Susie Day and Mike Speedy Think Lincoln Plowman Should Serve Sentence at Home

State Representative Mike Speedy (R) and outgoing councilor Susie Day (R) recently wrote letters to Judge Larry McKinney. The subject matter: Pleading their case so that convicted felon Lincoln Plowman could serve his sentence outside of prison. Plowman, a former Republican councilor and high ranking IMPD officer, was recently convicted on federal charges of bribery and attempted extortion.

I think it's absolutely disgusting that Day and Speedy wrote these letters just so their friend won't have to go to jail. I think it's sickening that people like Day and Speedy see nothing wrong with Plowman using his power and influence within his government jobs to enrich himself and his "clients".

I think it says a lot about our elected officials' moral compass that someone can betray the public trust, use government resources for their own personal benefit, and cost taxpayers thousands of dollars, and they think it's appropriate for that corrupt person to sit at home as punishment. I can't help but wonder if they'd give the same type of leniency to someone who steals $100 from a gas station. That's far less money than what Plowman stole.

If you were on Facebook at the time Plowman was convicted, you'd see members of the City-County Council talking about what a great, moral, awesome, kind, compassionate, amazing person Lincoln Plowman is. That this isn't the Plowman they know. That they can't believe he did this. That he's just a swell guy.

I've got news for those councilors: Your friend was convicted in a federal court of abusing the public's trust. It took a jury of his peers only a few hours to convict him. And I think it says a lot about you, personally, that you guys continue to defend this man.

If you feel like contacting Mike Speedy and Susie Day to tell them how you feel about this issue, here's how to reach them:

Mike Speedy:

Personal Facebook page

Facebook Campaign page

Indiana House Contact page

Susie Day:

Personal Facebook page

Twitter page

317-787-2417

Former Republican Councilman/IMPD Charged in Federal Indictment

I just received a news update e-mail from 93.1 WIBC-FM. Former City-County Councilman Lincoln Plowman, a Republican who resigned amidst controversy, has been named in a federal indictment. He is charged with one count of attempted extortion and one count of bribery.

Plowman was also an officer within the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department. IMPD was conducting an internal investigation before he resigned, and stopped the investigation once he did.

This is the first major federal action against a local politician ever since it became known that the Federal Bureau of Investigation was looking into corruption among local politicians last year.

You can read Abdul Hakim-Shabazz's investigation into what exactly Plowman did here. What he wrote was largely confirmed by a The Indianapolis Star report filed a couple of weeks after he published his post.


This is the most significant action taken by federal authorities since last year's raid on Tim Durham's office in downtown Indianapolis. Durham has so far not been charged with a crime and has been able to avoid court orders to freeze his assets.

UPDATE: Wish-TV is also reporting the story with a few more details. Plowman was allegedly helping a "developer"/undercover agent in obtaining licensing and all that good stuff for a new strip club in return for bribes and campaign contribution.

Advance Indiana has the entire press release up.

UPDATE II: The 25th floor takes to Facebook to speak out:

Earlier this year, IMPD’s Professional Standards Division investigated former Officer Lincoln Plowman on concerns of wrongdoing. Shortly before the conclusion of that investigation, Mr. Plowman retired from IMPD & resigned from the City-County Council. Though Mr. Plowman is due his day in court, today's announcement by the U.S. Attorney’s Office supports IMPD's concerns.

Furthermore, we hold all of our public, elected officials to the highest standards and expect them to conduct themselves with integrity in a manner in which they never abuse their power or influence.

I honestly wasn't expecting them to say anything about it.

Child Protective Services Says Carmel "Hazing" was Criminal Deviate (Sexual) Conduct

Note: I have uploaded the CPS to my Google Docs for posterity. You can also find a link to download the report on most of the local television news stations. This blog entry, as well as the CPS report is very graphic in detail of what happened in these alleged cases of assault. I'll be honest and say that I'm close to tears after reading the CPS report.

A report prepared by Indiana Department of Child Services states that criminal deviant conduct is an appropriate charge for the alleged perpetrators in the Carmel High School hazing cover-up case. The report states that sexual harassment has been going on since November 2009, and that it progressively gets more physical as time goes on, culminating in the February 2010 incident that happened on a bus after a basketball game as the team made it's way home from Terre Haute. The victim sought treatment at Clarian North Medical Center's Emergency Room the following day after the incident on the bus.

