City-County Council Member Ron Gibson is on cloud nine after disorderly conduct charges were dropped this week, however he may have just traded one controversy for another.

The day the charges were dropped Gibson had a news conference outside the City-County building. He read a statement that was issued to the press on government letterhead and distributed by a council staff member on government time.

I was always under the impression that council staff and materials were for council business only. When Gibson was charged last year, it was not in connection with any of his duties as a council member but in his actions as a private citizen. Therefore, I really don’t think it’s appropriate or proper for an elected official to use government resources for matters that are purely private and personal. Or if they do, they should reimburse the government for the time and resources they used.

I am willing to bet that there is some rule against this. But light of recent actions by this council, somehow I don’t think the rules really matter these days.

During my tenure as a journalist/commentator/talk show host I have been called a lot of things by a lot of people. Most of them roll off me like the water off a duck’s back. However, yesterday I was called something that stuck a little bit longer than usual. I was called the “grandson of Willie Lynch.” Now if you have a propensity to sunburn easier than other people because of your melanin deficiency you probably have no idea about what I’m talking about. However if you grew up watching Good Times and What’s Happening you know exactly what I’m talking about.

Willie Lynch was reportedly a famous slave owner who gave a speech in 1712 regarding the control of slaves. The speech was heavily circulated over the Internet in the 1990s, even though there is a school of though that says Willie Lynch never existed. I won’t go into the details of Willie Lynch, but you can find it here. What’s more important though is the fact that the person who called me Willie Lynch’s grandson was City-County Council Attorney Aaron Haith, who is African-American.

Haith called me “Willie Lynch” as I was questioning Council President Monroe Gray about his latest scandal. Gray actually took the questioning in stride, but Haith was a different story. He called me a slave holder, which meant I wanted to oppress Black politicians. He also implied I want to beat them, whip them, enslave them and lynch them. Yes a very high-profile African-American government official accused another African-American member of the press of wanting to “lynch” African-American politicians for the stories that I write about their own bad behavior.

I’m not sure what was going through Haith’s mind. He’s not a bad person. Maybe it was the stress of representing clients like Ron Gibson and Monroe Gray who can’t seem to stay out of trouble or the media spotlight for bad behavior. Maybe it’s the stress of manipulating the procedural rules of the council so debate can be stymied and the people can’t have their voices heard. Or maybe it’s something else I’m just not getting. But for Haith to equate me with someone whose name is synonymous with slavery, oppression and lynching is beyond the pale.

For those of you think the GOP gets a pass from me, you really should learn to hold your water a bit more. State Rep. Mike Murphy is in the middle of a “hit and run” scandal. My colleague Jack Rinehart at RTV 6 has the full scoop. No one was injured. I can’t help but to think that the only other person I know who’s been a victim of a hit and run by Murphy was Mayor Bart Peterson two years ago during the Indy Works debate at the legislature. (drum roll here!)

A lot of Marion County residents are scratching their heads at the latest developments down at city hall. No, it doesn’t involve Council President Monroe Gray. Although the latest news regarding him is that an arbitrator is ordering him to pay $600,000 to his former business partner as a result of a labor dispute, but I digress.

This involves City-County Council Member Ron Gibson. A local judge dismissed disorderly conduct and battery charges against him for the allegedly shoving an off duty Marion County detective during Black Expo last year. Gibson and his attorneys say the charges were dropped because there was not enough evidence to secure a conviction, particularly that several witness depositions did not back up Jean Burkert’s story. However sources within the police department are telling me a different story.

My sources say the internal affairs report confirms the detective’s version of the events. In addition they also tell me that several witnesses were “encouraged” to change their testimony over time and that the manager of the bar where the incident occurred might have fallen under undue pressure and influence. Also the city’s legal department came under heavy criticism for their role in events and the special prosecutor in the case is quoted as saying he has never seen politics play a role in a criminal case like he did in the one involving Gibson.

Believe whom you will but my sources in this area tend to be pretty reliable. The sad part of all this is the only way we may ever get to the real truth is if a grand jury or the FBI gets involved. Who knows, that day may be closer than we think.

