Carmel voter cites debt, length of time in office as reasons to vote for Brainard

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Dear Editor:

Jim Brainard has run for mayor of Carmel six times. I voted for him three times and against him three times. Each election contained different issues and different candidates. It appears to me that this time around there are two main issues.

First is the debt issue. Carmel through government and its utilities has accumulated over a billion dollars in debt. Thomas Jefferson tried to teach us debt is bad. He was wrong. Alexander Hamilton was right. Debt helps to establish credit worthiness. The question isn’t the size of the debt but the relationship of debt to our ability to pay for it.

How many of us would own a house today if we had not borrowed three to four times the amount of money we earned a year? Banks and other lenders base their decisions on lending based on this. The great depression of the 1930s was prolonged by a lack of credit in the economy.

Fifty-five years ago, when I came to Carmel to teach government, the school’s tax base was less than $24 million, or roughly less than $10,000 per student. Most of our revenue came from property taxes on homes, not businesses. Over the next several years both the town and schools struggled to keep up. Today that tax base is over $6.5 billion or $400,000 behind each student. Why? Because we’re no longer a bedroom community where people live but don’t work. Forty-one percent of property taxes are now paid by non-residential property owners (business and commercial property).

As a very young teacher making $4,900 a year, I normally had to drive to Nora to find an affordable place to eat. Carmel had Whitiker’s Steak House (witch I couldn’t afford), Ben’s Island which was moderately priced and a walk-up Dairy Queen that sold hot dogs. Look at us today.

How did we get a community with dozens and dozens of restaurants, a gold medal park system, a library rated one of top 10 in nation for communities our size, the Monon Parkway, Keystone Parkway, etc.?

It took money. Our tax base had to grow, especially in non-residential properties. The mayor and several different city councils chose to expand by borrowing money but within a fiscal plan that tracked the debt and payoff. Then use that money to create an infrastructure that was inviting to commercial and business interests.

One other thing about the debt and what that money buys. Twenty years ago, the library board borrowed $24 million to build the present 116,000 square-foot awarding-winning library. In the meantime, residents for the past 20 years have been paying for that library, not just the residents who lived here 20 years ago. The same can be said about our schools, which is the largest magnet for drawing new residents to Carmel. One of the benefits of bonds is that people who are going to enjoy structures and services that are provided are paying, not just the people who live here at the time the bonds are issued.

Finally, the second big issue seems to be the length of time Jim Brainard has been in office. A few years back in a Republican primary election, Richard Murdock was able to defeat six-term Senator Richard Lugar with the phrase “it’s time.” A pitifully small turnout of Republican voters rejected the best U.S. Senator our state has ever produced by a Tea Party-backed candidate. The result was a loss in the general election. We all must weigh experience vs. change.

For these reasons, I plan to vote for the incumbent Mayor Brainard on May 7.

James Garretson

Carmel