Consolidation Paves The Way
The cab driver from the airport had much to say.
Wheeling down I-70 on an early fall evening, he offered a common-man critique on this region where he has piloted cabs for 22 years.
I recorded his observations, knowing that Indianapolis consolidated its city and county governments back in 1969.
On Tuesday, Spokane city and county will vote on whether to take this step.
My metered-by-the-mile adviser detailed a long list of controversies, disagreements and problems still facing Indianapolis.
Indy mayor Stephen Goldsmith’s decision to privatize the taxi business, for example, now made it difficult to earn a living driving a cab.
And crime is still around. Some Indy neighborhoods are too dangerous to work a taxi, thanks to gangs and guns.
What about local government, I asked?
“Oh, Unigov works fine,” the driver said without hesitation. “They consolidated all that back 25 years ago and we quit the bickering between the city and the county.”
I spent a week in Indianapolis. The experience offered a fascinating perspective on what Spokane might expect if citizens vote Tuesday to consolidate city and county government.
Consolidation of governments won’t solve every problem. It hasn’t in Indianapolis.
But consolidation did solve one problem here. It ended the internal political wars and made local government better.
And that made a great deal of difference for all that lay ahead.
During my week in the Hoosier capital, I spoke to businessmen, students, newcomers, lifetime residents, cabbies and millionaires.
All cited ongoing problems and challenges for this city. Not one person, however, said local government structure was one of Indy’s problems today.
Contrast this to Spokane.
In Spokane, local government often is cited as the No. 1 problem.
Two years ago, for example, urban expert Neal Peirce reported that of 100 citizens in the city and the county he interviewed on what was holding back the region, ineffective government with its fighting and feuding emerged as the prime obstacle to regional progress.
In contrast, Peirce said of consolidation in Indianapolis, “Almost overnight, Unigov saved Indianapolis.”
Saved because consolidation allowed Indianapolis to shift its focus from a pre-occupation with its own feuds to the true external challenges that confronted that region then, and our region today.
What prompted Indianapolis to combine city and county governments? Here was the picture in 1969:
Downtown Indy was dying, along with its inner city neighborhoods and schools.
The tax base was shrinking as demands on local and regional government grew.
A long reliance on the traditional pillars of industrial jobs and agriculture was fading fast.
The region had no real links to the growth industries of the future.
Suburban residents complained about feeling left out of the political process due to lack of representation.
Sound familiar?
The Indianapolis of 1969 is not all that different from Spokane today.
Our city and county governments not only do not work well together and each is nearly bankrupt.
The 21st century economy is fast approaching and the Spokane area doesn’t have a good foothold in it.
Instead, Boise and Tacoma, two cities long considered comparable to Spokane, have announced major plant sitings for Micron and Intel, leaders in the next century economic sweepstakes.
Spokane has dropped into the bottom 25 percent of American cities in its household buying power.
Our relative wealth, our relative political power, our relative economic prospects are, in fact, all slipping in comparison to other cities in the Pacific Northwest.
Consolidation of government won’t fix all of this.
But consolidation of governments has been shown to be a powerful force that changes the flow of events in regions grown self-absorbed.
Once Indianapolis and Marion County quit staring at one another, they understood their adversaries weren’t people who lived next door to one another in a city and suburban area.
This allowed clear political priorities to emerge. Talking and listening skills among leaders and citizens improved. Common goals for economic growth, neighborhood stability, educational improvement, and image-building could be hammered out.
Now, 25 years later, Indianapolis has two professional sports teams, a major medical school, and has added about 10,000 jobs to its economy in the last three years.
With the assistance of combined city-county government and private funding, downtown Indianapolis has been re-vitalized.
A new Nordstrom opened only last week with more than 50 other new retail stores.
This downtown retail district is within walking distance of two convention hotels and the Eiteljorg Museum of American Indian art.
In short, Indianapolis feels a lot like a Spokane of the future.
But we’re not there yet.
We have to go a step at a time to begin to repair our politics, our economy, and our downtown.
The first step begins at the polls Tuesday with the vote to consolidate city and county government.
, DataTimes MEMO: Chris Peck is the Editor of The Spokesman-Review. His column appears each Sunday on Perspective.