shallow to say the least. Back in my younger days when I analyzed budgets for the Illinois legislature, I used to spend days preparing for the legislators a detailed analysis of a department's proposed budget after reviewing the budget request and spending time interrogating the department's fiscal analyst. Right before the hearing, our staff director would ask me to prepare a list of questions for our members to ask. When I would explain that the questions were already set out in my analysis, he would respond by saying that legislators don't read your analysis. We need the people in the audience to think they really read the budget before the hearing so that's why you need to make a list of intelligent questions for them to ask. In the case of the Municipal Corporations Committee, nobody even bothered to make up a list of questions for them to ask to make it appear they knew what he hell was going on. Truly sad and frightening when you think about it.
Well, There's this thing called a swap note we took out a few years back for Conseco Fieldhouse for about $16.9 million. Barney didn't go into all of the details, but when the credit markets fell apart last year, the swap note was terminated and there was some $5 million cash penalty that had to be paid. We didn't tell you at the time, but the State bailed us out with an emergency loan and gave us a year to get our house in order. That payment comes due in June and we're not quite sure what we're going to do about that just yet.
Oh, and then there's this $26.3 million variable rate debt we took out in the past as well, which has a maturity date in September. You see, we didn't want to bother with those pesky cash reserve funds you are required to set up with a fixed rate, long-term bond. That credit market meltdown, however, sent interest costs on that debt soaring so we need to do something about that debt.
And, then there's the other matter of that $34 million we got the Circle Centre investors to divert to us from their dividends in the form of a loan for the construction of Conseco Fieldhouse. It was originally due in 2007, but we quietly got the investors to defer that obligation until 2017.
We wanted to be completely transparent and candid with you about all of these funding obligations. That's why we're telling you all of this today.
And by the way, we're doing everything we can to cut our budget. Sure, we increased our budget by $20 million this year, but we're going to show you we mean business and trim our budget increase by $6 million. Of course, we are calling this a budget cut because that's what we need to say to keep the increasingly discontented taxpayers assuaged. We're going to defer purchasing new carpeting, make sure the lights are turned out when a room isn't in use and turn down the thermostat. Barney reminded his students that our mayor didn't want to blame anyone for this mess so let's not discuss how we found ourselves where we are today. I didn't quite understand Barney's analogy, but he said his staff was working as hard as you work when you are running away from the police. I've never been chased by a cop so I don't know what that's like or whether it's at all appropriate in this context. On second thought . . .
Oh, one last point. Barney says there's some issue a CPA firm raised about our status as "a going concern." That's another way of saying that the CIB is insolvent. We have to figure out a way to pay for this mess so our creditors will continue to extend credit to us.
I found it fascinating that throughout this presentation Bob Grand just sat there and deferred to Barney or Ann. Bob Grand is a self-described public finance expert. He makes a living as a bond lawyer. Why would he not be the person to explain the CIB's financial problems, particularly as it related to the bonded indebtedness? Ask which law firms and which attorneys have been providing advice to the Indianapolis Bond Bank the last few years for your answer. Ask why we opted for funding schemes that proved extremely costly and risky to the public. Ask how much those funding schemes cost the public in fees for the professional advice we followed in undertaking those risky funding options as opposed to traditional, more sound forms of public financing. Grand did say near the close of the presentation that he was talking to the Colts and Pat Early was talking to the Pacers about possible concessions from the sports franchises, but he reminded the Committee that the CIB could not unilaterally alter a contract with the team owners. Remember, that right is only reserved to the team owners, both of whom have exercised it in the past to demand more money from the CIB at a huge cost to taxpayers.
The really frightening aspect of this presentation was not the explanation offered by the CIB for this mess, but the complete blank stares of the Committee members and Chairman Mike McQuillen's astonishing compliment for the transparency the CIB had provided to the public. Did you know about the interest rate swaps and variable interest debt before this presentation? Did you know the CIB received a $17 million emergency loan from the State last year after paying a $5 million termination penalty on another debt instrument? Did you know that the CIB had taken out a $34 million short-term loan from Circle Centre's investors to build Conseco Fieldhouse and had defaulted on its repayment in 2007 and had to receive a 10-year extension before the IBJ reported on it a few weeks back?
