Michael Hicks, writing for Howey Politics, has an excellent column responding to efforts in the General Assembly to micromanage Indianapolis government. Some of the legislation applies to local government generally, but the real focus seems to be Indianapolis and the Indy metro area. The upshot is that the General Assembly wants to do this because state government is controlled by Republicans whereas the Republican Party, by and large, can’t win elections in Marion County anymore. Local control goes out the window when the wrong people are in control locally and/or those people are making the wrong policy decisions.
With respect to the impact of those policy decisions, Hicks points out a lot of metrics showing that Indianapolis and its metro area are doing much better than the rest of the state. The big city has created more and better jobs, resulting in more economic output. Among other things, “each year residents of Marion County send, on net, a bit more than $500 per person in tax revenues to residents of the rest of the state.” And people are voting with their feet — in the last twenty years, “a full 85% of the state’s population growth happened within the Indianapolis metro area.”
Obviously, I recommend that you go read the column.
https://howeypolitics.com/Content/Columns/Columns/Article/Michael-Hicks-Stop-restricting-the-growth-of-Indy/10/20/25621 Michael Hicks does not live in Indianapolis nor in Muncie. In this instance, he has gulled Brian Howey by his eternal practice of looking thru “economics” and “statistics” as if he were in
sole possession of the truth. Matter of fact, there are other values than looking thru the wrong end of a telescope. Some of us, not including Mr. Hicks, were
pretty sure that the entire school system in Muncie was bankrupt, sleazy, incompetent, and a menace to children. Such escaped Mr. Hicks as did the
depredations inflicted on the public weal by Ball Stench’s lawbreaking in the cheating of taxpayers in wage settings. No matter. These things were too close
for the telescope to have effect?
Let Hicks have a little room, say, look from Yorktown, IN to Indianapolis with his “telescope” and the garbage spewed out for Brian becomes all clear. Which can be seen by YOU more clearly here….”@ 11:27 pm
[Long excerpt from the Hammer & Nigel Show cut by your host (probably too much to constitute fair use) — Doug]
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https://fox59.com/news/crimetracker/indy-mother-becomes-2nd-homicide-along-downtown-canal-in-1-week/?fbclid=IwAR3tHz2htbxAAGfPXLFipJY8mdpyibp6snMhl2wxdBLzwLZ-JgJaN8ii-jA
Garbage IN, Garbage Out. I’d be putting my trust in the Legislature to act for the benefit of the people. We have seen too many and too much failure on the part of others. When it comes to crime in Indianapolis there is the old legal saying, Res Ipsa Loquiter, the thing speaks for itself.
The part about the growth of Indianapolis and the surrounding county’s does not surprise me at all. All during the pandemic businesses in Marion County were still advertising for workers in every category of jobs. You live in a small town and you graduate from High School you head to Indy and make $15 to $17 a hour to start, you won’t find a job in Anderson, Terre Haute, and any small town in Indiana paying that sort of money… Same with the college students it’s Indy area or bust if they want to stay in Indiana.
I did a search on realitor.com on houses for sale in Tipton Indiana last week. There were only three houses for sale and two of them were fix me uppers. Every other house was pending, they did have one new subdivision where you could buy a new house. You can drive to Carmel in 25 minutes or less, own an affordable house, good schools, your kids have a better chance at making school sports teams, a nice city owned golf course and Carmel, Fishers and Zionsville for concerts, restaurants, culture and shopping, So as Indy metro area grows so do the fortunes of all the small towns around it.
I have not heard anything since the vote giving the citizens one more vote then the police and fire departs on the advisory boards. There was some talk about sending social workers with the police on marriage, neighbor, family disputes, alcoholism, drugs and just the normal nonviolent runs the police go out daily to investigate. Denver has done a trial run with great success.
ttps://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2021/02/06/denver-sent-mental-health-help-not-police-hundreds-calls/4421364001/
‘Over the first six months of the pilot, Denver received more than 2,500 emergency calls that fell into the STAR program’s purview, and the STAR team was able to respond to 748 calls. No calls required the assistance of police, and no one was arrested.’
