A mysterious group paid more than $11,000 late last year to target as many as 500,000 Indianapolis residents in an effort to garner opposition to a new special funding district intended to pay for city services downtown.
The ads asked residents to sign a petition to “stop the Mile Square tax,” referring to the economic enhancement district established by the Indianapolis City-County Council last month. The district allows the city to collect additional taxes to be spent on services in the Mile Square such as increased police patrols, trash pickup, graffiti removal and homeless outreach. Funding also will support a low-barrier homeless shelter just east of Interstate 70 in Fountain Square.
The city of Indianapolis gained the ability to create the district after state lawmakers and Gov. Eric Holcomb approved new language in a state budget bill during the last legislative session.
But now the Facebook ads, and whoever is behind them, seek to rally opposition to the new district, potentially by taking the fight back to the Statehouse. One bill to repeal the district — House Bill 1199 — emerged Monday on the first day of the legislative session.
The ads were paid for by the American Jobs and Growth Fund, a group located in Vienna, Virginia, according to information published in Facebook’s ad library. Who, exactly, is behind that group is unclear.
The ads link to DefendDowntown.com, a website that said it represented “a group of downtown residents and business owners who live or operate in the Mile Square.” The site does not list any specific individuals or businesses.
In November, former Indiana House Speaker Brian Bosma identified himself as the spokesperson for DefendDowntown.com in an opinion piece published in the Indianapolis Business Journal. Bosma, a Republican, said the funding district would expose those who work or rent downtown to “potential financial exploitation by city leaders.”
“The lack of recourse raises questions about transparency and accountability” of the enhancement district tax, he wrote.
Bosma, a partner attorney at the Kroger, Gardis & Regas law firm and registered lobbyist, did not respond to interview requests for this article. He told IBJ last month that he had not decided whether he would lobby on the issue during this year’s legislative session, but that DefendDowntown.com is asking lawmakers to take up the issue. Gov. Eric Holcomb confirmed last month it was likely to be debated this year.
Taylor Schaffer, president and CEO of Downtown Indy Inc., one of the key organizations who supported establishing the district, said she found it frustrating to see the belated emergence of an opposition group.
Following the state’s approval, Schaffer said her organization went to great lengths to reach out to stakeholders and incorporate their feedback before city-county councilors voted on the measure late last year. Public comment at the November meeting of the Metropolitan and Economic Development Committee was almost unanimously supportive.
“We and the Indy Chamber were intentional about having this dialogue with as many organizations as we possibly could,” she said. Representatives from several businesses and organizations signed a letter of support, including AES Indiana, Salesforce and Indiana Sports Corp.
The Indy Chamber “is going to be very active in defending the economic enhancement district at the Statehouse,” said Taylor Hughes, vice president of policy and strategy.
“Our message is: Let’s stand this thing up and use it and come back and refine it if we need to,” Hughes said.
Little known about the group
Limits to information disclosed in Facebook’s ad library — and the fact that pretty much anyone anywhere can make a website or Facebook page for any reason — makes it difficult to determine who is behind the ads.
The Facebook page for The American Jobs and Growth Fund, which paid for the ads, was created in November. The ad library listed a generic email address and a phone number with a northern Virginia area code. Calls to the phone number associated with the account went straight to voicemail, and requests for information left by phone and email were not returned.
The American Jobs and Growth Fund is not registered with Indiana as a lobbyist or a company. But a limited liability company of the same name was registered in 2022 in Delaware, a state that is known as an easy place to register LLCs.
The group also shares its name with the American Jobs and Growth PAC, a political action committee registered with the Federal Election Commission with an address in Alexandria, Virginia. It’s unclear to what extent they are the same group or working in tandem, or if the group funding ads about downtown Indy is a copycat of the federal PAC. Although they each have their own websites, their logos resemble one another’s.
The group appears to have put money behind issues in other states, including two where it donated as the “American Jobs & Growth Fund.” In Ohio, the group this year gave $50,000 to a group that opposed the legalization of marijuana. And it gave $250,000 to a political action committee supporting a former lobbyist for Louisiana governor.
Phone calls to the phone number listed on the PAC’s Federal Election Commission filings also went straight to voicemail, and Mirror Indy did not receive a response to requests for information.
A long road to economic enhancement
Perry Hines, CEO of Wheeler Mission, said he wasn’t aware of DefendDowntown.com or the American Jobs and Growth Fund, but that he supported the city’s efforts to establish a funding district that would direct dollars to homeless outreach.
“We would hope that we would rise above anything that would try to derail that, whether it’s local or not local,” Hines said. “Indianapolis is a city that will always bounce back, a city of resilience and grit. This is something we should be able to tackle among ourselves.”
Establishing a special funding district in the middle of downtown has been an uphill battle for supporters.
In 2018, the City-County Council shot down an attempt by Downtown Indy after failing to collect enough support from property owners. The organization faced heavy opposition from the Indiana Apartment Association, which lobbied against the district and contested signatures that had initially given supporters a slim majority.
That same year, as Downtown Indy was in the process of gathering signatures for the district, the state changed the law to make it more difficult to establish an economic improvement district.
Two other areas of the city have successfully implemented economic districts. Woodruff Place established one in 2015 with the support of 78% of the eastside neighborhood’s property owners. Another was created on Virginia Avenue in the Fletcher Place and Fountain Square neighborhoods in 2018 with about 54% support.
Lynne Petersen, president of the Indiana Apartment Association, did not respond to requests for an interview about whether her organization is working with DefendDowntown.com or the American Jobs and Growth Fund. In May, she wrote an opinion piece criticizing the legislature for its approval of the economic enhancement district for Indianapolis, which was added into the budget bill late in the legislative session and received no public testimony.
Although similar, the new enhancement district is not the same as the improvement district sought in 2018. Among the differences: the Mile Square Enhancement District will have eight members, rather than three. Four will be chosen by city leaders and four by the state, and a majority of them must be property owners within the district.
Assuming the Indiana General Assembly doesn’t dismantle it, Schaffer said one of the most important aspects of establishing the district is sustainable funding for much-needed services downtown. For years, her organization has had to weather the peaks and valleys of a variety of funding streams.
That changed in the wake of the pandemic, when the city received an infusion of cash from the American Rescue Plan Act. With the increased investment by Downtown Indy, Schaffer said property owners began to see the benefit of more services. For example: The federal dollars led to the collection of 5,000 more bags of trash, up 550% from 2022, and increased bike and foot patrols by nine times, according to Downtown Indy and the Indy Chamber.
But the money will run out this year. By that time, Schaffer said Mile Square should be well on its way toward funding the services itself.
“Without these dollars, we can’t provide this level of service,” Schaffer said.
The legislation filed Monday, if approved, would stop it. Three House Republicans carried House Bill 1199: two from Indianapolis, and a third who is the powerful chair of the Ways and Means Committee.
The bill appears to be headed to his committee.
Correction: This story has been updated to reflect the correct timeline for the city’s American Rescue Plan Act funding. It runs out this year.
Mirror Indy reporter Emily Hopkins uses data to write stories about people. Contact them at 317-790-5268 or emily.hopkins@mirrorindy.org. Follow them on most social media @indyemapolis.
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