The questions the council members asked of the CIB leaders were shallow to say the least. Back in my younger days when I analyzed budgets for the Illinois legislature, I used to spend days preparing for the legislators a detailed analysis of a department's proposed budget after reviewing the budget request and spending time interrogating the department's fiscal analyst. Right before the hearing, our staff director would ask me to prepare a list of questions for our members to ask. When I would explain that the questions were already set out in my analysis, he would respond by saying that legislators don't read your analysis. We need the people in the audience to think they really read the budget before the hearing so that's why you need to make a list of intelligent questions for them to ask. In the case of the Municipal Corporations Committee, nobody even bothered to make up a list of questions for them to ask to make it appear they knew what he hell was going on. Truly sad and frightening when you think about it.
Tuesday, March 03, 2009
Pay To Play Is The Ballard Way
"Taxpayers are being asked to pay for hundreds of millions of dollars in government spending ranging from huge construction projects to outside personal contracts," GOP mayoral candidate Greg Ballard told voters in 2007. "But there are virtually no rules governing the conduct of business or local government in such dealings," he added. Candidate Ballard promised a series of ethics reforms to provide greater transparency and to protect the public interest, including:
Mayor Ballard, himself, has provided little, if any, disclosure to the public about gifts he has accepted as mayor. That contrasts sharply with candidate Ballard's criticism of a former city councilor for refusing to disclose who gave him tickets to the Super Bowl. "Like most citizens, I was not shocked to learn Patrice Abduallah had accepted tickets to the Super Bowl," Ballard said. "What I did find surprising and offensive was his refusal to reveal who paid for the trip. This must change," Ballard stated. "It's time to restore ethics and public accountability to our local government." Despite a pledge to restore ethics and public accountability, Ballard has governed this past year under the guiding principle that anyone wishing to do business with the city-county government must pay to play.
While Ballard raised a relatively paltry sum of campaign contributions during his grassroots, upset win over the entrenched and well-financed two-term mayor, Bart Peterson, in 2007, he raised a cool $1 million during the one-year period following his election, even though he won't stand for re-election until 2011. Ballard told the Indianapolis Star editorial board during a recent interview that he had not yet made up his mind on whether he will seek a second term despite the record-setting pace at which his campaign committee raised money during his first year in office. "We're taking concrete steps to go down that path in case we make that decision because we don't want to get behind," Ballard said. That's another way of saying business as usual.
The $1 million campaign contributions aren't coming from the grassroots supporters who gave to him in 2007. His campaign reported a little more than $2,000 in those unitemized, smaller contributions. "As in most campaigns, many of Ballard's biggest donations came from the city's top law firms, engineering companies and other professional services groups that compete for no-bid city contracts," wrote the Star's Brendan O'Shaughnessy in a story discussing Ballard's fundraising activities during his first year in office. And that's an understatement. My study of that same campaign finance report led me to conclude that more than 90% of his contributions came from either persons or firms doing business directly or indirectly with city or county government.
As with recent past city administrations, Mayor Ballard raised more than $150,000 from a handful of the city's largest law firms and attorneys working for them which do business with the city or county. Those same law firms and attorneys were awarded more than $2.2 million in legal service contracts during Ballard's first year in office according to records furnished by the City's corporation counsel's office for IndyStat, the mayor's performance evaluation office in city and county government. The most successful firm at winning contracts, Barnes & Thornburg, was also the same law firm which raised more than any other firm for Ballard during his 2007 race, $8,000. The firm kicked in another $12,000 after he won. Another law firm which serves as counsel to the CIB, Bingham McHale, raised more than $30,000 for Ballard's campaign committee last year. Noticeably missing from Ballard's campaign finance reports were attorneys who typically contribute to Republican candidates but don't do work for the city or county.
