Progressives, South Bend endorses Steve Luecke for Mayor of South Bend

OK, it’s not much of a surprise or much of a prize. But each of us needs to weigh seriously the strengths and intentions of those running for elective office. Even if the choice seems clear at the outset, the exercise is still important.

Let’s start with what might seem a small point of analysis.

I recently ran into Mayor Luecke at a health care reform forum and was able to chat with him for a while. I found him to be warm and personable and felt comfortable that he was genuine in what he had to say to me.

Earlier this year, I met Juan Manigault at an African-American Cultural Arts festival. I was there on behalf of John Edwards (the tee shirt was probably a giveaway) and he, of course was working the crowd on his own behalf. I found Mr. Manigault extremely personable as well, but (shall we say) a bit less genuine. He suggested that after his election we could be allies of a sort. This seemed a stretch to me. The Edwards and Manigault philosophies and outlooks seem an oil and water sort of proposition. I’ve heard other people make this type of observation, as well – including my plumber.

Next let’s look at past job performance.

Being Mayor of South Bend is not an easy job and Mr. Luecke doesn’t seem much into self aggrandizement. Studebaker built this town, then destroyed it, and we’re still on the road to recovery. But in Mr. Luecke’s tenure vast acreage of abandoned industrial buildings have been removed – eliminating the danger and eyesore factors of these buildings. This is an expensive proposition and required the city to apply for and win grants – primarily from the federal government. The job is unfinished, but it’s well underway.

Mr. Luecke recently announced an aggressive program to remove many score of abandoned homes and renovate dozens of others with historical significance. And that's underway.

Mr. Luecke was on the job during the renovation and expansion of the Morris Civic Auditorium, The Palais Royale and The South Bend Civic Theatre. The boom of these facilities and the organizations associated with them have attracted (in particular) a boomlet of fine eating and related establishments with more likely to follow. Many thousands of dollars spent in the area would not have been spent without these developments. This stuff doesn’t just happen, folks.

Mr. Managault has been President and CEO of an organization I’ll refer to as the Workforce Investment Board (WIB). I phrased it that way merely to simply. The original organization had its name changed from time to time and more recently, Mr. Manigualt became part of a privatized version which essentially had the same function. How did he do?

As readers of Progressives, South Bend already know – not so well. In a five part series published in September, 2007, 169 pages of public record were examined and analyzed – and what was found was discouraging. $60,000 in fraudulent checks cashed, the money never recovered…$1.1 million in grant money forfeited… in fact, the auditors at one point cautioned the most serious problem they identified in their audit was that the record keeping was so poor, that they couldn’t assure that they’d found all of the problems – some which might be potentially very serious.

More recently, when Mr. Manigault resigned from the successor organization, he received a severance package seemingly based upon his tenure in the earlier organization. That set off alarm bells, red flags, etc. It’s likely that it will be looked into by state regulatory organizations and/or perhaps the courts.

Yet Mr. Manigault claims the he’s the manager guy. That it’s Mr. Leucke who’s a poor administrator. But remember, this campaign is built upon the theme “perceptions matter more than facts”. They’ve actually said that. I guess I don’t blame them; the facts aren’t helpful to their case.

No, in the end this was not a tough call.

Re-elect Steve Luecke as Mayor of South Bend.

Democracy is not a spectator sport.