RECONFIGURING DOWNTOWN FRANKLIN

UPDATE Nov. 7, 2009:

JOHNSON COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY OFFICIALS PERPETRATE MUNI BOND FRAUD!

The Indiana Securities Act says:

IC 23-19-5-1
Fraudulent or deceitful acts
Sec. 1. It is unlawful for a person, in connection with the offer, sale, or purchase of a security, directly or indirectly:
(1) to employ a device, scheme, or artifice to defraud;
(2) to make an untrue statement of a material fact or to omit to state a material fact necessary in order to make the statement made, in the light of the circumstances under which they were made, not misleading; or
(3) to engage in an act, practice, or course of business that operates or would operate as a fraud or deceit upon another person.
As added by P.L.27-2007, SEC.23.

Fraud was used to evade this new ordinance on the issuance of capital improvement bonds:

IC 6-1.1-17-20.5
Circumstances under which a taxing unit's proposed bonds or lease must be reviewed by the city, town, or county fiscal body
Sec. 20.5. (a) This section applies to the governing body of a taxing unit unless a majority of the governing body is comprised of officials who are elected to serve on the governing body. For purposes of this section, an individual who qualifies to be appointed to a governing body or serves on a governing body because of the individual's status as an elected official of another taxing unit shall be treated as an official who was not elected to serve on the governing body.
(b) As used in this section, "taxing unit" has the meaning set forth in IC 6-1.1-1-21, except that the term does not include:
(1) a school corporation; or
(2) an entity whose tax levies are subject to review and modification by a city-county legislative body under IC 36-3-6-9.
(c) If:
(1) the assessed valuation of a taxing unit is entirely contained within a city or town; or
(2) the assessed valuation of a taxing unit is not entirely contained within a city or town but the taxing unit was originally established by the city or town;
the governing body of the taxing unit may not issue bonds or enter into a lease payable in whole or in part from property taxes unless it obtains the approval of the city or town fiscal body.
(d) This subsection applies to a taxing unit not described in subsection (c). The governing body of the taxing unit may not issue bonds or enter into a lease payable in whole or in part from property taxes unless it obtains the approval of the county fiscal body in the county where the taxing unit has the most net assessed valuation.
As added by P.L.146-2008, SEC.164. Amended by P.L.182-2009(ss), SEC.125.

PARTIAL TRANSCRIPT OF HOW THE FRAUD WAS PRESENTED:

CITY COUNCIL 8/3/09 - JCPL Attorney Brian J. Deppe: "One of the requirements to issue general obligation bonds is approval by the overseeing governmental entity. Frankly, there is some question of what that entity is. I was on the library board a long time ago, and if you had asked me who'd formed the original Franklin Public Library, I would have said the City of Franklin. We recently got into the history of that, and it appears that it was formed by Johnson County. Strangely enough. We haven't nailed that down, but that's what it appears to be. So in an excess of caution, rather than going only before the Johnson County Council for authorization for these bonds, we are coming to both bodies, so if there's any question later about which body is the correct body, we will have been to both."

COUNTY COUNCIL 8/10/09 Brian J. Deppe: "Essentially... for issuing bonds, we are supposed to come before the authority who approves our budget. The interesting question is, if a library's boundaries are outside of a city itself, one of the issues is, who created the library? And if you had asked me two weeks ago, I would have said, Franklin created the library. We have some information that the County Commissioners created the Franklin library. Contrary to what I would have thought. And because of our own uncertainty about whether the library was created by the City of Franklin, or by Johnson County, we filed and presented this petition to both bodies. The last thing we wanted to do, assuming we presented it to only one body, and it said yes, and we get halfway down the road and somebody says stop, you went to the wrong body. Which is why we came both here and to the City of Franklin."

JCPL Director Beverly Martin: "I've had this conversation with a couple of you that yes, it doesn't make any sense that just because we were created by a city, that that city would be approving our budgets, or our bonding ability, but that appears to be the way the law is written. We are trying to get that clarified. Because personally I think, and when we're looking at a county situation, where everyone in the county is gonna have an input on this decision, and final outcome of the project, it should be this body that has final approval... [After Council refuses the total $2,000,000:] I think it might be better if we table it, and let the [Library] Board have their hearing on the 18th [of Aug.] and then we can come back... When it comes right down to it, they're [the Board] not gonna sell bonds until they've got both city and county approval. Because we don't know whose approval we should be getting. [Councilman Canary: Who can tell you that?] I'm going to have to go through the County Commissioner's records and see if we can find something that states that the county formed the library. If we can't find that, then it's the city, and the city approves it."

CITY COUNCIL 8/17/09 -Brian J. Deppe: "Two things: When we were here before, we mentioned to you some uncertainty about whether the library was a city library or a county library. Because of that we were going before both bodies with the petition to issue general obligation bonds. Since that time, we have researched some old records, and we have satisfied ourselves and bond counsel that the library is a city library, notwithstanding its name. And that county approval for the bond issue is not needed."

HOW THE JCPL SYSTEM WAS CREATED, ACCORDING TO A JCPL REFERENCE LIBRARIAN (who read the history as presented on JCPL's intra-net!):

NOTE THE LAST SIGNATURE ABOVE: "Brian J Deppe" !

