Gosh, That Map Looks Funny!

Anyone who has ever cast their gaze upon the Town of Fishers´Council District map has drawn one of several conclusions:

1. Rand McNally had nothing to do with the design.
2. The designer of the districts was drunk at the time of the drawing.
3. The designer of the districts was a child trying out his first set of Crayolas.
4. The districts were drawn for the purpose of political gerrymandering; specifically, to permit sitting Council members to retain seats despite the growth of the Town which would cause two or more Councilors to wind up in the same district had a sensible map been drawn.
5. The districts reveal a fishy annexation, which allowed a Council member to live technically within the Town limits, while in reality being in an area that is overwhelmingly not in the Town.

At least two of the above statements are true. It is left as an exercise for the student to determine which two.

As study aids for the student, I will direct you to the district map of the Town of Fishers via the County website (you will have to download a map reader program in order to view), and to an article by Tom Britt, from the AtGeist website, which has a snapshot capture of the curious annexation that includes Fishers Town Council president Scott Faultless´parcel.

In the meantime, I call upon Council President Scott Faultless to immediately resign his seat on the Council. Whether the annexation was illegal or merely unethical, the result is the same. It is disgraceful to my home Town beyond the insult that is the fact that my Town tries to forcibly annex properties against the wishes of those property owners.

It would be interesting to see the minutes of the Council meeting that approved the annexation. Did Mr. Faultless even recuse himself from the vote, or did he participate in the vote that directly affected his property. Either way, it´s slimy. If he recused himself, he acknowledged the reality of the unethical action as directly affecting him. If he voted, he disregarded the impropriety inherent in a government official voting on their own property, where they are obviously an interested party.

Those Council members who voted in support of the annexation of the Faultless property should also resign their seats immediately.

Republican Party County Chair Charlie White is a member of the Fishers Town Council.

Full disclosure: I am a resident of the Town of Fishers. I am a Libertarian candidate for Secretary of State.

Gosh, That Map Looks... Gone!

In the course of examining the questionable Faultless annexation, I had cause to re-examine the horribly gerrymandered Fishers Town Council District Map. Last Monday, I posted comments on the absurd nature of the map, likening the map to the work of drunks, or of those seeking to create political districts to suit the status quo among Counil members.

In the wake of this commentary, I have had friends and co-workers want to know more about the map. They tried the link I offered, which was to the Hamilton County Map Room. That was a mistake on my part. The link should have been to the Town's website, to the Council page. So, I went back to correct my error.

La-tee-dah. Wouldn't you know the link to the map has disappeared from the Town's webpage?

Isn't that just the most amazing coincidence? The map just vanished! Poof! Gone! The link used to be on the right-hand side of the page, above the links to Council Agenda Packets. No more.

Fortunately, I have a bit of foresight on such things, and made a screen-shot capture. Here is the map for all to see- even if the Council doesn't want you to see it.

Drunks with Crayolas, or just Councilors keeping their seats? The orange District is the one Scott Faultless represents. The purple one is Stuart Easley's.

One fact of electoral life makes the crazy, gerrymandered districts most unnecessary. From the Council Page on the Fishers website:

All councilors are considered "at large" which means all Fishers residents vote on all councilors, not just the councilor representing their particular district.

In other words, the Districts have no actual direct electoral accountability. With Republican supermajorities here -to date- the Councilors have to know that there was no real threat of being unseated by candidates from other parties. Only moving out of the District could unseat them.

With that being the case, there really is only one reason to rig the districts as they are- to be certain that the sitting Councilors can remain sitting Councilors. As much as it looks like the work of drunks, the drawing of these Districts is very deliberate.

Yet more shady ethics, on parade in Fishers.

I call on the Town of Fishers to re-draw the Council District Map with Districts that are geographically sensible.

I call for the electoral rules to be changed such that only the citizens who live within a District may vote on their Town Councilor. The at-large system must end.

Meeting Times

While Carmel entertains a second reading of an ordinance to restrict the rights of business owners setting their own policy regarding patron smoking, the Town of Fishers will entertain the first reading of four ordinances that would provide for the forced annexation of neighborhoods in the Geist Reservoir area. Both meetings, tonight, at 7pm. Carmel meeting info. Fishers meeting info. The Carmel meeting features the opportunity for public comment.

I really love Fishers' divide and conquer approach. It's as though they learned something from Carmel, which tried to devour all of Southwest Clay in one big gulp. No, Fishers breaks it down into four ordinances that correspond to four neighborhood regions. Great strategy! If one or two of those neighborhood regions have strong oppositional leadership but the others don't, the chances are that at least some of these annexations will pass. Strong leadership over the whole process could defeat the whole thing, don't you know. I'm glad to see our elected officials are putting their energies into such productive endeavors. If only we could get them to think about reducing the size of government and shrinking empire. Alas. Map of proposed annexation area.

