I just heard the audio of Councilor Mike Speedy's appearance on the September 13, 2010 Greg Garrison show. On the show he talks about how the ACS parking deal is a good one because the City is "leveraging the marketplace" through the ACS contract. Are you kidding me?
The parking contract was not bid out. Barnes & Thornburg parner Joe Loftus, who is a paid legal advisor to the mayor and paid lobbyist for the City, also lobbies for ACS according to the City's lobbying registration website. The ACS contract is for 50 years with no right to cancel for the City.
Pray tell, Mike, where does that "marketplace" competition you refer to come into play? The deal, in fact, shields ACS from market competition by creating a legalized monopoly with no protection for Indianapolis taxpayers whatsoever.
In its print edition, the Indianapolis Business Journal today reported how similiar the Indianapolis deal is to Chicago. The Chicago deal killed off the political career of Mayor Richard Dailey. Do Republicans like Speedy really want to go down that political road?
2 comments:
More like "better enabling submission" than "marketplace leveraging", from what I can see. What competition did ACS have? What competive bids? What thorough analysis of ways the city could do it? What comparison with how other cities have done it?
Where in the legal/labor/education/media/sports oligarchy that explicitedly controls our tax dollars does Mr. Speedy work, or somehow get his compliance assured?
Let's say my hunch is mistaken. Let's say I'm completely off-beam. Then, this "leveraging" he or any of his peers on the council support, is the result of thoughtful deliberation on all the alternatives, considering what's best for all taxpaying citizens?
Please. I admit I'm suspicious, pessimistic, jaded, and unbelieving. However, I can also be dead wrong. Am I asking too much of our councilmen? What am I missing here?
"Leveraging the marketplace" is a very common buzzphrase. But in all the instances of its use I dare you to find one that defines the term.
It appears to be a favorite phrase in real estate and in retail as a way to suggest "You've got something really ordinary that you want to sell, how do you sell more of it than a competitor?"
When you have a product (parking meters) that generates a million dollars a year and you sell 50 'units' of that for $35 Million, it really doesn't qualify as 'leveraging.'
If you raised the value of the product to $100 million -- the city has indicated they will double parking rates under the ACS agreement -- then it would seem to be ACS is finding the only leverage in this deal.
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