A tale of three mayors in three cities.
by Jerry Davich
Three innovative Northwest Indiana mayors. Three vastly different cities. Yet three similar strategies to address their unique yet ubiquitous challenges. Gary Mayor Karen Freeman-Wilson, Valparaiso Mayor Jon Costas and Portage Mayor James Snyder are fast friends who share a personality trait that shines through their every conversation–unbridled, untarnished and unapologetic optimism.
Karen Freeman-Wilson
Gary Mayor Karen Freeman-Wilson made it a point to sit in the chair next to her City Hall desk rather than the more regal chair behind it. Regardless of whom she chats with, she prefers to do so without the intimidating presence of a mayoral desk in the way.
“Only the pictures have changed in this office,” says the 52-year-old Freeman-Wilson. “Everything else has stayed the same.” The same cannot be said for the city since she took office on January 1, 2012, becoming the first African-American female mayor in the state. She soon rolled out her new “Blueprint for Gary” campaign plan, created a new city office and overhauled the mayor's 10-member cabinet.
“We thought that a fresher approach was appropriate,” Freeman-Wilson says. The Gary-raised, Harvard-educated mayor inherited a city in admittedly “dire straits,” teetering on bankruptcy, devastating property tax caps and almost as many abandoned buildings as abandoned promises by its leaders.
“We understand the challenges, but we're committed to turning this around,” says Freeman-Wilson, a former Indiana attorney general whose third mayoral run was the charm. Returning to live in Gary with her husband, Carmen Wilson, and their daughter, Jordan, Freeman-Wilson makes herself more accessible to citizens with her “15 minutes with the mayor” each week, allowing anyone into her office for a chat.
“It allows citizens to have a voice,” she explains. “I've learned a lot about the city by listening, but I've been in office long enough to have my share of critics.” Those critics have complained about moves by the mayor's office, including the merger of the city's fire department and EMS, which prompted the dismissal of 15 EMTs, though a handful have returned to their jobs. Gary employs roughly 900 city workers, down from 2,000 in its heyday, prompting complaints about trash pickup, joblessness and the woeful condition of streets.
“Would I love to pave all of our streets?” she asks. “Absolutely. But we don't have the money for that. We have to do it in gradual phases.” Her biggest challenge has been “managing disappointment” and transforming hopelessness into hopefulness.
Her new mantra: “I can't wait to prove you wrong.”
Kimberly Robinson, on the Gary Common Council-5th District since 2008, believes the mayor is making the best of a “unique situation.”
“We may not ever make it back to the days of a booming economy and flourishing community. But I do remember that Gary and I have faith that we will continue to thrive in our survival.” Since entering office, Freeman-Wilson has watched Allegiant Air take flight from the city's troubled airport with much fanfare, and then depart for good, sometime this summer. She has watched more than 80 abandoned homes get demolished, a long-term project to upgrade the city.
She already has launched several programs to revitalize the city, including a “Dollar House” program that allows residents to buy a vacant house for $1 in exchange for keeping up the property with sweat-equity while remaining in the city. She also has focused on job creation, boasting newly created jobs at the recently opened TravelCenters of America-Petro truck stop on Grant Street, which has hired 80 percent Gary residents. In addition, her office has worked on a brownfield remediation project, garnering millions of dollars in federal grants for environmental and investment projects.
One of her primary goals is to finally tear down the long-abandoned Sheraton Hotel, just south of City Hall, delayed yet again by asbestos-removal issues. “It's a sad commentary on this city and I want to remove it because it's not consistent with who we are, and certainly who we aspire to be.”
Another goal is the completion of runway extension work at the Gary/Chicago International Airport and development of the University Park Plan, a multi-year project with Indiana University Northwest, Ivy Tech Community College and other schools.
Freeman-Wilson is hopeful about a feasibility study for a port at Buffington Harbor, a potential trauma center in the city and a land-based casino and destination entertainment complex located off the Borman Expressway. “I'm always optimistic,” she says.
Every time she travels to Washington, D.C., to request funding or grants for her cash-starved city, the same rumors return that she is leaving Gary for broader pastures, possibly to work in President Obama's administration.
“I'd have to be a fool,” she says with a laugh. “There's work to be done here.”
Jon Costas
It's not surprising that Valparaiso Mayor Jon Costas is intrigued by the latest book he has read, “Learned Optimism: How to Change Your Mind and Your Life.” In many ways, Costas has lived the book's theme.
