When Government Plays Ball

The question is not whether we would like to keep the Colts. Most of us would. I?m an example: I don?t care for sports. I would rather visit my dentist than go to a Colts game (and I really don?t like visiting the dentist!). I?m well aware that the measurable economic impact of major league football is somewhere between miniscule and nonexistent. But I would still like to keep the Colts in Indianapolis. I think there is probably a public relations benefit to being a ?major league? city, and I like the civic pride that is generated when the team is winning. All things being equal, I?d build the Colts a stadium. But all things aren?t equal.

We returned from a week away to yet another Indianapolis ‘football game’—kicked off, this time, by a disclosure that four architectural firms have been hired by the Capital Improvements Board to propose designs for a new Colts stadium.

Critics argue that the decision to spend public money on design should have been debated openly. They say that proceeding with initial design work means that the decision to go forward has already been made. CIB members defending the expenditure respond that it is not possible to make an informed final decision without knowing what costs will be incurred—including the impact of alternative approaches on traffic patterns and surrounding infrastructure.

Both sides are correct—and both miss the point.

The question is not whether we would like to keep the Colts. Most of us would. I’m an example: I don’t care for sports. I would rather visit my dentist than go to a Colts game (and I really don’t like visiting the dentist!). I’m well aware that the measurable economic impact of major league football is somewhere between miniscule and nonexistent. But I would still like to keep the Colts in Indianapolis. I think there is probably a public relations benefit to being a ‘major league’ city, and I like the civic pride that is generated when the team is winning. All things being equal, I’d build the Colts a stadium.

But all things aren’t equal.

At the same time that plans for a possible new stadium were being developed, Marion County’s judges (in a welcome show of bipartisanship) ordered the County Auditor to find 500,000 for our impossibly overburdened Public Defender. Without adequate resources, as Judge Payne has noted, children in the criminal justice system are unlikely to get much justice.

Crime growth in the suburbs has stretched the Sheriff’s department thin. Police and Fire pension shortfalls must be funded. City parks are overused and frequently under-maintained (the one closest to my house is choked with weeds and too infrequently mowed). We used to sweep the streets in the mile square every day—I doubt whether we currently sweep them every week. Grass and weeds grow around city bridges. We need affordable housing, and especially housing for the truly destitute. Our public transportation barely deserves the name.

Our public responses have been entirely reactive: the bus company cuts service and we respond to the immediate crisis with measures that only postpone facing the systemic problem. The federal court finds us in contempt over conditions at the jail, and we do only what we absolutely must to avoid large fines. The Auditor will somehow find money for the Public Defender’s immediate shortfall. And we may play financial games so that we can continue to play football games. 

As the saying goes, this is no way to run a railroad.  

We need to decide what our priorities are. We need a civic conversation about the kind of city we want, the trade-offs involved, and the tax rates needed to get there.