everybody draw moe howard day

today is everybody draw moe howard day! here's my contribution:

draw your own and add a link in the comments! ¶

the problem with machine-generated directions

for some reason, i don't trust these directions google gave me. ¶

a quick question

how crazy do you have to be to freak out over the fact that this year's miss USA is muslim?

keep in mind that this woman is not only willing to appear on tv in a bikini or a bustier and fishnets, but is also pro-birth control... so she's not exactly an advocate for sharia law.

update: truly, it requires a mind skilled at doublethink to simultaneously believe this woman is both an islamist threat to our freedom and a pole-dancing stripper slut.¶

get ready for a huge smash!

as previously announced on the stAllio! facebook page, a huge smash—the full-length follow-up to mash smarter not harder—will be released in summer or fall of 2010.

for a while, i toyed with the idea of shopping this release out to one of the "big-name" audio collage labels (as if there were more than one!). but for a number of reasons—first and foremost that the thing is already way behind schedule—i will be releasing it for free download from bad taste.

when i first started developing this new post-mashup style of music, i was so excited about it that i couldn't wait to share it with the world. so i rushed out the first four tracks (and a remix by drbmd) as an EP: mash smarter not harder. the point of that EP was simply to introduce certain musical ideas that i intended to explore more fully over the coming years, much as you might take a pre-calculus class before moving on to studying calculus. hence the title of the first track, "introducing the new style".

the original plan was to rapidly follow up mash smarter either with a full-length or with a series of EP releases. i expected that to happen in 2009, but i ended up getting sidetracked and spent much of '09 working on visual art, design, and illustration. now, two full years later, the time is finally approaching...

a huge smash picks up where mash smarter left off, and from there the samples get shorter, the edits come quicker, and the sound gets distinctively glitchier. this will be the most ambitious stAllio! release ever, and musical culmination of everything i've been working on for the past several years, as the seeds that i planted in mash smarter come into full bloom.

all that, for free download, later this year. stay tuned. ¶

is this the worst idea that democrats have ever had?

i applaud congressional democrats' initiative for wanting to "reform" the immigration "problem" this year, especially in light of the anti-immigrant bill that was just passed in arizona. but my god, if this is their idea of reform...

Democratic leaders have proposed requiring every worker in the nation to carry a national identification card with biometric information, such as a fingerprint, within the next six years, according to a draft of the measure.

The proposal is one of the biggest differences between the newest immigration reform proposal and legislation crafted by late Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.).

The national ID program would be titled the Believe System, an acronym for Biometric Enrollment, Locally stored Information and Electronic Verification of Employment.

It would require all workers across the nation to carry a card with a digital encryption key that would have to match work authorization databases.

"The cardholder's identity will be verified by matching the biometric identifier stored within the microprocessing chip on the card to the identifier provided by the cardholder that shall be read by the scanner used by the employer," states the Democratic legislative proposal.

they literally want to fingerprint every worker in america. this is like some insane caricature of a proposal, the stuff of conspiracy theories. i almost can't believe it's real. are they trying to drive voters away? ¶

cause & effect redux

i always knew indygo—indianapolis's public transit system—was bad. there are too few buses, the route map is a mess, buses come infrequently, and fares are relatively expensive. but i didn't know until a couple weeks ago that indygo is one of the worst in the country. (a recent analysis found our bus fleet tied for last place with eugene, oregon... a town 1/5 our size!)

so how do you become worse than the worst? it sounds like a zen koan, but we're going to find out the answer!

IndyGo is counting itself as the next victim of the state's property tax caps and dwindling funding.

On Tuesday, Indianapolis' municipal bus agency said it is considering cutting service and jobs to make up for a $3 million shortfall this year.

Those cuts could include eliminating some bus routes and curtailing door-to-door paratransit service for people with disabilities.

yes, the system that has too few routes already may be forced to cut more routes! this is thanks in large part to property tax caps, which were instituted a couple years back after proto-teabagger stormed the streets demanding them, despite the objections of those of us who knew the cuts would wreck local government budgets throughout the state.

but the caps aren't the only cause of indygo's woes. fundamentally, the city has never truly embraced indygo or given it the funding it needs. comparable cities tend to devote much more to transit, often with dedicated taxes. (st louis's transit budget is almost six times ours.) the system has been neglected for years; its failure goes back several administrations.

