UPDATE!!! A letter to the Editor that Candidate Buckley sent in the Southside Times.
At a recent city council meeting and in a local Southside newspaper, our city administration stated they have gained control of the spiraling legal fees billed to the city of Beech Grove by their retained legal counsel.
The city administration stated they have only spent $15,000 on legal fees in fiscal year 2011. Under the “Open Door” statue, an official request was made on July 7th for any and all payments made by the City of Beech Grove for any and all legal services compensated by the City of Beech Grove in 2011.
On Aug. 23rd, these requested documents were delivered. It was found that over $70,000 has been spent by the City of Beech Grove to legal counsel to date in 2011. This is over four times the amount officially stated by the city administration, and we were only six months into the fiscal year. Something more startling was found as a result of our open records request; Why is the City of Beech Grove paying a law firm $3,800.00 per month to lobby Congress? Why is the City of Beech Grove paying another law firm $6,200.00 per month to lobby the State of Indiana on behalf of the CSX and other properties within RDC TIF Districts, especially considering that the current City Attorney is also the Indiana Speaker of the House, Brian Bosma?
Furthermore, why has the City of Beech Grove paid over $220,000.00 in legal fees to the city attorney pursuant to the city court over the last three years? Taxpayers of Beech Grove deserve so much better than to have tax dollars wastefully spent on overpriced legal services and lobbying. This is exactly the type of irresponsible
fiscal activity that I will work to eliminate as Mayor of Beech Grove.
Dennis B. Buckley
Retired Fire Chief
Candidate for Mayor
The city administration stated they have only spent $15,000 on legal fees in fiscal year 2011. Under the “Open Door” statue, an official request was made on July 7th for any and all payments made by the City of Beech Grove for any and all legal services compensated by the City of Beech Grove in 2011.
On Aug. 23rd, these requested documents were delivered. It was found that over $70,000 has been spent by the City of Beech Grove to legal counsel to date in 2011. This is over four times the amount officially stated by the city administration, and we were only six months into the fiscal year. Something more startling was found as a result of our open records request; Why is the City of Beech Grove paying a law firm $3,800.00 per month to lobby Congress? Why is the City of Beech Grove paying another law firm $6,200.00 per month to lobby the State of Indiana on behalf of the CSX and other properties within RDC TIF Districts, especially considering that the current City Attorney is also the Indiana Speaker of the House, Brian Bosma?
Furthermore, why has the City of Beech Grove paid over $220,000.00 in legal fees to the city attorney pursuant to the city court over the last three years? Taxpayers of Beech Grove deserve so much better than to have tax dollars wastefully spent on overpriced legal services and lobbying. This is exactly the type of irresponsible
fiscal activity that I will work to eliminate as Mayor of Beech Grove.
Dennis B. Buckley
Retired Fire Chief
Candidate for Mayor
Just a few questions that you will either figure out on your own or will have to ask the Mayor, City Attorney, and the City Council...
Please take the time to at least skim over the invoices to see what is going on instead of believing what comes out of someone's mouth.
1. Wasn't there an Ordinance passed by the City Council that stated that the Mayor had to advise the City Council of any spending above the $10,000.00 level?
2. If #1 is correct, then why did someone split the invoices up into amounts that were less than $10,000.00? When a City Council person was asked if they knew anything about this they had no idea.
3. Why wasn't the City Council advised?
4. Why could the City Attorney not handle such basic legal actions such as these?
5. Are there any lawyers who live in Beech Grove or have their businesses located in Beech Grove that have the expertise to conduct such business?
6. If the current City Attorney can't conduct the business of getting the Apartments to comply with simple Sewer Bills, Debt Collections, and his fumbling in the City Court; then what is the basis for retaining his services further?
Click on the Images to enlarge them for viewing and download. I made them smaller because there are 19 pages of legal Bills.
YOU ONLY HAVE TO SINGLE CLICK THE IMAGES TO ENLARGE.
17 comments:
218,502 Page Views at time and Date of posting.
10/17/2012 2:50p.m.
Looks to me like the Mayor is trying to foreclose on the Beech Grove Meat market too.
Can you please tell me how to enlarge this? I double click but doesn't enlarge. thanks!
The $10,000 is if the City purchases supplies.
Lewis & Kappes has dealt exclusively with the Main Street loan program. This is a result of bad loans made by the RDC, Wright and Dilk that the current administration is trying to clean up.
My question is why didn't Duffer act on this while he was the Clerk?
You might want to go to the meat market and ask the owners what they think of our current Clerk.
Kevin, when you got this information from your man McMillan he should have explained it to you.
I talked to Mcmillan and he doesn't hire attorneys.He does not handle the Main street business loans. He just collects the payments. The mayor and attorney handle them. Buckley is just jealous because he aint Kevin's man anymore.
First of all, I dont care what a person who owes a bill says about the person trying to collect it. Dont make it if you cant pay it. Also, if you cant sustain your business, shut it down. Sorry but maybe its time to go back to insurance Laura
So we have paid over $12,000 so far and have another $7,000 to go at this point? Why are we paying another attorney $150 per hr to do this?
Funny how things change, candidate Buckley wrote several letters to the newspapers complaining about wasted spending. Now he has outside council, his asst is making $5,000 more than Joey Fox whom candidate Buckley screamed about, he has a bigger staff, giving raises, and borrowed 2 million dollars for his projects, my how things change.
why would ole bucky buck be running around the grove telling everyone that the clerk is the one doing this? dan just pays the bills, ole bucky buck hired the attorney to sue everyone.
Buckley, WHAT he should said when he was running, I'll take credit for all thats good, I'll blame Wright, Dilk and others for everything else
http://www.beechgrove.com/uploads/1/0/1/2/10129925/general_ordinance_no._29_2012.pdf
Supplies or services. Legal is a service.
So he is just getting around this by splitting the invoices? This just isn't going to stop, is it?
Nope, Buckley thinks he is unstoppable, and he is lying about who's to blame.
Buckley and his small circle of people have mounted a campaign to put it all on the clerk.
Silly Mayor, the clerk has no power to hire lawyers, give raises, or set policy, the buck stops with Buckley
Kevin, you might want to do a little fact checking about Shop with a Cop before you heartily endorse them. The Indy Star did a report a year or two ago about them. They were found to be the worst charity at returning money to the needy in Central Indiana. Something like 90 percent of donations were used on fund raising expenses including salaries for their employees. That means a one hundred dollar donation netted ten dollars for a child to shop with. It is all public relations for the Fraternal Order of Police. Donate to the Salvation Army they have the best record for getting help to the needy.
Clearly you are some jackass hack that has no idea what you are talking about when it comes to the BGPD Shop with a Cop program.
Not one penny goes anywhere other than to the kids in the BGPD program I know this for a fact as I was involved in volunteering for a few years and plan on volunteering again this year and for many years to come. There have been years when they stopped accepting donations because they had more money than they needed and didn't want to take money without need.
I don't know what other programs do and don't care.
You anonymous cowards need to do your homework about what I post about before stepping into play.
Every once in a while I get someone who posts on here that is so stupid that I wonder how you tie your freakin shoes in the morning.
It's too bad that I don't really know who is posting because you would be banned for life from this blog.
End of rant.
On a positive note............
Love the flag on the roundabout!
I wonder how much was spent on legal fees relating to the give away of the rock pile for subsidized housing, just what we need, at least they tend to vote Dem, right Buck?
Post a Comment