Yesterday's Zoning Case - Its About Far More Than a Parking Facility

Quite candidly, I have not been blogging for the past week because of the pending zoning hearing that was held yesterday for 2.5 - 3 hours.  It was all I wanted to talk about, but I did not want to jeopardize the ultimate outcome by posting.  That outcome was too important to my community.  But, now that it is over, I will lay out all of the strangeness that latched on to what should have been a dull and routine rezoning of 15 acres of land.  Readers of this blog will recognize that the themes that permeate this rezoning spectacle are exactly the themes I bring up all the time - TIF districts, taxes, government overreach, and public input into the decisions made by government.  I think once you hear the full extent of what culminated in yesterday's hearing, you will agree that liberal or conservative, there are things we can all agree are appropriate actions of government and things we can all agree are inappropriate.

I am going to break this up over several blog entries, as I do not want to rush through the important pieces of the puzzle, nor to I want to impose on my readers a thesis length single blog entry trying to cover it all.  For today, I will hit the peaks, then tomorrow and after I'll look at each mountain.

First of all, here are some links to excellent reporting by Mary Milz of Channel 13 and Anthony Schoettle of the IBJ.  I will also add a link to the WCTY, government channel, archive of yesterday's hearing once it is posted.

Second, I want to thank the Commissioners for siding with the community by a vote of 6-2.  I want to thank Councillors Jason Holiday (our district Councillor), Bob Lutz (whose district takes in the north side of the airport), and Zach Adamson (one of our At-Large Councillors) for taking the time to come downtown and speak out in support.  A thanks also goes to Councillors Steve Talley and Jeff Cardwell for sending in letters of support.  Last but not least, a stout and hardy thank you goes out to all of my fellow Decaturites and other supporters who attended the hearing.  Our butts may have become numb during the hours of the prolonged hearing, but the impact of visible community support cannot be overestimated.

So, here's the overview.

Ameriplex is a 1200 acre industrial park here in Decatur.  The airport and I-70 abut it to the north.  It extends in places to Kentucky Avenue with carve-outs of several abutting neighborhoods.  There are also hundreds of acres south of I-70 held by the airport for a future runway that make the outline of Ameriplex strangely angled on the northern perimeter as well. (I uploaded a land use map of the park to Google docs - click here).  The vast majority of the park and the vast majority of the current development is in the TIF district set up for the long gone United Maintenance deal at the airport.  This TIF district continues to be problematic for the Decatur community.

Ameriplex wanted to locate a park and fly facility on a 30 acre block within Ameriplex that was convenient to the traveling public at the first stoplight south of the I-70/Ameriplex Parkway interchange.  This area is also outside of the TIF district and there would be no tax abatement sought for the project.  Now, everyone I have talked to had the same reaction I did upon hearing this news.  "Oh, really?  I don't like that one bit".  But, once you listened to what was being proposed, you changed your mind (or 90% of the people did).

This was to be a Fast Park & Relax facility.  This is a family business with off-airport parking at a dozen airports around the Country.  They are not typical of this genre.  They are environmentally progressive - with canopies over every parking spot; lights hanging from the under side and solar panels atop.  They capture rainwater and reuse it on site.  They insist on ample landscaping and screening.  Their shuttles run on alternative energy.  This green approach is instructive in that it demonstrates that when something is important to you, not only can you make it work, you can build a thriving business at the same time.

The block chosen was of mixed zoning uses - half would allow the Fast Park and half would not.  So, Ameriplex sought the zoning change.

Enter the Plainfield Park Fly & Ride off-airport facility, otherwise called the "Indy Park Fly & Ride".  This is part of a network of 50 off-airport parking facilities around the Country.  They hired a lawyer to derail the zoning.

At the eleventh hour who enters but the 800 pound gorilla known as the Indianapolis International Airport, who decides that it does not like having another competitor for the parking business it runs.  Mayor Ballard agrees and joins them in their opposition.

All Marion County residents should be alarmed at what the Indy Airport is up to.  I have blogged on it before and I'll go into it again later, but the Airport, which touts itself as an economic engine, has morphed into a tax-free business entity whose business model will bring much harm to legitimate private sector development and competition.  In an ironic twist, by trying to kill off zoning for a private, reasonably located business enterprise on private property, they may have helped illuminate just what they really are now all about.

