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More than 60 business and not-for-profit executives are publicly criticizing the Republican-controlled General Assembly for action on multiple bills that would strip control away from Indianapolis city government.
A letter signed by officials from some of central Indiana’s biggest companies and civic organizations—including Eli Lilly and Co., Salesforce and Cummins Inc.—says legislation introduced under consideration this year would “stifle local priorities.” The letter urges lawmakers to reconsider that approach.
The tug of war between the Democratic-controlled city of Indianapolis and Republican state lawmakers is not new, but this year, there is a flurry of bills that would take away power from local officials—and those bills are advancing.
One would shift oversight of the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department from the mayor to a new five-member board that would be mostly appointed by the governor. Another bill would strip funding for local public transportation and prevent IndyGo from moving forward with its planned expansion of bus rapid transit lines.
Senate Bill 392 would take zoning control away from city planners and give more power to townships in Marion County. And yet another bill would prevent the city from changing its name, even though there’s been no proposal to do so.
Also, the Senate recently voted to override Gov. Eric Holcomb’s veto of a controversial landlord-tenant bill the General Assembly passed last year. That legislation would block the city of Indianapolis from continuing to implement a series of tenant protections it put in place in 2020.
Business leaders say lawmakers should stop interfering in local decisions or risk stifling the central Indiana economy.
“As employers, we don’t claim a special privilege to speak for the people of Indianapolis,” the letter reads. “But we are invested in the success of our city, which continues to be the engine of Indiana’s economy. Imposing heavy-handed limits on local authority would stall our ability to drive Indiana forward.”
The letter acknowledges that the city faces economic, housing and crime problems, but the executives say they believe local officials are the ones best equipped to tackle those challenges.
“We don’t have all the answers. Neither do our elected officials. But we’re certain solutions are more likely to be found by listening to those closest to the issues at hand and working together,” the letter says.
Mark Fisher, chief policy officer for Indy Chamber, told IBJ that business leaders would like the state to partner with local officials to find solutions to those issues. But attacking local control would only slow the city’s recovery and growth, he said.
“I appreciate the concern that the Legislature has about the future of Indianapolis,” Fisher said. “But these challenges did not arise overnight, and they’re certainly not going to be solved overnight.”
Indy Chamber helped to coordinate the letter, and CEO Michael Huber signed it on behalf of the organization.
The list of companies that signed spans a wide range of industries, including law firms, developers, tech companies, real estate firms and banks. Some of the most well-known businesses in Indianapolis, including Anthem Inc., OneAmerica, IU Health, Community Health Network and Roche Diagnostics, are represented in the letter.
It also has support from well-established community groups, including Indiana Black Expo, Indiana Latino Institute, the Indianapolis Urban League and the Indianapolis Neighborhood Housing Partnership.
Even a top Republican—former Lt. Gov. John Mutz—signed the letter.
Elanco Animal Health President and CEO Jeffrey Simmons, whose company announced in December It would invest $100 million to construct a new headquarters in Indianapolis, is also part of the group.
Aman Brar, CEO of Jobvite, told IBJ he signed the letter because he’s concerned about the impact some of the legislation—which he called “absurd and embarrassing”—would have on the city’s ability to attract and retain talented workers.
“We’re creating unnecessary barriers,” Brar said.
Brar said he wants lawmakers to back down from some of these “ridiculous” bills and instead work collaboratively with the city.
“Many in the Legislature believe that local decisions are best, so I don’t understand why Indianapolis would be a carve out,” Brar said.
Michael O’Connor, senior director of state government affairs at Lilly, said the company decided to speak up because it believes community issues, such as policing and public transit, should be decided at the local level.
“The process is the process,” O’Connor said. “Let’s respect local decision-making authority.”
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Letter? The solution is simple – tell the GOP your organizations won’t be donating to them until 2023 if they pass a single one of those bills, and they reserve the right to donate to their opponents in the next election. The Indiana GOP is driven by their donors.
