Thread by @IndyMayorJoe

Tonight, it is my privilege to present the City-County Enterprise operating budget for 2022 and a comprehensive financial package that leverages the full strength of the #AmericanRescuePlan to invest more than $400 million in once-in-a-generation programming.

After decades of work by multiple mayoral administrations to combat the scourge of gun violence in our streets, a global pandemic and national economic crisis have forced our city to confront an epidemic that has cost too many lives.

We have launched efforts like Circle City Forward, seeking to repair, replace, and modernize neighborhood assets including a multi-million dollar investment in Indianapolis Parks facilities, a new @IndyDPW solid waste garage, and a modern forensics lab and coroner facility.

The @Elanco development will bring hundreds of jobs and more than $100 million in investment to The Valley and surrounding neighborhoods. We cut the ribbon of the 1st phase of @16TechInnovate; we have watched as the @Infosys corporate campus leapt out of the ground.

In 2020, we marked the long-awaited opening of the @EskenaziHealth Assessment & Intervention Center in the Twin Aire neighborhood. This facility is providing better treatment of mental illness and addiction for those who would wind up cycling through the criminal justice system.

This spring, Indianapolis mobilized resources and our experience as a host city to organize the most significant sporting events America has seen since the start of the pandemic, most prominently the entirety of March Madness.

To @VisitIndy , @IndyChamber, @EmployIndy, @artscouncilindy, @IndSportsCorp and more who have implemented innovative and creative solutions to Indy going -- thank you.

To our healthcare professionals, our front line workers, our public safety officials, and of course – Dr. Virginia Caine and the @Marion_Health, tonight I thank you for your relentless efforts to combat COVID-19.

Tonight’s fiscal proposal seeks to meet the moment that we find ourselves in and create transformative change with investments.

I’m excited to announce: $20 million in continued development and preservation of affordable housing, and over $40 million for other housing and neighborhood redevelopment efforts.

Over $22 million dollars in 2022 for small business support, workforce development, and economic recovery programming for industries hardest hit by the pandemic.

A three-year, 17.5 million dollar plan to upgrade and invest in our neighborhood parks.

$3.5 million dollars in funding for arts and cultural programming including direct grant dollars for small and diverse institutions.

In 2020, $6 million went into Operation: Feed Indy, a broad and sweeping effort to bolster resources for those who were would soon become food insecure. I’m proposing an additional $6 million to invest in neighborhood-led solutions.

Throughout the past year, federal money has accelerated our Community Plan to End Homelessness to the tune of over $20 million, allowing us to offer beds to any neighbor experiencing homelessness. This year, we’ve placed more than 220 individuals from shelter into housing.

We’ve continued Pathway to Employment, connecting residents experiencing homelessness with resources and jobs. And we’ve sustained our “housing-first” strategy, increasing the goal of our Housing to Recovery Fund to $10 million.

Tonight, I am proud to announce that our spending plan sets aside $12 million for our first city-constructed low-barrier shelter and comprehensive services facility.

Our rental assistance program has distributed more than $53 million to landlords across the county, helping more than 23,000 families. Tonight, we submit a proposal to partner with the state to add up to $100 million to our rental assistance program.

Tonight, I speak to you as our city finds itself exactly like every other major city in one tragic respect: Indianapolis has experienced a tidal wave of gun violence that has swept across the US, in no small measure as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

While our community reels from the effects of this national trend, the impact of each of these acts of violence has been devastatingly personal. The acknowledgment of pain felt by those scarred by violence is meaningless without action.

That is why the historic fiscal package I present tonight is aimed squarely at addressing the gun violence epidemic in our city: a 3 year spending plan to address the effects of COVID-19, including more than $150 million directed towards an unprecedented anti-crime initiative.

I am asking to invest $9 million over the next 3 years in modern crime fighting technology, including cameras and license plate readers, digital evidence software, a 360-degree virtual training system, and a gunfire detector pilot program.

We will do this with an additional 100 officers who will be exclusively assigned to community patrols. I am proposing the expansion of the division of civilian Public Safety Officers within IMPD that will focus on non-emergency situations.

We will do this by hiring 2 new recruit classes of Peacemakers, adding 50 public servants trained to assist police in preventing conflicts, and expanding our Group Violence Intervention policy work.

We will do this by quadrupling our grassroots investments. I’m asking this Council to dramatically increase our anti-violence community grants, distributing $45 million over the next three years to groups who are fighting crime on our streets.

Tonight I am asking this Council to fund $30 million of mental health programming over the next three years, as well as more than $10 million for re-entry, domestic violence services, training, and youth programming next year.

This plan, once implemented, will save lives. This plan, once funded, will make our city safer. And perhaps just as critically -- this plan, once approved, will provide much-needed hope to residents in neighborhoods across Indianapolis.

At a time when vaccines are safe, widely available, and free, here is the reality: this year in Indianapolis, we have seen weeks where the deadliest effect of the pandemic has been lives lost to gun violence, not COVID-19.

Now is the time to invest in the infrastructure to combat a much more complex, but no less deadly threat to the lives and livelihoods of our residents.

Now is the time for bold action that transcends each and every one of us and calls upon elected and community leadership to speak with one voice on behalf of the voiceless.

Now is the time to cast aside precedent & shed the burden of incrementalism that would privilege safe politics over safe streets.

Now is the time to act for this Council to act– and act boldly– to turn the tide against the scourge of gun violence. Now is the time, so let’s get to work.