Question for Obama supporters
Senator Obama has ran a lot of local television ads advertising that “John McCain has voted in favor of tax breaks to companies that ship jobs overseas to China.”
Does anyone know how Senator Obama proposes to fix this problem or is it just empty rhetoric?
Mike Sylvester
No-Show Corona
After the state legislature passed HB1001, mayor Henry had to appoint a new non-voting advisor to the Redevelopment Commission. This new appointee had to come from one of the local school boards and FWCS board member Steve Corona was chosen.
Since his appointment to the Redevelopment Commission, arguably the most important board in the entire city, guess how many meetings he has attended?
One.
Yes, sadly he’s only bothered to show up for one lousy meeting. If he didn’t want to serve as a member then why did he accept the appointment? Or if he doesn’t have time then why not resign? At this point the mayor should replace him with somebody that actually cares about serving our community in that role.
Did I mention that Corona has also done next-to-nothing to turn around our declining academic performance during his three decade long tenure on the FWCS board? Fortunately voters can send him packing from both positions by voting for Evert Mol in the upcoming election…
FWCS Race Baiting Abound
From day one Fort Wayne Community Schools has leveled the racism charge against anybody that was opposed to their ridiculous half a BILLION dollar tax increase to remodel the district’s buildings. Seeing how the plan was defeated 7 to 2 they must think we have a lot of racists in this community. Here was superintendent Dr Wendy Robinson last year:
Wendy Robinson wonders whether opposition to the district’s proposed $500 million building project is really about raising property taxes or balking at providing better schools for inner-city kids.
“Below the surface, it’s, `Those kids don’t deserve better buildings’.
Now in the latest Fort Wayne Reader board president Mark Gia Quinta picks up on the same tired smears:
“I don’t understand a platform that says you’re going to return to the 1950s,” says Mark GiaQuinta, president of FWCS board. “I don’t understand how you can educate and prepare people for 2050 by going back to 1950. The 1950s was a racist decade in this country. That gave us Brown vs. Board of education. What exactly do you want to go back to, Evert? What about the 50s is it that you want to see?
I thought it was unanimous that Brown v Board of Education was a good ruling - you know, the one that overturned segregation in our schools? I’m not even sure what GiaQuinta is ranting about here - it’s just race-baiting nonsense pure and simple. But GiaQuinta doesn’t end there, he leaves us this supremely ironic gem:
“(Mol) builds himself up by tearing other people down. He’s just a very bitter person who can’t see the benefit of working with people.”
I couldn’t make this stuff up if I tried. And since they were feeling left out of the race-baiting game our own local newspaper editorial staff piles on:
He has publicly questioned the use of the district’s effective Racial Balance Fund and in an e-mail to The Journal Gazette two years ago, he remarked on TV news coverage of a teachers’ strike in the predominantly black Gary school system: “Judging by the newsreels of the picket lines, it looks like Gary has done quite well recruiting minority teachers. How’s that working out for them?”
Needless to say that is a distortion of Evert Mol’s position and the quote was taken completely out of context. You can read Mol’s response here if you wish. Another interesting observation, if the paper’s editorial staff were capable of such things, would be that the board’s only African-American member, Kevin Brown, isn’t out in public calling people racists. At times he too has been extremely critical of FWCS and the lack of academic progress.
The school board and the administration aren’t capable of solving the issues facing our schools because none of them will even admit there’s a problem. They are all still stuck in the denial phase and think good public relations can save the day. It can’t and it won’t. If we don’t make significant changes in this school district now then it will fail.
It will fail as miserably as Gary and Indianapolis have. If I didn’t know better I would almost assume that’s what these mindless FWCS automatons/cheerleaders want. Here’s the bottom line, more of your property tax dollars go to our schools than anything else by far. Do you feel like you’re getting bang for your buck?
When a governmental body is wildly off track it is our democratic duty as citizens to right the ship by voting for leadership that will apply rational problem solving skills to improve the situation. The only choice that will make a difference is to vote for Oligner, Mol & Schaab - a vote for anyone else is a vote for the status quo…
YLNI Candidates Night Tonight
From YLNI newsletter:
Be informed about local candidates before heading to the polls Nov. 4 (or before for early voting happening now at the City-County Building).
When: Monday, October 27th (TODAY) starting at 6 p.m.
