To the Editor:
As elected officials representing the African-American community of Indianapolis in the Indiana General Assembly, we have ample opportunities to be visible and active to our constituents.
They see us at countless festivals, community meetings, clean ups and parades. We also worship, support churches and businesses in our districts.
We regularly drive around our districts to see the various changes that occur on an ongoing basis, oftentimes taking the long way home. This does not include the numerous calls we take to resolve issues affecting our districts and constituents on a regular basis.
From these discussions, it is apparent that the people we represent believe that public safety is the most important job facing the mayor of Indianapolis, currently Gregory Ballard.
However, it’s equally apparent that the current mayor does not share this same priority. His agenda consists of building a $4 million cricket field, giving $20,000 salary increases to staff, cutting public safety funding, taking power away from constitutionally elected officials like our sheriff and prosecutor, and negating the will of the people as expressed in the last municipal election.
None of these things have been demanded by the African-American community that we represent. His failure to recognize our concerns exposes his lack of interest in us, a lack of interest only aggravated by rising crime numbers and the lack of diversity on his leadership team. To this mayor, we are mostly out of sight and out of mind.
For those who choose not to bother getting involved in our community, we suppose it is very easy to make broad, sweeping generalizations about what should be done to make the city of Indianapolis a better place to live for everyone.
But it ignores the simple fact that this mayor shows more interest in getting power and control over the sheriff rather than fulfilling the No. 1 job he was elected to do; supported by a police department of more than 800 officers: protect all the people of Marion County.
We challenge Mayor Ballard to address the public safety problem. We stand ready to work with him, even though his actions show that he is unwilling to work with us on any issue.
We will continue to fight for our constituents. We hope Mayor Ballard will take responsibility for his job and address the crime problem in Marion County.
Sen. Jean Breaux
Sen. Greg Taylor
Rep. John Bartlett
Rep. Greg Porter
Rep. Cherrish Pryor
Rep. Robin Shackleford
Rep. Vanessa Summers
