I attended a peace march and rally this afternoon at 38th and Illinois. Local community activists and residents were protesting the string of killings in the area. Three people have been murdered in the area over the past couple weeks. One person conspicuously absent from the march was Council President Monroe Gray.

The killings all took place in Gray’s district so you think he would have shown up. Gray had promised he would be there, but he was a no show.

Had he been there he would have seen the residents march from 35th to 38th and Illinois singing and declaring peace in the streets.

Had he been there he would have also seen the dozen or so abandoned homes and buildings the residents passed as they walked those three blocks.

Had he been there he would have prayed with the citizens in the McDonald’s parking lot at 38th and Illinois where a young man was gunned down in the parking lot.

Had he been there he would have been able to look down Illinois street and see a vibrant downtown skyline, while less than 10 minutes away are people who live in fear of violence everyday.

It would have been nice had he been there, but maybe he had something else better to do. What’s ironic is that most of Gray’s support in District 8 is south of 38th street. I hope his constituents remember that on November 6th.

I’ve been looking at some of the footage from last Wednesday’s mayoral debate. Incumbent Bart Peterson and challenger Greg Ballard both made the usual claims regarding taxes, crime and quality of life. And while no one lied, per se, there were a few gaps that needed to be filled in.

For example, the Mayor talked about cutting $50 million from next year’s property taxes. Yeah, but $43 million of that would have been eliminated anyway as the city paid off its child welfare debt and got some cash from a settlement with United Airlines.

When Greg Ballard made the claim the city raised taxes 19 times, that’s true, but that also includes increases for police, fire, courts and sewers.

When the Mayor says they’ve cut spending by millions of dollars, that’s true, but they’ve also increased spending in other areas.

When Ballard says he wants to eliminate property taxes and replace it with sales and income tax, that’s true, but none of the alternative tax plans add up and there are some serious issues of local versus state control.

And when the Mayor says there’s a process in place that can determine whether City-County Council President Monroe Gray has engaged in unethical behavior, he’s right, but there already was a hearing and the city’s ethics board ruled Gray was unethical.

Like I said, no one lied per se, but now you have the whole story.

My wireless laptop could not get a signal out of the Indiana Historical Building, so I had to switch to old fashion pen and paper instead of live blogging. Overall, both candidates performed well. However, as I gave the first debate to Mayor Bart Peterson, I have this one to Ballard on a technicality. For the first time on TV, Ballard actually looked mayoral. And since he had a longer road to go than Peterson, he won the debate because for all intent and purposes it was a tie, and in baseball the tie goes to the runner.

Both candidates hit the main issues, crime, taxes, spending, etc. And I thought the answers they gave were consistent with responses that were done in the past. I’ll dissect some of the answers tomorrow and Friday but for now, here’s a summary.

Spending
Ballard – He would go after “other services” in the city budget to the tune of $68 million.
Peterson – He cut $63 million in taxes and spending from the budget.

Property Tax Elimination
Peterson – Get the counties other 44 taxing bodies under control and use the state surplus ($1.2 billion) for tax relief.
Ballard – Adopt one of the existing tax elimination plans.

Public Safety Tax
Ballard – The tax increase was a bad idea in light of rising property taxes.
Peterson – The money was needed to fight crime and shore up police and fire pensions.

Abandoned Homes
Peterson – Part of a national problem, but the city has new tools to eliminate them.
Ballard – The number is increasing and we need to speed up the time the city can take the property.

Unelected Taxing Boards
Ballard – Put them all under one control board.
Peterson – Put them all under one control board.

Monroe Gray
Peterson – He’s his own person and his voters will decide his fate.
Ballard – He personifies what is wrong with local government.

Super Bowl
Peterson – He would try to get another one.
Ballard – He would try to get another one.

Biggest Weakness
Peterson – I work too hard.
Ballard – I work too hard.

Schools
Ballard – Create more charter schools and change the education model.
Peterson – Give parents more choice and help IPS.

Indy East Motel
Ballard – It’s the same as the problem with abandoned homes.
Peterson – We’re working to close it down.

Immigration Reform
Both thought this was mainly a federal issue.

