Hogsett = Ballard
I am no longer disappointed that my good friend Greg Ballard isn’t running for a third term, because Democrat Joe Hogsett is doing it for him.
As I listened to the speech that Hogsett gave Wednesday at the Kennedy-King Memorial at 17th and Broadway, everything he spelled out that he wanted to do Ballard has already done, so truth be told, all he would do is continue the soon to be former Mayor’s policies.
Here are some examples to back me up…
Crime
- Hogsett wants to put more police on the street and return to “community policing”.
- Ballard’s plan will put 280 new officer on the street by 2018 and thanks to efficiencies in public safety more officers have been moved from behind a desk to back on patrol.
Neighborhoods
- Hogsett wants to invest in neighborhoods as well as the downtown area.
- Ballard has not only invested hundreds of millions in streets and sidewalks with Rebuild Indy, but also mitigated millions in wastewater and sewer fees with the EPA. Also projects like 16 Tech, transforming the Avondale-Meadows area, the redevelopment of MLK Drive, revamping the Keystone towers and investing $40 million in parks have all gone a long way to bring life back into a lot of areas outside of downtown.
Job Creation
- Hogsett said he will work to create jobs that can support working and middle class families.
- Under the Ballard administration, the city has attracted commitments for more than 31,000 new jobs and $3.5 billion in capital investment. The average new job commitment pays $21 an hour and in 2014 the US Bureau of Economic Analysis ranked Indy 7th in the nation for economic growth. And this was all with the worst economy since the Great Depression in the middle of everything.
Education
- Hogsett says he wants to increase education opportunities for citizens and also address the chronic dropout rate with respect to black youth.
- Ballard not only tripled the number of students taking advantage of school choice, but he closed underperforming charter schools, maintained local control of IPS turnaround academies, he was the architect of of a pre-K program that will serve hundreds of at risk kids when fully funded. And led the charge with “Your Life Matters” to address, long-term, the serious issues facing urban youth, particularly the dropout rate.
I could probably go on (mass transit, sustainability, code enforcement), but the more I went down the list of things that Hogsett wants to do, the more I discovered Ballard has already done it. So while I may not have gotten a third term of Greg Ballard, there’s nothing I’ve seen or heard Joe Hogsett say to make me think his first term wouldn’t be more of the same.
Now where can I find a “Hogsett for Mayor” sign?