The report goes into much more detail than the numerous, heavily redacted documents released earlier while the story was initially unfolding. The report identifies the four expelled students who are now charged with misdemeanor assault and criminal recklessness charges (Brandon Hoge, Robert Kitzinger, Oscar Falodun, Scott Laskowski). In November 2009, they started flashing their genitals to the victim. And since this wasn't enough, they started touching the victim's own genitals. Eventually, they started taking him into the shower in the locker rooms and forced their fingers up his anus while the victim's shorts were still on. The alleged perpetrators threatened to "beat his ass" if the victim told anyone. The victim says he'd shout for help from the lockers, and claims it happened before practice.

The incident on the bus is also more detailed than in previous accounts. The victim says he was trying to sleep, but heard three of his teammates (minus Falodun) calling his name. The victim went to the back of the bus where they were all sitting, and there was an awkward silence. Then, Laskowski grabbed the victim's legs, they all pulled off his sweat pants, and Hoge anally penetrated him. Kitzinger is claimed to have sat on top of the victim to muffle his cry for help, which apparently worked because no one came.

The most stunning part of the report is a quote from one of the witnesses, claiming it was "almost a daily thing" for Falodun, Laskowski, and Kitzinger to harass the victim.

Oscar Falodun was the only one of the four who agreed to be interviewed by DCS. His attorney and mother were also present. Falodun's interview isn't just coming at these scenes from a different perspective. Falodun claims "no one picked on him" and that the victim had a good time in the locker room. He claims any harassment was "just pushing and stuff" and not sexual in nature, and claims he has never mooned or "gooched" anyone, despite being presented with a witness statement saying he has.

The report goes on to list the relevant sections of Indiana law that define criminal deviant conduct.

IC 35-42-4-2
Criminal deviate conduct
Sec. 2. (a) A person who knowingly or intentionally causes another person to perform or submit to deviate sexual conduct when:
(1) the other person is compelled by force or imminent threat of force;
(2) the other person is unaware that the conduct is occurring; or
(3) the other person is so mentally disabled or deficient that consent to the conduct cannot be given;
commits criminal deviate conduct, a Class B felony.
(b) An offense described in subsection (a) is a Class A felony if:
(1) it is committed by using or threatening the use of deadly force;
(2) it is committed while armed with a deadly weapon;
(3) it results in serious bodily injury to any person other than a defendant; or
(4) the commission of the offense is facilitated by furnishing the victim, without the victim's knowledge, with a drug (as defined in IC 16-42-19-2(1)) or a controlled substance (as defined in IC 35-48-1-9) or knowing that the victim was furnished with the drug or controlled substance without the victim's knowledge.

One of the attorneys for the accused is complaining about Robert Turner, the lawyer for the victim, and the victim's parents for releasing this information, and might be seeking a gag order on Turner. But what I found more interesting was that Turner is thinking about getting the federal government involved, particularly the Justice Department and their civil rights division.

Gary Welsh also has an excellent post written up at Advance Indiana.

Fires and frozen fire hydrants: Is there a pattern?

First, we had the fire that destroys a restaurant with THREE frozen fire hydrants. Then late Tuesday night a man died in a fire with at least one frozen fire hydrant nearby, and another burning building containing three businesses couldn't be saved due to a lack of water and multiple frozen fire hydrants.

Anyone else noticing a pattern here? I made this little map on Google Maps. Maybe Mayor Ballard, or whatever intern manages his Twitter account, will take a gander:


View East Side fires with at least one frozen fire hydrant in a larger map

"Parking Court" follows in the unconstitutional steps of Traffic Court of Marion County

I put "Court" in quotes because some are questioning if it actually is a real court or not. But we'll get to that later.

First, Mayor Greg Ballard issued a press release, which you can read here:

INDIANAPOLIS – On December 1st, the City of Indianapolis will pilot a parking citation court in an effort to improve the way the city collects revenue from parking citations. The court will hold hearings at the former Guardian Home facility and will be managed five days a week to give violators an opportunity to pay outstanding citations.

"We have seen a significant lack of collections with unpaid parking citations and feel this is a way to increase revenue while working under our Six Sigma process to manage the program with greater efficiencies," said Manuel Mendez, Deputy Controller.

Using Six Sigma process improvement strategies, it is estimated that under this program the City may collect an additional $352,000 to $520,000 in parking citation revenue over the next 12 months.

