Weekend Update
With a couple weeks of no session, there was still quite a bit of good gossip, rumor and plain old fashion political innuendo running around town this past week. So without further adieu…
- House Ways and Means Chairman Bill Crawford and Speaker Pat Bauer apparently aren’t on the best of speaking terms these days. Crawford reportedly told Bauer the day of the budget vote that his caucus wasn’t going to vote for the budget unless the CIB and Gary were taken care. The Speaker reportedly told Bauer to go ahead and blow up the budget, which later happened. In addition the two are also split over Marion County’s three newest House members, Ed DeLaney, Mary Ann Sullivan and John Barnes. Crawford wants them to get in line and quit pushing consolidation. Bauer is looking more global because those three allow him to keep the majority in the House. No word yet on whether the two have kissed and made up yet or ever will.
- The first bit of fallout from the ISTA controversy regarding its health insurance plan is surfacing. The Washington Township School Board will vote Wednesday night to replace ISTA as its benefit provider with National Services of Wisconsin.
- Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels will unveil his plan for the Capital Improvement Board when he unveils the budget. My sources say from what they can tell so far, the Governor’s plan is pretty flexible and give the City and CIB as many options as possible to close the $47 million operational shortfall.
- Speaking of CIB, Mayor Greg Ballard met with CCC Democrats to explain to them the issues regarding the CIB. Only five Council members showed up, both Maherns, Joanne Sanders, Bill Oliver and Jose Evans. The meeting was described as “informative” as the Mayor walked them through a 20+ page power point presentation.
- I’m hearing the big reason for the Mayor’s ex-offender job seminar falling flat this past week is because no one changed the date to avoid a conflict with the Indiana Fever job fair. Greg Ballard reportedly was furious.
- Speaking of Ballard, he netted a few grand at a low key downtown fundraiser.
- Although Sherron Franklin stepped down from her post of overseeing the city’s abandoned homes project, officials are going to discover pretty quickly that the biggest problem with abandoned homes is finding out who holds the title and then locating them, particularly as they change from mortgage company to mortgage company.
- Mike Speedy seemed a bit surprised when 18 of his fellow City-County Councilors took issue with his dangerous dog ordinance. Sources say he never sought out support from the rest of the Council. Speedy reportedly wants to run for Mike Murphy’s Statehouse seat next year.
- In case you ever wanted what the anti-smoking playbook says about getting smoking ban ordinances pushed through city and state legislative bodies, here you go Smoke Free Fundamentals.
- With a new baby on the way, Libertarian Party of Indiana Chairman Todd Singer is stepping down. Replacing him is the more fiery Sam Goldstein.
- The race in the 5th Congressional District Republican primary could get real ugly. According to sources, incumbent Dan Burton is looking forward to the upcoming primary fight and doesn’t think his opponents have to stomach for what lies ahead.
- Speaking of primaries, Evansville Mayor, and potential 20120 gubernatorial candidate, Jonathan Weinzapfel made a stop in Indianapolis Thursday. He attended an NAACP/Labor lunch ceremony, two key constituent groups in any Democratic primary.
- The race to be the Democratic nominee for County Prosecutor continues to grow. Attorney Terry Curry who ran in 2002 and lost in the primary to Tim Osbourn is apparently getting to run. He practices criminal defense work.
- Republican State Representative Jackie Walorski is out of the running for Secretary of State, that leaves Charlie White as the sole GOP candidate.
- Republican State Senator Luke Kenley took a break from statehouse budget items and headed to Washington DC to meet with Indiana’s Congressional delegation. Kenley was lobbying for changes in the way Indiana collects sales tax revenue over the Internet and making it more uniform with other states.
- Warren Township Trustee Jeff Bennett’s office is rewriting the rules on poor relief rules for more efficiency and uniformity. It turns out when the township would add new rules for poor relief, it never took out the old rules or checked state law so there were numerous conflicts amongst the guidelines.
- And if you wondered what the tea party crowd was up to since the April 15 rally, they sat down this past week and chatted in downtown Indianapolis. In the meeting were the Libertarian Party of Indiana, Republican Liberty Caucus, Indy Defenders of Liberty, Indiana Independence Caucus, Campaign For Liberty, Young Americans For Freedom, Indiana Republican Constitutional Caucus, 9-12 Movement, Committees of Safety.
