It is one of the biggest outrages I have witnessed in recent memory. The Republican members appointed to the Regional Operations Center Investigating Committee for the second consecutive committee meeting have blocked the issuance of subpoenas to gain access to critical PUBLIC RECORDS to get to the bottom of why the Ballard administration entered into a 25-year, $20 million lease for an unfit building that only benefits the politically-connected owners of the leased property. Taxpayers continue to pay lease payments for the use of a building it cannot occupy for the intended purposes. Yet city legal and the building's owner refuse to turn over relevant public documents regarding this transaction that were requested nearly four months ago. The file that should have been retained in the Public Safety Director's Office on the ROC project was apparently destroyed around the time Frank Straub left the city in disgrace to accept a new job in Spokane, Washington as that city's police chief.
Make no mistake about it. This is a cover up. There were most likely criminal laws broken in the process of entering into this lease agreement and Republican members of the council have apparently decided to become accessories after the fact to prevent the committee from learning the truth about what happened. Any citizen on the street would be entitled to submit a public records request and have the right to obtain copies of the documents that the ROC committee's counsel has been trying in vain to obtain from city legal and the property owner, Alex Carroll. As a life-long Republican, I am utterly ashamed of every one of these council members. How dare they draw a pay check as a council member while they obstruct the public from learning about corruption in our city-county government. Those of us who care about transparency in government plead with either the Marion Co. Prosecutor's Office or the U.S. Attorney's Office to do their jobs and immediately convene a grand jury and begin investigating why public monies are being pilfered to benefit this politically-connected campaign contributor to the Republicans. The public has a right to know, and those responsible for any wrongdoing need to be brought to justice.
UPDATE: I would post the WCTY video of this meeting, but the Ballard administration is too embarrassed to put it online for obvious reasons.
Here it is. The rats finally uploaded the archive video of this disgraceful meeting to its website.
Watch and weep.
13 comments:
Gary, please publish the names of these members.
We need to know what Frank G. Straub did to us! That guy apparently fired the assigned city attorney and signed an agreement putting us taxPAYERS on the hook for his waste! It appears he shredded all the documentation and the video of the Public Safety Board "disappeared".
It is time for the Feds to get this case. Write the
U. S. Department of Justice, PIN
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20530-0001
This stinks of corruption. Bring in a Grand Jury and bring in Frank G. Straub to ANSWER for the millions of dollars the taxPAYERS are on the hook for by his hand....as he lives in Spokane metro area!
A picture is worth 9/11 words. Videos missing too? What is stopping the public from standing up and asking for answers. Who will do this? The pay to players all need to be drawn in from various industries since 9/11 and their interests...It's coming...Contractors, players, deals, bribes (if they are true...) and facts...
We must force the feds to actually do their damn jobs! After all these people are supposed to work for us! Rise up Indiana and throw out every useless elected and unelected political hack in this state! To all you life draining vampires that call yourselves public servant's but only live to feed off the efforts of others your time is running out! We the people will tolerate your shenanigans no more! Do you hear us Ed and Anne Delaney! Mitch Roob and Scott Sanders! Down with the vulture's! Time to bring real American's to office: Gary Welsh, Christine Scales, Paul Ogden!
You forgot the other travesty. While the council passed a proposal to lease the space, the city isn't in a contract with the owners to lease space. Iirc the city has paid a ton of money to a 3rd party, which then pays Eastgate. Also iirc this is the contract city legal has lost, so that's a problem. Second, under this theory, the county treasurer would have had to disburse funds to an entity that it was not legally permitted to pay. That would be grand theft. IF in theory that's what occurred.
btw the feds were contacted a week ago and have not responded...
Would everyone also remember that our current Chief of Police, Rick Hite, was Frank Straub's deputy public safety director. Why has no one looked at Chief Hite and the whole roll he played in the Bissard case and the ROC lease. I can't believe all this was done by Herr Straub without Hite's knowledge.
You're giving Hite too much credit, anon. 10:22.
Anonymous at 9:41 - I contacted the DOJ, PIN.
They responded and said to contact the FBI.
Since most at that table did not care for former Public Safety Director Straub (who signed the contract), those that are standing in the way of public disclosure of documents must be hiding something important: Pfister, Gooden, Cain, McHenry, & Sandlin.
Unigov: The DOJ PIN is supposed to deal with this from Washington, because Joe Hogsett cannot!
I think they are telling you that "The Machine Rules"...do what they said, document all replies, and tell us what they don't do!
4:38: Perhaps they are looking into what our local FBI doesn't do...or does do now...the DOJ passed this off for a reason...Ponder that...
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