Silence From the JG Is Very Telling Isn’t It?
As readers here know the county council had a public hearing yesterday to discuss the wasteful $55 million Maplecrest Extension project among other items. Although if you only read the Journal Gazette then you wouldn’t even know this discussion took place. They had no story about yesterday’s county council meeting whatsoever.
Now I’m no conspiracy theorist but at some point you have to question what’s going on over there. This is a massive project proposed by the county commissioners and the county council spent a significant amount of time grilling them and the authors of their economic impact study. Yet the JG just happens to decide that’s not newsworthy?
Just for fun here’s a few other storys the JG did decide were newsworthy:
- An Orland lawsuit was settled for $5k
- 2 People were arrested for drugs
- Construction continues at the children’s zoo
- A check forger got 2 years in the slammer
You get the point.
It certainly appears that the editorial board is unduly influencing the reporters on this subject as it’s unbelievable that a reporter could sit through that meeting and not write anything about the Maplecrest Extension discussion. I would suggest readers turn their attention away from the JG and towards the News Sentinel’s Kevin Leininger as he appears to be doing his job.
Lame Arguments Abound For Maplecrest Extension
It’s becoming quite clear to everyone paying attention that the finances on the wasteful $55 million Maplecrest Extension project just don’t add up. But that doesn’t deter its supporters as they’re now pushing new, although equally bogus, reasons for supporting the project. Here’s the latest from the Kevin Leininger’s column:
Whatever the project’s economic impact, it would yield other benefits, said Dan Avery of the Northeast Indiana Regional Coordinating Council, a transportation planning agency. By 2036 the project would reduce travel by 28,500 miles daily, resulting in a savings to drivers of $23.9 million over 25 years. It would also reduce automobile emissions - an important consideration, Councilwoman Paula Hughes said, because Allen County’s air quality has at times failed to meet federal standards.
Nothing but handwaving arguments here. They can’t predict with any certainty what the traffic patterns will be 30 years from now and they damn sure can’t predict what the emissions from various automobiles will be. But Paula Hughes air quality statement is the worst argument I’ve seen to date in support of the project. I mean just think about this for a minute. She’s touting the project based on reducing automobile emissions while the very same project is slated to have a large industrial base that will likely pump out massive amounts of pollutants.
Mayor Henry and tonights NWAP meeting
The Northwest Area Partnership is a collection of neighborhood associations located in the northwestern portion for Fort Wayne. I attend a fair number of their meetings since I am the President of the Valley Place Neighborhood Association. Due to tax season, tonight was the first meeting I attended this year.
Mayor Henry and his staff came to the meeting and gave an interesting presentation about the future of Fort Wayne’s budget due to the recent property tax changes passed this year.
Here are some highlights:
Allen Co. Council Meeting this AM (& into PM)
Along with Kevin Knuth, I also attended this meeting. As Kevin reported, our County Commissioners TOLD the people that were hired to do the capability study NOT to use any property tax abatements in their TIF analysis. It was never really answered, but Cal Miller’s questions on this centered on “did you use any tax-incentive items in your study”. I got the feeling that they could not answer this because they do not know what is “buried” in the IMPLAN software program that they used to come up with the “study”. Either that, or they don’t have a clue as to what they are “selling”. I tend to want to believe the former, they seemed like knowledgeable people, one a grad of Ball State and another of Purdue.
The meeting was recessed at 12:45 PM with the realization that the “experts” needed to go back and re-look at the tax abatement effect on their software generated study. Also, our three commissioners said that people that had been asked to testify in favor of the project had already left the building. (Just for information, the council has planned to accept comments from both those in favor as well as those opposed.
Our three commissioners stated (all three, individually!) that the deadline on submission of this project to the referendum proscribed by the state lawmakers in the short session, WAS NOT the reason for the “hurry-up” to get this done. But, they then went on to say that for some reason a decision on if the referendum process applied and if it could start, could only be decided “after the bond counsul had been hired”. This statement was met with disbelief by the council. More will be coming on this, I’m sure.
My take, based on the questions asked by council members, is that Paul Moss, Cal Miller, Darrin Vogt, and Roy Buskirk will not be voting in favor of this $50 million project. I also believe that the three lady council members will probably be voting in favor.