That’s all folks.
May 16th, 2009 at 8:19 am
A plethera of potential comments, but here are just a few. Thanks for your post.
**Sam Goldstein is a legend in his own mind.
**The tea party meeting could’ve been held in a phone booth. (yawn) These folks do not understand organization and momentum. Hint: the tax rally was six freaking weeks ago.
**Crawford is an antique. Barnes, Delaney and Sullivan are in no trouble whatsoever in their districts. The days are gone when a few Center gulagists can pound on the table and demand. Thank God. For once, the Speaker is right.
**When Dan Burton goes ugly, the definition of “ugly” is rewritten. The man has zero scruples.
Oh yeah–it’s Saturday–Woody’s turn to use the Burton brain.
Off to the track!
May 16th, 2009 at 10:08 am
And governmental reform is dead. And property tax reform is dead. But at least we have daylight savings time and a privatized toll road.
May 16th, 2009 at 10:10 am
Mr. Goldstein is not lacking in opinions, but his stances are closer to reality than the current fantasy economics. Most of us in the ideological ballpark of the “teaparty” people do have to fit this stuff in around work. Dramatic and immediate traction is difficult.
May 16th, 2009 at 10:20 am
Bill is in a learning process.
May 16th, 2009 at 10:37 am
I still cant believe that tax whiners like Taxpayer 834512 continue to flirt with lewd acts like “teabagging” ………lol
May 16th, 2009 at 11:33 am
Using Market Street Logic (MSL); Economist, Dr. Bill Styring has a solution to the CIB “crisis.” Citizens should “gift” Lucas Oil Stadium to the Colts, Conseco Fieldhouse to the Pacers, etc. This would allow the teams to operate their facilities, and the county to collect property taxes on those valuable investments / assets. At a 3% cap on $800M (value or cost to construct LOS), the Colts facility would generate $24M in property taxes alone. When MSL-programmed calculators, add property taxes from the Colts, Pacers & Indians facilities; they’ll find more than enough money to cover any CIB shortfall. Thanks Dr. Styring, problem solved using MSL; where the “I” in team is a Constitutionally questionable demand for public “Investment.”
May 16th, 2009 at 11:49 am
I never thought of protesting excessive spending and government expansion as “lewd”, but I looked it up in Websters and I believe Greg’s referring to the “ignorant and unlearned” connotation.
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If objecting to excessive government spending and size (bipartisanly, by the way) makes me lewd- so be it.
May 16th, 2009 at 12:49 pm
Bi-partisan! Give me a break.
May 16th, 2009 at 3:38 pm
President Obama is to be conducting a fundraiser at the Westin on Sunday (tomorrow). If you object to our President’s leadership in excessive spending and expansion of government, you may want to attend a Sunday protest. It’s at the White River State Park parking lot from 2:30-5 PM.
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Personally, I think both parties of Congress, George W. Bush, Ronald Reagan, and especially the the complacency and lethargy of the American people have brought us to this fiscal point. If you think our President’s doing a bang-up job, I hope you support his fundraiser. If you think his policies are wrong, I hope to see you at the protest.
May 16th, 2009 at 3:43 pm
Pardon- I left out the contributions of Presidents Carter and Clinton, particularly in the economically dyfunctional notion of “everybody can buy a house”.
May 16th, 2009 at 3:58 pm
I would love to see Mike Speedy take Murphy’s seat. Is Murphy retiring? Or is this a primary challenge? Murphy is a disgrace, everytime I see him at a political function it takes everything in me to just walk by him and say nothing…b/c i would love to tell him what a disgrace he is…
Also, the anti-Burton vote is going to syphon off enough votes from each other and and Dan is going back to Congress. I dont necessarily think this is a good thing, but have yet to be inspired by any of his challengers.
All in all, good reporting on this post!! It was very informative!!
May 16th, 2009 at 4:05 pm
Regarding the abandoned homes project, the fact that the mortgage is getting passed from one lender to another has absolutely no effect on who holds title to the property in Indiana.
Some states, such as Illinois, employ a “deed of trust” in which the deed is held by the lender until such time as the mortgage is paid off. It’s a lot like a car loan you get where the lender holds the title until such time as the loan is paid off, then the lender mails you the title.
