There was almost a fight at tonight’s City-County Council meeting over the public safety tax. It wasn’t the one between Republican Ike Randolph and Democrat Vern Brown. Brown called Randolph a coward on the Council floor for not voting on the measure. Randolph asked Brown to step outside the chamber and talk like men, which Brown refused. The fight I’m talking about was the one between the Council and the public.

I have never seen such hostility between a government and its people without someone storming the Bastille. The only individuals who were there in support of the tax increase were city and county officials. The public was against it and a number of them were thrown out for disrupting the meeting by shouting “no new taxes.”

Council members who voted for the tax increase called it an exercise in leadership. Council members who voted against it called it looking for the easy way out. I call it the fight of the century come November; in this corner the public and in this corner, their government!

Let’s get ready to rumble.

By the way, the two Republicans I predicted would vote for the measure did, Scott Keller and Lance Langsford. Two Democrats, Sherron Franklin and Dane Mahern, voted against the measure

My sources are telling me the votes are there at tonight’s City-County Council meeting to increase the County Option Income Tax to pay for public safety. Republicans Scott Keller and Lance Langsford will vote “yes.” Assuming no Democrats vote “no”, the measure will pass 17-12. More details later.

You’ve already heard me talk about potential conflicts of interest with tonight’s Council vote on the public safety tax, however there are much bigger issues to consider beyond the tax.

Having government employees serve on the same board that oversee them can turn into a land mine of problems. What if a government employee wants to trade a vote for a day off? What if a supervisor wants to discipline someone, but is afraid to because they serve on the local finance committee and has oversight their agency?

The response to this argument is usually people saying that the public knows what government employees do for a living and they can make the call at the voting booth. The problem with that is that while it may be easy to know if someone is voting for a pay raise, it takes a little more effort to find who got a vacation day in exchange for voting for a tax abatement.

I’m not saying this is happening, but can we really say for sure it doesn’t?

On Monday the full City-County Council will vote on whether to raise the County Option Income Tax to help pay for public safety; raises for police and firefighters, 100 new police officers, pensions, crime prevention programs etc. While I still have my doubts about whether the votes are there to pass it, I do believe there are some members of the Council who should not vote on this measure.

There are several members of the Council who would get a direct benefit from the tax increase. Democrats Monroe Gray, Vernon Brown, Sherron Franklin, Mary Moriarty Adams and Republicans Ike Randolph, Lance Langsford, Lincoln Plowman and Marilyn Pfisterer. All eight members of the Council should abstain from voting because they all have a conflict of interest.

Randolph, Plowman, Langsford and Franklin are either police officers or firefighters and they would get a 12-percent raise (over the next four years) if the tax were implemented because it is the funding source for their contract’s salary increases. Moriarty Adams is married to a police so she would get a direct benefit. Pfisterer is married to a retired firefighter who gets a direct benefit in the form of a stable pension. And Gray and Brown are department chiefs, and although their salaries are not determined by the contract, they are in policy making positions in the department and should abstain from voting.

I asked Mayor Bart Peterson yesterday whether public safety officials on the Council should abstain from voting, his reply was that since the ordinance doesn’t specifically require revenue be spent on raises, there is no conflict. With all due respect, that’s a load of “you-know-what” because we all know what the money will be used for, otherwise there’s no point in raising the tax.

I am not the first person to write about this. Both the Star and Advance Indiana have brought this up. We should have the tax debate, but it should be honest and above reproach. I begrudgingly accept the fact Indiana allows public employees to serve on the Councils and Boards which govern their agencies, but doesn’t help when elected officials are voting for their own pay raises or have a personal stake in the outcome.

I know that sounds like a harsh title, but it’s appropriate for what I’m about to write. In order to get a feel for the second Saturday night of Indiana Black Expo I worked the door at my favorite downtown establishment, Nicki Blaine’s, just south of Monument Circle. I originally planned to work from 9 to 11:30 p.m. but ended up there until 2:0 a.m. because I could not believe my eyes.

Let me preface this by saying, I am all for Black Expo. The health fair, business fair, corporate luncheon, celebrations of faith and other events all go off very well. I even played master of ceremonies for the Governor’s Reception on Tuesday, but all that goodness gets tossed because of a bunch of knuckleheads who come out on Saturday night.

By working the door at Nicki Blaine’s I got a “front row” seat on all the action. First, I have never seen so many young men wearing nightgowns and young women wearing floss and both calling them t-shirts. I saw so many young girls, many under 17, dressed like hookers that I thought I just got off a ship in Thailand.

The only thing worse than how they dressed was how they acted, as exemplified by the shooting which I had the privilege to be near while taking a walk at ground zero, otherwise known as Illinois and Maryland. All I could think of was “this cannot be the future of Black people.”