mayor ballard hopes to improve the city's transit system. i sincerely hope he can. (he surely can't make it much worse.) but i don't have much hope, considering the kinds of solutions he's come up with so far. after all, ballard was a leading proponent of the property tax caps that have gutted his budget. and his proposal to fix the city's water and sewers has extra crap tagged on that means rates won't be as low as they could be; in exchange he gets a one-time cash infusion that he can pretend he didn't raise taxes for. (never mind that it would have the city sell off the city's water system outright; even the governor's controversial "major moves" deal would give the state our toll road back after 75 years.)

the last time i rode an indianapolis bus was when i was too young to drive. this is because the system is such a pain to use—there are few places i could even reach by bus without going downtown first, and most buses only come once an hour at best. but i've ridden public transit in other cities, so i know it doesn't have to be like this. ¶

but it's so easy to get an ID!

whenever anyone complains that indiana's voter ID law is too strict, proponents get bent out of shape. "everything else in our society requires ID, so why not voting?" they say. "besides, it's not that hard to get ID."

meet brent jones, profiled in tully's latest column (which ran in sunday's paper but was embargoed online until today). when brent was a baby, his troubled mother would often leave him with a local child care center, sometimes for days at a time. eventually, she disappeared entirely. the people who ran the child care effectively adopted brent, but no paperwork. 17 years later, brent was preparing to graduate high school, but had no birth certificate, no legal record of his identity. as such, he was unable to get a license, a college scholarship, or full-time work. and of course, unable to vote in indiana.

"People don't understand how ridiculous this is," Brent said. "It's crazy. No matter how much you try to explain, people say, 'There has to be a way.' No. I've tried everything."

As frustrating as Brent's case is, Marion County juvenile court Judge Marilyn Moores said it isn't unique. She comes across a handful of such cases each year. As with Brent, the story often begins with a birth parent handing a child off to a friend without taking the legal steps required.

"All of the systems of government have to become more sensitive to this issue," she said. "You can't tell these children they don't exist as far as our system is concerned. You can't penalize the child for the sins of the parent."

[...]

Brent was allowed to enroll at the schools because students who are unable to prove their identity aren't turned away. Nonetheless, the system did fail him. Many school workers knew his story, but nobody made the effort to help resolve his lack of legal documentation.

getting ID might not be so hard for those of us priveleged enough to come from stable homes, who were fortunate enough not to have our paper records destroyed by fire or tornado. but not everyone is so fortunate. it's easy to pretend that people like brent don't exist, or that they don't matter, but these people are real. they exist, and they are marginalized by bureaucracy.

in the end, brent's story has a happy ending. tully and the star's research department scoured public databased and made a lot of phone calls, and eventually were able to locate brent's mother, who was fortunately still alive and doing well. but again, this is sheer luck. brent had the good fortune to meet a newspaper columnist who happened to be writing a series of columns about manual high school, where brent had happened to transfer recently. surely, not everyone who lacks a birth certificate will meet a matt tully, and even if they did, tully and the star surely don't have time to locate them all.

there are others out there like brent: legally ghosts, with no tangible identity. these are people who've been treated like numbers, and their numbers got skipped. ¶

more award-winning journalism from abdul

abdul hakim shabazz apparently won a journalism award last week... and immediately used the opportunity to take a cheap shot at his critics (then escalating a few days later after one of his critics fired back). if you burst out laughing at the idea of abdul's site being the "best journalism website" in indiana, then you're probably familiar with abdul's work: it's vapid, petty, and what passes for news analysis is usually poorly thought out if not downright disingenuous.

for example, let's take his latest post, about indiana ending its pursuit of "race to the top" funds.

you're probably heard of "he said, she said" journalism, where journalists print quotes from both sides of a dispute and make no attempt to ascertain which side is correct (if either). abdul practices a simpler form—you could call it "he said" journalism—in which he gets quotes from one person and repeats them as unmitigated truth.

behold: here is his post in its entirety:

Indiana Superintendent of Public Instruction Dr. Tony Bennett told me this morning that the state is ending its pursuit for "Race to the Top" funds. "Race to the Top" is a federal program that provides up to $4 billion for states that implement reforms in their education system.

Bennett says there was not enough support from the Indiana Teachers Unions for the state to take a second shot at the funds. Lack of union support was the one of the original reasons Indiana lost out on the first round of "Race to the Top" funds.

Bennett told me this morning he made an offer to the Unions to meet him next Tuesday to work out a deal, however they turned him down.

Had Indiana been a "Race to the Top" participant, it would have received hundreds of millions of dollars for education. Bennett says, for him, Race to the Top was more about reforming schools than money.