Indiana, however, is not a deed of trust state. The lender does not hold on to the deed pending payment of the mortgage. Rather in Indiana the person in title is the person on the deed. The deed is almost always going to be recorded at the Courthouse. That information is public record and easy to get. (Tracking down the address of the owner is not so easy.)
So even though the mortgage gets passed from one lender to another, the person in title is going to stay the same. The mortgage company has zero ownership in the property…it’s merely a right to assert a lien by going through the foreclosure process. The mortgage company has an “interest” in the property and usually must be notified of legal actions taken against the owner of the property.
As a side note, in some states a mortgage company can veto the transfer of ownership of a home. Not in Indiana.
May 16th, 2009 at 4:10 pm
One problem, Dave. They wouldn’t take the “gift.” They are already getting virtually all the income off the properties while the taxpayers pay to run them. Why would they want the expenses that would come with the gift?
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This reminds me of the proposal to sell Lucas Oil Stadium and Conseco Fieldhouse to a private vendor who would take over its operations from the CIB. What private company would take on such a venture that has zero profit in it?
May 16th, 2009 at 7:07 pm
Paul, I have a hunch the “profit” is there is you operate it properly. Without funny money and cooking the books.
At ome point, it’s simple math:
Annual cost of operation calculated, determine a rental cost, send the bill.
It got all effed up when we allowed interlopers to do the math.
May 16th, 2009 at 7:08 pm
Oh yeah, Taxpayer: exactly what will you be protesting at the Westin tomorrow? What exact policies are so drastically different that your protest is required? (Not that you’re not entitled…just asking)
May 16th, 2009 at 9:08 pm
Taxper 834512…you are not an ignorant man…you know the meaning of teabagging as well as I do..it has been in the vernacular for years………………….I just find it amusing that the right wingnuts use the terms to protest taxation.
May 16th, 2009 at 10:17 pm
I just realized there’s more local news in Abdul’s post than all four local newscasts and the Saturday Star combined.
May 17th, 2009 at 9:21 am
Dear Paul: Team owners wouldn’t consider the “gift” of smart investments like LOS or Conseco Fieldhouse, which they encouraged our “representatives” to make? And, wouldn’t Market Street Logists embrace the opportunity to apply “sound” tax policy in the form of a 3% commission, er cap, on those valuable assets? The answers to those questions is the punch line to the joke.
May 17th, 2009 at 12:24 pm
Paul- How could one not accept the gift? Simply file a quitclaim deed with the State as the Grantor, and the Colts (or Irsay) as the Grantee. It’s theirs.
They could then sell it or regift it, of course, all of which is taxable. Shoot, the tax on receiving a gift of that kind would be a kick in the income tax ass.
May 18th, 2009 at 10:53 am
“I just realized there’s more local news in Abdul’s post than all four local newscasts and the Saturday Star combined.”
*
That’s a sad commentary on the local news media. Meanwhile, if there’s a house fire, they’ll be there covering it with an on-scene reporter and maybe even an overhead shot from a ‘chopper’ even though there are close to 1 million homes in the metro area that haven’t been on fire that day. How that is newsworthy while the momentum behind political/social/financial issues which impact our daily lives are not is a mystery to me.
May 18th, 2009 at 11:20 am
JW, you are so right…but that ship sailed long ago in this market. Assignment editors think, if they send a reporter and photographer to an event, there must be an accompanying story.
Long ago, in J schools nationwide, we were taught that over half your “story runs” produce nothing. Which is why reporting is so hard.
May 18th, 2009 at 6:52 pm
There were around 50 protestors by my count at nearly 4 PM yesterday. We were on the south perimeter of the statehouse, facing the Westin and President Obama’s pending fundraiser. Limited government and reduced spending were the most prominent themes on the signs. Largely unspoken (and seemingly uncomprehendable to a lot of observers), is not the desire for banning taxation, but limiting the government that necessitates it. Nobody in the crowd would perceive George W. Bush as a fiscal hero, only somebody who spent at a less breathtaking pace (and I’ve publicly carried signs on this issue in the Bush era as well).
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The abortion protestors barking at cars might consider the success of our President. Whether you agree with him or not, President Obama probably would not be in his position by being confrontational with total strangers in public forums. Speaking well and being even tempered have served him well. It’s not enough to have the facts on your side or even to make them as sexy as possible. Persuasion by intimidation is for security compliance, not a means to convert people to your arguement.