“Where there is no accountability, there will also be no responsibility.”
― Sunday Adelaja
The Carmel City Council has approved an interlocal agreement with Clay Township for the latter to fund $60 million in community projects. In the process, the agreement has raised several eyebrows and many questions.
As reported on June 4, 2019 in Current in Carmel, the agreement calls for Clay Township to fund projects that include a new five-story building to house the Carmel Fire Department administration offices and a fire museum, various upgrades at seven parks, a children’s pavilion at Coxhall Gardens and a multi-use indoor fieldhouse at the Carmel Dads’ Club’s Mark Badger Memorial Park. Completion of these projects is expected by July 2022.
The Clay Township board of directors has created a website at http://claytownshipimpact.com detailing the projects to be completed under this agreement.
Funding of the projects will be through issue of bonds by Clay Township, which expects a large portion of the cost to be offset by the retirement of debt related to the construction of the Monon Community Center and other projects.
To understand this transactional relationship, one needs to understand who the major players are:
Matt Snyder, current Clay Township board secretary and a board member since 2010.
Paul Hensel, Clay Township board member since 2018 and a current member (and past president) of the board of directors of Carmel Dads Club. He is also listed as a representative external stakeholder in the Carmel Fire Department 2018-2022 Strategic Plan.
Mary Eckard, current Clay Township board president and a board member since 1997. Of note: in her most recent campaign in 2018, Carmel Professional Firefighters was the source of nearly 40% of all donations to Eckard’s campaign.
“What a minute,” you may ask. “If some of these facilities are owned by the City of Carmel, how can the township pay to updates and/or construction?” Ahhh, a very good question!
According to the Current in Carmel report, the interlocal agreement allows the township to issue debt to improve city-owned buildings, such as fire stations, which will be transferred to the Carmel Clay Municipal Building Corporation. and be leased to the township and subleased to the city as the bonds are being paid.
The Carmel Clay Municipal Building Corporation. Yet another shell corporation that exists to shift money around out of the view of the public eye. In the meantime, is it reasonable to ask if the lease expense of those facilities exceeds the amortized cost of them as city-owned properties?
Few in the community will disagree that a new administrative facility and station improvements for the Carmel Fire Department are needed, as the agency has grown with the city and its organization has grown in complexity in recent years. Further, the city and the township have been partners in fire protection for many years.
Nor will many object to upgrades to parks, which are shared city and township resources that see ever-greater usage as the city and township grow in population.
However, there has been a sizable backlash from people across Carmel – especially those living near the Mark Badger Memorial Park sports complex of Carmel Dads Club on East Main Street – with the announcement that public funds will be spent to construct and operate a fieldhouse for the private not-for-profit organization. To be sure, generations of Carmel youth have benefitted from participation in sports programs of Carmel Dads Club and it has become a model for other volunteer organizations. Beyond the controversy of using public funds to build the fieldhouse, there is also the questions of what sort of operational agreement will be worked out with Carmel Clay Parks and Recreation, as well as what manner of traffic mitigation will be put into place.
Also, it appears that – like with the under-construction Hotel Carmichael – public money is to be used once again to complete against the private sector. This time, completion of a fiber optic ring previously proposed by Carmel Mayor Jim Brainard. Not only does the township now incur construction of an expensive communications network that would be vulnerable to the same elements that public common networks (such as ATT, Spectrum and Metronet) are, but it commits itself to the ongoing operation and maintenance of the network at a cost rivaling the entire budgets of smaller towns, without the expertise to do so.
Make no mistake. Under the leadership of Jim Brainard and his rubber-stamp council, Carmel’s credit cards are maxed out. Rather than paying down the debt or allowing some debt to be retired, they have simply taken someone else’s credit cards and are now allowing them to be run up as well.
Ask yourself: where does this fiscal insanity end?
