Category Archives: Local Government

The Big Con

My husband and I were discussing the Council’s current standoff with the Ballard Administration–a dispute triggered by Ballard’s refusal to share budget information with the Council and other elected officials. That conversation brought back memories from our days in the Hudnut Administration; the then-Controller, Fred Armstrong, made himself available to Councilors, Department heads, the media….pretty much anyone who was interested in the intricacies of the budget. Fred would go on and on, explaining the numbers, funds, sources…

I don’t think anyone understood a word he said. I know I didn’t. It was the classic “bury them in bullshit,” and he was great at it. (He was also an incredibly competent public servant.)

Fred knew that most people don’t understand public finance. Our widespread fiscal ignorance is why Paul Ryan has been taken seriously, despite a budget that David Stockman, among others, has described as a “fantasy” and “devoid of credible math.” (Stockman, for those of you too young to remember, was Ronald Reagan’s very conservative Budget Director.)

Today’s candidates are counting on our ignorance of the most basic axioms of taxation and government revenue. It isn’t just that–as a colleague of mine put it recently–half of them clearly don’t know the difference between a marginal and effective tax rate. It’s that they engage in wishful, magical thinking.

Yesterday, I saw an ad for Mike Pence in which he promised to cut taxes “across the board,” and to establish an office of regulatory affairs that would resist federal regulations and return federal dollars.

I can’t decide if Pence is really that stupid, or he just thinks voters are.

There are legitimate issues around regulation–what is enough, what is too much. Reasonable people can differ over their assessments of particular rules. There is a pretty broad consensus that banking regulations were too lax, and that lack of oversight led to the Great Recession; there are certainly other areas where ham-handed regulatory policies have been distinctly unhelpful. But taking a position that all regulation is bad and must be resisted is insane. What about nursing home regulations that protect grandma from abuse? What about food and drug regulations that keep dog feces out of your beanie-weenies, or water purity standards, or building codes, or….Well, you get the point.

And how about that “cutting taxes across the board” and “sending the money back to the feds” promise?

Just how does our “I wanna be your governor” Pence propose to fund anything Indiana needs? Federal dollars pay for our roads, augment our (increasingly inadequate) police forces, and provide medical care for the indigent. They feed schoolchildren and support special education programs. Federal dollars fund small businesses (yes, it turns out that even the angry guy in the anti-Obama commercial who insists that he and his sons built their business all by themselves had an 800,000 SBA loan). The federal government funds 33% of Indiana’s budget; if we sent that money back and cut taxes, Indiana’s government would come to a screeching halt.

The Ryans and the Pences of this world are counting on our ignorance. They are con men, hustlers secure in their (unfortunately reasonable) belief that voters don’t know where their tax dollars go, don’t recognize when they themselves benefit from government programs, and have no idea how their government works or what it does.

Con artists are successful because they tell us what we want to hear, because they promise us we can have something for nothing. The ugly truth is that the people who fall for the con are the people who want to believe they can get something for nothing.

Pence and Ryan are as reputable as that Nigerian banker who will send you a million dollars if you can just front him a few thousand.

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Ends and Means

In my classes on Law and Public Affairs, one of the things I try to explain to my students is the importance of process.  The way in which you achieve a goal is often just as important–sometimes even more important–than the goal itself.

This is, of course, a central principle of civil liberties. The effort to protect the public safety is a good example; important as that effort is, we cannot achieve it by imposing a police state, or engaging in random searches for which no probable cause exists. Eradicating racism and discrimination are important goals, but government cannot censor hateful speech as part of that effort.

The principle goes well beyond civil liberties. Economic development efforts focused on bringing new businesses into an area need to avoid recruitment incentives that privilege new enterprises at the expense of those already operating. Initiatives to redevelop blighted areas need to treat property owners and bidders on proposed projects fairly. When the public believes that government officials have favored their friends, or disregarded the rights of others, the trust essential to governance is eroded and other goals are endangered.

We have a perfect example of that scenario right now in Indianapolis.

The development of the Massachusetts Avenue corridor is one of the city’s success stories. When my husband and I were in City Hall, Mass Avenue was home to broken-down and boarded-up buildings interrupted by gaping holes where buildings no longer stood. Today, it’s the center of a vibrant arts scene, with restaurants, theaters, galleries and businesses. There are still a few gaps to be filled in, however; one of those is the block currently occupied by a fire headquarters building and Barton Towers, a senior citizen apartment complex  constructed back when any structure on the Avenue was seen as an improvement. Today, those buildings are a jarring interruption of the pedestrian flow on the Avenue.

The Ballard Administration has proposed redeveloping that block, continuing the street-level activity and providing other needed amenities like parking. It’s an important and necessary initiative. But it is threatened by concerns about the way the administration has conducted business in the past.

I’ve posted before about the parking meter deal that benefited a well-connected vendor to the detriment of the city. Paul Ogden and others have blogged about the serious questions raised by the parking garage in Broad Ripple, being developed by a crony of the Mayor with public tax dollars and apparently little or no investment or risk of his own. CityWay is a great project, but most knowledgable observers charged that the financing was an unnecessary giveaway.

The Massachusetts Avenue project is supposed to be financed by the extension of an existing TIF–a tax increment financing district. Democrats on the Council are threatening to derail it until and unless the administration becomes more forthright and transparent about its use and abuse of those districts. Several councilors have charged that TIF repayments that should have gone back into the City’s General Fund have instead been diverted into a Mayoral “slush fund,” an account subject to less oversight, and with fewer controls on its use.

The Council’s concerns are valid. At the very least, the Ballard Administration has been less than transparent. But now, its chickens have come home to roost on Mass Avenue, and the failure of that project would be a setback for downtown and the whole city.

The Administration’s lack of appreciation for the importance of transparency and process has generated resistance from the Council. But while understandable, the Council’s willingness to block an important project in order to make its point would be a similar failure. The questions need to be answered, but not at the expense of city progress.

In this age of toxic partisanship, I suppose it is unrealistic to ask both sides to grow up and have a conversation in which the interests of the city come first.

“He started it!” may be true, but it isn’t the best place to start that discussion.

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The Politics of Pay

Whatever the merits of Mayor Ballard’s decision to give his staff huge pay raises, the “optics,” as they say, are terrible. The upcoming city budget will be more than painful, thanks largely to the ill-conceived “tax caps,” and the cuts to services will be draconian in some places. Giving your buddies in the Mayor’s office 20% raises at a time like this is simply tone-deaf. (Someone reminded me yesterday that former Mayor Peterson actually cut pay for his office staff at a time of tight budget constraints.)

For all I know, the raises were an effort to keep people from fleeing the administration; Michael Huber–far and away the most effective member of the Mayor’s staff–has already announced his departure, and this is the time in most second terms when people who can leave–who are actually employable elsewhere–begin their job hunting.

Whatever the calculus, this was a bone-headed move that will make it much harder for the Mayor to get the sort of political concessions he will need during the give-and-take of budget negotiations. It is one more bit of evidence–as if we needed any–that the “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” American delusion is just that. Delusional.

Ballard may be a nice enough fellow, but he ran for office proudly proclaiming his “outsider” status. He asked people to vote for him because he wasn’t a “politician”–in other words, because he wasn’t someone who understood how the system worked. Voters bought it; they elected him over two opponents who actually did understand urban issues and politics. The results have been mixed, to put it mildly, and Ballard has relied heavily on outside “advisers” who have had their own interests to advance.

Cities can function with inept leadership when times are reasonably good–when we can afford the learning curve. But when the fiscal belt tightens, we need leadership that understands how cities work, what the priorities must be and how to achieve important goals.

It’s no time for the tone-deaf.

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Echoes of Republicanism Past…..

This morning’s Star reports that Indiana Attorney General Greg Zoeller has conceded the unconstitutionality of the anti-immigration bill sponsored by Rep. Mike Delph and passed by the General Assembly.

For those of you who do not follow such things, Indiana had passed its own version of Arizona’s mean-spirited and deeply flawed immigration law; a couple of months ago, the Supreme Court found virtually all of the Arizona law unconstitutional. That decision operated to doom most of the Indiana statute as well. And rather than use the Court’s decision as an occasion for grandstanding or ideological posturing, Zoeller did what a good lawyer in that office should do–he agreed that Indiana should follow the law.

The article also quotes an observation by former Marion County GOP Chair Mike Murphy to the effect that much of the current anti-immigration fervor on display is a response to tough economic times; in such times, he points out, people look for someone to blame.

