I'm hanging up my blogging hat for the time being, but if you're interested in keeping this site alive, drop me a line, and we can chat about that possibility.
I hope someone will keep the focus on Ballard's administration and all his fabulous plans for Chinatown and cricket while I'm away doing campaign things.
If not, it's been fun!
Stories like this one about the arrest of Deputy Mayor Olgen Williams' 28-year-old son, Olgen M. Williams (hereinafter "Senior" and "Junior" for ease of identification), for solicitation always produce questions about whether such things are newsworthy in the first place. A brief Q&A to explain:
Q: Is this story newsworthy?
A: Yes.Q: Why?
A: Several reasons. First, Junior is a public servant in his own right, working as a bailiff for $24,875 of your taxpayer dollars each year. Second, he is the son of one of Greg Ballard's top deputies, the top deputy, in fact, who's in charge of a marketing campaign aimed at reducing crime.Q: Does that mean Senior is somehow responsible for Junior's actions?
A: Nope.Q: How can that be?
A: Remember when the Bush twins were making news all the time for being drunk and disorderly? Same theory applies here. It was news because Daddy was the leader of the free world, but it wasn't his fault that they engaged in the behavior.
UPDATE: It would appear that Olgen M. Williams is (was?) an officer of the court. According to the Star's database of local government salaries, Williams is being paid $24,875 a year as a bailiff. It is unclear in which court he works or when he was hired.
Deputy Mayor Olgen Williams' 28-year-old son, Olgen M. Williams, was arrested late last week after offering $16 to an undercover police officer in exchange for oral sex. The Star reports:
The son of Deputy Mayor Olgen Williams faces a preliminary charge of solicitation of a prostitute, a misdemeanor, after being arrested last week.
Olgen M. Williams, 28, 5300 Rosewood Commons Drive, was arrested shortly after midnight Thursday near West Washington Street and South Holmes Avenue.
According to a police report, Williams drove up to a female undercover officer and offered her $16 for oral sex.
He was cited and given a summons to appear in court; no court date had been set as of Sunday.
Sgt. Matthew Mount, spokesman for the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department, said the arrest took place during a training exercise for new undercover officers.
Contacted at his home on Sunday, Deputy Mayor Williams commended police for good work and said he has advised his son to seek counseling. He also said the incident showed that "no matter who you are, if you do that stuff, you will be caught."
Nice spin, but this happened three days ago. It's always better to break bad news yourself instead of hoping no one notices.
UPDATE: After checking out some of the other coverage of yesterday's press conference, it looks like a couple of the television stations picked up the fact that this actually was the fourth annual "Peace In The Streets" kickoff rally. The WTHR report also included this interesting nugget:
The city is already working on several programs geared toward reaching trouble youth across the city. One of the programs includes a large addition to the Christamore House.
Again, no one is saying what the Christamore House does isn't worthy of community and financial support. However, Ballard spent a lot of time on the campaign trail talking about conflicts of interest only to turn around and hire a deputy mayor away from an organization that's now going to get a large influx of taxpayer cash.
Is Olgen Williams overseeing the distribution of that money? Does he have sole discretion? What other projects are being funded? How did Ballard arrive at the decision to fund those projects and this one? What organizations aren't being funded? So many questions need to be answered before this passes the smell test Ballard himself set up during the campaign.
EARLIER: Here's how a story in this morning's Indianapolis Star described Greg Ballard's "Peace In The Streets" crime-fighting campaign:
Ballard joined clergy, business leaders and civic groups at Christamore House, 502 N. Tremont St., on Friday morning as he launched his new street-level crime-fighting effort.
The words "new" and "launched" imply that Ballard is implementing something unique that he came up with on his own, yes?
From a story that ran in the Star on Feb. 8, 2006:
Mayor Bart Peterson and U.S. Attorney Susan Brooks joined community activists including Olgen Williams, executive director of Christamore House, to speak out Monday against the recent shootings of two women and four children who lived at a Westside apartment complex.
Keyonia R. Dunn, 20, and Erika L. Thornton, 31, were killed and four children ages 2 to 10 were injured Wednesday at the Forest Hills Apartments. Dunn's boyfriend, who is in jail in Bloomington on an unrelated charge, has been described as a "person of interest" in the case.
Aaron Williams, Olgen Williams' son and executive director of Peace in the Streets Youth, lived in the same complex until about a week before the shootings. He said the incident hit the entire city hard.
