Gary Free Press

02/08/2016

Moving Hammond City Hall?

In what looks to be a very poorly thought out move, McDermott appears to be pulling out all the stops to hastily ram this boneheaded idea through the approval process.

Is the reason he wants to move City Hall because of the sagging back wall or is it to bolster his sagging ego? With all of the recent talk about him wanting to seek higher office, one has to wonder if he is choosing to buy himself one instead.

But let's look at his reasoning: the current City Hall has some maintenance issues. You know why it has maintenance issues? Because his administration has neglected the building for a dozen years! And even using his inflated estimates of completing the repairs he says it needs, this new project (buying and dumping a projected 8-12 million and moving into an even older building.) is going to cost the taxpayers money that could surely be put to better use elsewhere. (The simple fact that there is a 4-million dollar range should be the first burning red flag) Or Heaven forbid, it could just go unspent. Yes, I said it: local government could instead be frugal with the taxpayers' cash. (Hammond's tax rate is even higher than Gary's tax rate. It will never go down if the politicians continue to push costly projects like this one)

It is clear that he has lost sight of whose money it really is as he proposes deals like this. But even if you take the outrageous costs out of the equation, it is a stupid idea. The current City Hall was designed to be a City Hall. The bank building was designed to be a bank with space for offices. The current City Hall is more centrally located and is built on a nice parcel that allows for easy, convenient parking and access; the bank building is wedged into the downtown, built lot line to lot line, and the parking is not contiguous to the building.

And can it be pure coincidence that this stretch of the downtown, this stretch that he is so concerned with generating traffic for, is peppered with buildings owned by individuals that have connections to either him or his family? I think that one of the arguments he used was that Hammond couldn't afford to have another vacant building downtown. It is not vacant. There are still tenants in the building. And we may never know if the building would remain vacant if this project moves ahead.

But we do know this: if the City of Hammond moves out of the current City Hall, it WILL be vacant and it will REMAIN vacant. Then we will have another building off the tax rolls. The bank building IS on the tax rolls now, and will remain on the tax rolls, whether or not it has a bank in it. Maybe instead of this flawed plan, he should call up the bank and suggest that they put a For Lease sign or a For Sale sign in the window. Gosh, who'da ever thought of that. Or maybe he should look through his Rolodex and see if he can find any Realtors that would be interested in handling the listing.

When I want to hang out in a hip downtown, I don't plan my trip to include any visits to a City Hall. I really don't want to have to fight over a parking space with city employees.

There must be several ulterior motives at play here; there must be because the idea makes utterly no sense whatever. It is neither financially viable, nor is it even practical.

But if moving to the downtown is such a great idea, I am puzzled as to why they have not done so already. He hasn't mentioned it in any of his interviews on the topic of this proposed move, but the City of Hammond already owns a bunch of buildings downtown. In fact, they own the two buildings directly to the south of this bank building, as well as own two buildings on the next block to the north. If they want to talk about buildings being off the tax rolls, let's hear their them explain their strategy of buying up all of the property in the downtown they say they are so worried about! Possibly, if this property were in private hands, instead of sitting fallow in the City's hands, the downtown would be bustling.

They already own another bank building just two doors down to the south. If they need more space, surely they could spread out a bit into it. But the City really doesn't need more space. They should be able to get by on less space. With new technologies, they should be able to be more efficient, not less.

The City Council needs to wipe the stars out of their eyes, and forget about these new digs and start worrying about maintaining and protecting the building they are in right now. It is grossly irresponsible to have let the current City Hall fall into disrepair, and it would be even more irresponsible to move ahead with this ridiculous and costly plan to move City Hall's operations into the former Calumet National Bank building.

The current City Hall is a beautiful, historic building with classic architectural features and adornments. Only a philistine would suggest tearing it down.

I would guess that the average, hard-working Hammond resident, is perfectly content with City Hall staying right where it is. Maybe those are the opinions that should be considered, not his. But unfortunately, this bank building sits at the crossroads of public service and megalomania.

This Mayor and this City Council need to all get their heads out of the clouds and their feet back on the ground where they belong. This city is facing far more important and far more pressing issues that this.

