Indianapolis, IN
Central Indiana’s Top 10 stories of 2025, from sports to Trump
2025 in Motion: Relive Hoosiers’ top moments of 2025 seconds at a time
From welcoming a new governor to cheering the Pacers’ near title run, 2025 delivered unforgettable moments and IndyStar was there.
The onslaught of news in 2025 tested everyone’s capacity to absorb and retain information. So to put the year in perspective, we’ve rounded up our Top 10 storylines of the year.
The highlights: The inauguration of a new president and a new Indiana governor profoundly reshaped public policy, from immigration to education to property tax reform. A scandal in the Indianapolis mayor’s office and a longstanding conflict over downtown crime inflamed local politics. And every Indianapolis professional sports team showed both incredible promise and incredibly bad luck.
Here are the 10 biggest topics IndyStar covered in 2025.
10. State lawmakers tighten grip on education, from K-12 to college
From K-12 to higher education, Republican lawmakers exerted control over Indiana’s schools this year in sweeping ways that alarmed critics.
Closest to home, the state legislature created the Indianapolis Local Education Alliance to improve coordination between Indianapolis Public Schools and charter schools. That group recommended changes that would move some control away from the elected IPS school board.
The legislative session also proved controversial for the state’s colleges.
Six public universities cut or consolidated about 400 degree programs in response to a state law targeting majors with lower enrollment. Another law will subject tenured faculty to “productivity” quotas that could lead to termination. And lawmakers also gave Indiana Gov. Mike Braun sole authority to appoint Indiana University trustees — a power he swiftly used to replace alumni-backed board members.
9. IU and Purdue under fire for free-speech issues
FIRE review ranks Indiana University and Purdue in free speech
Indiana University is one of the worst public universities in the country for free speech, according to a national First Amendment organization.
Ahead of the intensely hyped Big Ten championship between IU and Ohio State University Dec. 6, an airplane circling downtown Indianapolis trailed a large banner bearing these words: “Indiana University hates free speech.”
The sign linked to a website run by a leading First Amendment nonprofit that lambasted IU for conflicts over freedom of expression. With the hiring of a new First Amendment reporter this year, IndyStar has written extensively about those issues.
This September, IU ranked as the nation’s worst public college for free speech following the university’s crackdown on pro-Palestinian protests in spring 2024. In October, IU fired the student newspaper’s staff adviser, who filed a lawsuit arguing his constitutional rights were violated.
IU was not alone in drawing backlash over its treatment of student media. Many criticized Purdue University’s decision to stop distributing the independent student newspaper across campus. The university also told the longstanding publication, known as The Purdue Exponent, to stop using the name “Purdue” in its masthead.
8. The Fever run hot — even without Caitlin Clark
The Las Vegas Aces clawed past the Indiana Fever in the WNBA semifinals and went on to win the championship. But this year showed that Indianapolis has become a center of gravity in women’s professional basketball.
The Fever were a hair’s breadth away from vying for the title, despite competing without the league’s brightest young star, Caitlin Clark. Because this is Indianapolis sports in 2025, where all blessings come with curses, Clark was sidelined by a groin injury in mid-July and never returned to the floor.
The league signaled the Fever’s prominence by granting Indianapolis the 2025 WNBA All-Star Game, a first for the city. Tens of thousands of fans flooded downtown streets to see why local leaders are pitching Indy as “the women’s sports capital of the world.”
7. Downtown violence inflames familiar debates
Prosecutor responds to Mike Braun post over Mark Sanchez investigation
Marion County Prosecutor Ryan Mears responds to criticism of Indy leaders amid the Mark Sanchez stabbing investigation.
Long-simmering discord over crime between the Republican-led Indiana Statehouse and Indianapolis’ Democratic leaders boiled over this year when a mass shooting and a high-profile stabbing shook downtown Indy.
After two teenagers were killed and five other young people were injured in a mass shooting downtown during the wee hours of July 5, the head of the city’s police union swiftly called for state leaders to intervene in local law enforcement — an idea that Braun entertained while Indianapolis Mayor Joe Hogsett batted it away.
Months later, top state Republicans including Braun and Lt. Gov. Micah Beckwith saw a salient opportunity to decry downtown violence when former NFL quarterback and Fox Sports analyst Mark Sanchez was stabbed Oct. 4 while visiting to call a Colts game.
