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.
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.
Former Indianapolis Mayor and current New York Deputy Mayor Stephen Goldsmith has a letter in the Wall Street Journal, in which he explains why “progressive government” is obsolete. The letter is vintage Goldsmith.
The letter is a far more intellectual and polished version of the complaints we’ve heard from Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker and Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels: government is broken because of the special interests. Those special interests–unions and civil service employees–have “stifled the creativity of public-sector workers and reduced the ability of public investments to create opportunities for citizens.”
Now, I’ll be the first to concede that many of the work rules that have resulted from collective bargaining agreements are unwieldy, and should be and could be revised and streamlined. But what are we to make of statements like this one: “State law mandates that over 1500 job titles must be filled through competitive written exams, specifically ignoring an employee’s actual performance or qualifications.”? If I were a suspicious sort, I might think that a public manager’s subjective evaluation of an employee’s performance (perhaps the willingness of that employee to support certain policies or even candidates for office) would be less reliable than an employee’s ability to demonstrate knowledge on an objective examination.
And in fact, it was for precisely that reason that the examination requirement was imposed. So it is ironic–and telling–that Goldsmith then says “We are even required to administer a civil service test for the head of our Police Department’s counter-terrorism unit! (We found a way around it.)”
Those of us who lived in Indianapolis during the Goldsmith Administration will recall that he “found a way around” a number of rules he didn’t like. (We might also find the letter’s emphasis on transparency somewhat ironic, since transparency was hardly the hallmark of that administration.)
The letter also reinforces the complaints of Governors like Walker and Daniels about worker pensions; Goldsmith complains that New York City will have to pay 8.4 Billion to “fill a hole in its unfunded pension obligations.” Those “greedy” public workers, who chose to take some of their pay in the form of deferred compensation (i.e., pensions) were not the people who decided to divert those funds to other uses, rather than funding their pension obligations at the time. New York, like Indianapolis and many other cities, willfully ignored their pension obligations for years. Why should workers who relied upon those pensions be the ones who take the hit?
What is most striking about the letter is also what is most reminiscent of Goldsmith’s tenure in City Hall: his either-or approach.
Goldsmith is not a stupid man, and the problems he identifies are not all imaginary. But there is no nuance in his worldview. These problems are the result of rules, he tells us, and the rules are not working optimally, so they must go. He doesn’t tell us what, if anything, he would do to insure that public employees would not be subject to arbitrary dismissals, that political insiders wouldn’t be hired in lieu of nonpolitical professionals for jobs requiring expertise, or how he would handle the other evils these rules were intended to address.
Blowing things up was always Goldsmith’s style. But America’s cities need people who can fine-tune systems and fix problems–not bomb throwers.
It has been nearly four years since the Kernan-Shepard Commission, a bipartisan group of Indiana leaders, studied the structure of Indiana government and issued a report. A genuinely bipartisan effort, the commission was led by former Governor Joe Kernan and Chief Justice Randall Shepard, who accepted the task at the request of Governor Mitch Daniels.
The Commission’s recommendations were sensible, but hardly novel or surprising. As I noted at the time, “It is telling that the Commission’s recommendations closely mirrored those made by Gov. Paul McNutt—in 1936. Never let it be said that Hoosiers rush into anything.”
Decisions about structuring Indiana government made in 1816 and 1851 are still in effect, and as a result, Indiana citizens pay for, and are governed by, more than 10,300 local officials. The state “boasts” 3,086 separate governing bodies, hundreds of which have taxing authority. When we compare Indiana to 11 other states our size, we have more levels of government than all but two of them.
In Indiana, we don’t put tax revenues to work enhancing our quality of life. Instead, we use them to pay for 1008 Township Trustees and other officeholders we no longer need. And despite the credentials of those who served on the Kernan-Shepard Commission, despite polls that show large majorities of Indiana citizens supporting elimination of Township Trustees, our legislature has stubbornly refused to act—and many of us have scratched our heads, wondering why.
An article in this morning’s Star may offer a clue.
A previous story had reported that the Township Trustee in Hamilton County had paid 10,000 (from tax monies!) for seats at the gala opening of Carmel’s new Palladium Opera House. This morning’s story noted that the Trustee’s lawyer had advised him to repay the money. And who was that lawyer? None other than Brian Bosma—Speaker of the Indiana House.
That reminded me of something I was told by a Kernan-Shepard commissioner a couple of years ago. He noted that several of the Trustees paid large sums of money with some regularity to well-connected lawyers, for “legal services.” Given the relatively simple legal issues Trustees deal with, he concluded that what they were purchasing was clout—political insurance, you might say—rather than legal counsel.
Most taxpayers want their government to be run in a businesslike fashion—to operate efficiently and to be careful stewards of tax dollars. But most of us also understand that government isn’t a business.
So when is it prudent or acceptable for government to invest our tax dollars in for-profit ventures? When do such deals make economic development sense?
I vividly remember the early days of the Hudnut Administration, when downtown Indianapolis was a pretty forlorn place. Businesses were leery of locating in the urban center, and banks and other financial institutions routinely refused to make loans for those few who were willing to do so. The ability of the City to step up, to guarantee those loans and provide infrastructure and other accommodations was crucial to reversing urban decline. The point was to demonstrate to the private market that downtown enterprises could be viable. The trick—and it could be very tricky indeed—was to generate sufficient business activity to allow market forces to take over, without artificially depressing that market, or inadvertently subsidizing some businesses to the detriment of others.
Today, downtown Indianapolis is flourishing. Those early, strategic investments have paid substantial dividends. Municipal loans have largely been repaid, and more importantly, the central city’s tax base has grown substantially.
There are probably cases where public investment in the urban center is still necessary, but many of us who participated in that early redevelopment process are scratching our heads over the Ballard Administration’s proposal to put $98 million dollars (up from an originally announced $86 million) into North of South, a hotel and apartment complex being developed by Buckingham Properties.
The Administration justifies this use of taxpayer dollars (at a time when libraries and public transportation are starving for funds) by pointing out that private lenders all rejected the project as too risky. It doesn’t seem to have occurred to them that those lenders may have had sound business reasons for coming to that conclusion.
Indianapolis has recently added over 1000 downtown hotel rooms; furthermore, hotel bookings in central Indiana declined by 5% during 2010. Why—in the face of excess capacity —would lenders risk financing a hotel project right now? And why should taxpayers subsidize a hotel that will compete with hotels in which we’ve previously invested?
Local blogger Paul Ogden recently posed a fair question: Why is it too risky to borrow $6 million to buy and install new parking meters, but not too risky to issue $98 million in bonds for a project private lenders wouldn’t support?
Ogden also noted that the project’s lobbyist is Tom John, who just stepped down as Marion County Republican Chairman.
Councilor Ryan Vaughn cast the deciding vote on the ACS parking contract despite being ACS’ lobbyist. More recently, Robert Vane resigned as the Mayor’s Press Secretary and won a no-bid consulting contract with the Capital Improvement Board.
It all looks a bit too cozy.
When there is an appearance of impropriety, taxpayers can be forgiven for questioning questionable deals.