Where: Meeting rooms in the downtown branch of the Allen County Public Library. Parking is free with a library card.Open to the publicMeet candidates appearing on Allen County ballots that evening, and listen to their ideas on how they want to make northeast Indiana a better place to live, work and play as your elected official. National races get plenty of attention, but often local and statewide races can come down to just a few votes, so get yourself informed about the candidates’ positions at this important event. It’s designed for the political junkies and political novices alike. Your vote is your voice so come out tonight to find out more.
The Only Buck Passing Is Coming From Mayor Henry
In one local paper there was a story related to a post I did yesterday regarding the upcoming budget vote on Tuesday. Council President Tom Didier confirmed that the council will be voting on a generic 3% budget cut.
The Fort Wayne City Council will vote Tuesday on whether to cut Mayor Tom Henry’s 2009 operating budget by 3 percent.
The overall cut is preferred, Didier said, because he is not a city department expert. By just cutting the bottom line, he said, the mayor can choose where to cut spending.
This is exactly how it should be done in my opinion but councilwoman Karen Goldner disagrees:
Councilwoman Karen Goldner, D-2nd, opposes the generic cut, saying if council members want to cut spending, they should have to identify where to take the money. She said it was “major buck passing” for the council to cut the budget, then blame the mayor for reducing services.
“I think it is very easy to say you want government to be smaller,” she said. “The appropriate thing for us to do is to come up with specific cuts.”
What am I missing here? The council is coming up with specific cuts but they would be provided as recommendations. That’s not passing the buck. The mayor’s complete disengagement from the issue and failure to provide one nickel of cuts is passing the buck.
Do some members of city council really think they have better insights into what the most efficient cuts would be - more so than the city professionals and department heads? Goldner’s council-cut-first philosophy works well when trimming the budget of a minor line-item here and there but it’s not the optimal solution when making million dollar cuts.
Just put yourself into the shoes of one of the department heads. Would you rather find the cuts within your own department or leave it up to a legislative body that may be influenced by politics more than policy?
As to the political point made by Goldner, the council would not be able to blame the mayor as she suggests - at least not successfully. For one, everybody understands that services need to be cut to trim 3% from the budget. Also, the mayor could simply implement many of the suggestions offered as recommendations by the city council.
I think the mayor’s disengagement shows that he’s truly the one wanting to gain political points from this issue. It’s incredible to suggest that part-time legislators should come up with every single cut and that the mayor, with a massive staff of full time professionals, can’t won’t come up with a single one himself.
The council should approve the generic budget cuts - it’s the only way to get the mayor involved in the process…
Council Budget Cuts On The Way
Budget cuts from the city council members are due tomorrow and they will be voted on next Tuesday. After watching tonight’s meeting and speaking with a few of the members afterwards I am beginning to gain confidence that this council will do the right thing and cut the budget by 3%.
The mayor has not taken his budgetary responsibilities seriously and has pushed the entire problem into the hands of the city council. All I have to say to the mayor is, be careful what you wish for. The individual councilmembers have come up with several millions of dollars in cuts and they may not be areas the mayor would like to see reduced.
At this point the best thing the council could do is to cut the budget by a flat percentage and tell the mayor it’s his responsibility to prioritize and find the specific line items to cut. Obviously the department heads and other professionals are in a much better position than city council to identify the most cost-efficient cuts.
The mayor has abdicated his responsibility thus far but next Tuesday is D-day (or is it B-day?) and the council should force him to make the tough decisions. It would be irresponsible of this council to demand the mayor cut the budget without providing recommendations but that’s not what’s happening here. Each councilmember is submitting millions in cuts and the mayor should be able to utilize their input, as well as from his staff, to cut 3% of the city budget.
And just remember that if you are an Allen County resident you should be paying attention. If the city doesn’t solve their financial problems then they will most certainly raise the income tax. And if the city raises it then everybody in the county pays. That may not sound fair but that’s just the way it is - you can thank your state legislator.
I do know this, next Tuesday will be one interesting meeting…
Three stupid Democratic Senators
You just have to read this Reuters story.
Per this story three Democratic Senators want to do the following:
These three Democratic Senators want the “U.S. Treasury Department to set guidelines saying that banks receiving government capital injections should use the funds to restore their lending activities to levels prior to the credit crunch.”
How stupid are these three Democrats?
The credit crunch happened in part because banks made loans to people they should never have loaned money to. These three idiots want to force banks to keep lending money at the same pace they lent money at prior to the credit crisis. This of course means the banks will have to keep loaning money to people who cannot afford to pay it back.
This is STUPID.
If there is one person reading this post who thinks this is a good idea, please leave a comment.
How on Earth do these people get elected to the US Senate? Heck, how do they balance a checkbook?
