The Colts “bad deal” is common with NFL franchises. It’s fairly common with NBA teams as well. I told ya’ll Irsays would not budge on their previous agreements.

Now I keep hearing the airport insinuated into the bailouts. Another public boondoggle with no oversight that we did not need. The city feels like living in a bomb run in the middle of the night. Cha-ching!

PROBLEM:

City/County government is the largest real estate owner in central Indiana.

They own schools, police outposts and firehouses, libraries, parks, office buildings, parking garages, abandoned/foreclosed homes & businesses, trash incinerators & dumps, water/sewer plants, roads and much more.

The tenants and purposes for these properties are very wide ranging and extremely complex to manage while achieving each unit of government’s goals.

SOLUTION:

The governor and Mayor needs to modify there CIB plans to be more in line with private sector businesses like Simon Properties or Duke Realty.

The Simon develops and manages retail properties (100%) (Primarily tenants are retail stores)

Duke Reality primarily develops and manages industrial (79%) and office properties (14%) (Primary tenants are manufacturers and logistics companies)

The new alignment of city county properties needs to be focused on the consolidation of like and kind types of properties such as sports, entertainment, convention and tourism.

This means the new CIB portfolio of properties should include Conseco Fieldhouse, Lucas Oil Stadium, Victory Field, Indianapolis Convention Center, and all City/County Parks and Garages.

Additionally City/ County/Township Public Safety, Education, Administrative & Public Works properties need to be aligned together and consolidated for cost savings.

A Purchasing consortium is a good idea but should be a separate proposal.

Will this be a trilogy? We already are seeing the previews for ‘A Fistful of Dollars. Is ‘Hang ‘em High’ a coming attraction?

Regarding,

“As I have maintained before, if the new FMBMC assumes operational control of Conseco, it should also get the revenue from the facility. There is no reason for the Pacers to get any non-Pacer/Fever [fever].”
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I couldn’t agree more. However, I don’t understand though why people are starting to assume this change will be coming along with the $15 million annual gift. The City and the CIB has never put any condition on the table that the Pacers get $15 million in operating costs, but they have to cough up the non-Pacers/Fever revenue on the building. I would almost assure you it won’t be a condition. This city has a long history of giving stuff away to corporate interests.
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Abdul, I meant to ask you this morning whether John Okeson’s nose was growing while you were speaking. Okeson is a major BS artist. A good BS artist, but a BS artist nonetheless.

Just wait until the Indianapolis City Budget figures come out later this summer – it’ll be catastrophic! Our city is not immune from the national economic downturn and from the tax caps imposed by the State. Ballard is a total incompetent and the city budget will be a trainwreck….