But as more details emerged, it became clear that Sanchez, then 38, had drunkenly beaten the 69-year-old man who eventually stabbed him after a dispute over parking, according to police. He was arrested and now faces felony charges in the ongoing case.
Braun and Beckwith deleted their tweets. The man Sanchez assaulted filed a lawsuit against him and his then-employer two days after the attack. In November, Sanchez lost his job at Fox Sports.
6. Jim Irsay’s death and the Colts’ unlikely rise
IndyStar’s initial report on longtime Colts owner Jim Irsay’s death at age 65 described him as “the man who led the Colts out of irrelevancy and made Indianapolis into a football city.”
It’s fitting that in the fall following Irsay’s death, the Colts honored that legacy by beginning the season 8-2 — the team’s best 10-game start since the 2009-10 season, the last time they reached the Super Bowl.
The Colts’ rise came during a breakout year for quarterback Daniel Jones, a player whose unglamorous way of getting the job done made him an apt vessel for Indianapolis. And then, because this is Indianapolis sports in 2025, the team’s leader tore his Achilles.
But Irsay’s impact reaches far beyond the team’s on-field record.
His family’s signature initiative, Kicking the Stigma, has spent more than $25 million to raise awareness about mental health issues and fund organizations focused on treatment and research. His philanthropy is on display across downtown Indianapolis at the Irsay Family YMCA, Riley Hospital for Children and the Colts Canal Playspace.
“I’ve done everything, with the grace of God, that was asked of me,” Irsay once told IndyStar columnist Gregg Doyel. “And all that was asked of me was to do God’s will and not my will. To try to follow that image of love as best as I could.”
5. AI may be here to stay, but residents push back anyway
Six years after state lawmakers passed sweeping tax breaks to lure data centers to Indiana, the backlash reached a crescendo in 2025 as new projects kept popping up.
Business titans say hyperscale data centers are needed to power transformative artificial intelligence. The largest tech companies are spending hundreds of billions of dollars replacing open fields with these hulking facilities to get ahead in the AI race. Resisting progress, they argue, is futile.
Many Hoosier residents and a growing number of politicians reject that logic. Opponents view the centers as noisy, unsightly and sprawling neighbors that require enormous amounts of electricity and water yet don’t create many local jobs.
Neighbors in Indy’s Franklin Township banded together to stop the conversion of family farms into a Google data center campus. Similar anti-tech fervor has since erupted in response to planned data centers in Martindale-Brightwood, Decatur Township and Pike Township.
It may be true that artificial intelligence is here to stay. But aggrieved neighbors won’t sit out the fight over where data centers are built anytime soon.
4. New governor’s push to cut property taxes squeezes local governments
When Braun became Indiana’s new governor this January, he emphasized that cutting property taxes was his No. 1 legislative priority.
The result of his efforts, Senate Enrolled Act 1, will save most homeowners up to $300 on their property tax bills and slash taxes for businesses. But the response to SEA 1 from local governments has been overwhelmingly negative, as communities prepare to go without millions in expected tax revenue over the coming years.
Indianapolis leaders say they face a $60 million drop in tax revenue projections through 2028 because of the new law. Hamilton County officials have paused plans for a domestic violence shelter. Carmel leaders cut arts funding and their Noblesville peers postponed trail improvements. Indiana school districts — expected to miss out on more than $700 million in property tax revenue through 2028 — are turning to voters to pass tax referendums to plug the gaps.
In order to maintain quality of life, cities and towns could be all but forced to impose new income taxes that offset some of the property tax savings. Otherwise, leaders say they risk falling behind in funding the amenities — schools, public safety, parks and transit — that make people want to live in their communities.
3. Pacers’ unforgettable playoff run ends with a gut punch
The 2024-25 Indiana Pacers gave us so many unforgettable moments.
Here’s one: In a room full of fans at Ralston’s on Mass Ave, I stood tensely as the Pacers trailed the Knicks by two with a few seconds left in regulation of Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals.
