Local Government – Page 58

The Real Choices

Matt Tully’s column yesterday addressed the reasons prompting families to move from the city to the suburbs. It was a reasonable analysis of a trend that is probably older than he is–unexceptional, so far as it went. For many residents, family or job considerations may limit them to this choice between living in town and moving to, say, Hamilton Country, but for many others, city versus suburb does not exhaust the available options.

A number of us value and prefer urban living. Indeed, a not inconsiderable number of people find the prospect of huge yards, distant neighbors and miles-long drives to the nearest grocery distinctly unappealing. For us, the choice is not between downtown and the suburbs, but between cities. Indianapolis can’t compete with the suburbs for people who want suburban lives. It can and should compete with other places that offer urban amenities and lifestyles. We’ve come a long way down the road that Bill Hudnut built during his four terms as Mayor, but we’ve lost ground the past few years. My son made that point in a response to Tully’s column, on which he copied me.

Here’s his response.

Matt: I read your article about the choice people face between Indy and outlying counties. You make some good points… But as a longtime downtown dweller, I come at this from a different perspective: the challenges we face, and the failures of our leadership to honestly confront them, make me wonder whether we should consider a different CITY, not a suburb.

I grew up downtown Indy, mostly in historic Lockerbie — I thought I’d never return to Indy after leaving for college (in 1987). After college/living/working in Chicago and years of travel, I moved back to Indy – largely because Indy’s downtown had come so far, and Indy’s city experience had improved so much. Finally, Indy had a mix of urban amenities, shopping, culture (and I am not referring to sports venues, though they are nice, if overly dependent on taxpayers) and, importantly, an easy environment in which to raise kids. Today, we live downtown in the Old Northside (where we’ve lived since I returned to Indy)… our kids, 9 & 11, go to IPS’ CFI #2 (which we love), and we have a great, and diverse, community of friends, and family nearby.

As I see it, Indianapolis faces two major problems, one of which you allude to in your article. First, our kids educational experience is not available to everyone: great public schools, like CFI, have too few available slots. And while Indy must address this deficiency if it is to succeed and thrive, our City suffers other problems that (*gasp*) require resources to address: crime, infrastructure, affordable and dependable public transportation, among other things. Which highlights the second major problem — a lack/failure of leadership. Our leadership fails us when they buy into (and promote) the notion that Indy needs lower taxes more than it needs better schools, lower crime, or better/workable public transportation that meets the needs of our residents and workforce. While government needs to operate “efficiently,” we should not try to compete with Boone County to be “low tax” place, a fight we can’t win and shouldn’t try to win; instead, we should recognize the strength of our “product” — the CITY — and its amenities. We need to recognize the need for (and fight for) the resources to make it great.

Instead, in the name of “efficiency,” the city gives away to a contractor literally millions of dollars every year (by some estimates $500 million over time) of potential city revenue that could be used to fight crime, build/maintain infrastructure. Why? Either because it lacks the imagination or operational competence to see that the city can upgrade parking meters (inexpensively) and operate them for ourselves… And while it would be nice to see the political courage to argue for more resources, the city administration fails to even try to lobby/work the legislature to alter the formula for distribution of income tax revenue so that it is not distributed 100% to the county where people live, but instead is shared, even if just a little bit. These are just two of many examples…

The failure to even try … The failure of vision and the lack of any attempt is frustrating. A friend recently moved out of state because he sees in our political leadership the operating mantra of “mediocre is good enough.” As you noted the other day, Guv Pence states his “ambition is the status quo” (and while he said it of gambling, he might as well have said about everything, since his most active push is for a tax cut for which there is NO evidence it will create a single job). This is not a critique of the many dedicated public servants who “try,” but of the political class that doesn’t.

Unlike those readers who assume its a choice between Indianapolis and Hamilton/Johnson Counties, it isn’t for me. It’s a choice between an Indianapolis that withers on the vine and a better city where more of the residents and their leaders “get it” — and fight for it.

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Define Benefit

State Senator Luke Kenley is quoted in a news story about the public transportation bill currently before the General Assembly.

“I have a surprisingly large number of constituents who are strongly opposed to this,” says Sen. Kenley (R-Noblesville.) “They just feel like it’s going to be a tax increase on them without any particular benefit.”

There are a number of responses that come to mind: the most obvious is that all the bill requires is an opportunity for the citizens who will be taxed to vote on the matter. Those opposed will have an opportunity to make that opposition known.

That said, the belief that those who wouldn’t use public transportation wouldn’t benefit from its availability is incredibly short-sighted. We all benefit from cleaner air, economic development and improved quality of life–all outcomes associated with the availability of good public transportation systems. The attitude displayed by Kenley’s constituents reminds me of people who don’t want to support good schools, because their own children are grown, despite ample evidence that a good school system adds to property values and an educated workforce is a requirement for economic development.

These are all tangible benefits that even the whiners will enjoy. But we might also wonder whether there isn’t some intangible benefit in creating a community that works for everyone, not just the self-satisfied “makers” with two cars parked in the garage of their suburban home in a gated community.

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It Can Happen Here

One of the (multiple) controversies of the last election cycle concerned efforts in several states to make voting more difficult. Republicans in those states–perhaps most notably Florida–cut back early voting times, required government-issued IDs, “purged” voter rolls of thousands of eligible, properly registered voters, and took other measures designed to limit voting by poor and minority citizens, on the not-unreasonable assumption that most of those votes would go to Democrats.