This is what Indy wants to do , but you will hear the police and fire administration and their members crying out. “Watch out if this happens dogs and cats will rain down on our fair city, we and the legislator are the only ones that can save you!” LOL
All you Republicans out there please stay out of the Indy Metro affairs. Is it possible for Marion County and the doughnut county’s to succeed from Indiana? Hmm Bloomington,
South Bend or Lafayette as the new capital. Maybe a game of Rock, Paper, Scissors to decide? Oh well I can dream, Smile
Was curious so I did a search on realitor.com on houses for sale in Lebanon, there are only six houses for sale in the town. Every other house is sold or pending. There are 18 houses for sale in in Elwood.To put this in prospective in the eighties there were close to 13,000 people living in the old hometown.now it’s down to just over 8,000.
The last time I was up in Elwood last November a real estate agent stated that people without kids that had jobs on the north side of Indy (Fishers, Noblesville and Castleton) were buying houses and fix me ups from two bedroom to four bedroom for $50 – $200 grand. These are all the people that have been priced out of the Northeast side of Indianapolis and are looking for a small town setting. The schools ratings have gone down but on the bright side their career center has been rated one of the top trade schools in the state.
I think the moderator could publish a bit more of the report cited so that readers would have full appreciation of the nadir of public safety in Indianapolis that the legislature should address. Or, perhaps provide a link to their reporting?
Feel free to summarize or throw up a link. It was just a big block of text from someone else’s site.
Example which confutes both Hicks and Phil? ” Snyder explained. “Now remember, we lost 112 businesses that were destroyed, four people were shot, two people were killed, officers were being fired upon, and it was an absolute warzone. Our officers were on the radio screaming for help, they didn’t have enough backup assistance.”
He continued: “And remember, the question was how was it that our officers were able to secure a building before being ordered to leave that building, which ultimately led to their destruction. It’s because we did not have enough officers working downtown. There were officers who were begging and pleading to come in and help with this, but they were denied for whatever reason. We had hundreds of officers working on duty [that night] that could have responded to secure the downtown area.”
Snyder stated unequivocally that the local law enforcement community and commanding officers were not the reason for the failures that occurred during the riots in downtown Indianapolis.
“Law enforcement was the solution. The problem was that our political forces hamstrung the solution that we had at our disposal.”
The problem I have was who made the decision? Was it the mayor? If the Republicans were so gosh darn pissed about it why didn’t Governor Holcomb have a investigation and hold whoever was in charge feet to the fire? .Did they screw up yeah I would say so. There hasn’t been a riot in Indianapolis in fifty plus years,, there was no playbook to deal with it.
Instead of taking over the decision making from Indianapolis why not give the governor (or does he he already have it?) emergency powers to call out any help a city or town in Indiana would need during a crisis. Holcomb lives in Indianapolis so it’s not like he didn’t know what was going on. .Oh wait will a Republican politician in Indiana take the rap if things go bad? I don’t even have to have anyone answer the question, we already know the answer.
I still think this is more about my above post is move about the advisory board. From what I have read and observed on television is the police and the Republicans on the council have not given their ideas on how to make things better. No all they seem to want is the status quo. We need to open up to new ideas (see link that works this time) or put their own ideas on the table. The more Indianapolis grows the more problems the police and fire departments will face.. When that happens more and more families leave Indianapolis for the surrounding county’s taking their tax money with them.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2021/02/06/denver-sent-mental-health-help-not-police-hundreds-calls/4421364001/
Leave you with a Heinlein quote which explains why cities are more dangerous then the rest of the country.
“Animals can be driven crazy by placing too many in too small of a pen. Homo sapiens is the only animal that voluntarily does this to himself.” I think that sums it up.
