Gregory A. Ballard, the 48th mayor of Indianapolis, has granted numerous interviews to newspapers and magazines in this city, state, nation, even the world since taking office Jan. 1, 2008.
With one glaring exception.
For his entire tenure, Mayor Ballard has refused to be interviewed by the Indianapolis Recorder.
This is an unprecedented action. It is inconceivable that the mayor of a major American city would refuse to ever grant at least one interview with the professional journalists of the leading Black newspaper in their city.
For the record, this isn’t about the mayor granting me an interview. I understand he’ll never do that while he remains mayor!
The issue is the flat refusal by Ballard to be interviewed by the Recorder’s professional journalists, asking our mayor questions on the key issues important to our Black community.
For the record, Mayor Ballard is the most media unfriendly mayor in my 40 years in Indianapolis. And his dislike of Black media, is reinforced by his staff; especially Ballard’s top African-American staffers.
Now, our community’s been buzzing about the stunning news of Indiana Black Expo’s (IBE) decision to sever its relationship with the Recorder.
One of Mayor Ballard’s top African-American advisors, Greg Wilson, is IBE’s Board Chair. Wilson’s sharing of his boss’ distaste for this newspaper may explain why IBE severed the Recorder’s 43-year charter sponsorship of Expo.
Sources tell me that at that fateful Expo Board meeting, Expo’s white Board members (many prominent Republicans) made the most cutting remarks against the newspaper.
In its formative years, Expo’s leaders were Democrats and Republicans who put aside partisanship for Black unity.
But under former IBE Board Chair John Thompson and now Wilson, IBE has shed all pretence of bipartisanship and operates as a wholly owned subsidiary of Republican and Ballard partisanship.
I’m one of the few at the current Recorder who remembers legendary Owner/Publisher/Editor Marcus Stewart Sr.
Virtually none of the current Black Expo Board members (especially the whites) remembers when Expo’s founders visited Stewart in early 1971 at the newspaper’s old Indiana Avenue office to ask for the Recorder’s support.
Stewart could’ve said no. Or insisted on cash payment for ads.
Instead, Marcus Stewart Sr. bought into Black Expo’s vision; putting the full weight of his newspaper behind it. Free ads, stories, photos – the works.
So have successive Recorder owners, publishers, editors and staff. This newspaper has given vast amounts of support to Expo over 43 years; more than any print publication locally or nationally has provided.
IBE’s decision sends an alarming message to Black newspapers nationally about the gross disrespect of a respected Black institution toward one of the nation’s most prestigious Black newspapers.
It also sends a chilling message to Expo’s sponsors. “If IBE treats a 43-year sponsor that way, what about me?”
The IBE Board’s decision is reprehensible. Each board member owes our community a public explanation.
What I’m hearing in the streets
The community and I remain baffled as to why past administrators in the Indianapolis Public Schools (IPS) felt they had to overestimate expenses in order to preserve cash flow.
That violates every basic rule of budgeting. But it seems for years IPS overstated their deficit financing, based on spending that didn’t occur.
New IPS Superintendent Dr. Lewis Ferebee stunned the district last week revealing that $40 million in projected 2013 IPS spending didn’t occur.
Last year, Interim Supt. Dr. Peggy Hinckley proclaimed IPS was running a $30 million deficit, while actual spending brought an $8.4 million surplus at year’s end.
Hinckley, IPS’ Chief Financial Officer and other top administrators are to blame for the fiscal trickery.
Worse, are the IPS employees, many of whom were Black men, who were sacrificed on the altar of Hinckley’s bogus expense cutting.
* * * * *
A bizarre revelation last week, as a follow-up to the Indianapolis Business Journal (IBJ) story that the state and city had certified a white Turkish-American man’s business, Keystone Construction, as a minority-owned (MBE).
The same Greg Wilson who heads Black Expo’s Board, heads the city’s office of minority business. He was in charge when Keystone was certified as an MBE.
When Wilson appeared on our WTLC-AM (1310) “Afternoons with Amos” program, I asked him directly if he could confirm that Keystone is an MBE.
Wilson said, “I can’t. I don’t know. I didn’t read the article in IBJ. So, I would have to look. I don’t know who is certified and who is not.”
What!?
I then asked if it is city policy that an individual from a country on the Asian continent, but not defined as Asian under Federal regulations, is considered Asian. Wilson’s answer: “Amos I don’t know. I don’t know the background of the case (Keystone). So I’d have to look at each individual case to see what it is. I haven’t looked at his certification.”
And that’s the man who kicked this newspaper to the curb.
See ‘ya next week!
You can email comments to Amos Brown at acbrown@aol.com.
