Millions in no-bid contracts went to company with close ties to former IEDC head Brad Chambers

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
You know, I've said this for years when it comes
to my elected officials or appointed officials, and I really
saw this with local government. I don't want people in
those positions who are invested, either certainly financially or emotionally

(00:25):
or career wise in the thing they're overseeing. And what
I mean by this is when you would get people,
whether it's a park board or police commission or school board,
which is an elected thing, whether it's a pointed or elected,
you would see these people would come and apply for
these or run for these offices, and they'd always talk

(00:46):
about the experience they had with that thing, Like there
would be somebody who had experience serving in a parks
department somewhere, or you would see somebody who was a
police officer at one point, or you know, I've been
a team, so I'd be qualified to be on the
school board. And I said to myself, no, because your
job as an elected or appointed official is not to

(01:08):
be an advocate for but a watchdog over whatever thing
you're seeing. And the worst people to be on these
boards and commissions are people who are cheerleading for the thing. No,
your job is a cheerleader for the taxpayer. You used
to have this fight all the time with people of
other elected people and they couldn't see it well. But

(01:29):
so and so has experience in so what we are
the elected people, We make the policy calls. Their job
is to enact the policy calls. And then with the
fine they should be with the fine tooth comb overseeing
and making sure the moneies that are allocated or spent responsibly.
And I mentioned all of this because one of the
major issues with the IEDC conflict of interest. We didn't

(01:52):
ever have watchdogs. There should have been the watchdogs over
seeing the money and where it went. Instead you had
people who were in invested in the business community in Indianapolis,
business projects in Indianapolis, and thus you could have nothing
but conflicts of interest because everybody was wanting the same
thing because it was benefitting them. And you see this

(02:12):
with this Indie Star article that came out about Brad
Chambers today.

Speaker 2 (02:15):
Yeah, that's true. So our friend at Indie Reporter was
on this over the weekend and now the Indie Star
has an article as well. Pure Development is an Indianapolis
firm and they received over seventy seven million dollars through
no bid contracts from the IEDC for work on the
Leap project. Now, the contracts were awarded during the tenure

(02:37):
of Brad Chambers, who was the Indiana Secretary of Commerce.

Speaker 1 (02:41):
Who later ran for governor. Correct, all the Holcombe people
basically went over to his campaign. Of course, the Leap
is Holcombe's fantasy island project in Boone County in which
we have now spent what it was four hundred and
thirty some million dollars of taxpayer mostly taxpayer money on
the Leap project and we've gotten lily out of it.

(03:03):
And this Indie Star article lays out that this Pure
Development has a deal where they are working with Chambers
Company Buckingham Companies on a project in Carmel. So you
have these companies that are working together and then Chambers

(03:25):
is overseeing an organization or helping oversee an organization where
tens of millions of taxpayer dollars are flowing to that
company that he clearly has in some shape, form or
fashion a relationship with, and that is this is it.
This is the poster child for how the IEDC operates.

(03:47):
And nobody was watching out for us.

Speaker 2 (03:49):
Yeah, So Pure's relationship with Chambers and Buckingham goes back
to twenty eighteen. So it's a it does as the
former Secretary of Commerce is, see have a say of
which company gets hired on this project. Well, hey, how
about you pick mine, pick my company?

Speaker 1 (04:08):
And how could you not be infuriated by this? If
you're out today working on a highway somewhere, or you're
on top of a roof, or you're you're a policeman
on the street, or you're a teacher in the school
in the school house, schoolhouse, how old am I in
our schools? Money was taken from you, money that you

(04:31):
worked for, and it was given to this shadow company,
the shadow organization, who was just basically doling out dollars
to not only their friends, but people there they had
business relationships with that didn't benefit you in any shape,
form or fashion.

Speaker 2 (04:48):
A Pure co founder called Buckingham one of Pure's most
important business relationships that in a twenty four court filing,