01/03/2016

Bo Kemp’s “Top-Secret” Waste-to-Energy project

This impossible project is a total load of stinking garbage! In effect, the Gary Sanitary District is paying this guy $80,000.00 per year to do research and development of a process that multi-billion dollar, multi-national refuse companies haven’t been able to figure out. And Bo isn’t even an engineer.

This is not a waste-to-energy project, it is a tax money-to-waste project—and it is working perfectly!

I have copied and pasted an excerpt from a recent Post-Tribune article written by Carole Carlson in December 2015:

{A professional services contract of $80,000 was approved for J. Gari and Associates, headed by Bo Kemp, a close adviser to Mayor Karen Freeman-Wilson.

Vicari said Kemp is overseeing a project involving waste-to-energy project alternatives. Kemp received the same amount last year for similar work. He was not at Monday's meeting. Sanitary district executive director Dan Vicari said all of Gary's waste goes into a municipal landfill. He said the district hopes to divert some of the waste and turn it into energy.

So far, no plan has been presented.}

The last line says no plan has been presented. That is not true. Bo Kemp did present his plan several years ago in the city council chambers. It was ridiculous. It violated any number of the laws of physics. It was all bu****it.

But the Mayor seemingly lapped it up; she must have as she’s been throwing big cash at this guy for the past 3 or 4 years.

If there were a viable waste-to-energy plan, the big waste companies would be doing it already.

The most immediate way for the Gary Sanitary District to stop some government waste is to cancel this guy’s contract immediately and buy him a bus ticket back to Jersey!

And why does the Gary Sanitary District worry about this concept anyway? They are already paying a private contractor to pick up the city’s trash. If Bo wants to putz around playing engineer, maybe he should see if this contractor wants to pay him instead of the taxpayers.

So why does this mayor keep this guy around? And what the heck is he doing for us that is worth around $250,000.00 per year? He isn’t even a Gary resident; he commutes back and forth to New Jersey.

There is a good reason they are keeping his idiotic plan secret: if it were publicized, he would be laughed out of town by real engineers.
At the meeting he had in the council chambers years ago, he told the few people that were in attendance that garbage is valuable, that it is a valuable resource. Well from his perspective it may be, as he has been able to extract hundreds of thousands of dollars from this city while selling this snake oil.

The County just learned the hard way about another similar plan, a waste-to-ethanol plan. They lost millions believing in that dreamer. Bo Kemp’s plan has even less chance of working than that one.

The City of Gary does not have a lot of money. What little money it does have should not be thrown down the drain on ridiculous plans that have no possibility of ever coming to fruition…ever!

The Gary Sanitary District should cancel this contract--that would immediately reduce waste!

12/24/2015

http://nwigazette.com/2015/12/polluting-for-profit-how-a-brownfield-gets-turned-back-into-a-dump-site/

12/16/2015

City of Gary continues to shoot itself in the head!

Why, in a city that continuously complains about low tax collections, would its leaders actively seek to remove properties from the city’s tax base?

Year after year after year, the most destructive organization currently operating in the city, the ever-so-wrongly named: Department of Redevelopment, still is actively removing properties from the city’s tax base en masse.

For a city that already owns over 10,000 parcels of property to hungrily seek ownership of even more, goes beyond the insane. For over 15 years, the City of Gary, in one form or another, has been gobbling up property at a fever pace. Of all of the thousands of properties they have acquired through tax sales, they have never done anything of any substance with any of them.

So today, at a meeting of the Lake County Board of Commissioners, the Department of Redevelopment, under the wholly rudderless leadership of Joe Van Dyk, is getting tax certificates to another 103 properties. This 103 lands on top of several hundred more they have been granted tax positions on earlier this year.

When people scratch their heads and wonder what happened to Gary, they need not look a whole lot further than the Department of Redevelopment!

And this horrible strategy to destroy one’s own tax base seems to be catching on: Hammond is going after 30 properties and East Chicago gets the prize in this round as they are going after 152. But they are all pikers when compared with Gary’s handiwork over the years as the City of Gary itself has been responsible for working overtime to take thousands upon thousands of properties off of the tax rolls for the foreseeable future.

And they cost the city money not just by removing these properties from the tax rolls, but because they will need to spend over a thousand dollars per property in legal fees to get full ownership of these properties. But what do they care; they just spend more tax money on these legal fees which invariably go to lawyers who are their cronies.

