Local Government – Page 60

A Lesson in the Need for Home Rule

Here’s what I don’t understand.

The City of Indianapolis and surrounding counties want to vote on whether to tax ourselves in order to support a minimally-decent public transportation system. It is widely acknowledged that we do not have such a system now.

I am strongly in support of this much-needed upgrade to our current, inadequate bus system, but I do understand that some people–for whatever reason–either do not support expanded transit or do not agree with the current approach to constructing such a system. Fine. Those are matters for debate and an eventual vote to determine whose view is more persuasive.

What I do not understand is the disinclination of some Indiana legislators to allow us to make that decision and hold that vote. I am offended–and I think Indianapolis residents should all be offended, whatever our position on mass transit–by the reluctance expressed by members of the General Assembly to allowing us to decide this issue for ourselves.

This is a prime example of the problems Indiana cities and towns face because we lack meaningful home rule. In other states, local units of government have the authority to decide such matters without having to beg legislators for permission.

Think about how ridiculous this situation is. The citizens of Indianapolis are asking the legislature to allow us to make a democratic decision on a matter that will affect only us. Self-important legislators who represent parts of the state that will be entirely unaffected by whatever decision we make are stroking their chins and taking the matter “under advisement.”

I’d love to ask them who the hell they think they are, but I know the answer. They are petty dictators who think that their exalted positions would somehow be diminished if we were allowed some measure of local decision-making authority–and who have the legal power to say “f#*k you” to the residents of Central Indiana.

Against mass transit? Fine. Against the current proposal for expansion? Okay.

Against self-determination and home rule? Despicable and unacceptable.

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They’re Back….

Lock up the silver and hide the children’s eyes–the Indiana General Assembly is back in session.

The motley crew we citizens elect to what the late Harrison Ullmann used to call The World’s Worst Legislature is already hard at work on measures ranging from treatment of wild hogs to mandating the teaching of cursive writing. I’m sure their attention to these world-shattering issues reassures us all.

Most of the trivial, unwise and the just plain wacky proposals will eventually die in committee. I just hope that one bill in particular lands in that graveyard: the proposal to allow students to carry guns on campus.

This is the second time this proposal has surfaced, and it mystifies me. What problem, exactly, is this misguided measure intended to correct? What is the purpose of encouraging an armed student body? Has anyone considered the consequences of adding firearms to venues occupied by large groups of stressed-out college students, many still adolescent and hormonal?

I once was sued in Small Claims Court by a student to whom I had given a grade of B-. When he had exhausted the (extensive) campus appeal process without convincing anyone of the great indignity of that assessment, he brought suit. (In light of the stupidity thus displayed, I am convinced that the B- was a gift–but I digress.) Arm this unhinged young man, or others not unlike him, and he might well have skipped the lawsuit and just blown me away.

I’m one of those who would like to see some reasonable limits placed on access to guns. Like most people who advocate for more control, I have no illusions that we can rid American society of the millions of guns already out there, and frankly I have no great passion to confiscate them. But I get impatient, to say the least, with the utter paranoia of the gun fringe, with the NRA’s ridiculous belief–rebutted by all credible research–that the way to ensure public safety is to arm everyone.

I’ll tell you one thing that will happen if students are allowed to pack heat on campus. There will be a lot fewer professors willing to teach. Maybe that’s the real motive?

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A Low Bar

Mitch Daniels will be leaving the Governor’s office next week, and the predictable “puff pieces” are popping up. Daniels will leave with a reputation for good stewardship, primarily because Indiana emerged from the recession in decent fiscal shape–at least if you gauge fiscal health by money in the state’s bank accounts rather than by the condition of its cities, towns and workforce. (By that measure, we don’t look so good…)

Which leads to a question none of these adulatory articles has bothered to address: how should we measure a Governor’s performance? What are the criteria for success as a state’s chief executive?

In Daniels’ case, those applauding his performance seem to set the bar pretty low. Yesterday, Matt Tully’s column celebrated the fact that Daniels actually made decisions. Granted, Tully has long exhibited what local political wags call a “man crush” on the Governor, but he is not alone in suggesting that the mere fact that someone we elected actually did stuff is reason enough for praise.

So what “stuff” did Mitch do? Let me use Tully’s list: He leased the Indiana Toll Road. He led the fight for “Right to Work,” and was successful in adding property tax caps to the State Constitution. He was the moving force behind Tony Bennett’s approach to education reform. He revamped the BMV, and finally got Indiana on Daylight Savings Time.

Fair is fair: the BMV is a far, far better agency than it ever was before. It is efficient, user-friendly–I’d certainly give Daniels kudos for solving agency problems that defied his predecessors. I will also give him credit for Daylight Savings Time; it seems ridiculous that getting Indiana to go along with the rest of the country took so much political capital, but hey–this is Indiana, where one of our brilliant legislators worried aloud that an extra hour of sunlight would burn the crops. So props to the Guv for that one, too.

