Tax Raising State Senator Luke Kenley
Yesterday Tony Cook of the Indianapolis Star
reported that longtime Republican State Senator Luke Kenley of Noblesville would be retiring on September 30th of this year. He was doing this inspite of the fact last year that Mr. Kenley successfully ran for reelection to another four year term in the state senate. IR's readers might recall that
we have expressed less than positive views of the good senator especially in his choosing to vote for Mike Pence's idiotic plan to lease the state of Indiana's cell phone towers in the Agile Networks debacle. Like his master Governor "Taxman" Eric Holcomb he has submitted to his masters call to raise taxes and fees on the already overburdened population of Indiana. We have blogged about good old Eric's tax raising ways
here.
Before riding off into the sunset. "Servile" Luke Kenley took part today in a hearing before the Indiana Finance Authority asking them not to repeat their past mistakes regarding the financing and construction of the I-69 extension. Kaitlin Lange in today's edition of the Indianapolis Star speaks at length on the hearing in her article "
Lawmakers urge officials to avoid repeating I-69 mistakes". We have previously reported on the I-69 Extension snafu and former Indiana Governor Mike Pence's part in it
here.
Miss Lange wrote earlier today reported:
Lawmakers urged the Indiana Finance Authority to learn from its mistakes as the state takes over a failed public-private partnership to build a section of I-69.
The section of the highway between Bloomington and Martinsville is almost two years behind schedule. The finance authority is dissolving the state's contract with a consortium that was to have designed and built the road and then maintained it for 35 years.
The company at the heart of the deal, Isolux Corsan, filed for bankruptcy in Spain earlier this week. IndyStar previously reported that the state missed several warning signs in choosing the consortium I-69 Development Partners.
"I do want to ask that in the future, as the state looks at doing business with folks, that we do business with people who are capable of getting it done — reputable people," Rep. Terry Goodin, D-Crothersville, said at the State Budget Committee hearing Thursday.
Sen. Luke Kenley, R-Noblesville, said the finance authority should study how it got into this situation and how to monitor best practices in an evolving market for public-private partnerships.
Lange notes that: "Not a single member of the public attended the hearing, which was posted with less than 24 hours' notice on the State Budget Agency website."
We will return to Miss Lange's piece in a bit. But a reader just shared some interesting information from Kaitlin Lange's twitter feed:
@markalesia and I are at the State Budget Committee meeting over I-69, section 5. The meeting notice was posted online sometime today.
According to the committee's website, public announcements are supposed to be posted online 48 hours before the meeting.12:57 PM · Jul 6, 2017
It doesn't look like anyone from the public is here, even though these meetings are open to the public.
I'm not sure how anyone knew of today's meeting.
I only knew because a source told me.1:32 PM · Jul 6, 2017Vincent said that termination of the agreement was considered in late 2016, early 2017. Pence would have been governor at the time.1:45 PM · Jul 6, 2017I asked Sen. Kenley about why the meeting wasn't posted in advance. He said he'll look into it.2:16 PM · Jul 6, 2017
Lange's article continues:Proponents of public-private partnerships say they take advantage of private sector efficiency and innovation and transfer financial risk from the state to a private company.
Detractors have pointed to Indiana and I-69 as an example of what can go wrong. Kenley, however, said the state needs to keep using the public-private model.
"There are a lot of lessons here," Kenley said after the hearing. "It appears that the major weakness here was in the selection of somebody who didn't have the financial capability to do what they needed to do."
Kenley said the state needs to "take a look at more than just the bid price and say, 'Who are the bidders and what is their credibility and what's their past track record?' "
That's a good point Senator Kenley. Why the Hell didn't you guys look into the bidders credibility and track record in the first damn place?
The late great Gary Welsh writing on Advance Indiana three years ago in 2014 warned of the problems with this whole scheme If you and the other lawmakers had bothered to read what Mr. Welsh wrote. Instead of listening to Matt Tully's Circle Jerk Gang this whole problem would never have happened!
The "Vincent" referenced by Kaitlin Lange is Miah Vincent the director of Indiana's Office of Management and Budget (OMB). Vincent stated that the idea of the state terminating the agreement with I-69 Development Partners was originally discussed while Mike Pence was still Governor. Certainly puts a dent in good old Mike Pence's image! Also the fact this meeting was announced less than the 48 hours that is required and Kenley's continued white washing of this whole nasty business. Leads the IR team to conclude that Luke can't leave office soon enough!
Kudos once again to Miss Lange on another well written work of journalism!
