Mayor Greg Ballard has been passing out about $5 million a year since taking office in crime prevention grants. The money comes from the 65%, $90 million a year local income tax increase you began paying in 2007. "These crime prevention grants, which recognize the diversity and community spirit of our great city, are essential to our grassroots, neighborhood-focused effort to make Indianapolis a safer place for everyone," said Mayor Ballard at the time. One of the groups that received money to "make Indianapolis a safer place" is the Save the Youth , which received $90,000. The minister who runs the organization, Byron Alston, has been busted by IMPD for sexual misconduct with a woman who applied for a job with the foundation, and there are other female victims as well according to Fox 59 News. The TV news station has the lurid details on this one attack:
Fox59 has learned that a youth minister in Indianapolis has been arrested and accused of making sexual advances against at least one woman.According to the Fox 59 News report, local law enforcement officials have known about issues of Alston exposing himself to women since September but because he is so closely tied to Mayor Ballard, members of his administration and the Marion Co. Prosecutor's Office, a special prosecutor has been sought to handle the case.
Byron Alston started 'Save the Youth Foundation' and on his website he refers to himself as a certified gang consultant and an at-risk youth specialist.
According to police reports a woman says she went in for a job interview and he reportedly told her she could have the job if she had sex with him. When she told him no, the woman says Alston tried to unbuckle her pants and then proceeded to masturbate in front of her.
Fox59 received the police reports that have been filed by the woman and at least one other person accusing him of similar crimes. Calls are being made to find out exactly what charges he faces and Fox59 will have the latest information as it comes in.
4 comments:
I take exception to this money ($5 million) being doled out to private organizations (plus $1 million for the arts) when just weeks later they then have to vote to raise taxes to collect an extra few million (around $4 million??) in revenue.
The perception is that the crime prevention grants are political 'buy offs' to community organizations, local churches and other private entities.
It's also worth noting that there is decision point that says you can further reduce Bart Peterson's massive tax increase (.62 of that .65 is still left) by another .03 percent (dropping the Marion County rate from 1.62 to 1.59%) if they stop doling that money out to private entities.
Sean, Sadly, these crime prevention grants are nothing more than payoffs to a group of black ministers who falsely claim they are responsible for the election of Greg Ballard. Their claim is that they encouraged all of their church members to stay home on election day in 2007 and caused Peterson to lose the election. It's a tall tale that was quickly promoted by Abdul on his blog at the time. It's why Ballard named Olgen Williams, who did nothing for his election, as a deputy mayor and it's why he has devoted so much energy to kissing up to this constituency that never voted for him and never will. While passing out jobs, contracts and grants to "Friends of Olgen", Ballard never misses an opportunity to deliver the middle finger to the grassroots people who actually are responsible for his election. Just another reason why Ballard shouldn't even waste time running for re-election.
Setting up a non-profit is one of the easier ways to steal money from taxpayers by people who otherwise are unemployable or not worthy of the salary they pay themselves. It is one of the biggest scams going.
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