Previous postings:

THE FRANKLIN OFFICE SHELLGAME - wanna play?
Jan. '09 by Gary W. Moody

Can you afford to get in the game, Mr/Ms Taxpayer? Seriously, we all want the best results, and without wasting resources. The three main players, besides you, are
1 Johnson County,
2. the City of Franklin, and
3. the Johnson County Public Library system.

The questions being discussed with the County Commissioners boil down to:
1. Best downtown location for a new Prosecutor office;
2. Whether there will be county court expansion, where that would go, and if that will be in tandem with #1;
3. Where other offices displaced from the Oren Wright building would go;
4. If the City or County can, while pondering the above, help JCPL find a new downtown location.

Also, keep in mind that the Mayor wants to:
1. Move City Hall to E. Court St., where Planning has already located;
2. Build a parking garage downtown.

Questions to ponder:

1. Should criminal courts be at the expanded county jail, so that prisoners needn't be hauled downtown?

2. Should the city and/or county do a deal with JCPL so they can build 80 or 90 thousand square feet downtown?
It's in the Downtown Revitalization Plan, and would sure help downtown.

What Franklin looked like to LIFE magazine in 1940 (more pics on Google). Note how lush and green the courthouse square was before judges got too lazy to walk from the curb. Also, note that that the high ground along S. Jackson was and still IS buildable. And who let a bank knock down those historic buildings at Main and West Jefferson??

The pieces of the Downtown Franklin Puzzle. Note that each 1/4 downtown block, #7 for example, is 144 by 144 feet from curb-to-curb, so to speak, or 20,736 square feet. Actual buildable area subtracts sidewalks, setback, landscaping if any, etc.

1. Franklin Engineering site is up for grabs;
2. County's Oren Wright building is demolished, great spot for a parking garage.
(the original course of Roaring Run was north to south in front of the Oren Wright);
3. Former Planning Dept. building was the western half of this area, roughly. Not a valuable structure.
4. County employee parking lot would be a good building site at Jackson Street level or above.
5. County employee parking.
6. County's vacant lot which was saved from being wasted on a maintenance pole barn.
7. County's public parking lot. Our historic City Hall is to the left.
8. County's employee parking for North Annex. Room to build over both.
9. City's public lot. Planning is in adjacent building, which will become City Hall. 4th building above the lot is the empty Hazelett Building.
10. County's public parking. Both 9 and 10 are buildable but not important at this time.
11. City's public lot, about 3/8 of a block.

Ideas have been putting Prosecutor in the 5/6 or 7/8 locations. Or court expansion in the latter. Or, leaving civil courts downtown, putting criminal court rooms in the upcoming jail expansion project. Several advantages in not having to transport prisoners to the Court House.

Good sites for a library would be 4 or 11. Parking garage at #1 & 2 could offer multi-use public and employee parking; perhaps with an enclosed corridor through the ground floor of a structure on #4? Think about it.

THE PARKING PUZZLE. The city Planning Dept.'s 2003 downtown parking study said that THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A "parking problem" DOWNTOWN! That is an urban myth, and anyone who says that, including the Mayor, hasn't READ the study (or walked very much lately). Pick up your own copy at City Hall, read it and see. Above is the distribution of parking in public-owned lots at the time (the County didn't own the N. Annex property then; I've added that, also spaces next to City Hall, and in front of the previous city Planning location).

HOWEVER, a 90 thousand or so square foot public library downtown would change the equation dramatically, and hopefully with the added benefit of more retail activity downtown. So, a parking garage, especially next to a new library, would probably be a great idea.

WEIGH IN WITH YOUR OPINION! Contact the city, county, and/or library officials.

UPDATE 6/09:
Library on the Annex parking lot (#4 on numbered diagram above) with a parking garage (joint venture of JCPL and/or County and/or City) adjacent to the west (#1 and #2 above) looks like the best solution. Here are some very, very rough sketches of how it might look (pardon the amateur paste-up):

Looking west from the west entrance of the Annex, across South Jackson. The basic points to gather here are #1: The ground floor is about the same height as the ground, or middle, floor of the Annex. The basement has utilities, loading dock, etc. #2: Actual library/office space is 3 stories above the street. #3: There's a glass atrium down the middle, which is a public corridor between the street and parking garage (with a connection above the alley, between the structures). The atrium is actually a 3-story-plus open space (ignore the stairs inside, the upper part is the main design idea), with connections between the upper floors for library patrons. The library entrance is inside, probably the north side of the atrium. The other side of the 1st floor could be library offices and library board meeting room and other public space, etc.

View from Mike's Garage, looking southeast across Jefferson. Admiral station is on the right, west side of parking garage is behind their sign. Main entrance to garage faces Jefferson at left. North end of library is at far left. Again, this is a rough sketch, not to scale, and may show an over-abundance of parking levels. Note, however, that county officials, and county vehicles, would have reserved and perhaps secure parking space inside, and possibly their own entrance from Monroe.

Looking south across Jefferson from the alley in front of the township trustee's office. That alley would actually continue at same width between the two structures; and of course the street is a bit wider; again, this is not to scale, these are just visualizing aids. Main parking entrance is on the right. FREE parking, that is. Ground floor of the structure would be more open, actually, to allow 100-year flood waters to go through unrestricted. The brick facade goes with the rest of downtown, though. Plain concrete is not the way to go.