However, I can't help but think of the irony in all this that the teachers unions whine and complain about more money for schools and as soon as they get an opportunity to get more money they turn it down. Hmmm, it must be that whole accountability thing again.

man, union people sure are a bunch of assholes! i sure am glad abdul made no attempt to get their side of the story, aren't you?

in contrast, here's a taste of how the indianapolis star covered this story last week:

Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Bennett said he is passionately making a case for reforms he considers crucial to improve the well-being of the state's children.

The presidents of the Indiana State Teachers Association and the Indiana Federation of Teachers say Bennett is trying to steamroll teachers in the process and is using unfair tactics. Both have increased their own rhetoric against and criticism of the state.

The debate has come to a head over whether the unions will sign on to the state's second attempt to win stimulus funds.

Bennett has advocated tying job reviews for teachers to their students' test scores, and he has advanced policies that would allow teachers to be paid or dismissed based on job performance rather than years of experience.

wait, so the two sides had a disagreement over some kind of issue? well surely the unions are just being unreasonable...

Bennett held several meetings with union leaders but declined to allow them to see the proposal for the federal grant, saying that other states might steal the more innovative ideas. Both unions were then asked to write letters of support -- for a proposal they had not seen.

emphasis mine. the real story is that the unions were unwilling to sign onto bennett's plan sight unseen. so, rather than share his "innovative" ideas with the unions, bennett decided to not apply for the grant at all.

as doug pointed out last week, perhaps this dispute could've been resolved had the two sides been more willing to work together rather than fire off angry press releases. in the end, both sides lost this one. but surely nobody comes off looking more foolish than abdul, who published an embarrassingly one-sided post that was lacking some crucial details.

the question is: did abdul not know this information, or did he simply choose not to share it with his audience? either one is a glaring journalistic failure, but the former would be merely incompetent, whereas the latter would be downright mendacious. both possibilities are troubling—i'm just not sure which is worse. ¶

handicap rec 001 - act like you understand 12"

i just got my copies of this 12", the debut release from france's handicap records:

Handicap Rec 001 - Act Like You Understand
A1 - Doormouse - Final Eye of the European Breakcore Burnout
A2 - Handbag/Abba - Ruffest Gunark
A3 - stAllio! - Rockin the Pop Charts
A4 - Roundop Ready vs Rektal Distortion - Vanitas Vanitatum, Omnia Vanitas
B1 - Killjoy - Muffhawk Smack Down
B2 - Handbag/Abba - Overnight Celebrity
B3 - Valav - Xhailn

contact me if you're interested in a copy... i'm thinking around $7 each sounds about right.

¶

housin'

as some of you have already heard, virago & i just bought a new house in the "south broad ripple" area. (close enough to broad ripple to call it sobro, but far enough south as to require the use of scare quotes.) we'd been living in apartments for the past couple years, so it's great to be back in a place that we own, that we can decorate and modify at will. not to mention, it's larger than our apartments and the mortgage is less than we were paying in rent.

the previous owners were rehabbers who bought the place for cheap and fixed it up. the outside is unassuming, but the interior is beautiful—if a bit amateurishly done. (the cable installer had to laugh at the unprofessional exterior cable hookup, and our frankenstein's monster of a furnace, with its labyrinthine ductwork and hobbled-together appearance, elicited a similar reaction from the HVAC guy.)

possibly the best part is the basement, which means we no longer need to live among piles of clutter—the clutter all goes in the basement, where we don't have to look at it! this also allows us to get better furniture. for example, virago wanted to get a better storage solution for our vinyl record collections, so we picked up some of these bad boys:

it's like having a record store right in my own house! ¶

cause and effect

cause: indiana property taxes are capped, taking away a crucial source of revenue for local governments.

effect: painful local service cuts. the most recent example is the marion county public library:

The Indianapolis-Marion County Public Library could close as many as six branches this year.

Closing those branches and laying off workers would turn a budget deficit into a slight surplus, according to a report presented on Thursday to a committee of the library board.

[...]

The cuts would also cost 55 library workers their jobs, and remaining employees would see their work weeks cut to 37.5 hours.