Duh Mayor is also the Director of Public Safety and it was his call, his administration, his clowncil. There was plenty of “playbook” and people to implement. Won’t deal in rumors about where duh Mayor was or who his Deputy was. It is just silly to suggest that this is a Republican thing. They had no power or responsibility to manage the City. The whole problem was a creation of the Democrats. Agreed that HowCome? was asleep at the switch and incompetent but was he notified or asked for assistance? Total Democrat failure just as anything coming out of the Legislature tends to be branded as the Elephant’s view….but, they are willing to face the voters for the most part.
lest such be considered partisan, I may have neglected to mention that the Governor of Indiana did not call out the National Guard. My thinking is that he should have. That he did not do much of anything is typical but as to what share of the dead, of what share of the destroyed businesses-I think he should get his fair share….whatever that might be or mean.
Yet in 2019, when James Merritt was running for mayor of Indianapolis, he did such a poor job of it that he not just got routed, he cost the Republicans seats on the City County Council. He got a smaller percentage of the vote than the 2015 candidate, Chuck Brewer, whose previous experience was … owning a downtown sandwich shop.
How was Merritt NOT able to run on a platform to fix the crime problem in Indianapolis? It’s not as though crime just got bad in 2020. Why can’t the Marion County GOP come up with candidates that offer solutions to win local elections?
Most thinking people will figure out that any Mayor’s tool kit for crime in Indianapolis is Limited. One could almost say that Federal Policies are the main drivers of crime in cities. The Republicans in Marion County have suffered a long line of Chairmen who were ineffective and near criminally so given that their inactions and actions reduced the Party numbers. Cindy was left holding the bag for those clowns…to include scheming sorts on the Clowncil. Merritt didn’t have a clue…heck, he’s writing a book and thinking he’d be a good governor of Indiana. You are more than right to note that crime did not all of a sudden get bad, but the corollary to that is that the solutions will also take time, much longer time if the feds continue their crime creation policies and deny to locals, the needed tools to address crime and criminals.
I need details. Since we are blaming the Feds, apparently, what do you feel are the needed tools that locals are denied to stop crime, and what are they doing that increases crime?
Sorry for taking so long but had a week in the hospital. Even so, you may not like the answers. The first thing would be to read the Moynihan Report of 1965 or so. Read also Losing Ground, by Charles Murray. These display the pathologies and prove the causes of the social disfunction. These are social scientists, Asking them for answers will always be a bit more fuzzy than one would like. If you had time, The Unheavenly City, by Banfield, would also give a better lenses than race.
Hope your feeling better! I will google them I assume they are still available.
Found them plus a 80 page Losing Ground: A Critique. PDF- Will have to see if the Indy library has them before I do Amazon- Thanks Leon
Libraries are not what they used to be but these are seminal works. If you wanted heavier duty then there are the Thernstroms and, of course, Thomas Sowell. I just noticed a cite to The Unheavenly City in the Chronicals Magazine. It is a must read. What these books do for honest folk is to narrow the possibilities in a sense by elimination of ideology.
Glad you are feeling better. When you’re up to it, I would welcome your thoughts.
The Wikipedia entries for both books do not show them to be as authoritative as your brief description implies. For instance, I am not surprised a book like Losing Ground funded by the conservative Manhattan Institute would come to the conclusion that welfare is bad. Nor am I surprised that Moynihan came to the conclusion that extensive jobs programs and vocational training was needed…
Wikipedia isn’t a good source. Period. Losing Ground was good enough for Bill Clinton to see the light. Add, then, The Bell Curve by Murray, and you will be all set to see that there is a Black Problem. The dilemma is that like the SAT sorts who noticed black cognitive failure-should they report such in the hope that things might be found to be of help or should they sit on their information lest the red necks have a field day bashing stupid blacks. They went public. It was pretty bold move on their part given the times. Still, sizing up the problem from many angles will be needed if more harm is not to be inflicted. I think you read the books and don’ worry about the funding-that is like reading a book review and passing off that you had read and comprehended the book. We have a Black Problem
Let’s just say your response didn’t encourage me to run out and read either book and leave it there.
Best of luck on your recovery from hospitalization.