The Mayor's Magic Water Deal

(Enter CARNIE BARKER onto pier, speaking with a bullhorn):

“…gather around, friends, and witness the amazing legerdemain (a/k/a “sleight of hand”) of the Great Ballardo, a political magician who pulls money from an empty hat.”

Of course, magic isn’t real, but I fear we’ll soon all be the suckers born every minute of whom P.T. Barnum spoke if Mayor Greg Ballard achieves his two-step skullduggery with the city's water transfer and road repair bond issue.

To proponents of these deals, I ask, "Can't you see our future is the hat, and these deasl are what makes it empty? Or do you just not care because you'll profit from it? (But more on that later).

For months, Indianapolis’ illusionist-in-chief has touted the sale of the city water and wastewater facilities to Citizens Gas as a one-stop, $425 million bonanza of smaller rate increases (a/k/a "backdoor tax increases"), roads, bridges, and sidewalks. That’s a complete distortion, but fortunately, now that the Indianapolis Star’s Francesca Jarosz has seen the Mayor's misdirection, she won't let him dart out of the spotlight of public scrutiny.

Here’s the real deal, folks. City-County Councillor Mike Speedy has introduced two resolutions. The first is for the transfer of the water and wastewater facilities to Citizens Gas, a deal plagued with problems but not the subject of this post. The second is for the issuance the aforementioned bonds, a notion crammed into the City’s Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) though it has absolutely no connection to the Cit Gas deal.

Why do I say there is no connection? Because Mayor Ballard’s chief-of-staff, Chris Cotterill, said so.

From the Star:

[Cotterill] said the city can collect the $140 million whether or not the Citizens sale is approved. That money comes from annual payments made from the sewer utility in place of taxes, and because the sewer system is appreciating in value, the city is increasing the annual payments and capturing them upfront.

Why would Ballard combine the two? PR. He wants the bigger number.

But let me dissect something for you because this is critical.

“capturing them upfront….”

That phrase – “capturing them upfront” – makes me chuckle. It sounds like the Mayor took a butterfly net and, through his NatGeo-acquired tracking skills, snagged the rare specious, Taxpayerus Chumpus.

Every time you hear “captured them upfront,” your mind should automatically think, “unleashed your financial future into the wild to be devoured."

You see, there is a schedule of payments in lieu of taxes (PILOT) to be made to the City of Indianapolis through 2039 by either the current management of the water/wastewater system or Citizens Gas (Exhibit E of the Memorandum of Understanding), and folks, it's clearly more than $140 million, even over a ten-year span. I can only assume, therefore, that this graph of what WILL be paid already includes the additional amount expected from capital spending. But there's absolutely no explanation on that point. Did the Mayor just pull this $140 million out of a hat, too?

Here is something else fascinating I just saw in the MOU that I missed before:

The City has projected that given the significant capital spending associated with the Wastewater system, the annual payment in lieu of taxes will increase in accordance with law. Accordingly, the City intends to issue debt secured by the PILOT ("PILOT Bonds")prior to the time a definitive agreement may be reached by the parties.

Isn't that the strangest (and most arrogant) thing? The MOU actually foretells the timetable for issuing the bonds vis-a-vis the water company transfer. Were I a city-county councillor, that might rub me the wrong way.

But getting back to the philosophical issue, instead of living within the City’s means and collecting the PILOT dollars year-to-year, the Mayor is going to take a loan against all of these future payments so that he can have and spend all of the money right now. This is why I keep telling you all it’s a payday loan scam.

Can you imagine pulling this same idea with our local option income tax (LOIT)? I don’t have the precise figures on how much that 1.62% LOIT brings in annually, but say I'm mayor, and I say, "Hey, we know for a fact we're usually around $200 million. What if we go find a private company that will give us $100 million now for the next ten years instead? This is basically what we're looking at, folks.

You WILL pay for every dollar of this in the form of higher sewer rates, but guess what? When it comes time to hold the guy who hoisted this onto you accountable, he'll be out of office traveling the globe with his wife. And therein lies the diabolical genius of the Mayor's plan. He'll sell us all on how we need to take political decisions out of politicians' hands because they won't "do the right thing" and ask for tax increases when they're needed, but he'll make certain whoever follows in his shoes has to do exactly that by taking away what would otherwise be general fund revenues for the City.

