Pay to Play with Taxpayer Dollars in Indiana

Advance Indiana dedicated countless hours to helping Indianapolis Mayor Greg Ballard's achieve his upset victory over incumbent Bart Peterson. Yesterday Gary Welsh, editor of Advance Indiana, penned a column that connects the dots of who is paying how much to play in Ballard's new playground and what they get in return. Nothing has changed. Wouldn't be so bad, but the political outsider, Ballard, promised sweeping changes. More than a year later, his campaign coffers enriched, he allows the same scenario.

The same scenario plays out where you live too. It's corrupt. And it won't change unless we DO something about it. Be sure you take time off to join the rally on March 25th.

In the meantime write to us about the corruption in YOUR Indiana city and we'll publish it here.

Pay To Play Is The Ballard Way
"Taxpayers are being asked to pay for hundreds of millions of dollars in government spending ranging from huge construction projects to outside personal contracts," GOP mayoral candidate Greg Ballard told voters in 2007. "But there are virtually no rules governing the conduct of business or local government in such dealings," he added.

Candidate Ballard promised a series of ethics reforms to provide greater transparency and to protect the public interest, including: requiring persons who lobby city government to register with the city and report any lobbying expenses they make, including any entertainment or item of value they provide to elected officials and public employees; barring lobbyists or other persons with a financial interest from serving on any commission or board that directly affects or deals with their lobbying or financial interests; establishing a code of conduct for city employees which bars them from soliciting contributions from individual firms which do business with the city.
requiring statement of economic interests filed by public officials to be made publicly available online; and requiring campaign finance reports be made publicly available online.

A year later, many of those promises remain unfulfilled. Read the rest here.