Indiana

A Few Observations

By Abdul Hakim-Shabazz

Last night I attended two public meetings on the proposed transfer of  the city’s water and waste water facilities to Citizens Gas.   You know the basics, the city gives Citizens the water and waste water, Citizens assumes the water company’s debt and pays about $425 million which will go for streets, sidewalks and infrastructure.  While at both meetings, I noticed the following…

• Most of the people who complained wanting their streets fixed had Councilors who voted against moving the negotiations forward with Citizens.
• The Vice Chair of the Indiana Democratic Party, Cordelia Lewis-Burks, spent about 10 minutes complaining to Mayor Greg Ballard about the conditions of streets in her neighborhood.
  
• Former Mayor Bart Peterson lives one of the streets getting repaved.
• At one town hall meeting a lot people asked would their water be shut off if they didn’t pay their gas bill?  The short answer was no.  The answer no one gave was that if you pay your bills on time being cut off usually isn’t an issue.
• The opposition to the Citizens Gas deal has yet to produce a viable alternative to the plan, somehow I get the strange feeling it’s not going to happen.
• A Council vote on the water deal could come by the end of July.

Full post as published by Indiana Barrister on June 24, 2010 (boomark / email).