Fundamentally, you agree with Ballard’s parking proposal. Gee, color me surprised.

I’ve read the entire proposal. It’s an exercise in written fluff. Bottom line:

The specs were likely written by City Legal, one of the most inept parts of this administration. We get $30-35 million up front. Parking hours increase at once. Parking rates increase quickly. One company, heavily-politically-connected, is chosen to handle everything.

Once again, our dufus mayor is distracted with bright objects and a check.

Parking rates need to rise…no question there. Hours may need to inrease, too, but…so fast, at this time? Once again–the city could’ve done all this under their roof, cheaper…not sure if they could have done it more efficiently. That’s certainy open for discussion.

Another question: we citizens have business in the City-County Building, Statehouse, and related federal/state offices, which are clustered downtown. I had to appeal a rental property’s tax increase two weeks ago. Almost four hours in the CC Building. I fed the meter for two hours. I couldn’t leave my place in line, or I had to start all over again. The result? A parking ticket, at two minutes past the two-hour max meter time. As I walked back to my car, a meter maid was ready to give me ANOTHER parking ticket if I hadn’t been there at that exact time.

By the way, the gravel lot next to the CC building was full. Evidently it was baby-daddy or DUI day in court or something. So, under our city’s antiquated parking system, my obvious alternative was a garage, for $6-7. Cheaper than the ticket.

If we had a decent transit system that would’ve gotten me downtown and back in the same day, I’d have taken a bus.

See my point?

What are we supposed to do, under ANY parking plan, if we have required government business downtown?

Oh, yeah–the same company that controls garages, now will control meters. Hmmmmm. Can you say “cartel” ? So, a trip downtown to take care of required govt. biz should cost me $8-10? Really?

Where are the Libertarians who rail against government over-reaching and control?

Abdul,

This parking deal is dead on arrival.

It’s real simple. Issue Muni Bonds backed by parking revenue to buy new meters (Which will take your money better) and build the Broad Ripple and Mass Ave. parking garages.(Which will increase parking revenue and boost local businesses in these congested areas of town)

The city would keep 100% of the revenue and get the cash upfront to do the necessary improvements.(no need to give middleman 80% of profits for a 50 year monopoly)

The details of extending pay periods, raising parking rates, and installing more meters should be studied very carefully so that a decade of work by Indianapolis Downtown to attract people to downtown is not wasted. Remember parking is the #1 issue why they don’t go downtown to work, play, or live.

“Fundamentally”, this does little to introduce competition into the market place of parking. All it does is hand a government monopoly to a politically connected company for fifty years.

Is there some will in the Ballard administration (and previous ones) to make sure we’re stuck with crappy deals and debt long after they’re out of office?

If the parking deal or the water deal wwere so damned good for the city, how about half-time for the lease term? 20-25 years base term, with options. It’d cut our exposure, or benefit, but it would not strap future taxpayers and mayors.

As for obligating future generations, no mayor outdid Goldsmith. Bond-wise. And I detested Goldsmith, but:

I only wish Ballard were half as smart as Goldsmith. I can see it now, in the board rooms of major law firms in this city, strategy for increasing profits:

“Let’s find something that will give the City a big check up front, and screw the taxpayers long-term! Ballard will buy it and we’ll make some clients happy!”

Frankly, it’s getting embarrassing. We’re sitting ducks for every bird-brain scheme. Snake-oil salesmen, line up! Ballard’s got 15 more months!

Indy’s “Son of Chicago” Parking Meter Lease to Be a Disaster for City

http://www.urbanophile.com/2010/09/07/indys-son-of-chicago-parking-meter-lease-to-be-a-disaster-for-city/

Issuing muni-bonds backed by parking revenues would give the city 100% of the profits and cut out the middlemen who wants a 50 year monopoly and a 80% cut of all profits for doing what the city should have done long ago.

The city could buy new meters to take our money better (New take credit cards payment option, display advertising new revenue stream, and new programmable time based pricing model ) and build parking garages in Broad Ripple and Mass Ave. (increasing city revenue and boosting local businesses)

Yet you don’t mind buying snakeoil if it’s sold to you on a national scale………hmmm.

Why do property tax revenues have to be “replaced”. I think they should cut the size of government!

Oh, Rico, you can’t resist, can you? If onyl you knew what you were typing about….

Anywayz…stay on-point, huh? The subject is our mayor’s hair-brained schemes to raise cash.

He may sub-lease your street by Monday. Ya never know.

