“Two of the principles on which I have shaped my administration are openness and community participation.”

– Mayor Tom Henry, Feb. 27

Mayor Tom Henry promised openness on Feb. 27 when he announced his support of a local referendum on casino gambling in Fort Wayne. But he neglected to say that 17 days earlier his administration contracted with a legal firm – Krieg DeVault of Indianapolis – to lobby the Indiana General Assembly to allow that referendum.

Is this an administration that is open?

On Feb. 27, he also announced plans for a series of community forums about gambling. None has taken place.

He also neglected to announce that three months earlier, the city hired a Cincinnati law firm, also to lobby for legislative passage of a bill to allow a casino referendum in the city.

The Indianapolis firm is to be paid $3,000 a month for a year. The Cincinnati firm, $3,000 a month for 14 months, plus an upfront payment of $15,000. This $93,000 is in addition to the $45,000 the city pays for a separate legislative lobbyist to handle other issues and to the $32,000 the city paid another lobbying firm to study the economic effects of gambling.

The city doesn’t have much to show for its money. No formal proposal to allow a Fort Wayne referendum was ever made, let alone voted upon, in this year’s legislative session. But unless the contracts are canceled, both companies will continue to work on the issue. The Krieg DeVault contract continues through February 2010, and the Cincinnati firm’s deal goes through the end of this year. So the firms could still lay the groundwork to bring the issue to the General Assembly in 2010.

The existence of the lobbying contracts was not made public until this week, when The Journal Gazette’s Niki Kelly and Benjamin Lanka uncovered them. City officials were responsive when asked about the contracts, but the mayor’s office did nothing to inform the public – or the City Council – of his special lobbying efforts.

Henry defended the contracts Friday and contended “our team members were hired openly and properly.” True, there was nothing improper about it, but the “openly” part is disingenuous. Short of citizens asking regularly to see every new contract the city signed, there was no way for the public to know about them.

Henry’s heart seems to be in the right place on the casino issue. Fully aware of the public backlash against Harrison Square, he supports allowing voters to decide whether a casino should be permitted.

But politically, Henry has mishandled the issue. By trying to have it both ways – neither overtly supporting or opposing a casino – he has angered people on both sides of the issue. Legislators repeatedly sent the message that they were not going to stick their necks out for a casino referendum without full support from the city for its success – otherwise, why have a referendum? His administration’s lack of openness – the type of openness Henry promised – on this key issue further damages his credibility on casino gambling.

Given the administration’s willingness to announce the contracts to study gambling, the public cannot help inferring that its silence on the lobbying contracts means the mayor wasn’t eager to inform citizens he was actively seeking a referendum – before he commissioned the studies.

If anything, the mayor and his staff should learn from the criticism they are receiving over these contracts. In the future, the mayor should display the initiative to tell the public when his administration takes significant actions.