Local Government – Page 69

Parking Meter Delusions

According to media reports, in last night’s debate between Melina Kennedy (no relation!) and Greg Ballard, the Mayor strongly defended his record. He cited crime reduction (a claim that can be considered true if you count only certain crimes, and ignore those annoying statistics about aggravated assaults and the like) and the privatization of parking meters.

Excuse me? Let’s deconstruct that. We are supposed to re-elect Ballard in gratitude for his decision to give away control of our parking infrastructure and some 60% of the fees we would otherwise earn for the next fifty years?

The ability to control meters may seem inconsequential, but it isn’t. Decisions about parking are a significant element in all sorts of development decisions; the ability to “bag” meters without penalty during downtown construction is a cost-control measure important to developers and others. It has been estimated that the city’s deal–which requires compensating ACS when more than a certain number of meters are bagged–added over a million dollars to the construction costs of the Cultural Trail.

When many of us protested the decision to contract away the lion’s share of parking revenues that would otherwise flow to the city, we were told that we needed the “expertise” of ACS–that the city couldn’t finance and manage its meters without the help of a sophisticated mega-corporation. (Evidently, the disastrous experiences of cities like Chicago that had entered into similar deals was considered irrelevant by Mayor Leadership.)

The bottom line, according to the Ballard Administration, was that it was necessary to trade a lot of city control and money for competent, experienced management.I thought that was a bad deal, but I assumed we would at least get the competent management. Evidently, I was naive.

Yesterday, in my Media and Policy class, a student raised the issue of how poorly local media had covered the administration’s privatization of the water company and parking meters. That led another student to complain that she had received a ticket despite having paid the fee–and was helpless to prove her payment since the meters don’t dispense receipts.

Her complaint opened a floodgate. Out of the 23 students in class, no fewer than 8 of them reported similar problems. Several had attempted to complain–complaints that, as one put it, were “blown off.” One student who had paid with a credit card was told the only way she could get a refund was to bring in her Visa bill. Another reported that her credit card was charged twice; when she tried to get the improper extra charge removed, the response was “how do we know you didn’t park twice?”

So, Mayor Ballard, let me understand this: I am supposed to vote to re-elect you, not despite the fact that you gave control of our parking and millions of our dollars to a company that is doing a crappy job, but because you did so?

Whatever it is you’re smoking, I’d like some.

Comments

The Tortoise and the Hare

Okay–this isn’t a very good analogy, but it’s the best I can come up with on a rainy Monday morning.

Today’s Star editorial–with which I strongly agree–reminded me of Eric Hoffer’s observation that the true measure of a civilization isn’t what it builds, but how well it maintains what it builds. Maintenance requires the skills of the tortoise–a steady, persistent attention to what needs to be done. Not flashy, like the hare, but reliable.

The editorial contrasted the money and energy being expended on Georgia Street upgrades for the Super Bowl with past projects like Pan Am Plaza that are now suffering from neglect. Not too long ago, I commented here about the deplorable condition of the canal–another expensive and important amenity that is suffering from deferred maintenance, despite the fact that it is heavily used.

We are heading into political season, and we’ll hear a lot from candidates about their new ideas and bold plans. We need to hear from them about their intentions to polish existing jewels, and how they will propose to maintain what taxpayers have already built. To put it bluntly, I’m much less interested in building a faux Chinatown than I am in repairing the deteriorating bridges along the canal.

It’s not glamorous, but I’m with Hoffer–it’s the real test of leadership.

Comments

Update: Keystone Kops, Spin Edition

Apparently, once the Mayor’s office recognized their problem–granting income tax credits to organizations that don’t pay such taxes-they scrambled to “explain” what they “really meant” –although the language of the press release was hard to spin. What they “really meant” was an incomprehensible (and if I understand what they are now saying, which I certainly may not) legally improbable credit to be extended to the EMPLOYEES of these tax-exempt organizations. The credit to the employees would encourage existing organizations to move to Indianapolis and somehow help these organizations improve education. To be charitable, this is nuts. An established organization is highly unlikely to pick up and move its operations and employees to Indianapolis in return for a promise that its employees will get a tax credit.

More disturbing than this desperate effort to spin what was an obvious gaffe, however, was the non-coverage of the issue by the Star. The paper simply printed the plan-as subsequently ‘spun’–pretty much without comment. Rather than fact-checking the assertions, or noting the discrepancies, it simply reported that there were two competing plans, Ballard’s and Kennedy’s, and the basic outlines of each, with no context, no analysis, and seemingly no recognition of issues raised by either plan.