“Once again, our dufus mayor is distracted with bright objects and a check. ”

Its as simple as that.

Abdul: “In the meantime, I ask opponents to come up with an alternative to pay for infrastructure in a world of declining property tax revenues.”

Gentle Blogger, it is NOT we taxpayers’ responsibility to find “alternatives” to pay for infrastructure. You mis-read the citizenry’s motivations and desires, if you think that. That line is straight out of Ballard-speak. It’s preposterous to task us with alternatives–we weren’t elected to anything, and your premise is faulty, at best.

It is the city government’s responsibliity to: prioritize infrastructure needs; find money to pay for them in order; cut elsewhere if available funds do not cover the list; or: tell us what has to wait because we can’t afford the whole list now.

You know, kinda like our household budgets? I need a new roof in the next 4-5 years. It may have to come in Year Three instead of this fall.

And for God’s sake, if I’m looking for extra household income, to pay for an infrastructure repair, I don’t sell off a precious asset for short-term gain, if the money needs to spread out over a longer lifespan. Or if I do, I bank a proportionate share for the life of the improvement. It’s simple actuarial or mortgage math.

In your next convo with the 25th floor, you might wanna pass those basics along to them. They clearly don’t get it.

But a lot of us do get it.

It warrants mention, that, decreasing property taxes, are directly linked to declining VALUES, and not, any mathematically impossible pretense, of a “capped” variable (assessments).

Declining values are directly related to DLGF’d abuses & judicial dereliction, resulting in fewer taxes collected on adversely impacted values; formerly the property or equity, depleted by marauding statists.

TA nails it. We currently put in little effort for parking and get a good chunk of change in return. Now we’re giving up a lot of future revenue and finding efficiencies in the current system for a sizable, but not complete, chunk of revenue up front.

Here’s one “solution” to the burgeoning infrastructure crisis – offload to the periphery.

Nobody makes anyone move out to the corners of the county to their own little Edens. And, whoever said that it was the responsibility of local government to pander to that minority, or for the majority to subsidize infrastructure for people who desire to live where they want? It’s wrong-headed and a meltdown waiting to happen.

I say more power to those who choose (and can afford) to live where they wish, but I’m ain’t subsidizing your lifestyle anymore. You want roads paved? You want sanitary and storm sewers? You want traffic control? Hey, pony up yourselves.

The problem is that the philosophy is that local government should be serving residents no matter what stupid or remote place they themselves choose to live. Instead, it ought to be more like, flood zone? No problem. And, good luck with that. Want roads plowed and maintained next to the donut county line? Here’s some references, call them yourselves. They take Mastercard and Visa.

It’s a free country, but that does not mean that because a person chooses to live on property better suited to farming, and is halfway to Columbus, that they deserve susidization from the rest of us.

The City needs to maintain a core. It may be bigger than the old City limits, but it sure needs to be smaller than the size of Marion County. The City could choose to incentivize development along corridors, or in satellites, but the shotgun approach is killing us (taxpayers).

Want to be Mayor? Then get some vision and LEAD! Quit trying to solve inherited problems whose solutions aren’t gonna be fixed by band-aids or by selling the farm. Small minds come up with small solutions, and that is what we’ve been getting since the acsension of the current administration.

TA- you don’t need to solicit Libertarians, you’re doing fine:

“It is the city government’s responsibliity to: prioritize infrastructure needs; find money to pay for them in order; cut elsewhere if available funds do not cover the list; or: tell us what has to wait because we can’t afford the whole list now.

You know, kinda like our household budgets? I need a new roof in the next 4-5 years. It may have to come in Year Three instead of this fall.”

You run on that platform, across all levels of government- particularly Federal, There’s a empty space on my bumper for your sticker. I’ve got a spot in my yard for your sign. I’ll make phone calls from campaign headquarters on your behalf.

No objection to raising parking rates that haven’t been raised since the 70’s. No objection to subcontracting the parking- in theory. But, it looks like we gave away the farm: 50 years? You know how much life can change in 50 years? Based on an existent Chicago contract, but we still get charged like it’s an original rendering? With about as much in the city’s favor this side of up-front money as the beloved Colt’s contract giving them football concessions?

I’m not voting for Ballard or Kennedy because I don’t percieve a rat’s ass difference between the two. They both look beholden to major law firms that have no apparent check and balance on how they can screw the citizenship. I understand legal representation necessarily experienced in running a city may not grow on trees. I understand they are accustomed, shall we say, to “doing well” in life- that entitles us to get screwed to the magnitude of the CIB or this parking deal?