Engineering and consulting firms and their owners and employees easily gave more than law firms and attorneys gave to Ballard. The report reads like a "Who's Who of Indianapolis Engineers and Consultants." Jansen Spaans' Ibrahim Swidan made $7,250 and was identified on public documents as a provider of future consulting work for the City. David Woo of one of the city's minority-owned business firms, USI, gave $7,500. DLZ Indiana contributed $21,500 in a series of contributions last year, some of which were made just weeks before the City's Department of Public Works announced it was awarding the company a $50 million contract to provide water resources management work for the City. “This program is all about the mayor’s goal to make Indianapolis a better city, to spend our dollars wisely and not duplicate expenditures,” DPW Director David Sherman said in a press released posted on the company's website. “The members of this team have bought into that goal and are calling on the right people to get the job done, ” he added. The work relates to the management and implementation of the City's "combined sewer overflow, septic tank elimination, sanitary sewer, treatment plant and stormwater programs, totaling over $800 million over the next five years, alone." Indianapolis residents learned today that they will be paying 66% higher fees over the next several years to pay for those services and improvements after experiencing a near-doubling of those fees as of last year.
DLZ is no stranger to pay to play politics. The company won multi-million dollar contracts with the Indianapolis Water Company after the Peterson administration purchased the water utility from NiSource in 2002 for $525 million. The firm ranked as one of Peterson's largest campaign contributors, making tens of thousands of dollars in contributions during his eight years in office. Indiana campaign finance online reports indicate the company has showered Indiana politicians up and down the state with tens of thousands more in campaign contributions. The firm recently caught the eye of U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald in Chicago, who is investigating pay to play corruption in the administration of Gov. Rod Blagojevich and Chicago Mayor Richard Daley. The Sun-Times reported recently on the pay-to-play probe and how DLZ received its own subpoena for records from the U.S. Attorney:
Other businesses holding city or county contracts were equally as generous. United Water, which holds the contract to manage the City's wastewater treatment operations, gave $10,000. ACS, which provides IT-related services, gave $2,000. CCA, which has a contract to manage Marion County Jail II, gave $2,500. Former Eli Lilly CEO Randy Tobias gave $2,500 to Ballard shortly before he was named as the mayor's choice to run the Indianapolis Airport Authority.
Pay-to-play politics are not new with the Ballard administration. Each of his recent predecessors, including Bart Peterson and Steve Goldsmith, actively shook down businesses and individuals doing business with the city and county to raise millions for their campaign committees. People think our politics are cleaner than Chicago's, but they're just kidding themselves. Unlike Illinois, local politicians have been able to trade government favors for political contributions because neither the U.S. Attorney's Office in Indianapolis or the Marion County Prosecutor's Office will actively pursue investigations of public corruption.
The embarrassing results of Newman's investigation of Sam Turpin more than a decade ago struck little fear in corrupt government officials. Bribery statutes are very difficult to prosecute under state law. Federal prosecutors, in comparison to state prosecutors, have a broader reach of weapons to combat public corruption. Federal prosecutors often rely on federal wire and mail fraud charges based on a theory that the public is being deprived of a right to honest services from their public officials. In some cases, prosecutors will even employ RICO statutes to prove a conspiracy among a variety of government and non-government actors. Yet, Indianapolis has had one political prosecutor after another appointed to the U.S. Attorney's office here which have refused to use the tools at their disposal. Not even unequivocal evidence that a former Lawrence mayor unlawfully turned over the city's water company to political cronies, along with millions in taxpayer dollars and assets, resulting in dramatic water rate increases for the city's residents, was enough to grab the attention of the U.S. Attorney's office here despite a lengthy FBI investigation.
Republican defenders of Mayor Ballard will no doubt launch personal attacks against me and others who seek to hold his feet to the fire for the promises he made during his grassroots campaign for mayor. Sadly, his election-night victory to end governance by country club politics in Indianapolis, along with the bold ethics reform proposals he made during the campaign, wound up shredded on the floor of the Murat ballroom where his supporters celebrated his victory to be swept away by a custodian's broom the next day. Who would have thought that Ballard would continue the pay-to-play tradition with such unbridled enthusiasm? Is it too much to ask of a politician these days to keep his word to the voters?
- requiring persons who lobby city government to register with the city and report any lobbying expenses they make, including any entertainment or item of value they provide to elected officials and public employees;
- barring lobbyists or other persons with a financial interest from serving on any commission or board that directly affects or deals with their lobbying or financial interests;
- establishing a code of conduct for city employees which bars them from soliciting contributions from individual firms which do business with the city.
- requiring statement of economic interests filed by public officials to be made publicly available online; and
- requiring campaign finance reports be made publicly available online.
