Comments on Advance Indiana™: Star: Bail Out Of Sweetheart Legal Deal

Vote them out ! ! !We need to focus on "un-electin...

2008-10-30T21:17:00.000-05:00

Vote them out ! ! !

We need to focus on "un-electing" those Senators and Representatives who voted "yes" for the Bailout. They were willing to ignore the 90% of us who were against the Bailout, clearly demonstrating that they do NOT represent us.

A new group called the Constituent Response Team has been working to do just that.

CRT has put together a Bailout Vote Map that makes it easy (as a mouse click) to find out how your Senators and Representatives voted. Tell all your family and friends about it, so they can find out how their Representative and Senators voted before they cast their ballot on Tuesday.

The Constituent Response Team has also just published pre-customized web banners and ads targeted at those who voted "yes" for the Bailout. You can easily paste these ads onto your website or blog using simple embedding code (provided off course). If your Senator or Congress member voted for the Bailout, a customized web-banner probably already exists to assist you in getting the word out to vote against them.

If you are interested in either, check out Constituent Response at http://www.constituentresponse.com . The Bailout Vote Map is on the main page; the "Vote 'no" on incumbents who voted 'yes'" ads are under the Host CRT Ads link.

Unfair comparison, IPOPA. Those surrounding counti...

2008-10-29T21:28:00.000-05:00

Unfair comparison, IPOPA. Those surrounding counties don't have an in-house staff of 27 lawyers on the payroll at their disposal. Most of them don't have full time legal counsel outside the prosecutor's office. They've traditionally relied on private law firms to do the county's legal work.

Ed,At least you received an answer. I know others ...

2008-10-29T20:02:00.000-05:00

Ed,

At least you received an answer. I know others who gave the Sheriff for an Open Records Request and never received any reply. And that was nearly a year ago.

When I was head of the Title Insurnace Division, I told my staff that when government officials start doing things in secret that they don't want the public to know about, that's a sign they're doing something they shouldn't be doing.

We developed policies and applied them out in the open where everyone could see them. My staff knew that what we did was open to scrutiny and we would always need to be prepared to defend what we were doing. The system worked great. What you have going on with the law firms in town is because of a lack of openness, a lack of scrutiny. Those things only happen behind closed doors. We need our government to be more open. With openness comes accountability.

There are Republican Sheriffs in every doughnut co...

2008-10-29T18:41:00.000-05:00

There are Republican Sheriffs in every doughnut county around Indianapolis, and ALL of them use attorneys other than the county attorney. I find it curious that we only attack Anderson for this practice.

Gary, For the record, I did a Freedom of Informati...

2008-10-29T17:36:00.000-05:00

Gary, For the record, I did a Freedom of Information from the sherrif's department in Febuary. I got a letter from Kevin Murray that he was putting the info together. I finally got the info in July and it was sanitized first. Why could the department not just send the info that I had a legal right to ask for?

Wonder if a better-run department might just see f...

2008-10-29T15:55:00.000-05:00

Wonder if a better-run department might just see fewer lawsuits and require less high-powered lawyer-in' to be done?

Many of these lawsuits against the Sheriff involve...

2008-10-29T15:31:00.000-05:00

Many of these lawsuits against the Sheriff involve the private jail, CCA, or private medical care provided by CMS. The CCA contract, and probably the CMS contract as well, says the Sheriff can recoup legal fees and judgments against the Sheriff from those private companies. The City County Council should be asking if the Sheriff is doing this. I'm almost certain the answer will be "No."

Anderson obviously thinks that the election winner...

2008-10-29T10:17:00.000-05:00

Anderson obviously thinks that the election winners get to raid the public treasury.

Look at the cronysim and nepotism in his office. It stinks!

Why do so many "executives" on Frank's staff have take-home cars when the only driving they need to do is to & from work??? They do not have emergency call-outs and their job functions do not require use of a car at all...his executive staff merely reports to their office each day like the rest of us. The free & luxurious take-home cars for his staff should be eliminated from his budget. There is no need for taxpayers to furnish such fringe benefits, after all, his executive staff all makes a good salary!

Frank Anderson beat Obama to the REDISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH, taking 3 million dollars of OUR TAX MONEY and giving it to his campaign manager as "legal fees".

This TAX & SPEND philsophy of passing out the Marion County treasury to cronys must stop!

It's just wrong.

I agree with the recommendation of eliminating the job of Sheriff from the state constitution. Let the mayor of the Consolidated City appoint a proper ***accountable*** executive to run the jail, serve the court process, and provide security for the government buildings.