I will be at the meeting to network with residents and business property owners who oppose the annexation. This can be defeated.

In the meantime, if you would like to leave feedback for the Town of Fishers on forced annexation, follow this link.

Update: The Noblesville Daily Times printed my letter on Geist annexation, in Saturday's edition.

Annexation is all about money
By Mike Kole

The all-Republican Fishers Town Council has just reinforced what we learned from the all-Republican Carmel City Council: it's all about grabbing tax dollars.

It is clear that the Town Council would benefit from the addition of the affluent addresses, the higher assessed value and the greater population numbers. It all results in more money for them to spend. But because Geist residents currently have less expensive Fall Creek Township fire protection, county sheriff protection and county highway service, it is unclear how these residents and business owners would benefit from more expensive town services and why they would want them. They certainly haven't been filing petitions asking to be annexed. They knew what they were doing when they chose township government.

The burden is on the Town Council to show Geist residents that there is something more awaiting them than a higher tax bill. Better yet, the burden is on local Republican officials to show that there is more to their thinking than entertaining schemes for raising taxes and bonding capability.

Annexation of residents who want it is fine and dandy, but the Libertarian Party will be glad to assist Geist residents and business owners who aren't interested in being annexed for the pleasure of paying higher taxes in exchange for no real benefit to themselves.

Kole, of Fishers, is a Libertarian Party candidate for Secretary of State.

Indiana Citizens Redistricting Commission Formed

I am pleased to announce that I am participating as a member of the Indiana Citizens Redistricting Commission. The gerrymandering of electoral districts and the need to redraw maps with districts without political considerations is an issue I have been pressing for several years, including with my 2006 run for Indiana Secretary of State, and through the present with the lawsuit against the town of Fishers.

The Commission was assembled by Common Cause Indiana, and true to the organization's name, Commission members represent a range of political perspectives. There are Democrats, Republicans, and yes Libertarians represented here. From the Fort Wayne News-Sentinel:

A citizen panel backed by the League of Women Voters and AARP will hold public hearings on the redistricting process and will monitor the drawing of new maps by the Indiana General Assembly.

The Indiana Citizens Redistricting Commission, co-chaired by former lawmakers Dave Crooks of Washington, a Democrat, and Republican Bill Ruppel of North Manchester, says it wants to ensure the redistricting process emphasizes competition and fairness, not incumbent protection and partisan advantage.

Points I made with regard to the numbers of unchallenged races were carried by the Muncie Star Press report:

The citizens commission said a politicized redistricting 10 years ago, when Democrats controlled the House, resulted in the northwest Indiana city of Chesterton, with a population of about 8,000, being divided among three Indiana House districts and the towns of Frankton and Rockport, each with populations of about 2,000, both being divided between two House districts.

It said 17 of 100 Indiana House candidates and five of 25 Indiana Senate candidates faced no opponents in the general election.

Libertarians represented the only challenge to 11 more Indiana House races, and 1 of the Senate campaigns. The Libertarian Party of Indiana has for years recruited candidates specifically in the unopposed races so as to keep issues alive through November in these districts. Without a challenger, the incumbent is done with the May primary, and doesn't have to talk issues at all. The accountability of unopposed candidates is nil.

Link to the Common Cause statement.

We have seen that redistricting can happen without politics, with Marion County being the best example. The county shows a narrow Democratic majority of voters, and since redistricting, the county went from Republican domination on the City-County Council to slim majorities that tip back and forth, which is vastly more representative of the people in the county.

And that's how elections should be. Government should be representative of the people. Sure, politically I might wish it to be a Libertarian government, just as Republicans and Democrats would prefer their party to rule the day. But elections shouldn't be foregone conclusions, thanks to deals between political bosses that protect certain incumbents and certain seats. It's time to draw the map in compact geographical districts and let the chips fall where they may.

Members of the citizen panel agreed to serve at the request of the Indiana chapters of the League of Women Voters, AARP, the political watchdog group Common Cause/Indiana and the Downs Center for Indiana Politics at Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne.

Other members of the commission include Barbara Bolling, president of the Indiana conference of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People; AARP Indiana President Clyde Hall; Executive Director Gil Holmes of the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana; Mike Kole, chairman of the Hamilton County Libertarian Party; and Briana Dines of the Indiana University student group Democracy Matters.

I am honored to have been invited to participate in this Commission, and look forward to gathering input from voters from around the state.