Outrage: Ballard Giving Recovered Abatement Funds To ICVA

The City of Indianapolis awarded $18 million in tax abatement incentives to Navistar several years ago to expand and retain jobs. Instead, the company closed its factory and failed to retain 1,873 jobs as promised. A claw back provision allows the City to recovery some of the unused tax abatement dollars. The tax abatement money comes out of the pockets of the taxing districts located at the site of the factory. Instead of giving the money back to the taxing districts that lost the money, Ballard is giving the money to the ICVA and Economic Development Corporation, two nonprofit entities that essentially operate as slush funds for the mayor. The ICVA uses its money to promote conventions downtown that benefit a handful of hotels and businesses. Its marketing also benefits the billionaire sports team owners of the Colts and Pacers. It already receives close to $10 million a year in taxpayer funds.

Candidate Ballard and a number of Republican council candidates had promised to support a change in the law that would give the City-County Council authority to decide abatements; however, Ballard and Republican councilors blocked an ordinance a few weeks back that would have accomplished this goal. Candidate Ballard also criticized the amount of tax abatements made during the Peterson administration. The Metropolitan Development Commission alone makes tax abatement decisions. It is an unelected board to which only politically-connected persons are appointed. Despite tough financial times for many long-time property taxpayers, the MDC has shown no signs of letting up on the tax breaks it awards to businesses.

May Launches Media Campaign

Seventh District Republican congressional candidate Carlos May's campaign has launched a media blitz that includes about two dozen billboards across the City of Indianapolis in an effort to boost his name recognition. May is seeking slating at next month's GOP caucus, along with local attorney Rafael Ramirez. Perennial candidate Marvin Scott is also seeking the Republican nomination, but he plans to skip the GOP slating process and run in the May primary.

Fair Finance Drops Bid To Sell More Securities

The IBJ and the Star have online reports today on Fair Finance's decision to withdraw its request to Ohio security regulators to issue an additional $250 million in securities. An attorney for Fair Finance claims the company is unable to provide the additional information requested by Ohio officials because information it needs is not in its possession after the FBI conducted a raid of its offices in late November of last year. It seems unlikely that the company will be able to repay more than $200 million owed to investors if it is unable to offer additional securities. Fair's offices have remained closed since its offices were raided.

During last year's November FBI raid, the U.S. Attorney's office for the Southern District of Indiana filed a civil forfeiture action in which it accused the firm's owner, Timothy Durham, of running a Ponzi scheme. Days after filing the action, U.S. Attorney Tim Morrison abruptly dropped his action without explanation. Several members of the news media, including the Star, the Akron-Beacon Journal, the Wall Street Journal and the IBJ, have gone to court to force the government to release information on the search warrants it executed against Durham's Obsidian Enterprises and Fair Finance. Judge Sarah Evans Barker denied their initial request, but a new request has been filed that awaits a determination.

Why Are The Simons Even Allowed To Bid For Management Of CIB Facilities?

There's more disturbing news about the corrupt influence the billionaire Simon family manages to exert over the City of Indianapolis. For more than a year, the family has relied on Jim "Rent A Civic Leader" Morris, Mayor Greg Ballard, the ICVA, and the CIB to do their bidding in seeking an additional $15 million a year subsidy for costs associated with Conseco Fieldhouse because the Simons claim their Pacer NBA franchise is bleeding so much money. In the wake of a state tax, spend and borrow bailout of the CIB this past year because the CIB had no money to operate Lucas Oil Stadium after it gave away all of the stadium's revenues to billionaire Colts owner Jim Irsay, the Ballard administration is considering proposals to privatize the maintenance and operation of all of the CIB's facilities. Unbelievably, the Simon's Pacers Sports & Entertainment, which is headed up by Morris, is teaming up with the ICVA and two other prominent facilities management companies, AEG and Global Spectrum, in a proposal to run the CIB's facilities. The IBJ's Peter Schnitzler pegs the four-way team as the front-runner in the bidding process.

