Whenever someone leaks me information, I always ask why? Usually the answer is to make themselves look good or someone else look bad. Indiana Congressman Dan Burton is trying to do both. Someone close to his camp leaked to me today a new poll showing Burton with a commanding lead over primary challenger, former Marion County Coroner, John McGoff.

The poll was conducted by American Viewpoint out of Alexandria, VA. It survey 500 likely Republican primary voters and asked “If the Primary election for Congress were being held today and the candidates were Dan Burton and John McGoff for whom would you vote?” The poll showed Burton leading McGoff by 71-15.

The one sheet summary also said “Burton leads among every demographic group including by 55% among those most likely to vote and by 49% in Marion County where McGoff’s served as Coroner.”

Like I said, info doesn’t get released unless the person who releases it has something to gain. I’ll be interested to see what else gets “released” but I’m more interested in what didn’t get revealed. Stay tuned.

I have a lot of thoughts on my mind this morning, but only a couple are worth writing down. Republican Mayoral candidate Greg Ballard offered up his government consolidation plan Wednesday. It consolidates all township offices, going further than incumbent Bart Peterson’s plan. Peterson campaign manager Mike O’Connor says government consolidation would already be here had it not been for the GOP two years ago. Mike is right. I also like to remind him that Indianapolis would have also had consolidation last year had it not been for State Rep. Bill Crawford protecting the township trustees and refusing to go along with the plan that was on the table at the time. However Ballard is making enemies in his own party. My sources tell me a contingent of Perry Township Republicans is in a furor over his plans. This confirms my theory that fundamentally consolidation is not a Republican or Democrat issue, but a status quo versus taxpayers issue.

On a lighter note, the 130-year old Woman’s Christian Temperance Union is in town having a convention this weekend. Why do I mention them? The WTCU is an anti-alcohol group formed back in the 1800s. The group was successful in shutting down saloons and taverns and was also instrumental in the prohibition movement. However it was the prohibition movement that led to bootlegging and later organized crime. So you have to ask do groups like the WTCU really do society more harm than the “evil” they try to fight.

If you are a parent with kids in a school in Marion County public school, the odds are you have a gang problem. I got my hands on a survey of a number of schools and the gangs that are affiliated with them. The respondents were not administrators or teachers, but students. They are ones who see gang activity up close and personal when the rest of us turn a blind eye. Most of the problem is concentrated in schools on the East side of Indianapolis, however all school districts have their fair share. Here is the list. Just so you know the new word for a gang is a “crew”.

Ben Davis HS
Haughville
2100 Haughville
Goom Squad
BeastMode
Fame Squad
Haughville Assassin

Northwest HS
2-G
2-9 Landfile
Hard Park

Broadripple HS
40 Boulevard
M.O.B.
30th Street (Tre-O)
2-5 brightwood
42nd & Post Road
34th St. GangstaVille
34th St. Tryfe Lyfe
B.B.M

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I got a visit last Friday that I was not expecting. It wasn’t my lovely mother or Hallie Berry stopping by to tell me that she’s gotten over her issues and is ready to have my children. No, my visitor was the Federal Bureau of Investigations; the FBI.

Now I know in a post 9-11 world a guy named “Abdul” getting a visit from the FBI is enough to raise an eyebrow or two. But it wasn’t anything I did, it was more about what the Perry Township Constable’s Office did.

You probably heard the segment I did on the Perry Township Constable’s Office giving out a parking decal to someone who was not a deputy constable who used it downtown during the opening night of the Colts’ game. The FBI also heard the segment and asked for a copy of the interview. It was a couple agents from their Local Government Corruption Task Force who stopped by.

While an unauthorized parking decal might seem a bit much for the FBI to get involved, it does tend to support a theory I’ve had for a while. I’ve heard for a while that the federal government was snooping around the area because of alleged “improprieties: of local officials. You might recall a story I wrote earlier this year about the Justice Department investigating Indianapolis’ pea shake houses and how proceeds from the pea shakes were believed to have been funneled into legitimate businesses throughout the area. A Justice Department spokesperson would not confirm or deny the investigation but did say something like that would be within their purview. Up until now that conversation was the only evidience I had that the federal government was looking into corruption in Marion County. Now I’ve got more evidence.

And remember, when the federal government comes after you, they spend a lot of time gathering a lot of information, no matter how irrelevant it may seem at the time. However when it all comes together, it’s wrapped in a nice indictment.

