Indianapolis Residents Will Pay Dearly For Ballard's Dim Bulb Plan For Electric Car Sharing

Mayor Greg Ballard, who will never be accused of being the sharpest tool in the shed, came up with this bright idea of launching an electric car-sharing plan in Indianapolis after visiting a similar one in Paris, France during one of his many overseas junkets funded by his campaign contributors, also known as city contractors. The French electric car company, Bollore, plans to invest about $35 million to launch its electric car-sharing plan for Indianapolis, which operates similarly to the recently-launched bike share program Mayor Ballard backed and to which Ballard awarded the naming rights to the Pacers after they contributed a paltry $20,000 towards the program. Hey, it's the least the Pacers could do after we've agreed to pay out more than $200 million to their NBA team over a more than 10-year period.

As with every bright idea forwarded by Ballard, there's lots of money to be made for his campaign contributors at the cost of Indianapolis residents. Indianapolis Power & Light is asking permission from the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission to hike rates by $16 million to cover installation and other costs it expects to incur to establish Bollore's electric car-sharing plan, which as envisioned would include 1,200 charging stations at 200 locations. This is not unlike the stupid solar farm idea Indianapolis ratepayers are subsidizing out at the Indianapolis International Airport. The private investors/campaign contributors invested about $35 million to build their solar farm on airport-owned property. Any electricity generated by the solar farm is purchased by IPL at 8 times the published rate it typically costs the electric utility to provide electricity to ratepayers and is passed on to consumers. The campaign contributors make off like bandits at the expense of electric ratepayers.

That's not all. The car-sharing stations will crowd out a number of metered parking spaces that will cut revenues to the City's private parking meter operator, ParkIndy. Under the terms of its 50-year lease agreement with the City, the private operator must be reimbursed for any parking meters the City takes out of operation. So guess what? The City will have to pay ParkIndy dearly for Ballard's electric car-sharing plan. According to the IBJ, the City will have reimbursed ParkIndy $16.9 million by the time the electric car-sharing plan is fully implemented. That's on top of the more than $300 million the private operator will pocket over the next several decades that could have gone into city coffers to pay for basic city services, such as hiring police officers and fixing city streets and sidewalks.

So Ballard's bright idea will cost Indianapolis taxpayers as much as the French company will invest to offer shared electric cars to Indianapolis residents. Mayor Ballard doesn't support any initiative unless there is some payoff to his campaign contributors. That's because all of his policy ideas are invented and written by his campaign contributors. The guy never had an original idea in his life. "The obstacles right now are peoples' perceptions," Ballard proclaimed when he first announced his electric car-sharing plan. No, the obstacle is your dim bulb and your inability to discern the difference between the public's interest and that of your campaign contributors. Seriously, how many Indianapolis residents are going to drive their cars to an electric car-sharing station and park their internal combustion engine cars so they can pay to drive an electric car? No, it's all about the perception of visitors to the city. How can we be a world class city unless visitors to our city have the option of driving electric cars?

“The obstacles right now are peoples’ perceptions. They used to think these were toy, box cars, but in the last three or four years, this has changed dramatically,” Ballard said.

Read more: http://fox59.com/2013/06/10/indianapolis-to-become-city-with-largest-electric-car-share-program-in-u-s/#ixzz2zQh901CC

Read more at http://fox59.com/2013/06/10/indianapolis-to-become-city-with-largest-electric-car-share-program-in-u-s/#aO2QgGTD0mkrhb1E.99

“The obstacles right now are peoples’ perceptions. They used to think these were toy, box cars, but in the last three or four years, this has changed dramatically,” Ballard said.

Read more: http://fox59.com/2013/06/10/indianapolis-to-become-city-with-largest-electric-car-share-program-in-u-s/#ixzz2zQh901CC

Read more at http://fox59.com/2013/06/10/indianapolis-to-become-city-with-largest-electric-car-share-program-in-u-s/#aO2QgGTD0mkrhb1E.99

“The obstacles right now are peoples’ perceptions. They used to think these were toy, box cars, but in the last three or four years, this has changed dramatically,” Ballard said.

Read more: http://fox59.com/2013/06/10/indianapolis-to-become-city-with-largest-electric-car-share-program-in-u-s/#ixzz2zQh901CC

Read more at http://fox59.com/2013/06/10/indianapolis-to-become-city-with-largest-electric-car-share-program-in-u-s/#aO2QgGTD0mkrhb1E.99

“The obstacles right now are peoples’ perceptions. They used to think these were toy, box cars, but in the last three or four years, this has changed dramatically,” Ballard said.

Read more: http://fox59.com/2013/06/10/indianapolis-to-become-city-with-largest-electric-car-share-program-in-u-s/#ixzz2zQh901CC

Read more at http://fox59.com/2013/06/10/indianapolis-to-become-city-with-largest-electric-car-share-program-in-u-s/#aO2QgGTD0mkrhb1E.99