Between shootings and court rulings on gay marriage it’s been a pretty busy week, however there have been quite a few items that have popped up on that are worth a mention or two, so here they are…

• The Indianapolis Fraternal Order of Police has overwhelmingly rejected the latest contract offer from the city.    Ironically,  money wasn’t an issue.   My sources tell me the officers were generally pleased with an offer of a 7% raise over four years.  The issue was the reassignment of about 60 detectives from downtown into the districts.  Union officials say the way the city wanted to do the reassignment would have gone against their agreement.   I think this is an issue that the two sides can work out.  In order to effectively fight crime, there will have to be some redeployment of detectives and the last thing law enforcement needs are internal fights while trying to keep crime under control in this town.

• Speaking of law enforcement, both candidates for Sheriff have rubbed a few folks the wrong way lately.  Some Republicans have privately complained that Dennis Fishburn isn’t campaigning hard enough for the job.  Meanwhile Democrat John Layton reportedly told a community group that he should be sheriff because “it’s his turn” and he said he wouldn’t make any changes should he take over from outgoing Frank Anderson.

• Democratic candidate for Marion County Prosecutor recently Terry Curry did a musical fundraiser, “Curry-palooza” as it was dubbed.  Was most intriguing as one attendee told me were the Curry for Prosecutor tie-dyed T-shirts.  He said Democrats wearing tie-dyed T-shirts doesn’t help portray an image of being tough on crime.

• Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels is promoting an idea he says will help Hoosier high school students.  The Governor says  his office has been talking to high school students and found a significant number of them can finish  school in 11 years.  He says if they can, the state should take the money it would have spent on their last year of high school and some or all of it towards their first year of post-secondary education.   It would save the parents money and help gets students into the workforce sooner.   I frankly think it’s a pretty good idea and would help explain why a new poll has put Daniels’ approval ratings near 70%.

That is all for today.  Enjoy your weekend.

In 30 days, the lovely Mrs. Shabazz and I will celebrate our first anniversary.  Like most newlyweds, we’re looking forward to it.  And unlike most married men, I already have her gift taken care of and arrangements made to mark the occasion.  I bring this up not to brag, well there is a little bit of that, but if I were to drop the ball on this stuff,  it would do more to harm my marriage than any gay or lesbian couple tying the knot would.

A federal judge in California has ruled that state’s ban on gay marriage violates the U.S. Constitution.  The judge went on to say there is no rational basis to ban same-sex marriage.  I agree.   I have batted this issue around in my head for years and I can’t think of one practical reason as to why gay marriage shouldn’t be legal.

It doesn’t take money out of my pocket, nor infringe on my property rights, so why should I care.  In the nearly three years that my wife have been together either as dating or a married couple, any problems we’ve had were not related to gay marriage.  When I look at my own parents who’ve been married for 42 years, any near misses they had were not related to gay marriage.

So how does gay marriage, hurt “traditional marriage”?  I submit to you it doesn’t.  If you look at the problems facing most married couples and families I think the last thing you’ll see on that list causing problems is gay marriage.  I  submit that the taxes and excess government are more detrimental to families than my gay next door neighbors who want to enjoy the same benefits my wife and I do.

Maybe we’re trying to ban the wrong thing.

I’ve written quite a bit lately about violence and black-on-black crime.  And I will frankly admit that it did feel like it was getting to be a bit much.  But this blog post is different.   It is not about the Baptist Ministers Alliance.  It is not about Shamus Patton.  It is not about absentee black elected officials. It is not about Brandon Johnson or my counterpart Amos Brown.  Right now, they are irrelevant to any meaningful conversation.  This is about the community.

And when I say “community” I am not talking about black people in Indianapolis as a whole, I am talking about people who live in crime-ridden neighborhoods.   I truly hope this message some how reaches them.  At the end of the day, there is only going to be so much law enforcement, and the city at-large can do for you.   We can arrest the bad guys after a crime has been committed.   We can extend our sympathies for your losses.  We can try to elect representatives who help create better schools and bring economic development to town.  Unfortunately, we can’t make your neighborhoods safer; only you can.

My friends at the Star have an interactive map of all the homicides since 2006.  If you click each year, you’ll notice most of the them occur in the middle third of Marion County.  And a significant percentage take place on the near north sides of town.