A video from that night shows everyone watching raptly as Tyrese Haliburton dribbled back out to the 3-point line to shoot what we all thought was a game-winner. My hands were aloft in some sort of worship. We all leaned forward as Haliburton’s last-second shot careened off the back of the rim, hung in the air and — as if blessed by the basketball gods and Reggie Miller, who was calling that night’s game — dropped straight through the net.
It turned out the shot only tied the game. But the Pacers won in overtime and then claimed the series 4-2, so the memory remains pure.
How often in life are we moved to involuntarily jump for joy, to shout in pure amazement, to hug our loved ones and high-five the nearest strangers?
In 2025, Haliburton and the Pacers gave fans more than our fair share of such moments. We crowded into stadiums and bars and momentarily forgot ourselves while we witnessed something miraculous.
But remember: This is Indianapolis sports in 2025.
About a month later, Haliburton tore his Achilles seven minutes into Game 7 of the NBA Finals against the Thunder — a game that any Hoosier will tell you the Pacers were poised to win and bring home the franchise’s first NBA championship.
Adrift without Haliburton, the Pacers will be lucky to win 30 games in the 2025-26 season, let alone make the playoffs. As I write this in early December, the Thunder are 24-1. So it goes.
But we will keep watching, because the Pacers taught us time and time again this year not to lose faith. You might miss something miraculous.
2. Hogsett administration weathers multiple scandals
Tony Cook and Peter Blanchard on their reporting of Mayor Joe Hogsett
Indy Star reporter Tony Cook and Mirror Indy reporter Peter Blanchard talk to Mirror Indy’s Ibby Ahmed about reporting on Indianapolis Mayor Joe Hogsett.
New investigations into the Hogsett administration this year only deepened the fallout from IndyStar’s 2024 reporting on how multiple women accused his former right-hand man Thomas Cook of sexual misconduct and abuse — all under the mayor’s watch.
An October IndyStar/Mirror Indy investigation found that Hogsett ignored conflicts of interest involving a prohibited relationship between Cook and a former top city official, Scarlett Andrews. After Cook left the city to work for a law firm, the agency Andrews led recommended millions of dollars in city incentives to Cook’s developer clients.
Months earlier, an outside law firm found that the mayor allowed Cook to resign quietly rather than be fired after he learned of Cook’s covert relationship with Andrews. Around the same time, an IndyStar investigation revealed that Hogsett himself sent late-night and personal texts to multiple Cook accusers, who said the messages made them uncomfortable.
Through all of this, Hogsett has refused to step down, despite calls for his resignation by five councilors. The mayor has stood behind his administration’s process for reviewing economic incentives and pledged to update sexual harassment policies. Councilors are still debating which harassment reforms to mandate.
1. Indiana Republicans’ embrace — and rejection — of Trump
From the time President Donald Trump took office Jan. 20, he’s flooded the zone with new policies.
Indiana Republicans embraced the president’s mass deportation efforts and slashed DEI language in state policies. The Miami Correctional Facility became an ICE detention facility, the “Speedway Slammer.” Trump’s directives ran the gamut, affecting agriculture, health research, health insurance, food assistance, clean energy programs and the arts.
But in December, Senate Republicans rejected Trump on the national stage by refusing his demand to redraw congressional maps to eliminate Indiana’s only two Democratic seats.
From the start, critics condemned mid-cycle redistricting as a brazen suppression of liberal voters in Indiana’s most diverse communities. Ultimately, facing down death threats and the specter of Trump-backed primary challengers, most Senate Republicans voted against a new map.
On the cusp of the 250-year-anniversary of the United States, Hoosiers twice this year protested on the lawn of the Indiana Statehouse with a topical message: “No Kings.”
Trump supporters see that message as a hysterical overreaction. Trump opponents see it as an urgent cry to resist tyranny.
Here’s what both groups believe: We’ve just lived through the first year of a presidency that will change our nation’s trajectory.
Email Indianapolis City Hall Reporter Jordan Smith at JTSmith@usatodayco.com. Follow him on X @jordantsmith09 and Bluesky @jordanaccidentally.bsky.social.
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Indianapolis Public Schools will give seven unused properties to Habitat for Humanity of Greater Indianapolis to build up to 16 homes as part of a broader push to make affordable homeownership possible for IPS employees.
