You Can Stop The Boondoggle Extension
Posted by Jeff Pruitt - 6/19/08 @ 2:19 am - Filed Under Featured, Local Politics
Citizens routinely face an uphill battle when trying to lobby their local government officials but today presents a genuine opportunity to kill the wasteful $55 million Maplecrest Extension once and for all. Four of the seven county councilmembers are leaning towards voting against the project but you can bet the county commissioners, especially Nelson Peters, will be lobbying them hard until next Tuesday’s vote.
So now is our chance. Blogs are obviously nice to voice opinions and criticisms but we can also use them to organize. Five e-mails on a particular topic might catch the interest of a local official but can you imagine what 500 will do? I know that if you’re reading this site then you’re at least somewhat interested in local government. I strongly urge each and every one of you to take 5 minutes out of your day and send an e-mail to the 4 councilmembers that can kill this project.
You know this project makes no sense and is based on a bogus economic impact study. You can either act now or complain later. We can kill this project. Write an e-mail and ask others to do the same. Or write an e-mail and ask others to sign their name onto yours. Do whatever you can to let the county council know you do not support this wasteful project.
We’ve lost some battles in the past and we’ve won a few but do not let Nelson Peters beat us this time…
Darren Vogt - darrenvogt@allstate.com
Paul Moss - pmoss@lutheran-hosp.com
Roy Buskirk - rbuskirk@comcast.net
Cal Miller - csm@millermurphymiller.com
If you need a few ideas for your e-mail just think about these:
- We’ve made a massive commitment to our downtown and the Maplecrest Extension project will divert resources from that investment
- We can use the $11 million from the federal government to fix the bridges we have that are already in dire need of maintenance. Don’t forget the county is going to raise your taxes to pay for that maintenance but we’re sitting on $11 million here. And don’t believe for a second that money can’t be reallocated from Maplecrest to other bridge maintenance projects.
- We already have an industrial park on the West side of town that sits nearly empty yet somehow this one is going to miraculously fill up
- The TIF district will not produce enough revenue to pay for the bonds so we’ll either have to spend major bridge fund money or raise property taxes.
- The commissioners have fast-tracked this vote to try and get approval before the new referendum law takes effect. Tell them not to subvert the will of the people, the state legislature and the governor
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11 Responses to “You Can Stop The Boondoggle Extension”
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I think it is important to point out that the $11 million cannot simply be used for another cause. Most people don’t understand that federal money cannot simply be shuffled around. The feds give money for a specific project, and there are strict guidelines that federally funded project must follow. So there is no guarantee that we can use the money for bridge maintenance.
The citizens of Fort Wayne and city government have made a commitment to downtown, but the county has a commitment to all citizens and municipalities within its boundaries.
The fact that we have an industrial park that is failing is not an indication that a another industrial park in a different area will fail. An example of this not holding true would be our malls. Using your logic Jefferson Pointe should never have been built because Southtown mall sat empty. Jefferson Pointe was built, and is undoubtedly a much more successful mall. Environmental factors are key such as location, access, layout and design.
I applaud the commissioners for trying to prevent this already drawn out project from being drawn out further through the referendum process.
Dear I.M.-
You are correct that the federal portion of money for this proposed project (which is about 20% of the total cost) has guidelines for where it can be used.
However, Congressman Souder has said we can ask for it to be put on ANOTHER project. Certainly the Congressman with over 10 years experience in Washington would be able to pull a few strings for us on this.
I would agree that I doubt it could be used for maintenance.
that $11 million certainly can be reallocated, they just have to make the request. Nelson Peters has admitted as much.
The county’s economic impact study shows that in order for their TIF to be successful it must be focal point of development for the county. That runs contrary to the investment and emphasis being made in downtown.
The point I was trying to make about the other industrial park is that we already have industrial space available. Any industrial business will have to choose between the two. So any development that takes place around the proposed project will simply be taking development from other parts. This is classic economic rearrangement - to quote Mike Sylvester.
And yes how tragic it would be to delay the project a whole 4 months so the people could exercise their new right given to them by a nearly unanimous vote of the state legislature.
And even if the so-called “federal” money can’t be reallocated … we could always let ‘em have it back.
Oh, horrors! Unthinkable!!! Can’t do that — better spend it on some crap or the other, whether it makes any sense or not …
Jeff — Do you have the emails for the other council members? We might as well work on all of them. Thanks.
Sure do Tim. You’re right - e-mail them all!
Patt Kite - paulette.kite@allencounty.us
Paula Hughes - paula@bndcommercial.com
Maye Johnson - communitybee@msn.com
Thank you for the email addresses for these council members. I’ve just send them my sincere appreciation for supporting this long overdue project. I guess this comment will not see the light of day, like the last one that I submitted in support of this matter. . .
John,
Before you start up some half-cocked conspiracy theory let me state, publicly, that I have never once not accepted a comment.
No comment has EVER been rejected here unless it was automatically rejected by wordpress’ spambot. There were a couple of comments that I edited but I specifically wrote why I edited them.
I know that if you put in too many links then it can reject it and there might be other criteria as well. But you of all people should know that I have not and will not censor comments on this site because they disagree with me.
I can argue my point without relying on censorship. In fact the VAST majority of the people agree with me on this topic anyway.
So you are welcome for the e-mail addresses and your comments are always welcome here. And it’s not as if you don’t have my e-mail address - you could’ve e-mailed me if your comment didn’t show up instead of insinuating that I somehow rejected it.
There were other comments in support of the project - did you think I somehow singled your comment out using my specialized John Good filter? Give me a break…
Apparently I should have captured the comment in question so that you could attempt to debunk my claim. It matters not.
Maplecrest extension is overpriced, oversold, and overdebated. It is NOT overdue. Get a clue. Just because we have money does not mean that we need to spend it and spend it and spend it. That is ONE political philosophy that I can NEVER agree with! Another plan, another idea. Think harder on this one. Not $50 million to be able to spend $11 million. Not “self-financed” sham talk (and that is another entire blog and day to talk about this one). Not Economic Development talk where it is crystal clear that it has happened to the fullest extent possible without the $60 million additional set of un-maintained bridges. Enough of this nonsense. If certain Engineering/Construction companies want Federal and local subsidies (Corporate Welfare–let’s be clear on those words) then just say so instead of wrapping it up in a bogus project whose time has passed.
Jim, this makes me cry that you are not in office YET !!!