This week, Just Tellin’ It begins its 20th year in the Indianapolis Recorder with a column about the tattered credibility of local government.
Last week I wrote that the National League of Cities (NLC) has developed a program to help cities deal with African-American male violence. I openly asked why Indianapolis wasn’t a part of the NLC’s “Cities United” program.
Well, literally minutes after last week’s column was posted on indianapolisrecorder.com, I got a tweet from Marc Lotter, Mayor Greg Ballard’s unctuous communications director saying “@MayorBallard joined Cities United in May to help address Black-on-Black violence in #Indy.”
Last May? Odd that the 11th largest American city with the 13th largest African-American community agrees to participate in an effort with other major cities to combat Black male violence and our mayor’s office didn’t, wouldn’t or couldn’t send out a press release touting the city’s participation in “Cities United”?
When I questioned Lotter about the city’s silence, he sent back this callous tweet, “No secret. You didn’t ask. @MayorBallard focuses on results not PR stunts.”
The Ballard administration is built on PR stunts. The city issues amped up press releases whenever they open another unneeded bike lane, buy more unneeded electric cars, or the mayor makes another foreign junket, I mean alleged business development trip, to an exotic locale.
But telling Ballard’s beloved Black community that the city has joined an effort to reduce Black violence is considered a “PR stunt”?
Lotter thinks I should’ve asked. But I get tired of Lotter and his PR minions kicking me to the curb for asking this administration for information. Public information I’m denied, sometimes illegally.
A year ago, I asked Lotter and the city for a breakdown, by race and ethnicity, of spending with minority-owned businesses. “Those records don’t exist,” the city replied. Guess Ballard doesn’t want the Black community, he thinks loves him, to know how much has been spent with Black-owned businesses.
Seventy-seven days ago, I asked Indy Parks why swimming pools in many Black neighborhoods opened 15 days later than other pools.
Parks spokeswoman Maureen Faul said, “Indy Parks hires hundreds of high school students to staff our pools, and simply cannot get adequate staffing when schedules (don’t) match those of neighborhood high schools.”
I then asked Faul how many high school students work as lifeguards. What’s their race/ethnicity? How many were IPS students? Simple questions.
My request went unanswered for 29 days. A violation of Indiana’s Public Access Law.
Faul finally sent me to Daniel Hackler, the head of city human resources, who promised June 24th a prompt reply; with some data arriving in two days.
After 37 days, Hackler hadn’t responded so I contacted Indy’s Public Access Counselor, Samantha DeWester.
She breezily told me Friday that the city was “unable to locate any responsive records that satisfy your request.”
Based upon her answer, Indianapolis employed no high school student lifeguards this year. Faul openly lied!
I’ve talked with several who worked, for pay, as lifeguards. They filled out City of Indianapolis applications, which included their education background and high schools. Those are public records.
But because I’m a columnist for a Black newspaper and occasionally I criticize him, our emperor mayor has decreed that folks like me aren’t entitled to information about our city.
Lotter’s following the wishes of his boss who wants nothing to do with the Black press. And he thinks our Black community loves him.
What I’m hearing
in the streets
I never would’ve thought Dr. Tony Bennett had some “brutha” in him. But his indefensible decisions to manipulate Indiana’s A-F school accountability system to make sure that a charter school run by a major campaign contributor maintained their “A” grade is something out of our Black culture.
You see Bennett had been selling “woof tickets” about charter schools to anyone who would listen. Like key GOP lawmakers, business leaders and the media.
Bennett constantly bragged that Christel House Academy, Herron High, Charles Tindley and Gary’s Thea Bowman Academy were examples of success.
But as the world now knows, Christel House’s “A” in the 2011-2012 school year was a fabrication of Bennett’s staff. They were ordered to manipulate their own system to make the boss’ “woofing” a reality.
Many remember when former IPS Superintendent Dr. Eugene White asked Bennett to decouple IPS’ combined middle and high schools for A-F accountability grading. But Bennett refused, thus hastening the state’s takeover of three middle/high schools.
Bennett’s Indiana sins – arrogance, hubris, my way or the highway – got him voted out of office last November and now he’s out of a cushy $300K Florida job.
The scandal underscores credibility issues the school reform movement has, not just nationwide, but here in Indiana. Issues that reformers refuse to acknowledge, let alone address.
Here’s a new example.
Why is the national office of the United Negro College Fund asking Indy African-Americans to attend an Aug. 21 meeting to participate in “an African-American Education Conversation” to provide “input, guidance, direction building a greater voice in the Indianapolis education landscape”? The meeting is called by UNCF and The Mind Trust.
Several who received this UNCF invitation are livid. They’re questioning why UNCF is working with an organization (Mind Trust) that many are skeptical and dubious of because they perceive them as advocating changes in Indy education that may not be beneficial to the mass of African-American students.
See ‘ya next week.
You can email comments to Amos Brown at acbrown@aol.com.