The rest of it, not so much.

The Toll Road deal was part and parcel of the conservative love-affair with privatization; it amounted to what one expert recently called an “intergenerational transfer,” meaning the state deferred expenses that will be paid by our grandchildren in return for quick and easy up-front cash that could be spent during Daniels’ term in office. (And spent it was–it’s all gone.)

Right to work was a payoff to the business interests that supported his campaigns.

The tax caps are strangling every urban area in Indiana–making it virtually impossible for Mayors to fund ongoing services, and forcing them into “rob Peter to pay Paul” deals to sell off public assets. Indianapolis is less safe, less clean, and less healthy; thanks, Mitch.

Whatever the merits of the education policies that Daniels and Bennett championed, it is hard to find anyone–education reform advocate or defender of the status quo–who has a kind word for their aggressive, slash-and-burn attacks on teachers.

I haven’t read all of the fawning articles, but the ones I’ve seen haven’t mentioned some of the other legacies Governor Daniels is leaving. There’s a state contract with a horribly expensive coal gasification plant in Southern Indiana, run by a company that employs Daniels’ close ally Mark Lubbers–a contract that ensures Indiana ratepayers will overpay for gas for the next 30 years. There’s the developing scandal involving the IEDC and Mitch Roob, another Daniels protege.

Tully and others acknowledge that there is “debate” about the consequences of many of his decisions, but they praise Daniels for the fact that he actually did stuff, that he “boldly” made decisions. That he changed things.

Apparently, that’s enough to earn their praise.

Talk about setting the bar low.

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Why Can’t Indy Do Stuff Like This??

Trust Neil Pierce to give us a peek at what cities can be. And of course, New York is leading the way–under a Mayor who has done an incredible job of making the Big Apple both livable and hip. Pierce describes the new touch-screen kiosks that are being unveiled first in New York’s Union Square–new technology that will not only make city life more convenient, informative and safer, but will generate revenue to boot.

Whatever your impressions of Mayor Bloomberg as a person or politician, his impact on the daily life of the city is undeniable. Since our middle son moved to Manhattan, my husband and I get into New York a couple of times a year, and we’ve seen the changes: bike paths everywhere; inviting riverside parks; pedestrian-friendly walks and mid-street cafes where horn-honking cars used to dominate. The city is rolling out a bike-sharing program with an initial supply of ten thousand bicycles. It is well into the redevelopment of west-side Manhattan–our son lives in a spiffy new tower, complete with doorman and upscale amenities in a neighborhood I wouldn’t have walked in ten years ago, not far from the triumph that is the High Line.

In fact, the High Line is a perfect symbol for the City under Bloomberg. It was an eyesore–an abandoned elevated train track. Most cities would have torn it down; New York turned it into a park so successful that it attracts tourists from around the world and has generated some two billion dollars in adjacent redevelopment.

A city that can turn an eyesore into an amenity is worth emulating, even if you can’t get a 32-ounce soda there.

Next month, we’ll be visiting our son, and I’m making a beeline for Union Square. I’m going to be one of the first to try out the new kiosks. I’ll need to do it there, because if the past few years are any indication, it will be a long time before Indianapolis gets them. We were late getting even the few bike lanes we have, and no one has even suggested that we introduce a bike-sharing program, although cities from New York to Charlotte have done so. Our parks depend on charity for their continued existence. Public transportation is next to nonexistent. On a per-capita basis, New York is safer.

When we do something big, like hosting the Super Bowl, the impetus and the execution come from the private sector. If anyone in the Mayor’s office or on the City-Country Council is thinking big, or proposing innovative ways to improve livability in our city, they’re keeping it a secret.

Of course, we can buy really big sodas.

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Dependency

The media is reporting on a huge gift from the Endowment to Indianapolis Parks. Again.

The gift acknowledges the importance of parks to our quality of life: for recreation, for contemplation, for the aesthetics of daily life. It also acknowledges our collective refusal to grow up and take responsibility for our own community.

Lilly has made other significant gifts intended to keep our city’s parks from falling into even greater disrepair. Back when I was in City Hall, the Endowment was accompanying those gifts with warnings to city officials that the largesse would not go on forever, that the gifts were intended to give the City some breathing room, some time during which we would have to come up with resources to sustain these important urban amenities.

We haven’t. Instead, we’ve bought into the “how dare you tax me” mentality–the spoiled child syndrome that demands goodies but is unwilling to get a job to earn the money to buy them. The Endowment, meanwhile, is like the rich, indulgent uncle who gives in and bails us out of the consequences of our irresponsibility.

One of these days, our rich uncle is going to say “enough,” and we are going to be on our own. The question is: will we be grown-up enough to pay for the services that make a city livable?

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