Council President, Ryan Vaughn, sold his soul to the devil, and has been busy hammering the daylights out of his Council Republican caucus to get them to sell theirs as well.
You know, I used to think the driving force was to place Party interests over the welfare of the community. But, now I am inclined to think that Vaughn puts the interests of Barnes & Thornburg, his employer, over the interests of the Party -- and the interests of the community doesn't have one neuron associated with it in his brain. The distinction is slight, I grant you, as B&T owns the Marion County Republican Party, the Mayor's office, the Controller's office, and Vaughn.
Just Tuesday night, the Council Committee on Committees, chaired and unilaterally run by Vaughn, unceremoniously dumped Councillor Christine Scales from the Public Safety Committee. This was a) to punish Scales for not getting in line and casting the same Stepford vote all the other Republican Councillors have been casting, and b) to send a strong signal to all the other Rs that they best stay in line.
Meanwhile, Vaughn has doing backroom deals to ensure that the pork runs to his district first and, if there is any left over, to downtown. And while working the system behind the scenes and out of sight of the public, he refuses to recuse himself in matters where he has a clear conflict of interest.
If any of the other Republican Councillors have any glint of high standards left, they will remember why ran for office in the first place. In doing so, they just might see their old selves in Christine Scales. If they still have any fire for right and wrong, they would stand with Scales and tell Ryan Vaughn that they elected him to his position, and they can unelect him. They can say, that the game doesn't need to be played this way. They can say it is dead wrong to put the community dead last. They can declare that every Councillor should vote in the best interest of the community - not for the best intests of the Party, not for the best intests of B&T, and not in the best interests of Ryan Vaughn.
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"You know, I used to think the driving force was to place Party interests over the welfare of the community."
I'm glad you don't believe this anymore, Pat. It couldn't be further from the truth.
It was certainly NOT in the best interest of the Republican Party to vote to give the Pacers (B&T's client) $10 mllion of our tax dollars. It was certainly not in the best interests of the Republicans to raise taxes to bail out the CIB, which was headed by Robert Grand a B&T partner. It is certainly not in the Republican Party's best interests to support the 50 year no bid parking contract for ACS, B&T's client.
In virtually every instance, Vaughn has turned his back on the best interests of the Republican Party for his own selfish interests and the interests of clients of his law firm.
Vaughn doesn't care about the Republican party or the people of Indianapolis. Well that is not true! He cares about his law firm making money, he cares about all the contractors who will get the side walk and the street repaving business. These are the people that will fill the Republican's war chest so they can try to get Ballard relected. Maybe he truly believes that they can win the election. I suspect he even believes in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. :)
Hey there are millions of dollars at stake here as we found out in the bank scandal, no one does the right thing when you can get rich! Take the money and kick the can down the road for the Democrats to deal with.
Btw,have you had a chance to read the news story at Fox59 regarding the neglect of special needs students at Decatur?
Every Decatur parent should see the Fox 59 video report on care of special education children at Decatur. Go see Stinson and go to Board meetings.
The news can twist things about Decatur and SPED department..as a proud SPED teacher of the significantly disabled students in Decatur, I am sadden to see how the news makes it seem that our Township has a negative outlook on our kids. I take offense to that, because I put my heart and soul out for my students that I am in charge of. Many of those pictures used were old, and not from this year..and that is just want the news does..throws things out of proportion...we have a good SPED program in Decatur for those kids with significant needs...especially if the teacher is dedicated..which we are!
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