I honestly didn’t know which was worse. The pregnant woman with the white leotard outfit and pink bow around it; I’m not sure whose present it was. Or the four-year old boy with a grill that lit up like a lite-brite. He was out running around at 10:30 p.m. But I have to say the moment to end all moments was the young girl who hit on me while she had her baby in her arms. I wanted to give her daughter a shirt that said, “By my mom a drink! My Dad did!”

When I think of what people like my parents and grandparents fought for to allow me to be a full participant in the American dream, I just wanted to go home and set my law degree on fire because it meant nothing if these kids were the future. We are definitely losing a generation and I honestly don’t know if they’re worth saving after what I saw.

I cannot believe that when Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X and Medgar Evers were fighting for civil rights, this is they were fighting for. This is sad to say, but I guess the silver linings in their assassinations was that they didn’t live to see last night in downtown Indianapolis, otherwise they would have put the gun to their own heads. And I can’t say I blame them for doing it.

Indianapolis Mayor Bart Peterson today called for a 10-percent across the board cut in non-public safety areas of city-county government, a hiring freeze and creating an efficiency committee to deal with the city’s fiscal problems.

The Mayor made the announcement this afternoon. He said a 10-percent cut will yield $13 million in savings. The cuts would come from programs and agencies funded by property taxes and not those by fees and grants.

Peterson says everything is on the table, except for public safety and crucial areas such as reassessment.

These cuts may be more necessary than anyone thinks as there may not enough votes to pass the Mayor’s public safety tax. Officials side-stepped the question when asked directly if there were enough votes to pass the tax on Monday night. They would only say they will know when the vote is taken.

Mayor Bart Peterson is going to tell us media folks later this morning what he proposes to “cut” from the budget should his public safety tax increase plan not go through. I’m told his administration won’t layoff any police or firefighters, but they could go after new purchases and equipment. I’ll have more for you later today, as well as an analysis of other “cuts” the administration has made.

Marion County Taxpayers got a major victory yesterday when Governor Daniels ordered a reassessment and froze property rates at 2006 levels. However, if you will indulge the science-fiction part of my nature, this reminds me of the Star Wars triology. When Luke Skywalker blows up the first Death Star the Rebellion has a big party, however the Empire Strikes Back in the second film, and it’s only until the Jedi returns in the third film, do they finally beat Emperor Palpatine. I know this sounds like a bit much there is a point here.

The point is the tax freeze and new assessment is a small part of a much bigger issue. Hoosiers need to decide how much government they want and how much they are willing to pay for. There is one unit of local government for every 2700 hundred people. Indiana has more government per capita than New York State and California. There is no reason that there are 67 taxing units in Marion County.

The Governor has commissioned Chief Justice Randall Shepard and former Governor Joe Kernan to look at restructuring and reforming Indiana local government. And until the day Indiana has less government that takes in less of the taxpayers’ money, what Hoosiers got yesterday was a small victory. And like in the final Star Wars film, the Empire will be back with more powerful ways to separate you from your hard-earned money.

May the force be with you and the government as far away as possible.

I have to give it to Governor Mitch Daniels. He did today what more than 65 taxing units and dozens of Marion County elected and appointed officials were either unwilling or unable to do. He got a lot of Hoosiers some badly needed property tax relief.

Daniels is ordering that Marion County taxpayers only pay their 2006 assessment for now while he orders a new assessment. The Department of Local Government and Finance discovered that most (75%) of the commercial and industrial property in Marion County was either improperly assessed or not assessed at all.

Daniels has also asked, and they’ve accepted, former Governor Joe Kernan and Indiana Supreme Court Chief Justice Randall Shepard to head a panel to reform and restructure local government.

This is some welcome news for a lot of people. I even called my brother who was on vacation in Florida and told him. It made his day.

There will be some details that will be worked out at the local level. And the reassessments won’t be complete for 6-8 months, however what it does go to show that an elected official in this state can do something other than spend your hard earned money.

Governor Mitch Daniels is going to unveil a plan this morning to provide Hoosiers with short and long-term property tax relief. In the meanwhile, I’ve got a thought, consolidate and privatize every school district in Marion County.

Take all nine school districts: IPS, Pike, Washington, Lawrence, Wayne, Warren, Franklin, Perry and Decatur and consolidate them and then turn the management of the Marion County School District over to a private company.

For the critics of privatization, need I remind you a private company manages the water company and also managed the airport? And if you don’t think a private institution can run a school, I point to Harvard and Yale.

Why should taxpayers have to pay for nine administrative staff, library systems, transportation systems, cafeteria systems, etc? And if you’re worried about the district being too big, at one time in the 1960s IPS had as many students as there are in all the Township schools.

It’s time for new thinking in Indianapolis. If you disagree, go take another look at your tax bill.