For the past six years I have spent the second Saturday night of Indiana Black Expo working the door as a “bouncer” at Nicky Blaine’s cigar bar on Monument Circle. I go back and forth between working the door and walking around the immediate downtown vicinity talking to law enforcement and other folks. I was […]
Although Indianapolis City-County Council Democrats are touting their “Rebuild Indy” plan as a viable alternative to Mayor Greg Ballard’s infrastructure plan, there could be a legal road block that could stop their proposal from taking effect. As part of their $340 million plan, Council Democrats have proposed taking $45 million from the downtown TIF district. […]
In an effort to assist Indianapolis residents figure out how the Ballard administration’s proposed elimination of the local Homestead property tax credit would impact their pocketbooks, Indiana Barrister is providing a link to the city’s webpage that can show you how your tax bill would change. Just click on the link and enter your parcel number. I did […]
Indianapolis Mayor Greg Ballard will introduce a budget Monday night that closes the city’s $55 million shortfall without raising income taxes, but it does expand the city’s tax base while holding the line on spending and adding new police officers. Due to the national economy and declining income tax revenues Indianapolis was facing a $55 […]
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 […]
It is customary at the end of the legislative session to do a postmortem and talk about how lawmakers did, or in some cases, didn’t do. So as I join the list of political prognosticators, allow me to offer my opinion. In this case, everyone won big, ironically by losing a little. Let’s walk down […]
Although a lot of the focus in Senate Bill 621, the Marion County Government/Power Grab reform bill, has been on whether to eliminate the at-large City-County Council seats, the legislation includes much more substantive, far-reaching provisions that are, in my opinion, far more important than whether four politicians keep their part-time jobs. Part of SB […]
Although his office has overspent his budget by more than $20 million over the past three years, Sheriff John Layton is doing his best to save his skin and avoid any fiscal oversight as called for in SB 621. The embedded file below is a list of e-mails he has been sending out to department […]
One of my favorite films is Casablanca. And while you would think my favorite character would be Humphrey Bogart’s Rick Blaine (totally understandable), it is actually Claude Raine’s character Capt. Louis Renault, particularly the scene above when he tells Rick he is closing down the Club because he is “shocked to find that there is […]
