For the most part, the successful 46th Super Bowl raised community pride that Indianapolis is a “can do” city. Not just among members of the persnickety national media, but among the poobah’s of the National Football League and hopefully (according to city leaders) among CEOs who could be lured to bring their jobs and conventions to our city.
But, before we get intoxicated with giddiness, there are hard questions that must be answered.
The economic impact of the game’s multi-millions in spending was unevenly shared. Some businesses, including a few Black and minority-owned ones, shared in the big Super Bowl spending pie; most didn’t. Areas like Mass Avenue, Fountain Square; even Broad Ripple didn’t see the riches they thought they would.
The Madame Walker Theater Center, just 1.2 miles from the stadium, didn’t see the business that their location and venue should have from the NFL sanctioned activities or satellite events.
Let me emphatically say that while having another Super Bowl would be nice; Indianapolis has far more serious issues that are far more important than hosting another NFL championship extravaganza.
One of the biggest is the abject failure of Indianapolis’ civic, business and political leadership to work together to build consensus on the critical issues facing this city.
Even though that leadership came together to make the Super Bowl successful; the leadership consensus that has existed in Indianapolis since the middle 1960s has irrevocably broken down.
White leadership doesn’t communicate with each other. White leadership has virtually stopped communicating with the broad base of African-American leadership. And neither leadership communicates with Hispanic leadership; in part because of the difficulty ascertaining who that community’s leadership is.
Regarding the lack of communications between white and Black leadership, some white leaders talk to their “go to” Black folks. But increasingly the ones they talk to are aloof, unconnected and out of touch with the hopes, dreams, desires and issues important to the mass of this city’s nearly 300,000 strong Black community.
Adding to the dysfunctionality of Indianapolis leadership is the virtual non-existence of strong mayoral leadership.
Take the mass transit debacle.
Indy’s leaders, including Mayor Greg Ballard, couldn’t fashion consensus and support among Indy’s political leaders for this critical issue.
For nearly four decades, when our former mayors wanted something from the Legislature, they moved forward with strong, bipartisan support from legislators representing our city/county.
Several major mayoral initiatives were spearheaded by key GOP Indy legislators and by the key Democratic legislator state Rep. Bill Crawford.
Crawford’s support always came after direct appeals from the mayor of the day.
Not this time. Mayor Ballard’s failure to directly engage Crawford and Democratic legislators was a fatal error.
Worse, not only did Indy’s dysfunctional leaders allow the mass transit legislation to include right-to-work language which angered Democratic legislators; they refused the legislative body of Indiana’s largest county any input on selection of board members that would govern Marion/Hamilton counties transportation authority.
When Indy began its run to greatness, the political and business leadership was monolithic Republican. That’s not the case anymore. Indianapolis is a Democratic leaning city surrounded by Republican dominated suburbs. Indy’s leadership can’t anymore treat our city’s residents, of all races, as if we live in a GOP-dominated plantation.
Indianapolis in the late 20th century became great through consensus between the public and private sectors. Indianapolis in the 21st century must be a city where the leadership builds multi-racial, bipartisan consensus on major issues – from mass transit, to education, to jobs and more.
What I’m hearing
in the streets
The mayoral leadership deficit continues regarding public education. While we await Mayor Ballard’s appointment of a deputy mayor of education (and how this unbudgeted position will be funded in Indy’s underfunded budget), other cities are showing how a mayor, that doesn’t directly control local schools, can exercise strong leadership.
I learned last week of another major city where the school districts don’t match a city’s boundaries.
Sacramento is the country’s 35th largest city and the capital of California. Five school districts serve the city. Its mayor, the former NBA star Kevin Johnson, doesn’t control Sacramento’s schools.
But Johnson is striving to provide mayoral leadership in education, much the same as our mayor claims he wants to do. But instead of rhetoric, Johnson’s taking action by “creating a report card” on his city’s school districts and schools.
I learned that from Johnson’s wife, controversial education reform advocate and former Washington, D.C., Schools Chief Michelle Rhee.
Interviewed on our WTLC-AM (1310) “Afternoons with Amos,” Rhee told me of her husband’s efforts to speak for education, despite not having direct control.
I liked Mayor Johnson’s report card idea and told Rhee to have her husband call our mayor to suggest it. We’ll see if Ballard takes the advice of Johnson, who chairs the Education Committee of the U.S. Conference of Mayors.
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The Super Bowl hoopla overshadowed that our “Afternoons with Amos” talk show began its ninth year on the air. As it has from the beginning, our program is the second most listened to local talk show on Indianapolis radio. For that I’m grateful to our listeners and community.
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In September, it’ll be 20 years since I began doing daily talk programming in Indianapolis; programming targeted to our African-American community.
First with the “Noon Show” on WTLC-AM; the city’s first daily Black-oriented talk show; then on TV with our daily TV show on the old WAV-TV and the “Six Thirty PM” news magazine in conjunction with then Time Warner Cable.
I’ve broken a lot of broadcasting barriers in the last eight years and over these 20 and I’ll be continuing to do so to serve the community and city that I love.
See ‘ya next week.
You can email comments to Amos Brown at acbrown@aol.com.
