Indianapolis Recorder, Indianapolis, Marion County, 14 October 2005 — Page 10

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THE INDIANAPOLIS RECORDER

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 14, 2005

EDITORIAL

Collaboration vs. consolidation

By SHANNON WILLIAMS Recorder Editor

In August 2004, Mayor Bart Peterson unveiled his Indianapolis Works plan, which proposed various consolidation plans for Marion County. Included in the plan was Peterson’s desire to consolidate the Indianapolis Police Department and the Marion County Sheriff’s Department, creating the Metropolitan Law Enforcement Agency. If the consolidation passes, non-patrol functions of the two agencies will be one as of Jan. 1, 2006. The following year, patrol resources and patrol functions of the two will be consolidated. Initially, I didn’t see much of a problem with the mayor’s proposed consolidation, but after some digging, I found that it all boils down to money and proper management. The IPD pension fund is gone but the Sheriff’s Department has over $100 million in its fund. Consolidation seems to be the only alternative for IPD’s dismal financial future.. .the only problem is it’s notfair to the Sheriff’s Department which has obviously managed better and planned more effectively. Looks like through his consolidation plan, the mayor wants to pull money from various townships and the Sheriff’s Department to generate additional funds. There are a few shady things about this consolidation plan that are extremely reminiscent of what Gov. Mitch Daniels did when Peterson wanted to build a new stadium and enlarge the Convention Center. Daniels stole, or to put it more nicely, took over what Peterson had worked so hard to institute. During that time, Daniels wasn’t communicating effectively with Peterson, a lot of decisions were being made under the table and tension was extremely high. It’s like dejavu, because now, Peterson is treating Sheriff Frank Anderson in the same manner in which he was treated by Daniels. I think the main problem with this entire situation is that the mayor has been really exclusive and has not communicated well with Sheriff Anderson. I reallybelieve that all of this could have been avoided had Peterson included Anderson earlier in the process, especially before he took the plan to the City County-Council. Doing so could have prevented such intense opposition from the Sheriff and possibly, the Fraternal Order of Police. Nonetheless, there are still some aspects that just haven’t been totally considered while devising this plan. For example, and perhaps the one thing that so many people seem to disagree with is how Peterson’s plan will strip an elected - I repeat, elected official from his position. Law enforcement consolidation must be the will of the people and the people spoke when they elected Sheriff Frank Anderson into office. You can’t kick an elected official out when that official has done nothing wrong. Furthermore, the sheriff has a constitutionally mandated role to operate the county jail and Anderson has 45 years oflaw enforcement experience.. .that speaks mountains and I think that’s why so many people are pleased with Anderson’s efforts thus far. If the mayor’s consolidation goes through, Marion County will be the only one of 9 2 counties in Indiana that has to run a combined police force. With all due respect to the mayor, if the consolidation plans was that great of an idea, it probably would have happened before now. As an alternative to the mayor’s immediate consolidation plan, Sheriff Anderson proposed an enhanced collaboration. Included in Anderson’s collaboration plan is that the Marion County Sheriff’s Department deputies will be in-service trained by IPD Academy and unification of arrestee/inmate transportation unit under Marion County Sheriff’s Department. The collaboration could provide immediate cost savings and better law enforcement. Many seem to be opposed to the mayor’s consolidation plan including the Concerned Clergy. In a statement released last week, the organization stated that “The concept of a commission appointed by other elected officials or co-sheriffs to oversee the sheriff is very disappointing to the voters that elected Sheriff Anderson with 67 percent of the vote. The buck should stop at the sheriff’s desk; we need more law enforcement accountability, not less.”

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JUSTTELLIN' IT Charter school board. Planner House fail students most in need

By AMOS BROWN III

There are few institutions in our AfricanAmerican community nearly as old as your 110-year-old Indianapolis Recorder. One is 107-y ear -°ld Planner House, founded in 1898 by a white man, Frank Planner, as a community service center for the Black community. Planner House now faces the biggest challenge in its history as the city moved to revoke the charter of the Planner House Higher Learning Center (FHHLC) Charter School. In 2003, Mayor Bart Peterson awarded Planner House a charter to operate a school that would “teach and support present and potential high school dropouts,” encouraging them to “drop back into school.” Things seemed to be going well, until late last week, when the city suddenly revealed it was moving to revoke the FHHLC’s charter for “several breaches of (their) charter agreement.” This crisis was precipitated by FHHLC’s alleged failure to accurately document their enrollment. At the start of the school year, every Indiana public school prepares two attendance reports. One, the Average Daily Attendance (ADA) Report, documents a school or district’s average attendance over a three-week period during the start of each school year. A second, the Average Daily Membership (ADM) Report, is the benchmark report that ties attendance to state dollars. Forthe 2003-04 school year, Planner House certified in its ADM report that the Higher Learning Center’s enrollment was 168. But subsequent inspections by the city found nowhere near that number of students in attendance and informed the Indiana Department of Education which asked for a State Board of Accounts audit. That audit, released Sept. 8, found just 112 students enrolled according to state law and guidelines. Troubling is the audit’s conclusion that 41 students in the 2003-04 school year and 45 students in the 2004-05 school year “did not earn any credits.” But, under the state’s funding rules, schools are paid based on student attendance in September. If after that, a student fails to earn academic credits, flunks out or doesn’t achieve academically, the school still receives funding for that student.