Here in Indianapolis, the lone Republican member of the Marion County Election Board repeatedly blocked the efforts of Beth White, the County Clerk, to open satellite voting locations. The sites had been extremely popular in earlier elections; they made early voting much more convenient for people who work long hours or have difficulty getting downtown to cast a vote at the Clerk’s office. There was no legitimate reason to block satellite voting; the extra money had been raised from private sources.

Now, with a super-majority in the Indiana General Assembly and fewer impediments to wholly partisan measures, we are seeing additional efforts to limit voting. Two amendments are pending in the Indiana House today to SB 388. That bill was heard in committee last week. These amendments, sponsored by Rep. Thompson, would reduce in-person absentee voting at the clerk’s office from the current legal requirement of 29 days.

Amendment 1 reduces early voting down to ONLY 15 DAYS. Amendment 2 reduces early voting down to ONLY 10 DAYS.

Tellingly, neither amendment has been heard in committee or has been reviewed by election officials–at least publicly. Passage of either amendment would greatly increase the numbers who turn out on Election Day; we could see long lines of the sort that discouraged an estimated 200,000+ voters in Florida last November. It would also make voting much more difficult for those who need to vote absentee in-person.

There is no policy justification for this proposal. Had there been, it would have been offered in committee and subjected to public discussion and debate. This is simply an effort to tilt the playing field, an effort to sneak in under the radar with a change in the rules that is intended to suppress Democratic votes.

This sort of behavior simply adds to the growing public disgust with government at all levels.

I don’t know how, but We the People need to figure out a way to send a message to our legislators, both here in Indiana and in Washington: we didn’t elect you to play partisan power games. We didn’t elect you to obstruct the operation of government, to refuse to confirm qualified nominees because the other guys nominated them, or to place the interests of your donors above the common good. We didn’t elect you so that you can rig the system to improve your chances of holding on to your job.

Evidently, Sen. Thompson and his cohorts would prefer we dispense with this democratic nonsense and not really elect our legislators at all–they’d undoubtedly prefer the system used in autocratic countries, where 99% of the “vote” turns out to ratify the election of a single nominee.

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Sauce for the Goose

Yesterday’s post about the effort to expose the “reasoning” behind Senate Bill 371 got me thinking about equal treatment and its notable absence from other brilliant proposals currently wending their way through Indiana’s legislative process. (As you may recall, SB 371 “protects” women who want prescriptions for abortion pills, and the proposed amendment would similarly have “protected” men wanting pills for erectile dysfunction.)

For example, what would a more balanced approach mean for the bill requiring drug testing of welfare recipients?

So far, the arguments against that measure have been boring–the typical logical, evidence-based objections that routinely fail to persuade our lawmakers. The Indiana Coalition for Human Services, for example, has pointed out that Florida implemented such a program and found it to be ineffective and costly (only 2% tested positive). Others have noted that the available tests are not well-suited for a “pass/fail” situation. Legislative Services estimates the first-year cost to be 1.2 million, much more than is likely to be saved. Etcetera.

Wrong arguments! Logic has rarely prevailed at the Statehouse, and cost-effectiveness is not a concept embraced by our elected culture and class warriors.

So I say, pile on! Not only should TANF recipients be tested, so should all the other welfare moochers who are enriching themselves at taxpayers’ expense. Let’s start with corporate welfare, with the beneficiaries of crony capitalism–the coal-gasification boondoggle,the business enterprises that have persuaded lawmakers to grant them favorable tax treatment, the owners of sports teams we subsidize, and those like ACS that are making big bucks providing services like parking meters–taking a major chunk of the money that the city would otherwise have available for public purposes.

Perhaps we could require drug testing as a condition of getting an education voucher. And let’s not forget all the elected officials–10,400 of them, thanks to Indiana’s archaic township system–who are suckling at the public you-know-what. In fact, we should test everyone paid with tax dollars–teachers, police officers, firefighters, clerks in the City-County Building…Surely, those of us whose tax dollars pay their salaries are entitled to know whether our money is going to substance abusers.

Proponents of drug testing for welfare recipients justify that proposal by pointing to the expenditure of tax dollars. By that logic, we should test everyone we are supporting or enriching with public funds.

What’s sauce for the goose ought to be sauce for the gander.

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Words Fail….

A Facebook friend notes that Indiana Sen. Travis Holdman–author of the bill to require insertion of a transvaginal probe into a woman’s womb in order to take a video both before and after she obtains medication causing abortion–is also the author of a bill making it a crime to take a video of a farm or industrial operation.

After all, what happens on your farm or in your factory is private. Your uterus, evidently, is more like a high-school locker–yours to use as long as you follow the rules established by the relevant authorities, but subject to search when those authorities deem necessary.

Furthermore, as “pro-life” lobbyist Sue Swayze pointed out, if you’re pregnant it’s because you previously allowed something else to enter your vagina. And once you’ve allowed something to enter, you have obviously waived any right to decide what else you will admit into those lady-parts. Using her “logic,” once you’ve had sex, you lose the right to pick and choose who or what else visits those regions. You are fair game to be raped.

Aren’t we all proud to be Hoosiers?

Stop whining, women! It’s not like someone is taking pictures of your farm!

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