I am no longer disappointed my good friend Greg Ballard isn’t running for a third term, because Democrat Joe Hogsett is doing it for him.
I know this may seem hard to believe, especially when you look at Joe’s record. Joe says public safety is his top concern, but according to his former office’s own annual report in 2013, nearly half of the bad guys Joe prosecuted for gun crimes got five years or less. Some served no time at all. His investigation into “corruption” at city hall turned up short and when it came to going after former Marion County Prosecutor Carl Brizzi, all he got was a guilty plea from someone who, last time I checked, didn’t serve a day behind bars.
But as I listened to the speech Hogsett delivered last week at the Kennedy-King Memorial at 17th and Broadway, I changed my mind. Mainly because everything he wants to do, Ballard has already done, so truth be told, all he would do is continue the soon-to-be-former-mayor’s policies.
Don’t believe me? Well here are some examples to back me up.
On the issue of crime, Joe wants to put more police on the street and return to “community policing.” The mayor’s plan will put 280 new officers on the street by 2018 and thanks to efficiencies in public safety, more officers have been moved from behind a desk to back on patrol.
When it comes to neighborhoods, Joe says he wants to invest in them as well as the downtown area. Well guess what? The mayor has not only invested hundreds of millions in streets and sidewalks with Rebuild Indy, but also mitigated millions in wastewater and sewer fees with the EPA. Also projects like 16 Tech, transforming the Avondale-Meadows area, the redevelopment of MLK Drive, revamping the Keystone towers, investing $40 million in parks have all gone a long way to bring life back into a lot of areas outside of downtown.
On job creation, Joe says he will work to create jobs that can support working and middle class families. Under the current administration, the city has attracted commitments for more than 31,000 new jobs and $3.5 billion in capital investment. The average new job commitment pays $21 an hour and in 2014 the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis ranked Indy seventh in the nation for economic growth. And this was all with the worst economy since the Great Depression in the middle of everything.
On education, Joe says he wants to increase education opportunities for citizens and also address the chronic dropout rate with respect to Black youth. The mayor not only tripled the number of students taking advantage of school choice, but he closed underperforming charter schools, maintained local control of IPS turnaround academies, and was the architect of a pre-K program that will serve hundreds of at-risk kids when fully funded. And led the charge with “Your Life Matters” to address, long-term, serious issues facing urban youth.
I could probably go on (mass transit, sustainability, code enforcement), but the more I went down the list of things Joe wants to do, the more I discovered Ballard has already done it. So while I may not have gotten a third term of Greg Ballard, there’s nothing I’ve seen or heard Joe say to make me think his first term wouldn’t be more of the same. Now where can I find a “Hogsett for Mayor” sign?
Abdul-Hakim Shabazz is an attorney, political commentator and publisher of IndyPolitics.org. You can email comments to him at abdul@indypolitics.org.
