Deals and Democracy

Friends,

I hope you’re doing well. Today I wanted to talk to you about deals and democracy, via the microcosm of a local political issue: billboard ordinances.

Since 1971, Indianapolis has definitively, emphatically, and repeatedly indicated on our ballots that we do not want more billboards within 465 in our city.  

Since about that same time period, the billboard industry has been trying to chip away at this blanket ban and find various reasons why they need to get new billboards in our residential areas.

In some cities, like Carmel and Westfield, they have been totally unsuccessful - both cities have banned billboards outright.

In Indianapolis, they’ve had a more limited set of successes. Through a series of negotiations with the city of Indianapolis over the decades, billboard companies have been permitted to move billboards that have been taken down during construction, and have gathered a few other concessions. The whole process has been a series of negotiations with constituent groups including Historic Urban Neighborhoods of Indianapolis on one side and industry lobbyists on the other. Indianapolis spent five years in the most recent set of negotiations that concluded in 2019.

During the 2024 session at the Statehouse, Jim Pressel, the chair of the Roads and Transportation Committee in the House, made it extremely clear that due to lobbyist pressure on him and his committee, Indianapolis was being given the orders from the statehouse to reopen negotiations to find more concessions for the billboard industry, or else the Statehouse would preempt local rule and force changes upon Indianapolis that our constituents would truly dislike.

Mayor Hogsett’s administration took that order seriously and has spent most of 2024 negotiating and discussing the billboard industry’s requests. The billboard lobbyists came to the city with nine key demands. The city agreed to six of them. Constituents received no concessions: this was exclusively a surrender to private, for-profit companies.

Last Monday, the Indianapolis City Council was poised to vote on the resolution that would codify these negotiated changes into our existing ordinances. I’ve been very open about my stance against kowtowing to Republicans and private industry, even if it means “poking the bear” and provoking a more open fight at the statehouse.

I was prepared to vote “no” to this resolution. I even had a speech written. But the measure was sent back to committee, so I didn't have the opportunity.

Since then, I was persuaded to change my vote.

Several other Councilors have been aggressively lobbied by the billboard industry, which claims that this negotiated settlement is still not good enough for billboard profiteers. The billboard industry is trying to get Indianapolis to vote against the proposal because it believes that will convince Pressel’s committee to take up the issue and because it believes it will stand to make more money through more billboards if the State Legislature gets involved.

However, it’s not the billboard industry and their manipulations that convinced me to vote for this bill - it’s my constituents.

Monday evening, the Metropolitan Economic Development Committee of the City County Council met to discuss this proposal. I was sadly unable to attend in person, as I came down with a pretty gnarly head cold this weekend that I’m still not recovered from. But I watched the live video of the committee from home.

I watched a former Indiana State Democratic Party Chair take the side of Reagan Outdoor Advertising, the billboard company currently paying him to lobby on the industry’s behalf. Reagan, by the way, was not even registered to do business in Indiana until 2019, when they acquired another company.

I watched my peers on the Council express some of the doubt that I myself feel as to whether this arrangement was even made in good faith and whether it wouldn’t be better to call Pressel and other legislators’ “bluff”.

But most importantly, I watched many of my constituents, representing larger organizations such as neighborhood associations, Historic Urban Neighborhoods of Indianapolis, and NESCO, all testify asking the Council to please vote for this flawed resolution.

I am always happy to go to the mat fighting for my constituents. But my role as a Councilor isn’t to pick fights that my constituents aren’t asking me to.

I’ve spoken loudly and publicly about my willingness and even desire to take on the Statehouse and stop the culture of backroom deals and quiet capitulation that has resulted in low turnout in Marion County and a supermajority Republican state legislature.

But I’m not opposed to making a deal, if my constituents understand the terms and want to make it.

In this case, the State government holds all the cards. The State Legislature is absolutely within their constitutional power to totally dissolve any or all of the ordinances that are passed locally, and they could likely rally the votes to do so.

My constituents testified in favor of this concession because they understand these facts, and because they were consulted by the city and offered the choice to give their support - or not. The constituents felt they were offered agency and were permitted to make the choice - which makes all the difference.

I’m still never going to bite my tongue. I’m never going to withhold information from you, my constituents. But I’m absolutely always willing to follow your lead and pick battles carefully.

At the full council meeting next month, I will be holding my nose and voting in favor of the proposed changes to our billboard ordinance that gives away power to the billboard companies.

And then I’ll go right back to organizing to change the balance of power, so that one day we can have a government that works for the people, not for private companies from out of state.

Thank you to Chris Staab, Meg Storrow, Jeffery Tompkins, Vernon Compton, Jacklyn Gunn, Marjorie Kienle, Tom Abeel, and everyone else involved in the neighborhoods of the district who either testified at the hearing this week or privately reached out to me to share your feedback.

In love and solidarity,
Jesse