Secret Squirrel Society Comes Up Short
It looks as if the organized effort to fill precinct committee spots in order to oust Republican chairman Steve Shine has come up short. The JG reports that 117 positions out of 301 remain vacant after yesterday’s noon deadline. However, getting 265 people to run for precinct positions is quite impressive and shows the party still has some reconciling to do. My thinking on this is that Steve Shine will step down at the end of his term. County chair is a thankless position and nobody needs that kind of headache for no pay.
Gary Schepp has provided an organized list of all the candidate filings which you can download here. Duplicate filings are listed and contested races are highlighted.
DLGF Calls Retroactive Property Tax Increase a “Double-Cross”
The JG has reported that the Department of Local Government Finance has rejected the city’s attempt at a retroactive tax increase. The statement issued by Cheryl Musgrave, DLGF Commissioner, is one of the most strongly worded press releases I’ve ever seen from a government agency. Fort Wayne Observed has the press release and the full report.
News-Sentinel Loses Government Reporter
Kathleen Quilligan will be leaving the News-Sentinel as of next Friday and will be taking a position with The Northwest Indiana and Illinois Times. Quilligan has done a fine job covering covering local politics and I want to wish her well at NWI.
Congratulations to Kathleen and good luck…
H/T - Mitch Harper
Budget Cuts - Part 2
In Part 1 I briefly talked about the out-of-control spending coming from the Redevelopment department and the mayor’s office over the last two years. I also pointed out that public safety makes up a majority of the budget and any attempt to cut $10+ Million will have to address that fact. In this post I want to show how a temporary cap on salary increases for city employees would help the bottom line.
McCain May Not Be On The Ballot For Indiana Primary
Thomas at Blue Indiana has broke a major story that might be seeing major media coverage. According to his investigation John McCain did not acquire the necessary 500 signatures from the 4th district to be on the primary ballot.
Now, I’m originally from the 4th District, so curiosity led me to check out who had made it (and by how much) in my old stomping ground. To my surprise, I noticed that John McCain — the presumptive front-runner for the GOP nomination — was just a little short in a few districts, including my precious 4th, despite the fact that Attorney General Steve Carter had already turned in their petitions. I made a few phone calls, and one by one I found out that the McCain camp had got the job done across the state.
Except in the 4th District.
In the 4th District, they are short.
By my latest count, they turned in 496 signatures for the 4th, and the latest IED report for this morning shows them with only 491.
So this afternoon, I filed a challenge with the Secretary of State’s office to keep John McCain off of the ballot. You can check it out here. (I’ll have a .pdf version up when I get back to Bloomington this evening.)
Now I’ll admit that I’m not completely familiar with how this process works, or where McCain will go from here, but if Thomas’ numbers are accurate then this strikes me as a screwup of major proportions for the McCain surrogates in the 4th district. If nothing else it would be a complete embarrassment for all involved. The talking point is simple - if you can’t put together a team to make sure you get a measly 500 signatures then how can you run the country?
Fascism Is Not Patriotism
Mark Souder has an op-ed in today’s News Sentinel that uses his typical fear-mongering tactics to try and explain why citizens should throw out the 4th amendment and allow the government to spy on them. Of course this isn’t exactly the terminology the government uses - they call it the Protect America Act. I’ve been on record numerous times describing my opposition to this expansion of illegal government power and frankly I’m loathed to do it again. But there’s one part of Souder’s column that just makes my blood boil and I must address it.
In the wake of 9/11, some telecom employers were asked by the federal government to help them track suspected terrorists. If they’re not granted immunity, these companies could face a barrage of lawsuits brought by trial lawyers.
At a perilous time, many American employers answered their nation’s call for help, and I believe we have an obligation to ensure they’re not penalized for their patriotism. If Congress does not grant them retroactive immunity, how many firms are likely to cooperate with the federal government in the future?
First off the government was conducting this illegal wiretapping of American citizens before 9/11 so that argument won’t fly. But more importantly it is not patriotic to violate the Constitution because a draconian administration asks you to do so. We cannot ignore the document that is the very fabric of this country whenever we feel like it. We must never allow security to trump liberty.
What makes this country great is that we stand by our core principles even when it would be more convenient to temporarily ignore them. The citizens of this country must draw a line in the sand and tell their government that liberty is too important to be forsaken - even if it means that innocent lives will be lost from time to time. That is the price we pay as a free society…
Republican HQ For Sale & The Secret Squirrel Society
The Allen County Democratic Party blog has a post up linking to two stories at Indiana News Center. The first is a story that the Republican party’s financial troubles have caused the building to be put up for sale. The second is a story about the “ Secret Squirrel Society’s” (as one official described them) attempt to try and fill precinct committee spots in order to oust county chairman Steve Shine. Kevin Leininger followed up with a piece in today’s News-Sentinel that is definitely worth reading.
Budget Cuts - Part 1
I’ve decided to start a series of posts that will look at ways the city could cut the budget in order to deal with the shortages due to property tax caps that will inevitably be enacted by the state legislature. I don’t think there’s a simple solution to the problem (other than to raise the income tax) and I think this upcoming series of posts will illustrate that point. I certainly don’t have all the answers but I want to throw some ideas out there in order to stimulate discussion. On more than one occasion I’ve heard that “citizens will have to decide what services they want cut”. Really? How is that discussion going to take place? I suppose this is a start - feel free to give your comments/suggestions/ideas.
Council Looks to Improve Public Access
What a difference an election makes when it comes to open government. First the mayor hires two public information officers. Next Clifford Clark, Chief Technology Officer for the city, announces a new streaming archive of city council meetings and then tonight councilman Mitch Harper posts all the proposed ordinances at Fort Wayne Observed.
And to top it all off, at the end of tonight’s council meeting several members spoke about the need to continue progress in the area of public access and have offered to work with citizens and the administration in making this a reality (more on this later). I’ve captured these comments below and the video is about 8 minutes but it’s worth watching for anyone interested in what the new council thinks of improving public access.
This has truly been a bipartisan effort and shows that our elected officials are serious about improving public access…
Is Steve Shine on the Way Out?
Fort Wayne News had an interesting post up yesterday that talks about a movement within the Allen County Republican Party to oust chairman Steve Shine. The claim is that this faction will submit several candidate filings for precinct committeemen positions at the very last minute in hopes that those backing Shine won’t have a chance to react. Afterwards these people will use their position to replace Shine with councilman Mitch Harper.
I find this interesting on two fronts:
