2/25/2003
Media Contact:
Steve Campbell, 317-327-NEWS
Jo Lynn Garing, 317-327-NEWS |
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2003 State of the City Address
February 25, 2003
Washington Square Mall I am grateful to all of you for joining me for this, my fourth State of the City address. That we are able to assemble here tonight, and that we have been able to get around town with very few delays all winter long, is due to the heroic efforts of the men and women of our Department of Public Works. They have kept our city moving through what will likely be the snowiest winter on record.
I invited our salt truck and snow plow drivers, those who repair and maintain the overburdened equipment, their dispatchers, supervisors, and leaders to be honored guests here tonight so the people of Indianapolis can get a good look at them. These city employees have been missing holidays, time with their families, sleep, and the routine of normal life for over two months. The folks with us tonight are the representatives of these hardworking individuals -- since many of their colleagues are out preparing for more snow or getting some much-needed rest.
Let's show them our appreciation for what they have done and will continue to do for us!
My friends, people are hurting in America . . . and not just because of this endless winter. Across our country, workers in nearly every segment of the economy face the possibility of losing their jobs. In Indianapolis, we are not immune to the impact of the national economy. But the State of our City is strong! And the State of our People is resilient!
We are doing better than other cities. Why? Because we have a more diverse economy in Indianapolis. And because we are putting our energy and talents into economic development and fighting for jobs.
Last year, our city's gross municipal product -- the total revenues our businesses and industries produce -- increased by $1.5 billion dollars. We hear a lot about the loss of corporate headquarters. We don't hear a lot about how our homegrown corporate headquarters, companies like Simon, Lilly, Emmis, Mays Chemical, Anthem, and Guidant, have been acquiring billions of dollars in assets in other cities and states the last several years.
Just listen to some of our city's economic success stories. Tens of thousands of people across the country each day gravitate to retail centers owned by the Simon Property Group, including Washington Square Mall. The largest publicly traded retail real estate company in North America is headquartered here in Indianapolis.
More than 11 million people in nine states have health insurance coverage from Anthem. The fifth largest health care insurer in the United States is headquartered here in Indianapolis.
4,000 people work at Federal Express's second largest hub. The most expensive capital investment in FedEx's history is here in Indianapolis.
With the development of the Indy Racing League and its ascension to dominance in open wheel racing in the United States, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and the Hulman/George Family have spawned a globally significant economic engine that creates jobs in research and development, manufacturing, and hospitality; and it's headquartered here in Indianapolis.
Despite our successes, the economic slump that has afflicted all of America has touched Indianapolis. Consider the United Airlines maintenance center at the Indianapolis International Airport, which has provided jobs for thousands of Central Indiana families. With United's bankruptcy, these families -- and our entire community -- stand to be affected.
We're acting swiftly and aggressively to fight for these working men and women and their jobs. We've retained experts in the airline industry and enlisted local volunteers to assist us in marketing the maintenance facility. In partnership with United Airlines, we'll try to find users for the maintenance bays United has already left vacant and, if the worst occurs and United pulls out of the facility entirely, we will find other users for the whole facility.
We are working with the top leadership at United Airlines to convince them of the extraordinary qualities and potential of the facility and its workers. The fact is, we have the most advanced and efficient narrow-body aircraft maintenance facility in the world, and the best-trained and most effective workforce anywhere right here in Indianapolis!
Notwithstanding challenges like United, in the past year businesses made considerable investments in our city. The Indianapolis Star built a $72 million state-of-the-art printing facility in Pike Township. Dow AgroSciences invested $16.8 million to relocate its biotechnology research and development group from San Diego to Indianapolis. Allstate Insurance built an $11 million customer service center in Decatur Township. The result of investments like this? Approximately $576 million was added to our local tax base. New jobs were created and even more were retained . . .all in a bad economy.
Rarely does a week go by when I do not make a decision to support new jobs or investment somewhere in Indianapolis. One such decision was the purchase of the Indianapolis Water Company. With bipartisan cooperation, we bought the company and hired a professional operator. The result? A corporate headquarters preserved, lower water rates, jobs saved, and local control of a vital natural resource maintained.
We just completed an agreement to provide incentives to a great homegrown company, Finish Line, for expansion of their headquarters and distribution facility here on the eastside -- a $19 million investment that creates 90 new jobs and keeps another 461 right here.
In just a few weeks, Interactive Intelligence will be moving into its first building at its new Pike Township campus, again with the help of the City. Once, a small start-up, this company now employs more than 350 people with high-tech, high-paying jobs and had revenues of nearly $50 million last year.
We also are supporting Carrier Corporation, which is investing close to $20 million at its Wayne Township facility, creating nearly 300 new jobs and retaining almost 1,500.
Job creation should and does come mainly from private initiative, but sometimes the City drives the projects.
Take the Circle Block. Money that has been set aside for years for the completion of Circle Centre Mall will assist in the construction of a new landmark hotel, the Conrad, at the corner of Illinois and Washington Streets. That means not only a step up in prestige for downtown Indianapolis, but work for electricians, sheet metal workers, and truck drivers. Not to mention, when it's built, new jobs for hotel managers, housekeepers and waiters.
Or consider the former Market Square Arena site. We just received six alternative proposals for the redevelopment of that vacant site that will transform the eastern edge of downtown. More residential development to feed the seemingly insatiable appetite for living downtown, more retail development to serve the growing community of downtown dwellers, and more work for those who build our city. . .all on the Market Square Arena site. Elvis would be proud.
While I am proud of these efforts where the City has led or supported economic development, I think the most compelling case for a bright future for the Indianapolis economy is made by the remarkable Central Indiana Life Sciences Initiative.
A year and a half ago, I and the other Life Sciences Initiative founding partners came together with the shared vision of building upon our extraordinary assets to make central Indiana a recognized world leader in research, development and commercialization in the life sciences. Because of the Life Sciences Initiative, increased collaboration among academic institutions and business people will lead to start-up companies, more investment capital will flow into Indiana to fuel the growth of these businesses, good jobs will be created that pay more than those in other industry sectors, and our enhanced reputation will accelerate our growth as a tourist and convention destination city.
What does the life sciences initiative really mean? Right now, someone is exercising for the first time in years, making a positive lifestyle change after being identified as a person in need of a health intervention by the Haelan Group's innovative software program. Founded by Julie Meek, an entrepreneurial local nurse, this young Indianapolis life science company helps businesses with self-insured health care plans cut costs -- and change their employees' lives for the better. Let's welcome Julie, who is here with us tonight.
Right now, scientists are exploring new ways to give cardiac patients more freedom and mobility. By equipping pacemakers and other devices with the newest wireless technology that physicians can monitor from their computers, Indianapolis-based Guidant Corporation hopes to give a grandfather the chance to spend more time playing ball with his grandchildren and less time visiting his doctor.
Right now, a mother is celebrating a clean bill of health after undergoing a breast biopsy performed with a device developed and patented by Indianapolis-based Suros Surgical Systems. This groundbreaking technology does more than lower health care costs for women. It saves families the anxious wait for news, spares the pain and expense of surgery, and has the potential to save more lives.
These innovations are happening in Indianapolis right now!
2003 will be a breakthrough year. Indiana University's Emerging Technology Center, an incubator that will grow start-up life sciences companies, and which the City supported with $500,000, will be open for business next week. The following week, we'll unveil a planning framework for a research community in our downtown. Later this spring, the I.U. Medical School will open its Biotechnology Research and Training Center along the near westside's 16th Street corridor. At the same time, the Clarian People Mover will be up and running. This summer, we will formally launch a global marketing campaign aimed at telling our story outside the boundaries of Central Indiana. And perhaps most exciting, we expect a number of start-up companies generated by the initiative to emerge this year.
Now, while we are directing a lot of attention to big economic development projects, it would be easy to lose sight of the fact that it's the economy in our own neighborhoods that often has a more important affect on our daily lives. I promise you, I will not lose sight. We're helping community organizations bring retail, more small businesses, and other commercial development back to the neighborhoods of Indianapolis . . . creating jobs and enhancing property values in the process.
One example of how the City of Indianapolis is helping is through FOCUS, an initiative whose name stands for Fostering Commercial Urban Strategies.
FOCUS, made up of local partners, gives neighborhood-based organizations support for planning, commercial redevelopment and marketing. In my experience, redevelopment is most successful when it is driven from the community level, and government and other supporters help to make a neighborhood's dreams become reality. Expect this year to see a comprehensive web site of available properties for redevelopment and a resource guide that will put the tools of the economic development experts into the hands of our neighborhoods.
The eastside is another great example of how people active in their community can make a difference. That's why I chose to come to the Eastside tonight. We're working with the Warren Township Development Association, the Community Alliance of the Far Eastside, and active neighborhood associations to gain more positive attention and investment for the eastside.
