Do Hamilton County voters care about local issues?

Yesterday, voters went to the polls in the Noblesville and Hamilton Southeastern School districts to vote on approval of bond issues, and accompanying tax increases to pay for them.  One would think, given the passion often shown for school activities, that this would have large-scale voter involvement and high turnout at the polls.  Right?

Wrong.

Voter turnout yesterday was a meager 10.4% of the eligible voters.  Only 10,547 souls out of a possible 101,390 bothered to cast a ballot.

Given the issues, borrowing tens of millions of dollars and resulting in higher property taxes, one would expect, regardless of position, that interest would be high.  But it was not.  Obviously.  Worse, the two political parties struggled to fill poll worker positions.  In my own experience, more than half the usual workers that I recruit in Fall Creek Township declined for one reason or another.

Sadly, this is not new.  In the 2011 municipal elections, only 15.85% of eligible voters participated in the fall election.  Since many offices went with light or no opposition due to the one-party dominance in Hamilton County, one would think the primary at least would have had a high turnout.

Wrong again.  Primary turnout in 2011, despite some hotly-contested races, was only 14.62%.

And here are some more depressing turnout figures from past local elections:

• 2009 HSE Schools referendum, 18.46%
• 2007 municipal elections, 20.20% (much of that in Carmel, where every race was contested)
• 2003 municipal elections, 24%

Not only do people not appear to care, it appears to be getting worse.  And I don't have a clue what to do about it.  This is a pretty affluent, and well-educated county.  People should care, and get involved.  But few enough do, and the others watch, or not.   

Not good enough.  There are more reasons than I can list to pay attention, get involved, and vote.  But people are NOT paying attention to the government closest too them.  That is sad, and bad for us all.  

Charlie White, Yet Again

Long-time readers of this blog will recall a number of posts from the beginning of the Charlie White saga, but not in the last year.

To refresh the memory, Charlie White, then a Fishers Town Councilman, was in 2010 the GOP nominee for Indiana Secretary of State.  But in September 2010, a certain attorney/blogger/activist (me) held a news conference on the steps of the Fishers Town Hall revealing that Mr. White did not live where he was registered to vote, and that his new residence was ... oops... outside of his Fishers council district.

White promptly resigned from the Town Council, claiming he had made a "few mistakes", and that he would learn from those mistakes, at least tacitly admitting that the "residential boo-boo" was correct.   White's Democratic opponent Vop Osili (now a member of the Indianapolis City-County Council) did his best to make political hay out of this, but to no avail, White was elected Secretary of State by a large margin.

But this was not the end.  There were election contests and political maneuvering galore.  Then a bomb dropped.  The Hamilton County Prosecutor asked for, and got, two special prosecutors appointed to investigate White.  After White and his family testified before a Grand Jury, he was indicted on seven felony counts, from voter registration fraud, to voting in the wrong precinct, to perjury, to mortgage fraud.

At the end of January and beginning of February 2012, White went to trial in Hamilton County.  A jury of his peers found him guilty on 6 of 7 counts, and under Indiana law, he was no longer Secretary of State.  White filed an appeal, but oddly, a few months ago he dropped his appeal, claiming he would file a "post conviction relief" motion in the trial court, before Judge Steve Nation, who heard the original case.  Supposedly, White would claim "ineffective assistance of counsel" against his former friend, former Marion County Prosecutor Carl Brizzi, who used the common defense tactic of not putting on witnesses, in order to challenge the sufficiency of the State's case.  Or perhaps, just maybe, Brizzi knew something we don't about what that "evidence" would be, and could not ethically put it forward.

But, as of right now, White has never filed that motion.  So the special prosecutors filed a Motion to compel White to begin serving his sentence, which was mainly home detention and a fine.  White's new lawyer promptly sought to depose several people, including a couple of real estate people, White's ex-wife's current husband, and the State Police detective who worked on the case.  The prosecutors have opposed those depositions.

Judge Nation is going to have to sort all of that out.  But why, would you ask, is White fighting a home detention sentence, when he could have gotten jail time?  That is a pretty easy answer.  White is an attorney, and it is pretty unlikely that the Indiana Supreme Court would allow him to practice as a convicted felon.  White's law license is currently suspended.  White has to defeat those felony charges, or he may never practice law again.

White was investigated, tried, and convicted in a Republican county where he was the Republican chairman, before two juries who presumably would lean in his direction politically, and tried and sentenced by a Republican judge who was a former prosecutor.  So did White get a fair shake?  Absolutely.  But we will have to see what the latest legal proceedings will bring.  A scheduling conference is currently set for February 27th, so stay tuned.  The saga continues.
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UPDATE 3/7/13:  Judge Nation has set a formal hearing on post-conviction relief for August 15, 2013.  This is despite the fact that the docket does not show that White's attorney has yet filed a motion for post-conviction relief.  The saga continues.

