City of Franklin sued over shady public property deal

As some may have seen in articles in October, Franklin Mayor Fred Paris went against the wishes of the public and our own City Council in doing a quick & dirty transfer of several city properties to the city Redevelopment Commission. The property of most concern being our historic former post office a.k.a. Old City Hall.

Another property is involved in the Johnson County Public Library District's even shadier scheme to build a new main library in downtown Franklin.

On top of that, the RDC commissioners are also the majority of the Board of Directors of the Franklin Development Corporation, which the RDC and (hopefully outgoing very soon) City Attorney Robert H. Schafstall (the FDC's attorney too) created with several millions of Franklin tax dollars. Which the fatcat running the RDC says may possibly be given some of the aforementioned public properties. As if we'd all say "well, who'd a-thunk!"

AND not just the first, but also the subsequent ("do-over") meeting in which the property transfer took place were in violation of the Open Door Law!

Yes folks, when it rains in Franklin, it pours like hell.

Therefore, since I'm poor and can't afford a lawyer or filing fees, I've taken it upon myself once again to try to block this latest cluster****, today being the deadline. Please see the attached PDF document of the suit filed today. This is the THIRD lawsuit I have active against the city, plus a complaint to the Attorney General that's being heard at a state board on Wednesday. I am accepting donations and free lunches from the public.

Unfortunately, this being Johnson County, the laws of both nature and law don't work the same here as elsewhere. One must 1st run the gauntlet of confusion that is the courthouse staff, and then, whaddya know, the case is assigned by some magical process to exactly the same hostile judge as the previous two, Judge Barton, the crap shoot supposedly being between him and the former prosecutor's court. A blind crap shoot at that, because "the computer" gets the blame for assigning the case in the worst interests of justice ev-er-y time. I'll also assign blame to Indiana's court system and government.

Please let me know if you have any questions.

Gary W. Moody
Franklin, IN

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