Holding Developers Accountable
Friends and Constituents,
I hope you are well. What a week! Monday, we had a full council meeting, where council Republicans and a few Democrats voted against the most reasonable accountability for data centers. (I went on Kendall and Casey to talk about it - my section starts at 18:15)
Updates on Committees
On Tuesday, District 13 achieved a win on the path to full representation: I was assigned to serve on the Metropolitan Economic Development Committee and Education Committee, in addition to the committees on which I already serve. This is a massive victory - and the impacts have been immediate, as you will read in this email. Yet I still sit on fewer committees than almost every other councilor, including every single Council Republican. My colleagues on both sides of the aisle have refused to speak out against ICE contracts, have not called for transparency in IMPD’s contracts with Flock, and have not taken the crisis of traffic safety as seriously as my constituents want them to.
I am asking for the Public Safety Committee. The committee chair, Leroy Robinson, has broken parliamentary procedure by speaking over me time and time again, and now he sees fit to attempt to silence me by refusing to allow me to serve the public alongside him.
If you want to help, email Maggie Lewis, Jared Evans, and Brian Mowery to demand full committee representation for District 13.
But the main story this week comes after the weekly video update below. Watch the intro video and keep reading!
The Main Story
The Metropolitan Economic Development Committee handles reviewing and approving any potential tax incentives related to developments in the city.
Just one day after the committee assignment was posted publicly, I received an email from contacts at TWG. That name might sound familiar - I’ve written about this massive donor and developer group before. TWG gave Governor Mike Braun’s campaign $70,000 and Mayor Joe Hogsett’s campaign another $10,000 during the last election year.
You might have also seen TWG in the news. Tony Knoble, the current CEO of the company, personally profited to the tune of over $60 million on a single real estate transaction in 2022. TWG had spent $70 million constructing The Whit building downtown, then Tony himself bought the resulting building for $60 million in 2021, reselling it for over double the price he had paid, less than two years later. It pays to have millions of dollars in capital during a pandemic, apparently!
TWG has constructed a large number of developments in Indianapolis, including a handful in District 13. Many of them are affordable housing projects. While we clearly need more affordable housing, that housing must be dignified, safe, and livable. One of TWG’s developments is the Minnie Hartmann Senior Living Center, located at 3734 E Vermont. Even before taking office, I started hearing from residents about unresponsive management and intolerable conditions at Minnie Hartman.
In one such instance, TWG’s property management moved a blind senior woman into a dirty apartment. Initially, she failed to realize this, because of her disability. Only after multiple family members pointed out the unacceptable state of the apartment, and after her son angrily contacted management, did management finally agree to clean the unit.
Other residents have complained to me - and management - about untreated insect and rodent infestations. TWG has not abated these infestations, and residents are reporting retaliation from the property management after demanding, well, management of the property!
During the winter last year, the doorbell and entry system that allows residents to communicate with visitors and buzz them in through the locked main entry to the building stopped functioning. Blind and disabled constituents were forced to take slow elevators to the ground floor and open the door for visitors instead. Residents could only hope that the person at the door was truly a friend or delivery driver, and not someone with bad intentions. When I spoke on the phone to TWG’s property manager, she refused to go out and fix the system because it was too cold outside. (Nevermind the disabled senior citizens who were badly inconvenienced and put at risk by the refusal to repair.).
Unauthorized people have been entering the building, damaging shared resources like the community gym and community rooms, lurking in the hallways, and threatening residents. Property managers have claimed they can’t do anything about these unauthorized young intruders into a senior citizen apartment complex.
Residents of Minnie Hartmann came to District 13’s Affordable Housing Town Hall last September to share their frustrations and hopefully talk through the problems with management. Unfortunately, TWG did not send a representative to that town hall - nor did they even acknowledge receipt of the emailed invitations I sent them.
The Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department did send a very responsive representative to the event, who listened to the concerns that residents brought forward.
IMPD has done quite a bit in response to the 39 different 9-1-1 calls they received from the property in less than six months: they sent officers on “directed patrols”, sent officers to meet directly with residents at a community meeting, and directed officers to stop by the complex between runs to keep an eye on it.
As a reminder, IMPD officers now make at least $85,000 a year as soon as they are out of training and promoted to Patrol Officer. It is massively expensive for taxpayers to provide security services in this fashion. And as residents could tell you, IMPD’s expensive attention has still not been sufficient to keep the complex safe.
As a result, private citizens and nonprofits have paid for additional security services to help protect residents, especially on the weekends. The shared gymnasium has become locked and inaccessible to residents. Thus, residents are not getting the services they were promised - which looks to me like a breach of contract.
What should be a warm center of community where our senior neighbors can happily live out their golden years has become a crime hotspot and a danger to the community.
Throughout all of this, TWG and their newly spun-off property management company Elmington have failed to meet with residents, with me, or with anyone else seeking to work alongside them to solve problems.
Now that they want my approval for yet more taxpayer write-offs, they’ve found the time.
TWG has agreed to meet with me to discuss my concerns. I’m working to be sure I have all the information in hand, and all the important people in the room for the conversation.
This Saturday, January 17th, join me in knocking doors and talking to neighbors at and around Minnie Hartmann Senior Living to speak directly with residents and neighbors about their concerns. Let’s make sure everyone is invited into decisionmaking, and let’s hold irresponsible developers accountable.
In love and solidarity,
Jesse