Questions for the mayor of Marion

Wait a second ... isn’t NPR supposed to be the liberal alternative to all the hatespeak on the radio? At least a little bit liberal?

You wouldn’t know it from the astonishingly uncritical piece on Wayne Seybold, the mayor of Marion, Indiana (birthplace of James Dean and site of the last confirmed lynching of black people in the North). In a piece that appears online as “Progress And Promise For A Town Once In Crisis,” Noah Adams praises Seybold for the various steps he has taken to improve the local economy.

These include bringing Starbucks and Kohl’s into town, offering tax breaks and “land and buildings almost free” to corporations, privatizing garbage collection, and selling or giving away some of the city’s 22 parks.

Here are some of the questions Noah Adams didn’t ask.

1. Where do you think the money goes when people buy their coffee at a local coffeeshop? Where do you think it goes when they buy their coffee at Starbucks? What do you think more Starbucks stores will do to the owners of coffeeshops?

2. You are quoted as saying you think “brand names help bring factories.” What gives you that idea?

3. How many people lost their jobs when you privatized garbage collection? What happened to their families? Are you really saving enough money to compensate for the cost of increased unemployment and social services?

4. Why do you think “we don’t need 22 parks” and that it’s better to have only “five big parks ... that people drive to.” Does everybody have a car in Marion? Should you have to get in a car when it’s time to walk the dog, or to take your child to a playground? Can children drive to the park?

The parks, it turns out, are one topic that NPR listeners are all over. One of them quotes the mayor as saying, “Years ago you had to have a different park in every neighborhood because people walked. But it’s a different world today”—then mentions the mayor’s gain of 35 pounds since his days as a figure skater.