Instead of using the beautiful auditorium of the Indiana War Memorial for his re-election announcement, Mayor Greg Ballard used the memorial’s inner lobby. A better backdrop for his campaign commercials, I guess.
Some 200-250 folks were placed in front and behind a camera platform as Mayor Ballard kicked off his campaign promising to “keep Indianapolis moving forward” and that Indy “can’t go back to the way it was.”
If anyone thought that Ballard would concede minority votes, his campaign kickoff made it clear, from the Spanish speaking minister delivering the invocation, to being introduced by an African-American business owner, that Ballard will compete for African-American and Hispanic votes.
It’s the job of the incumbent to highlight his strengths while minimizing and ignoring their weaknesses. So, it was telling that in an eight page, 79 paragraph speech, only five paragraphs were devoted to public safety, crime and IMPD.
Literally minutes after the mayor told those at his kickoff that “You are now safer in Indianapolis,” a bank was robbed on West 86th; with another robbed an hour later on West Washington. So much for the safer in Indy line.
Mayor Ballard’s speech, which had more of a state of the city feel than a campaign manifesto, talked economy and jobs. It described an Indianapolis where despite a struggling economy, jobs are plentiful.
But the facts say something different.
Ballard bragged that “CNBC named Indianapolis as one of the 10 best cities to relocate to.” But when I found the story on CNBC’s website, it wasn’t about the city; but about the metro area; especially Carmel.
The mayor boasted, “Indianapolis attracts more new jobs than at any point in the last decade. In this difficult economy, Indianapolis attracted 3,000 more jobs than any other year in the last 10 years.”
But, according to a report, dated September 2010, by the University of Wisconsin/Milwaukee’s Center for Economic Development, during Ballard’s term Indianapolis has suffered the greatest percentage of job loss of the 50 largest cities in the country. Cities, not metro areas.
I examined the report and doublechecked its statistics and computations with Bureau of Labor Statistics data.
I found that from September 2009 to September 2010, the number of city/county residents employed fell 1.7 percent, the largest drop of America’s 20 biggest cities. During that period, of America’s top 20 cities, 16 have seen employment increases, with just four cities – Jacksonville, San Francisco, Philadelphia and Indianapolis – seeing employment decreases.
Similarly, from September 2008 to September 2010, Indianapolis’ employed fell 7.7 percent, again the largest percentage loss.
Mayor Ballard may be adding jobs, but Indianapolis’ residents are losing far more jobs than we’re gaining. And increasingly, the jobs coming here are going to suburban areas, not city/county residents.
Also it was telling that nearly three full years after proclaiming that providing opportunities for ex-offenders would be a priority, Mayor Ballard said nothing about it, again, in a major speech.
One issue Ballard did talk about was minority-owned business, declaring, “Overall spending with minority-owned business has nearly quadrupled from $15 million in 2007 to more than $57 million this year.”
As a testimony to that largess, several Black businesspersons and entrepreneurs attended the kickoff, though some aren’t Indianapolis residents.
But why hasn’t that 280 percent increase in dollars to minority-owned businesses done anything to reduce the obscenely high unemployment in Indy’s minority communities?
During the mayor’s campaign kickoff speech, he used the phrase “we cannot go back” 12 times. Ballard’s campaign wants you to believe that Bart Peterson’s administration was so horrendous that Indianapolis won’t want to revisit it.
Nick Buis, a spokesman for Democratic mayoral candidate Melina Kennedy called the phrase “not a positive vision for the future, but an attack on the past.”
What doesn’t the mayor want us to go back to?
Previous mayors fought for affirmative action in public safety. But Ballard scrapped that, resulting for example, in just three African-Americans out of some 75 promoted to IMPD sergeants and lieutenants during Ballard’s term.
Diversity at the top doesn’t seem to be a priority now. The Ballard administration is the first in the UniGov era where no African-Americans head a major city department.
The mayor bragged that his administration is spending more than $450 million to improve infrastructure, yet swimming pools in Black neighborhoods remain shuttered.
When Ballard says “we cannot go back,” does he mean not go back to when Indianapolis mayors talked to the full range of Black community leaders, including those that they disagreed with? Something this mayor is still loath to do.
At the end of his speech, Ballard proclaimed, “It’s time we start telling our story, more loudly and more often.”
So, even though Ballard has given the fewest interviews to Black newspapers of any mayor of Indy’s modern era. Even though the mayor prefers to appear on poorly-rated weekend Black radio shows, ignoring prime time programs with 16 times the audience. We’ll see if Mayor Ballard changes and adheres to his speech’s rhetoric.
The invitations remain open from this newspaper and WTLC-AM (1310’s) “Afternoons with Amos,” if the Ballard campaign isn’t conceding the Black vote and is serious about the mayor “telling our story.”
Because our African-American community’s been waiting for three years to hear it.
What I’m Hearing
in the Streets
Despite having multi-millions in his campaign coffers, Sen. Evan Bayh is ending his political career, deciding Sunday he won’t run for governor. He’ll remain in Washington until his twin sons finish high school.
I’ll say more next week about the future of Indiana’s seemingly leaderless Democratic Party and why our African-American community, now among the largest Democratic voting blocs in the state, must step up and be a part of determining the party’s future direction.
LaDonna Freeman has been a longtime hard worker in the county’s Voter Registration Office and for years she’s been the Democratic Party’s chief deputy there. With Voter Registration Board Co-Director Terry Burns leaving to become Lawrence Township constable, the Marion County Democratic Party should make the hard working, dedicated Freeman the next co-director of the office.
The fact that Freeman is African-American is a bonus; as she is well qualified, regardless of her race.
See ‘ya next week.
You can e-mail comments to Amos Brown at acbrown@aol.com.