As the children of Mel Simon wage a fight with their father's second wife over the division of his $2 billion estate, the Pacers organization has claimed the Simon family has lost hundreds of millions of dollars on its NBA franchise, even though it purchased the team for less than $20 million back in the 1980s. In 1996, the Simons got everything they demanded from the CIB for the new Conseco Fieldhouse. As Indy Tax Dollars' Fred McCarthy reminds us, then-Mayor Steve Goldsmith and the City-County Council raised the cable TV franchise fee from 3% to 5% to raise additional funds for the CIB to help pay for the new arena. The City also diverted revenues from Circle Centre Mall, which the taxpayers built but Simon Property Group is allowed to manage and operate rent free, to help pay for Conseco Fieldhouse. Mayor Goldsmith told the public the deal benefited the entire community and not just the Pacers. Goldsmith claimed the public subsidies were needed to sustain "the $1.5 billion tourist and entertainment stake in Downtown Indianapolis." Heard that one before?

Under its current lease agreement for Conseco Fieldhouse, the Pacers pay no rent but are allowed to pocket virtually all of the revenues the facility generates from both game and non-game events. Being experts in property management, the CIB assumed the Pacers could more efficiently operate Conseco Fieldhouse. Without requiring the Pacers to publicly disclose any information about its income and expenses, the CIB has been quietly negotiating how to pick up $15 million a year in additional operating expenses at Conseco Fieldhouse. Despite the Pacers' contractual obligation to pay these costs, the CIB has paid out millions of dollars to cover expenses over the past decade for Conseco Fieldhouse for which it had no legal obligation to pay. It allowed the Pacers to pocket parking revenues that righfully belonged to the CIB.

It comes as no surprise to me that the only proposal that did not include current revenues of the bidders was the one submitted by the four-way team that included the Pacers. AEG, Global Spectrum and Pacers Sports & Entertainment all declined to disclose their revenues. The ICVA, which is legally obligated to disclose its revenues as a publicly-financed nonprofit, disclosed $10 million in annual revenues. As I've said before, the Simons will never divulge this information because they know that people will be able to figure out what big fat liars they are when it comes to their claims of losing money. It also doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out which side will benefit if the Pacers are allowed to manage all of the CIB facilities. This is nothing more than a smoke and mirrors effort to give more subsidies to the billionaire Simons while making it appear that the City is finding a more efficient way to operate the CIB. They don't fool me, and I hope they don't fool you.

UPDATE: Here's a fact I overlooked. AEG was founded and is owned by Philip Anschutz, the billionaire owner of the L.A. Lakers. Anschutz, who also owns hockey teams and the Staples Center, is worth $6 billion. If the CIB hands control of the facilities to his group, the public will be contending with not one but two NBA owners calling the shots for the management of our taxpayer-financed public facilities. Hat tip to the observant reader who pointed this out to me. This may well be a concerted effort on the part of the Simons to put the squeeze on billionaire Colts owner Jim Irsay. It's no secret that the Simons are extremely jealous and envious of the deal he negotiated with the CIB for Lucas Oil Stadium. They'll be damned if they're outdone by an out-of-town pill popper who was simply lucky enough to inherit the franchise from his father.

Township Consolidation And Racism

Race-baiting radio talk show host Amos Brown is at it again. It seems that he is miffed that some Democrats would dare to support the consolidation of township governments into the consolidated government. Brown is particularly upset with State Rep. Ed DeLaney. Brown writes in a recent column in the Indianapolis Recorder:

Township board districts are far smaller and more representative and grassroots than legislative or City-County Council districts.

So, why do the forces trying to carpet-bomb township governments try to eliminate these boards? There are no good reasons, just because they can.

If they get their way, scores of Blacks, elected by their neighborhoods and our community, would lose their positions. Again, for no good reason.

Meanwhile, the drive to eviscerate township trustees has also returned. But instead of being spearheaded by Republicans, a renegade Democratic state legislator from Marion County, one elected on the backs of Black folks’ votes, is leading the charge.

This renegade representative released a press release Monday saying he wants to turn the power of township trustees over to a county’s top executive. In Marion County, that would be the mayor.

The misguided Democrat also said he wants to create an elected “countywide advocate for the poor.” And in an even more bizarre proposal, this leave of his senses legislator wants to convert the tax dollars township trustees now use for emergency poor relief into “ways to reduce poverty levels across Indiana, including financing teaching and academic research in those areas.”

Instead of meeting Hoosiers’ emergency needs, or helping find jobs for those in poverty, this renegade representative would spend it on high paid professors and consultants!