Exactly.
I suspect that’s the implied meaning, along with a warning to Aaron Freeman and Jack Sandlin and their allies not to seek higher office if they continue to push this nonsense.
Let’s hope that House Speaker Huston and Senate President Pro Tempore Bray are reading between the lines and find a graceful way out of this nonsense. Otherwise it’s up to the Governor, and as the landlord law veto override shows, he may not be enough to stop them.
….and the Indiana Dem’s are driven by whom?
You barely need to make that a plural statement, there are so few. They aren’t even required for the Legislature to conduct business. The Indiana Democratic Party is the twin of the Marion County GOP.
But also, the Indiana Democrats aren’t out there complaining about Washington DC like Indiana Republicans do … while they turn around and away local rule across the state. At least be consistent.
Fascists gonna fascist!
We need smarter clowns then the ones in office.
Fringe groups are ruining a once vibrant city.
Take a drive around downtown to see how they’ve done.
The Chamber of Commerce and businesses also cower in fear of these groups.
Dude…the pandemic is ruining ALL cities.
We need better candidates for mayor. The last two Republican mayoral candidates were awful.
Chris B. – I’ll correct your typo. “Dude… POLITICIANS are ruining ALL cities.”
You’re welcome.
GOP – the party of local control until until they’re not in control locally.
Very true. We could also equally assert that the Dems are the party that says “states rights are racist” until the feds want to exert constitutional authority over a renegade state not meeting its basic constitutional obligations (California).
At that point, all of a sudden, they begin screaming “states rights!” like it never went out of style.
As a Republican who does not know the specifics of these bills (meaning there could be merit to some of them), generally speaking cities should be able to control their own destiny, otherwise why have a city council at all? If the benighted citizens of Indy want Democrat government, and can afford to pay for all their wild eyed schemes, so be it.
Having said that, once they crash their local economy, and most of Indy’s employers have either failed or moved to Hamilton County (see Detroit, St. Louis), the first thing the city’s “leaders,” including the fat cats who signed this letter, will do is to come begging the state for a bailout. So, yes if any of these bills can make it clear to Indy’s “leaders” that if they break it, they own it, don’t come crying to the rest of us for our hard earned tax dollars to fix your stupidity, that I’m all in favor of.
Turns out most of those tax dollars are coming from Indianapolis.
“The real shocker is that each year residents of Marion County send, on net, a bit more than $500 per person in tax revenues to residents of the rest of the state. All told, 20 Hoosier counties pay more taxes to the state than they receive in tax revenues from the state. Five of those are in the Indianapolis metro area. So, just to summarize it clearly, Indianapolis, and the Indianapolis region as a whole, are growing leaps and bounds faster than the rest of the state. At the same time, they bear a greater state tax burden, of which a significant share is sent to other counties. They get far less back in tax dollars than they spend.”
https://howeypolitics.com/Content/Columns/Columns/Article/Michael-Hicks-Stop-restricting-the-growth-of-Indy/10/20/25621
At least one local Hamilton County governments, whose mayor is a Republican, is in much worse financial shape than Indianapolis. Carmel has nearly the same amount of municipal debt as Indianapolis with 1/9th the population. Indianapolis has a very average amount of debt per capita. The “expensive” transit stuff people complain about is mostly bankrolled by the federal government, and the city puts in less money for the entire project than they’d have to pay for the related infrastructure improvements alone, let alone buses, transit stations, and dedicated lanes.
Joe B.: Fair point, and it’s not surprising that Indy, given its (currently) large employer base is a net donor to the state’s coffers. But my concern is for the future, once Indy’s so called leaders have destroyed that tax base. Then they will come hat in hand to the rest of us because they’re broke.
Robert H.: An excellent point. While Carmel is unlikely to destroy its tax base the way Indy surely will, the principal is the same. Citizens of Carmel should not expect everyone else to bail them out either once they get so deeply in debt that they can’t pay it back. Like Indy, Carmel’s “leaders” should be clear that if they break it, they too own it.
