Neverending Story
Friends and constituents,
I hope you're well. There's been so many things going on in our district and our city! Neighborhood cleanups, tactical urbanist projects, meetings of advocates and neighbors, groundbreakings… it's hard to keep up with them all.
But in the background of everything, the moral document known as the City budget is still being reviewed and debated. And while Councilors are pushing for honesty and transparency, Joe Hogsett’s appointees are telling stories. Put yourself into 1984 mode (the glittery glam year, not the Orwell prediction) and watch the video, then keep reading.
Soccer Stadium
In 2024, I wrote to you all about the Mayor's secret pivot around a proposed soccer stadium. At that point, before I had called for Hogsett to resign and while I was carefully trying to keep up good working relationships with his administration, I wrote: “From my perspective, which I have shared with the administration’s spokespeople, the Council is being treated as a rubber stamp rather than a separate but powerful branch of government that should govern alongside, not at the request of, the Mayor.”
I discussed the disappointing and antidemocratic way the Mayor's people had had months of secret conversations and lied to Councilors when we asked him questions. I also discussed the way the wealthy and powerful ownership group pushing for these developments was remaining totally secret from the public that was going to be put on the hook for paying for the stadium.
It seems history repeats itself.
Last week during the budget hearing for the Capital Improvement Board, Executive Director Andy Mallon was asked several direct questions about the proposed Major League Soccer stadium and team in Indianapolis. The project had seemed to have stalled out in the 28 months since the urgency of the tax district vote in 2024. Mallon, the former Hogsett Corporate Counsel, serving as executive director of a board whose majority is appointed by Hogsett, shared some remarkable testimony:
The CIB had spent almost a million dollars in taxpayer money on lobbying and design work for the proposed new stadium near the heliport.
The CIB was having some early conversations about a new Colts deal near the existing Lucas Oil stadium - a “Lucas Oil 2.0”.
There were no substantive updates to share on MLS.
Less than 48 hours later, every major news outfit in Indianapolis was reporting that in fact, Mayor Hogsett had taken a trip to New York to talk about MLS again with league representatives. As it turns out, the heavily-rumored Simon-backed group that had been involved in a stadium play near the Heliport was dead, and Hogsett was now looking at a new tax district near the Lucas Oil Stadium to combine a new taxpayer-funded soccer stadium with more taxpayer-funded improvements near Lucas Oil. Just as two years ago, the ownership group remains shrouded in secrecy - but this time Herb Simon is not involved in the ownership discussions.
IBJ reported that Mallon and the CIB had been considering multiple sites in the City’s southwest quadrant for some time - despite what he had implied to the Council Committee that approves his organization’s budget just days prior.
As usual, both the public and the legislative branch of the City are not included in plans, discussions, or conversations until as late in the game as possible.
Instead of sharing facts, the Mayor’s team shared stories.
We had seen more of this “Storytelling” just a week earlier, when Indianapolis made the news with Chairman Leroy Robinson’s shameful abuse of power during the IMPD budget hearing.
Dalys Jett
IMPD Chief Tanya Terry mentioned that the police department had been “leaning into storytelling”, which set the audience into furious reaction. Terry was trying to say that IMPD was attempting to use social media to show what the workday of an average officer was like. But to the community gathering to protest IMPD’s lack of transparency and accountability, the word was a bit too on-the-nose.
As a reminder, within hours of the incident that claimed Dalys Jett’s life, Mayor Hogsett and Tanya Terry both leapt to the defense of IMPD officers and cast aspersions on Dalys Jett’s behavior and activity, claiming without evidence that Jett had shot multiple IMPD officers before being gunned down by police on July 22nd.
According to Jett’s family, no bodycam footage that they have seen shows Jett firing his weapon at all, and it was clear even to IMPD by July 23rd that the narrative they were sharing was false, and that it was in fact a fellow IMPD officer who critically injured the most badly-wounded officer. But the Mayor and Chief have not devoted anywhere near enough time at correcting the false narrative that their storytelling created.
Flock
At that same meeting, I asked Chief Terry about the deep concerns about Flock Automatic License Plate Reader cameras that I have been pushing against since last year’s budget presentation.
When I asked for details about how IMPD audits Flock usage for bad behavior, Chief Terry did not provide details.
When I asked for her best guess as to how many other IMPD officers had abused the technology after the first IMPD officer was recommended for termination last month, Chief Terry did not directly answer me.
Now, less than two weeks later, she admits that at least one more officer had badly abused the system and was also being recommended for termination. As of today, my detailed questions about Flock have gone unanswered for twelve days and counting.
This administration refuses to simply share the facts and answer direct questions. Instead, they focus on storytelling.
The legislature of this City - and the taxpayers who fund this city - deserve straight talk, not this neverending story.
In love and solidarity,
Jesse
PS - What do you think of the budget that’s been presented so far? I plan to introduce budget amendment proposals and would love to hear what you think the focus should be! So far, at a high level, I have:
Freeze the CIB budget until and unless they massively increase the amount the CIB pays for public safety in Indianapolis
Freeze the Indianapolis International Airport’s budget until and unless they take more of a stand against the ICE flights that have continued operating out of the Airport for at least a year.
Lower IMPD’s proposed $400 million budget by tens of millions of dollars, moving the money that currently goes towards excessive overtime to other crime-reduction areas in the city that do not require overworking and overburdening law enforcement officers.
Totally eliminate the Mayor’s Office “Character 3” budget - as this budget was spent last year on funding ILEA and IPEC with no Council approval or collaboration.