The parking citation court will be managed by T2 Systems, which currently oversees the City’s collections and software for parking tickets. The court, which will hold hearings on a daily basis, will allow violators increased opportunities from the currently run system which holds hearings every two weeks.

"Our goal with this program is to assist the City in collecting parking citation revenue. Working together with the City, T2 Systems also offers payment options over the Internet, mail or IVR to make paying citations as easy and convenient as possible," said Jim Zaloudek, Chief Financial Officer for T2. "This allows us to fulfill our role of helping the City’s parking operations be as profitable and efficient as possible."

If citations are not paid prior to their scheduled hearing, the City may request a fine of up to $2,500 per citation. Upon receiving a judgment for an unpaid citation, individuals responsible could be subject to collections actions or having their vehicle registration suspended.

The citation court opens Tuesday, December 1st from the hours of 9am to 3pm at the Guardian Home located at 5751 University Ave.

Ok, so this "court" has no actual judges, or anything resembling a court. It is being run by a for-profit company, T2 Systems, which just so happens to be the same company that manages the collection of parking tickets and the software used to assist in the process. In other words, they have a vested interest in making sure these kingpins of crime...er, average citizens, pay their parking tickets.

The Indianapolis Star published two articles. Both are pretty much a slight variation of the press release from the city, but the second had one sentence that I long suspected:

T2 Systems, a private contractor that runs parking ticket collections and software for the city, handles the additional court operations. Those costs will be covered by revenues from parking tickets.

Yep, that's right. The for-profit company in charge of the court and in charge of collecting fines is going to be financed by...well, the fees it collects.

"But Matt, how is any of this unconstitutional?" I'm glad you asked. Article I, Section 16 of the Indiana Constitution has this to say:

Excessive bail or fines, Cruel and unusual punishment
Excessive bail shall not be required. Excessive fines shall not be imposed. Cruel and unusual punishments shall not be inflicted. All penalties shall be proportioned to the nature of the offense.

In addition to the above, Traffic Court is also closed to the public, where the Constitution makes it very clear in that "All courts must be open." I imagine Parking "court" follows a similar rule.

Add this on top of the broken promises of Mayor Greg Ballard. He's pushed for higher taxes to cover his buddies at the Capitol Improvement Board, supported the Health and Hospital Corporation's scheme of a new hospital (and used city resources to promote it), supported the hike in water rates, and has failed to get enough money to hire the 50 new police officers his budget promised.

He has gone out of his way to support his well connected country club friends and screw the average citizen. It is a huge disappointment.

Look who is a supporter of Wishard!

Over at WRTV6, they reported this:

Indianapolis Mayor Greg Ballard celebrated with hundreds of supporters Tuesday night, announcing news that the Wishard Memorial Hospital referendum had passed.

Did this guy say a single word on the referendum? Shouldn't he have held a press conference, shown some leadership?

EDIT: A Indianapolis Star story noted Ballard as being one of the first supporters of the referendum. I'm going to take them for their word at the moment, but he sure has been silent about it for a while.

Found a story with Ballard issuing a press conference in July. True, he has supported it since early on. It just seems strange that he didn't bother to take a stand on the smoking ordinance, and has been largely silent on Wishard in the past few weeks.

Why I voted no on the referedum

My initial title was "Why I voted against Wishard", but that would be misleading. That would imply that enough "No" votes would prevent them from building the new hospital. But the vote wasn't on if the Health and Hospital Corporation should fund a new facility, but if it can take out bonds backed by property taxes which would get them the lowest rates possible.

First, let's study the referendum itself. It never mentions building a new hospital, or the cost, or where the new building will go. It doesn't mention how it will be financed, and what taxes back that financing. It doesn't mention the size of the new hospital (it'll have 50 less beds than the current one), or what will happen to the current one. It is basically a one-sided referendum, written by Health and Hospital, to purposely mislead people on voting "Yes" to a new hospital, even though it isn't mentioned.

Out and about, officials from HHC have said this won't raise taxes, that the revenue from HHC owned nursing homes will cover it. But HHC doesn't actually own nursing homes, but only owns them on paper so they can bill the federal government twice. The health care bill running through the national Congress is going to gut the funding for the over-payment of government owned nursing homes. And even if that doesn't happen, HHC is scamming the feds, and eventually they'll find out.

Moreso, if a public option does pass, then people will have the ability to go to a variety of hospitals and won't have to use Wishard. What will happen then?

And once that money runs out, where is it going to come from? Property taxes.

(Read this post by Gary Welsh for more of this)

Now, besides that, HHC is also in charge of enforcing various health code laws. They claim that Wishard is "dying" and "falling apart." If that's true, where are all the health code violations? If a new hospital is needed, then why is the Wishard campus in constant (re)construction, adding new office buildings, parking garages, and even a new restaurant?

Honestly, I'd probably have voted for the referendum if it was presented honestly, during a regularly scheduled election, so that this county could have a healthy debate on the city funding a hospital for the less fortunate among us. We would also have a clearer picture of what type of health care reform will happen in DC and make appropriate modifications. But right now, this stinks to high heaven, and seems to be a new construction project because hey, it's been a while since we've built a new palace.

City sets double standard for itself and private property owners.

Guess who gets the pass?

WRTV6 tonight had a story talking about graffiti on abandoned homes, deliquent properties, etc... While the city will try to get out to do something about it (wasn't public safety priority #1 for Ballard?), they'd like the neighborhood to take care of it.

What isn't too focused on in the story is that the city owns properties that they have let go to pot, graffiti, asbestos, and all. The site of Wianona Hospital has been owned by the city for years, used by it in Dec 2008 to train SWAT teams, and then forgotten about. Has the city gotten a fine for it? Has the Parks department gotten a citation for letting Busch Stadium go to crap?

CIB fires 11 low paid employees, wants more money for ICVA

The Capital Improvement Board continues their manufactured PR campaign to seem like they are REALLY tightening their belts by firing 11 employees. The Star reported that the first 9 would save $325,000, but didn't specify how much the other 2 would save a few days later.

Doing the math, 325,000/9 gets us to about $36,000 a year. Add that twice into $325,000 and we're up to $361,000. Divide that by 11 and we're just below $33,000 a year.

Mr. Ogden over at Ogden on Politics makes a reasonable assumption that the total cost-saving also includes benefits. So we're really talking about jobs in the $20,000-30,000 a year range. These are not well paying jobs, but are jobs that normal folks do.

What should also be said is that, earlier this year, WTHR reported that the CIB gave across the board raises to almost every employee except Barney Levengood. These raises range from the standard 3% cost of living, all the way up to 14%. Don't worry about Mr. Levengood, he makes $221,000.

As I originally reported back in August, I overheard a CIB board member before a board meeting say "Fire half of those union employees and it'd save us tons of money." Looks like they're going forward with this plan.

Mr. Ogden also writes very in-depth about how Indianapolis Convention and Visitors Association is lobbying for more money, despite most of it being wasted on salaries.

Fortunately, since municipal corporations are "separate" from the overall city-county budget, Mayor Greg Ballard can continue to say that nobody has to be fired due to cost cutting measures. I guess they also aren't counting the huge budget slash at the parks department, Doug Rae and two other animal control workers. Great job, Mr. Mayor!

The Star hides owner of Wanona Hospital property

Published in today's Metro section of the Star (based on this blog post of theirs), the Indianapolis Star finally reports on the long neglected property of the former Wanona Memorial Hospital, now owned by the city of Indianapolis.

What they don't publish is that the city of Indianapolis is the current owner. What they do say is it's "legally abandoned" and no one would pay the $2 million in taxes during an auction. And the Indianapolis Land Bank will take ownership on Oct. 16. What they don't say is the city purchased it for $1 in 2007.

As WRTV reported in July, the city has ignored the property since they stopped training SWAT teams there in late 2008, and declared it unusable due to asbestos poisoning. They didn't even bother locking the doors or boarding it up. The building has obvious signs that people are sleeping there, and before the story hit, it was infiltrated by a citizen and he took pictures.

When I visited the property a few weeks after the story hit, the doors were locked and ground entrances were boarded up. But I found a crowbar near one of the entrances, and the overgrown shrubs easily reached the broken windows, providing a clear entrance. The building is not secure, and if this was owned by a private citizen, they'd be written up by the city for not maintaining their property.

But it is a very clever strategy. Let this building, which housed sick people (and cured them!) until 2004 deteroriate so that it has no possible use as a medical facility, bulldoze it, and put in a brand new project that some well connected contractor will get. Because we've gotta keep those construction jobs in the city!