The Sunday Post - October 4, 2026: Washington Square Becomes an Opportunity Zone, Monday's Budget Hearing, and From HVAC to City Hall
A weekly report from Councilor Michael-Paul Hart — Building the Smartest City in America.
Volume 2, Issue 40
Washington Square Selected for Opportunity Zone 2.0
This is a big win for Washington Square.
Back in June, I personally submitted the census tract around Washington Square for consideration in Indiana’s new round of Opportunity Zones. I also asked City and State leaders to support the request.
It worked.
That needs a little explaining, because an Opportunity Zone is not a grant and it is not a pot of government money waiting to be spent.
It is a federal tax incentive for private investment.
If an investor sells something at a profit, they normally owe capital gains taxes on that money. Opportunity Zones give them a financial reason to take those gains and put them back to work in qualifying projects in designated areas.
The incentive can support new construction, rehabilitation, businesses and other qualifying investments.
In plain English, it changes the math.
And the math has always been the problem at Washington Square.
It does not guarantee redevelopment. But it makes Washington Square more competitive for the private investment we have been working to attract.
Now we need to go get it.
The Public Hearing Is Monday Night, and Most People Have No Idea
Monday evening the full Council meets for the public hearing on the 2027 city and county budget.
This is the point in the process where anyone can come downtown, sign up and tell us what they think before we take the final vote on October 19.
One of the issues getting the most discussion right now is a pretty straightforward question: should taxpayers begin paying the cost of ankle monitors and drug testing for people on Community Corrections?
Right now, those costs are charged to the person being monitored. Marion County Community Corrections has asked for $1.5 million to have taxpayers cover those fees instead.
There are arguments on both sides. Supporters say the fees create another barrier for people trying to get back to work and rebuild their lives. The other question is whether this is where limited public dollars should go when neighborhoods are also asking for things like sidewalks, streetlights and public safety improvements.
If you have an opinion on that issue, or on anything else in the budget, Monday is your chance to put it on the record.
The meeting starts at 7 p.m. in the Public Assembly Room at the City-County Building.
You do not need to understand every page of the budget. Tell us what you think we should be funding, what we should not be funding, and what you see missing in your neighborhood.
Three Days of Talking Shop With Other Cities
Tuesday evening and Wednesday I was at a national conference up in Carmel.
The most useful conversation I had was with Marathon Health about better healthcare options for City employees.
I wrote last week about talking with students at Butler on this same subject, so this is becoming a theme for me on purpose.
Indianapolis is a large employer. If we can design employee healthcare better, we can take better care of City workers and potentially create enough scale to open better options for small businesses too. A shop owner with six employees has almost no leverage in the direct primary care market on their own.
I also spent time with mayors and councilors from other cities.
Most of us are dealing with the same problems: aging infrastructure, public safety staffing, vacant commercial property.
There is no reason for every city to solve those problems from scratch.
The other thing that stuck with me was a presentation from Lowe’s on community disaster.
The private sector has built real disaster-response capacity, but too often cities learn about it after something goes wrong.
It is the same lesson I took from my visit with the Red Cross a few weeks ago: the organizations with mature playbooks already exist.
We should know them before we need them.
From HVAC to City Hall, on the Record
Last week I wrote about the Carpenters and about learning a trade before I ever earned a degree. This week a longer version of that conversation went public.
We talked about the path from service calls to the Council, and about what I actually think is possible at Washington Square. Given what I wrote at the top of this post, the timing turned out better than I planned.
If you have ever wondered how I got here, or you want the longer version of the Washington Square argument, this is it.
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See you next week with more updates from the Neighborhood.
Thanks for keeping us updated on all that is happening “behind the scenes”. Good to know that action is being taken even when much of it is not visible to most people.