JohnnyStir Show And Me, every Monday Night

I've put this up on Facebook and Twitter, but here it is for the blog reading audience.

I'll be making appearances on the JohnnyStir Show every Monday night at 9pm EST while political analyst Chris Jackson takes a break from the show. I'll be filling in for him for the summer. We'll typically be covering politics on a more national level, but I plan on introducing some local flavor in the coming weeks as well.

Tonight's show, I'll be on around 9:40.

If you're new to the whole online radio thing, you have a few options on listening:

• In the upper right hand corner of each page of this blog, there is an "Indiana Talks" section with a button to press. It'll connect you to the station when you click.
• If you have a smartphone or a tablet, look up "Live365" on the Google Play or Apple store and download the app. Then look for Indiana Talks on that app.
• Finally, the folks at Indiana Talks typically have the podcast up in mp3 format within 24-48 hours on their web page.

I hope you listen in. You can tweet during the show by tweeing me @IndyStudent or Jon @JohnnyStir. 

City Again Thwarted By High Weeds and Grass in Parks

It seems like every year, just as the weather starts being consistently warm, one of the news organizations is able to find a bunch of city parks with tall grass and weeds. I bet they take turns deciding who gets to cover it each year, because it always seems to be an issue and the city always seems to be caught off guard. If this were private property, the Department of Code Enforcement would issue a violation ordering you to mow it yourself or face paying a city contractor to do it for you.

But the problem isn't exclusive to Eagle Creek Park. I recently biked the White River Trail, which connects the northwest side of Indianapolis to downtown. Tall grass of at least two feet can be seen around several parts of the trail. Along Riverside Park, you can tell the areas that have had cut grass because they stay there in piles.

But the worst violation of the grass and weeds ordinance was the Indy Cycloplex. Indy Cycloplex, home of the Major Taylor velodrome, is being managed by Marian University as part of a 30 year lease. There's a large area of grass that falls within the Lake Sullivan Complex that easily is 3-5 feet high.

To be clear, I don't blame the folks at Indy Parks & Recreation. They're doing the absolute best they can with the limited resources they're allocated. I do, however, blame the powers-that-be that continue to piss away our resources on cricket stadiums and ugly parking garages while essential city services and amenities such as public safety, parks, and libraries face budget cuts and staff shortages.

Whole Lot of Thoughts on Whole Foods

Indianapolis' powers-that-be have been hard at work starting up tax increment financing (TIF) districts and ensuring that some of the best parts of the city get property taxes diverted to a slush fund that they can use as they wish. The newest TIF stretches from 38th and Illinois and encompasses much of the Broad Ripple and Butler Tarkington area. The TIF was pushed by City-County Councillor John Barth (D-At Large). In documents while the TIF was being considered, its supporters said that the TIF was primarily for the neighborhoods and areas that haven't been doing well rather than the ones that currently are.

In reality, it should come as no surprise that the first proposed TIF project is renovating the old Shell gas station in Broad Ripple to slap a five story mix-use structure there instead. My friends Mark Small and Len Farber give excellent run downs of both the public meeting that was held earlier this week, as well as including details on the project.

Similar to the Broad Ripple parking garage, this new development is going to require millions of dollars to subsidize the development as well as a whole load of variances and re-zoning. According to Small, who was at the meeting held by the Broad Ripple Village Association, this project likely will not continue if Whole Foods is not signed on. They're aiming to have one tenant on the retail side, and they want it to be long term.

I have some sympathy for the developers when it comes to wanting to have one tenant. Some of the complaints about Massachusetts Avenue is that there are dozens of businesses that aren't something people window-shopping can utilize. Chiropractors, lawyers, and other non-retail and restaurants dot the area. I imagine part of the reason is that those types of businesses are more recession-proof than retail and food service. So having one tenant from a major chain, rather than 3-4 tenants that are locally based, makes some sense.

But that's about where my sympathy ends.

I'm sure the backers of this project will swear up and down that this will flush the TIF with cash and will allow them to get projects going in the more run-down areas, such as 38th and Illinois and 30th and Central.

I'll believe it when I see it. As far as I'm concerned, this is another slush fund project for Acting Mayor Ryan Vaughn and the more needy parts of the TIF can be damned.