Also, while I don't want to get conspiratorial on anybody, if you have a Cit Gas board comprised of the Indy business elite, might it be a stretch to envision a Board deciding to press as hard as possible for rate increases during the term of a progressive mayor they want to make a one-termer? I say this because non-profits are some of the most "political" orgnaizations in existence, and a quarter of the citizenry will still try to blame the Mayor for every rate hike, even though they're told repeatedly it wasn't his/her decision, and the rest will just have some Carteresque malaise that colors the rest of the voters' opinions about life in the big city under Mayor x/y.

Coming soon....what political insiders are supporting this deal and why

The Mayor's Magic Water Deal

American Conservative Union Calls Dan Coats "Old Man"?

Mary Beth Schneider of the Indianapolis Star reports that Marlin Stutzman has received the endorsement of the American Conservative Union (ACU) in his bid to become the Republican candidate for U.S. Senate. But even David Keene, the chairman of “the oldest and largest conservative group” that made that endorsement, won’t call out Coats on any vote or specific policy issue.

Keene said:

There are other good people running in this race who are good people, but the fact of the matter is that the problems we have today require a new generation of conservative Republican leaders. Dan Coast was a fine senator and represented this state well. But frankly that was then, and this is now. We need new energetic leadership. We need people who can take these problems and really try to wrestle them to the ground.

Is the GOP electing a senate candidate or a contender for the WWF title? If there are no policy differences between Stutzman and Coats the ACU finds salient, and Coats did such a bang up job, how can anyone read the ACU’s statement as anything more than saying Coats is too ancient and feeble to serve?

Look at the code words – “new,” “energetic,” and “that was then, this is now.” The ACU (and Stutzman) would have been better off had they made a specific vote-based critique. But the ACU wouldn't speak on it, undoubtedly out of fear that if Coats wins, they’d be outside looking in.

American Conservative Union Calls Dan Coats "Old Man"?

Double Shock Power Wednesday for Brizzi, Judge William Young

Fox 59’s Russ McQuaid (who has been on Brizzi like onions on a Harry & Izzy’s steakburger) reports that a waitress for the restaurant name dropped Brizzi and Peyton Manning to a police officer following her arrest for operating while intoxicated.

Her case was ultimately (and properly) handled by a special prosecutor. You might say, “So Brizzi's policy of recusing himself worked? What’s the issue?”

McQuaid reports that Judge William Young “turned down the special prosecutor request three times to display his displeasure with Brizzi's ownership of the bar, the inherent conflict of interest, and the expense of administering such a relatively minor case.” (Unfortunately, the story does not report what the actual cost is for a special prosecutor).

Ring. Ring.

“Hello, Kettle? Yes, this is the pot calling to tell you you’re black.”

Judge Young is worried about how much it cost in one case to appoint a special prosecutor?

How about the cost that we’ll all pay for the class action lawsuit because the Judge has been charging extra money for people to take their traffic cases to trial, in pretty clear violation of, oh, what’s that called again…...oh, right, the Constitution?

My rule of thumb is that if the Indiana General Assembly approves a law and the Governor signs it specifically to undo something I did, that’s a pretty good indication that I’ve screwed up majorly, and I might just want to sit down and keep quiet.

Also, the Indianapolis Star's Jon Murray reports that after Brizzi's press secertary Mario Massillamany resigned following his DUI arrest, Brizzi hired the PR firm of Hirons & Company.

According to Murray, this deal actually saves the taxpayers money because, at $6,500 per month, it ends up being $78,000 annually, which was $2,000 less than Mario's salary, and that's before including benefits. (In fact, I'm astonished Mayor Ballard hasn't outsourced every public information officer job yet in exchange for campaign cash from the PR firms. But I digress).

Two things bothers me about this story. First, the bar shouldn't be how much would we have paid if Mario stayed. It should be how much can we save now that he's gone. Am I to believe that, in this economy, Brizzi couldn't find anybody with a PR background who would serve in his office for eight months?

I'd say with almost certainty that Brizzi didn't even try for fear that posting the job publicly would result in too many punchlines. But I'd bet with, again, almost certainty that some young upstart would come in for a $50,000 salary, the chance to throw massive money into a deferred compensation plan, and an opportunity to say (s)he managed the hardest PR campaign in Marion County history. If you survive that, what agency wouldn't hire you?

But Brizzi needed "professional" crisis management. I understand there's always going to be an overlap between the PR related to the operation of the office and the PR related to the candidate in the office. But we shouldn't have to pay for the impossible - an effort to rehabilitate Carl Brizzi's image.

Double Shock Power Wednesday for Brizzi, Judge William Young