JG Editorial Is Embarrassing - At Least It Should Be
I know it’s trendy to criticize the JG editorial staff but believe it or not there are many times I agree with them. I don’t necessarily keep tabs but it’s probably 50-50 or something like that. However, today’s editorial in support of the wasteful $55 million Maplecrest Extension project is just plain sad. If the JG were to support the project because they really believe it’s a good opportunity for the community then that would be one thing, but the editorial uses the completely bogus consultant study as their justification:
ALLEN COUNTY Council members skeptical about spending $54 million to build the long-anticipated Maplecrest Road extension need to pay close attention to a consultant’s report they will hear Thursday.
The admittedly expensive road project will pay for itself many times over in new jobs and investments the road will help spur, the consultant found.
I don’t know a polite way to say this and frankly I’m beyond niceties at this point so I’ll just say it. If you believe the numbers in this report and use it as your cornerstone rational for supporting the project then you are a fool. And for an editorial board to accept this type of blatantly exaggerated data shows a lack of common sense and journalistic responsibility.
It is not their job to simply regurgitate what a study tells them. They should cast a skeptical eye and try to get answers on how and why the study’s assumptions are valid. What I read today significantly drained the JG’s credibility. It’s important to separate the reporting (which hasn’t been great on this) from the editorial board and I don’t believe the editorial board is looking out for the public interest in this case…
Taxpayers bilked $30,000 for bogus Maplecrest Extension Study
Everyone reading this post should really take the time to read the 26 page study that the taxpayers of Allen County paid $30,000 for.
Let me start by saying that we should really look at how Allen County selected a vender and a price for this study. We paid $1,153.85 per page for a study that has no basis in reality whatsoever.
I would argue that Jeff Pruitt and I could prepare a more accurate study at less cost… (Note this is just my opinion and Jeff Pruitt may disagree)
I cannot analyze this study in just one post, so this will be the first of multiple posts.
This study was prepared based on several completely erroneous assumptions that were not listed in the study, these include:
Maplecrest Extension Study - Give Me A Break
I just finished reading the Maplecrest Extension economic impact study and let me say that it’s actually worse than I thought it would be. I wasn’t expecting a lot as I remember reading the bogus Harrison Square numbers. You know the ones that didn’t report full-time equivalents and just reported “jobs”, and the ones that used unrealistic occupancy rates for the downtown hotel.
But this report is in a class all of its own and frankly I can’t see how anyone would accept this analysis. I’ll go through a few more details in this post and probably another post in a day or two but let me just give you the quick, bottom-line on this study. There is absolutely zero data to support any of the assumptions in this study.
Governor Daniels Releases Bogus Ad
There’s many half-truths in this ad but there’s one blatant lie as well - see if you can catch it.
Didn’t raise taxes? Surely people won’t believe that. Hell his first proposal after taking office was to raise the income tax on those making over 100k by 1%. That proposal didn’t pass but he’s supported other tax increases as well. Thomas from Blue Indiana explains:
311 Moves Online
City’s 311 taking service requests online (City)
Residents can report 6 most common problems directly on Web site
Reports of potholes, missed garbage or recycling collection, abandoned vehicles on public or private property, or a streetlight out can be made by clicking on the 311 logo on the homepage of www.cityoffortwayne.org.
“Expanding 311’s services to the City’s Web site is another step to providing open and accessible services for our residents and taxpayers,” said Mayor Henry. “By providing these forms online, we now make 311 services available to people who might not have time to call during the workday or simply prefer to use the Web.”
The Web site will assign a tracking number to online requests. These requests can also be tracked from the site. Reports need to have relevant information to the request including make and color of an abandoned vehicle and its location, street address for potholes and details about a missed garbage or recycling pick-up.
Additional online reporting forms will be made available in the coming months.
Kudos to the City for continuing to expand their online services and presence.
The Fix Is In Bubba
The county commissioner’s received their economic impact study back for the wasteful $55 million Maplecrest Extension project and low and behold the numbers have convinced the commissioner’s to move the project forward - surprise, surprise.
Every single one of these studies tout “construction jobs” as part of their economic impact but these jobs simply cannot be part of the analysis. If that were truly economic development then the state would just pay everybody to run around building things year-round. No, the real economic impact comes from private investment and what does this study say about that?
The firm projects direct investment of $453 million in the corridor following the project, plus another $262 million in related activity. This post-construction activity is expected to create 7,300 jobs.
So let’s put this into perspective. Laying down 1.5 miles of asphalt is going to create 11 times the investment we’re seeing at Harrison Square. Just think about that for a minute - for all it’s faults Harrison Square is a massive project that is drawing significant private investment. And we’re to believe that this road project will generate an order of magnitude more investment? Well if you believe that then I’ve got some Harrison Square condos to sell you my friend.
And of course the commissioners are pushing forward as fast as they can:
