Marion County Republican Chairman Tom John Throws Mayor Ballard Under the Political Bus for Attorney's Fees

From the beginning, the administration of Mayor Greg Ballard has been dominated by "profiteers" people, chiefly Republicans, who have used Ballard's upset win as an opportunity to line their pockets with cash. To me those "profiteers" are the worst kind of Republicans. Mayor Ballard's election could have been used as a springboard to rebuild the Marion County GOP. Instead we have people like Bob Grand, Joe Loftus, David Brooks, Paul Okeson and a host of others who for 2 1/2 years led the politically-naive Mayor around by the collar continually steering him in the direction of doing things that are incredibly poltically stupid and which will result not only in his own resounding re-election defeat but also the loss of the Republican majority on the Council.

Today's profiteer I will focus on is Marion County GOP - Republican County Chairman Tom John.

Whether or not the administration's parking plan is a good idea or not is open to debate. I think any privatization contract of 50 years is nothing short of insane. Nonetheless, let's take whether it makes sense to do the contract out of the equation, and just talk about the politics of the plan and the likely effect it will have on the Mayor's re-election effort.

There is no scenario by which the parking plan can be spun into a political positive by the Mayor's people. The Mayor will get hammered for doubling parking rates and contracting with ACS which failed miserably at the FSSA privatization. These are slam dunk soundbites, easily explanable issues people can grasp and relate to.

When he gets hit by the negative ads about the parking deal how is the Mayor going to respond? Does he really think he can sell the message that people needed their parking rates doubled because the rates hadn't been raised in so long? Even if you could get that lengthy explanation in a modern soundbite, it is an explanation that will never fly with a huge segment of the public. People aren't sitting at home thinking "I wish the City would charge more for me to park downtown."

You're going to two types of responses to the parking plan: 1) those who aren't bothered by the increase. They won't vote on the issue because they don't care; 2) those who are bothered by the increase. Many of those people will vote on the issue. In other words, it's not a "voting issue" for the pro-increase; it is a "voting issue" for those who oppose it. Plus every time a person has to feed the meter more money after the increase, he or she will be reminded of the man who cost them more money to park- Mayor Greg Ballard. It's a terrific issue for the Democrats.

The one Republican in the county, more than any other, who should be steering the Mayor away from this foolish election year eve plan is Marion County GOP Chairman Tom John. So what is John doing?

He's profiteering. Tom John and other attorneys at his law firm Ice Miller have billed the City $451,568.14 for working on the parking plan. At $350 an hour, that is an incredible 1290 hours of time. One has to wonder if anyone at the City is auditing the time sheets of the Ice Miller attorneys.

Unbelievably the City has already agreed to pay 75% of the Ice Miller bill even if the Council doesn't approve the Contract.

Tom John owes a duty to the Republican Party of Marion County to pursue a political course that is likely to result in a favorable result come Election Day. That duty conflicts with John's desire to make more money for himself and his law firm by pushing the Mayor to contract with ACS. It is apparent that when it came to that conflict, John's desire to profiteer won out over doing what is best for the Marion County GOP.