Mayor Ballard, himself, has provided little, if any, disclosure to the public about gifts he has accepted as mayor. That contrasts sharply with candidate Ballard's criticism of a former city councilor for refusing to disclose who gave him tickets to the Super Bowl. "Like most citizens, I was not shocked to learn Patrice Abduallah had accepted tickets to the Super Bowl," Ballard said. "What I did find surprising and offensive was his refusal to reveal who paid for the trip. This must change," Ballard stated. "It's time to restore ethics and public accountability to our local government." Despite a pledge to restore ethics and public accountability, Ballard has governed this past year under the guiding principle that anyone wishing to do business with the city-county government must pay to play.
While Ballard raised a relatively paltry sum of campaign contributions during his grassroots, upset win over the entrenched and well-financed two-term mayor, Bart Peterson, in 2007, he raised a cool $1 million during the one-year period following his election, even though he won't stand for re-election until 2011. Ballard told the Indianapolis Star editorial board during a recent interview that he had not yet made up his mind on whether he will seek a second term despite the record-setting pace at which his campaign committee raised money during his first year in office. "We're taking concrete steps to go down that path in case we make that decision because we don't want to get behind," Ballard said. That's another way of saying business as usual.
The $1 million campaign contributions aren't coming from the grassroots supporters who gave to him in 2007. His campaign reported a little more than $2,000 in those unitemized, smaller contributions. "As in most campaigns, many of Ballard's biggest donations came from the city's top law firms, engineering companies and other professional services groups that compete for no-bid city contracts," wrote the Star's Brendan O'Shaughnessy in a story discussing Ballard's fundraising activities during his first year in office. And that's an understatement. My study of that same campaign finance report led me to conclude that more than 90% of his contributions came from either persons or firms doing business directly or indirectly with city or county government.
As with recent past city administrations, Mayor Ballard raised more than $150,000 from a handful of the city's largest law firms and attorneys working for them which do business with the city or county. Those same law firms and attorneys were awarded more than $2.2 million in legal service contracts during Ballard's first year in office according to records furnished by the City's corporation counsel's office for IndyStat, the mayor's performance evaluation office in city and county government. The most successful firm at winning contracts, Barnes & Thornburg, was also the same law firm which raised more than any other firm for Ballard during his 2007 race, $8,000. The firm kicked in another $12,000 after he won. Another law firm which serves as counsel to the CIB, Bingham McHale, raised more than $30,000 for Ballard's campaign committee last year. Noticeably missing from Ballard's campaign finance reports were attorneys who typically contribute to Republican candidates but don't do work for the city or county.
Engineering and consulting firms and their owners and employees easily gave more than law firms and attorneys gave to Ballard. The report reads like a "Who's Who of Indianapolis Engineers and Consultants." Jansen Spaans' Ibrahim Swidan made $7,250 and was identified on public documents as a provider of future consulting work for the City. David Woo of one of the city's minority-owned business firms, USI, gave $7,500. DLZ Indiana contributed $21,500 in a series of contributions last year, some of which were made just weeks before the City's Department of Public Works announced it was awarding the company a $50 million contract to provide water resources management work for the City. “This program is all about the mayor’s goal to make Indianapolis a better city, to spend our dollars wisely and not duplicate expenditures,” DPW Director David Sherman said in a press released posted on the company's website. “The members of this team have bought into that goal and are calling on the right people to get the job done, ” he added. The work relates to the management and implementation of the City's "combined sewer overflow, septic tank elimination, sanitary sewer, treatment plant and stormwater programs, totaling over $800 million over the next five years, alone." Indianapolis residents learned today that they will be paying 66% higher fees over the next several years to pay for those services and improvements after experiencing a near-doubling of those fees as of last year.