An elected official doing his job properly, and a political operative conceding to the nature of reality might not seem newsworthy, but it is a small, heartening reminder of the GOP to which I used to belong–the party that produced Bill Hudnut , Dick Lugar and John Mutz.

Now we have Mike Delph, Mike Pence and Richard Mourdock. It’s enough to make you cry.

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Charlotte vs. Indy

My husband and I have been wanting to visit Charlotte for some time. During our annual trip to South Carolina, we always read the Charlotte Observer, which (unlike the Indianapolis Star) is still a real newspaper–perhaps not as excellent as it once was, but one of the few remaining examples of actual journalism. The Observer piqued our interest well before the DNC chose the city for its convention, and since Charlotte is about the same size as Indianapolis, we were curious to see how the two cities compare.

We are staying downtown, in a historic Hotel, the Dunhill. Very nice. There are a lot of hotels in the center city–including a pretty posh Four Seasons. There are also a lot of corporate headquarters, mostly but not exclusively bank headquarters. (Being a banking center right now is probably not an asset.) Lots of restaurants, too–although, like in Indy, most are chains.

What I have seen that I like/envy: the scale of the downtown is wonderful. It is dense. The  streets aren’t too wide. The sidewalks–paved with very attractive concrete brick pavers–are immaculate (the hotel concierge tells me they are swept daily–something we used to do when Hudnut was Mayor, but not since). There are lots of trees and plantings, and the streets are lined with benches that invite you to sit a while. There are kiosks where vendors sell flowers and produce. While few buildings are architectural gems–most are “corporate inoffensive”–some are very nice, and the scale and trees combine to make strolling downtown Charlotte a very pleasant experience.

The transit has me green with envy. There is a free trolley that circulates downtown every few minutes. There are real buses that appear to be frequent too. But the star is the train. We rode it to the end and back; it was clean and quick and the stations were well-designed and attractive. The train and bus systems are integrated, with bus service “feeding” the train in what appears to be a very efficient transportation system. My only quibble was the automated machine from which we bought our tickets–it wasn’t intuitive to people like us who hadn’t used it before, and in the bright sunlight, the screen with instructions was hard to read.

That ticket dispenser reminded me of the confusing parking meter system we have just installed in Indianapolis. Charlotte has a similar system, but it is much, much more user friendly–and it dispenses a receipt. A real, genuine paper receipt, unlike ours. Their version sits on streets lined not just with the benches I’ve mentioned, but lots of nicely-designed bike racks. In addition, like NYC, Charlotte is in the process of introducing a bike-sharing program; rows of sparkling new bikes were being set out at various busy intersections as we walked around. Most impressive of all–there were free “quickie” charging stations for electric and hybrid vehicles. (In fact, there were many signs that Charlotte is trying hard to be green.)

There is abundant downtown housing. I walked through a historic district a couple of blocks from our hotel, where lots of multi-family housing–both original and infill–was intermingled with the same sorts of charming old houses, virtually all restored, that we have in the Old Northside neighborhood. Once again, the scale of the neighborhood compensated for some fairly pedestrian architecture. There were “pocket parks” everywhere–delightful little oases that appear to be well-maintained. Downtown also has multiple high-rise apartment buildings, condo and rental. I would guess that even with Indianapolis’ surge lately, Charlotte has a considerably greater range of downtown housing choices. I wonder how much of that is due to the fact that Charlotte has one consolidated, county-wide school system and excellent public transit (including 8 Amtrak trains a day to destinations like New York and New Orleans).

In short, this is a place where people appear to care about their city.

All is not perfect in Charlotte, of course, and there are some gaps that ought to worry the city fathers and mothers.

There is virtually no retail in the center city. No shopping streets. There’s a library, a “Discovery Center,” several very nice museums (I can’t speak to the collections, since I didn’t go in–only so much you can do in a day.) But no street had shops to browse. I didn’t even see grocers–especially surprising given the amount of housing. (Turns out I missed a food market, but the absence of other shopping was confirmed in a conversation with our lunch waitress.)

There is also no obvious arts community. I asked the hotel concierge, and he admitted that Charlotte had nothing like Asheville’s vibrant arts community. He hastened to say that there is a lot of corporate support for “the arts”–but it was clear he was referring to museums, concerts and the like, not to the sort of robust arts scene we have in Indianapolis.

So there’s my snapshot, after one hot and muggy day. There’s a lot to like here, and some important missing elements.

I’d kill for their transit….

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