People’s Caucus

Friends and Constituents,

I hope you are well. Tonight is a full meeting of the Indianapolis-Marion County City-County Council - which also means it’s a meeting of the People’s Caucus.

In an effort to increase the democracy and transparency of city government, I will be waiting in the Public Assembly Room beginning at 6:30 pm (30 minutes prior to the scheduled start of the meeting). I will have a few printed copies of the night’s agenda, featuring annotations explaining and contextualizing the resolutions. I will also provide the full packet of supplemental materials that each Councilor receives, for anyone wanting to pore through all 113 pages.

Tonight’s meeting will likely be short and sweet. There is only one agenda item that has been contentious at all in committee hearings this past month: the approval of Mayor Hogsett’s appointment of Andrew Merkley for the Director of the Office of Public Health and Safety.

Director Merkley previously served as the Director of the Division of Homelessness and Eviction Prevention within OPHS. At his hearing in front of the Public Safety committee on April 16th, a number of advocates brought up frustrations and problems with the city’s homelessness response, specifically the Winter Contingency plan that involved families staying at former IPS School 68 on 21st Street (a block from my house).

I’ve met with Director Merkley several times over the years, and met with him twice more last week to talk about the hearing, his qualifications, and the department. I sincerely thank him for the gift of his time and for being willing to have honest conversations about the city.

I shared concerns with Director Merkley about the future of the Office of Public Health and Safety. This department hosts homelessness prevention and eviction prevention services, gun violence reduction programming, mental health non-police crisis response, and food justice programs, among many others.

Many of the excellent programs that are run through OPHS were stood up very quickly, during a global pandemic, while the whole world was scrambling to try to set up new and better processes. I think in that context, it was not wrong to focus on getting boots on the ground and federal money out the door to help people in need.

But in the years since the original American Rescue Plan Act dollars that funded these programs, the office has been far too slow to create meaningful metrics to allow for accountability and oversight over these programs. As a result, detractors of the progressive policies that OPHS institutes have gotten more and more ammunition to use in critiquing the office.

I believe Director Merkley when he says that he shares my concerns about OPHS. It sounds as though there has been a lot of work already done to create more transparency and accountability within the existing programs. Director Merkley and I also agree about the need to fund experimental programs with temporary funding, and then deeply and critically evaluate these programs’ effectiveness before providing more longterm funding and support.

I don’t blame Director Merkley for the problems with the Winter Contingency Plan. I personally blame Mayor Joe Hogsett and, to a lesser extent, Deputy Mayor Lena Hill for these issues. But I am concerned that Director Merkley will be unwilling and unable to provide critical feedback to his superiors in order to insist upon more attention and funding for the programs that OPHS oversees. As a result, as of right now I plan to vote against the approval of Director Merkley’s appointment.

But the reason I hold People’s Caucus meetings is to talk through issues like this with the people of Indianapolis. I’d love to hear your perspectives and thoughts on this appointment, on any other agenda item we’ll be discussing tonight, or about the problems in the city that somehow never seem to make it onto Council agendas.

I hope to see some of you this evening! If you can’t make it in person, please write me back to let me know your thoughts!

In love and solidarity,

Jesse