DLZ is no stranger to pay to play politics. The company won multi-million dollar contracts with the Indianapolis Water Company after the Peterson administration purchased the water utility from NiSource in 2002 for $525 million. The firm ranked as one of Peterson's largest campaign contributors, making tens of thousands of dollars in contributions during his eight years in office. Indiana campaign finance online reports indicate the company has showered Indiana politicians up and down the state with tens of thousands more in campaign contributions. The firm recently caught the eye of U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald in Chicago, who is investigating pay to play corruption in the administration of Gov. Rod Blagojevich and Chicago Mayor Richard Daley. The Sun-Times reported recently on the pay-to-play probe and how DLZ received its own subpoena for records from the U.S. Attorney:
As part of their "pay-to-play" probe of former Gov. Rod Blagojevich, federal investigators are examining state bid proposals and other records from 18 heavyweight engineering and construction companies that made hefty political contributions and got big contracts from the state and from City Hall, records show.Another engineer who gave big to Ballard's campaign was the subject of one of the rare pay-to-play probes conducted in Marion County. The Star's Brendan O'Shaughnessy's report on Ballard's campaign fundraising noted that Willis Connor contributed $17,500 to Ballard last year. Former Marion County Prosecutor Scott Newman, Ballard's current Public Safety Director, indicted in 1997 Connor, his business partner at American Consulting Engineers, James Wurster, and a former chairman of the Indiana House Ways & Means Committee, State Rep. Sam Turpin, on charges of bribery and unlawful lobbying. While serving in the legislature, ACE retained Turpin's service to help win government work and paid him $52,500 over a period of time at the rate of $1,500 a month. Newman's case against the three fell apart after the trial court dismissed the bribery charges, which the Court of Appeals affirmed on appeal. Turpin wound up pleading guilty to a misdemeanor charge for using political funds to pay for personal expenses in a plea agreement with Newman. Charges against Connor and Wurster were dismissed. Connor renamed Ace as American Structurepoint after Wurster retired. This is the same firm which has been providing estimates to Carmel Mayor Jim Brainard on the controversial Keystone Avenue roundabout project, the cost for which jumped to $149 million, or at least $60 million more than Brainard originally told the public it would cost. Democrats in Hamilton County have called for an investigation of alleged pay-to-play in connection with that project. The Star recently reported:
In all, the companies have made more than $3.6 million in campaign contributions since the mid-1990s, a Chicago Sun-Times analysis shows.
More than a third of that -- about $1.3 million -- went to Blagojevich, whose administration gave 11 of the companies $656 million in contracts since 2004.
Mayor Daley took $64,800 from the companies before he put a self-imposed ban on accepting campaign cash from city contractors in the wake of the Hired Truck scandal. Since 2004, 11 of the companies have gotten $183 million in city deals.
This latest window into the continuing Blagojevich investigation comes from a federal subpoena that was served on the Illinois Department of Transportation on Dec. 11 and made public in the wake of a successful open-records lawsuit filed by the watchdog group the Better Government Association.
None of the businesses named in the subpoena has been accused of any wrongdoing. At least one of those companies received a separate subpoena of its own.
"I have responded to the subpoena; 22 boxes have been sent," said Diane French, executive vice president and general counsel for DLZ Illinois, an engineering/design firm.
French declined to say whether the company is working on any state-funded projects in Illinois. She also would not comment on the firm's former lobbyist, John Wyma, a longtime Blagojevich associate identified as "Individual B" in the criminal complaint prosecutors filed when they arrested Blagojevich in December on charges that included the explosive allegation that he'd try to sell an appointment to the U.S. Senate to replace President Obama there.
[Hamilton County Democratic Chairman Keith] Clock pointed out in the news release that American Structurepoint, the engineering firm handpicked by Brainard to design the road project, donated $10,000 to Brainard’s campaign committee in 2008. The 2008 annual report filed on Jan. 21, shows two donations of $5,000 made from the firm’s Indianapolis address. The firm and its employees have donated several thousands of dollars in past years as well, documents show.If you wonder why Ballard is so anxious to please the folks who want to raise your taxes to bail out the CIB, just take a look at who made generous contributions to him the past year. Colts' owner Jim Irsay gave $5,000. Simon Property Group, a company in which Pacer owners' Herb and Mel Simon are principals, gave $5,000. Hunt Construction, which has worked on projects like Lucas Oil Stadium, and its related companies, kicked in $4,000. Lucas Oil-related companies chipped in $6,000. Keystone Construction ponied up $28,000. Shiel-Sexton added $1,500 as did Holladay Properties. Turner Construction added $5,000. Anheuser Bush gave $4,000 and Zink Distributing gave many thousands more in contributions. White Lodging, which won the coveted prize of $65 million in taxpayer-assistance for its new convention hotel, gave $2,000. Vision Concepts added another $12,500.
