Wednesday, February 26, 2014
Ballard's Township Fire Department Grab Bill Fails
The Senate Local Government Committee today voted down on a 4-6 vote Mayor Greg Ballard's legislative plan to seize three township fire departments in Marion County without the consent of the respective township governments. HB 1229 would have forced township fire departments in Decatur, Pike and Wayne townships to merge with the Indianapolis Fire Department at the behest of Mayor Ballard. The city of Indianapolis has gutted its property tax base with expanded TIF areas used to enhance the slush funds controlled by Mayor Ballard and used to pass out to large campaign contributors to fund their private real estate developments. Unable to fund basic city services with the balance of city revenues, Ballard saw the forced consolidation of the township fire departments as a way of expanding IFD's property tax base to short up its funding. Upon the consolidation, Ballard would immediately slash fire services to the affected townships as has occurred elsewhere in the county and divert those new-found revenues to other areas. Ballard's TIF-supported plan to relocate IFD's headquarters and Fire Station 7 from its current location on Mass Ave will cost taxpayers well north of $40 million, all so he could give a prime block of real estate to large campaign contributors to redevelop for their own selfish use.
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10 comments:
...news like this will probably require Ballard to go on another junket immediately.
:):):) Watched an accident on 71st and Zionsville Road on Sat am take over an hour for response and two hours to clean up...Consolidation fears? This is great news for many first responders and firefighters whom are the real warriors here in Indy. Celebrate...But also watch the politics of cars on loan. salaries and more. Whom can they trust within with the politics here?
One west side fire chief and 4 of his top paid employees make well over $100,000 yearly plus a car, pension, phone, puts each Employee near $150,000 each. These figures were recently published in the Star's public notices. These employees were overtime exempt!
My figures might be a little high, but I'm not far off
Gary this looks more like status quo from Township Government rather than a power grab.
I'm not defending the spending policies of township governments. I just think it should be clear to people that consolidation has become short-hand for streamlining and efficiency when the facts are quite clear that the city-county government has misspent billions of tax dollars on corporate welfare handouts that the township governments can't be accused of doing. End the practice of financing campaign contributors' real estate development projects and my view of consolidation might change accordingly. Additionally, the voters in those townships have elected their township officials to run township government. If they want to consolidate, let them elect township officials who support consolidation as has occurred in the other townships where consolidation has already taken place. Right after Washington Township's fire department merged, they closed a fire station and a ladder company. This administration then tried to extort votes from a city councilor in order to get the ladder company returned to her district.
Gary your information regarding Washington Township is only half right.
They did move a ladder truck to Lawrence.
BUT didn't close any fire stations.
They threw Ms. Scales under the bus for defending her district intrest.
I know of one senator who testified that he had not been contacted by ONE person concerning this bill.
I also know that I personally emailed that senator at his "official" email address stating why I was for the bill and he should vote "no."
This bill would not have FORCED the townships to consolidate.
There are still laws on the book from a couple of years ago that would allow the townships to voluntarily consolidate after negotiating terms, etc.
This was another lie that opponents testified to yesterday.
The Indiana Commission on Local Government Reform recommended the elimination of Township Government, a high cost and unnecessary layer of government, known best for corruption, waste, and nepotism.
There is NO need for any Township government in a Consolidated city!
So instead the township taxpayers get to continue to pay, in some cases, more than double the IFD rate for fire service. And Indianapolis keeps 4 separate fire departments(with their bloated admins and budgets)in the city limits. What a deal.
This isn't a power grab on Ballard's part, the firefighters have been trying to get this done for years because they are subjected to petty politics and unsafe working environments in the townships. IFD isn't perfect but it's much better than these townships run by self interested township trustees and their cronies.
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