For the audit to force Planner House to repay state funding for students who were enrolled, but subsequently didn’t earn credits or dropout is hypocritical, illegal and boneheaded. Equally absurd is the city charter school authority’s effort to revoke the FHHLC’s charter because of the lack of academic progress and achievement of its students. Given the school’s mission of serving students who’ve dropped out of traditional educational environments and given the high dropout rate among African-American high school students, I’m deeply distressed that the city’s charter school mavens are using academic achievement as one reason to revoke the FHHLC’s charter. Appearing on our WTLC-AM (1310) “Afternoons with Amos” program, city Charter School Director David Harris declared that FHHLC’s problems were enunciated in a report published in August 2004. But nowhere in that report did Harris’ office clearly express that if FHHLC’s problems weren’t corrected; its charter would be canned. Despite the current investigation, Harris couldn’t explain why no report had been issued this year for the school. Nor could Harris explain why the school wasn’t first placed on probationary status. “That doesn’t exist under the law,” was Harris’ reply. After a two-day site visit in late June, Planner House officials received a report outlining the city’s severe concerns about the FHHLC’s operations. A letter signed by Indianapolis Charter School Board Chairman William Shrewsberry said the city had “uncovered additional problems” with the school. Shrewsberry, Harris and the city owed it to the students to warn them before the start of school that there were severe problems. Instead, no public warning was given to the community or students that their school was in imminent danger of dissolution. Eight weeks after school started, FHHLC’s students are faced with a Hobson’s choice of returning to the schools they dropped out from or not receive any education. That’s an unacceptable choice! Because of their century-long legacy, many in our community are willing to cut Planner House’s leadership some slack in this crisis. Planner House’s other charter school is under absolutely no cloud. At this column’s deadline, Planner House officials had made no public comment. But, privately, top Planner House folks admit mistakes were made, but assured me that most students attended

and received an education. Planner House owes our Black community a detailed, public explanation of what happened at the Higher Learning Center. Not just out of respect to Planner House’s 107 years of service, but more out of respect to the students who trusted Planner House to do what no other public school had done - help them get an education and a diploma. What I’m hearing in the streets It was the media equivalent of Daniel in the Lion’s Den. In a landmark broadcast, our “Afternoons with Amos” program originated last week live from the newsroom of the Indianapolis Star. For two hours, this frequent critic of the Star (in print and on radio) and three top Star editors, Vice-President/Editor Dennis Ryerson, Editorial Page Editor Tim Swarens and Assistant Metro Editor Leisa Richardson (an African American) talked directly with our African-American community. Never has a Black radio station broadcast live from the newsroom of a major majority newspaper or engaged our Black community in direct dialogue with the decision makers of a major white media outlet. The discussion was lively, spirited, contentious, yet civil. Listeners peppered the editors with questions and concerns about the Star’s coverage (or lack thereof) of our Black community. The program made news as Ryerson revealed that the Star now employs 22 African Americans in newsroom positions, including five who hold editor positions (all women). In his Sunday column, Ryerson talked about the groundbreaking broadcast and addressed one question the broadcast discussed; whether the Star would acknowledge the Recorder’s 110th anniversary. Ryerson told his readers, “I want to recognize the great service The Indianapolis Recorder has provided its readers all these years. Congratulations to Publisher Carolene Mays and her staff.” A good way to end on this Recorder anniversary week. See ‘ya next week! Amos Browns opinions are not necessarily those ofThe Indianapolis Record-er.Youcancontacthimat(317)221-0915 or e-mail him at ACBROWN(cyAOL. COM.

Katrina and the Millions More Movement

By RON WALTERS For NNPA

Moving into position like a huge battleship on y T) rough seas, coming to [ confront and destroy the . damage done to Katrina’s Wi victims, is this week’s Millions More Movement. History seems to have planned this mobilization in juxtaposition to the havoc of death and destruction that has left so many homeless and destitute, and calls for the MMM to respond. Although the purpose of the Millions More Movement is not only the challenge of Katrina, it can respond from the stage that it is building to receive hundreds of thousand of people from across the nation, including much of the leadership of the Black community. In other words, this march has been given an urgent politics either by an accidental quirk of history or by the benevolent design of the Creator to intervene in a system that is bent on another round of destruction. The greatest challenge is to use the mobilization to make a demand that the federal government do justice to the displaced people of the South who were damaged by this disaster. We don’t have to repeat all the issues here because, regardless of the issues, what we must have is a megaphone loud enough to make sure that the American people, the politicians and the media, through us, hear the cries of the dead and the needs of those who have survived. I can envision speaker after speaker telling the truth to power, calling George Bush, FEMA, the House and Senate into accountability for the racism they have accommodated in the response to Katrina and for the billions they have spent on war rather on humane priorities. The MMM is the stage they will stand

on and the megaphone through which that message will come. The second greatest challenge here is to nationalize the startling example of poverty and deprivation that the crisis has unearthed. Katrina is all of us; such poverty is rampant in every major city in America and now is the time to make America remember that there is a great unfinished business seen in the eye of this storm. The conservative movement has successfully pushed this issue off of the national agenda and into the closet of our minds, but the MMM gives us a chance to fight back, posing the contradiction of white poverty too and tax cuts for the wealthy, as a corrupt position. We also need to put some of those conservative Black brothers and sisters on the stage and let them tell us now why we should follow George Bush and how the issue of gay marriage trumps his response to Katrina. We need to call some of our Black ministers to the stage who have become drunk at the trough

of faith-based money, and ask what they will do with the FEMA reimbursements and whether that is a contradiction to their Christian mission to feed the hungry - without the motive of raking in the cash. Speaking of money, the Millions More Movement needs to raise millions of dollars with this mobilization, not only to help address the Katrina crisis, but also to establish an independent secretariat, with a staff, to be able to do something after people leave the Mall to implement all of the great things that will be said. Once and for all, we need a follow-through strategy that works, which alone will make what is said at the march credible in the eyes of our community. Ron Walters is the Distinguished Leadership Scholar, director oftheAfricanAmerican Leadership Institute in the Academy of Leadership and professor of government and politics at the University ofMaryland-College Park.

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