A Big Test for Ballard
There’s is an old adage that past is prologue, that if you want to know what people are going to do in the future, you should look at what they have done in the past. That same adage applies to the Ballard administration and the scandal involving the Land Bank which landed two city employees and three others on the receiving end of a federal indictment for wire fraud and bribery.
The case is pretty simple, the U.S. Attorney’s office filed charges against 29-year old Reggie Walton and 27-year old John Hawkins for a scheme where they are alleged to have arranged sales of abandoned properties to not-for-profit which in turn sold the properties to a for-profit group which in turn gave Walton and Hawkins a cut of the proceeds. Even more disturbing is that Walton is accused of being a silent partner in a not-for-profit that was also allegedly involved in the scam.
The city has suspended Walton and Hawkins indefinitely without pay. It is at this point where the administration’s critics are chomping at the bits for a Watergate/Benghazi type scandal. The only way they will get their wish is if the administration gives it to them, which I doubt. The city already took the first step in dismissing the two alleged wrongdoers. In a statement released yesterday they thanked the U.S. Attorney for his work and reminded the media that they toughened the city’s ethics rules as well as whistle blower protections.
While statements are good, it will always be actions that ultimately matter. One of the things I look at it how things were handled with the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police department. If you recall a few years ago, it seemed that every other day there was an officer somewhere behaving badly and his or her actions besmirched the good names of the officers who came to work and did their jobs and didn’t engage in activities like drunk driving or shaking down suspects. The administration didn’t hide or cover up the bad apples, it went through the painful public process of cleaning up IMPD and it is a much better place now than it was before.
The same applies with current controversy involving the Land Bank. If the administration is smart, it will launch a top down review of the entire operation and see where exactly the breakdown took place and how did Hawkins and Walton manage to allegedly engage in their activities without anyone internally finding out. The U.S. Attorney did say they were notified via a whistle blower, but that person was not a city employee. One challenge will be convincing state lawmakers to change the current loophole in the law which allows not-for-profits to purchase abandoned homes and quickly sell them once they have been acquired. A bill was introduced in the legislature, but died. So the city will have to examine what safeguards can be put in place once property is no longer under its control.
The City of Indianapolis is like any organization with thousands of people working for it. It is unrealistic to not expect there to be a few bad apples in the bunch. The challenge for leadership is how do they deal with the bad apples once they have been discovered and what policies do they put in place to prevent any other apples from going bad. We will find out in the next day or so exactly how the Ballard administration plans to do that. If past is prologue, it may not be a pretty process, but it will the city will be a better place for it being done.