I fundamentally don’t believe in not voting, but I really don’t believe it makes a difference in this mayoral election. To, essentially, not even have a choice is a damn shame.

Right up there with Coats or Ellsworth. I read about a brave action the former sheriff took in saving a vehicle from going into a river. But, I perceive a necessity to keep Ellsworth out because he’ll fawn to what our President tells him he wants done (such as health “reform”), verus heeding the opinion of his own constituency. With Coats having an approximate 21-point lead, it appears I’ll have the luxury of voting Rebecca Sink-Burris- Libertarian.

Yikes–Rebecca? You won’t hear me say this very often, but if you can’t vote for Brad, vote for Coats instead. Have you truly read anything Rebecca has put out there? She’s four-star under-informed.

Don’t give up on Kennedy yet. But I understand your frustration.

Here’s the real rub: the parking deal is too long. The payoff is too short. In nothing else, because of my distrust in government, I might sign on if they stretched out the payment with interest.

We needed someone negotiating for us, who fundamentally understands the upside of such potential deals. That lets off most folks in City CorpCounsel’s office, and frankly, most lawyers.

Go to http://www.indygov.com. There’s a picture of 15 people smiling about the parking deal, with the mayor. They’re mostly the bid winners. They’re smiling for a reason. Like Chessie cats that just ate the mouse.

Whatever political genius suggested then posted that picture should be fired, and the picture should be pulled. But, I doubt that will happen, and I’m kinda OK with that. :-)

An alternative plan? How about the one that is (pardon the over-used cliche) the frickin’ elephant in the room – Stop giving money away to non-essential things, from subsidizing the damn Pacers to subsidizing the arts community — and everything in between.

Learn that government is a business and apply business rules to it, namely give to charity only when you have the spare cash and not only declare a ‘balanced budget’ balance the damn thing vs your real revenue – don’t start hiking taxes when you need more revenue to feed a bloated budget.

It’s really not that hard to do.

I took “Libertarian” at face value. I skimmed her website issues to make sure there’s not a dealbreaker. Not too many advertising themselve as a Libertarian condone mutilating frogs or donating their earthly belongings to gleaming spacecraft they see overhead. She sounds perfect compared to the other two scoundrels. Not even the ultra-Libertarian rot of open borders being an immigration policy. Didn’t see advocation of abandoning the FBI & CIA either. But, maybe I missed something. Pardon if I don’t fault her for wanting less government in our health “reform”.

I dearly wish we had “someone negotiating for us”. Is it strictly fantasy to imagine a lawyer who would put serving the taxpayer before personal gain? Right now I perceive whoever’s representing the city legally for any contract as a carpetbagger, Kennedy merely replacing them with her own henchmen, and the taxpayer gets to watch (and pay dearly).

Look, Taxpayer, in my never-to-be-humble opinion, and based on my experience, lawyers, generally, are the worst negotiators. They generally have no skin in the game and make their hourly fee regardless. Few lawyers develop a particular skill-set for true negotiating. In fact, they often run from it.

Gimme a good commercial real estate broker, union contract negotiator (from EITHER side), chef or professional athlete’s agent. Those folks know how to win-win. And juggle multiple issues. Add to that: a great mom. Lawyers? Not so much.

Oh yeah. Add to the list of fantastic negotiators: the lobbyists for Bank of America, Chase, et al. Freaking geniuses.

John Howard for Mayor. For the most part, anyway. The whole “balanced budget” that STARTS with a bloated budget, is fiscal word magic. A wisp in the wind. Dream candy.

And whether the 25th floor will admit it to you, Abdul, the current budget is bloated somewhere. Like whatever dollars they pay Olgen Williams, for starters. And the PS director. Want me to go on?

TA – rest assured that at least this libertarian isn’t a fan of the parking deal. a 50 year monopoly grant so that we can put some lipstick on the city for one big sporting event (or so that seems like what they’re doing) is just … I don’t have the word.

There are all sorts of other ways to structure these kinds of deals; but, they may not get the up front purchase of the monopoly in them. But, hey, nobody’s calling my phone asking for my opinion so that makes it easy to determine what they think it is worth. ;-)

If people want Libertarians to oppose this kind of garbage, then libertarians need money, votes and volunteers. With more libertarian influence in local government you wouldn’t have gotten hand outs to sports franchises, a ban on street corner sign holding, political pay outs to churches and community organizations (resulting in a slight drop in the local income tax rate), no shell games included in the water deal and certainly no risk to this parking deal going through.

