Eight months ago, exhibiting a leadership unity Washington would envy, Indianapolis wowed the world with Super Bowl XLVI.
Now, three quarters of a year later, the leadership of the 11th largest American city is faulty, failing, inept or non-existent.
This leadership vacuum also exists in the city’s minority communities, including the city’s largest, our African-American community and the newest and fastest growing, the Hispanic community.
Let’s start with Indianapolis’ business leadership.
Indy’s modern face and image was crafted by a cadre of visionary leaders. One might disagree with some of their tactics and methods; but their overriding goal was rebuilding Indianapolis into a major city both in name and in stature.
These leaders were mostly Republican, somewhat conservative, but pragmatic. They were open to new ideas; they listened to and tried to play well with others. Many understood the importance of consulting (and sometimes listening to) input from Indy’s different constituencies, including minorities.
One reason for this strong, focused leadership was that they owned and controlled the institutions they headed.
Unfortunately, today’s business leaders in Indianapolis are transitional figures, here until their corporate offices remove them or transfer them to that next step on the corporate ladder.
Take the Indianapolis Chamber of Commerce, once a unifying force in the Indianapolis business community and a leader in moving Indianapolis forward – from school desegregation, the amateur sports initiative, the creation of IUPUI and other civic endeavors.
Today, the chamber’s a weak shadow of its former self.
The chamber has had new leadership for nearly a year. And on the major issues facing Indianapolis – education, the city’s fiscal crisis, infrastructure, the growing chasm between haves and have nots – the chamber has sat on the sidelines, virtually incommunicado, at the rear of the parade; instead of leading it.
One example of the toothlessness of the chamber and Indy’s business leaders was last year’s mass transit debacle.
A year ago, there were high hopes that by now we’d be voting to improve the worst mass transit system in the country. Instead our horrid mass transit still exists.
Our city’s leadership was so ineffective they couldn’t get the majority of state lawmakers representing Indianapolis to enlist in their cause. A total reversal of how things used to work in Indianapolis.
Of course it doesn’t help when our city has the most feckless political leadership seen in decades.
Starting with a mayor more comfortable with talking to elected officials in Japan, Australia and Germany than in talking with officials in Indianapolis (especially Black and Democratic ones) and dealing with Indy’s myriad of problems.
Indianapolis is facing a $60-plus million deficit, crime is up in most areas, we’re short of our needed police strength, poverty and hopelessness in the older neighborhoods is growing; yet Mayor Greg Ballard’s leadership is more ineffective, toothless and non-existent as the chamber’s.
Unlike the mayors of Indianapolis in the past five decades who exercised visible, strong leadership; our ex-Marine mayor won’t lead, is afraid of speaking with Indianapolis residents and presides over a government of inaction, ineptitude and ennui.
Another example of leadership abandonment.
The mayor, the chamber and Indy leadership sits on the sidelines refusing to help rescue one of the city’s major civic institutions.
For the past two months, the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra has been in a bitter dispute that has put the orchestra’s musicians literally out on the street, filing for unemployment, denied health insurance and soon applying for food stamps.
All because a leaderless symphony management and clueless board members think Indianapolis’ symphony should be run like a Bain Capital company; instead of as a non-profit community trust.
In other cities where symphony orchestras have undergone disputes between management and labor, the mayors of those cities, Democrat and Republican, have offered the use of their offices or moral persuasion to help bring the sides together to preserve an important cultural entity.
Instead, in Indy, the chamber, the mayor and the movers and shakers sit passively and watch the possible destruction of a critical ingredient in the city’s late 20th century renaissance.
It’s odd that our Indianapolis Children’s Museum can raise tens of millions in endowment and programs. The Indianapolis Zoo just raised $20 some million for a new building for some primates. But the Indianapolis Symphony couldn’t raise more than $12 for a capital funds campaign. Now oblivious symphony execs are paying for that inepitutde by trying to turn our major league symphony into a minor league operation.
Some of the same leadership problems exhibited by the overall community exist in our African-American community.
Indy’s Black leadership suffers from a severe lack of vision and worse than usual infighting and disunity. More ominous, some critical Black institutions in our city are making decisions and taking actions that could result in their dismemberment.
A classic example is happening this weekend.
Twenty-nine years ago, strong Black (and white) leadership created the Circle City Classic. Seven years after the Classic began, it was not only selling every ticket in Indy’s domed stadium, but all those 61,000-plus seats were filled with people!
For 11 straight years, the Classic averaged a sellout or near sellout of the dome at 59,130.
But attendance began trending downward in 2002. And for the past three years, attendance has averaged 35,800 tickets sold; barely half the capacity of Lucas Oil Stadium and many of those tickets sold didn’t have people in the seats.
The pressure is on the Classic, and Indiana Black Expo that’s calling all the shots, to reclaim some of the luster the Classic once had. If not, the Classic’s 30th birthday could be in jeopardy.
See ‘ya around Classic Weekend and here next week.
You can email comments at acbrown@aol.com.