The parcels near existing IPS schools are mostly vacant — although one parcel by William McKinley School 39 has a playground and another has an old athletic field. The locations of the properties range from the west side of the district to the Martindale-Brightwood and Fountain Square neighborhoods.
The transfer is a rare contribution of unused land by IPS that comes at an increasingly challenging time for affordable homeownership in Indianapolis. The school board’s approval of the initiative last month accompanies another partnership that the district will launch with the Indianapolis Neighborhood Housing Partnership, which will provide finance and homeownership education for IPS employees seeking to buy homes. The group will also offer affordable lending opportunities.
IPS employees often cite housing costs as a reason for making early withdrawals from their retirement accounts, according to district officials.
“We’re really grateful when people present opportunities like this for collaboration,” said Abri Hochstetler, Habitat for Humanity’s vice president of development and communications. “It really is an all-ships-rise scenario, to bring in both INHP and Habitat to this conversation and to try to utilize community resources.”
Although the Habitat houses won’t be reserved exclusively for IPS employees, some could be eligible for homeownership through Habitat’s criteria.
IPS to partner with Habitat
Habitat preliminarily plans to build up to 16 houses across all the properties at a rate of roughly five homes per year for the next three years.
Habitat homes are available to families making no more than 80% of area median income, or roughly $88,560 for a family of four in the group’s 2025-26 cycle. Habitat homeowners must complete financial and home ownership courses and provide 200 volunteer hours, which could be spent building their home or the homes of others. Habitat then sells the home to the homebuyer, and currently offers mortgages with a 0% interest rate.
“The goal of this would be to really proactively seek out qualifying IPS staff and teachers, particularly if they’re located near those school communities, and connect them to the Habitat process, ” Zach Mulholland, the district’s executive director of operations strategy, told the school board last month.
The parcels sit near George Washington High School, Matchbook Learning at Wendell Phillips School 63, School 39, and the now closed Francis W. Parker Montessori School 56.
IPS previously acquired the land to either support a previous building project or plan for future buildings, Mulholland said. Now, they are no longer needed for current or future projects.
The district’s transfer of mostly undeveloped land is a rare one for Habitat. Before 2018, 74% of Habitat’s land was donated, according to Hochstetler. But in the past two years, only 4% of the group’s lots have been donated — and since 2018 Habitat has seen a 324% increase in land costs.
“This land donation from IPS is really wonderful, because it’s allowing us to partner with a local organization and then also eliminate one of the earliest barriers to our work, which is land acquisition,” Hochstetler said.
IPS will also partner with the Indianapolis Neighborhood Housing Partnership, a nonprofit that helps people with low or moderate incomes achieve affordable homeownership.
The nonprofit will offer homeownership and financing education classes to groups of at least 10 employees at designated sites throughout the district. These classes cover successful renting, budgeting, and how to understand credit.
The group can also offer one-on-one advising on how to reduce debt or save for a down payment.
Amelia Pak-Harvey covers Indianapolis and Lawrence Township schools for Chalkbeat Indiana. Contact Amelia at apak-harvey@chalkbeat.org.
Local clergy hold press conference on Martindale Brightwood data center
Local clergy hold a press conference before a Metropolitan Development Commission vote on a Martindale Brightwood data center at the City-County Building on April 1, 2026.
Martindale-Brightwood neighbors and an environmental advocacy group are suing to stall a city-approved data center plan in the historically Black community.
Several residents and the Hoosier Environmental Council have asked a judge to review the city’s approval of zoning variances for a data center development in Martindale-Brightwood, on Indy’s northeast side. Neighbors are seeking to stop construction of two large facilities that would store computer equipment at the site of a former drive-in theater near homes and a library.
The May 1 lawsuit argues the Metropolitan Development Commission — the city entity that oversees land-use decisions — failed to adequately consider the harm a data center could do to the environment, public health and quality of life in its April 1 approval of multiple zoning variances. Those variances allowed for 70-foot-tall buildings and other changes to parking requirements and building setbacks.
Critics have argued more broadly that the data center would bring excessive noise and pollution to a site with prior industrial contamination, while creating relatively few permanent jobs in a neighborhood that’s long struggled with poverty.
