INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — Marion County Prosecutor Ryan Mears said lawmakers should approach Indy leaders with ideas for collaboration rather than control.

The Democrat’s comments come in response to a proposal from Sen. Michael Young, R-Indianapolis, to carve the Mile Square out from Indianapolis control and place it directly under the control of the state government of Indiana.

The Mile Square is bounded by North, South, East and West streets and Young said he also would include Lucas Oil Stadium and Victory Field in the district. Young told News 8 on Monday that the Indiana State Police would take care of patrolling the district and the attorney general would prosecute any crimes committed there.

Mears, long a target for Republican criticism, said Republican state lawmakers helped create the very county justice system they now attack.

“Republicans at the Statehouse spend a significant amount of their time complaining about Marion County judges,” he said. “Marion County judges are appointed by a Republican governor pursuant to a law the Republican legislature drafted. And so, we’ve already seen this quote-unquote state control at the local level here in Marion County and they complain about the very people that they appoint pursuant to a law that they drafted.”

Young said his idea would not require any additional expenses on the part of the state because the Mile Square already generates revenue through a combination of property taxes, food and beverage taxes, hotel taxes and rental taxes. Paul Helmke, director of the Civic Leaders Center at the IU O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs, said he isn’t so sure. Helmke, a former three-term Republican mayor of Fort Wayne, said a state takeover of the Mile Square would disrupt tax increment financing or redevelopment districts the city has in place. He said the state would have to either redo those agreements or grandfather them in.

“Those are very complicated financial transactions that can’t be messed with. Those determine where the tax revenue might be going from a hotel or from the convention center or from another business,” he said.

Helmke said the state’s responsibilities would go far beyond merely having state police patrol the area. He said state agencies would have to figure out how to tackle more mundane tasks such as filling potholes or working minor crashes. He said Young’s proposal probably is constitutional. He pointed out the legislature completely changed Indianapolis’ city government when it created Unigov at the end of the 1960s. The one area where Helmke said he might see a constitutional problem is reassigning prosecutorial duties away from the elected county prosecutor.

“This is not just responding to the shootings that we’ve seen downtown. This is dealing with every issue that a city, whether it’s Indianapolis or Fort Wayne or whatever deals with on a daily basis,” he said. “I’m not sure that this is the most efficient way to use our taxpayer resources. I think that’s the question that has to be asked.”

Mears said if state lawmakers were serious about helping Marion County, they would approach his office and those of city leaders with ideas for ways to work together rather than proposing expanded state control.

“If we just want to troll people and say things online, great, but it doesn’t change things and it doesn’t improve the quality of life for people in Marion County and it certainly doesn’t help the kids who are in need,” he said.

(WISH Image)

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