Deadlock? Or differences?

People complain about deadlock in Washington, with Republicans controlling the House and Democrats holding the Senate and the White House.  It seems that the two parties agree on nothing and are largely incapable of compromise.

And it is true, the parties seem more polarized than in a very long time.  It HAS been worse in the past, notably the period leading up to the election of 1860 and an unpleasant time known as the Civil War. That time too reflected two wildly different views of society and the role of government, so that compromise, the lifeblood of governance, became impossible.

But are these simply the rough-and-tumble of two parties contesting for power?  Or are these more deeply-held beliefs?   Perhaps some of both.  But at the national, and perhaps the state level, it does seem that the parties hold totally different philosophies of government, how it should operate, and whom it should serve.

• Democrats believe in the greatest good for the greatest number.  Republicans say they believe that too, but only if it benefits corporations and the wealthy, whom they call "job creators".
• Democrats believe that government belongs to all citizens and should serve all of us.  Republicans believe that benefits for wealthy elites benefit all of us, eventually.
• Many Republicans believe in being armed to the teeth, with any and all weapons a person can afford.  A lot of Democrats like guns too, for hunting, target shooting, and home defense, but don't believe in armed anarchy.  
• Democrats believe that women should make their own reproductive choices, and that abortion is a personal moral decision, not that of the government.  Republicans believe government should prohibit women from making these choices.  (The reversal of the usual roles in what government should and should not do is ironic, and noted at length by many). 
• Democrats believe in a higher tax structure for the wealthy and lower for the middle class, or a progressive tax structure.  Republicans complain that the wealthy pay too many taxes, and the poor too few.  
• Democrats believe in making voting easy.  Republicans believe in making voting hard for people they don't agree with, under the pretense of "preventing voter fraud".  Unless of course it is one of their own caught committing vote fraud.  

I could go on and on.  And there IS more than a little sarcasm here.  Not all Republicans, nor all Democrats, believe all of these things, either way.   But there is more than sufficient truth that these ARE the kind of differences that make compromise so hard in Washington.

Yet another business leaves Fishers

Yet another in a recent string of businesses leaving Fishers has been announced.  Keihin North America has announced that it is leaving the Crosspoint Office Park in Fishers and relocating its headquarters to Anderson. Their corporate announcement is here:  http://www.keihin-na.com/assets/1/13/New_Office_Keihin_Press_Release.pdf

The Fishers Town Manager and Town Council's major recent initiative has been the "downtown" redevelopment, which features the somewhat controversial idea of placing apartments and retail shops in the green space in front of Town Hall.

It seems to have escaped their attention that "economic development" means moving businesses and jobs INTO Fishers, not out.  Economic development is something the Town has sorely lacked, leading it to have only about one-third the assessed property value of neighboring Carmel.  Further, the new downtown would not add to the tax base in any meaningful way, as it would be supported by bonds paid for by a new TIF (tax increment financing), which dedicates the increased property tax revenue of the area into paying off the bonds, not to the general public treasury.  

Perhaps the Town administration should work on filling in the considerable amount of vacant space for business development by attracting businesses to USA Parkway and the Exit 5 Office Park.  These areas are in the geographic heart of Fishers, with interstate access.  Since business property pays three times the property tax rate of residential property, that seems the best way to grow the tax base and create jobs in Fishers.  

Whether or not the recent election of new leadership on the Town Council will change this direction in a positive way has yet to be seen.  Time will tell, and doubtless will have an impact on the 2015 election for the first Mayor of Fishers.  

The Future of Hamilton County Democrats

I have given this some thought recently based on the results of the last few elections, and comments made to me by fellow Hamilton County Democrats.  While our numbers continue to increase, the stark fact is that we are a minority party in Hamilton County, holding no county offices and no offices in any of the major cities of the county, Carmel, Fishers, Noblesville, or Westfield.  In fact, we struggle to put candidates on the ballot.  I don't remember the last time a Democrat ran for a county office other than judge.  When we do get candidates to run, usually for city or township office, the county Democratic Party gives no official support, because they have no support to give.

So here are some thoughts on where we go from here.

1.  We MUST fill precinct committeeperson spots.  And those people need to be "community organizers" for their neighborhoods, not just people who fill precinct election worker spots twice a year.

2.  We must have a regular and ongoing fundraising system.  There are between 35,000 and 50,000 people willing to vote for the right Democratic candidate, couldn't we average $1 per year from these voters?  No money means the party has no resources to support candidates.

3.  Once fundraising is established, obtain and staff a county headquarters, where candidates and activists can work and hold meetings.

4.  Improve communications.  And this should be not only from the county chairman to the precinct committeepersons, but to all active supporters, and in the other direction, from the grassroots up.