“[R]esidents have made their position clear: after decades of industrial pollution, they will no longer accept patterns of environmental racism that has plagued their community for decades,” HEC Executive Director Sam Carpenter told IndyStar in a May 11 statement. “This legal challenge reflects a unified effort by residents and HEC to protect the health, rights, and future of Martindale Brightwood.”
The city’s Office of Corporation Counsel declined to comment on the lawsuit, saying it does not comment on pending litigation “out of respect for the judicial process.” An attorney representing Metrobloks, the data center developer, did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.
The lawsuit by Martindale-Brightwood neighbors follows a similar legal challenge by Decatur Township residents in April, asking a judge to review the city’s approval of a $4 billion hyperscale data center campus on 130 acres on the far southwest side.
Data center plans move forward with district councilor’s support
Metrobloks, a Los Angeles-based startup, plans to build a $500 million data center campus at a 14-acre site near the intersection of 25th Street and North Sherman Drive. The buildings would span roughly 168,000 square feet and include 36 electrical generators. AES Indiana would supply power to the 75-megawatt center.
The Indianapolis City-County Council rubber-stamped the MDC’s zoning decision on May 4 after Councilor Ron Gibson, who represents Martindale-Brightwood, declined to call the plan down for a vote by all 25 councilors.
Gibson said he supports the data center because it will bring millions in investment to an underused site and create long-term tax revenue to improve city infrastructure. He stood by his stance after a shooting at his home in early April, during which someone tucked a sign reading “NO DATA CENTERS” under his doormat.
The council passed a symbolic resolution May 4 urging a pause on data center development until the city passes zoning reforms to regulate the energy-intensive facilities, which could happen as soon as July. Companies such as Metrobloks that have already filed plans to build data centers would not be required to follow the new rules.
Email Indianapolis City Hall Reporter Jordan Smith at JTSmith@indystar.com. Follow him on X @jordantsmith09 and Bluesky @jordanaccidentally.bsky.social.
As Indiana Sen. Andrea Hunley prepares to run for Indianapolis mayor next year, she aims to set herself apart by drawing on more than 15 years of experience as an educator and principal.
In an exclusive interview with IndyStar ahead of her May 8 launch party, Hunley says she learned to build community face-to-face with parents, teachers and their children while also making tough decisions at the top. While her main opponent in the mayor’s race has spent more than a decade navigating city government, Hunley said she’ll bring that grassroots mindset to the mayor’s office.
About a year ahead of the May 2027 mayoral primary, Hunley, 42, sat down with IndyStar to discuss what she hopes to accomplish as mayor and how she thinks about hot-button issues like education, public safety and data centers.
At this point, Hunley will face longtime Indianapolis City-County Councilor Vop Osili and Department of Public Works administrator David Bride. Both candidates will also be invited for sit-down interviews with IndyStar in the coming weeks.
Hunley’s responses have been edited for clarity, brevity, length and style. Watch her full interview above.
After a career as an Indianapolis Public Schools principal and a public school teacher, you were elected to the Indiana Senate in 2022. What do you want to accomplish as mayor that’s leading you to step down after one term?
I loved my time in education, being a teacher and being a principal, and that’s where I spent the bulk of my career, two decades. And then going into the Senate, I never intended the Senate to become a career. I wanted to be elected, to work for the people, to do the work. And I think that running for mayor is just an extension of that.
I’m really excited to get to work more closely with the community, more closely with neighborhoods, and more closely with our business leaders, and then of course with our education leaders as well.
What are a few ways in which you’d aim to change or reshape the city as mayor? What do you envision?
I love that question because, really, this campaign and the reason why I’m running for mayor, it’s not because of my vision for the city, but it’s because of our collective vision for the city. I want this to be an opportunity for everyone to have a seat at the table to help write this next chapter together. That’s the key: that we want our pastors and our neighborhood advocates and our business leaders and artists and our hospitality folks, and, of course, anyone who has felt like they’ve never had a seat at the table, to all come together to create this vision.
That’s going to be, I think, what is different about this campaign, because I don’t know it all. And I shouldn’t pretend to know what everyone in the community needs. That’s not the role of government. The role of government is to serve, is to ask folks what they need, and then make sure that we are using their resources wisely to better their lives.