Only you can report crime before it happens, when someone talks about getting even or you find an illegally possessed weapon in your home.  Only you can teach your children how to act like they have some kind of home training.  And most importantly, only you can say that you’ve had enough of the crime and violence in your communities.   And when you say that and carry it out, you will find that most of your problems will go away.  There’s a reason why you don’t see certain crimes committed in certain places.  It’s because most people won’t tolerate that kind of behavior.

If you study history, the only real way people stop killing each other is when the parties involved stand up and say they’ve had enough.    It’s time for the residents to take charge of their neighborhoods.  There is a reason why criminals commit most of the crimes they do, where they do.   It’s because they can get away with it because there is an atmosphere of tolerance.   Let’s be honest, your children are out of control because you have allowed them to be out of control.

I truly believe that the early Tuesday shooting that killed two people and injured several more could have been avoided if someone had stepped up and said something.  This was not a random act, but someone targeting someone else.  And somebody knew something before it happened.  And had someone made a phone call or told someone, maybe things would have turned out differently.

There is only so much outside forces can accomplish.  They can march, rally, knock on doors and hold prayer vigils, but there’s only so much the rest of us can do.   As I’ve written earlier, more than half this city’s homicides have been young black men.   And until crime-ridden communities say they’ve had enough, it’s an unfortunate statistic that will continue to grow.

It’s time to step up folks!  Too many people have been victims of violence in this town.  Violence that could have probably been avoided if someone would have stepped up.  If  this recent incident doesn’t wake people up, then to be honest, I don’t know what will.

And by the way, before someone comes here talking about some white folks, here’s a stat for you to chew on, Nearly 2,500  blacks were killed by lynching in America between 1882 and 1930.  Nearly 6,800 blacks were killed by homicide in America in 2008, most by other blacks.

I’ve got some work to do today, so I’m posting a guest column by Matt Wittlief of the Marion County Libertarian Party.  Enjoy.

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On Monday, July 26, the Indianapolis City-County Council voted to approve the transfer of water and waste water utilities to Citizen’s Energy Group. The deal is very complex and convoluted – perhaps by design, perhaps by necessity. My opinions on the deal have varied, but in the end, I support the transfer, but not the entire deal.

While this process did begin a long time ago, public awareness of the deal has been essentially limited to the last few months after the Mayor’s Office released the Memorandum of Understanding which was signed on March 9. The deal transfers two utilities, the water and waste water systems, along with a significant amount of debt to Citizens in exchange for a cash payment. The key reason for the transfer, as marketed to the public, was to allow Citizens to leverage synergies in managing utilities to help curb ratepayer costs. There has also been much publicity regarding the issuance of bonds in conjunction with the sale to fund infrastructure improvements for roads, bridges, sidewalks, and parks.

It is important to understand that these are two distinct issues which had two distinct proposals and two distinct votes before the City Council.

The first proposal, which authorized the issuance of bonds to pay for infrastructure improvements, was approved by a vote of 17-12 on May 17. I was against this proposal. The debt service on this 30-year bond will be paid by so-called PILOT. The PILOT (payment in lieu of taxes) is a mechanism for local governments to still receive revenues when property taxes are not collected. The PILOT in this case is paid by the utility provider who receives an exemption on property taxes. Of course, the utility provider gets its money from ratepayers, so it is essentially a hidden tax in the utility bill. This PILOT existed prior to the Citizens deal and is set to increase in the future due to a higher assessment on the future value of the utility systems’ infrastructure. This is a result of mandatory infrastructure improvements that must be made to the systems due to EPA regulations. This increased PILOT, and its future revenue stream, is what is the “collateral” for the bonds.

As I stated earlier, I was opposed to this proposal, and I am pleased that Libertarian Councilor Ed Coleman voted against this proposal.

That leaves us with the second proposal which authorizes the transfer of the utilities from the City to Citizens Energy Group. This proposal is the one which came before the Council this past Monday. This authorizes the transfer of operations of the utilities to Citizens along with associated assets, debts, and obligations. Citizens will pay for the infrastructure improvements noted above, assume over $1B of debt from the City, and receive assets such as the property owned by the utilities. In return, the City will receive over $250M.

I do believe that Citizens will be able to operate the utilities more efficiently than the City. There are economies of scale that they can leverage in providing the service in conjunction with other utilities, and they are not subject to the same political and bureaucratic pressures that make the City less efficient. Further, Citizens is a charitable public trust – ultimately owned by and accountable to the public. This is far more desirable than transferring operations to a well-connected, for-profit company who could run the utility as a monopoly.

