What's Really Motivating Grab For More Metered Spaces In Downtown Residential Neighborhoods

Residents of Chatham Arch awakened one day recently to see parking meter poles being installed in residential areas where parking was previously unrestricted. This was not unlike the manner in which city officials went about taking dozens of parking spaces in downtown business and residential areas for the exclusive use of Blue Indy, the electric car sharing company from France that somehow got our corrupt former mayor to enter into an illegal, one-sided 15-year agreement that our City-County Council members like to wring their hands about but do nothing to change.

Residents of Chatham Arch showed up at this past week's meeting of the Public Works Committee, which is chaired by my councilor, Zach Adamson. Those in attendance were treated to the feigned outrage of committee members, including my councilor, over the City's actions, that the city would convert unrestricted parking spaces in a residential neighborhood without any prior discussion with neighborhood associations. I say feigned because these same members earlier in the meeting tripped all over each other to heap praise on Lori Miser, an extremely condescending person in her dealings with the public who has built her household's wealth through the revolving door between key jobs she's held in our city government and city contractors with whom she has conducted business, supposedly on the public's behalf. Her husband holds a job in Carmel Mayor Jim Brainard's administration.

According to Ms. Miser, the City did have discussions with one organization. That would be the Mass Avenue Merchants Association, which is chaired by Cassie Stockamp, the president of the Atheneum Foundation and an unapologetic booster of Blue Indy. If it was left up to Stockamp, the City would pass an ordinance mandating that all Indianapolis residents  be required to give up their personal cars and ride the bus or use Blue Indy's car sharing service. Notice again the complete disconnect from council members feigned outrage at the deals entered into with Blue Indy and Vision Fleet, both of which Miser shared responsibility for saddling us with during her previous service as DPW director for Mayor Greg Ballard.

Now that we have a new mayor, all talk of undoing the Blue Indy and Vision Fleet deals, both of which were clearly entered into in violation of multiple state and local laws, has ceased and Miser is back in charge of the city department that gave birth to those deals. Instead, my councilor assures me the council is working with the city and these vendors to improve those two leases. Again, a reminder that it is all feigned outrage. On the surface, the reason the City is now reaching into residential neighborhoods and creating new metered spaces is to address growing parking problems that have arisen in the Mass Avenue corridor due to the expanding number of businesses operating there and the glut of cheaply-built apartment buildings the City approved to be built without considering the short-term, let alone the long-term problems that will haunt this area in future years and turn it from a thriving area to one that will be avoided at all costs. The serious crime wave problem is coming. Just give it time.

The immediate and real reason the City is gobbling up more parking spaces in residential areas in the downtown area for metered spaces is to address the revenue issue created by all of those metered spaces it lost when it made that corrupt and illegal deal with Blue Indy. Because our metered assets are now owned by Park Indy, a private metering consortium consisting of Xerox, Denison Parking and Even Times, Indianapolis is required under the terms of their 50-year lease to either replace or reimburse the company for lost revenues from any metered spaces taken out of use. As a consequence, the City's small share of parking meter revenues under that 50-year lease agreement will dwindle considerably unless the City finds new metered spaces to make up for all of those parking spaces consumed by Blue Indy. These are the facts your elected officials won't talk to you about because they really don't give a damn what you think. They only care about who is greasing their palms.