LoL. Okay, but Rico’s comment still made me laugh. Local snake oil bad, national snake oil … not as bad?? ;-)

These folks are rushing to invest tens of millions (or more) in fixing up the city I presume on the assumption that it will draw more tourism long term? I don’t think we’re getting another Superbowl anytime soon.

Why do they not ever look it from the perspective of keeping taxes, regulations and subsidies low as a way to drive business development and innovation. Let Vegas worry about tourism, we should want as many large companies headquartered here and employing people as possible.

John: While government has Constitutionally limited authority (enumerated powers), to do the peoples’ business, government is not a business. Aligned to its limited purpose, government’s highest purpose is our protection, from enemies domestic & foreign. That’s it.

Because it’s a non-producing consumer; government does not earn revenue, it demands & collects taxes.

You’re right, government is unqualified to define or establish, our entertainment or charity. Government’s likewise unqualified to define for us, OUR education, and, they’ve got the failure of “public education” to prove it.

“Scared straight” government won’t pretend to be “in business,” but would embrace the sworn responsibility, to protect its people and honor their Constitution.

Is no one going to talk about the impact to business here? Downtown is already avoided like the plague by many in the city and the number one reason is parking. In this economy, to create any further barriers between business and consumers is a deadly mistake.
They claim to have the support of the business community in the commercial zones affected, but somehow 81 business owners or managers signed my petition opposing this proposal just from the east side of downtown including Mass Av.
Does anyone dispute that this will have a negative impact on business? The city has a history of acknowledging the barrier that parking presents to health and development of many economic corridors.
Fountain Square.There used to be meters in Fountain Square. Why do you think there aren’t any right now? If anyone has been to Fountain Square lately, you’d know it’s becoming quite the dining and night life destination. That turn around would not be on going with parking being an issue.

Corridor at 38th and Illinois St in the Butler Tarkington area. There used to be meters there. The community and business leaders worked with the Ballard Administration and had them removed. Did the city suddenly not need the revenue from these meters anymore?
I am by no means suggesting that the meters be replaced in these areas. I’m just suggesting that the city has taken steps to alleviate some of the barriers to these corridors to support economic growth and stabilization.
And the most profound example is Circle Center.
From the beginning, Circle Center Mall customers have had the benefit of THE most affordable parking in the city. The mall was built with that in its plan. Why? Because they knew the mall would fail if customers were expected to A) pay a meter every 2 hours or B) Pay the expensive garage parking. But after all these years, the parking at the mall is still the best deal in parking in the city? What do you think the merchants at the mall would do if this perk were to evaporate and they were in the same boat with the merchants NOT in the southwest quad?
This proposal is contrary to every effort to we have invested over the past 15-20 years to revitalize the economic corridors in our city. Even residential; do people know that everyone who lives downtown in a metered area will have to wake up at 7AM on a Saturday and pay the meters until 9PM? And if they don’t, their guests will.
And Why it is that no one has questioned the appropriateness of Dennison Parking’s involvement in this deal? They stand to make out like bandits in this deal not only as a partner but also with the added perk that creating a more complicated meter situation will drive many people into their garages and lots.
If every quadrant of downtown had a “circle center garage”, I’d not have an issue. I’d leave arguing the semantics to the lawyers.
If the city really needs to double the rate of the meters and add an additional 3 hours a day to the time you have to pay, Plus 14 hours on Saturday, can we at least have the garages take validations from downtown merchants for $3 or 4.00 parking? That will do more to fill the garages and free up the meters than anything.

Dave, the enumerated powers in Article I, Section 8 only relate to the power of the national government. All laws passed by Congress have to relate to a power listed in the enumerated powers. That’s not true of state government. Basically, unless it says in the Constitution, state or federal, that a state cannot pass a law, states can pass a law. A lot of people assume that state power has the same specific authorization requirement to pass a law. That’s not true.

Dave, the enumerated powers in Article I, Section 8 only relate to the power of the national government. All laws passed by Congress has to relate to a power listed in the enumerated powers. That’s not true of state government. Basically, unless it says in the Constitution, state or federal, that a state cannot pass a law, states can pass a law.

Ok. I’ll buy that. Kind of like the offshore oil inspections that didn’t take place, or buses of athletes that need a chaparone, or police departments that need a public safety director- a city needs an apolitical party to negotiate contracts because they’re too apt to vulture intrusion. The typical pattern of government providing benefits or services but not inspecting quality and delivery continues.

