Let's define reality

This morning’s front page carries a story entitled "When dreams meet reality."  It’s all about some of the major projects near downtown in which the city is planning to inject major public funding.

Without going into details about the various deals, we’ll cite two quotations from the story which we believe honestly represent the outrageous fiscal policy which has been the basis of the city’s operations for decades.

The first is from Mayor Ballard.  He says, "It’s going to be long term and we’ll need some private funding along the way."  (Our emphasis.)  Now there’s a drastic approach. Is he really going to ask a developer to help pay some of the bills?

Will the city commit millions upon millions of tax dollars to these "dreams" while counting on some philanthropic real estate developer or sports franchise to toss in a few bucks somewhere along the line?  Could this be an expansion of the policy under which we pay the basketball team to use the facility we built?  Really??

The city’s expenditure of public funds will, of course, be called "investment."  And sometime in the future - probably in about 15 or 20 mayoral terms of office - there may actually be a return.  But it will be in terms of our great civic pride that we have kept downtown businesses going by shoveling tons of our money into someone’s "dreams."

The second quote is from Deputy Mayor Mike Huber.  He says, "When a city is making public investment, it gives significant confidence to developers and companies that they can take risks, because the city will work with them."  There are those dreaded words!  (Our emphasis.)

Well, yes.  He’s probably right.  As a matter of fact we’d probably have confidence to trade our old Chevy for a brand new Mercedes, or even a Rolls Royce, if we had some way to guarantee that our neighbors were required to put up the money we chose not to!

Some "risks" are riskier than other "risks."  Is one entitled to wonder whether the real decision on a deal comes down to consideration of the size and source of political contributions being pretty much equal to actual value of a given project to the city?   

Have the citizens of Indianapolis become enablers of those who will profit from risk-free dream building?  Shouldn’t we at least be entitled to help decide which dream will be given the mayoral blessing?

Comments

[Vox Populi]

Required reading for citizens of Marion
County should be the Had Enough Indiana blog. If you read today's article about what taxing entities in Marion County owe in debt versus their debt limits you'll see that the dreams of our elected officials become reality when we pay for them. They (our officials) may mention an private / public partnership but what happens are deals like the Broad Ripple parking garage; we put up the money and the private entity owns the business and keeps the revenue. In my book that's not an investment, with an investment there is at least some hope of a financial profit.