Keith – fair point, but recognize that Indy’s leaders at all these companies, when offered a lifeline by the GOP for these supposed problems, just told them to back off. I don’t think they share your concerns. And when given the chance to leave and head elsewhere, Elanco just decided to stay…
The numbers don’t back up your theory about the tax base. Indianapolis is funding the rest of the state while getting less representation out of the bargain. And it’s not Indianapolis’s fault that the best and brightest of the state are moving to Indianapolis and leaving the rest of the state a shell. Maybe the state officials should do what Indianapolis is doing…
Yea Indianapolis actually exists as a donor county, meaning that we do not get back as many tax dollars as we bring into the state. The point of this letter is to show you that Indiana Republicans are harming business in the state and businesses will leave the state if the course is not reversed. We’re the ones stuck on the line for your brain-headed ideas. We support you, not the other way around.
Republicans used to adhere to the notion that the best government was the government that was closest to the people (i.e., municipal and county elected officials). So it is surprising that in Indiana, where Republicans have a super-majority in the state legislature, those Republicans want to impose their will on the citizens of Indianapolis. Aside from the few GOP members who actually reside in Indianapolis or Marion County, what makes the other members who would vote in support of meddlesome dictates more understanding or knowledgeable to determine the laws, ordinances, regulations, and processes that should apply in Indianapolis and Marion County?
Brent B. I think it is the new Republican platform policy plank known as “Own the Libs” that is driving most of this.
I don’t entirely disagree with you. This definitely smacks of meddling.
But consider the alternative: a state with a majority (and perhaps near super-majority) of Democrats, where the political culture is driven almost entirely by a single major urbanized area. Minnesota, Illinois, Oregon. The ineptitude in leadership of Portland has no stopgap measure at the state level–the two are basically in cahoots–so the majority of peaceful, calm people trying to mind their own business in Portland (or Salem, or Eugene, etc) are essentially terrorized by politically aligned radicals who operate with legal impunity, thanks to mayor/governor. And dare we understate the economic dysfunction within Illinois? The state is one of only 3 or 4 that is losing population.
At what point does a stopgap measure need to come into place?
So Indiana and Indianapolis has none of these issues, but it’s OK to take rights from them just in case. I thought Democrats were the thought police…
Where was this concern when the city council to control of IMPD, with no in-put from any law enforcement or even retired law enforcement? Just cop hating dems to have less enforcement of laws.
That’s not what happened and you know it.
Great suggestion from Joe B. Just wondering what areas of Indianapolis would be most affected If tenant protections would be blocked? I don’t live in Indianapolis; it’s not perfect. But under Republicans and Democrats control they have worked towards helping people and visitors. Local people are best to handle the issues. State lawmakers should have enough to do for Indiana. When are elected officials going to work together, instead of acting like whining, uncontrollable toddlers or believing they are kings!
A testament on just how poorly run Indianapolis is.
Maybe it is a testament on how disconnected with reality our Republican state law makers are?
The Indianapolis Metro area drives 40% of the state’s economy, so we must be doing something right.
https://www.indystar.com/story/money/2016/06/23/indianapolis-area-drives-40-percent-states-economy/86251898/
Read the letter – It states that Marion county alone accounts for $1 out of every $4 of the state’s entire economic output. That still says something must be going right.
Dan, you just conflated Indianapolis metro with Indianapolis City.
So when the Mayors (Indy, Philly, Seattle, Detroit, DC, etc., etc.) allow the groups they like to riot, loot, destroy and burn the cities and make the police departments not only stand down but take the abuse and assaults then there should be recourse for the Mayor’s failure to protect the citizens and property. These bills are the recourse.
Don B. I don’t know if you noticed that the whole tone of the BLM protests changed in Indianapolis when police did stand down, and realized that their job was to protect peaceful protesters and not teargas them and bash their heads in.