It’s not very often that I can draw a corollary between 12th century England and 21st century Marion County, but gosh darn it, when I get the chance, I do. The title of this posting comes from a quote from Henry II regarding his conflict with St. Thomas Becket, the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Becket engaged in a conflict with Henry II over the rights and privileges of the Catholic Church. The tensions grew so great that Henry is quoted as saying amongst other things, “will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?” His shouting was interpreted as a royal command by several of his knights who later assassinated Becket in the Canterbury Cathedral. Becket later became a martyr and Henry II was blamed for the crime and the people lost faith in him.

Fast forward 900 years later.

Indianapolis Mayor Bart Peterson has got to be sick and tired of City-Council President Monroe Gray and the bad press that tends to follow him. Several months ago, during a meeting where the Mayor announced he would push through a public safety tax, I asked him if council members who work for the city should be allowed to vote on it. He then looked over at Gray and said he was a “shining example” of what a council member should be. However at an eastside neighborhood association meeting Peterson didn’t quite deny he knew Gray, but he did not go out of his way to defend him.

Do you blame him? Gray’s name has become synonymous with bad business dealings, ethical lapses and abhorrent leadership that gone from the sublime to the absurd. County Republicans finally woke and found a strategy that might work by tying the Mayor and the rest of Democrats on the Council to Gray. I can’t help but think that when the Mayor picks up the paper, turns on the TV or radio and comes across a story of Gray’s antics that he can’t but sometimes think in the back of his mind that he could pull a Henry II and make Gray go away. But unlike the former King, I think the Mayor would get a parade rather than be vilified.

There is not a lot City-County Council Member Jackie Nytes and I agree on, but last night we were both 100% in sync with each other. The Council was bickering over the creation a government efficiency committee spear-headed by the Greater Indianapolis Chamber of Commerce, when the Council bogged down over how many appointments Republicans and Democrats would have. Nytes said although the point of the committee is to be bi-partisan, but anyone watching the meeting that night would not see any bi-partisanship taking place. The only problem I had with Nytes’ statement is it didn’t go far enough. Anyone watching last night’s meeting would not have seen much of anything going on but silliness, posturing and an embarrassment to the taxpayers.

It started with the Council moving a proposal calling for an ethics investigation of President Monroe Gray from the current agenda to the “pending” agenda. The pending agenda is where motions go to die because they rarely get pulled off. And when an attempt was made to bring it back, Council members engaged in parliamentary chicanery to keep it off the agenda.

If that wasn’t enough, the Council voted overwhelmingly to limit the practice of giving take home cars to non-essential city and county employees. Councilors said the move would save the taxpayers $6 million over the next few years. I’m all for saving the taxpayers’ money, but it would have been nice to look at these savings BEFORE some people voted to take an extra $90 million annually of your hard-earned money. The mayor and county executive officers could have done all this by issuing an executive order. But that would not have been good for the cameras nor campaign literature.

Overall it was a three-hour meeting and I stayed for the whole thing and I could think of while watching the bickering, the posturing and the silliness was that in a city of more than 860,000 people, this was the best the voters could do? Good grief!

Monday is Columbus Day. I usually do the radio show and take the rest of the day off so I wanted to get this up tonight. I’ve been disturbed at the recent rash of murders in town. There were 12 in September and we’ve hit half that number seven days into October when murders should be going down. Now more police won’t mean fewer murders per se, but they do add to an atmosphere that crime will not be tolerated.

I found out the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department just graduated a new class of 55 police officers. The trainees will be in the field for the next four to five months with a full-time officer before they are allowed to go out on their own, but more cops are always better.

However, part of the problem is that IMPD is in a state of playing perpetual catch up. The department is already 120-130 officers short according to its own internal documents which were accidentally released to the media back in May. And on top of that another 65 to 85 are expected to leave at the end of the year. So what you might say, there are at least another 100 new officers on the way. Well actually the number is 160 if you combine the next two training classes in April and October of next year. And IMPD is swearing in a new group of 80 officers on October 29 of this year. So over the next couple years IMPD will add nearly 300 officers to its ranks.