Reduced property tax revenues, caused by changes in state tax law, will lead to $3.2 million in cuts. About 80 percent of the library's budget comes from property taxes.

glancing at a map of the proposed closures shows that they're nearly all in the inner city, in lower-income areas with a lot of minority residents:


View Marion County Library Closings in a larger map

the people in these areas are the ones who need libraries the most. many people depend on public libraries for internet access. closing these branches will make it even harder for these people to find jobs. ¶

abdul's most despicable ever?

right-wing blogger/radio host abdul hakim shabazz has a history of saying heartless and hateful things about the city's homeless, from his notorious comment (coincidentally from two years ago today) that "Someone whould get a giant broom and sweep them all away!" to his suggestion last month that the city should forceably commit the city's homeless to mental institutions against their consent.

i didn't think abdul could get any worse than that, but his post from this morning is so appalling that i'd think it an april fool's joke if i didn't know better.

the "shorter" version of his post is that the city should've somehow gotten rid of all the city's homeless and panhandlers before the ncaa final four. "I don’t care if they use spray or a hose," he writes, "but these guys need to go and go now."

abdul laments that he was recently asked for money more than once, and that "while walking over to meet my friends I had to deal with people sitting on the sidewalk, leaning against buildings and some even asleep on the street." then, astonishingly, he claims that he's not talking about the homeless, because "Ask any expert and they will tell you that homelessness and panhandling are two different things."

even ignoring the fact (which i've pointed out repeatedly) that studies show that the majority of panhandlers are indeed homeless, abdul apparently thinks that people who sleep on the street are panhandlers, but not homeless! imagine if all you had to do to panhandle sucessfully was take a nap next to your collection plate, maybe with a sign that says "sleepy, please give." the mind boggles at the very concept!

in the course of his dehumanization, abdul calls these people "dirty laundry", "trash", "nuisances", and "eye sores". and those are just the names he's willing to call them on his blog. i can only imagine the horrible things he says in private.

truly, i ask you, is there a more misguided, misinformed, and misanthropic blogger in all of indianapolis? ¶

if it's anti-andre carson, this must be AI

advance indiana's gary welsh was away from the blogging scene for weeks while he struggled with a near-fatal bout of pneumonia. fortunately, he's back now... and making the same old mistakes.

gary has earned of a reputation as a carson-hater. he's demonstrated time and again that he'll eagerly print just about anything critical of the carson clan, with little regard for whether it's true. so when someone on the right-wing american thinker blog posted an entry claiming that andre carson had made up the story about tea partiers yelling racial slurs at him last week, it was destined to show up at advance indiana.

this "thoughtful" analysis consisted of watching at least four youtube videos and reading at least two or three blog posts. but surprisingly, this turned out to be an insufficient amount of research, leading to some major factual errors that gary unthinkingly repeats.

when rep carson was being heckled, he was walking next to his fellow black congressman john lewis, a hero of the civil rights movement. but because initial reports on the incident didn't include a full quote from lewis, this is taken to mean that lewis never confirmed that it happened. inconveniently, lewis made this statement to the hill:

Asked if racial epithets were yelled at him, Lewis responded, "Yes, but it's OK. I've heard this before in the '60s. A lot of this is just downright hate."

likewise, reps james clyburn and emanuel cleaver were involved in a second incident, where cleaver was allegedly spat at by a protester. initial reports only had quotes from cleaver, not clyburn. therefore, according to gary, "Lewis and Clyburn never made no claims of the N-word being uttered." however, it turns out that clyburn did make yes claims... to the wrong blog! stupid clyburn!

But Clyburn was downright incredulous, saying he had not witnessed such treatment since he was leading civil rights protests in South Carolina in the 1960s.

"It was absolutely shocking to me," Clyburn said, in response to a question from the Huffington Post. "Last Monday, this past Monday, I stayed home to meet on the campus of Claflin University where fifty years ago as of last Monday... I led the first demonstrations in South Carolina, the sit ins... And quite frankly I heard some things today I have not heard since that day. I heard people saying things that I have not heard since March 15, 1960 when I was marching to try and get off the back of the bus."

in short, all four men—two of whom were civil rights leaders in the '60s—are judged to be liars. why? because in 2010, folks just don't use racial slurs like that anymore! no, seriously, that is the conclusion of the american thinker piece, which gary approvingly quotes. indeed, the very thought that someone might yell the n-word at a congressman "is so at odds with the reality of America circa 2010 that it undermines the credibility of any media person who reported it with a straight face"!

poor gary. he's only recently returned to blogging, and he's already reporting clearly false information. this was bad enough that i actually tried leaving a comment on his blog, though we'll have to see if my comment ever makes it out of moderation. (he also has a reputation for being unable to tolerate criticism.)