This city cannot possibly recover as long as so much effort is being put into destroying it!

11/15/2015

This alleged pervert is the husband of the woman that is the CEO/Director of the Mosaic Charter School in Gary that operates out of the Boys and Girls Club building in Gary. What's wrong with this picture besides everything!

http://www.nwitimes.com/news/local/lake/gary/gary-man-charged-with-molesting-his-stepdaughter-for-years/article_022f2a1b-d864-517b-8cad-3ecbc779bb44.html

GARY | The Lake County prosecutor's office has filed six charges of child molestation against a Gary man.

08/18/2015

http://nwigazette.com/2015/08/how-a-criminal-attempted-to-use-local-politics-to-usurp-the-tax-sale-code-to-satisfy-his-restitution/

August 17, 2015-The Gazette has exclusively obtained documents showing that the City of Gary worked with Jewell Harris, Sr. to effectuate the transfer of property owned by a defunct corporation in order to satisfy his liability to the City under a Federal criminal prosecution. The problem with the t…

05/05/2015

Vote NO on the Gary School Referendum!

If you do not, your property taxes will skyrocket. They will skyrocket for every year of the next seven years. Even after the State takes over the system, you will be paying much higher taxes for the next seven years.

This referendum is not like other referendums. The tax increase is just going to go towards salaries. They are not building some fancy new building, it is just for salaries and programming.

After the system goes bankrupt, you will still be required to pay the higher tax bill.

Don’t be a sucker, VOTE NO on the Gary School referendum question!

Even if you are a renter, vote NO! Landlords will be forced to increase the rent to offset this tax increase. This tax increase affects everyone. Vote NO. Vote NO. Vote NO!!!

01/09/2015

The RDA and the Gary Airport: Bad Checks and Negative Balances

Most government agencies and taxpayer-funded operations are required to go to great lengths to ensure that their finances are all on the up and up. There are supposed to be outside audits done on a regular basis, and in addition, the State Board of Accounts is supposed to go over their books with a fine-toothed comb.

But then we have the murky relationship between the RDA and the Gary/Chicago Airport. One of the biggest factors adding to its murkiness, is that they are both using the same accounting firm to perform their audits. What in the heck were they thinking of? And of all of the accounting firms that they chose to perform the audits of both firms, they chose the firm Curtis Whittaker and Associates! This is the guy that was the accountant for GUEA! This is the guy that was the accountant for Mary Elgin! This is the guy that just got caught with his hand in the cookie jar with the Calumet Township Assessor! And this is the guy that didn’t seem to notice when the RDA paid the Gary Airport $10,000,000.00 twice. And since he was doing the books for both agencies at the same time, he didn’t seem to notice the missing 10-mil from the RDA; and he didn’t notice the extra 10-mil at the Airport. He didn’t notice a thing. Or maybe he did, and just hoped nobody would notice. Hard to say, but the whole reason that agencies employ CPAs is to notice things like this. And if he couldn’t notice 10-million missing at the RDA, and 10-million extra at the Airport, just imagine everything else he likely missed!

There is likely a very good reason that all of these troubled government agencies and political groups choose to use this guy. And the reason is most likely that he knows how to miss things; because if instead these same agencies and political groups used legitimate accounting firms, the party would be over immediately.

And now the RDA is going downstate on bended knees to plead their case. If I were in any decision-making authority, I would tell them to pound sand. The reason the RDA was created in the first place was to provide transparency—and presumably some oversight—to what was going on up here, as the folks downstate didn’t particularly trust our local politicians.

But it sure didn’t take long for this new, supposedly transparent organization known as the RDA to descend into the murky and polluted waters of local politics. What could they have been thinking when they chose Whittaker and Associates as their accounting firm?

*Note: Oh, the extra 10-million that was found at the Airport, Whittaker didn’t find it, a member of the staff found it. And did she get any kind of accolades for this feat? No, she is no longer employed by the Airport. Apparently they weren’t very happy about its discovery.

01/06/2015

The Price is Wrong!

So who is more incompetent, the Calumet Township Assessor or the Department of Redevelopment?