Pea Shake Houses
Ballard – Goes to the broken windows theory and quality of life in the city.
Peterson – The city is working to close them down and keep them closed.

I’ll have fact checking for you tomorrow.

Indianapolis Mayor Bart Peterson and challenger Greg Ballard will meet tonight at 7:15 p.m. on RTV 6. In order to fully appreciate the debate pay attention to the following.

1. Property taxes. Peterson will talk about spending cuts. Ballard will say spending has gone up. For a solution the Mayor will look to the state. Ballard will go for one of the tax elimination plans being circulated.

2. Crime. Peterson will point to more police, including 100 new cops. Ballard will say the math doesn’t add up. Both will talk community involvement.

3. Economic Development. Peterson will point to new jobs. Ballard will go after tax abatements.

4. The Council. Peterson will not talk about Monroe Gray, but will point out the hard work the Council has done. Ballard will point out corruption.

5. Neighborhoods. Peterson will talk about his Indy Neighborhood initiatives. Ballard will say bring back the Front Porch Alliance.

6. The environment. Both men will agree here on cleaning up the city.

The big challenge will be if Ballard can come across looking “mayoral” and not like an amateur. For Peterson it will be to smile and talk to the audience and not come across looking like a used car salesman.

I’ll be interested in your thoughts.

Some days I go out and get political stories, other days they get me. This is one story that got me. A couple weeks ago a local downtown pizza delivery guy, we’ll call him “Neil” got an order to deliver pizza to Marion County Democratic Party. Neil goes to school at IUPUI and pays attention to local politics. Neil is also a bit of a smart aleck. He’s not a bad guy, but he likes to stir things up a bit. So when the order comes in, Neil takes it.

Once the pizza is ready Neil takes it and heads over to 600 E. Washington. While en route, Neil’s smart aleck streak gets the better of him and he takes a marker and on the inside of the pizza box writes, “Vote for Ballard.” The pizza gets delivered. A little later Neil’s boss gets a phone call with someone yelling through the roof and doing some big time complaining about “Vote for Ballard.”

At first the pizza manager has no idea what the party official is complaining about. In fact he’s trying to think if there is a Ballard who works there. However after the yelling and screaming continues Neil is suspended for 10 days.

Now this is where it gets ironic. Neil works with a bunch of 20-year olds who don’t pay attention to politics, but are so upset over what happened that they’ve all decided to vote for Greg Ballard. Secondly, I think it’s more ironic that the same people who won’t raise a peep about Council President Monroe Gray’s antics that are on a collision course with a grand jury one of these days, will complain about a pizza deliveryman. A pizza deliveryman who ends up getting suspended from his job. I thought Neil was the kind of person that Marion County Democrats were supposed to be fighting for, a young working class guy who’s working his way through school and trying to get by. Now he’s lost more than a week’s wages and the city has lost tax money.

Had it been me I would have just let the whole thing go and shrugged it off. But because someone over at Marion County Democratic headquarters has no sense of humor a working class was put out of a job. And even though it was temporary, there was nothing funny about that.

The Indiana State Supreme Court will hear arguments next month over a case that could impact hundreds of arrests by the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department. The Court has agreed to hear the case of Cheryl Oddi-Smith who was arrested for drunk driving back in January, however in August of this year Marion County Judge threw out her arrest because the officer had not been properly sworn in following the creation of the IMPD.

City officials, the County Prosecutor and the Indiana Attorney General’s Office all maintain the arrest was valid and the officers did not have to be re-sworn into the new department. There was a swearing in ceremony in January but attendance was voluntary and since then only the incoming classes of new recruits have been sworn into IMPD.

Oral arguments are scheduled for November 14 at 9:30 a.m. and both sides will have 20 minutes to make their case. Normally the Indiana Supreme Court does not hear cases this quickly, but decided to do so because of the importance of the subject. A decision is expected by Christmas.

If the arrest was found to be illegal then all of the arrests by IMPD since January 1, 2007 would violate the U.S. constitution and therefore made void.