That sounds great, who wouldn’t want 300 more officers on the street. However, that 300 does not operate in a vacuum. Remember, we were already down 120 officers and 75 (an average) will leave this year for a 195-officer short fall. And don’t forget officers continue to retire. On average, IMPD loses approximately 65 officers per year due to standard retirement. And a number are eligible for early retirement after 20 years of service.

So let’s do some math, assuming all things are consistent by December 2008 IMPD will have “added” 300 officers, but it will have “lost” 290 officers (120 from the current vacancies and 150 due to retirements.) 300 – 290 = 10 new officers. So for all this trouble, hassle and tax increases all we will have to show for it are ten new cops. I think I should go try to discover a bullet proof vest.

My good friend Matt Tully has a great piece in the Star this morning about life in what could accurately be described as the worst of the worst in Indianapolis neighborhoods. It reminded me about something I wrote back in May about how city leaders were more concerned about my criticism than the living conditions of this city’s most vulnerable citizens. You can read it here. I’m interested in your thoughts.

In an election year it’s natural to assume that political parties would fight each other as opposed to themselves. That is not the case this past week with Marion County Democrats, specifically speaking the office of Mayor Bart Peterson and the City-County Council controlled by Monroe Gray.

This fight is centering over, oddly enough, property tax cuts. Gray is introducing an ordinance that will use a fund surplus in the county’s tax increment finance (TIF) levy to provide residents with about $2.6 million in property tax relief. The purpose of TIFs is to take property off the general tax rolls and use the revenue to make improvements within the affected area. Gray’s plan would not take dollars from the TIF district per se and use it for tax relief because that is against the rules set down by the Department of Local Government and Finance. Money from a TIF district can only be used to benefit the TIF, not the entire municipality. So instead, Gray is proposing they are use money from the TIF replacement levy to provide tax relief.

This apparently raised the ire and temper of Chief Deputy Mayor John Dillon, who is the Mayor’s right hand man. When the Mayor’s office received news of Gray’s plan, Dillon called Council Financial Officer Bart Brown and was outraged. Dillon is known to have a temper. There is even an old story of him threatening to bring down hellfire on an AT&T technical representative who was trying to install a phone line in his office and wasn’t doing it the way Dillon wanted it done. Dillon reportedly told Brown that Gray should have cleared his plan with the Mayor first and that he threatened to have Brown fired after the election if he didn’t watch his step. someone should remind Dillion that Brown works for the Council, not the Mayor, and there’s is this little concept called separation of powers he might want to research before making threats.

As word of this got back to the Council President about not clearing his tax relief plan with the Mayor, Gray had two words for the Peterson. You can guess what they were.

I have been hearing stories of tensions increasing between the Mayor and Council for a while as the election gets closer and this story confirms it.

Election Day is November 6.

Indiana Governor Mitch says while property tax opponents have their hearts in the right place, it’s very unlikely the state will be able to eliminate all property taxes. Daniels says the plans he’s seen don’t work He says he’s working on his own plan to reduce property taxes and will have something ready by the time lawmakers come back for Organization Day. He says it would be irresponsible to promise the elimination of property taxes when that likely isn’t possible.

He cautioned that if the state takes over certain local government functions like schools and child welfare, then citizens need to know the state will exercise much more control over those functions because you can’t have it both ways.

He says he wants finality to the property tax issue and says previous attempts by former Governors have only resulted in band-aid solutions to the tax problems which have resulted in higher property taxes and sales taxes. Daniels says his reform will have a Constitutional element to it so reforms can’t be undone.

On a side note I also Daniels about Indianapolis Mayor Bart Peterson’s campaign ad where he claimed that he banded together with angry taxpayers to force the state to order a new reassessment in Marion County. Daniels politely said he didn’t recall the Mayor ever contacting him and said sometimes campaign commercials can “color outside the lines.” He says he spoke the Mayor about the ad, and Peterson admitted that upon reflection the ad probably “overstated the case.”