KENNEDY: For a community, no news is not good news
The collapse of the business model that sustained local newspapers is well-known; the consequences, however, are only beginning to be appreciated.
Sheila Suess Kennedy
Articles
Sheila Kennedy: Local government matters to our city’s future
Around the globe, cities are actually having a dramatic impact on climate change. In the absence of federal leadership, what cities do—from recycling to energy sources—becomes critically important.
Sheila Suess Kennedy: Time to hit pause button on Drake demolition
The bleak transformation of the neighborhood surrounding the ever-expanding Children’s Museum of Indianapolis is one thing; the museum’s total indifference to the significance of Meridian Street and the transit goals of the city is another.
Sheila Kennedy: Jail de-privatization is big step forward, small step back
Indianapolis is making impressive strides in modernizing its approach to criminal justice. The mayor and council should continue that progress by examining the negative impact of imposing “user fees” on low-level offenders.
‘Pro-life’ crowd, be careful what you wish for
Alabama, Georgia and other states have passed abortion bans, aiming at a Supreme Court they believe has been politicized in their favor. Ironically, sending the issue back to the states, as a decision to overturn Roe would do, falls into the “be careful what you wish for” category. Republicans have benefited greatly from the single-issue […]
Sheila Suess Kennedy: Can partisans game the system? We’re about to find out
The census is supposed to count “heads”—the number of people in a given area. There is no use of census data that requires knowing how many of those residents are citizens.
Sheila Suess Kennedy: Connecting the dots between gerrymandering, potholes
Few of us who live in Indianapolis recognize the connection between Indiana’s gerrymandered legislative districts and the thousands of potholes we dodge every spring, or the fiscal shortchanging of urban schools, or the Legislature’s refusal to pass comprehensive bias crimes legislation, or our lawmakers’ seeming fixation on women’s reproductive decisions.
KENNEDY: Legislators ignore their constituents—again
This is the fourth year Indiana’s legislators have been asked to enact a bias-crimes bill. As proponents have pointed out, ours is one of only five states without such a law. As the business community has testified, the impression that Indiana is a state unfriendly to minorities—an impression that “went viral” during Gov. Mike Pence’s […]
Sheila Suess Kennedy: Ford bill would reverse 2017 law’s harm to clean energy
An important bill has been sent to the Senate Utilities Committee, chaired by Sen. Jim Merritt. Senate Bill 430, introduced by Sen. J.D. Ford, would repeal the provisions of last year’s controversial measure phasing out net metering.
SHEILA SUESS KENNEDY: Will the new year produce a new old party?
An essayist sees signs of hope that Republicans will return to their roots.
Sheila Kennedy: Challenges to democracy come from within
Gerrymandering is a frontal assault on democracy. A pre-midterm electoral analysis from the Cook Report really brought home the extent of that assault: Just one out of 20 Americans lives in a competitive Congressional District.
Sheila Kennedy: You can still make a difference in your own back yard
There’s a limited amount that most of us can do to affect national policy, which is certainly not to say we shouldn’t vote, advocate and do our best to persuade our fellow Americans of the value of our positions. But we really can make a difference locally.
Sheila Kennedy: Kavanaugh fails the ‘judicial temperament’ test
We The People are entitled to have our disputes adjudicated by sober, thoughtful people who can put aside their own prejudices and emotions, and fairly weigh the relevant facts.
SHEILA KENNEDY: Why are we blind to shades of gray?
The issue isn’t regulation or no regulation—it’s the necessity and appropriateness of particular regulatory efforts.
Sheila Kennedy: Why is it so hard to ‘Rethink’ downtown’s interstates?
You can almost hear INDOT personnel muttering, “Those damn city agitators aren’t going to tell us how to move traffic.”
Sheila Kennedy: You can choose your positions — but not your facts
What isn’t reasonable—or honest—is the use of unsubstantiated and clearly untrue accusations to attack an organization that provides essential medical services to women who could not otherwise access them.
SHEILA KENNEDY: INDOT is bureaucratic stone wall we need to scale
Surely, doing it right—learning from mistakes, from the available research and from the experience of cities that have creatively addressed these issues—is worth moving a few stubborn bureaucrats out of their comfort zones.
KENNEDY: Politics has put all these potholes in your path
Here in Indianapolis, we are seeing what happens when successive administrations—Republican and Democratic alike—substitute cosmetic approaches for substantive repairs.
KENNEDY: Blaming the victim will not fix the problem
Right now, that “blame game” describes some of the arguments being made by opponents of Indianapolis Public Schools’ operating referendum—which has now been put off until November.
KENNEDY: When opportunity knocks
A thoughtful revamping of the I-65/I-70 split can improve traffic flow, restore community connectivity and spur new economic development downtown.