Citizens has estimated that it can save about $40M in operational costs per year. Regrettably, some of these savings will go to cover the increase in the PILOT. I find it regrettable as well that some of these savings are essentially lost to ratepayers due to the price of the transfer. That said, if you do the math, ratepayers should still save due to the transfer in the long run. It should also be noted that the propaganda surrounding the deal has suggested that water rates would increase 100% and waste water rates would increase 400% if we did nothing. That is over the course of fifteen years and translates to annual growth of 4.7% and 11.3% respectively. The water rate increase hardly sounds as bad when you put it that way, and once you recognize that the waste water systems require nearly $3.5B (yes, billion) of improvements…. well, it’s just a sad state of affairs.

We should not be fooled to think that the Citizens transfer is going to save ratepayers from increases. The increased rates are going to happen due to both inflation, neglected infrastructure which must be improved, and federal mandates for improvements. But, I do believe that the result will be better with Citizens than under City management. And I support the transfer despite the backroom dealing, massive legal fees, payments to Citigroup and other consultants, the expenses of Mayor Ballard’s son’s marketing firm to push the deal, and the convenience of the Mayor’s Office sitting on millions of dollars to invest in basic infrastructure in advance of the 2011 elections.

There is plenty to be upset about when you look at the process. There is reason to oppose the issuance of a 30-year bond supported by hidden taxes in order to pay for infrastructure improvements that have a shelf life of five to ten years. There is also plenty of good reasons to support the transfer of the utilities to Citizens. It’s a step towards smaller government. It’s a step towards lower rates. It was a good vote by Libertarian Councilor Ed Coleman to support the deal.

Today marks the first the day of school in Warren Township here in Indianapolis.  Yes, it’s August 2 and school is starting.  A number of school districts will start class over the next two weeks and I, for the life of me, still can’t understand why.

Absent a year-round calender, is there any reason for school to start this early?  I can see starting the last week of August, but this early?  Didn’t we just spend time celebrating the 4th of July?

Schools will say they need to start early because of the 180-day calender days of instruction they are required to have and there needs to be time for in-service training.  In addition, many school officials will say they want their semesters to end before winter break so they need an early start.   And no, I’m not saying the State of Indiana should mandate a start time, you shouldn’t have to legislate common sense.

At the risk of sounding like my grandfather, back in my day we started after Labor Day and wrapped up around the first week of June.  The teachers got the training they needed because our schools instituted half-day schedules and we adjusted fine for the winter break.    We simply took off the day before Christmas Eve and came back a day the Monday after New Year’s Day.  We had mid-terms shortly afterward.  We got in a week for spring break and managed to get out by the first week of June.

I frankly don’t see how hard this is.  It used to be schools had to start early because of ISTEP testing, now that they don’t have that excuse anymore, I frankly don’t know what there problem is.  But then again, these are the same institutions who when it comes to trimming budgets go after teachers instead of bureaucracy, so why should anyone really be surprised.

This past week I spoke to all three candidates for the U.S. Senate here in Indiana.  I’m posting their interviews so you can hear them in your own words.

Each interview segment is about 8-9 minutes long.  My ultimate goal is to get all three in the same place this Fall.

Dan Coats, pt 1

Dan Coats, pt 2 (stimulus dollars)

Brad Ellsworth, pt 1

Brad Ellsworth, pt 2 (unemployment extension)

Rebecca Sink-Burris, pt 1

Rebecca Sink-BUrris, pt 2 (health care reform)

Just when I thought things couldn’t get anymore bizarre in this town I get proven incorrect.  I thought after Brandon Johnson, Al Sharpton and Shamus Patton, we’d be done with silliness for a while.  No such luck.

My colleagues at RTV 6 are reporting that an Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Officer was injured after being baited into an altercation.  The details are pretty simple.  Sgt.  Matt Grimes was giving a presentation to a church audience at Municipal Gardens when a fight broke out.

According to 6 News, Grimes intervened and was thrown to the ground.  he pulled out his taser and was prepared to use it when someone stepped in and said it was just a test to see how the office would react.

The idiot responsible for this “test”  was Pastor James Harrington of the Mt. Vernon Missionary Baptist Church.  Vernon says he set up the scenario to test a white officer’s reaction to a fight between two black men.

Both city and police union officials were livid, saying not only was an officer injured, but one of the young men involved in the “demonstration” could have also been hurt or worse.  And to add insult to injury Harrington is denying the officer was hurt.

A park manager, who had previous knowledge of the plan, was suspended.