This bizarre, absurd scheme from a turncoat Democrat from a 26 percent Black district needs to be scuttled – now!

Sorry, Amos, but I have no idea who represents me on the Center Township Board and the person serving as Center Township Trustee was not elected by the voters. The township employs dozens of political hacks who do little more than help get out the vote for Democrats on election day and owns numerous properties it does not need that sit vacant. Your claim that fiscal irresponsibility in township government is primarily contained in rural townships is laughable. Countless examples of misuse of township funds has been documented in Marion County. You just choose to ignore them. More importantly, it is an outrage that you would accuse DeLaney of selling out blacks simply because he supports consolidation. I suppose you think Sheila Kennedy, another liberal supporter of consolidation, has racial motives. And what about the co-chairs of the Kernan-Shepard Commission, former Gov. Joe Kernan and Chief Justice Randal Shepard? Are they racists too? It's a shame that responsible leaders don't call out Brown on this nonsense that he shovels constantly to stir up racial strife in our community.

Speaking of racism, where's the outrage about comments Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) made about Barack Obama during his run for the presidency that have come to light in a new book? Reid complimented Obama for being "light-skinned" and "with no Negro dialect." Last year, Reid compared Republicans who opposed Obama's health care reform legislation to slave masters. The highest ranking member of the Congressional Black Caucus, U.S. Rep. James Clybourne (D-SC), and other leading African-American leaders quickly came to Reid's defense. It's funny that's not how they felt towards former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-MS). Lott came under fire when he praised the late Sen. Strom Thurmond (R-SC) on the occasion of his 100th birthday. Lott praised his own state for supporting Thurmond's 1948 independent run for president and said our country would have been better off if Thurmond had won that election. Like many white southerners at the time, Thurmond supported segregation. Democrats, civil rights leaders and the media kept up the attacks on Lott until he was forced to give up his leadership position.

Andre Carson's Dirty Money

U.S. Rep. Andre Carson raised more money from Democratic activist Marla Stevens than any other Democratic politician. Stevens and her partner gave more than $25,000 to Carson's campaign committee before the FBI caught up with the pair and charged them with stealing $6 million from Aviva (formerly Indianapolis Life Insurance Co.). When this flap arose last year, Carson, through a congressional spokesman, denied knowing the two women despite their long history of supporting his grandmother, U.S. Rep. Julia Carson, and Marla's history of spreading defamatory information about Carson's political opponents.

This blog chronicled Carson's nationwide quest during the 2008 special election to raise an unprecedented amount of money in the 7th congressional district race at a record pace. Carson criss-crossed the country raising money from every special interest group and lobbyist imaginable. He even allowed CAIR, an unindicted co-conspirator in the federal government's investigation of groups tied to raising funds for radical Muslim terrorists, to host a fundraiser for him in D.C. Carson was forced to return at least one contribution when it was discovered that one of the contributors was linked to Muslim terrorists.

An equally unlikely fundraiser for Carson is a former top aide to former U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay. According to That's My Congress website, Tim Rupli, a lobbyist for payday lenders and other banking interest groups, hosted a fundraiser at his D.C. townhouse on March 24 of last year for Carson. "Rep. Andre Carson was the beneficiary of a fundraiser at the Rupli townhouse, for which his campaign committee did not pay expenses," the public interest site reports. "Rep. Carson is a member of the House Financial Services Committee that Tim Rupli is paid to lobby on behalf of banks, credit card corporations and payday lenders." Almost 37% of the fundraisers with which Rupli feted members of Congress involved members of the Financial Services Committee.

Carson has also accepted $10,000 from House Ways & Means Committee Chairman Charlie Rangel's National Leadership PAC. Rangel is the subject of multiple investigations by the House Ethics Committee, largely due to his failure to report income he earned on various income-producing properties. According to the Washington Examiner, a company that donated $1 million to a school in New York that will bear Rangel's name received lucrative tax breaks from Rangel's tax law-writing committee. Rangel has even been accused of using his official government stationery to solicit campaign contributions.

Don't expect our Indianapolis media to examine Carson's campaign contributions. If something involves a conservative, Republican politician like U.S. Rep. Dan Burton or U.S. Rep. Steve Buyer, the news media is all over the story. When it comes to examining Carson, the news media applies the standard one would expect to be applied to a special needs child, which essentially means he gets no scrutiny at all.

