Indianapolis’ corporate leaders are happy this week thinking they’ve made a significant contribution to fighting crime now that the City-County Council finally approved the corporate driven five-year, $40 million Pre-K plan officially called the “Indianapolis Preschool Scholarship Program.”
Fueled by an initial use of $4.2 million in tax cash from the city’s nearly empty emergency cookie jar, Indy’s corporate leaders believe that solely by providing quality pre-school scholarships for 3-and 4-year-olds living in households with incomes up to $45,000, we can fight crime, lack of education and poverty. Maybe from 2025 to 2030; but not now.
Meanwhile Indy’s corporate leaders still refuse to provide needed resources to deal with the problems of Indy’s young adults, especially Black men 14 to 24.
Despite all the rhetoric of the past year, with the Ballard Administration talking about “Your Life Matters” and “My Brother’s Keeper;” Indy’s facing yet another summer with absolutely no action plan or credible funding strategy to deal with the here and now.
The mayor punted the Your Life Matters initiative he created to Indiana Black Expo to implement. Last week, Black Expo invited a cross section of folks to help construct an action plan based on recommendations the mayor’s Your Life Matters Task Force released last November.
The non-profit and educational community was well represented, but the corporate community was conspicuously missing. No key players from Eli Lilly, Lilly Endowment, Anthem, Cummins, IU Health, St. Vincent’s, Citizens Energy, IPL, the banks, the insurance companies, FedEx, UPS, Allison’s or their corporate peers were there.
Many of these companies provided the $20 million corporate share for the City’s Pre-K program. But they’ve shut their funding spigot off in terms of providing meaningful funding or even helping develop the action plan to deal with helping teens and young adults turn away from the negative and toward the positive.
It seems that in the mayor’s eyes, electric cars, parking meters, cricket fields, and shiny downtown buildings are more important than helping turn our young teens and young adults around.
We shouldn’t be lulled into a false sense of security because homicides to date are running 43 percent below last year this time.
I’ll be waiting to hear Indy’s corporate leaders’ excuses on why they won’t support efforts to deal with the issue.
What I’m Hearing in the Streets
Former President George W. Bush, House Majority Leader Rep. Tim McCarthy, the only Black Republican U.S. Sen. Tim Scott, the Republican Governor of Alabama Robert Bentley and certain other GOP politicians attended the 50th Anniversary event in Selma, Ala. But Indianapolis’ Republican mayor couldn’t attend the Selma commemoration rally and march in Indy?
This past Tuesday Gov. Mike Pence talked about Selma at an event at the Indiana State Museum. But the mayor of our city couldn’t issue a statement about Selma and its significance?
Rep. Andre Carson joined some 100 members of Congress at the Selma event. But except for Congressman Marlin Stutzman, no Indiana Republican lawmaker, not even Sen. Dan Coats, issued any statement in support for the meaning of Selma.
While it’s the 50th anniversary of Selma, it’s also the 10th anniversary of Indiana adopting the granddaddy of 21st Century voting rights abuses.
Thanks to former Secretary of State and now Congressman Todd Rokita, Indiana was the first state to adopt the heinous, hideous voter ID law; the first 21st Century assault chipping away at Americans’ voting rights.
Former Secretary of State Colin Powell, a Republican, has an interesting take on Voter ID. He told ABC’s “This Week” that African-Americans should get their ID and use it to vote the folks demanding ID out of office.Good strategy.
Meanwhile, last week on “Afternoons with Amos” on WTLC-AM (1310), two top officials of the Libertarian Party of Marion County, Chris Mayo and Brett Bittner, confirmed their party had conversations with Rev. Charles Harrison about Harrison’s running for, mayor on the Libertarian party’s ballot. But, according to Mayo and Bittner, Harrison decided not to pursue that option.
Time is slipping away for Harrison to run as an independent. To do that, he must obtain some 5,000 signatures to ensure he has enough correct signatures at their current registered address of some 3,000 registered Marion County voters, to run as an independent.
That’s also the case of the other announced independent candidate, Sam Carson.
Meanwhile, as Jocelyn- Tandy Adande is campaigning among Republican and independent and Democratic voters to score an upset in the Republican primary, the endorsed candidate Chuck Brewer continues to be invisible to our African-American community. In his first two months on the campaign trail, Brewer’s not been visible at any African-American community event or church. Or if he has, he’s not made use of social media or alerted the Black media that he’s done so.
Ignoring the Black community isn’t a long-term strategy for a successful Brewer campaign.
See ‘ya next week!
You can email Amos Brown at acbrown@aol.com.