I'll be on Civil Discourse Now tomorrow morning to discuss this issue with Mark Small and Paul Ogden. We'll be broadcasting from Good Earth, a locally owned natural foods store, at 11AM today. You can tune in by clicking the Play button on the Indiana Talks radio station, located in the upper right hand corner of this blog. You can also view the streaming video at Civil Discourse Now's online site.

SB621 Is Now Law: Let them eat cricket stadiums and parking fees!

You've heard by now that SB621, the bill that strips the legislative body of Marion County of all meaningful power and gives it to the Mayor of Indianapolis, has been signed into law by Governor Mike Pence. You can read his statement on the law via Fox 59.

Among the talking points dished out by the powers-that-be was the whining that the poor Mayor just didn't have enough power. He was being bullied by those mean Democrats on the council. 

And those talking points largely went unchallenged by those in the media and, honestly, by most Democrats as well.

But I have to wonder if these people actually live in the same city as me. I guess they don't.

In Mayor Greg Ballard's Indianapolis, he announces his intention to make Indianapolis the "cricket capital" of the US or some jazz and wants to build a stadium here, and plans to spend $6 million to do so...the plan pretty much passes without much thought. 

And in Ballard's Indianapolis, a government entity can sue a private business developer for 2+ years because they dared to open up a private business that might provide a better service than the government's! 

So if this is what Ballard's vision of Indianapolis is before he gets unprecedented power, I'm not too eager to find out what the next few years of his reign will bring.

At-Large Councillors Could Jump to Other Races

The passage of SB621, the Unigov reform bill, means many things. The parts that impact Marion County and Indianapolis government the most is the massive amount of power that the Mayor of Indianapolis gets over the City-County budget, including those of independently elected, constitutionally mandated county officeholders. But the part of the bill that received the most attention was the portion that dealt with the membership of the Indianapolis-Marion County City-County Council. As of January 1, 2016, the council will go from a 29 member body to a 25 member body. It would do so by eliminated the At-Large seats that represent the entire county.

This means that none of the current At-Large councillors, all Democrats, will be able to run for re-election for that seat.

So what would they do? While I have not heard any rumors of what they may do, I do have a working knowledge of approximately what political districts they reside in. So this is simply a list of what they could do, not what they may do.

Leroy Robinson lives in Pike Township within Council District 7, represented by Council President Maggie Lewis. He is likely represented by Democrats in both houses of the state legislature as well. A primary challenge to any of those incumbents is highly unlikely, though he has challenged

Zach Adamson lives in Council District 16. District 16 is represented by Brian Mahern, a fellow Democrat. Mahern has ruffled some feathers for being the most open and vocal critic of Republican Mayor Greg Ballard. And within the Democratic caucus of the City-County Council (and, in general, the Democratic Party of Marion County), there is the "go-along-to-get-along" crowd and there's the opposition. Adamson is firmly in the opposition camp, and if there is an attempt to get Mahern off the council, I doubt Adamson will be the person to do so. His policies line up more closely with Mahern than anyone else on the Democratic caucus

John Barth lives in the Butler-Tarkington area. The general Broad Ripple-ish area of town is one of the few Republican leaning parts of town that isn't in the southern part of Marion County, so running in that district might not be the wisest decision. That part of town was in a fairly close Indiana Senate election, where Scott Schneider narrowly defeated Democrat Tim DeLaney. While things look pretty grim for Democrats running for state legislative seats outside of Marion and Lake County, there's a lot of room for improvement in Marion County's state legislative districts.

Pamela Hickman, who was appointed to the At-Large nomination in 2011 after Joanne Sanders announced she wouldn't run for re-election, has taken a few shots at elected office before. In 2007, she lost in the Democratic primary for council district 4, which is currently represented by Republican Christine Scales. Scales won what may be one of the narrowest victories of a council district election in November 2011 by less than a hundred votes from a well-funded Democratic challenger. Hickman also ran in the 2008 election for Indiana House District 87, currently held by Republican Cindy Noe Democrat Christina Hale.

Based off of this analysis, I think Barth and Hickman probably have the most options open to them. Hickman probably stands the best chance of staying on the council if she chooses to run in her district. The options appear far fewer for Robinson and Adamson, but a lot could happen in two years.

