Public Safety: Police

Randy believes an entire career could be made in solving the problems we have with providing adequate police services to New Albany. While this is mostly an executive function, and one that needs to be addressed by the mayor, the city council has great responsibility in this area.

The problems we have are complex, but Randy believes it is important to state a few truths.

1) New Albany, either by neglect or by design, has too few officers on the street. This is a ticking time bomb and we can’t ignore it. By keeping our force understaffed, we are inviting petty crime, violent crime, drug crimes, and organized crime to colonize our city – to use it as a haven for criminal activity. As surrounding communities beef up their patrols and their crime-prevention programs, New Albany becomes a safe haven for criminals. In effect, we have the welcome mat out for them.

2) Our police department is not organized in a way to provide effective, 21st century law enforcement. A major reorganization of the existing force complement is required. Randy proposes that we hire a firm of outside experts to analyze our force structure and suggest to the mayor and council another way of deploying our police resources.

3) New Albany has no effective traffic enforcement. Speeding and otherwise reckless driving is epidemic in our city. This breeds contempt for the law. For however long it takes, we need to implement a maximum enforcement regime, calling on all available resources – including county and state police and our own reserve officers – to declare that traffic rules do apply in New Albany. “Safe Streets” can mean a lot of things, but New Albany needs to cultivate a reputation for literally safe streets. By reinstituting a respect for the law (or changing the laws where they are unreasonable) and by instituting citywide traffic calming measures, our quality of life will increase, and safety will be job one for our police force.

4) Randy has no patience for silly games and rhetoric when it comes to funding our police force. One side screams “underfunding” while the other yells “overspending.” This solves nothing. We need to spend what we need to spend to make our city the kind of place that criminals avoid. Whether the funding for that comes from our general fund, our income tax allotment, or other resources is irrelevant. If the city council is not willing to provide sufficient funding, they have the power to cap the spending by ordering layoffs, furloughs, overtime bans and more. To pretend otherwise is sophistry. While Randy believes that reducing our force would be incredibly dangerous, he’s also intolerant of grandstanding council members who act as if they do not control the purse strings. Council must exercise its power and do what they believe is right. If the consequences are dire, then the voters can vote them out. Drifting along, year after year, just complaining and whining is not leadership.

Government merger

One of the most important issues facing this next council involves the question of if, when, and how much we should consolidate services between New Albany and Floyd County.

We are often reminded that Floyd County, geographically, is one of Indiana’s smallest counties. Proponents of consolidated government love to cite that as a justification for eliminating the city of New Albany and handing over decisions to a countywide electorate.

The most radical proposals envision a single government with 1 person as the executive and with a single fiscal body (a council).

Randy is a pragmatist. That means he believes that every problem has a solution and that creative thinking needs to be applied to find those solutions.

There may well be areas in which the city and county can cooperate and eliminate duplicate services. This next council will be asked to consider a myriad of such consolidations and it’s important that we have the right people in place – people who can think creatively and who will look out for the best interests of New Albanians. Randy is just such a person.

Most of us live in this city by choice. In the coming years, more and more people will be choosing the advantages of living in our city, a place where the density of housing and the availability of cultural and economic amenities provides a true community. However, many residents of Floyd County have rejected urban living because they do not appreciate its advantages. City residents carry a disproportionate burden of taxation when people locate remotely but demand city-like services. New Albany has made many, many investments that county residents do not and would not support.

As overtures are made and as pressure is applied from ideologues in Indianapolis, your next city council must protect our interests and our chosen lifestyles.

Randy believes that county residents and city residents do not necessarily share the same priorities. Having said that, he will not rule out future support for incremental consolidations of services and funding streams. Even complete government consolidation may someday prove to be desirable. But at all times, Randy will be vigilant of city interests while exploring every reasonable opportunity to save taxpayer money.

But while “saving” taxpayer money is frequently efficient, it isn’t always an effective way to make a small city great.

The Parks issue

This may be resolved before election day, but Randy wants you to know how he thinks about such issues, anyway.

Randy believes this is a “solution” in search of a problem. Rep. Ed Clere, at the request of the city-county parks board, has introduced a private act in the legislature that would remove elected officials from the decision-making and funding process for New Albany and Floyd County parks.

Randy believes that a modern parks program is essential to our quality of life. He believes that neglecting our parks is the exact opposite of what we should be doing. But this legislation does nothing to remake our parks program. Natural and recreational parks are the types of amenities that attract families and the creative and talented people New Albany will need in the coming decades. Removing parks operations and funding from the democratic process, in the name of “stability,” is just wrong.

This new parks board would be completely outside the control of the voters. We would not elect it’s managers. Our rights to insist on increases (or decreases) in funding would be limited to the complicated remonstrance process instead of the democratic process of electing people who support our goals. Randy believes that Mr. Clere’s proposed legislation is an overreach and is symptomatic of an ideology that believes in taking control away from local residents and lodging it with the state and with unaccountable unelected boards.

New Albany has been consistent in its funding of the parks program while the county has often considered parks funding as a discretionary pool of money. People who live in cities generally appreciate their parks more than people in less urban areas and city residents have always been willing to maintain a stable funding platform. County inconsistency has invited this unasked for legislation.

That’s not entirely true, however. No local elected official has stepped up to claim this idea, but employees and managers reportedly asked for it.

This special legislation is unique to Floyd County and should be shelved. The state has no business dictating the creation of such a district without our local elected officials expressing their wishes or without a referendum to establish a new parks district.

And while Floyd County is a direct administrative arm of the state, New Albany is not. New Albany is an independent incorporated entity and cannot be forced to hand over its park assets or its tax levy to an unelected creation of the state. If the legislation passes, it is scheduled to go into effect on January 1, 2012. Randy will support action to seek an immediate restraining order to stop this undemocratic seizure of our assets. The people should be able to elect and unelect their representatives if they do not fund and manage the parks as the people desire.

UPDATE: If the bill makes it to a final vote, Mr. Clere indicates that he will insert an amendment that gives either the city council or the county commission the right to reject the legislation before July 1, 2011. Randy hopes the council will exercise that right and that employees of the parks department be made to feel that their bosses, elected by the people, will listen to them. Randy, for one, will listen, and if special legislation is needed, it should be requested by the city, the county, or both.