Last week Indianapolis politics resembled a bad “Saturday Night Live” sketch as the introduction of Mayor Greg Ballard’s 2014 city/county budget and the attempted coup by renegade Democratic Councilman Brian Mahern demonstrated how out of touch and disjointed Indy’s political leadership has become.
First, Ballard’s budget.
After his PR machine expressed dire warnings of a $30 to $60 million deficit, our mayor told the City-County Council and residents that his 2014 budget was honestly “balanced.”
It really isn’t since his budget empties nearly every cent in Indy’s savings accounts to make it balance. Ballard’s budget assumes rosy income tax estimates that might not occur.
Despite draining reserves, Ballard wants to risk Indy’s credit rating by borrowing some $130-$150 million, paid back over 30 years, for neighborhood improvements that’ll only last 10 years. His motivation isn’t to help our suffering neighborhoods; but to funnel millions of tax dollars to contractors expected to kickback (make contributions) to the mayor’s 2015 campaign.
Ballard’s budget is built on subterfuge, misdirection and math errors.
The budget documents submitted to the City-County Council stated city/county departments and agencies would spend $1,002,968,628 in 2014 compared to $1,041,133,145 this year. My Excel spreadsheets, on three different computers, say that’s a 3.7 percent reduction. The Ballard budget provided to the council and public say the decrease was 2.5 percent. Major math error!
Another bizarre occurrence in Ballard’s budget is turning Indy Parks from an independent agency into a wholly owned subsidiary of the Department of Public Works (DPW).
Addressing the council, Ballard assured that his budget “protects funding for our parks.” The reality’s far different as Ballard’s budget cuts Parks spending 25.2 percent or $5,526 million for 2014. The administration’s explanation? “We moved that money to DPW to spend on parks.”
Addressing the council’s Parks Committee last week, Parks Director John Williams claimed that while some Parks employees now work for DPW but still provide maintenance and other functions for Parks, he (Williams) would still have oversight.
In business and in government, the department/agency where spending is budgeted controls that spending. Transferring spending from Parks to DPW sends a signal that Parks, one of the original UniGov Departments, isn’t important to Ballard.
Worse, it reinforces the growing belief that Parks Director Williams doesn’t “run” his department. He’s just there for show.
Then minutes after Ballard submitted his budget, open warfare broke out as Democratic Councilman Brian Mahern, spurned on several initiatives by council leadership, got in bed with some Republican council leaders to try and politically kneecap council President Maggie Lewis.
Mahern admitted in an exclusive interview on WTLC-AM (1310’s) “Afternoons with Amos” that Republican leader Michael McQuillen had given instructions on how to do the dirty deed.
Sources tell me Republican leaders and mayoral minions, including a top Ballard agency head tried to force Councilwoman Christine Scales and other Republicans to go along with Mahern’s coup. Scales resisted the pressure from Ballard’s boyz as did Republicans Jeff Miller, Will Gooden and even newly minted Republican Jose Evans.
Mahern’s failure last week makes him a living “dead man walking” in the Democratic Party. But like a wounded lion, he’s still dangerous. Expect him to cause mischief and even make a play to give Republicans operational control of the council still this year.
Final word on parks.
During that Parks hearing, council Democrats grilled Director Williams about lifeguards. Under pressure, Williams grudgingly admitted Parks employed “356”; but he bluntly refused to provide additional details. Williams also claimed he didn’t know the racial and gender diversity of his employees. Worse, in a rank display of lack of political etiquette and disrespect, Williams treated Parks Committee Chair William Oliver with utter contempt and open disdain.
Also at the hearing, an unctuous city attorney told councilors that the city had “received” a public records request recording Parks’ lifeguards.
So, now the city formally admits that my now 97-day request to learn how many Indy Parks lifeguards were high school students is still pending. I’m patient. I’m waiting.
What I’m hearing
in the street
In breaking talkshow barriers, our “Afternoons with Amos” program has broadcast from the Indianapolis Recorder and Indianapolis Star.
Now we break another broadcasting barrier. Tuesdays in September, we’ll be broadcasting live from Indy’s four major commercial television station companies. Asking questions about what they do and creating a dialogue with the stations and our African-American community.
Local television has changed in Indy, with more local newscasts than ever. Indy’s TV stations are increasingly airing breaking news and investigative reports that the Star used to do.
Indianapolis TV employs 21 times more Black reporters than the daily newspaper. And with Black news director at WRTV-Channel 6 (Terri Cope-Walton) and now a Black assistant news director at WISH-TV-Channel 8 (Jeff Mulligan just hired from Cape Girardeau and Kansas City, Mo.), diversity in the management of local news is improving.
First up will be WRTV-Channel 6 on Sept. 3. Hope you’ll be listening.
See ‘ya next week.
You can email comments to Amos Brown at acbrown@aol.com.