The riots stopped after police stopped teargassing people.
“Bash their heads in” — a willful fiction that of course never took place anywhere in the country, let alone Indianapolis.
Here’s a few hundred videos of your willful fictions. I’m sure these are all fake, though.
https://twitter.com/greg_doucette/status/1266751520055459847
Don’t forget #111 happened here in Indianapolis. The video of a woman who got felt up by an officer, stepped forward out of the grope, and was beaten savagely.
Joe B – Greg Doucette, who makes a living documenting police brutality, manages to find police brutality. “Show me the man, and I’ll show you the crime.” His call entirely, and my hats off to him for being a GOPer who steps outside the narrative. Of course, the narrative he embraces fails to consider the children caught by stray bullets amidst gang warfare that merits strong policing, or the people who get attacked while defending their businesses/property from rioters. But at least Doucette is stepping outside his partisan comfort zone. (It’d be nice to see Democrats as willing to criticize the tactics of BLM/AntiFA. Hope springs eternal.)
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If a person was completely minding his/her own business and was attacked by cops, the cops should absolutely face legal consequences and, if the video evidence can honestly document as such, then absolutely you are correct. Thankfully that’s precisely what the legal system has always been engineered to do. That it fails sometimes should give us no reason to flog the good for not being perfect–merely to find out what isn’t working, isolate, and correct as much as possible.
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If, however, the video footage was selectively edited to remove the initial aggression from the protestor, as happens routinely, then there is of course far less claim that the cops didn’t have to use aggressive restraint. Case in point: NBC’s footage of the Kenosha riots very obviously splice out the point where Kyle Rittenhouse was attacked himself and forced to engage in self-defense. They deliberately only showed footage to make it look like he was the aggressor. Happens all the time. Why those of us who aren’t blue-pilled like you are no longer believe anything we see.
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Much like the tear-gassing of “peaceful” protestors outside the White House last year. Because CNN tells us. Of course, CNN neglects the DOJ reports that they were hurtling bricks and bottles with “caustic substances” as they were peacefully protesting, because it doesn’t help the narrative. And don’t get me wrong: trump’s strongman approach holding a bible in front of the woke church that the rioters burned was one of his dumbest moves (and his dumbest moves are abundant).
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Active skull smashing by cops of peaceful protestors is the stuff the media slobbers over–if the protestors are part of the journalists’ in-group (i.e., a lefty cause). For those of us who see V (as in violence) before we see R and D, we can condemn the idiots on January 6 and the idiots who rioted during the Summer of Hate with equal measure. Alas, our media culture cannot do the same.
You’re the one that claimed that it was willful fiction and nothing happened. I gave you a couple hundred examples to the contrary. Blame the editing if you want – if even 95% of the examples are garbage and selectively edited, that leaves 5% that show your statement was incorrect. All I need is one and your point is disproven. Another wall of text about non-relevant topics justifying your position and “both siding” police brutality with more national examples doesn’t change that.
I am beginning to understand why you post under a pseudonym.
The QOP needs to focus on the radicalization of it’s party rather than spread it chaos to Indianapolis.
It is one of the new QOP party planks. It is “Own the Libs”.
What a relief it is that there is a sizable faction within the Indiana GOP urging members of its own party to exercise restraint.
Meanwhile, elsewhere in the country, Democrat-run cities (Portland, Seattle, Philadelphia) have radicalized thugs going around setting fires and vandalizing and attempting dime-store insurrections, by and large with the support of their state governments. Where’s the similar effort to urge governors like Brown or Inslee (or Pritzker right next door) to help keep their largest cities from getting subsumed by anarchists? If such a faction existed among the Dems, the rioting would have stopped after the first weekend; instead, it continues up to the present. Why are the moderate Dems so afraid to rein in their party’s radicals? For that matter, why can’t Indiana Dems scream into Mayor Joe’s ear about the record-setting homicide rates, “Hogsett…we’ve got a problem”?
