Another Media Story On P3 Criminal Justice System That Looks More Like A Press Release

I'm not sure that WRTV's Jack Rinehart is capable of doing anything more than putting out press releases for the Ballard administration these days. His latest report on the proposed privatized criminal justice system at the site of the old GM stamping plant is no exception. The patently false headline for his latest story reads, "Proposed Criminal Justice System will improve safety, save money."

The complex will be a $450 million one-stop facility that will meet the needs of inmates from their time of arrest to their final court date.

"I think we can capture efficiencies and build a safer judicial center for the sheriff, judges, prosecutor and public defenders while saving taxpayers money in the process," David Rosenberg, the city’s Director of Enterprise Development, said . . .

The private developer would fund construction and maintain the facility with existing criminal justice revenues.

The complex would ease security burdens within the City-County Building where inmates are transported to court in hallways shared by the public. The City-County Building was constructed more than 50 years ago to hold 16 criminal courts -- now 38 criminal courts.

With a modern, state-of-the-art jail, the sheriff could monitor twice as many inmates without increasing staff . . .

The Criminal Justice Complex would take more than 2,500 inmates housed in four downtown locations and put them under a single roof. Such a move would eliminate the need for excessive outside leases and costly private contracts with outside vendors.

The complex would increase bed space from 2,500 to 3,500 beds to alleviate overcrowding while meeting the projected needs for future growth.

"We don't want to open day one at capacity. We think we'll have plenty of bed space to take on state arrested, federal arrested or other counties that can't absorb the impact. It's an additional source of help to help fund the facility," Rosenberg said.

The project has been under discussion for 35 years. The mayor’s office hopes to move the project before the City-County Council early next year. If approved, Marion County’s wide-ranging criminal justice could be under one roof by 2018.

Well, the only thing accurate about the story is that the total construction cost of $450 million is much closer to the half-billion dollar figure I've been saying all along the facility would cost than much lower figures tossed about by the proponents--namely the downtown mafia whose members stand to personally profit from the deal. Taxpayers will be paying tens of millions more annually to pay profits to a private company controlled by foreign interests. I can say that because all of the finalists chosen by the Ballard administration are controlled by foreign companies. It's in fact the same foreign finalists that Gov. Mike Pence announced for the Illiana Expressway boondoggle, another P3 deal that promises to take taxpayers to the cleaners.

There will be no savings at all for taxpayers, who can expect to pay at least $3 billion over the next 30 to 35 years. In addition to the impressive rate of return on the foreign company's investment, the bond lawyers, consulting engineers, construction companies and other consultants in search of another massive project now that the $750 million Eskenazi Hospital has been completed will see a large windfall. The City will no doubt gift the prime real estate downtown that will be vacated to their favorite pay-to-play developers, along with tens of millions in generous grants to redevelop the land. And of course, there are always hidden benefits to insiders that accompany all of these P3 deals undertaken in Indianapolis, but don't expect anyone in the Indianapolis media to do anything but feed you one biased report after another about what a great deal this will be for taxpayers.