“This appears to be more of the pay to play politics that persist in Hamilton County,” Clock said in the release. “If you take a look at the campaign contributions that these officeholders receive, it’s a list of who’s who of engineering firms that are doing the construction projects here, and Mayor Brainard is no exception."
Other businesses holding city or county contracts were equally as generous. United Water, which holds the contract to manage the City's wastewater treatment operations, gave $10,000. ACS, which provides IT-related services, gave $2,000. CCA, which has a contract to manage Marion County Jail II, gave $2,500. Former Eli Lilly CEO Randy Tobias gave $2,500 to Ballard shortly before he was named as the mayor's choice to run the Indianapolis Airport Authority.
Pay-to-play politics are not new with the Ballard administration. Each of his recent predecessors, including Bart Peterson and Steve Goldsmith, actively shook down businesses and individuals doing business with the city and county to raise millions for their campaign committees. People think our politics are cleaner than Chicago's, but they're just kidding themselves. Unlike Illinois, local politicians have been able to trade government favors for political contributions because neither the U.S. Attorney's Office in Indianapolis or the Marion County Prosecutor's Office will actively pursue investigations of public corruption.
The embarrassing results of Newman's investigation of Sam Turpin more than a decade ago struck little fear in corrupt government officials. Bribery statutes are very difficult to prosecute under state law. Federal prosecutors, in comparison to state prosecutors, have a broader reach of weapons to combat public corruption. Federal prosecutors often rely on federal wire and mail fraud charges based on a theory that the public is being deprived of a right to honest services from their public officials. In some cases, prosecutors will even employ RICO statutes to prove a conspiracy among a variety of government and non-government actors. Yet, Indianapolis has had one political prosecutor after another appointed to the U.S. Attorney's office here which have refused to use the tools at their disposal. Not even unequivocal evidence that a former Lawrence mayor unlawfully turned over the city's water company to political cronies, along with millions in taxpayer dollars and assets, resulting in dramatic water rate increases for the city's residents, was enough to grab the attention of the U.S. Attorney's office here despite a lengthy FBI investigation.
Republican defenders of Mayor Ballard will no doubt launch personal attacks against me and others who seek to hold his feet to the fire for the promises he made during his grassroots campaign for mayor. Sadly, his election-night victory to end governance by country club politics in Indianapolis, along with the bold ethics reform proposals he made during the campaign, wound up shredded on the floor of the Murat ballroom where his supporters celebrated his victory to be swept away by a custodian's broom the next day. Who would have thought that Ballard would continue the pay-to-play tradition with such unbridled enthusiasm? Is it too much to ask of a politician these days to keep his word to the voters?
66% Hike In Sewer Fees Planned
If they don't raise your taxes, they'll get it from you through higher fees for city services. Indianapolis sewer fees were more than doubled last year. Now a plan is headed to the City-County Council to raise sewer rates 66% over the next four years. That's in addition to the 20% emergency rate increase sought by the Indianapolis Water Company on top of a general rate increase to pay for the absolutely insane decision by former City Controller Robert Clifford and Mayor Bart Peterson to borrow hundreds of millions of dollars using variable rate bonds which are now costing us over 9% interest. The Peterson administration purchased the water company for at least double what it was worth and then incurred another $300 million in debt for capital improvements, saddling taxpayers with more than $800 million in debt. The City is rushing the second $750 million phase of a 20-year plan to abate combined sewers from dumping untreated sewage into waterways, ostensibly to have a shot at using federal stimulus dollars for the project. The pressure is largely coming from the engineers, consultants and lawyers who contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars to Mayor Ballard's campaign committee (they represent more than 90% of the more than $1 million he collected) over the past year who stand to make millions off of the work. As the economy tanks, they are pulling out all of the stops to get your government leaders to spend money on projects to make up for the revenues they are losing from the private sector. Don't always believe what you read in the newspaper.
