So it’s not the good stuff in the last post that made me finally write like I said I would again, it’s the bad stuff. First, the Colts lost to the hated Patriots on Sunday. I was at the game, which was certainly exciting, but the outcome sucked. However, this ain’t my sports outlet anymore, so I’ll save further thoughts on that topic for Charlie Weis Ate My Baby.
Nope, the worse bad news is what happened in Indy’s election yesterday. Bart Peterson, the best mayor this city has had in years, lost to the relative unknown, Greg Ballard.
Don’t get me wrong, the Peterson administration made some mistakes. They failed to get out in front of the property tax issue and explain to the voting public what was really going on. They didn’t get out the message on how the COIT increase was vital in order to properly fund public safety. It’s clear to me now that Peterson needed to better seperate himself from tainted CCC members like Monroe Gray. He won in his safe district, but people who couldn’t vote against him took it out on the mayor and other CCC Democrats. They most certainly didn’t take Ballard seriously as a threat until it was too late. Frankly, neither did I. I could have done things to help the campaign more than just evangelizing Peterson to friends and showing up to vote yesterday. In a chat thread earlier today Jason agreed that he could have done more as well. Like the Democrats on the CCC, who also suffered a big defeat, and like the Peterson administration/campaign, we all got complacent about an upstart campaign’s chances, and thus paid the price.
But ignorant and unrealistic voters deserve some blame too. They blamed Peterson for a property tax fiasco he had no control over. They complained about the crime rate, then bashed him when he raised taxes to hire more cops, apparently expecting him to somehow solve the crime problem with magic pixie dust. Then there was the typical political bullshit. The Ballard campaign and the GOP exploited public tax discontent, never mind that the root of these problems lie with decisions by state GOP officials. The peddled outright dishonesty like their 19 tax increases claim that even the Indy Star saw through.
Back around primary time the GOP was scared to death of Bart Peterson, thus all their top-tier candidates like Carl Brizzi wouldn’t run. So we got stuck with a guy with no real political experience intended to be a sacrificial lamb, but he got lucky. He wound up in the right place at the right time during a political perfect storm. But now the residents of Indianapolis have to deal with it.
Jason nails it with his caricature of Ballard here. See also the Star article I link above, which says:
He says he would have made more spending cuts before turning to the income tax.
While he hasn’t listed specific cuts that would total the $11.75 million generated by the income tax increase, Ballard often starts by pointing to line item 390 in the city budget, titled “other services and charges.”
Peterson countered that the line item includes crime-lab funding, nearly $9 million in emergency 911 costs and money for food at a children’s shelter.
“I stood next to him in many candidate debates, and when asked how he would fund public safety without an income tax, he always says, ‘Cut line item 390,’ ” Peterson said. “If you look at 390, there are all kinds of things that are essential government services.”
Ballard’s campaign responds by saying he hasn’t highlighted specific sections of the $60 million-plus line item that he would cut, but that he is committed to no reductions in public safety spending.
The GOP candidate also says savings could be derived by cutting some of the $2 million in funding for the arts, consulting fees and public relations fees, by eliminating hard checks in favor of electronic transfers and perhaps by privatizing some aspects of city government.
This is classic conservative governance. Claim you can let people have their cake and eat it too by cutting taxes and then saying you’ll balance the budget with some vague spending cuts. Ballad has said he wants to put even more cops on the streets than Peterson added with the COIT increase, and yet he wants to cut COIT. So he’s got to find 11.75 million dollars just to pay for the COIT cut, and god knows how much more to pay for additional cops. He claims the money’s there, but we can’t check his claims ’cause he won’t tell us where, as that would mean taking an actual position people can criticize rather than just bashing the mayor for not being able to pay cops with magic beans. He seems to think line item 390 is some sort of rainy day fund that he can plunder as he sees fit, rather than spending on vital city services. I guess in the new Ballard era we can somehow have public safety without a crime lab or a 911 system. Then there’s that other GOP classic, vague savings from process improvements and privatization, which always manages to turn into a contracting boondoggle nearly every time it’s tried. It’s of course even more likely to fail when being coordinated by someone who has no political experience at all, let alone any clue how to run a city of nearly 800,000 people.
What else? Ahh, arts funding! There’s a free 2 million, right? Who needs art? Well, Indy does. While I don’t have the article anymore, there was a piece in the Star some time back about how the arts have brought in more money to the city than we’ve spent on them, which means any Ballard arts cuts will have a deleterious effect on the city’s economy. In the interview above he sounds suspiciously like he will cut money spent on sidewalks, never mind that I happen to know that better sidewalks was the most desired neighborhood improvement in at least one Indy neighborhood thanks to a survey my girlfriend helped conduct as part of a grad school project. Then of course there’s all the things that were coming which certainly won’t get done when the government is run by a GOP administration, people who live under the fantasy that the benifits of modern society don’t have a cost, people who think you can run the government of America’s 13th largest city like that of a small town, or worse, a “business” (”government should be run like a business” is one of the biggest lines of nonsense in politics of the last 30 years, but that’s a rant for another day). Public transit improvements? Heck no. Get used to Indy having a joke of a mass transit system for a city it’s size. Get used to increasing traffic problems, longer commutes, larger amounts of income being spent on fuel, and more air pollution. Expect community development to take a backseat to save wealthy people in their Meridian-Kessler palaces a few bucks. Expect all the progress this city has been making over the last 10 years to be delayed for at least four, if not set backwards.
That’s the bad news. That’s what’s got me upset enough to write this long rant and get it out of my system. I strongly suspect the time of reckoning will come. Ballard’s supporters will soon realize how little control he has over property taxes. They’ll soon discover that making actual cuts is harder than just talking about it, and when it’s your favorite city service on the chopping block, somehow paying an additional 0.65% of your income in taxes doesn’t seem so bad. In the meantime, the lesson I’ve learned is that while this city has come a long way politically since the 70s, it’s not come far enough if things like this can still happen. So the best I can do is stop being so complacent about local politics and watch our new mayor and CCC like a hawk these next four years. So come next year and the new session, expect more local politics coverage around here. I can’t speak for the Marion County Democratic Party, but I’ve certainly learned my lesson.