Maybe the paper should have kept a couple of those senior reporters they laid off.

Comments

I Don’t Know Whether to Laugh or Cry…..

Yesterday, Mayor Ballard released his “Five-Point Plan” for improving education in Indianapolis.

The timing of this release had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that his opponent in the upcoming election has been hammering him for totally ignoring the issue for the past four years. Nosiree! The administration has been laboring over this plan for months and months. And don’t you believe that just because the plan hasn’t been finished until now (okay, it hasn’t even been mentioned until now), that means the Mayor hasn’t been doing great and wonderful things for local education. They even list those great, wonderful “successes” in the press release. Let’s see…he has “received” lots of applications for new charters under the program his predecessor developed, and he changed the program’s name from Office of Charter Schools to Office of Education Innovation. He “secured” grants (doesn’t say what for) of “up to” 1.4 million dollars, which-let’s be honest here, fellows-is a pretty paltry amount. And my personal favorite, he “made eight charter school renewal decisions.” Wow.

The list of “accomplishments”–none of which seemed to involve actually getting results of any sort–was somewhat pathetic, but when I got to the actual plan, I had to check to be sure I wasn’t reading the Onion.

The very first point of this plan–I am not making this up–is to “offer an income tax credit to nonprofit education reform organizations that locate in the city.”

Read my lips: nonprofit organizations don’t pay taxes.

Now, anyone in Indianapolis who is sentient and paying attention has recognized the limitations of our accidental Mayor, but this one boggles the mind. One of the major jobs of any mayor is to manage the budget. Big city, small village–it doesn’t matter. Job one is figuring out how to pay for jobs two through infinity, and that requires at least a kindergarten-level understanding of who pays taxes. In Indianapolis, we have long struggled with the issue of nonpayment of property taxes by nonprofits, because we have so many of them. It has been the subject of numerous “blue ribbon” committees, studies, etc. For the Mayor to be unaware that nonprofits don’t pay income taxes either (that’s basically the reason they are nonprofits) is simply unfathomable.

It’s bad enough that Ballard labored (so he says) for months over a “plan” that betrays his total lack of comprehension of the nuts and bolts of the city he presumably runs, but where the hell was his staff? What sort of people has he chosen to surround himself with, if a gaffe this enormous got by them?

Anyone who has been reading this blog knows I’ve not been a fan of this Mayor. He has shown little comprehension of the implications of his administration’s policies, and despite his assurances in campaign ads that he’s “not a politician,” has played hardball politics by blocking satellite voting sites and his willingness to turn a blind eye to ethical questions surrounding the parking meter giveaway. But this time, the emperor’s lack of clothes has been made dramatically–and frighteningly–clear.

Even the Onion couldn’t top this.

Comments

One Size Doesn’t Fit All

This morning’s news included a report that the IPS school board had extended the contract of Superintendent Eugene White–by a 4-3 vote. Given the lockstep voting that has characterized the Board in prior years, the close vote was a notable signal that White should (but probably won’t) heed. In fact, his high-handed and arbitrary leadership style has landed IPS in hot water with our equally high-handed and people-skills-deficient State Superintendent, who evidently subscribes to the belief that privatization of school management is “the answer” to whatever ails education.

The current ego-driven arguments about who knows best how to educate all children is depressing in the extreme, so a morning discussion with Michael Durnil, Executive Director of the Simon Youth Foundation was a welcome respite.

I’ll admit that I didn’t know very much about SYF except that it existed, so I was impressed to learn that they operate 20+ alternative schools spread across several states, devoted to working with high school students at high risk of dropping out. Their success rate–in excess of 90% of their students graduate, and a significant number go on to college–is impressive. What accounts for it? From what I was able to glean from our conversation, it is their focus on the individual needs of the students they admit. No rigid ideological framework that students must fit within, no “secret formula” that must be imposed. Just a recognition that students are people, and people are most likely to flower and achieve when they feel valued and listened to.

American political figures (and make no mistake, Superintendents these days are first and foremost political figures) are increasingly focused on the search for a magic bullet that will allow them to apply a favored approach to all students. It’s understandable, since recognizing and addressing the diversity of learning styles and personal attributes of every student requires much more work and is much more costly than “one size fits all.” But just because something is understandable doesn’t make it successful.

In the real world, one size doesn’t fit all.