You’re outlining a difference in approach for how you’ll try to work with the neighborhoods. Could you just share more about the methods for achieving that and the outcomes that you hope it would support?
When I think about what Indy will look like a decade from now, we have opportunities to be really bold, to be really big. We could be a river city. We could be the women’s sports capital. We would have really strong schools in every single neighborhood. And we could be a place where everyone’s got an opportunity to thrive. We know that we could go really big and really bold.
We also have to handle the basics. We’ve got to fix the potholes. We’ve got to make sure that all of our neighborhoods are invested in. We’ve got to make sure that we’re taking care of our housing challenges. And we’ve got to make sure that we are taking care of our challenges with our young people who feel like they don’t have a lot of opportunities.
But we have people who’ve been doing that work. We have people who have been working in the community. We have people working towards the river plan. We have people working towards building out our opportunities for sports for women and girls. We just need to make sure that it’s cohesive and that we’ve got a shared vision and a shared focus and that we’re marching towards that.
Your main opponent at this stage, City-County Councilor Vop Osili, he has more than a decade of experience navigating city government. What about your professional and personal experience sets you apart from that level of experience?
I am so blessed to have worked in a school setting and to have learned leadership in a school building, and not in a conference room or in a campaign office. I think that that’s the piece that sets me apart.
I’ll be frank that running a business, running a school building where you’re serving staff and hundreds of families and students every single day, where I was responsible for a multi-million dollar budget for 11 years, and every decision rested with me. If I got it wrong for kids or for families, the buck stopped with me. It was on me to fix it. That’s a lot of responsibility. That’s a lot of weight.
I think that that’s the type of experience, really, that we need in a city leader: someone who knows what it means to work with families every day, who knows what it means to partner with community, and who knows what it means to own the hard stuff.
(Story continues below photo gallery.)
Talking about your experience as an educator, as a principal, you voted yes to the bill creating the Indianapolis Local Education Alliance, which in turn led to the formation of the Indianapolis Public Education Corporation. You voted against IPEC, [which is overseen by a nine-member board of mayoral appointees that strips some powers from the elected IPS school board].
What has gone wrong there in that effort to reshape public education, and what should change about this new entity?
When I think about school choice, wouldn’t it be amazing if when we said school choice, the obvious choice was staying in Indianapolis?
We have to grow our base of folks, we have to expand our population, and we’ve got to make sure that we have a talented workforce and that people want to live, work, play, and stay here. The only way we’re going to be able to do that is if we have really strong communities, and strong communities start with strong schools. So we have to make sure that we are really leveraging all of the resources that we have to make sure our schools are strong.
I did support the creation of the Local Education Alliance. What that was about is about creating an opportunity for the community to have voice, for the community to have say, and for decision-making to be local. We didn’t need the Statehouse telling us how to run education here in Indianapolis.
And yet, at the end, that’s essentially what happened with the IPEC board, the new board, that is [under] mayoral control, but still is the Statehouse saying, “This is the way you’re going to do things.” I think that what’s gone wrong is that we’ve taken control away from our community. We’ve taken control away from the voters, to really have a say in who their elected representatives are that represent them on the school board. And we will never, ever be able to have true representation if we don’t allow the people to have a vote.
As mayor, is it something you’d be advocating for at the Statehouse to perhaps reverse this new municipal corporation? Or do you think at this point you just have to to roll with it and go with the appointees?
I think at the end of the day, my North Star will always be what’s best for the people of Indianapolis, what is best for our city, what’s best for our community. And we’ve got to look at what’s going to get us to a strong and stable school system in Indianapolis Public Schools.
What we have to know, too, about the IPEC is that there are 11 school districts in Marion County. That IPEC board controls one of them, [IPS]. We need to make sure that in the mayor’s office, we don’t lose sight of the fact that we have public schools across the entire county that we’re responsible for. And so I think it’s going to be stepping back and taking that holistic approach of how are we serving every single kid?
Shifting gears, a big priority of the current administration has been budgeting for more than 1,700 police officers. But the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department remains hundreds short of that number. When you consider public safety, is bulking up the police force a main priority for you, or are there alternatives in which you’d look to invest more money?
We have to make sure that we are investing in our communities. That’s the key, is making sure that there’s economic opportunity in every community, that there’s opportunity to build generational wealth, that there’s opportunity for education.