"We want to raise awareness and alertness that we're not about violence," he said. "We're about peace."
On July 27, 2006, the Star ran a list of recipients of funding from the Nina Masson Pulliam Charitable Trust. It included:
Christamore House, $75,000, to expand its Peace in the Streets program.
So, not only has this program been around for at least two years, including during the time when Ballard was complaining about crime being out of control, but it's funded through the organization that was run by Olgen Williams until he quit to become a deputy mayor a few months ago.
Furthermore, as noted in the February 2006 story and on the Christamore House website, the "Peace In The Streets" initiative is run by Williams' son, Aaron.
The question, then, is whether Williams, in his official capacity as deputy mayor, plans on funding a program run by his son with our taxpayer dollars.
It may be the best program in the world, but someone should remind Ballard of his anti-cronyism campaign promise: "All of my hires will be with the understanding that we work for the citizens of Indianapolis, and not to protect our own power or that of any organization."
For the record, if you take a gander at the Christamore House's 2006 Form 990, it looks like a big chunk of the organization's money comes from public sources, which further begs the question of whether Ballard, given his alleged disdain for conflicts of interest, would approve the potential distribution of taxpayer dollars under his control to his deputy mayor's son.
Overall, there's something here that doesn't look quite right, and it's not just the fact that the media bought into the notion that this initiative is something new.
Mayor Simpleton strikes again!
Mayor Greg Ballard wants "Peace in the Streets" to become the city's new buzzword in a marketing campaign he hopes will reduce crime.
"Marketing works," Ballard said. "This is our marketing message."
Ballard joined clergy, business leaders and civic groups this morning in a pep rally as he launched his new street-level crime-fighting effort.
“Working together, as one community, we can bring about peace in the streets,” Ballard told a crowd of about 200 gathered at the Westside’s Christamore House.
The mayor said urged citizens to band together and keep crime at bay in their neighborhoods.
There have been 21 homicides reported in Marion County this year, compared to 28 by this time last year.
That's right, Random Criminal Guy, the next time you're thinking about robbing some old lady at gunpoint for a few dollars, you'd better think about peace in the streets. (But not piss in the streets. That's also a crime.)
Remember the last memorable marketing campaign the government came up with to fight crime?
Yeah, that one really worked, too.
Someone, please get Greg Ballard to stop talking about creating a Chinatown here.
Chicago, San Francisco and New York all have Chinatowns, Greektowns and other ethnic enclaves. Enclaves of the type not seen in Indianapolis.
Mayor Greg Ballard says he would like to see something like that within city limits. Ballard says in an increasingly global world, Indianapolis needs "to position itself to become more well-known internationally."
He says by creating cultural enclaves, such as a Chinatown, Indianapolis could "showcase its diversity" and also become more of a destination.
"So that people around the state and region would say Indianapolis has these communities. As part of our weekend it might be a good place to go," he said.
Jong Sung owns Saraga International Grocery by Lafyette Square. It carries thousands of food items from around the world. Sung says he likes the mayor's idea.
"It's good for diversity and to see different cultures. I think it will draw a lot of business and people to the city, make it fun."
The mayor says a Chinatown is probably years away. There's currently no plan for it, no resources available. He says what he's trying to do is get people talking about the possibilities.
Thursday Ballard met with representatives of the Japan-America Society of Indiana, one of several groups with whom he's sharing his ideas.
"We're thrilled with the mayor's focus on international relations," said executive director Theresa Kulczak.
Kulczak said her group would like to develop a Japanese Center and Garden in Indianapolis. Currently there is nowhere in Indiana where people can go and have a truly authentic experience of Japan whether it's outdoors or in a building. You have to go to other states."
As for a Chinatown in Indianapolis, the mayor could have a ways to go. The most recent U.S. Census shows Asians make up just 1.6% of the population.
Apparently, reversing course on the whole issue of where the proceeds from the RCA Dome auction will go wasn't that hard after all. It was just hard for Mayor Fluffinstuff to figure out. The Star reports:
Bowing to public opinion and facing a lawsuit, the Capital Improvement Board reversed course Thursday on what to do with the money generated by the sale of RCA Dome memorabilia.
Rather than allow the dollars to go to two nonprofits, the board unanimously voted to keep most of the proceeds.