The answer: it’s a dead heat. The City of Gary’s Department of Redevelopment, temporarily under the direction of the inexperienced Joe Van Dyk, is currently offering several parcels of property for sale. Two of the parcels that are being sold total 46 acres. These 46 acres are near the Majestic Star Casino, in fact, they were formerly owned by the Casino.

This 46 acres of property that the Department of Redevelopment is offering for sale has an assessed value of $2,187,200.00. So how much then would you guess that the Department of Redevelopment would be trying to sell it for? Half price? One-quarter price? Ten cents on the dollar? Five cents on the dollar? Nope! All wrong. They are offering it for sale for 1.5 cents on the dollar—for $32,500.00!

So who has got it wrong? They both do. But this highlights just how screwed up the Calumet Township Assessor’s office is. The City of Gary is in effect saying that the Calumet Township Assessor doesn’t know what they are doing—that they haven’t got the foggiest idea of what property is worth. After all, why would they be selling it at such a big discount? (Unless they are trying to slip this deal to one of their pals) This is just another example of many—on steroids in this case—that showcase the abject incompetence of the Calumet Township Assessor. The horribly errant assessment is likely the reason that this particular parcel owes over $578,000.00 in delinquent taxes.

But while this property in my opinion is not worth anywhere near the 2.1 million that the Calumet Township Assessor has it valued at, it is sure worth a helluva lot more than the $32,500.00 that they are offering it for sale for. So here is where Joe Van Dyk’s equally incompetent Department of Redevelopment vies for the dunce cap. Now according to Indiana State Statute, his department was required to get two appraisals, and base the minimum bid price to be no less than 90% of the average of the two appraisals. So did they have these appraisals done as required by law? And if so, who did them? And what were their credentials? I don’t think that they had them done at all. And if they did, it was probably by one of their friends’ phony appraisal outfits. This department has used fake appraisal companies many times in the past so based on the completely errant value that they are working from, I can only assume that this is what they again did.

But I would certainly like to thank Joe Van Dyk for helping to showcase the absolute incompetence of the Calumet Township Assessor’s office…and his Department of Redevelopment all in one fell swoop. At least he’s good for something!

Let’s just hope that the feds are watching this super-shady deal as close as the rest of us. If so, hopefully we’ll get to hear the US Attorney holler: “Come on down!”

12/07/2014

Team Gary Doesn’t Know How to Count!

The latest mantra of Team Gary/ the Karen Freeman-Wilson administration is that the city has over 10,000 vacant/abandoned houses. What! 10,000? Impossible! This would mean that every third house is vacant, abandoned, and in line to be demolished.

This is just simply not true. In some twisted, perverse way, this administration, along with the “crack” team she boasts to have assembled, evidently thinks that by grossly inflating the count of derelict structures, the city is better served. Apparently this strategy was pulled from a rerun of an old Twilight Zone episode. How could this be a viable plan to any rational person?

Does Gary have a significant problem with abandoned homes? Of course it does. But does it have 10,000 vacant/abandoned houses, all in need of demolition? Of course it does not!

So while we all are sitting around waiting for Team Gary’s team of experts from the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy to complete their “class project” of assessing the condition of the city’s housing stock to finish up, we decided to do a little survey of our own. And we DO know how to count. And we also do know how to drive up and down every street in the city. But oddly, we don’t count anywhere near what they do. Why do you suppose that is?

Here is why: We counted homes that met certain physical factors. Quite simply, they had to be in very poor condition. They had to be judged to be beyond repair. Our count, depending upon exactly what criteria is applied, ranged from between 2800 to 3700 homes that should be demolished.

So how could Team Gary’s house count be so far off? Here is how: They are not simply driving around and doing a physical inspection of properties; they are rating properties using something that they refer to as a “blight index”. So if a property meets enough of the criteria to rate high enough on their in-house blight index, it makes the cut to be added to their house count. They have created something called a “Site Evaluation Matrix” to determine if a house qualifies for this blight index. But to the average person, this same house may seem like it is simply a home in need of some repairs. Some of the homes that made it onto their list—the list of 10,000 plus—are occupied. They have families living in them. Why are they on the list?

It seems that part of the perverse strategy is to make the problem seem so big, so unmanageable, that it can only be managed with the help of her pal, former Chicago Mayor, Richard Daley, and his study group from the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy. Common folk from Gary need not apply!