Then we need a kind of third party, apolitical (if there is such a thing) “broker” to negotiate. However, he’s got to have experience in what’s being negotiated, or resources to contact to get the answers. He’s got to have an apolitical lawyer to tell him if he’s being bullsh!ted, somebody to take notes, etc.

Makes sense to me. The right Mom would be a good idea. You need somebody detached from the issue in some ways, but willing to ask questions, ask a consultant(s) what other questions to ask, and can’t be bought. At least not easily.. Somebody open to the idea that both parties are, or can be, crooks. Melyssa comes to mind, or somebody that stubborn.

Is this Abdul’s blog?….It seems to me that TA has highjacked this blog.

I don’t know what you thought I meant, but I mean follow the simple rule of business that you are not doing it to piss money away — that you have an obligation to your employees (taxpayers) to not embezzle, fritter away on unecessary things, or otherwise waste the funds taken in so that the business (government) stays solvent and doesn’t fall over and die under mounds of debt.

Parking downtown wouldn’t be an issue if we could get there via mass transit!

I have to wonder what happens in subsequent decades if the city sees growth. Growth that consumes sections of streets lined with parking meters.

From what I know of the lease terms, we must pay ACS for meters that are blocked, or otherwise not generating their projected revenue.

So do we get stuck in perpetuity, paying ACS for those missing meters?

In the preceding 50 years, lots of streets have been vacated or rearranged and parking spaces went away when new, larger skyscrapers were built or traffic flow made it necessary.

Looking in the right margin of this page, I notice a box saying the poster with the most comments, and by a wide margin, is ‘IndyErnie.’

I’ve just been doing it longer…at the rate TA has been posting I should be left in the dust within a month or two.

Amen Sean.

That’s another post, Ernie.

http://www.ogdenonpolitics.com/ gives a better assessment of the parking deal in my view. It is the deal of the crooked Mayor Daley of Chicago who has decided to retire rather than face the voters. Lawyers are not too proud to copy other documents word for word and then charge hapless fools hundreds of thousands of dollars for doing that simple task-they may have learned how to do that from observing school architects who often have used the same basic plans for multiple clients charging each of them full fees for all the design work. These two examples suggest that governments are nearly helpless and clueless.
Our host is always willing to ask his readers for better methods of burning tax dollars or filling ratholes with them. Hero worship of elected officials and their magical increase in IQ that came with their being elected is probably a price that must be paid in order to have a talk show. Anyone ever hear Garrison ask the Mayor any tough questions?
The two bloggers in the link would.
As a matter of fact, the Mayor could cut the costs of all his bidding projects by substantial amounts as other Indiana cities are doing. Indiana projects each have a wage setting. The general choices are the ABC rates (market rates as determined by private enterprises and hence likely most accurate), there is also the Indiana government version(based on government work hence less useful), and then there are the AFL-CIO rates…the ones the Mayor has chosen (I think). They are 30 to 40% OVER the other rates so as to allow for, among other things, political kickbacks/contributions.
So, Wishard, for instance, is likely to now cost 50% MORE than the identical Wishard built by a private concern using the exact same plans, in the exact same place, and often enough using the same workers. Facts like these elude our host, the Indianapolis Star fools, and the general public but legislators who are on the union dole are very aware of it and have looked the other way for decades.
If you overpay for sidewalk labor it has the same effect as cutting your infrastructure total spending. That is, you get much less labor on the sidewalk and so you get LESS SIDEWALK. When you drive by a construction site and see a flagperson holding up traffic you should ask whether that task is worth $35 per hour or could you get that work done for $15 per hour?
Government construction spending done under racist Davis Bacon Laws is economic theft. No thanks to our media sorts there is a belief that if you don’t notice the theft then it isn’t one. But, Mayor Ballard does NOT have to be part of this theft while at the same time getting full dollar value for his infrastructure budget. All he has to do is to appoint real Libertarians to his wage setting Boards instructing them that they are to serve the public interest by ensuring that NO BONUS WAGES are paid on public works.
So, the folks who actually do the work will, in the future, only get the wages they regularly get when doing private sector work and those firms who made their bed a different way will have to adjust or go the way of all one day drones.

Forgot to mention that this rape of infrastructure budgets has been going on since Indiana copied the racist Davis Bacon Act. So, the dollars have been shorted for 70 or 80 years. Government contractors have, since then, been reliable contributors to both wings of the political parties, the socialists and the reactionaries.