In addition to Finish Line, we worked with Group Athletica to keep 530 jobs here. Kroger's Crossroads Dairy invested $11 million in a major expansion. And we recently provided incentives to encourage Mid America Clinical Labs to redevelop a former warehouse at 25th and Shadeland.
Earlier this year, the City awarded a Neighborhood Action Grant to one of our eastside partners to support a neighborhood cleanup effort. We're working to beautify transportation corridors with help from Hancock County. And the Eastside will be the pilot area for the FOCUS website.
Healthy neighborhood retail centers are one way a neighborhood measures its success. Every eastsider knows Washington Square Mall has suffered in recent years. Together, we can assure the future success of Washington Square and the entire Washington Street Corridor. The evidence of our commitment is a collaboration between the City, Marion County Sheriff Frank Anderson and Simon. With the help of Sheriff Anderson, I am pleased to announce that the Marion County Sheriff's Department will open a regional office and relocate its reserve headquarters to Washington Square Mall!
We expect the lease to be signed and the Mall's new tenant to move in very soon. Thank you again, Sheriff Anderson. This is the first of what we hope will be many great announcements for this mall.
Neighborhood economic development is just one piece of the quality of life puzzle. What makes life in the best neighborhoods a richer experience is the overall environment: quality, affordable housing; neighbors who care as much as you do; diversity; a sense of safety and security; the lack of abandoned cars and abandoned homes; access to quality schools; and access to artistic and cultural amenities.
One of Indianapolis's great neighborhoods that puts all of this together is Fall Creek Place. And it happens to be a neighborhood that most of the world gave up on long ago. Abandoned homes, vacant lots, high crime -- an area that commuters from northern suburbs drove through every day and tried not to notice. With vision from Mayor Goldsmith, funding from our congressional representatives, neighborhood passion, infrastructure support from our City-County Council, creative and committed development partners, and heroic efforts from many people in my administration, Fall Creek Place today takes your breath away. Many people tell me it is the best thing to happen in Indianapolis in years.
One of the things about Fall Creek Place that makes me the most proud is that it is not a gentrified neighborhood. The homeowners are diverse in income, race and background. That is worth replicating. We will focus in 2003 not only on the final phase of Fall Creek Place, but on possibly expanding it, and seeking other parts of the city where a similar effort could be successful. Affordable housing, homeownership opportunities for people trying to climb the economic ladder, renewal of our older neighborhoods, promoting diversity in our living environments -- these are the benefits that Fall Creek Place and other efforts like it can bring to our city.
And speaking of diversity, a recent study from the University of Wisconsin -- Milwaukee rates Indianapolis neighborhoods as among the most integrated in the country. Indianapolis ranked eighth in integration among the 50 largest American cities. We are the largest city in the top ten and the highest ranked northern city. What does that mean? It means we the people of Indianapolis -- people of all colors and backgrounds -- are choosing to live on the same blocks, next door to each other.
This news, along with last year's opening of the Mexican Consulate and the thriving Latino community that provides a new and welcome diversity to our city, gives us added hope that at least our children may know a world in which differences in skin color, accents, special needs, and cultural traditions will be a source of enrichment in our lives and not a source of conflict and hatred. It makes me very proud of our city!
Yet, we would be foolish to conclude that we have achieved a utopia of equal opportunity. There remain far too few housing opportunities for those at the lower end of the income spectrum. 2003 will be a year in which we make meaningful progress toward the essential goal of decent, safe and affordable housing for everyone in Indianapolis.
Imagine breaking the news to your kids that they'll be going to a new school, closer to the next shelter. Or staring at an empty checkbook, panic rising in your chest because you just can't make ends meet. Or lighting a fire from trash and old newspapers in bone-chilling cold in an abandoned house in the shadow of downtown. We began on January 1st to implement the Blueprint to End Homelessness, which will provide supportive housing to children, parents and single people who are temporarily or chronically without a place to live.
Abandoned houses can be dangerous places of refuge for people who are homeless, and they highlight the urgency of our homelessness initiative. They are also unsightly, unsafe and unseemly corruptions of our dream of healthy neighborhoods all across Indianapolis. They damage property values, harm a neighborhood's self-esteem, and stand as monuments to predatory lending and family failure. They are hazardous for our brave firefighters. Abandoned houses leer suggestively to our children, beckoning them to play hide and seek on rotted floorboards. Abandoned houses are a haven for criminals and destructive drug and prostitution activity.
Tonight, I am declaring war on abandoned and unsafe houses!
Later this week, barring another winter weather calamity, I will announce the strategic and tactical elements of that war. Victory won't be easy or quick, but no one in this great 21st Century city should have a dilapidated, boarded up eyesore as a next-door neighbor!