Spare us the “I’m so outraged that I post behind a pseudonym” business while you ramble on about non-relevant issues in other states.
The real issue in the Indiana GOP which is going to shut down the economic engine of the state with nonsense laws because they got their feelings hurt in the last couple elections when they ran terrible mayoral campaigns that killed them across the rest of the local ticket. Indianapolis, apparently, must pay because the Marion County GOP is incompetent.
These bills are still alive and some have advanced out of committee, like the bill to reduce control of local zoning and construct more zoning boards in Indianapolis has already passed out of committee.
Freeman killing the expansion of IndyGo because he’s mad about 8/10 a mile of Washington Street in his district is like killing the expansion of I-69 because he’s upset that the Carson Avenue overpass over I-465 being closed for a few months.
The first stage of relief won’t come until all these garbage bills are assigned to the Rules Committee or withdrawn. The next stage of relief is when these anti-democratic clowns like Young and Freeman and Sandlin are replaced at the next election with actual Republicans who understand the role of city vs. state government. If there are no Republicans available, find a Democrat.
And if that takes the corporate leadership of Indianapolis telling the Indiana GOP they aren’t getting one cent of donations until 2023, so be it.
Joe B– It’s so infuriating have to confront people who have the audacity to have drawn different conclusions, isn’t it? Good thing you’re there to smack them down 10X a day. Talk about “thought police”.
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I have no doubt that metro Indy is still the economic engine for the state, and much of this due to Indianapolis. I do not support these GOP state legislators.
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But Chicago is also the economic engine for Illinois. That doesn’t mean that the entrenched machine political culture there isn’t dragging the rest of the state down. Heck, at this point it’s probably even dragging Chicagoland down. Despite the shiny buildings and cranes around the Loop, it’s still a stagnant region. The uber-wealthy Lake County is losing population. Even DuPage County (consistently one of the best counties to raise a family) has plateaued. And let’s not start with Cook County.
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I hope the calmer minds prevail and this measure gets rejected at the state. But I also hope it serves as a wakeup call that creating a political monoculture in an urban center will inevitably foster ideological blind spots…up to and including making excuses for rioting, with no regard for the lives ruined as a result of these horrible, regressive marches for “social justice”.
The only infuriating thing is the mental gymnastics through hoops of irrelevance. Try making your point with Indiana examples, there is no relevance to other states here. None.
The solution to your problem is not legislators who live far away from Indianapolis and don’t represent Indianapolis voters, coming up with more laws to tell Indianapolis what not to do. The solution to your problem doesn’t have anything to do with the Indiana Democratic Party, which barely even exists and whose presence isn’t even required for the Legislature to conduct business.
The solution to the problem is the Indiana GOP, especially the Marion County GOP, coming up with proposals and candidates that can win elections and affect change. Crime was bad in 2017 and 2018. Yet Jim Merritt’s campaign for Indianapolis mayor was so bad it drug down the rest of the GOP ticket, cost them several seats on the CCC, and Merritt lost by a wider margin in 2019 than Chuck Brewer lost in 2015. How’s that possible? Were they even trying to win?
Put simply, there is a political monoculture by default because the Marion County GOP isn’t relevant. The Marion County Democrats don’t have to be good when they’re the only option on the table. And, the inverse is true at the state level – the Indiana GOP can be awful because Indiana Democrats barely exist.
If Aaron Freeman and Jack Sandlin and Mike Young want to fix Indianapolis, they have the chance to do so in 2023 and become mayor. They and the Marion County GOP best start laying the groundwork now. Indianapolis would be better off with two sane, relevant, real options for mayor in 2023. There is plenty of opportunity out there.
This is not democracy. The is GOP totalitarianism. It is an outright effort to take democracy from citizens of Indianapolis and to remove any vestiges of local control. What is the desired objective. It is to make Indianapolis again a laughingstock of the nation. This so-called oversight will lead to degradation of the city. This will not be positive for Indianapolis citizens, the city, or the state.
God save us from Republicans
Indiana’s legislature has long had a screw-Indianapolis bent, to the detriment of the entire state. Country-bumpkin bankers and their country-bumpkin legislators in the ’80s and ’90s, for instance, killed a vibrant Indiana banking industry, shipping thousands of high-paying finance jobs out of state. This latest round of screw-Indy legislation is the latest in a long line of stupid anti-urban moves by our self-defeating legislature.
Why even have a home rule statute if Republican Legislators are so willing to impose big government, top-down power structures in order to micro manage cities and counties?
Informative article. Leave Indy to Indy.
Right; these idiot corporate “leaders” want the Joe Hogsett’s of the world to have more authority; they r all bought and sold just like the politicians; pure wok; what d-bags
Those execs are spot on. I appreciate their perspective: “As employers, we don’t claim a special privilege to speak for the people of Indianapolis. But we are invested in the success of our city, which continues to be the engine of Indiana’s economy. Imposing heavy-handed limits on local authority would stall our ability to drive Indiana forward.
Could someone forward the link to the letter they wrote last summer expressing their concern when the city was overrun and rioted? A friend seems to think they were silent last summer so he’s calling them hypocritical. Can someone help me prove the friend wrong? Hoping to win the bet. Thanks.
The Chamber released this statement following the riots:
https://indychamber.com/news/statement-in-response-to-recent-protests/
You’re comparing apples to oranges, but you know that. Spare me the friend bet BS.
Of course the rioting is bad. But it’s also bad to expect people to continually get targeted and killed for no good reason when there’s no justice and to just take it for multiple centuries. The companies were smart enough to realize the reason why there was rioting, and why there would be rioting again if the root issue of racial inequality isn’t dealt with. That’s something you’re cutely trying to ignore but the companies are not. That’s why they are investing their time and energy and money in racial equality, as opposed to the “both sides” garbage you’re peddling. Not sure if it will work, but it’s likely more productive than your approach.
https://investor.lilly.com/news-releases/news-release-details/central-indiana-racial-equity-fund-launches-more-22-million
Joe B– You’re right: the “both sides” argument is ludicrous. It would take 3,000 January 6ths to achieve something comparable to the violence, property destruction, and overall criminality of the riots from the last eight months. Which people like Hogsett openly encouraged.
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Here’s a hint: the racial equity fund won’t do anything more than the hundreds of billions spent by the feds for this same cause over the years. But it’s fun watching Lilly signal their virtue with $22M. Better their money than mine (not that I have a fraction of that money to throw around). But then, the real source of racial justice grievance in 2021 are the people pumping minorities into revolutionary agitation because they want to salvage their political fortunes, at the same time more and more minorities are seeing through the ruse. The elites that run these companies are mostly affluent progressives who think, unconsciously, that it’s their duty to “raise” and “uplift” oppressed minorities, thereby treating them like little more than a disabled class. It’s the new-wave version of “White man’s burden”, borne of politeness and good intentions, but like most good intentioned bad ideas, a complete miscalibration of human nature. Creating a media culture that reinforces how minorities “aren’t like everyone else” only fosters resentment and humiliation, which is exactly what this $22M as it is currently harnessed will do. Expect more riots.
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This is your brain on Critical Race Theory. Which, I have no doubt, is standard boiler plate among HR at Lilly and other companies. Though I don’t expect rioting to take place within their shiny offices, it’ll create even more of the walking-on-eggshells culture. And, in due time, carried to its inevitable extreme, senior execs will get sued or terminated by their subordinates for daring to use the wrong words (“POC” instead of “minority”, or “him” instead of “them”). Sounds like a great work culture!
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For the record, I do not support heavy handed limits on Indy government.
So if the media just stopped reporting each time another unarmed person was killed by the police, we wouldn’t have a problem. It’s the media’s fault then?
