With the clock ticking down to the final days of the 2019 municipal primary season, it seems incumbents at Carmel City Hall are pulling out all of the stops in a reactive effort to capture voter favor ahead of the May 7th election. With early and absentee voting already underway, the question is: are those efforts too little, too late to overcome unprecedented concerns by Carmel taxpayers about a rubber-stamp council incumbency that provides no checks-and-balances with regard to the mayor?
Chief among these efforts is the extensive use by Jim Brainard of proxies to “propagate the propaganda” and do the dirty work of attacking his critics while he remains at arms-length. Brainard himself long ago adopted a policy of not responding to critics, deeming it not a productive use of his time.
But, just who are some of these Brainard proxies and what sort of credibility do they have in the public discourse?
Dan McFeely is (officially) a paid consultant to Carmel’s Department of Economic Development. In that capacity, he is paid to write press releases, manage Carmel’s official social media outlets and improve content for the city’s official website. McFeely’s qualifications to be an economic development consultant? 15 years as a beat reporter for The Indianapolis Star. His syrupy and over-the-top official propaganda becomes intermixed with a more informal and combative tone on social media. He is not shy about taking on all that challenge the pro-Brainard incumbency or its agenda, even if his grammar and logic patterns at times resemble those of a middle-schooler. After all, McFeely has to protect the $110,000+/year gravy train he is riding and can hardly claim any sort of objectivity.
Henry Mestetsky is the current Executive Director of Redevelopment for the City of Carmel and heads the Carmel Redevelopment Commission. With a background in law, finance, business and economic development, he is eminently well-suited to the role. While a staunch booster, proponent and protector of the Jim Brainard/Pedcor Companies vision for redevelopment of Carmel’s central core, Mestetsky is normally a rather apolitical figure and content to focus upon the city’s numerous redevelopment initiatives. However, he drew the scorn of many Carmel citizens with a recent emotional and borderline profane outburst while giving his monthly report to the City Council. The outburst was directed at a citizen seeking information on enforcement of performance guarantees for Pedcor’s promised City Center projects. Rather than pulling back and talking the high road, Mestetsky then doubled down and inferred (without any evidence to back up the smear) that the citizen’s inquiry was politically motivated by mayoral challenger, Hamilton County Councilor Fred Glynn. Council President Jeff Worrell — himself a rubber-stamp incumbent seeking election to Carmel’s new additional at-large council seat — allowed Mestetsky’s verbal outburst from the podium, rather than enforcing decorum.
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ob DeRocker & Associates is based in Tarrytown, New York and has a contract in excess of $125,000/year to promote the city of Carmel and — by extension — Jim Brainard — to media outlets worldwide. Much like Dan McFeely, DeRocker & Associates is deep in the tasks of “propagating the propaganda” and negotiating placements of all manner of positive spin about Carmel. It is through DeRocker’s efforts that most of the much-promoted “Carmel is the best place…” and “Carmel is ranked” pieces appear in prominent national media such as CNN, USA Today, New York Times, Money Magazine and others. DeRocker & Associates is not involved as a proxy per se of Carmel’s City Hall incumbents, but does much to manufacture the propaganda that the proxies are peddling.
Carmel’s council incumbents rode into office on Jim Brainard’s coattails, with their subsequent voting records demonstrating an abject lack of independence from the mayor’s agenda. While some have remained rather quiet as they conduct their own campaigns for re-election, others have chosen to enter the fray and attempt to defend Brainard’s talking points. in particular, Jeff Worrell — with a professional background in business and local media — is quick to manage the message coming from City Hall and attempt to portray critics as “uninformed”. Worrell tries to portray himself as the folksy voice of reason and knowledge, but his talking points are no different than used by the mayor, Dan McFeely, Rob DeRocker or any of the other council incumbents.
In addition, there are many others throughout the Carmel community that ride the Jim Brainard gravy train. As such, they each feel an instinctive need to protect the mayor and his reputation — even when faced with facts that counter their well-worn narratives and tactics. Many of these folks — a collection of city employees and contractors, local businesspeople that benefit from transactions with the city as well as others — are unable or unwilling to contemplate that a vibrant and successful community can exist without preservation of the status quo.
As Election Day approaches, pull back the veneer and look to see who is delivering the message. Does the message itself stand up to fact-checking? What biases are apparent and which might be not-so-cleverly hidden? Does the person delivering the message allow for respectful rebuttal, or is he/she quick to either disappear or have you banned from certain social media sites?
Truth breeds confidence and courage. Dishonesty is the tool of cowards and the easily-manipulated. Ask the hard questions and carefully parse the answers.
Then, cast an informed vote on May 7th.
Brought to you by our friends at Essayists of Carmel, Indiana