The hearing yesterday should have been about land use for 15 acres of a 1200 acre industrial park on the southwest corner of Marion County.  While that was noted, the hearing was really about whether or not a private company and a governmental unit should be allowed to keep out another private competitor simply because the did not want that competition eating into their bottom line.

The meeting was run quite well by Chairman Tim Ping.  Although he did not vote with us, he did allow all of the points to be thrown out onto the table.  The information did not flow in a linear fashion, but I do believe it all got out.

On the side trying to kill the project was the Airport, represented by Bob Duncan, former Attorney for the Airport as well as its former Executive Director, the Mayor's Office, represented by Mike Huber, Deputy Director for Economic Development (quite the misnomer yesterday), and Indy (really Plainfield) Park Ride & Fly, represented by attorney Brian Tuohy.  About a dozen Decatur residents  attended, who represent the 10% of the nearby homeowners opposed to the project.

On our side we had Ameriplex and Fast Park, represented by attorney Murray Clark, and the huge support of 5 Councillors (Holiday, Lutz, Adamson, Talley, and Cardwell) who provided an important counter balance to the weight of the Airport and Mayor's Office.  I'd guess about 45 or more Decaturites who support the project attended.  At least half were residents of the nearest neighborhood and they represented the 90% who live in the area and support the project.  Not insignificant to me, we had the support of the Decatur Township Civic Council and the Marion County Alliance of Neighborhood Associations.

The vote of the Commission was 6 - 2 to approve the rezoning.  That was a resounding affirmation that the Airport should not be able to limit private enterprise simply because the Airport would prefer not to have competition.  It was a fair result and an important result for Decatur Township.

More on the individual pieces of this story as the days go on.

I'll Speak Slowly - Let's Pay For The Parking Meters Ourselves

Deputy Mayor Mike Huber continues to bring forward ONLY information that he thinks helps his cause of privatizing a City monopoly and public asset to a politically connected firm, ACS, for 50 years.

Let me speak slowly - or type slowly in this case - The City of Indianapolis has $8 million on hand, which it can use to buy technology-enhanced meters. THE CITY DOES NOT HAVE TO BOND $25 MILLION to pay for $8 million in new meters.

Huber refuses to show the income stream to the City, if we pay up front and keep the asset under public domain. Instead, he does a bait and switch, only referring to bonding - and for $25 million, to boot. In his latest presentation (see slide 13), he even omits the $25 million bond revenue as cash flow to the City under a bonding scenario. Curiously enough, boost that curve up by the omitted $25 million and it becomes highly competitive with the revised proposed deal with ACS, and outshines the original deal. Also, please note the difference in cash flow in slide 13 (amounting to less than $400 million in 50 years) and the 'increased income' shown in slide 5 (topping $600 million in 50 years). These guys refuse to stick to just one story, they are so eager to slant whatever information they think will sell this deal to the public.

But, that is not the point.

If we do the fiscally responsible thing, which seems to run counter to anything the Ballard Administration fancies, and pay $8 million for our own upgrade, the City would keep an asset that the next generation would find useful to have.

I asked for the spreadsheet used to generate the curves on slide 13 - but have received no reply, much less the spreadsheets. So, I analysed the predicted cash flow for the current proposal as follows:
I noted the year in which the curve crossed a $50 million line.
I divided the increase in cash flow between these years by the number of intervening years, to get the average cash flow per year.
I estimated that the average cash flow below $2.1 m was 30% of the $7 m threshold, and any amount over that $2.1 m represented 60% of the total revenue above the $7 m threshold.
I subtracted $10 million for the initial upgrade and an upgrade every 10 years.

Here is the comparison you get if you pay as you go:

	Cumulative Cash Flow ($ Millions)
Year	Proposed 50 Year Lease	Pay Up-Front
1	20	-10
11*	50	65
21*	100	173
29*	150	275
35	200	379
40*	250	470
44	300	567
48*	350	655

The years with an asterisk (*), denote years where an additional $10 million upgrade of the system was calculated.

If the City took a pay as you go approach, we would see a net improvement in revenue over the proposed ACS deal by year 11, even with having paid for two system upgrades in that time.

By year 48, the City would see a net cumulative cash flow of $655 million, $305 million MORE than if we pursue this ACS deal. That is 87% HIGHER revenue.

If the slide 5 prediction of over $600 million in revenue to the City under the ACS deal were more accurate than the slide 13 prediction, then the City might actually generate $1.125 Billion, even after subtracting $50 million for periodic upgrades. That's a whopping $525 million more.