There are a couple interesting stories out of the Capitol City today. Republican State Senator Jim Merritt is calling for “Uber Consolidation” and has unveiled a plan to consolidate government in Marion County the likes of which hasn’t been seen before. He would consolidate all fire departments and make sure all fire employees are credentialed. It would also term limit the Mayor to two terms and limit the Sheriff’s pay to that of the Prosecutor. It would bring the small claims courts under a division of the Superior Court and make township constables under the courts as well and cap their salaries. Merritt also says the Mayor should get more control over the schools, whether it is appointments to the IPS school board or direct control of the schools. Merritt says he doesn’t know exactly how much there will be in savings but it will bring efficiency to government.

Moving over to mayoral politics, after last night’s debate I asked Mayor Bart Peterson three times yesterday about the job Monroe Gray is doing and three times he had praise for the Council, but not the President. I’m not saying he denied Gray three times, but I think I did hear a rooster crow in the background after the third denial.

Indianapolis Mayor Bart Peterson and challenger Greg Ballard met for their second round of formal debates Monday night and this time it was a draw. The two answered questions for a neighborhood association on the near south side. The last time the two engaged each other it was a clear win for Peterson. Both men spelled out their vision for the Circle City. Peterson was in typical “optimistic” mode while Ballard focused more on the city’s challenges.

Audience reaction was very mixed. One person told me they were moving their business to Hendricks County after being here for more than 20 years because of the high taxes. Another told me Peterson had the specifics he wanted and Ballard was too negative. A third person told me both men were typical politicians.

Like said there was no clear cut winner tonight. Neither man said anything they hadn’t said 100 times before. So in that sense, fundamentally the race hasn’t changed that much. The two meet again Wednesday night at on RTV 6 at 7:15 p.m.

City-Council President Monroe Gray may be facing a revolt within his own party. My sources tell me that many members of his own party are fed up with the perpetual embarrassment that his become his leadership as of late. Although a handful of them may express support publicly for Gray, behind the scenes it is all they can do to contain themselves.

It has even gotten to the point that Gray may face a challenge for the Presidency should Democrats retain control for the Council. Whites on the council have privately grumbled that only reason Gray is President is because the Blacks on the Council want an African-American as President. However, this time things are different. Just pick up the paper these days.

Gray could face a challenge from a number of individuals who are qualified for the job. Despite my philosophical differences with them, council Vice-President Joanne Sanders, Jackie Nytes and Mary Moriarty Adams are viable candidates. The three of them do all the work on the Council anyway when it comes to the budget and the men are usually nowhere to be found. So since the women do the all work, it’s only fitting one of them be in charge.

Any change would be an improvement. It just depends on what some members of the Council think is more important, good government or Gray staying in the headlines.

For the record this post has nothing to do with a public official, but it does concern a public person, Wilson Allen, aka Wilson 46201. We all know Wilson trolls the Internet looking for unfavorable postings about members of his political party and attacks the critics as either racist or homophobic. I have known for a while that Wilson will not only post items under his name, but also use the identities of others. He will also post “hateful” or antagonistic comments under one identity so that he can come back a few minutes later and post as himself and call out the blogger for allowing such speech to show up on their website. Well guess what, Mr. Allen. You picked the wrong identity to try to steal. Mine!

If you will notice one of the last comments in yesterday’s posting “I HATE TO BURST YOUR BUBBLE” is attributed to me.

“Willie Lynch is my Grandpa! Anybody can write whatever one wants here. Anybody can use whatever name one wants. This is getting to be as gross as the Talkback feature in the Star.”
Posted by Abdul at October 13, 2007 07:24 AM

Those are the words of Wilson Allen. I know this for two reasons. First he uses the same language on Ruth Holladay’s blog regarding the Gary Varel cartoon from the Indianapolis Star. Second, and most importantly, the post has the same IP address as Wilson’s. Which by the way is 24.223.128.27.

This is typical of the Wilson mindset. You can’t debate issues on the merits so you engage in over the top personal attacks against yourself under the guise of others. I could delete Wilson’s comments from this blog, but like any insect he would just come back. Also, unlike Wilson, I have a very productive and active social life that does not allow me monitor this blog every waking day. So for now I’m just going to keep them up there so you can all see him for what he truly is.