This is not the first time an officer has been the victim of a “bait and switch”. I’ve reported on  some people instigating altercations with police in hopes that force will be used against them and they can later sue IMPD.

Harrington says he was trying to engage in a “teachable moment” and that they have to do what they can to “save the lives of their children”.  No offense padre, but there were a million other ways that this could have been done to teach the kids about interacting with police, and IMPD would have been happy to cooperate.  All you would have had to do was ask.

Instead an officer has been injured, possible felony battery charges could be filed, and this whole experiment has done nothing to improve police-community relations.  In fact, as this story continues to get out, it will only make matters worse and make you and certain segments of the clergy population in this city even more irrelevant to the constructive dialogue that actually is taking place.

The squirrels must really be excited today because the conspiracy theory nuts are out in force.  I’m not talking about my usual conspiracy theorists, I’m talking old school wing-nuts.

In case you hadn’t heard, because you live in the real world, there is a school of thought out there that the shootings that occurred a couple Saturdays ago during Indiana Black Expo were actually committed by the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department as a way to make Expo look bad and to put young black men behind bars.

You can pick your jaw up off the floor now.

Now I have lived in enough places to know that the nut jobs will always be with us, heck, I’m a radio talk show host.   And I can live with the crazies spouting off their theories.  However, when local elected officials start spouting that same insanity, it’s time to step up and nip this silliness in the bud.

During an afternoon radio interview on the black gospel station, Indianapolis City-County Councilor William “Duke” Oliver said police need to release the videotapes of the shooting incidents so that the public “can know the truth”.  Know the truth about what?  To say the public needs to “know the truth” insinuates that IMPD is lying about the shooting.

Did I forget to mention the nut jobs also say the probable cause affidavit doesn’t mention accused shooter Shamus Patton being caught on tape, although it does mention the bullets were fired from the gun used that night  were consistent with the one he owned.

I have never considered Bill Oliver to be one of the great minds of Indianapolis, but to make statements like this, as an elected official, is irresponsible and frankly reprehensible.   It only fuels ignorance and makes it more difficult for us to have grown up discussions about serious problems.

I would hope that this would be the last time Oliver would make an idiotic statement like this, but knowing his past record, it probably won’t be.

I told you so.  I told you Arizona’s anti-illegal immigration law was unconstitutional.  A federal judge ruled that the most controversial portions of the law just don’t cut it.

Judge Susan Bolton ruled the law runs afoul of the principle that the federal government has supreme authority when it comes to most immigration matters.

The following provisions were ruled unconstitutional…

• Officers check a person’s immigration status during a lawful arrest.
• Immigrants must carry proof that they are here legally.
• Immigrants cannot solicit work in public places.
• Warrantless arrests of suspected illegal immigrants.

The judge did rule in favor of a provision that would crack down on “sanctuary cities”.   This ruling also puts other state and local jurisdictions on notice who would want to pass on anti-illegal immigration laws.

I could go on, but I think I’ve said enough.  And yes, I know this will be appealed to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals and later to the U.S. Supreme Court.  So would you like me to tell you I told you now, or wait until the rulings come back.

Here are some items of note for your reading pleasure…

The panel taking a look at making the second Saturday night of Indiana Black Expo should have it’s recommendations ready to present to the public by September 20.   Panel member Rev. Charles Harrison says the group met this past Monday and batted around a number of ideas.  He says two of the group’s main goals are to address the issue of thousands of unsupervised teenagers in the downtown area as well as keeping the gang element at bay.

A meeting scheduled for today between the City and some local pastors over the Brandon Johnson excessive force case has been canceled due to scheduling conflicts.   There also been a recurring issue over who the city should actually meet with since there are so many ministerial groups.  And to make matters even more interesting, the ministers are divided over whether there should ever there should even be a meeting over Brandon Johnson until the Justice Department completes its review of the IMPD investigation.

If Council Democrats want to take out their frustrations on Paul Bateman, Jackie Nytes and Mary Moriarty Adams for the their vote this week on the Citizens Gas deal they’re probably going to have to wait until the May 2011 primary.  The Council Democrat Caucus voted to remove any members who voted for the deal from their committee assignments, however the Council’s Committee on Committees makes the decision as to who gets what assignments and it is controlled by Republicans.

City agencies have submitted their budgets to the Mayor’s office for review.  Formal budget hearings won’t begin until mid-August, but the city is looking to deal with $20-plus million shortfall due to tax caps and the downturn in the economy.