update: i knew it was a waste of time leaving at comment at AI, and sure enough, my comment hasn't been approved. but the comment thread is still worth a read, thanks to gary's comments about representative carson being "raised to hate white peope" and melyssa's rejoinder that "I do believe Andre Carson is as racist as they come." ¶

health care passes house

i got a little despondent a couple months ago when it looked like health care reform was going to fail again. at the time, it was clear that democrats had the power to pass reform; they just seemed to lack the will to do it, which was seriously depressing.

but eventually, they got their acts together, and now health care reform is on its way to becoming law. the house has passed the senate bill, and the senate looks certain to pass a reconciliation bill fixing some of the flaws in the senate bill. the final reform package isn't perfect, but there's a lot of good stuff in there.

like millions of americans, this isn't some abstract policy debate for me. my wife has a pre-existing condition. as such, we've always known that if disaster struck and she found herself unemployed for more than a few weeks, she would lose her health insurance and would be unable to buy more. now, we can sleep a little easier. (we have to make it four more years before those provisions kick in, but that's still a major improvement.)

with the passage of health care reform, congressional democrats may have saved themselves from annihilation. yes, they'll probably lose a few seats come november, but things will likely work out much better than they would've otherwise. people will come to forget the acrimony of this debate, but they'll remember the results: democrats passed major legislation that ensures people who need it will get health care.

it may be raining outside, but the future looks a little brighter. ¶

teabaggers yell racial slurs at andre carson

welcome to post-racial america!

Tea partiers and other anti-health care activists are known to get rowdy, but today's protest on Capitol Hill--the day before the House is set to vote on historic health care legislation--went beyond the usual chanting and controversial signs, and veered into ugly bigotry and intimidation.

Civil rights hero Rep. John Lewis (D-GA) and fellow Congressional Black Caucus member Andre Carson (D-IN) related a particularly jarring encounter with a large crowd of protesters screaming "kill the bill"... and punctuating their chants with the word "nigger."

Standing next to Lewis, emerging from a Democratic caucus meeting with President Obama, Carson said people in the crowd yelled, "kill the bill and then the N-word" several times, while he and Lewis were exiting the Canon House office building.

"People have been just downright mean," Lewis added.

And that wasn't an isolated incident. Early this afternoon, standing outside a Democratic whip meeting in the Longworth House office building, I watched Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) make his way out the door, en route to the neighboring Rayburn building. As he rounded the corner toward the exit, wading through a huge crowd of tea partiers and other health care protesters, an elderly white man screamed "Barney, you faggot"--a line that caused dozens of his confederates to erupt in laughter.

keep it classy, tea party! ¶

looking for news? keep on looking.

starting today, the indianapolis star is crippling its web site. the new policy: front-page stories will be embargoed from the web site for 48 hours, as will the columnists. that's right: if you go to indystar.com, you won't be shown the news that the star deems most important. (this week, it's yet another story about hazing at carmel high school and yet another tully column about manual high school. yay, high school!)

if you've been paying attention to the star in the past few years, you'll know that the print edition has been getting progressively crappier, with a shrinking trim size and shorter page count (the only thing that's gotten bigger is the font size). in contrast, the star has routinely been putting "extra" content online that wouldn't fit in between the ads on the print edition.

so why would anyone want to subscribe? apparently this is a question the management has been struggling with for a while, and the answer they came up with is that readers should be forced to subscribe (to the print edition!) if they want timely content.

in the age of blogs and the 24-hour news cycle, this is absurd. people want fast, easy access to the news. they want to be able to share news articles with their friends. and yes, they want to be able to leave offensive racist, sexist, and homophobic comments on stories about how minorities are ruining america, liberals are idiotic scum, and so forth. they can do those things easily with a web site. not so much with a printed newspaper that comes to their door only once a day.

someone in management decided that subscription revenue was more important than web traffic or online revenue. i can appreciate their conundrum—newspaper revenues are dropping and the parent company demands unreasonable profits. but i'll be shocked if this results in a significant increase in subscribers. i sure as hell won't be subscribing.

so the hunt is on: we need better online sources for local news! i'll admit; i've been lazy when it comes to finding other feeds to follow. not anymore! ¶

does this count as a tax increase?

are you unhappy that the propsed deal to sell the city's water and sewer utilities would allow citizens energy group to raise rates with no oversight from the city?

if so, you should talk to mayor ballard, because to him that's the whole point:

There are those who believe one reason Indianapolis is selling its water and sewer systems to Citizens Energy Group is so the utility can do something that elected officials have often lacked the courage to do: raise rates.

