For weeks the City of Indianapolis has failed to take seriously the Obama Administration’s requirement that government agencies receiving federal stimulus dollars must make that information available to the public on their Web sites.
The city just started putting stimulus information on their Web site, but not on the home page like the State of Indiana, IndyGo, the Indianapolis Airport Authority and the Indianapolis MPO.
You have to click on Mayor Greg Ballard’s Web page, then click a link about stimulus funding which only shows how much the city/county is receiving. Nowhere on the city’s Web site are details of how the Department of Public Works is spending their $26 million stimulus cash, or how Public Safety is spending $10.8 million. The Department of Metropolitan Development Web page shows plans for spending $3.9 million in homeless prevention funds, but makes no mention that the funds are part of the stimulus. But DMD’s Web site mentions nothing about another $7.5 million in stimulus funding they’re getting.
I brought up Indianapolis’ disregard for President Barack Obama’s rules during a White House briefing for Black media with Valerie Jarrett, senior advisor to the president; one of President Obama’s closest advisors. Her response was swift.
“The vice-president is charged with the implementation of the recovery plan,” Jarrett told me, “What I will ask him to do and specifically I will raise Indianapolis with him and ask that he ask them (Indianapolis) for a report on transparency.”
Jarrett says President Obama has made it clear to his cabinet that “he’s a big supporter of transparency.”
“And as our dollars flow to the local level, we insist on that same level of transparency,” Jarrett added, “There should be no surprises as to where these dollars are going.”
Appearing on WTLC-AM1310’s “Afternoons with Amos,” Deputy Mayor Nick Weber was stunned that Jarrett would put Indy on the carpet when I played her comments on air. Weber says the city’s following federal rules, but as of this column’s deadline they still aren’t.
Jarrett thanked me for my question and encouraged me and other Black media to continue to monitor how stimulus dollars are being spent.
Valerie, Black media and I will!
Meanwhile, word that Senator Evan Bayh voted against President Obama’s budget framework angered many African-Americans last week. After mentioning it on our radio program, I urged listeners to call Bayh’s Indianapolis and Washington offices.
Well many must have called, because 30 minutes after the program ended, Bayh’s current press secretary Brian Weiss called asking could Sen. Bayh come on the program the next day.
In Bayh’s 23 years of public service never have his people called for an interview. It’s always been the other way around. So obviously, the phone calls and criticisms stung; a year before his re-election campaign.
In the interview last Friday, Sen. Bayh insisted that he supports the president. Bayh said he’s voted for all the president’s initiatives and appointees. It was just the budget where Bayh’s aversion to deficit spending caused him to go against the president.
Several media outlets had predicted that Bayh would oppose the effort to help homeowners through reform of the bankruptcy laws.
I thought Bayh was among them. But the senator was emphatic, “Amos, I voted for the legislation. Your information is wrong.” And it was, but I replied, “well your press office didn’t tell us how you voted.”
Many progressives and Blacks are suspicious on where Bayh stands on some issues. It doesn’t help that Bayh’s inexperienced press staff isn’t explaining the senator’s position on critical issues to us in Indiana.
Despite suspicions on our community, Bayh gets high ratings from Black Hoosiers.
In a poll conducted by Bayh’s 2010 senate campaign, 800 likely Hoosier voters gave Bayh and the president high marks. Seven percent of those polled were African-American and 97 percent of Blacks surveyed approved the president’s performance, 94 percent approved Bayh’s performance.
But it doesn’t help that there are currently no African-American staffers in senator Bayh’s Indianapolis office. And absolutely no direct liaison from Bayh’s office to Indiana’s 600,000 Blacks, especially to Black political, civic, community and media leaders.
What I’m Hearing
in the Streets
Indianapolis Fire Chief Brian Sanford seems nice, but after interviewing him last week, I still have grave reservations whether the department can effectively mount an aggressive minority recruitment campaign.
Sanford wants his department’s minority recruitment to concentrate on Indiana. But that’s a cheap way, not fully effective. It’s just as far from Indianapolis to Dayton, Cincinnati, Columbus, Louisville as it is to northern Indiana. But IFD wants to exclude these areas with large Black populations.
It also doesn’t help inspire confidence that the fire department is serious about aggressively recruiting minority firefighters, when that department and the Indianapolis Police Department has an abysmal record of utilizing minority owned businesses.
I obtained data showing that just 0.3 percent of all police and fire department contracts went to minority-owned businesses. That’s no misprint. The figure is a horrid three-tenths of one percent.
By contrast, 3.8 percent of police and fire department contracts last year went to women-owned businesses.
If you can’t find minority companies to be vendors, how much confidence will our community have that Public Safety Director Scott Newman, Police Chief Michael Spears and Chief Sanford can find minority men and women to be firefighters and police officers?
In my talks with White House officials, they said even school districts receiving stimulus funds must provide online disclosure. On “Afternoons with Amos,” IPS Superintendent Dr. Eugene White said IPS will post that information as soon as they get the OK “from the State Department of Education.”
In our interview, Dr. White flatly denied reports that Arlington High School had gone through four principals this school year. “Just two,” said White, who also defended replacing longtime School 48 principal Deloris Sangster with a principal with just a couple years experience.
“We need her at a bigger school” said White, though the difference in students is just 101.
And in an unusual move, the IPS School Board took a roll call vote on reassigning Sangster. The board’s four Black members voted to move her; the board’s three white members voted to leave her at School 48. A move that’ll anger many School 48 parents and supports, who will vote next May.
See ‘ya next week!
Amos Brown’s opinions are not necessarily those of the Indianapolis Recorder Newspaper. You can contact him at (317) 221-0915 or by e-mail at ACBROWN@AOL.COM.