“You want to be an optimist who also thinks realistically,” Costas says while sipping a Diet Coke in his office. Using optimism and realism as guideposts since becoming mayor in 2004, Costas' secret weapons are leadership, accountability and creating a productive culture with a strategic plan.
“Having a plan creates unity,” says Costas, who began his political career in 1985. Still, if he could purchase and bottle a single personal characteristic, it would be perseverance. “Take a little bite here, a little bite there. This is how you eat an elephant,” Costas says.
His first bite of the “elephant” when he took office was to restructure city government to better meet the needs of today's citizenry, including the creation of a city administrator.
Costas has learned that the federal and state government will fund a good plan, but not merely a good idea. His administration has garnered roughly $100 million in grant funding over the past 10 years.
“My job is to live two or three years in the future, and it suits my personality,” he says.
Costas, who also manages to run a successful law practice, is almost as well known for his Ironman competitions and “fit city” acclaim as for his Republican-minded leadership.
“I feel I've had about the best political experience a person could have,” he says, though he has experienced criticism. When he planned to build the then-controversial Vale Park Road extension, he caught flak from many residents. Today, it's endearingly dubbed the city's “two minute vacation.”
Good leaders have to “push through the push-back” he says, to eventually gain citizen support, which he calls “political capital.”
“Mayor Costas has been an outstanding mayor for looking at the big picture, focusing his leadership team on specific goals, then holding them and his administration accountable for getting results,” says Rex Richards, president of the Greater Valparaiso Chamber of Commerce. “Few elected officials in Indiana have been as effective as Mayor Costas for bringing about real progress and tangible accomplishment.”
Valparaiso Councilman Tim Daly says Costas is an excellent listener who doesn't micro-manage, which allows his 14-person leadership team to be innovative and productive. “Jon has great vision,” Daly says.
Valparaiso businessman Jim Janesheski, owner of Janos Bike shop, calls Costas “first and foremost a decent man who got into the family business of civic leadership. Jon is a motivator who gets the best of his town's most valuable resource, its people.”
Costas quickly admits that his city has several inherited “raw ingredient” amenities, including being the county seat, a university town and home to many Northwest Indiana leaders. “Our job is to simply take advantage of what we have here,” he says. He's been doing this with fewer workers than his city had a decade ago, similar to Gary and Portage.
“Someone once said that leadership is the art of managing disappointment,” Costas says, echoing Freeman-Wilson. “As a leader, you have to build on your wins.” Costas' proudest public office achievements echo his campaign-time “Costas plan,” including revitalization of the downtown area, expansion of new bikeways and roadways, and creation of the city's crown jewel, Central Park Plaza.
Personally, Costas is most proud of his family, his first music CD and the odd fact that he hasn't lost a pair of sunglasses since he's been in office. This is a telling trait, considering that Valparaiso's future is so bright under his charge.
James Snyder
Portage Mayor James Snyder calls himself a “ridiculous optimist.” “I understand that my optimism can wear people out, but if only 10 percent of my optimism is accomplished, it's really cool,” says Snyder, whose first day in office was January 1, 2012. Snyder says he's one of only five Indiana mayors who interact with an opposing City Council. But this challenge hasn't stopped him from making tough decisions, such as tackling a change in the city's health insurance, ordering a precautionary hiring freeze and creating a glossy newsletter.
“When it comes to being a mayor, political party doesn't matter much,” he says. “The city's finances are better than they were when I took office, but they're still not good.”
“It's not doom and gloom, but there is no redevelopment-money rope to save us again,” says Snyder, 35, the youngest person to take office since the city incorporated in 1968.
One of his public office heroes is Ronald Reagan, whose portrait hangs on his office wall. Similar to Reagan, Freeman-Wilson and Costas, Snyder also lost in his first run for office.
He is convinced the ongoing rehab of the long-neglected City Hall has prompted other businesses to follow suit. He calls the city's new Meijer grocery store a “game changer” which will become a destination site for Northwest Indiana consumers. The new superstore will nicely complement the Portage 16 IMAX Theater, Bass Pro Shop and other destination-type businesses in the city of nearly 40,000.
One of his proudest achievements is automating the city's garbage and recycling system, negotiating for over 24,000 totes by trading recycled materials for them. Portage will save hundreds of thousands of dollars in landfill costs each year, and already recycling rates have increased from 4 percent to 17 percent, he says.
Critics have complained that too much city money has been spent on consultants and a lobbyist in Indianapolis, but Snyder doesn't regret spending one cent of that money.
Snyder says the best perk of the job is meeting city residents, from disgruntled senior citizens to classes of second-graders who visit his office. “It's a blast,” he says.