The CIB now will pay a fee of $200,000 to one of the nonprofits, the Indiana Sports Corp., to manage the auction and return the rest of what could be more than $1 million in proceeds to its general fund. That means taxpayers will keep the money.
The original plan was to allow the Indiana Sports Corp. and Indianapolis Colts Foundation to run the auction and keep all of the money.
The money going to the Sports Corp. will cover the cost of running the massive operation of taking out, selling and delivering the Dome's seats, aisle signs, pieces of cloth from the roof and even urinals.
Greg Ballard talked plenty on the campaign trail about bringing back the Front Porch Alliance, though at times he seemed not to understand what it did or why it was transitioned into something else under Mayor Peterson's administration.
Anyway, word from the inside is that Ballard will not be making good on this promise until yet another new staffer is hired on the 25th floor to run the program.
Ballard already created a new position in his office for former City-County Council member Sherron Franklin, and it looks like he's planning to add this job, which also falls under the area of neighborhood outreach. Not to question the leadership of a guy who breaks campaign promises like it's a cool thing to do, but it kind of makes you wonder what the deputy mayor in charge of this area is actually in charge of doing on a day-to-day basis.
In Greg Ballard's mind, he is a self-assumed "Master of the Universe." In reality, he's benefited from being in the right place at the right time. The Star's Matt Tully opines:
We've known Ballard for less than a year, and while it's far too early in his term to determine how effective he's going to be as mayor, one thing is clear: The man has impeccable timing.
Like Forrest Gump, only brighter, of course, he always seems to be in the right place at the right time. Remember, this is a guy who got a spot on the ballot last year only because no other Republican of decent standing had the courage to take on then-Mayor Bart Peterson. To paraphrase Woody Allen, the most important thing Ballard did was show up.
He showed up just as the property tax issue was preparing to explode, and just before the political world began crashing around Peterson.
Now Ballard has been given another gift. The state legislature, as part of a sweeping property tax plan, has agreed to pay off outstanding police and fire pension debts for local governments. Peterson and other mayors spent years dreaming of the day the state would take control of this debt, perhaps the most crushing financial headache facing Indiana cities. That goal -- which saves Indianapolis roughly $1 billion over several decades -- eluded Peterson. But it arrived before the new mayor had finished decorating his office at the City-County Building.
Timing is key, and Ballard's timing is unmatched.
The mayor was clearly pleased with the pension development when he called reporters to his office Monday afternoon.
"The city has tried for years to convince the state to provide this relief," he said. "I'm happy to say we got it done in three months."
He urged me not to write that he was gloating. But, come on.
With all that puffery, something else is abundantly clear about Ballard: He's no statesman. Not only does he think he solved this problem on his own, but he can't help taking a swipe at the people who set the stage for him to receive his prize:
"I'm a pretty quick study," he said. "There is a way to work with the Statehouse and a way not to."
That led to a dig at the former mayor.
"We didn't go over there with 40 people and a fancy Power Point presentation," Ballard said, adding, "I learned enough to know they didn't want to see the mayor of Indianapolis every day."
It's probably best you didn't go over there every day, Greg. It would have been hard to fit your ego through the door, and hubris sets off the metal detectors something fierce.
That "average guy" image is washing off pretty fast.
Here's a hint for the next time you inherit a windfall like this: Be generous. Talk about how your efforts put things over the top, but you couldn't have done it without bipartisan help from lawmakers and those who came before you. It'll make you seem less -- what's the word? -- bitter and more mayoral. Petty is the domain of political hacks; you're supposed to rise above and inspire.
Someone should ask Greg Ballard to explain in detail how he crafted the bestest local property tax relief plan ever at the Statehouse this session. You could sell tickets to that response.
Naturally, Ballard is claiming that his efforts -- and his efforts alone -- led lawmakers to absorb public safety pension debt. Again, someone should ask Ballard to explain the plan just to watch him fumble for a response.
Of course, Hizzoner, despite plenty of fire and brimstone on the campaign trail, has no intention of giving back the money from last year's local income tax increase, which was intended to cover that debt.
But don't worry. He's not off the hook yet. Even if he somehow tries to count the shifted pension costs toward his $70 million in pledged cuts, which requires a leap of logical faith, he's still going to come up $40 million short over the next two years.
Whatcha gonna cut, Greg? Budget season is right around the corner, and we're dying to hear your next insanely brilliant plan.
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