Just a dose of prevention is worth an ounce of cure. I think that believing that we’re going to police our way or enforce our way out of our challenges is a fallacy. So we have to make sure that we’re focused on prevention, but we can do both things.
We’ve got great, great groups around the city that are doing this: Our Indy Peacekeepers and VOICES, and the list goes on and on. There are great groups that are already working on that prevention side, and we need to make sure that we’re really doubling down on those efforts. We have community, our community-led task force that we have working on all of this, as well as partnerships for mental health supports. I think all of those things are really good, and we need to make sure that we’re investing in that.
Because, I’ll tell you, the job of an officer is a challenge, and it’s no wonder that recruitment is hard. We can’t put everything on their plate. They can’t be the social workers and the pastors and the counselors. They can’t do all of those things. So we need to make sure that as a community, we’re investing in the other portion of it.
On this issue, public safety is something that Statehouse Republicans are often targeting and criticizing Indianapolis for. You’ve been a Statehouse Democrat, seen it from the inside. How do you think that will shape the way you would lead as mayor in your interactions with the Statehouse?
It’s been a challenge to be at the Statehouse in the minority, but it’s also been an incredible blessing because I’ve been able to form relationships with my colleagues there. I’ve been able to really understand where they’re coming from and also figure out where we have alignment.
I do think that I’ve got many folks in the Statehouse that are a phone call away who are eager to see Indianapolis thrive, who are eager to partner with a mayor to see Indianapolis thrive. Because at the end of the day, this city controls 30% of our state’s GDP. Our state thrives when Indianapolis thrives. And my colleagues, no matter what county they’re from, understand that.
Thinking about campaign financing, how do you think you would approach raising enough money to combat some of the large corporate checks that have gone to Mayor Hogsett traditionally, or in his absence could go to Councilor Osili. What’s your approach there in campaigning?
We are running a people-powered campaign. At the end of the day, it’s a people-powered campaign. We’ve got a big goal as part of our launch to make sure that we are engaging a lot of people and also hit a single-day record for the largest number of donations. That really is about making sure that folks know that this is a partnership, that this isn’t just my race, this is our race. I want them to join me in this.
I think that that’s just a different approach. I do have partners in the business community who I expect to write checks that have commas in them, because they can. I also know that my neighbors are going to be the bulk of my donors. Those neighbors that can drop in $5 or $10 or $20 because they believe in what’s possible. I would be lying if I didn’t say I wasn’t worried about dollars. Campaigns run on dollars. At the same time, I also know that campaigns run with heart and they run with a lot of volunteers as well, and we’ve got that in abundance.
Something you’ve mentioned before is that it’s not your “why” to be the first woman mayor, the first Black mayor, but both of those things would be significant achievements that haven’t happened in Indianapolis. How do you hope that they would shape the way you led and change the perspective at the top of the city?
I am deeply honored to have the opportunity to possibly be a first for Indy. At the same time, I don’t want to be the last. It’s my responsibility to lift as I climb. That is what my ancestors have done. That is what other women in the community have done for me, and I want to be able to do that exact same thing.
I also know that there’s a certain weight that is always, always on the shoulders of Black women, and it just is. That’s something that I’ve lived with my whole life, and that I know won’t be different right now. But I also know there’s something magical about us as Black women, that we make coalitions, we build them, and we shake up stagnant systems, and we hold folks accountable and say the hard things. And we also bring a little joy and fun. I’m excited about, showing our city what’s possible when you have that special mix.
If you look across our state right now, here in the state of Indiana, we are at a historic moment for Black mayors. We are at a historic moment for Black women mayors. We’ve got Black female mayors in Michigan City, in Fort Wayne, in Evansville, and Lawrence, right here in our backyard. While it might be historic for Indy, it’s not historic for Indiana.
I want to mention a few more policy issues that are hot button issues at the moment. I’ll start with data center developments. A lot of neighbors are upset about the prospect of these going near residential areas and creating limited jobs. What do you see as the role of data centers in the development of the city going forward?
I think the question is: What do we see as the role of city government in making sure that economic growth is inclusive? How do we make sure that any new businesses, new corporations, new entities that are coming to our city are truly creating a community benefit? We’ve got to weigh that out.
