Stormwater Conspiracy
Friends and constituents,
I hope you’re well - and I hope you’re safe and dry.
This weekend, our city was hit by the worst flooding the White River has ever seen in recorded history. As part of the same system of storms and floods that has killed six people across the state and left hundreds evacuated and hundreds of thousands without power for days, this event has been described in some corners as an act of God, or the type of “500-year storm” that government can’t reasonably be expected to account for ahead of time.
But every serious scientist in the entire world has been clear on this for decades now: Climate change is real, it’s caused by humans, and it’s causing our weather to be more unpredictable and deadly.
My video this week is admittedly silly and ridiculous. I absolutely take seriously the loss of life, property, and sleep that has hit so many of our neighbors across the city and the state. I wish I could do more to help personally. But I do think we need to be able to smile and even laugh while confronting these scary and deadly topics. Give it a watch and keep reading:
It’s true - the global system of capitalism that treats environmental damage as just a negative externality, just a cost of doing business, is rapidly steering us towards destruction.
As a socialist, I believe in my heart that when all the people work together toward a common goal, we can accomplish anything. And the vast majority of us are willing to sacrifice our time, treasure, socks, and elbow grease to lend a helping hand to our neighbors in need. But we shouldn’t be asked to sacrifice for the benefit of the tech bros and billionaires who are accelerating climate change with their push for AI growth and data centers.
Luckily, we still have the ability to organize and demand a better world. And there are plenty of things we can do locally to start moving the needle!
In the short term and on the local level, we need to drastically change the way our City treats stormwater. True, the flooding this week was caused by river flooding much more than by stormwater, but as storms get worse, we should not rest on our laurels.
Indianapolis can and should increase its stormwater fees paid by those operating large surface lots downtown. We currently charge $1.65 per Base Billing Unit (up to 1,000 square feet of impervious surface area). That means a 5,000 square foot parking lot pays $8.25 per month for their stormwater fees. In Fishers, Indiana, they would pay $10.04 per month. In Plainfield, it would be $13.88 per month. Even Brownsburg would charge $8.62 per month.
This stormwater money could go towards helping prevent the frequent and incredibly destructive flooding at intersections like 10th and Sherman. It could go towards sweeping the streets to prevent them from being clogged with silt and debris every time it floods. It could pay for “green alleys” using porous surfaces to replace some of the crater-pocked, poorly-paved alleys falling into disrepair. All of these efforts would also help protect people’s cars, homes, and businesses from being destroyed in future floods - meaning they are far cheaper than the alternative!
We could also use these fees to convert some more of the land in our existing parks to wetlands, and to purchase and conserve wetlands and forests within the county at risk for development.
We could properly fund our Office of Sustainability, which currently does amazing work despite having as low as three employees on staff at a time (Columbus, Ohio has eight).
Getting more ambitious, we could more highly regulate the surface parking lots downtown (which are frequent sites of loitering, drug use, prostitution, and crime) and sell revenue bonds to build a large public parking garage that would take up far less room. We could fully fund IndyGo and improve the rider experience enough to allow middle-class people to ride it happily more often. We could require the Irsays to provide enough underground parking to handle all Lucas Oil Stadium attendees, creating public parks on top that looked like Georgia Street downtown.
We could ban data centers in the county.
Why isn’t the city doing all of these things already? It’s because of the heart of the conspiracy, Pepe Silvia. Under our political and economic system, the rich - including parking lot owners, developers, and sports team owning billionaires - have effectively bought off the local government to ensure they get their way. They earn extra profits with the current system; that’s more important to them than protecting our city from floods, and so they lobby hard against any reform.
We can beat these deep-pocketed special interests, but only if we work together.
No donation link this week - please take the time, energy, and treasure you can muster and help your neighbors deal with the floods instead.
In love and solidarity,Jesse