Monday, March 02, 2009
Ah . . . The Book Deal
Just as I predicted, former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich has a book deal. It's a six-figure deal with Phoenix Publishers entitled, "The Governor." He "plans on exposing the dark side of politics that he witnessed in both the state and national level" according to the publicist's press release. The release says he chose an independent book publisher rather than a large publisher to avoid restrictions on content. "There were some people in high places who didn't want the governor to write this book and worked to try to squash a book deal," says Glenn Selig. If this is truly a tell-all book, David Axelrod and Rahm Emanuel are going to have some real tough spin work to do on behalf of Obama and perhaps even themselves. Springfield was already abuzz over rumors that federal investigators from Chicago paid a visit to a legislator in Springfield to question him about an alleged affair with his State House secretary and an attempt to get Blagojevich to hire her after the legislator's wife learned of the affair. Michelle Obama is reportedly in tears over a new book about a sex and drug scandal involving her husband as recounted by Larry Sinclair according to Globe Magazine. One Illinois legislator is already moving against the Governor's book deal. He's offering legislation to bar the ex-governor from profiting on a book or movie deal about his corrupt administration.
Township Residents Double-Taxed For Fire Protection
If you live in fire districts for Pike, Lawrence, Wayne, Decatur, Perry or Franklin townships, you are being taxed twice for township fire protection and the fire protection for those covered by the Indianapolis Fire Department to the tune of more than $10 million a year according to the Star's Brendan O'Shaughnessy. The double taxation affects about 450,000 residents. This anomaly came about largely as a result of former Mayor Bart Peterson's 65% increase in the local option income tax, which allocates revenues to the IFD. That should be an impetus to those townships to merge with IFD. That's not how Sen. Mike Young sees it. "The city is taking our (township) taxpayers' money and then paying for the (city) fire department?" Young asked. "That's not right. I want that money back." Consolidation legislation which would merge the county's township fire departments into IFD has stalled in the Senate, where Young led the charge against the merger.
Sunday, March 01, 2009
Our First Muslim President
I used to get a real kick when some leading African-American Democrats would claim President Bill Clinton was the first African-American president because he "displayed almost every trope of blackness": "single-parent household, born poor, working-class, saxophone-playing, McDonald's-and-junk-food-loving boy from Arkansas?" Then along came Barack Obama and Bill Clinton was just another racist for comparing Obama's candidacy to Jesse Jackson's in the early part of the presidential race.
Conservatives have been resoundingly condemned as religious bigots for suggesting that Obama is the first Muslim president. After all, his Kenyan father and grandfather and Indonesian adopted father were all Muslims. Obama was raised as a Muslim in Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim country. And when he joined a Christian church as an adult, he chose the Rev. Jeremiah Wright's church, which has more in common with Islam than mainstream Christianity. Well, lo and behold, American Muslims themselves consider Obama the first Muslim president. Asma Gull Hassan candidly writes for Forbes about "My Muslim President", while adding that any conservative who cites her column is just a "right-wing zealot" trying to smear Obama as a Muslim traitor in the White House:
Conservatives have been resoundingly condemned as religious bigots for suggesting that Obama is the first Muslim president. After all, his Kenyan father and grandfather and Indonesian adopted father were all Muslims. Obama was raised as a Muslim in Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim country. And when he joined a Christian church as an adult, he chose the Rev. Jeremiah Wright's church, which has more in common with Islam than mainstream Christianity. Well, lo and behold, American Muslims themselves consider Obama the first Muslim president. Asma Gull Hassan candidly writes for Forbes about "My Muslim President", while adding that any conservative who cites her column is just a "right-wing zealot" trying to smear Obama as a Muslim traitor in the White House:
I know President Obama is not Muslim, but I am tempted nevertheless to think that he is, as are most Muslims I know. In a very unscientific oral poll, ranging from family members to Muslim acquaintances, many of us feel, just as African-Americans did for the non-black but culturally leaning African-American President Bill Clinton, that we have our first American Muslim president in Barack Hussein Obama.
I know it's odd to say this. At first, I thought I was the only Muslim engaging in this folly, and I am reluctant to express it lest right-wing zealots try to use "Muslim" as a smear and cite my theory as proof of an Islamic traitor in the White House or some such nonsense. But, since Election Day, I have been part of more and more conversations with Muslims in which it was either offhandedly agreed that Obama is Muslim or enthusiastically blurted out. In commenting on our new president, "I have to support my fellow Muslim brother," would slip out of my mouth before I had a chance to think twice.