Feel free to post your solution to racial inequality that involves not blaming someone else. I’ve noticed you’re much better at finding who to blame than actually coming up with a solution, though, so I don’t have my hopes up.
Joe B – The media routinely fails to report when an unarmed person is killed by police–it simply does so when the person doesn’t have a melanin level that will help foment rage and extra clicks to give the media outlet more advertising revenue. So, yes, it is entirely the media’s fault. In keeping with the Latin root of the word “media”, they are supposed to be a vessel–not posing an argument that informs us what conclusion to have, while deliberately withholding details that weaken that argument. They’re not lawyers. And lawyers who do that are sleazy lawyers.
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One of the few mainstream sources with a shred of credibility, the Wall Street Journal (and it still lapses routinely), has acknowledged that there is no racial bias to the shooting of unarmed individuals by police, unless we remove the notion of aggregating police interactions. Yes, blacks do have more overall violent engagements with police (especially given they’re 13% of the population), but if you don’t regularize it for interactions, it makes no sense. Since most people don’t interact with police on a daily or routine basis. Approximately the same number of unarmed whites get shot by police when regularized based on interactions; they simply don’t make national news. Which means that national news is exploiting the representativeness heuristic to make extreme, negative, isolated events (like police brutality toward unarmed blacks) seem like a day-to-day occurrence and a crisis. And many Americans are easily duped by this psychological tactic. To the tune of $2B of property damage last year and more than 20 lives lost amidst various riots. It’s a shame. Thankfully, though, more people are wising up, as the MSM’s credibility dips lower and lower, along with their fortunes.
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Hopefully a real standard for news reporting can emerge, like a phoenix from the ashes of the old. But right now, we don’t really have a press to speak of. For those of us who are concerned about all lives taken unnecessarily in police brutality–which is the only diverse, inclusive, and equitable solution–it’s awful.
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Beyond that, there isn’t a solution. Humans are flawed, petty, jealous, greedy creatures and always will be. All the more reason that utopianism is so much more dangerous than simply accepting the limits to what can be achieved through governance. Or corporations.
There’s no solution for “those people” but to sit there and it. Well, expect more riots that you can whine about the media coverage for.
I assume you’re referring to a piece, which was labeled “opinion” and “commentary”, by a Heather McDonald in June 2020 in the WSJ. Of note, however, the authors of the study cited said that their research didn’t support the conclusions that McDonald and others came to and ended up retracting the study.
So try again. And at least make it something I can’t easily Google deny in 5 minutes.
https://www.insider.com/researchers-retract-study-downplays-racial-disparities-fatal-police-shootings-2020-7
Thanks Mark. Surrogates don’t count. I’ve been looking for something from these execs who were compelled to write now. Doesn’t look like there was anything. I guess I owe my friend who was right, their silence last summer says more than their words now. I won’t get on that anymore!
I would like to move back to Indy someday because I love the City, but the State government is a good reason to stay here in California. Hopefully these bills die on the floor.
This sets a terrible precedent as well. What’s to stop the state from additional power grabs in other Indiana cities. Are other traditionally held democratic in danger as well? South Bend, Fort Wayne?
Fort Wayne is probably safe because they still have a slight Republican majority on the city council for now, even with decades of Democratic mayors. It’s also a very Republican county. Everything from South Bend to the city limits of Chicago seems to be ignored entirely from the Statehouse, so I bet they’re safe. It’s detrimental to their communities that the GOP doesn’t care at all, but at least they’re double tracking the South Shore with federal money. Northwest Indiana should be an economic powerhouse for the state with its proximity to Chicago. Too bad they want to make NWI and Indianapolis cow towns. They don’t want liberals attracted to Indiana. They only care about keeping their grip on power in the Statehouse.
I assume these proposals are the result of the inability of the Indianapolis administration to control the rioting and significant damage totaling in the millions and to control the crime (particularly the homicides). However, what concrete plan do the state legislators have to significantly improve these conditions?