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.
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.
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.
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.
This morning, an acquaintance told me he’d recently been on the downtown Canal, and immediately thought of this post, in which I had bemoaned the city’s neglect of this important urban amenity. He was appalled–as we all should be.
That brief conversation made me ponder the current state of affairs in Indianapolis, and the importance–and difficulty–of civic leadership.
When Greg Ballard ran for Mayor, he talked a lot about leadership. Why, he’d written a (self-published) book about it! If elected, he would reduce crime, put more police on the streets, and reduce the budget. How hard could it be?
Reality is so messy and disappointing. It turns out that managing a city is significantly more complicated than giving orders to subordinates in a military unit. Not only do you have to deal with people elected to the City-County Council, who don’t think their job is to carry out your orders, you have to understand the inter-relationships of municipal issues and departments, and budget for a variety of services that are required by law or political necessity and constrained by reduced revenues. When Ballard ran, he displayed the sort of hubris that motivates citizens to write letters to the editor expressing amazement that elected officials can’t seem to grasp how simple the answer to climate change, gas prices, public safety, or the national debt really is. Americans tend to be ambivalent about credentials: we want our doctor or lawyer or CPA to be well-trained, but we think any well-meaning citizen has what it takes to run a city.
So three-and-a-half years later, we have a higher crime rate, fewer police on the streets, and no reduction in municipal expenditures. We are fixing streets and sidewalks with dollars “borrowed” from future utilities ratepayers, and we’ve sold off our parking meters for fifty years, presumably because the city is incapable of managing that infrastructure. Important civic assets like the Canal are falling into disrepair, and Indianapolis’ once-sterling reputation as a City that Works has become a punch line.
I think Ballard is beginning to realize that running a city is harder than it looks.