Mike Sylvester
FWCS Candidate Steve Corona Files Illegal Campaign Finance Report
After reviewing the various campaign finance reports I believe current board member Steve Corona’s filing was illegal as he failed to itemize $2771.00 in expenditures. Under IC 3-9-5-14 all committees are required to itemize expenditures exceeding $100:
(8) The full name, mailing address, occupation, and principal place of business, if any, of each person other than a committee to whom an expenditure was made by the committee or on behalf of the committee within the year in an aggregate amount that:
(A) exceeds one hundred dollars ($100), in the case of a candidate’s committee, legislative caucus committee, or political action committee;
There is always the possibility that all of his committee’s expenditures were under $100 but I would consider that highly unlikely. What’s more likely is that he forgot to file the itemized expenditures or was hoping nobody would notice.
Our campaign finance laws demand transparency because citizens have a right to know where a political candidate’s money is coming from and how they are spending it. I have filed a formal complaint with the Allen County Election Board (shown below) and I hope the matter can be resolved before the election.
Souder Jumps The Shark While He “Pals Around” With Former Communist and Black Panther
Every time I think congressman Mark Souder couldn’t get any more ridiculous I am brought back to reality and proven wrong. Seriously, how could one top the comment that all the worthless paper assets the government would be buying up via the Wall Street bailout were really worth 95 cents on the dollar?
Now Souder is saying that congresswoman Michelle Bachman’s comments calling all liberals anti-American and suggesting we should have a McCarthyite congressional investigation really weren’t her fault. No, you see she was tricked, tricked I tell you, by that evil genius Chris Matthews:
SOUDER: I read the whole interview. Chris Matthews tried to trick her into that question, over and over for the entire interview. Unfortunately, her last comment, she fell for the trap. No, we shouldn’t have an investigation into Congress. They are elected by the people of the United States. I have full faith and confidence. Now, I think some of them, for example, Sen. Obama, should be careful who he pals around with.
And it doesn’t end there. Souder was also one of 17 politicians to sign David Horowitz’s new book “Party of Defeat - How Democrats and Radicals Undermined America’s War On Terror Before and After 9-11.”
For those of you that don’t know, Horowitz is a former Communist and Black Panther financier turned far-right neoconservative whackjob and racist. Here’s a quote from some of his previous Marxist work:
More than ever before, for humanity to live under capitalism, is to live on borrowed time.
I can only assume that Mark Souder would call the Black Panthers a terrorist organization yet he’s supporting somebody who was a personal confidant to Panthers’ leader Huey Newton. And Souder has the audacity to question who Obama “pals around” with?
Can we please end this sad and embarrassing chapter of 3rd District congressional representation?
A Failure Of Leadership
I would encourage everyone to read Mike Sylvester’s post regarding his meeting with mayor Henry this evening. Mike’s report is very troubling to me - particularly this comment from the mayor:
The Mayor feels that our City Council is the fiscal body of Fort Wayne and that if they want to cut the budget; they will have to cut the budget themselves.
The fact that the leader of our city would turn over the entire budget to part time legislatures is ridiculous. The council has already suggested that the city needs to trim $4.5 million from the budget. Now it’s up to the department heads and the other professionals within the administration to prioritize and come up with the specific cuts.
Remember when the mayor went around to the various neighborhood partnership meetings and asked everyone for their input on prioritizing city expenditures? The mayor showed up with different colored stickers and asked people to rearrange them based on where they wanted their money spent - the entire process was kindergarten-esque.
Where is the report from those meetings summarizing the recommendations? Of course there isn’t one because it was all about public relations and had nothing to do with serious discourse. At this point I think we should all ask the mayor, in our best Office Space impression, “What is it, you do here?” If he’s not willing to tackle an enormous looming financial shortfall like this then what good is he?
At least now the city council knows the mayor has no intention of cutting $1 from the budget - he told Mike Sylvester as much. The council needs to stop wasting everyone’s time by bringing various administration personnel to the table to discuss nickel-and-dime line items. The whole process is something that I’d expect to see at a PTA meeting where $50 in savings actually matters. What we need here is serious policy discussions on where to find the necessary cuts.
Clearly the city council is going to have to fill the leadership void left by the mayor’s office on this issue. At this point I’m not convinced the council has enough votes to cut $4.5 million from the budget and I think mayor Henry is counting on that. And just wait until the rest of the county residents who don’t reside in Fort Wayne learn that if the city council adopts an increase in the income tax then they will have to pay it too…
