Countdown to 2011: Search for a Super Mayor

As many of you know, November 2011 is the next mayoral election in Indianapolis.  What many people don't realize yet, however, is how pivotal this election will be.  Indianapolis is currently the 12th largest city in the nation and one of the larger landlocked cities in the world.  We are the brilliant hybrid of a big city and a small town and we've managed to become one of the most popular convention locations in the world, the amateur sports capital of the world, and the automotive racing capital of the world.  Over the past decade, however, we've hit a glass ceiling.  We have two of the greatest sports facilities in the world as well as one of the most popular convention centers in the world, and yet we still fail to consistently compete with locations from New York and Chicago to Atlanta and Miami for the largest events such as Super Bowls and the Olympics.  Despite the fact that we host the Indianapolis 500 and the Brickyard 400 every year and have consistently thrived, the rest of the nation and the world fails to see us as more than an "average" city.  Sure, we have the 2012 Super Bowl, but the NFL Players Association is expected by several insiders to go on strike during the 2011 season.

Despite this, however, the 2012 Super Bowl is likely to be a go.  So the real question we have to address as a city is this:  Who do we want to be running our city when the entire world is watching us?

We could reelect Greg Ballard, the man who stole an election... *ehem*  Sorry, pulled "the greatest political upset in Indiana history" with a little help from the Marion County Assessor.  So do we want the Capital Improvement Board in the disaster that it's in right now?  Do we want the man who was very obviously opposed to the 2012 Super Bowl effort shaking hands and taking advantage of the photo-ops at Lucas Oil Stadium?

Tomorrow, I'll analyze the Democrat and Libertarian candidates who either have declared or are likely to declare, but in order to understand '11, you have to understand '07.

So how did Ballard get elected to begin with?  He was, after all, facing a two time incumbent mayor with relatively high approval ratings until just months before the election.  So how was this political "upset" realized?

Long story short, the Marion County Assessor didn't do his job for just under a decade.  Bart Peterson helped to solve the issue by having all the properties in Indianapolis reassessed.  The issue with that, however, is that most properties were worth more in the summer of '07 than they were at the turn of the millennium.  So now property values are back to where they're supposed to be, but property taxes are also where they're supposed to be.  This corrective action caused a massive panic and elevated Greg Ballard and the laziest campaign in Indy's history into the Mayor's office.  Since then, Ballard has been taking advantage of everything that Peterson did in office from Lucas Oil Stadium to the convention center expansion.

So now I'd like to open this up.  What are your thoughts on 2011 and the Ballard reelection campaign?  See you tomorrow!