Ballard Plans to Establish International Ties

Mayor Ballard spoke to the 40 West Business Club at Ben Davis High School.

Photo by Jay Thompson
(posted Oct 17)

Mayor Greg Ballard plans to establish economic ties with China and Japan by traveling to the Far East in December. The Mayor's mission is to develop an economic strategy to prepare Indianapolis for the global economy.

The city has only four sister cities which is low for this city's size. Ballard plans to change that by having sister city ties in the main land of China very soon.

Ballard told the 40 West Business Club at their Oct 15 luncheon that Indianapolis has not had a representative visit Japan since 1985. He said he is not sure they can develop a sister city in Japan because they already have established many sister city relationships while "the city was sleeping." Mexico and Brazil are also on his economic travel itinerary. He commented that Brazil is a critical stop because of its energy independence. By 2009-2010, he will travel to India to recruit engineers for jobs and to the United Kingdom for motor sports related jobs.

Ballard also recognizes that the city's workforce could be in peril if the educational standards don't improve. He is dissatisfied with the county's low graduation rates.

Although the city has no control over the public schools, the Mayor has made improving education as one of his priorities. "The results right now are not producing the workers that companies are looking for right now, and they better start pretty soon, because companies are going to be going where they can find the workers." He said there is a disconnect here between employers and unemployed. The employers contend they cannot find good workers and the unemployed claim there are no jobs.

Ballard is touring all the high schools in the county to talk to students. "I am telling them at point blank if you think you are done your senior year, you are going to live a miserable life. There will be no jobs for you will a high school degree."

He is starting a pilot program called Communities In Schools. Decatur, IPS and a charter school are participating in the program designed to track third through sixth grades students' progress, with a school coordinator to help those that are sliding. His plan is not to wait until students have completed half a semester with failing grades before the student gets help. His goal is to have 90 percent graduation.

Ballard called it "heartbreaking" when parents do not care about their kids and their education. The school coordinator will be beneficial to help students when parents care but don't know what to do to help their kids.

"Public safety is job one and it always will be with me," Ballard said. He contends that good public safety is a baseline foundation to retaining the population and jobs. He discussed some of changes since public safety has returned to the Mayor's control. The department is becoming more aggressive with warrant sweeps. IMPD is now using real time data to track the crime. Ballard said "I was shocked," when he initially discovered that real time data was not being used. The focus is to reduce violent crime. He also corrected the misconception that Indianapolis was hiring an additional 100 officers. He said it was new hires to cover the department's loss of 100 officers, not additional officers. He said that the number of officers calling in sick on weekends dropped from 45 to 8. "There is a reason for that now. They want to go to work. That is an amazing statistic."

He credited the overall reduction in crime to the new management style of pushing down the level of responsibility for decision making to the beat cop, allowing them determine what works best in their districts.

His administration is also addressing the ex-offender re-entry program. He predicted 5,500 ex-offenders will return to Marion County next year. "Big number," he said. The city is working with service agencies to help them stay crime free. He described that as "one of the big elephants of the city" because it has never been addressed before.

He explained the idea of selling the pocket parks was misunderstood. The real message he was trying to make was about the city's poor real estate management. "There is no real estate management in the city."

Ballard was told the city thinks it owns some 6,000 parcels, but was not sure of the exact number. "We better find that out, " he said.