Local Government – Page 70

Another Reason to Retire Ballard

My husband and I ate dinner last night at the Left Bank, a nice bistro at water’s level on the Indianapolis canal, then walked a couple of blocks along the canal to a program at the Center for Inquiry.While I often walk or bike along the water in nice weather, it was the first time I’d been on the canal this spring, and I was shocked and dismayed by the deterioration of the concrete walks and the pedestrian bridges, and the peeling paint beneath those bridges. The concrete at the edge of the water is crumbling into the water at several places. The concrete in the steps down from street to canal level was so eaten away that the rebar showed.

This is absolutely inexcusable.

The canal not only represents a huge investment by prior administrations, it is an extremely important amenity in a city without mountains, oceans or other natural draws. It has triggered significant private investment, and it is very heavily used. Whenever I am there, I see large numbers of people walking, biking, paddle-boating and enjoying themselves. It is a beautiful urban space, a huge asset to Indianapolis and it absolutely must be maintained. Its current condition is criminal.

I’ve been watching the slapdash way in which the much-touted street and sidewalk “infrastructure improvements” are being made with some dismay. I’ve yet to see an inspector, and to my (admittedly non-expert) eyes, it looks as if the administration is doing superficial paving that will look good through the Superbowl (assuming that happens), but falls far short of what would be involved in genuine long-term repairs. I hope I’m wrong about that. But Ballard and his administration haven’t even made that minimal level of effort at the canal–and we are at risk of losing one of the rare jewels of this city.

Eric Hoffer once wrote that the measure of a civilization is its ability to maintain what it has built.

I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that an administration unable to manage its own parking meters is too inept to maintain its own infrastructure, but Indianapolis really cannot afford four more years of this.

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To Your Health…..

Federalism has many virtues, but it also makes some problems more difficult to solve. I don’t care how much your local city council cares about air pollution, there isn’t a whole lot they–or even your state legislature, assuming you have a more enlightened one than we do here in Indiana–can do about it. Health policies likewise tend to require state or national action; there isn’t a lot that local communities can do.

But there are some things we can do locally, and there really isn’t any excuse for failing to do them. Cities and states can encourage healthy lifestyles and physical fitness by providing well-tended parks, by increasing bike lanes, and by banning smoking in public places. These measures not only promote public health, they ultimately save money by reducing Medicaid and similar costs.

The Ballard Administration has at least responded to calls for additional bike lanes (although those downtown, where I live, are considerably less than optimal–the ones on New York Street were evidently painted by someone who was drunk or otherwise seriously incapacitated). Otherwise, not so much. Far from expanding opportunities for recreation, our parks have been shamefully neglected. And worst of all, Ballard has consistently blocked efforts to ban smoking in public places.

The Mayor’s refusal to honor his campaign promise to sign a smoking-ban ordinance is particularly galling, not just because he did a 180-degree turn on the issue once he was elected, but because smoking bans are a low-cost, highly effective way to improve public health.

There are essentially two arguments against smoking bans. Bar owners worry that business will suffer if customers cannot smoke in their establishments. Other opponents of the bans argue that no one has to patronize a bar or restaurant–that if smoke bothers you, you can just go somewhere else. The evidence from other cities that have passed these bans should comfort the bar owners–far from diminishing, in many places business actually improved when nonsmoking customers weren’t assaulted by the smell of “eau de stale cigarette.” And the argument about choice ignores the very real health hazard smoking poses for employees. (When asked about the impact on workers, Mayor Ballard dismissed employees as “transients” whose health clearly was not a concern.)

Hint: Telling hard-working waiters and bartenders that they should just get another job if smoke bothers them ignores the realities of the current job market, among other things.

Cities are in a world of fiscal hurt right now. At a time when there isn’t money to do many of the things that would improve our neighborhoods, a smoking ban is a virtually cost-free way to improve public health and make our public spaces more pleasant at the same time. Polls show an overwhelming majority of residents favoring such a ban, and in fact, when he ran for Mayor, Ballard supported the policy.

All of this makes the Mayor’s current, stubborn opposition hard to understand. If he has reasons for his abrupt about-face, he has yet to articulate them.

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The Bottom Line

“Keep your eye on the bottom line” is good advice. But it is also a good idea to consider the definition of “bottom line.” In business, the term refers to profitability; too much red ink and the enterprise fails. In government, however, the “bottom line” is generally defined as doing the people’s business while at least balancing the books.

Indiana—like other states—is just emerging from a very challenging fiscal period. When resources are scarce, citizens can learn a lot about the priorities of our lawmakers. What will they protect, and what will they consider expendable? Will they play fast and loose—robbing Peter to pay Paul, as my grandmother used to put it? Will they use the crisis as an excuse to starve out political opponents?

What, in other words, is their political bottom line?

In Indianapolis, the Ballard Administration has chosen the Peter/Paul option: they structured the sale of the Water Company, for example, so that they could cash out up front. That allowed them to pay for street and sidewalk repairs without using property tax dollars—an upfront windfall to be paid for (with interest) by future ratepayers. Ballard also traded a significant percentage of parking meter income and control over the next fifty years for some immediate cash.