And I'd like to apologize for the errors surrounding District 87. Thanks to Wilson and Zach for the corrections.

Did the Department of Education Get Taken for a Tech Ride?

The Indiana Department of Education, headed by Superintendent Glenda Ritz, seems to be having difficulty with an expensive piece of technology that was purchased before Ritz and her team came into office. Ritz's predecessor, Tony Bennett, inked the deal with a telecommunications company last summer. The telecommunications company also employed one of Bennett's former staffers. Now, as the technology is being delivered over time, there appears to have been little communication during the transition period on what purpose this technology serves and how it's a wise investment.

While I'm sure the politics and the tensions between Ritz and Bennett are what some will focus on, I'd rather take a look at the purchase of all this technology. Specifically, how Bennett defends the purchase:

Reached in Florida, where he is now that state’s education commissioner, Bennett told me that the new technology would connect educators in a 21st-Century way. He called the TelePresence technology “very interactive and incredibly high resolution” and called it a “very powerful tool” that can save money by reducing travel expenses.

 

“If we expect schools and districts to use technology and innovation, then I believe the Department of Education should be a leader in that,” he said. Pointing to Ritz’s longtime career as a media specialist in Washington Township Schools, he added: “I’m a little shocked that a person whose background was as a media specialist doesn’t have an understanding of how this very powerful technological tool can improve communication between the department and schools.”

The parts' I emphasized lead me to believe that Dr. Bennett was probably swindled by the telecommunications company. It sounds like he heard these buzzwords from his staff and the salesmen who brokered the deal. And, convinced these people using these fancy-sounding words to describe their products knew what they were talking about, purchased the whole package without much outside counsel.

I spent two years doing IT work for a few clients, building computers, running cables through walls, expanding networks, setting up phones and voice mail systems, and getting people off of Outlook and into Gmail for their e-mail needs. I don't type this to tout that I'm some technological demigod. But, as someone who is pretty familiar with technology, I recognize that my knowledge has limits and that there are times I need someone else's opinion to make sure I'm getting a good deal. I think Bennett or the staff that was in charge thought they knew technology, and due to their knowledge, this deal sounded a-okay.

In addition to the total cost of the technology, there is also $152,000 annual charge for software licensing for whatever this telecommunications technology uses to function.

Now, I'm not an expert in telecommunications. But in my experience, there is often software that people have been using in the workplace for a very long time that has an established presence, and keeps being used  regardless of the cost. There is also newer software that is available at a fraction of the cost, but people might not be familiar with the specifics of it. Because people are so tied to tradition, it is very hard to convince businesses and non-profits to switch, even if it is an obvious cost-saving move.

This whole thing is something that could be defended if Bennett's team sought outside counsel to ensure them that they were getting a good deal, or prevented if the advice went the other way. Unfortunately, taxpayers are now stuck with a bill for technology we might not even use.

Most Arguments Against Mass Transit Are Bunk

I was listening to The Great Real America Radio Hour featuring Greg Garrison the other day. And I guess a lot of people chickened out and didn't call in to talk about mass transit the other day when they had one of the Indy Connect people on. So they took to the radio waves today to vent their frustrations on this big government overreach that is probably going to end up in a study committee.

What I heard on the radio were arguments that I've heard a lot that I don't believe make a lot of sense. There was a lot of "how much of a subsidy will it need per ride?" and "Why doesn't private business pay for it?". The irony being is that a lot of these people were probably driving in their cars and on roads that aren't "paid for". Yes, there is a federal and state gasoline sales tax. But the money collected there isn't enough to pay for all the road and highway maintenance performed. Governments take out bonds or sell off assets or do privatization deals to make money to maintain brides and roads and pave sidewalks. This is not new.

There's all types of stuff the government does that doesn't turn a profit. But the theory behind government, on behalf of society, doing these things such as paving roads and providing police and fire protection and so on isn't just because we want government to burn our money for us. But because we believe that these services are worth paying for because it is part of making our society a place we want to live in and a place we want others to visit.

Now that isn't to say that the financial figures shouldn't be a concern. But critics should move away from the general "it costs money, a lot, so it is bad" argument and move on to specifics.