5.  Hold regular meetings.  If nothing else, make these organizational brainstorming sessions.

6.  Give grassroots volunteers something to do!  Hold an event just to be holding an event.  Hold regular phonebanking to support ongoing fundraising. Have a pitch-in dinner.

7.  Grassroots training for precinct committeepeople and other activists.  Teach them how to reach out to their neighbors with the Democratic message.

8.  Put candidates on the ballot, even if the odds seem long.  This is a tough one.  A lot of qualified folks are reluctant to put their names on the ballot when they know the odds are long.  But the Libertarians do a better job of this than we do, and they are a tiny fraction of our numbers.

Some of these suggestions are for the county party leadership.  Some are for the grassroots rank-and-file.  And this is certainly not an exhaustive list of all that could, or should, be done.  But with party reorganization coming up in March, this is absolutely the time to have a discussion about this and other issues.  

Some thoughts on firearms

I have some disjointed thoughts of my own on the subject of firearms. As a former gun owner who learned to shoot a .22 rifle at Boy Scout camp, I see the sporting attraction to guns. BUT, America is a violent country. Always has been. And this violence is magnified by firearms.

Firearms deaths are equal to auto accident deaths. But the majority are suicides, 19,000 annually. Second is homicide, about 11,000 annually. There are both accidental deaths of children with firearms, and homicides. I wonder how many of these are just someone who snapped in a difficult domestic moment.

There is no justification at all for assault weapons in the hands of civilians. None. There is some difficulty in the definition, but that is not the point. Those weapons exist merely to kill human beings, in quantity, as rapidly as possible. Purchase, manufacture, and importing of such weapons should be banned, and the purchase of ammunition for the ones in existence taxed to the highest degree. 

A significant number of home burglaries have firearms among the property stolen. It is impossible to know if firearms owners are targeted (how would the burglar know?) or if guns are valuable because they can be bought and sold illegally with some ease, and therefore are good to steal. One suspects that many stolen guns end up being used in crimes. 

ON the other hand, if someone broke into my home, threatened me or my loved ones with violence, I would have no issue with shooting them and sending them to the Great Beyond. And I have sufficient skills to do it. But I also keep a baseball bat in the bedroom, which also could be lethal. 

I have no problem with licensing, requiring safety classes, mandatory insurance, and other reasonable measures. I am NOT in favor of a total ban on personal firearms, and the American public would not stand for it anyway. But there must be reasonable ways to limit gun violence.

And no, arming everyone would not solve the problem, the fantasy beliefs of the open-carry crowd notwithstanding. That would just end up with more corpses.

But... we have to do SOMETHING!!! The souls of twenty dead babies cry out for it. 

Thoughts on the 2012 election

I have given myself some time to digest the 2012 election, especially how it impacted Hamilton County.  In no particular order, I have the following thoughts:

1.  Two Democrats got over 50,000 votes each in Hamilton County.  This a previously-unmatched threshold for Democrats in this Republican stronghold. U.S. Senator-elect Joe Donnelly got 52,925 votes in Hamilton County, or 39.43% of votes cast.   Superintendent of Public Instruction-elect Glenda Ritz (a Carmel resident) got 52,777, or 39.71% of the votes cast in that race.  No other Democrat approached either those raw numbers or percentages.  By contrast, President Obama got 43,796 votes, or 31.95% of the votes cast.      

2.  The above results reflect a fairly standard base for Democratic votes (typically in the 30-35% range) in this county, except for the Donnelly and Ritz races, where some Republicans chose to vote for a Democrat, presumably because they thought the candidate of their own party was not acceptable.  However, as I have noted in prior blog posts, many Republicans would not vote for a Democrat here under any circumstances, even when the GOP candidate is under criminal investigation.  

3.  One of the hopes for Democrats to have an impact in local events showed up in Fishers after years of struggle.  A non-partisan group (CityYes) worked together for years to move Fishers to City status, over the sustained opposition of the majority of the Town Council and other political insiders.  Democrats, dissident Republicans, independents, and even those identifying with the Tea Party combined together for common purpose and in a vastly-outspent grassroots effort, not only succeeded in passing the "city-town" referendum by a 55.35% to 44.64% margin, but also soundly defeating a "reorganization" referendum that would have blocked the change to a real city with a mayor elected by the people by a 62.49% to 37.51% margin.   The "reorganization" was backed by 6 of the 7 Town Council members and funded by many insiders with business and other connections to the Council majority.  

The lesson here for Hamilton County Democrats?  Find issues or candidates with which you can have common purpose with non-Democrats.  Party labels mean less when there are real issues with a real impact in people's lives.  Showing that you want to make a difference in local events and that you are not just a blind partisan will lead some with a different party ID to take you more seriously.  And that coalition-building can have a real and lasting effect on local events.