Councillor Leroy Robinson Signs Billboard Lobbyist as Campaign Treasurer

Brian Eason's expose` on the flood of campaign contributions to key Councillors coming from billboard industry lobbyists, leaves an open question of who is influenced by those dollars.  The billboarders are pushing for digital billboards through Prop 250, which they and their lobbyists wrote.

Chairman of the Council's Metropolitan & Economic Development committee, Leroy Robinson, to whose committee Prop 250 is assigned, got nearly a third of all money from these guys in 2014 - or $4000 in cash and in-kind donations out of $12,037 in total Council campaign donations.

Wait, it gets worse.

The billboard lobbyists even threw him a fundraiser.

Wait, it gets worse. 

Robinson's campaign finance report for 2014 shows that the fundraiser was held the day AFTER Robinson released the agenda for the November 17 MEDC meeting.  This was the first time Prop 250 was placed on an agenda of the committee, even though it was introduced back in August.  The delay violated Council rules, but, hey, they violate their own rules on a regular basis.

So, he held off placing Prop 250 on the committee agenda for more than 3 months.  It's hard to believe that the timing of the fundraiser and the movement of Prop 250 onto an agenda are mere coincidence; not probable, but still possible.

Wait, it gets worse.

Robinson recently reorganized his Campaign Committee and reported the changes to the Election Board on a "Statement of Organization" form file dated January 20, 2015, but hand dated January 7, 2015.  This change puts Gregory Hahn, billboard lobbyist for, and partner of, Bose, McKinney & Evans, in the position of Robinson's Campaign Treasurer.

That's right - a billboard lobbyist doing business before the Council committee that Robinson Chairs - is now the keeper of Robinson's campaign cash.  Hahn is kind of a one-man band - donating, throwing fundraisers, and now logging the checks.

Robinson's feting by the billboard lobby and his flaunting of the public interest by putting one of them in as his Campaign Treasurer, is a clear conflict of interest, and should be raising eyebrows all over Indianapolis.