More than half of likely voters in a new poll of the Indianapolis Mayor’s race say they will vote for someone other than incumbent Bart Peterson.

Fifty-three percent of those surveyed say they want a new person in office, while 41 percent say would definitely or probably vote for the Mayor. This is a sharp drop from the Mayor’s approval rating of 58 percent last year. The poll was taken last week by Public Opinion Strategies and it surveyed 300 likely Marion County voters and has a plus or minus error of five points.

The poll also showed 64 percent of residents thought Marion County was on the wrong track and taxes and crime topped the list of voter concerns. And only 23 percent of voters say they will definitely vote for Peterson while 38 percent say the definitely vote against the Mayor.

The poll still has incumbent Mayor Peterson beating challenger Greg Ballard. Ballard is only known to 18 percent of voters; however he beats Peterson with 51 percent of the vote between voters who know both candidates.

The news also doesn’t look that great for Council Democrats. Forty-six percent of voters say they will vote for someone new on the Council, while 22 percent say they will vote for their current Council member. And more voters trust Republicans to handle the County’s rising tax issues than Democrats

Some other items of note, the poll’s respondents were 70 percent white and 23 percent black. Public Opinion Strategies (POS) conducted the poll for the Marion County Republican Party. POS also predicted wins in the past for Governor Mitch Daniels, Secretary of State Todd Rokita and Marion County Prosecutor Carl Brizzi.

The blog, Advance Indiana, has raised some legitimate questions about the residency of City-County Council Member Patrice Abdullah. Abdullah represents the 15th District, however his home address on the Council’s website, 1144 Warman, is not in his district. I did a check of the council map and there are two 1144 Warmans, one north and one south. The north address is in Marilyn Pfisterer’s district, while the south address is in Dane Mahern’s district.

Call me crazy here, but I was under the impression a Council member was supposed to live in their district or they had to give up the seat? According to the Council’s latest public list of addresses, Abdullah has lived on Warman since June of 2007. So what does this mean, you might ask? District 15 is heavily Democratic and there is no Republican on the ballot, so Democrats would keep that seat. That’s right. But depending on when Patrice moved to 1144 Warman, his votes on the council subsequent to that time could be considered illegal and therefore invalid as he did not lawfully reside in his district.

One vote that comes to mind immediately is the public safety tax vote that was held on July 23. If 1144 Warman was Abdullah’s home address at the time of the vote, and there is no reason to think it wasn’t, an argument could be made the tax increase was not properly passed because the vote (15-13-1) did not have a majority because Patrice should not have voted. And this goes for any measure that Patrice has voted on.

It’s nice to be back from vacation and bring these items to you. More is on the way.

The coffee is brewing and the bacon is on the stove, so now I can get back to blogging. I misplaced my jail overcrowding notes, but I should be able to find them by the end of the day and get that story to you.

Meanwhile, Judge Rueben Hill came under fire this week for dismissing a DUI charge against a defendant because the officer was never officially sworn in as IMPD. By the way, the story made this morning’s New York Times. Everyone was freaking out over this, but I don’t understand why anyone was surprised.

During the swearing in ceremony earlier this year, I asked IMPD top brass this exact same question. If my memory serves me correctly, the only officers who showed up for the voluntary swearing in were lieutenants and above and homicide detectives. The rest stayed home since they weren’t getting paid. I asked the Sheriff and the Chief if the other officers were legit since they didn’t show. I was told that wasn’t an issue, since the swearing in was more ceremonial. Really?

I figured it was a matter of time before someone got smart and challenged the arrest using this strategy. And now we’ll have to live with the consequences, which I believe right now, will not look good for Marion County if this gets to the Indiana Supreme Court.

Let me start by saying it’s nice to be back. I had a great time with my son and revisiting old haunts in that other Capitol City across the border. However, all good things must come to an end. Although I was gone for 10 days, that doesn’t mean I wasn’t paying attention to what was going on here. We’ll just start at the beginning and work our way through.

The Mayor’s Budget Address

I had to watch this three times. I watched the first two times because I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I watched the third time for substance and couldn’t believe what I was hearing. The only thing more disturbing than the fact Hizzoner did not want to be there (which was evident by his body language and other non-verbal cues) and city employees (probably under threat of the disciplinary action) stacked the audience and ordinary citizens were forced to stay outside, some in the heat, was the actual Mayor’s speech.

No offense to the Mayor, but come on. Hizzoner didn’t lie, but he did leave out some very inconvenient truths. He said his government cut $83 million from the budget over the last three years, then why has city spending continuously increased and more than $83 million?

The Mayor also said child welfare and juvenile incarceration costs are also responsible for the increase. Once again, no offense, but in the city’s own budget presentation using sample data, child welfare costs were only about 6.5 percent of the increase in a local tax bill. And local governments do have control over child welfare and juvenile incarceration costs. The Mayor and his staff know the adjudication of minors and children are made by local judges. The state picks up the initial tab and then bills back to the county. Sitting down and working with the judiciary makes more sense to me than blaming the state again and again and again.

And let’s talk about consolidation. I am a big fan of it and think it should have been done a long time ago. But Mr. Mayor, you know if you got consolidation today you would not see any savings for a while, unless you engaged in massive layoffs. Let’s be straight here.

Fundamentally the problem with county government is spending. Simply put, in Indiana local governments determine what they are going to spend and that incomes the levy. The levy amount then is divided up amongst all the taxpayers and every one pays there portion, residential, commercial and industrial. When commercial and industrial pay a lot less, residential pays more, this is not rocket science, it’s actually Sim City.