So to reiterate, the 10,000 number is a lie--an intentional lie. The number is grossly inaccurate, and I am still at a loss to see whom this intentionally inaccurate number actually serves. The following is excerpted from a Post-tribune story that was published on May 27th, 2014: With an estimated 10,000 to 15,000 abandoned homes in the city, Freeman-Wilson acknowledged that the planned demolition is just a start to the process of revitalizing the city. So the Mayor is making statements that have a margin of error of 5000 abandoned houses? This is far more than there are in total!

So how do we know this number is a lie and is grossly inaccurate? Let’s run down some basic math: According to census data from 2010, there are somewhere between 38,000 and 39,000 total housing units in the city of Gary. According to the garbage contract, there are around 21,000 residential units being served by Republic Industries now (Republic does not serve multi-units with more than four units). Also according to this census data, there are approximately 12,000 multi-family housing units (there will be some margin of error here because of the unknown number of 2-4-unit housing units; however, the vast majority of multi-unit housing units are 5 units and higher). Additionally, there are approximately 1000 mobile homes in the city. And then there are between 850-1000 other types of housing units to include: nursing homes, emergency housing, group homes, transitional housing, and residential treatment facilities. So if there are 10,000 vacant/abandoned structures in need of demolition in the city, this would imply that there are actually at least 45,000 residential housing units. This would mean that the census data in 2010 was wrong. (It would also not take into consideration that between 2010 and 2014 several hundred abandoned houses have been demolished.) This would also mean that one out of every three housing units was vacant/abandoned and ready for the wrecking ball. This is just not so! And for this administration, for this Team Gary, for this group of students from King Richard’s Harris School class to constantly imply this to the citizens and to the bloodthirsty national media that so insatiably laps this carnage up, is not only completely disingenuous, but it is highly destructive to the morale of the citizenry of the city of Gary.

So when we did our abandoned house survey, we did it a little differently. First off, no one was required to have a Harvard degree. No one was required to have an MBA (or be in pursuit of one). No one was required to have any advanced degree in mathematics.

We instead just found a few people with common sense. They had to know how to count. And they had to have a drivers license and a car. We divided the city into eight sections. Each person was responsible for two sections. The entire survey took 3 days. We canvassed every neighborhood in the city; probably some that the Harris students don’t even know exist.

And our results were staggeringly different than the ones being proposed by the Harris School team. So much so, that I am going to characterize their results as patently false, intentionally deceptive, and seemingly the basis for a larger fraud.

Now they are likely to come back and explain that there results do not mean that there are 10,000 vacant/abandoned houses in the city; they will likely now—now that they have been exposed—be quick to recant their results and tell us that there really are not (and never have been) 10,000 vacant/abandoned houses in Gary; but instead, that there are 10,000 houses that meet THEIR standards on THEIR blight index to be considered blighted according to THEM.

There are not 10,000 vacant/abandoned houses in Gary. Not even close. Our survey, a survey that included every single street in the city, yielded dramatically different results. Depending upon what standard we used, our totals ran between 2900 and 3700 houses that should be considered possible candidates for demolition.

This is still a significant number. Some of the houses that made it on our list could still be rehabbed. Only a relatively small percentage of these are the stereotypical burned-out or collapsing structures that we often imagine when we think of an abandoned house in Gary.

But the 10,000 number that this administration has been recklessly tossing around and spoon-feeding every media outlet that they have the opportunity to meet is just another example of how grossly irresponsible they are. After all, what kind of public relations person or team would intentionally exaggerate this problem? How could this be a good strategy? It kind of reminds me of one of those people that hold the cardboard signs at the exit ramps in Chicago. “I am pitiful, so please give me money.”

I don’t think that Gary needs pitiful leaders. Gary needs strong leaders. No society ever reached any level of success by living off of the beneficence of others. Especially a city with Gary’s history; Gary was once known the world over as being a place of innovation, of creativity, of industry. I think that it is quite embarrassing that she has been forced to now take on the role of a beggar.

Gary will NOT rebound by assuming the role of a beggar, of becoming the state’s largest charity case. Gary will only rebound by again becoming a place of creativity, industry, and innovation. And lying about how bad off the city is in hopes of getting charity is NOT how we jump start creativity, industry, and innovation!