"Well, I know he's not really Muslim," I would quickly add. But if the person I was talking to was Muslim, they would say, "yes he is." They would cite his open nature and habit of reaching out to critics, reminiscent of the Prophet Muhammad's own approach, and also Obama's middle name, Hussein. Most of the Muslims I know (me included) can't seem to accept that Obama is not Muslim.
Of the few Muslims I polled who said that Obama is not Muslim, even they conceded that he had ties to Islam. These realists said that, although not an avowed and practicing Muslim, Obama's exposure to Islam at a young age (both through his father and his stint in Indonesia) has given him a Muslim sensibility. In my book, that makes you a Muslim--maybe not a card-carrying one, but part of the flock for sure. One realist Muslim ventured that Obama worships at a Unitarian Church because it represents the middle ground between Christianity and Islam, incorporating the religious beliefs of the two faiths Obama feels connected to. Unitarianism could be Obama's way of still being a Muslim. (And let's not forget that the church Obama worshiped at for so many years had a minister who reminds most Muslims of their own raving, excitable ministers. Even if Obama really is Christian, he picked the most Muslim-esque minister out of the bunch to guide him.)
The rationalistic, Western side of me knows that Obama has denied being Muslim, that his father was non-practicing, that he doesn't attend a mosque. Many Muslims simply say back, "my father's not a strict Muslim either, and I haven't been to a mosque in years." Obama even told The New York Times he could recite the adhan, the Islamic call to prayer, which the vast majority of Muslims, I would guess, do not know well enough to recite.
I think many of us Muslims see Obama as Muslim, or at least of Muslim heritage, because his background epitomizes one of the major Muslim experiences--a diverse upbringing that eludes any easy classification as specifically one religion or one culture. So many of us Muslims around the world have Islam in common, but an altogether different culture from one another. Many Muslims share a culture with a Christian, Hindu or Buddhist community but not the same religion. When faced with such diversity, there are no hard and fast rules for Muslim identity.
Township Trustees: It's A Family Affair
Nothing shocking in the discovery that township trustees in Indiana take care of family first and the poor somewhere further down the list. A Star analysis of townships says at least two out of three trustees employ an immediate family member. Here's a snippet of what the Star learned was going on in Marion County:
When David King Baird, the trustee of urban Wayne Township in Marion County, needed a chief of staff, he went outside the township. But he kept it in the family. He chose his brother, Hershell, for the position that pays $78,744 a year -- not including the new Ford Crown Victoria. . .
Urban or rural, large or small -- whether the job pays a pittance or a pretty penny -- nepotism is a tie that binds Indiana's disparate 1,008 townships.
A continuing examination of township government by The Indianapolis Star shows that, based on a sample of 617 townships, two-thirds of trustees had a relative on the payroll . . .
In Wayne Township, where the trustee's brother is chief of staff, there also is a deputy trustee. Lynn McWhirter makes $58,493 a year and is the daughter of a former trustee and the wife of a current battalion chief on the township fire department. But why, Baird was asked, does he need both a chief of staff and a deputy?
Baird, who makes $81,120 a year, said the job was too big for one person and that his brother could not serve as deputy trustee because he does not live in the township. When asked why the deputy could not serve as his chief of staff, Baird explained: "It was my call."
The township also assigned the Baird brothers township cars, Ford Crown Victorias, because, David Baird said, "We're on call, 24 hours a day."
Center Township Trustee William Douglas' brother, Robert Douglas, works at the township's healthplex for $16.86 an hour, and his great-nephew, also named Robert Douglas, makes $13.50 an hour to do maintenance for the township in the Julia Carson Government Center.
Both men started their jobs before William Douglas became trustee this year but were hired while he was chief executive of operations for the township.
Decatur Township Trustee Steve Rink's sister, Jeanne Bain, serves as township clerk, he said. She makes $35,037 per year, according to a report filed with the state . . .
In Warren Township, Connie Klepper, the wife of board member William
Klepper, worked as a full-time small claims court clerk in 2007 and early 2008, Trustee Jeff Bennett said. She earned a salary of $28,685 per year, according to
township records.
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