We don't need to craft a deal that makes ACS rich. We should keep this monopoly asset and pay the modest upgrade costs and let the cash flow to the owners of the rights of way and the meter system - the public.

Paul Ogden Hits a Home Run

Paul Ogden, author of OgdenOnPolitics, has hit a home run with today's blog entry "Cancelling the ACS Contract, What the Ballard Administration Doesn't Want You to Know; And About That ACS Jobs Promise...It's Not Legally Enforceable". I recommend you read it in its entirety.

Here are the CliffNotes:

1) While Deputy Mayor Mike Huber is touting the cancellation feature of the newly revised deal to privatize the parking meter system (a monopoly) through a 50 year lease with politically connected ACS, the contract has some nasty penalties should the City actually go through with cancellation.
2) If the City chooses to turn the cancelled contract over to another firm to operate, neither that firm nor the City can MAKE ANY MONEY from the meters FOR TWO YEARS. Unless, the City forks over an additional $5 million penalty to ACS.
3) If the City chooses to cancel the contract it is PROHIBITED from floating a bond to pay the cancellation penalty.
4) The promised movement of 200 ACS jobs to Indianapolis is totally unenforceable because a) it is not included in the contract and b) only Huber signed the letter of agreement and he is not legally authorized to commit the City to anything.

This proposal to privatize a monopoly that is owned by the citizens of Indianapolis, to benefit a few politically connected people, is short sighted and totally in keeping with Mayor Ballard's apparent effort to spend every last cent this City has before he is booted out of office.

Parks Budget Cut, Layoffs Assured -- Part 4 of Series

The Parks budget, as mentioned earlier in this series, was cut - including a 10% cut in personal services. Since Mayor Greg Ballard has been in office, he has cut the personal services (salary and benefits) portion of the Parks budget by 21%. He has dropped the contribution from the general fund by $800,000 a year, leaving the Parks budget particularly sensitive to the property tax caps.

Initially, $1.4 million was decreased in the personal services proposed budget for 2010, compared to 2009. At the Parks committee review of the budget - with the standing room only crowd of employees whose livelihoods were on the bubble - the committee amended the budget to move $653,922 from the section that includes contracts over to personal services. The Parks employees will be allowed to bid on the contract, and if they win, then $653,922 of people-salaries will be able to keep their job with Indy Parks --- still, over $700,000 people-salaries will lose their jobs. If the Parks employees fail to win the contract, then a full $1,400,000 people-salaries will lose their jobs.

I mentioned at the beginning of this series that when you attend in person you sometimes catch chitchat in the hallways. That night was one time when that was true. The Parks budget had been amended, the workers had left the room, and a second Council Committee was taking its seats. I had not managed to get a copy of the amendment, so I headed for the Council office to get one. I crossed the path of Mike Huber, Director of Enterprise Development, talking with a man I believe is a union representative, but definitely a Parks employee. I was not deliberately eavesdropping, just passing by in tight quarters in a public building. What I heard was Mr. Huber saying "The Mayor really wants you to win that contract." It struck me as similar to somebody saying "We just set your house on fire, but we really want it to rain."

At the full Council meeting, At-Large Councillor Joanne Sanders proposed an amendment that would have removed $290,000 from the Council budget (slated for redistricting costs - more on that later) and transferred it to the Parks budget to at least reduce the number of employees who will find themselves in the unemployment line. That amendment failed when 13 Councillors voted for the amendment and 14 against. Those voting in favor were Plowman (R) and 12 Democrats, Bateman, Brown, Evans, Gray, Lewis, Brian Mahern, Dane Mahern, Mansfield, Moriarty-Adams, Nytes, Oliver, and Sanders. Those voting against were Coleman (L) and Republicans Cain, Cardwell, Cockrum, Day, Hunter, Lutz, Malone, McHenry, McQuillen, Pfisterer, Scales, Speedy, and Vaughn.

The 2010 Parks budget of $27,179,691, or 2.2% of the entire City-County budget of $1,222,638,083, passed by a vote of 16 to 11. Those voting for the budget were Democrats Moriarty-Adams and Nytes along with all the Republicans and those voting against the budget were Coleman (L) and the rest of the Democrats. (Councillors Minton-McNeill (D) and Smith (R)were absent all evening so cast no votes.)