At least Indianapolis streets are getting paved. The Republicans who now control both houses of the legislature have chosen a different bottom line, elevating ideology over both fiscal and social common sense. This has been a truly shameful session. (One of my students who is interning with the legislature told me he calls it the “hate-house” rather than the statehouse.)

Are Indiana citizens struggling to find jobs? Add a ban on same-sex marriage to the state’s Constitution. Do we have corporations trying to compete globally? Send a message that we don’t like immigrants, especially those who don’t look like us.

Many Indiana citizens have been hit hard by the recession, and the General Assembly has reacted by kicking them while they’re down. During what one friend of mine has dubbed “this reverse-Robin Hood session,” our lawmakers have consistently favored the haves over the have-nots. Although people who can afford to make contributions and pay lobbyists have always had an edge, this year the favoritism has been nothing less than brazen.

At the beginning of the session, there was a good deal of talk about “shared sacrifice.” Now we know what that meant: when lawmakers reduced corporate tax rates, they proceeded to make up the difference by requiring “shared sacrifices” from the most vulnerable Hoosiers.

The legislature has eliminated dental coverage for disabled Medicaid recipients. It has cut the number of children who will be eligible for CHIP, the Children’s Health Insurance Program (despite the fact that 75% of that money comes from the federal government). It has increased co-pays for infants and toddlers with developmental disabilities. It has deprived poor, largely rural women of desperately-needed healthcare by de-funding Planned Parenthood.

The attack on Planned Parenthood was a particularly egregious bit of theater. The current GOP is virulently anti-choice. Planned Parenthood does offer abortion and does defend reproductive choice. But it does not use a single cent of tax money to do either—such use of public dollars is forbidden by law. The majority was willing to deny poor women pap smears and breast cancer screenings to make an empty statement.

This was going to be a rough budget year, even with a legislature determined to work in the interests of all Hoosiers. Unfortunately, our legislature’s “bottom line” was all about ideology, politics and partisanship. Charlie White, anyone?

About that Fifty-Year Parking Deal……

Advance Indiana notes an interesting quote from the New York Post: “From 2001 to 2005, Goldsmith was senior vice president of Dallas-based Affiliated Computer Services Inc. Last year, his old firm landed a 50-year contract from Indianapolis to manage all parking meters for that city. Under the contract, Affiliated even gets the money from tickets written by Indianapolis police. The contract barely passed the Indianapolis City Council by a 15-14 vote.”

The Ballard Administration has been quite candid about Goldsmith’s continued influence, with Ballard noting that he regularly “consults” with Goldsmith, and Deputy Mayor Michael Huber–who used to work for Goldsmith’s Deputy Mayor, Skip Stitt–calling the former Mayor his “mentor.”

Despite rumors that have persisted for several years, no one knows whether Goldsmith holds significant stock in ACS. But when Indianapolis makes a deal that so lopsidedly favors a private company for so excessive a term, and a former Mayor with ties to that private company is so influential a player with the current administration, it does raise questions. Especially when the decisive vote was cast by a member of the Council whose law firm represents ACS.

Mayor Ballard has yet to provide satisfactory answers to those questions.

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The Things You (Sometimes) Learn from the Newspaper!

This morning’s Indianapolis Star had a bit of real reporting amid the multiple sports and “human interest” stories. Apparently, a bill being shepherded through the legislature would give sole authority for establishing new toll roads to the Governor. Well, not to just any governor–the measure would remain in effect for only four years.

As many of us recall, a couple of years ago Governor Daniels unveiled a plan to build a toll road around Indianapolis–outside I465. The public response was, shall we say, less than enthusiastic. City planners pointed out that “ring roads” of this sort suck traffic away from city centers, and that such a project would likely deal a blow to the resurgence of Indianapolis’ downtown. Environmentalists argued that the billions expended on such a project would be better spent on rail and mass-transit. The general public opposed it for a variety of other reasons.

Our Governor may be small, but he’s determined. And he’s serenely confident that he knows better than the public what the public needs. Hence, a bill that will let him do things his way, without the distractions of that pesky “democracy” thing.

What lessons might we take away from this morning’s article?

Jefferson was right: eternal vigilance is the price of liberty. People in power may give lip service to democracy and the “will of the people,” but given half a chance, they’ll dump democratic processes for unrestrained power in a heartbeat.
Citizens need journalism. We need to know what our public officials are doing, what they are proposing, how they are conducting themselves in office. Increasingly, in our internet age, we need to know who is telling the truth, and who is lying to us. That need is particularly acute at the state and local level. But real reporting costs money, so our local newspapers are thinner and thinner, and more and more of what’s left is fluff: recipes, fashion, weight-loss advice and, of course, sports.

This morning’s story reminded us why “the press” has constitutional status. It is supposed to be the eyes and ears of the public–our watchdog. When it does its job–like this morning–we the people have at least a fighting chance.

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