@forthecivicgood And people are like “he paid his bond fair and square 🤷” as if his bond shouldn’t have been $5 million and not 4 fucking thousand. That’s the price of us allowing dangerous criminals back on our streets?! That’s it?!
May 18: Dominque Shockley is arrested for burglary, drugs, & possession of an illegal machine gun
June 13: released from jail on $4k bond
June 16: commits armed carjacking
@carterdalast Accurately? Lol go make up lies about a black Wall Street being the future of the economy or how picking a single crop in like 5 states somehow built this country!
@JustIndianaGirl Damn then we should deport every one of the probably million or so foreigners in this state. Reduced demand + stable supply = lower costs.
I know this is a long one, but trust me when I say..... it's worth listening.
During yesterday's Indiana State Budget Committee meeting, the discussion on Indiana's wetland credit program was WILD.
@Sen_ChrisGarten questioned why private property owners and farmers can be required to buy wetland credits after being told they've impacted a wetland, calling the current "fee-in-lieu" system a "Ponzi scheme." He argued that credits can be purchased for mitigation projects hundreds of miles away, raising the question of how replacing a wetland in one part of the state with one in another actually benefits the local environment.
Then came the numbers.
According to Garten, the program went from roughly $1.8 million in credit purchases during its first few months in 2018...to $7.3 million in 2019...and then exploded to $25.8 million in 2020 while much of state government was shut down.
But what really caught my attention?
INDOT is the biggest purchaser of these wetland credits.
Think about that. One government agency paying another government program with taxpayer dollars to buy credits. If that's accurate, taxpayers deserve to know exactly how this system works and where all that money is going.
Garten also made serious allegations that, during prior leadership, IDEM and DNR employees aggressively targeted farmers and private property owners over alleged wetlands. He even stated, on the record, that after pursuing wetland legislation he received a call from then-IDEM Commissioner Bruno Pigott, who allegedly referenced complaints about Garten's private business and suggested inspections could follow. Garten characterized that as an attempt to intimidate him.
He also recounted stories from constituents who said inspectors entered private property following anonymous complaints and, in one alleged case, told a farmer to "go sit on his porch" while they determined "what rights he had left."
Those are significant claims. If even a fraction of these allegations are true, they deserve a thorough investigation by the General Assembly.
Senator Chris Garten is doing AMAZING work at the IGA exposing all of this.