More On Opposition To Straub

WISH TV's Jim Shella has a story on the opposition to Mayor Greg Ballard's new Public Safety Director appointee, Frank Straub. Shella interviews my good friend and leader of the Republican Liberty Caucus, local attorney Elizabeth Karlson. Unlike other news reports, Shella gets the political importance of this disagreement rather than focusing on bashing gun rights activists like some others have chosen to do in the news media. "And that leads Karlson to her real target, Mayor Greg Ballard," Shella reports. "Both on Facebook and in her role as chair of the Republican Liberty Caucus, Karlson makes the case that Ballard is not true to Republican principles." "The Straub confirmation is one battle in a much bigger war."

Non-Union Contractors Still Locked Out Of Wishard Project

When I pointed out a recent letter to the editor in the Star complaining about how non-union contractors and workers were being locked out of the $750 million Wishard hospital project, the deceptive HHC CEO Matt Gutwein was quick to run to some in the media to say this claim was simply untrue. J.R. Gaylor of the Associated Builders & Contractors of Indiana pens a My View column in today's Star where he confirms the deal Gutwein and other city leaders behind the Wishard referendum cut with the labor unions to garner their support. Gaylor writes:

When the leaders of Wishard Hospital brought forward a massive renovation plan, all of the appeal was for this to be an all-community effort. The entire community was asked to support this by their votes "confirming our community's commitment to the New Wishard." Matt Gutwein, CEO of the Health and Hospital Corp., on a number of occasions in public meetings to rally community support touted inclusiveness of all community sectors as important to the success of this project.

Now that actual construction documents are being distributed, we find a much different story. We are finding out that a large sector of the construction industry -- nonunion contractors and nonunion construction workers -- will essentially be locked out from participating due to a backroom deal with the local big labor bosses.

Only through investigative reporting by Kara Kenney of WRTV (Channel 6) did Gutwein produce this divisive document on Dec. 28. Rumors of this had surfaced months ago when there was a supposed deal with the labor bosses who had promised to ensure a successful referendum vote if Wishard would, in quid-pro-quo fashion, direct the bulk of the $750 million of construction work to the unions and eliminate their competition.

Now as this backroom deal is being exposed, Gutwein is claiming that this was a necessary deal to get the project done on time and on budget, a real protection to the taxpayers. Similar deals were cut to eliminate qualified nonunion contractors on other high-profile projects. Let's review how those have turned out for taxpayers:

» The Central Library was more than two years late and $50 million over budget.

» Lucas Oil Stadium was $75 million over budget and used up a $50 million contingency fund.

» Indianapolis International Airport opened a year later than original projections.
Labor bosses shift the argument and say this is about wage protections, safety and quality control. Those are hollow arguments from many years ago when unions were prominent.

The bait-and-switch is alive and well. It worked on the stadium. Appeal for inclusiveness of the entire community when you need it and then switch to an exclusive deal with a small group of power brokers when you think no one is watching.

Yep, the construction cartel is alive and well in Indianapolis. This is the group of union contractors and labor leaders who have bought off all of the local politicians to make sure they land every public works project and screw over the general public as much as possible at every turn. Two of the key advocates for the Wishard project, Mark Fisher of the Greater Indianapolis Chamber of Commerce and Mayor Ballard's Chief of Staff Paul Okeson, both landed jobs with major construction companies shortly after the referendum election. Some Democrats have pondered recently why certain labor groups have given such large contributions to some Republican campaigns. Look no further than deals like this one to get your answer to that question. Once upon a time, Republicans were on the side of non-union contractors and workers. Not in this town.

Missing Personnel Reports For Indianapolis

A state law (I.C. 5-11-13) requires every state, county, city, town, township or school official, who is in charge of a respective governmental entity, to annually file a personnel report with the State Board of Accounts showing the names and business addresses of all officers, employees and agents of the governmental entity, their respective duties and compensation of each. A reliable source tells me that the City of Indianapolis has not filed this report since 2007, the last year of the Peterson administration. According to the state law, an official who fails to comply with this requirement commits a Class C infraction. If the person responsible for filing the report is an elected officer, he or she is subject to impeachment. Any other person is subject to removal for neglect of duty. Somebody at the City-County building who is responsible for filing this report needs to get their act together and file the missing reports.