Keep an eye on this one folks. This is definitely worth watching.

The Indianapolis Fraternal Order of Police released its list of endorsed candidates this afternoon. Out of the 23 endorsements, 21 were Republicans, one was a Democrat and one was a Libertarian. FOP President Aaron Sullivan says they invited all candidates to participate, but only Sherron Franklin and Mary Moriarty Adams showed up. Franklin got the endorsement.

We al know what today is and what it means so I won’t spend a lot of time talking about it. What I will ask is what is your assessment of the war on terror?

I got an e-mail this morning from Indianapolis Deputy Mayor Steve Campbell about my critique of Mayor Bart Peterson’s new ad where he says he stood with taxpayers and forced the state to order a new assessment in Marion County.

Steve told me in the e-mail my criticism was off because the Mayor was the first person to call for or bring up a new assessment in Marion County. That’s not entirely accurate because the Governor was the first person to say he would order a new reassessment if necessary and secondly, the Mayor in the news release did not call for a new assessment, he just said he would support one if it was ordered.

So I stand corrected to the extent I said the Mayor had not mentioned reassessments, however he was not the first to call for one because, in fact he didn’t. He said he would support one if it was reordered.

So I guess we both stand corrected.

My counterpart, Matt Tully in the Indianapolis Star today, wrote about a new survey done by the City-County Council on public services. Matt raises some interesting questions about the survey, however my little investigation makes me wonder if the survey wasn’t fudged?

According to internal e-mails involving City Attorney Aaron Haith, Council Financial Officer Bart Brown and IP Administrator Shital Patel, there is an issue as to how many responses from the survey were actually from the public and how many were from city-county employees.

The city received about 1200 total responses, but later discovered that about 170 of them came from city-county IP addresses. City-County IP addresses all begin with 168.214.XXX.X. Adjusting for those responses and other computer glitches, the number of actual responses are at 1078.

Once again, it makes you wonder can you really trust anything that comes out of the City-County building these days, because even when someone tries to do the right thing, someone else is trying to do wrong.

The truth is always the first casualty of war in any battle and political campaigns are no exception. I just looked at the latest campaign ad on Mayor Bart Peterson’s campaign website. The mayor is in a residential setting, very stolid, in a blue shirt with no tie. He talks about the property tax crisis. He says, “By banding together we were able to force the state to correct an assessment we knew was wrong.” Did I miss something here?

With all due respect to Hizzoner, I don’t recall him at any of the tax protests this past summer. I saw County Treasurer Mike Rodman show up and Democratic State Representative David Orentlichter, but I did not see the Mayor. The Mayor did hold a news conference on July 12 to talk about property taxes, but all he did was call for a special session to give local governments more property tax replacement credits, pass the rest of Indy Works and take over child welfare. He did not call for a new assessment. In fact, when I told his office the tax increase was going to be bigger than anyone could suspect, they told me I didn’t know what I was talking about.

Now I am not saying the Mayor doesn’t care about property taxes, I know he does. However, fudging the facts isn’t going to help his credibility. They’ve already been busted a couple times trying to fudge things by packing the audience with city employees on the night of the Mayor’s budget address and taking credit for cutting $50 million in the property tax levy when $43 million of it was going to happen regardless.

I hope the Mayor reads this because there’s nothing worse than trying to lead when people don’t trust you because you keep fudging the facts.

This week marked my third year on the airwaves here in Indianapolis. I have to admit that it’s two years and 364 days longer than I had expected, but I’ve never been one to look a gift horse in the mouth.

Many of you know that before coming here I was doing morning radio in Springfield, IL. I was perfectly content when the opportunity to do radio here came along. At first I wasn’t going to take the job because I was actually planning to get out of radio, practice law full-time, marry my girlfriend and get ready to start running for public office. However she convinced me to give this a shot.

I can’t say I regret it. Thanks to coming here I’ve had a chance to participate in debates and discussions involving the future of millions of people. We regularly interact with the most influential individuals in Indiana of all political stripes. I’ve been on Fox News and CNN. And my side jobs have allowed to teach some of the most enthusiastic minds in Indiana, and make people laugh and forget about their troubles.

So let me take a few minutes to say “thanks.” No one can ever say what the future holds, but being here in Indianapolis is definitely helping me prepare for it.