MR SPEAKER, WHERE ARE YOU?

If you reside in northern Indiana keep reading, but you may not wish to go further, because you may not be interested.

On Sunday February 8th the South Bend Tribune ran a good and overdue editorial questioning the wisdom of the City of South Bend in keeping a one million dollar budget item moving forward to install a sculpture garden in front of the Century Center. Obviously an expenditure of this magnitude during these challenging economic times is absurd, if not irresponsible. I applaud the editorial, because the Mayor of South Bend has been ignoring the will of the people to budget responsibly far too long. Remember, Mayor Luecke has also appropriated another one million dollars from the city treasury to build a jumbo-tron television screen on the outside of the building which the local PBS station will occupy late 2009 or early 2010. A jumbo-tron on a street that houses a number of municipal buildings and has no evening traffic…is he crazy??? And he would like to see an increase in the county income tax???

I sent an email message to the South Bend Tribune saluting them for raising the question of the garden, and at the same time suggested (for about the third time) that the paper conduct an investigation into the Indiana Speaker of the House of Representatives, B. Patrick Bauer. It is my opinion that the public should know precisely just how many days Bauer spends conducting his responsibilities as Speaker and how many days he spends time in his office at Ivy Technical College in South Bend where he collects a salary around $90,000 per year. We taxpayers pay both of his salaries as Speaker and as an employee of Ivy Tech, and I think we have a right to know if we are getting our money’s worth.

Your Commander has heard from several individuals who are in a position to know that Bauer spends little or no time in his Ivy Tech office. If that is true, we should know the facts. If that is not true, we should have those facts presented too, so this “urban legend” is put to bed. It is one thing to accuse King Bauer of holding back the vote on vital State legislation, but it is another thing to question him of not meeting his obligations to the taxpayers of Indiana where he double dips financially.

Wouldn’t you like to know? I sure would.

COMMANDER GRANGER