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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowNineteen members of the City-County Council met privately with representatives of Indianapolis Mayor Joe Hogsett’s administration Monday night to discuss the mayor’s plan to build a soccer stadium as part of an undisclosed ownership group’s efforts to land a Major League Soccer franchise in the city.
The meeting with the Democratic caucus—which holds a supermajority on the 25-member council—came as the Hogsett administration fast approaches a legislative deadline to create a stadium-funding tax district downtown to reinforce the MLS bid.
The meeting also comes a little more than two weeks after an attorney for the Hogsett administration sent a letter to the council’s majority leader, Maggie Lewis, warning that the Democratic caucus would be violating the state’s Open Door Law if it met privately with a developer about a competing soccer stadium proposal. The law generally prevents a majority of a government council or committee from meeting privately or without notice, although it allows party caucuses to meet in private, as long as the members do not take official action.
Faegre Drinker attorney Scott Chinn said in the April 20 letter that the earlier private caucus would have allowed the developer—Keystone Group—to circumvent city processes by going to the council directly, before negotiations with the city had been completed.
On Tuesday, the mayor’s spokeswoman, Aliya Wishner, said the Hogsett administration’s meeting with the Democratic caucus on Monday allowed city officials to “discuss economic development prospects” with the council members, including those prospects related to the MLS bid.
The meeting included an overview of the city’s plan to construct a publicly owned and operated soccer stadium on an existing parking lot near Gainbridge Fieldhouse and a portion of the Indianapolis Downtown Heliport property abutting the lot.
“We appreciated the discussion and look forward to continued conversations with the elected officials who serve Indianapolis as we work together to bring a Major League Soccer expansion club to our city,” Wishner, chief communications director for the city, said in a. written statement.
Denise Herd, a private communications consultant for the Democratic caucus, did not immediately return calls and messages requesting comment Tuesday. Several councilors, including Majority Leader Maggie Lewis and Council President Vop Osili, also did not return calls or messages about the meeting.
A map for a new professional sports development area, or PSDA, has already received preliminary approval from the city’s Metropolitan Development Commission. But the administration must also get the go-ahead from council–and a second MDC approval–by June 30, when the clock expires on a state statute that allows the district to be created and submitted to the state budget committee.
To meet that deadline, city officials want the proposal to go before the council on May 13 so it can be sent to a committee—most likely the Metropolitan and Economic Development Committee—before returning to the full chamber for a vote in June.
The proposed taxing map includes more than 120 parcels from which state and local income taxes, food and beverage taxes and several other taxes would be collected to cover debt service tied to the development of a new soccer-specific stadium.
Securing approval for the map could be an uphill battle for the administration. Among those opposed to its plan is District 18 representative Kristin Jones, whose district includes both the heliport site and Keystone Group’s $1.5 billion Eleven Park development site—for which a separate PSDA map was approved by the City-County Council in December.
Following last week’s MDC vote, Jones told reporters that she would not sponsor the proposal and all of her fellow councilors were in support of her. Democratic Council Majority Leader Maggie Lewis and Republican Council Minority Leader Brian Mowery stood along Jones during that press scrum, as did supporters of the Indy Eleven soccer team.
Jones reiterated that stance when reached for comment Tuesday, telling IBJ the city’s presentation “did nothing” to change her view of the situation. She declined to elaborate on the city’s presentation—other than to say it offered a broad-strokes look at the city’s MLS proposal—citing caucus confidentiality.
The tax district needs a council sponsor to be introduced at the council’s May 13 meeting, council spokeswoman Sara Hindi confirmed to IBJ Thursday. Without a member of the council sponsoring the measure, it cannot move forward.
While the city has said the new site is merely a second option from which an undisclosed ownership group could select to build, multiple sources told IBJ that approval of the new PSDA would effectively eliminate the possibility of Eleven Park, because the heliport site is the preferred location–a claim that the city has denied.
An unknown buyer has sought to acquire multiple parcels in the vicinity of the heliport site in recent months, but it remains unclear what hurdles remain to completing an assemblage that could accomplish the city’s goals of building a stadium on the property. At least one property owner told IBJ she wouldn’t sell her historic building to make way for the proposed development.
Last month, the Hogsett administration’s warning to the council against meeting with Keystone officials came just two days before Hogsett met with MLS Commissioner Don Garber in New York City. The city had abruptly ended negotiations over the Eleven Park development in March.
Chinn, who is representing the city on the MLS negotiations, said that in addition to violating state’s Open Door Law, a caucus meeting with the developer would have amounted to Keystone “skipping ahead in the process to get the formal attention of the Democratic Caucus in order to influence the outcome of arrangements that are not yet ripe.”
The letter also suggestsedthat the caucus be wary of conversations with Keystone “until there are more definite proposals to discuss.”
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Why must Hogsett do everything behind closed doors?
The state of Indiana is quite free to pass laws stopping this party caucus nonsense…
Of course, that means they’d likely have to answer questions about why they do the exact same thing when it comes to passing laws at the state level. Telling cities they can’t do the same thing the state does would be peak Indiana.
Its not Hogsett. Its any state, city, county community or region that is planning a large economic development, major investment, large jobs announcement or major event announcement. It’s how its done until everything and everyone is in agreement on what is about to happen since there are many variables at play with many stakeholders. You’re blind if you think its just hogsett. Happens everywhere
Move it along
Indy Eleven already owns the best location for the stadium. Strong chance this political mess is hurts our chance to get an MLS team.
That’s unlikely seeing as the MLS has shown 0 interest in promoting the Eleven to MLS, and has shown interest in the ownership group the mayor has put together.