Right now, what we’re not seeing is a strategic vision. We’re not seeing a plan. We’re not seeing standards that have been set out by the city. We have to know what the end goal is so that we can then determine whether or not something is good for our community or not.
What’s the impact going to be on the environment? What’s the impact going to be on the neighborhoods? What’s the impact going to be on noise and pollution? What’s the impact going to be on jobs?
Because I’ll tell you, one of the data centers that’s coming into my Senate district in the middle of [the Martindale-Brightwood neighborhood] is going to provide, they said, maybe 10 jobs once the building is up and standing. We have to weigh out if that is worth all of the costs to the community.
Editor’s note: Metrobloks representatives say they expect the data center in Martindale-Brightwood to create closer to 45 permanent “high-skilled” jobs.
Should there be a moratorium to prevent more advancement until some regulations are in place?
I would support a moratorium to create a plan, a moratorium to slow us down, to really make sure that we’re looking at the entire landscape. There are other mayors, there are other city governments in Indiana who are doing this well. There are other folks who are saying, ‘OK, hold on, we need to look at what the impact is going to be on our energy costs. Can our grid handle this? How is this going to impact our electric bills?’ That’s not happening here.
Speaking of electric bills, what are some ways that you see the city could help with the rising cost of living and affordability issues?
Listen, it’s getting harder and harder right now. As I’m talking to folks, everybody feels broke. Because gas prices are high, you can’t afford your car note, and these utility bills and rents are going up. Half of folks in Marion County are renters. And so we also know that that’s an impact that we have there as well.
One of the long-term fixes is actually getting an affordable housing plan in place. We can expedite the zoning and approvals processes. Everything that we do that slows down the ability for developers to build that kind of “missing middle” housing costs more money in the end for the consumers, for us, every time we slow it down, every time we put in one more hurdle. There are ways that we can streamline, that we can make sure those processes don’t take three, four, five years because they shouldn’t.
On the short-term side, the city can also do more and do better to make sure that we’re partnering to prevent people from getting evicted in the first place. We’ve just eliminated some of our eviction prevention programs, which is really problematic. And we need to make sure that folks have that.
We also need to look at what’s happening in each of our townships. Depending on which court you go to, you get a different response. It costs different amounts. We need to make sure that we have a set of standards for what it means to support our Hoosier residents to make life just a little bit easier, a little bit more affordable and a little more stable.
You’ve said before that you bike to work. So I want to ask about Vision Zero, [the city’s plan to eliminate traffic-related deaths by 2035]. Some people feel like the policy is moving in the right direction, but not fast enough. If you get into office, will you accelerate that?
Policies, vision plans, all of those things can’t just be in a binder on a shelf. These are living, breathing opportunities for us to engage, for us to move forward, and for us to be in alignment on what the goals should be. They shouldn’t just be set and forgotten.
I love to bike. I love to walk. I walked here today and then I was late, so sorry about that. And riding IndyGo as well, I’ve got my MyKey pass on my phone, on my app. I love all of the opportunities that we have to build in exercise, to build in community on our way moving to where we’re going.
We’ve got to make sure that our streets are safe. And some of the efforts that have been put in place were well-intentioned but poorly designed: those strips of green on the street, where then someone’s going to make a right turn and they have to cross over and then they don’t look back.
There are things that we can be doing, that we should be doing, but it’s not about one plan. It’s about all of us as a community saying this is what’s important. It’s about prioritizing in in the budget, and it’s about making sure that everybody who’s on staff understands that that’s a priority as well.
My last question is, what do you think this election is ultimately about? What’s the story you want voters to take away from your campaign in the coming months?
This is about us. It’s about us looking at what’s possible. It’s about us looking at what’s next for our city. It’s about us coming together to say, we can partner, we can do more, we can do better because I don’t believe that this is as good as it gets. I think that Indy’s best days are ahead of us. I think that we need the momentum and the bold leadership to get there. And so it’s ultimately about whether or not people are ready to write a new chapter.
Email Indianapolis City Hall Reporter Jordan Smith at JTSmith@indystar.com. Follow him on X @jordantsmith09 and Bluesky @jordanaccidentally.bsky.social.
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