10,000 abandoned houses is a lie! It is a damaging lie. It is a lie that if allowed to, will become a self-fulfilling prophecy. But it is a lie today.

12/06/2014

The 504 Project vis-a-vis the Baseball Stadium disaster

As costly and disastrous as the baseball Stadium project to the financial health of the city, this 504 Project threatens to be far, far worse. First off, the Baseball Stadium was in effect a public works project. After the smoke cleared, and after all of the indictments stemming from the widespread graft and corruption that defined the project, the City of Gary owns a minor league baseball stadium. (Albeit the most expensive one ever built in the United States per seat)

However, this 504 Project is going to be far, far worse for the financial health of the city. Between Phase I and Phase II of the project, the developers are requesting that the City issue bonds that total approximately 45-million dollars. Many might remember that the projected cost of the construction of the baseball stadium was to be around 25-million; but its actual costs rose beyond 56-million.

But again, the Baseball Stadium Project was a public works project; the completed and functional baseball Stadium is now an asset owned by the City of Gary.

But not this 504 Project. If everything were to go according to their plan, after the millions are dumped into this building—this privately owned building—it will remain in private ownership. The City of Gary will never have one dollar of equity in the property. This means that even if it were completed, and even if it were profitable—both of which are highly doubtful—the only ones that stand to gain are the private developers. If it made millions, the developers will receive all of this money while the City will be obligated to repay the bonds for many, many years to come.

There has never been a deal like this before in Gary. It is outrageous for it even to be proposed even by Gary standards. The cozy relationships between the developers of the 504 Project and members of this administration should be called into question.

The City of Gary and its citizens and taxpayers need to be very wary of this deal and other deals modeled like it that serve private interests at the expense of the general public. Clearly we cannot rely on the current batch of elected and appointed public officials to police themselves. Citizens and taxpayers will need to be doubly vigilant in overseeing their activities and actions.

Let them know you are sick and tired of being taken advantage of. Don’t be hoodwinked. They are only out for themselves.

12/01/2014

Is Centier Bank getting corporate welfare on the backs of the poor in Gary?

It sure seems like it! Why else do Gary taxpayers have to pay for the renovations and improvements for their proposed new location?

When Chase Bank moved out of this building and built their new location just a block away, they didn’t look for any handouts from Gary taxpayers; they just reached into their pockets and built their new building. So why then when Centier wants to open another location in Gary do Gary taxpayers have to foot the bill?

Do you suppose that taxpayers in other cities and towns in Indiana had to kick in when Centier opened locations there? I doubt it.

Normally we think of banks as being the foundations from which investments are sourced; but in this case, it sounds like it is the other way around. Why do the taxpayers have to subsidize Centier’s operations? If Centier is serious about being in downtown Gary, then they should be willing to spend their own money to be there…not ours!

And by the way, there is already a bank in downtown Gary. Chase Bank is only 2 blocks west on 5th and Adams in a new building that THEY built and paid for with their own money. Their operation doesn’t cost the taxpayers a dime. Their operation contributes to the tax base.

I would imagine that every time this administration lauds Centier for bringing a bank back to downtown Gary, that Chase Bank feels a bit snubbed. Chase Bank is one of the nation’s largest banks and they have never left downtown Gary, or any other part of Gary for that matter.

It is unfair to the taxpayers of Gary that Centier’s proposed operation at the 504 site requires to be subsidized through the property tax payments of so many other taxpayers. It is also unfair to their many competitors in the banking industry that their new operation is going to be subsidized by the taxpayers.

We need banks to invest money in our city. We do not need banks to come to our city with their hands out looking for us to invest in their operations!

Gary taxpayers deserve to have their tax money spent on the services they so sorely need. Their hard-earned money should not be used to support private business interests while at the same time they are screaming for basic services which are now going unfulfilled. Centier should recognize this. They should be ashamed of themselves for being involved in this deal.

TIF money IS tax money! When property taxes get paid into TIF accounts instead of going to the General Fund, this represents tax money that is taken away from the schools and the police and fire departments. There is a direct link between deals just like this one and the collapse of the school system.