Like some of you, I’ve wondered why most Indy Parks swimming pools in majority-Black neighborhoods have opened later than the rest of Indy Parks’ pools. Pools in Riverside, Douglass, Dr. King, Willard and Bethel parks, for example, opened June 8th, 13 days after all other Indy Parks pools opened.
I and others couldn’t understand why the second group of pools couldn’t be opened on Memorial Day weekend and the weekend of June 1 and 2?
So on May 22, I asked Indy Parks to explain the staggered pool openings.
Maureen Faul, Indy Parks’ PR person replied the same day saying, “We have utilized a staggered opening schedule successfully in recent years due to changing school calendars. Indy Parks hires hundreds of high school students to staff our pools, and simply cannot get adequate staffing which is necessary to provide safe facilities, when our schedules do not match those of neighborhood high schools.”
Faul’s and Indy Parks’ reasoning sounded suspicious. Two pools located within IPS neighborhoods, Brookside and Broad Ripple, opened May 25.
I didn’t quite believe that Indy Parks couldn’t open pools in Black neighborhoods because they hired so many IPS students as lifeguards.
So two days later, May 24, I asked Indy Parks to answer some simple questions.
I wanted to know the total number of high school students working at Indy Parks pools? How many were IPS students? Were IPS students the only lifeguards employed at the pools that opened June 8? Were any non-Marion County resident high school students employed by Indy Parks; and if so how many? And I wanted to know the racial/ethnic and gender diversity of high school students employed by Indy Parks.
I asked Indy Parks for a response by May 31 – a week. I did that for a reason. Indiana’s Public Records law requires any public information request to a government agency must receive a written response within one week.
The response doesn’t have to provide the information then, but a timely response to the request is required by state law.
The first workday after May 31 was Monday, June 3, and I saw Indy Parks Director John Williams at the Summer Servings press conference. I asked him about my request.
Williams replied that he knew about my request. And that they were “having an intern” work on it.
On Friday, June 21, 29 days after my request, I received a terse email from Indy Parks’ PR maven Maureen Faul that said, “Anytime there are questions involving matters regarding personal employee information, I must refer you to the Human Resources Department.”
As Vice President Joe Biden would say, “Malarkey!”
In my 38 years in Indianapolis media, dealing with PR people for agencies of Democratic and Republican administrations, this was the most unresponsive and arrogant, response I’ve ever received.
Indy Parks PR maven’s non-response violated a basic section of the Public Relations Society of America Code of Ethics that says that a PR professional must conduct themselves “professionally, with truth, accuracy, fairness, and responsibility to the public.”
Indy Parks knows exactly how many life guards are employed this summer; and how many are high school students. They don’t need to have me run to the city’s HR Department for that data.
If that information was supposed to come from the city’s HR department, why didn’t Indy Parks say that from jump street?
Ever since Mayor Greg Ballard fired the well respected veteran Indy Parks employee and Director Joe Wynns in August 2008, replacing him with, in my view, the incompetent Stuart Lowry, Indy Parks has been steadily deteriorating in service and quality.
I suspect Indy Parks, under Mayor Ballard’s direct order, is stalling providing me the information because they know the real reason for the staggered pool schedule is for budget considerations, with (again) African-American neighborhoods paying the price.
And what’s sad is that Director Williams, an African-American, is seemingly condoning it. It seems Williams is a figurehead Indy Parks director, with the real decisions in Indy Parks made, not by Williams, but by the mayor’s minions.
But, to be fair, maybe my conclusion is wrong. Maybe Indy Parks has hired scores of IPS students as lifeguards. Maybe a good percentage of those lifeguards are Black and Hispanic.
If that’s the case, wouldn’t Mayor Ballard be bragging about that? After all, in his mind he believes he’s the best mayor for African-Americans Indianapolis has ever had.
So, let’s see how long it takes for the city’s HR department to provide the information I’ve requested. Either I’m wrong, or if they stall or fail to provide the data, then it means that I’m right about that Indy Parks pool opening policies were not designed to be accommodating to our community.
What I’m hearing
in the streets
The folks from CTB/McGraw Hill testified Friday at a hearing before a bipartisan group of angry and concerned Indiana legislators about why ISTEP tests were screwed up for nearly 76,000 students.
Ellen Haley, president of CTB/McGraw Hill, apologized for the mess saying it was caused by a lack of adequate number of servers and my favorite excuse, not having enough memory.
State Superintendent of Public Instruction Glenda Ritz has said CTB owes Indiana at least $613,000 in fines and penalties. Some lawmakers asked whether millions should be withheld from CTB/McGraw Hill’s $24 million contract.
Maybe the solution for CTB/McGraw Hill, to make sure next year’s online ISTEP tests run smoothly, is to hire Best Buys Geek Squad ensure they have enough memory and capacity. See ‘ya next week.
Email comments to acbrown@aol.com.