Abandoned houses are both a symptom and a cause of neighborhood decline, and declining neighborhoods attract criminals. We fight this decline in many ways, but our front-line troops are the brave men and women of the Indianapolis Police Department.
In June, the 200th police officer added since my January 1999 pledge to increase the size of the police force will be sworn in. These new community police officers are working in your neighborhood. They're working with seasoned veterans to fight the scourge of illegal drugs like methamphetamine. They're attacking gun violence and domestic violence. . .and, they're also mentoring kids in the PAL clubs and participating in neighborhood meetings and community activities. These special people must have the unique talent of dealing with both the bad guys and the good guys!
With your cooperation and support, our police officers are doing the job we ask them to do. In the Indianapolis Police Department District, overall serious crime dropped by 2% last year. Homicides dropped by 10%. And our department solved 85% of homicide cases, way above the national average!
As we fight crime every day, we must prepare at the same time for what was once unthinkable -- chemical, biological or other terrorist attacks here in the Heartland. Our firefighters, police officers, EMT's, public health officials and hospital workers are on the front lines. We may never know if the name of our city crosses the lips of evil men in distant lands, but we must be ready. Our emergency management plans are state-of-the-art. Our front-line responders know their jobs. And you can keep up with all we are doing to protect you by accessing www.indygov.org.
May God bless the men and women who defend our nation and our home front tonight -- in Indianapolis and across the world.
Our hearts are with you!
Every so often its good to step back and think about what we are trying to protect as we fight the war on terrorism. It is, of course, our freedom and our American way of life. We pass on our American values to our children primarily at home and at school. I visit schools frequently and I see these values being taught to our young people, and I am proud of the work of teachers and school administrators and involved parents across Indianapolis.
2003 brings a number of challenges to education in our city. Foremost among them -- adequate school facilities for all students in Indianapolis and a funding formula out of our state legislature that gives charter schools the opportunity to succeed, but also treats our traditional school districts fairly.
The goal of equal opportunity for every child in our city should not be considered a lofty one. It's a simple proposition -- the wealth of the surrounding neighborhood should not determine the quality of the school building in that neighborhood!
The Indianapolis community came together in a way that still astounds me in 2001 to support the largest school facility bond issue in the history of the State of Indiana without a single objection! At the time, we made a commitment to the Indianapolis Public School system that we would find the money for the remainder of their capital needs. I applaud the work of the Indianapolis Chamber of Commerce, which has led the way in examining alternatives. It is vital that we make real progress this year toward identifying a funding source to enable us to keep our promise to the children of IPS.
Each day, hundreds of children pass through the doors of one of the four charter schools in Indianapolis. The very existence of these schools is a testimony to the powerful demand for school choice in our community. If we do not respond to this demand, we will not achieve our potential as a city. It's that simple. Legislation before the Indiana General Assembly right now can ensure that we will be able to expand the number of charter schools in Indianapolis and thereby expand educational opportunities for our children, and do so without financial harm to our school districts. I have testified in support of this legislation and will fight for however long it takes to see it pass. It's one of the most controversial measures the legislature is considering this session, but nothing less than our future is at stake.
Economic development, neighborhood redevelopment, housing, crime, education -- all of these have an impact on whether people want to come to our city for a visit or to live. And also whether they choose to stay or leave. Coupled with our outstanding professional and amateur sports, I am convinced the cultural environment plays a powerful role as well. That's why our cultural development initiative has been so important to me.
This year, we will really see cultural tourism in Indianapolis take off. A visit to one of our newly designated cultural districts -- Broad Ripple, Massachusetts Avenue, Fountain Square, the Wholesale District and the Downtown Historic Canal -- will give you a taste of the creativity that defines our city.
This summer, you will see a master plan for public art. It will coalesce the vision and talent of artists, arts organizations and historic preservation specialists, to name a few -- who will take this movement to the people, changing and enhancing our city's sense of place.
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We have come a long way in the last year; in the last three years; in the last thirty years. Indianapolis is a success story. A story, I hope, who's ending is never written. This past year really impressed upon me how much we in Indianapolis are seen as a model for other cities to try to emulate. Some will pull it off. Some will accomplish things we haven't yet thought of. Proud as we are, we must never succumb to self-satisfaction or take the time to catch our breath. We must always set the standard for others. We lead; they follow. That means hard work and tough decisions in 2003 and beyond. I know we're up to the challenge!
Thank you and God bless you.
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