This final year of Greg Ballard's second term as Indianapolis mayor is proving to be filled with pitfalls for the city's taxpayers that will cost us dearly for decades to come. To describe Ballard as being Rod Blagojevich on steroids is an understatement. Unfortunately, Indianapolis taxpayers have no prosecutors on our side to stop the corrupt madness that is taking place in plain sight in the closing months of this nightmare. If we had the equivalent of what Chicago has, the man would have long ago been hauled out of the City-County Building in handcuffs.
Today brings news that Ballard has cut a deal with the French company he encountered during one of his many overseas junkets paid for by his bag men to steal money from parking meter revenues intended to be used for infrastructure improvements in the areas of the city served by metered street parking to construct electric charging station's for Bollore's privately-owned electric car sharing service. Ballard's original plan to force IPL's electric utility customers to pay for the electric car sharing program was shot down by the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission. Now he's stealing parking revenues intended for other purposes to make city taxpayers subsidize the privately-run car sharing business.
According to an Indianapolis Star report, Ballard plans to divert $6 million in parking meter revenues to subsidize the supposed $13 million cost for installing electric charging stations. That doesn't include the money the city will have to reimburse the private parking meter company for revenues it will lose from displaced paid parking spaces taken up by Bollore's Blue Indy electric car sharing program. Incredibly, the Ballard administration claims the "investment" in the private company's electric charging station constitutes "infrastructure" improvements. This is the same mayor who just vetoed $4.7 million in spending for needed replacement police cars and other public safety needs because he claimed funds weren't available, even after city taxpayers were hit with another 10% income tax increase in January. The council overrode that veto by a 28-1 vote, the first mayoral veto override in the history of UniGov.
This latest boondoggle comes on the heels of the Ballard administration's idiotic agreement for a $32 million, 7-year lease agreement for a fleet of electric cars with a completely untested company, Fleet Vision. There were serious questions about whether the administration violated state procurement laws by failing to put the lease agreement out for pubic bid. Public safety employees have complained the cars are completely impractical because they have no trunk space, forcing law enforcement officers to leave weapons unsafely stored in their cars just a quick smash and grab away from a thief's hands. Advance Indiana has been hearing rumors about other nefarious goings-on that accompanied the Fleet Vision lease agreement. If anyone has more information on this, please contact us. Those we have entrusted to investigate public corruption have abandoned us so it's up to us to expose those using government as their personal profit center for shady deals that have no demonstrable benefit to the public.
10 comments:
I am betting that if there were an investigation, it would turn out that Ballard is making $$$ from this.
I say this because the idea is stupid: People do NOT want it! Nobody has rented those stupid electric cars that take up prime downtown parking spaces.
Call in the DOJ!
THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU for publishing this news- which is information we "Party" workers have known for years but have been powerless to stop. TJ, DB and his half-competent wife, BG, BC, KY and JHW.... these people are the barbarians at the gate keeping honest individuals out.
No wonder they now push Chuck Brewer who, without a doubt, is the new Greg Ballard- a useful tool willing to be so for some possible other future gains.
Howdy Doody is the somewhat leaner Democrat version of our dishonest mayor.
The city doesn't make $6 M from the meters what the other cash flow he's tapping?
I for one will not be voting for any party machinery sponsored people in the next few elections. The republican party has been hijacked by corrupt politicians only out for themselves. Unfortunately, the sheeple will all fall into line, either not voting or blindly voting for whom they are told to vote for. Our American democracy is in its death throes.
This year's municipal election was rigged so you would have no real choices. It's Tweedle Dee or Tweedle Dum. It makes no difference which one wins. The same people raping and pillaging the city will still be in charge.
I am hearing some people in the know formed the leasing company that the electric fake police cars deal was done through. 500 cars at $850/mo lease for 7 yrs? and the leasing company gets the $7500/car tax rebate, not the tax payers! The plan never went before the Public Safety Committee or the full Council. $28-$32 Million spent with nobody giving the authority. Since when does the city checkbook lay only in the Mayors top desk drwawer?
I previously noted that Vision Fleet's original registered business office with the Secretary of State was the offices of the Indy Partnership, raising concerns a publicly-financed NGO was a bit more involved with this private business entity than a typical business.
A question remains whether Ballard is crooked or inept. My personal leaning is an inept puppet.
I find it amazing that people who are totally uninformed have the inside information to be able to make such judgments. I did not realize that so many were intimate with the details of business done in the City chambers. Do you really think any politician can be so bold today as to be crooked, making money off such schemes and not be investigated? Ridiculous! Change is difficult. People in general don't do well with it. The world is moving away from energy waste to a better more sustainable model. Electric is one option. Is the only one, the best one, the one to bet on for all our future. The jury is not in. But those who sit and critic rather than act are not going to get us all to a better future. Electric car sharing is a huge benefit to Paris. It attracts business and talent. It keeps pollution down. It provides alternative public transportation at a fraction of the cost of building light rail or subways. What transportation solution do you have that will cost less? That is what I thought!
I know I'm a bit late to this thread, but I'd like to respond to the long, rambling post made by one Anonymous at 12:14 pm.
Sometimes one doesn't need "inside information" to see that something is amiss. And as for whether politicians can really be so bold as to be crooked, one only needs to read a reliable newspaper (NOT the Star) to see that, every day, our country's politicians (and their minions) make Boss Tweed look like an absolute amateur.
The Ballard administration, especially in the last few years, has given our district's federal law enforcement officers and our local rag of a newspaper (the Star) more than enough cause to investigate his shady business deals. The fact that nobody does so doesn't mean he's clean. He's just damn lucky.
As for your observations about Paris, well, this isn't Paris and it never will be. If our mayor wants to think he can remake Indy in the spirit of Paris, then he's got a lot more work to do. Buying chintzy little electric cars from some French company and parking them on Washington Street does nothing to make Indianapolis a "greener" city. What a joke!
But if you want to buy into this nonsense, you go right ahead. To paraphrase a once-famous man, "A sucker is born every minute". Schemes like those hatched by our mayor are the bread and circuses that keep Indy residents oblivious as to how their tax dollars are really being spent.
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