Gary mayor reflects on time in office
After 8 years, Karen Freeman-Wilson looks back on list of her accomplishments — and regrets
Eight years ago, Gary Mayor Karen Freeman-Wilson swept into office with 86% of the vote. The landslide victory made her the first woman mayor in Gary’s 106-year history and the state’s first African American woman mayor.
“Now, the real work begins,” Freeman-Wilson told her supporters on that November election night in 2011.
Like many politicians, the early popularity had an expiration date. It came in May when she lost a bruising primary fight to Lake County Assessor Jerome Prince, who will be sworn in as
Gary’s next mayor at 10 a.m. Monday at the Genesis Convention Center.
When Freeman-Wilson took the oath in 2012, the city teetered on bankruptcy, vacant homes marred the neighborhoods and crime framed Gary’s image.
Prince convinced voters that the city isn’t any better today and based his successful primary victory on that platform, urging them to “re-imagine” Gary.
The beginning
In 2012, Freeman-Wilson came into office with her own blueprint for Gary’s revival created by teams of citizens preparing the transition.
She reached out to former Newark, N.J., Mayor Cory Booker, now a 2020 Democratic presidential candidate. She sought his advice because their
cities faced similar problems.
About 80% of the city’s 2012 $47 million budget went to police and fire protection. New property tax caps would soon reduce the budget even more.
At her first State of the City address in 2012, she projected a $10 million to $15 million deficit and hoped a new local option income tax would ease the losses.
That same year, Allegiant Airlines began a short-lived Florida passenger service at the Gary/Chicago International Airport. Citing a lack of demand, the airline bailed in 2013.
The new mayor hoped to ignite the city’s comeback with an inland casino, airport improvements, and a lakefront site at Buffington Harbor providing a shipping and warehousing alternative to Chicago. She also targeted a teaching hospital near Indiana University Northwest.
She got three out of the four.
This year, a casino operator received state approval for a $300 million inland casino slated to open next year south of the Borman Expressway.
The airport opened its extended $175 million runway in 2015 and it’s managed by a private developer who pledged $100 million over a 40-year period.
The lakefront port is beginning to take shape after an endorsement from state leaders.
Freeman-Wilson also hoped to rebuild the city’s rocky relationship with U.S. Steel. In August, the steel giant made a $750 million commitment to invest in Gary Works upgrades.
Despite the economic gains, the city landscape festered with crumbling homes and ever-present weeds and trash.
The new mayor organized regular neighborhood clean-ups and typically mowed grass herself or picked up garbage.
Still, unrest persisted. Initially, it came for outsourcing key jobs to outside consultants, like a former Booker aide. In the end, the mayor shouldered the blame for failing to keep watch over troubled municipal finances mired in a sea of budget transfers to keep the city afloat.
Prince took aim at a risky leaseback deal that mortgaged the police department building, but brought in enough cash to keep the city solvent for the immediate future.
Freeman-Wilson said the city will begin 2020 without a deficit for the first time in years.
“I think she’s done an excellent job,” said political ally and Councilwoman Mary Brown. “In many instances, she hasn’t had a lot to work with, but she’s a hard worker.”
Brown said it wasn’t unusual to receive an email from the mayor at 2 a.m. on an issue she wanted moved forward.
“There were times we disagreed, but we’ve been able to work that out,” she said.
When Freeman-Wilson ascended to a leadership post for the National League of Cities, Brown said it was an important moment for the city.
The new role also drew complaints that she spent too much time out of the city.
Councilwoman LaVetta Sparks-Wade, who ran for mayor twice against Freeman-Wilson, said during the primary campaign the mayor didn’t do enough to bring business to the city. She also was the lone vote against the leaseback deal.
She declined to comment for this story.
In retrospect
On an overcast day during her final week in office, Freeman-Wilson looked back on her two terms as mayor.
Somewhere above the second floor, construction workers pounded nails to wrap up a City Hall renovation project and a South Shore train rumbled by Broadway, a short distance to the north.
The clamor seemed a fitting farewell for the highenergy mayor who found time to write grants to bring philanthropic money into the city, including $1 million from businessman Michael Bloomberg, another 2020 Democratic presidential candidate.
His cash evolved into the ArtHouse: A Social Kitchen, a business incubator and job training site.
While economic upgrades from the runway extension and inland casino emerged, crime persisted at a steady pace.
In 2014, a serial killer led police to the bodies of six women who he dumped in abandoned homes.
Darren Vann’s grisly killing spree formed the nexus for the city’s blatant vulnerabilities – blight and crime.
Images of Gary’s unsavory city streets became magnified on a national stage and reporters turned to Freeman-Wilson for answers, drowning out any economic good news.
“What Darren Vann underscored was the city’s Achilles heel – homicides and the abandoned buildings,” she said.
That same year, a grant collaboration with the University of Chicago led to a data count of more than 6,500 vacant buildings. Under then-Gov. Mike Pence, the state awarded Gary $6.65 million in federal funds to demolish buildings.
Overgrown weeds, dumped garbage and dilapidated buildings were already the top complaint from residents.
Gary began knocking down homes and buildings with its federal money. So far, Freeman-Wilson estimated about 1,500 have come down, including the 13-story Sheraton hotel, south of City Hall.
That same year, another killer ended the life of a veteran police officer who responded to a domestic violence call.
Patrolman Jeffrey Westerfield died July 6, 2014, when a gunman approached his squad car and shot him. It was Westerfield’s 47th birthday.
West er field’ s death marked a violent summer and led Freeman-Wilson to hire a new police chief and add 14 new police officers.
A former Indiana attorney general and Gary city judge, Freeman-Wilson still made little progress in stemming the city’s tide of homicides.
So far this year, there’s been 58 killings, a 45% increase over 2018’s 40 homicides.
“We’ve made some headway, but there’s been no substantial change,” she said. “That’s one of my largest regrets - that we weren’t able to make the headway I would have like to have seen on violent crime.”
The next chapter
Jordan Wilson was 18 when her mother became mayor. She’s now a firstyear law student at Boston College. “A lot of my friends at Howard University knew about her,” she said.
“Seeing her solve issues has been great. She’s not a quitter.”
Next month, FreemanWilson moves to a bigger stage to become president and CEO of the Chicago Urban League.
“I think her legacy would be putting the people of Gary first,” said her daughter.
For Freeman-Wilson, her fondest memory came Oct. 9 when the city unveiled a statue of her hero, five-term Gary mayor Richard Gordon Hatcher. He died Dec. 13 at age 86. A trailblazer and civil rights crusader, Hatcher was the country’s first black mayor, along with Carl Stokes of Cleveland.
By then, Freeman-Wilson had been a lame duck mayor for four months.
Although frail, Hatcher smiled and enjoyed the spotlight. Freeman-Wilson said he offered her some advice.
“As I bent over to talk to him, he whispered: ‘You know there’s life after being mayor,’” she said with a smile.