To those folks, Mayor Greg Ballard has a message: You're pretty much right -- and it's the right thing to do.

Ballard officially announced Wednesday the city is selling the utilities to Citizens for $1.9 billion.

What that means for ratepayers is that Citizens' board of directors -- and not local elected officials accountable to Indianapolis voters -- will make decisions on when to seek rate hikes from the state and by how much.

first off, it sure is odd that a mayor who campaigned on transparency and accountability would deliberately want to make the city's utilities less accountable... and do so in a closed-door deal, no less!

second, if the mayor thinks this will give him political cover when rates go up, he's sorely mistaken. voters will remember who was responsible for selling these utilities and stripping away the city's oversight. in 2007, candidate ballard would've called this a tax increase, and so will ballard's opponents come 2011.

ballard's argument is that politicians are too cowardly to raise rates as much as they need to be raised. of course, the brave thing to do would be to suck it up and raise rates yourself. then he could say, "i did what needed to be done; i did what past administrations were too afraid to do." instead, when rates go up, the mayor will just shrug his shoulders and say, "i didn't do it!"

but hey, at least we can fix some potholes, am i right? ¶

phase one complete

hoo boy... i predicted that the layout would get wonky but forgot that all relative links would break (including my stylesheet and all background images!) so the blog was nigh-illegible for an hour or so there.

migration is now complete, and the blog is up & running at the new URL: blog.animalswithinanimals.com. the layout will change again as i try to build a modified version of this design using the new blogger layouts. in the end (fingers crossed) everything should look much the same as it did, only the sidebar will likely be significantly rearranged.

update: all comments seem to have disappeared and some comment pages appear to have been broken during migration. don't take it personally. there's not much i can do about that; here's hoping blogger identifies and fixes the problem.

2nd update: comments appear to be back online. ¶

this blog may break

as you may have heard, blogger is eliminating support for ftp publishing. since stAllio!'s way is currently published via blogger ftp, that means i need to change my setup.

you may be thinking that this is perfect opportunity to switch to a different blog provider, and you'd have a point. however, over the years i've built multiple web sites for other people using blogger ftp, so i need to know the new blogger systems work for their benefit.

as such, stAllio!'s way will soon migrate to blogger hosting, most likely in the new few hours. as such, you may notice the following changes:

• the URLs for the blog and its feed will both change—a redirect will be posted but you'll want to change your bookmarks.
• the blog layout may get all wonky as i switch over the new blogger layouts. (this isn't required, but if i'm migrating anyway then what the hell, right?)
• i may get inspired and design all new blog graphics. (this will happen eventually, but as i have other ongoing projects, i'll probably wait a bit.)
• some links may break, though they should redirect to the new location.

i've already migrated the AWIA news blog (and updated its graphics), which was relatively painless, so i predict this will go smoothly. but, you know, do not adjust your set. we control the horizontal and the vertical, and all that. ¶

transparency in local government?

when mayor ballard talked about transparency in local government, he must've been referring to the powerpoints he'd use to present his closed-door dealings:

The city is close to selling its water and sewer utilities to Citizens Energy Group in a $1.9 billion deal that leaders say would minimize future rate increases and bring in hundreds of millions of dollars to improve roads, bridges and sidewalks.

Today, Indianapolis officials will give details of a nonbinding agreement between the city and Citizens, a public charitable trust that provides gas, steam and chilled water. Under the proposed terms, Citizens would pay Indianapolis nearly $2 billion for the two utilities, which now are owned by the city and run by private operators.

Citizens would acquire Indianapolis' water and sewer utilities and have full control over their operations. It also would become responsible for hundreds of millions of dollars in capital improvement projects to be completed in coming years.

City officials touted the benefits of the plan, but some are concerned about the arrangement, which would limit the city's oversight of two integral utilities.

Under the new setup, no local elected officials or their appointees would be responsible for approving or suggesting rate increases. Instead, it would be left up to Citizens' board of directors, who are not accountable to Indianapolis voters, to decide when to seek rate increases and how big they should be. Final say on rate increases would be in the hands of state utility regulators who are appointed by the governor.

so he wants to sell our water & sewers to a utility company, giving up any semblance of oversight, and in exchange we'll get to fill some potholes.

it should be noted that when democrats on the city-county council asked about rumors of a water deal, they were repeatedly told no deal was in the works. transparency! ¶