This piece is getting wordy. I apologize. Give me a few minutes to go down to the corner store and grab a few things. I’ll be back to write about jail overcrowding, the Hill Court decision and Patrice Abdullah and his residency issues.

A lot of you have been asking me to come back and get back to work covering the issues facing Indianapolis and Marion County. I’ll be back Sunday with a lot of things to talk and write about.

I’ll dissect the Mayor’s 2008 Budget address. While the Mayor did make some valid points in his speech, he didn’t tell the whole story behind the city’s financial troubles. I’ll fill in what the Mayor didn’t.

I’m also going to walk through Judge Rueben Hill’s decision that held an IMPD officer who wasn’t sworn in and therefore an arrest he made was invalid. I really think there are some serious legs to this story than more people are willing to admit. In addition, this decision also calls into a bigger question about the new police department.

Also, it’s been a little more than a year since the last “early release” from the jail. Once again, that’s not the whole story. I’ll fill in the rest.

I’ll have the latest on property taxes, the Voter ID case heading to the U.S. Supreme Court, the continuing Library debacle, a Lawrence not-for-profit that may be breaking the law. And I’ll be at the State Fair on Wednesday

Although, I’ve been away, I have not been gone. And if you think things were wild last week, you ain’t seen nothing yet.

I’m still on vacation back home in Illinois spending long overdue time with my son. I know there is a lot happening back in Indianapolis and I’ll address when I get back. But from what I’ve been e-mailed so far I don’t which is more unsufferable, the heat or the political atmosphere. Let me know if I’ve missed anything. See you guys next week.

I’m taking some time off and will be gone until August 13. I’ll have some interesting items when I get back, but for now I want to leave you with a few things to ponder.

Indianapolis’ credit rating has been downgraded. Moody’s Investor Services has lowered the city’s bond rating to Aa1 from AAa because of the “nature and magnitude of fiscal challenges facing the city.” A lower credit rating makes it more expensive for the city to borrow money.

The Mayor is going to unveil his budget for the city next week. It’s been reported the city will have a $52 million shortfall in property tax revenue because the Governor threw out the most recent tax assessment. City officials have bragged about how they have held the line on spending, which makes me wonder how they managed to spend more money, even after the Mayor ordered a $13 million cut in non-public safety spending.

The new central library continues to be a point of contention that Library President Lou Mahern sent the City-County Council a memo of talking points that are used to defend the Library Board’s practices. He also calls the new library a “bargain” for taxpayers.

And to end on a happy note, we helped raise more than $10,000 for Gleaners food pantry this morning. It’s good to know there are a lot of kind-hearted Hoosiers out there.

Those are just a few things. I’ll have some more interesting tidbits when I come back and one of them is about Wilson46201.

See you later.

If you’re like me this morning, you went through the roof when the story about how thieves had stolen copper from Gleaners Food Pantry that led to the spoiling of hundreds of tons of food that would have gone to families in need in our area.

I gave myself a few minutes to yell but then decided getting mad won’t do anybody any good, but getting moving will.

If you can, take a few minutes today and make a donation to Gleaners.

Log on today at Gleaners.org and find out how you can donate food or money to help those in need. Or call Gleaners at 925-0191. That’s 925-0191.

It’s time like this where a community’s true character comes to light. Do your part today. Log on to Gleaners.org or call Gleaners at 925-0191 and make a difference today.

Indianapolis City-County Council Member Ike Randolph may face a censure from the full Council for abstaining to vote on the last week’s public safety tax. During the somewhat heated exchange, Randolph told the Council he was abstaining because the tax increase would fund his pay raise negotiated in the most recent fire fighter contract. City attorney Kobi Wright told Randolph that even though the money was being used for raises for police and fire fighters, since it was not expressly written in the ordinance there was no conflict. Randolph still refused to vote and Council President Monroe Gray ordered staff to look into censuring Randolph.

I got a copy of some of the Council’s rules. Under Sec. 151-52 Roll Call Votes. Subsection (b)(4) that deals with abstentions it says the following…

“(4) Whenever, because of personal, business or financial relationships potentially affected by any matter pending before the council, a councilor believes that his participation in the matter might cause an appearance of impropriety even though there is not a disqualifying interest under section (b), such councilor shall disclose such relationship and may request to abstain from any vote on such matters. The presiding officer shall permit such abstention.” (emphasis added)

This goes to an old subject in law school regarding the difference between the words “may” and “shall.” “May” is a permissive term while “shall” is seen as more directive. Looking at the language of the section I would argue a councilor has a duty to disclose if they may receive a benefit from an ordinance and they may request an abstention. In addition, the presiding doesn’t have a choice but to allow the abstention, because the language says the presiding officer “shall permit such abstention.”

The language seems pretty clear. If a Council member thinks they have a conflict of interest they can abstain and the Council President has to allow it, regardless of party. I’ll be interested to see where the debate goes from here. The language seems pretty black and white and not gray.

I compiled this data on crime, taxes and schools today while thumbing through this weekend’s Indianapolis Star.

Car jackings – up 145%.
Homicides – up 12% (The full list is here. Warning, it is a partisan blog.)
Robberies – up 11%
Aggravated Assaults – up 34%
IPS Seniors Who Graduate and without passing the Graduation Qualifying Exam – 26% (At IPS’ worse performing high schools)
County Income Taxes – up 65%
Property Taxes – up 34% (average)

There is another number being circulated that a poll was taken that has the Mayor’s approval rating at 34%. I’m trying to track the poll down and figure out how accurate it is, but with statistics like these, I would not be surprised if it were true.

As a single, upper middle class, man with discretionary income, I can weather all this. But I really have to ask how does a working-middle class family put up with all this and not pack their bags and go.