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Indianapolis, it’s time to punt
by J. Williams Aug 27, 2003
The City of Indianapolis is currently negotiating with the Indianapolis Colts football club to determine how much money the citizens of Indianapolis will need to pay the Colts to stay in our town. The citizens of Indianapolis are not privy to the negotiations as the city, in its usual self-important manner, considers the talks top secret. The Colts, if you are not familiar with their work, concern themselves with the movement of a small, elliptical ball along a 100-yard-long field and, conversely, attempt to prevent their opponents, who possess fierce names like the Raiders and the Jaguars, from doing the same. The successes and failures of the Colts are met by ecstasy, mania, depression, jollity, neurosis, crying jags and so on among their fans. All this happens inside an arena in an atmosphere that could be described not uncharitably as somewhat akin to that of a gladiator match in ancient Rome. The Colts have been in Indianapolis since 1984. They arrived here after sneaking out of Baltimore in the middle of the night; as any potential landlord knows, that is a bad, bad sign. They moved into a shiny new home that initially was called the Hoosier Dome in honor of those who paid for it but which was renamed the RCA Dome in honor of a corporation that paid to put a sign on it. The Colts are privately owned, with an estimated worth of $419 million, according to a recent article in our local daily newspaper. But in the 19 years they have been in Indianapolis, the city has provided them with $138 million in subsidies, according to Jack Miller of the Indiana Alliance for Democracy. It is said that the owner of the Colts now wants up to $15 million a year to stay in our town. The owner of the Colts is, in short, a recipient of public assistance, but he is a recipient with a difference. Since his team has been in our town, the owner of the Colts has not transitioned to self-sufficiency, which is the top priority in the field of public assistance; he has, in fact, become more dependent on government aid, as about $82 million of the total $138 million has gone to the Colts in the last five years. He has developed, it is sad to say, what is known as a public assistance dependency issue. Of course, one might argue that the city of Indianapolis has been an enabler of his failure to attain self-sufficiency; while other recipients of public assistance have reached time limits and had their benefits terminated, or been sanctioned by the government for various sorts of non-compliance, the owner of the Colts collects his money year after year with nary a peep from the city. In contradistinction to other public assistance recipients, who receive small amounts of help per month — a single person on food stamps, $139 maximum; family of three on TANF (the old “aid to dependent children”), $288 a month; and so on — the owner of the Colts, if the subsidies granted over the team’s 19 year tenure here are averaged, has received $605,263.16 per month. In contradistinction to other public assistance recipients, who are lucky to have roofs over their — and their children’s — heads, the owner of the Colts is not happy with the team’s taxpayer-built home; he wants a new one. Such a new home, our local daily newspaper reports, will cost around $500 million. Any disabled, homeless or poor person in Indianapolis who has tried to get into public or subsidized housing, only to be told that there is a waiting list, or that the waiting list is closed, or that a housing lottery (lotteries add a bit of excitement to poverty, after all) will be held in the near future, must laugh bitterly upon hearing this. In contradistinction to other public assistance recipients, who walk, roll around in wheelchairs, ride bicycles, take the bus or drive around in usuriously-priced clunkers from buy here-pay here chains, the owner of the Colts flies around in a helicopter. In contradistinction to other public assistance recipients, who earn shamefully low wages or receive tiny Social Security checks, the owner of the Colts has so much money that in 2001 he bought the manuscript of Jack Kerouac’s On the Road — a favorite in every freshman English class — for $2.43 million. It is trumpeted as a sign of his magnanimity that he allows the public to look at it. In contradistinction to other public assistance recipients, who face a lifetime ban from receiving food stamps or TANF if they have been convicted of a drug felony charge for an act committed after Aug. 22, 1996, the owner of the Colts remains untainted by the federal investigation into his drug activities. Fortunately for the city and the Colts, public awareness of the drug investigation of the Colts’ owner has declined in scissors-like proportion to the city’s rising desperation to make a deal with him. What is a mother supposed to say to her child when he asks why his daddy is in prison in Michigan City for drugs, but the owner of the Colts is not? That wealthy people are exempt from drug laws, especially if they are financially involved with the city of Indianapolis? Finally: In contradistinction to other public assistance recipients, who are scorned, ridiculed, hounded and publicly humiliated because they receive government aid, the owner of the Colts is feted and treated with kid gloves by our local government and media, who are, in the tragicomic manner characteristic of provincials, desperate to associate with the rich and famous. This genuflection before the owner of the Colts debases not only those who engage in it; it insults the dignity of an entire city. It is said that the presence of the Colts is necessary for the economic survival of this city. One need only look at the decay of the city since the Colts’ arrival to realize that there is not a causal relationship between the Colts and public prosperity. The sooner the Colts depart with their little elliptical ball, the sooner public money and energy will be freed up to help the truly needy. J. Williams lives in Indianapolis. He is the author of NUVO’s Downtown Diary on the Antennae page.
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