82.7 F
Indianapolis
Thursday, July 3, 2025

To combat Ballard’s diversity dodge; mandate race/ethnicity data collection

More by this author

In their minds, Mayor Greg Ballard’s administration believes they’re the best mayoral administration in Indianapolis’ history in promoting diversity.

Unfortunately, when Ballard’s Boyz are asked for specifics about their diversity efforts toward African-Americans and other minorities, the administration morphs into their Richard Nixon routine of stalling, delaying, roadblocking.

A year ago, I requested specific breakdowns of the amount of city contracts awarded to minority-owned businesses.

Though Ballard’s Boyz brag about the millions they say have gone to minority-owned businesses, they told me (and the City-County Council) they “don’t track” spending by race/ethnicity of minority-owned businesses.

Even though, during certification, the city ascertains the race/ethnicity of every minority business owner.

Now Indy Parks has adopted Ballard’s diversity dodge.

Two years ago, Parks ordered most swimming pools in Indianapolis Public Schools (IPS) neighborhoods to open two weeks later than the rest of the city/county’s pools because of “scheduling issues” involving lifeguards.

The implication? Many lifeguards attended IPS schools and weren’t available until school was out.

I thought Indy Parks’ reason was fishy, so on May 24th I asked for data on their lifeguards.

For 18 weeks, the city hemmed, hawed, stalled and delayed.

Last week, I was allowed to “inspect” some records of lifeguards. Names and schools were included.

Some redacted data made sense (driver’s license numbers). Other withheld data – city name, Zip Code – made no sense.

For the record, 246 were lifeguards this summer. Only 15 were IPS students; even though most of the city’s pools are in IPS neighborhoods.

The largest single group of lifeguards, 103, were students at the high schools in Indy’s eight township districts, Speedway and Beech Grove.

Eighty two lifeguards, were students at colleges and universities.

Thirteen lifeguards attended high schools outside Marion County.

Another 20 lifeguards attended private or parochial high schools. A few of those might not be city/county residents.

Five lifeguards attended charter high schools and one attended one of the state takeover high schools.

I’d asked Indy Parks and the city for data on the race/ethnicity of their lifeguards. They refused to provide it. Nor did Parks provide data on lifeguard applicants. Only those who were hired.

Cataloguing the IPS and township schools lifeguards attended, and in some cases analyzing names, I estimate that 35 lifeguards were African-American. That’s far below the percentage of African-Americans of that age in the city/county.

Lifeguards tend to be between 16 and 24 years old. In Indianapolis/Marion County, 30.5 percent of that group are African-American. The 2012 Census American Community Survey says 24.5 percent of all 16 to 24 year olds employed in Indianapolis were African-American.

When asked to comment, Indy Parks’ incompetent PR apparatus emailed, “Our staff composition reflects the rich diversity found throughout our Indianapolis community.”

Indianapolis is 28.6 percent African-American, 9.7 percent Hispanic, 2.0 percent Asian, so Indy Parks, how can you say your staff reflects Indy’s “rich diversity”?

How can we believe your diversity claims when Parks Director John Williams, who’s becoming the worst Parks director in UniGov history, arrogantly snapped at the City-County Council’s Parks Committee when they tried to get specific diversity data on Parks employees.

It’s time the council majority takes action.

Introduce an ordinance requiring the city to report the number of city employees by race and ethnicity. It’s time we know that of the thousands of city employees, how many are Black, white/non-Hispanic, Hispanic, Asian, etc.

And if Mayor Ballard vetoes the ordinance, then we’ll know where the self proclaimed “most African-American friendly mayor in (Indianapolis) history” really stands on diversity.

What I’m hearing

in the streets

How do African-Americans feel about amending Indiana’s Constitution to prohibit same sex marriage?

Don’t know because pollsters won’t tell me.

Last week, Freedom Indiana, the group fighting the proposed marriage amendment released a poll saying a majority of Hoosiers don’t like the idea.

But when I asked what the poll said about how African-Americans felt on the topic, Freedom Indiana didn’t respond. Nor did they respond to my question on how many of the poll’s 800 respondents were African-American.

In other states with marriage amendment votes, African-Americans have been strongly divided on the issue. Freedom Indiana’s refusal to give any indication of how Blacks feel on this issue is troubling.

* * * * *

WTHR/Channel 13 was WTLC-AM (1310’s) “Afternoons with Amos” program’s latest visit to Indy’s TV stations. President/General Manager Lee Delia and News Director Kathy Hostetter directly answered the Black community’s concerns over the sudden departure in July of meteorologist Chris Wright, saying that the decision to leave was Wright’s.

Channel 13’s management, along with their anchors and reporters told listeners they really want to hear from the community with story ideas and information.

And while Bob Segall didn’t directly comment on my run-ins with the Ballard administration’s roadblocks in obtaining public records and data, the multi-award winning investigative journalist said Indiana’s open records laws are “too lax” and that government officials routinely look for ways not to provide information that should be public.

* * * * *

The senior African-American journalist at the Indianapolis Star is leaving.

Mark Nichols has been at the newspaper for 36 years as a reporter, editor and the paper’s guru on data, demographics and use of that info to report great stories.

Nichols’ leaving erases any Black community institutional memory at the Star.

Nichols’ leaving the Star for WCPO-TV in Cincinnati as their website data specialist and providing data to their investigative reporters.

Cincy’s gain is Indy and our community’s loss.

See ‘ya next week.

You can email comments to Amos Brown at acbrown@aol.com.

+ posts
- Advertisement -

Upcoming Online Townhalls

- Advertisement -

Subscribe to our newsletter

To be updated with all the latest local news.

Stay connected

1FansLike
1FollowersFollow
1FollowersFollow
1SubscribersSubscribe

Related articles

Popular articles

Español + Translate »
Skip to content