Objection to ATC decision on Parkview Field Permit
The following was submitted with a formal request for hearing with the Indiana ATC today:
Item 6. Remonstrator objects to the Commission’s decision and will be aggrieved or adversely affected by the Commission’s decision on the grounds that it is:
Incorrect, because the entity that made this application, the Fort Wayne Redevelopment Authority, is not a municipality as indicated on their application and as defined in IC 36-1-2-11, the section of Indiana Code that defines “general applicability”. Therefore, it cannot be issued a type 219 permit since these are to be issued to municipalities under IC 7.1-3-1-25 and this section lists “a city or county listed in this sub-section….. may permit the retail sale of alcoholic beverages upon the premises if the governing board of the facility first applies for and secures the necessary permits as required by this title. The cities and counties to which this sub-section applies are…..(2) A city of second class”. Please be aware that the Fort Wayne Redevelopment Authority is not the governing board of Parkview Field. What entity will have the “responsibility to the public for the sale of the alcoholic beverage” as required by IC 7.1-3-1-5? Is it the members of the board of the Redevelopment Authority, the governing board of Parkview Field or the Executive Director of the Fort Wayne Redevelopment Department of the City of Fort Wayne?
My intent is that you ask the Indiana Attorney General to issue an opinion on this to the ATC, outlining the applicable Indiana Code and Rules covering this contention. Since, as I testified on March 16, 2009, I have no desire to stop the legal sale of alcoholic beverages at Parkview Field in Allen County, I request that you follow your rules per 905 IAC 1-36-9(b) and leave the permit you have issued to be fully approved so that Parkview Field can operate under it until this legal question is resolved.
Item 7. The granting of this permit has personally aggrieved me because, being the only remonstrator in opposition to it’s issuance, the local board and the ATC commission did not investigate my contention as listed above (and covered in my verbal statements to the local board at the hearing), therefore saying that my contention that the application was not legal was in error.. This leaves me with no other means of protest of what I feel is an illegality other than this objection.
John B. Kalb March30,2009
Superior Row Reality
So let’s see if I get this right. White Lodging, which has an impeccable development history and track record and whose founder is a billionaire, can’t get financing. Barry Real Estate, with a history of large development projects and the full weight and support of the city behind it, can’t get financing.
But a group of people who are putting together their first project are going to succeed where the others have failed? Color me skeptical. Don’t get me wrong - I’m all for this project and if they can make it work then more power to them. Heck I won’t even complain too much about the land we’re giving them although it does seem silly that they can’t just pay for the $68k piece of land for a multi-million dollar deal, but whatever.
Good luck to Hartland Development - maybe they can show Barry Real Estate and White Lodging how it’s done…
Mark Souder - Financial Wizard
Good grief this guy is dense:
Souder said GM’s recovery plan, which included buyouts for employees and government loans, would have led to the company’s stabilization when the overall economy recovered.
He said the market should have been allowed to work, which may have led to GM’s bankruptcy or a prebankruptcy agreement instead of “a government takeover.”
He can’t be serious. No person with half a brain could read those viability plans and think they would work. I’d bet you money Souder hasn’t even read them - somebody should ask him about some of the details and watch him squirm. Furthermore the government isn’t “taking over” GM and the bankruptcy that Souder desires is exactly what the administration is considering. Here’s another gem:
He also criticized Obama’s move to ask GM’s chief executive, Rick Wagoner, to step down.
Souder said Wagoner made mistakes, but he has a Harvard Business School degree and worked for decades in the industry.
Gee, I assumed we were a results-based society and not some elitist breeding ground where the only thing that matters is how much money your parents had and what college you could afford to attend. Wagoner was a massive failure - there’s absolutely no arguing that. He deserved to fired long ago and if his hand-picked cronies on the board wouldn’t do it then I’m glad the taxpayer did.
And just in case you didn’t think Souder could take ridiculousness to a new level:
By contrast, he said, the people Obama chose to oversee the changes are “a journalist and a college professor.”
The truth?
Rattner was a reporter for the New York Times more than 20 years ago and since then has spent two decades as a Wall Street financier. Montgomery, who has a doctorate from Harvard, was a top official in the Labor Department in the Clinton administration and now is a dean at the University of Maryland.
Awful jackass…
A Bit of Bailout Sanity
I’m not sure who’s on the administration’s auto task force but they actually have some common sense unlike our current treasury secretary Tim Geithner. In fact they should fire Geithner and put these people in charge of the bank fiasco.
About 6 weeks ago GM and Chrysler submitted their long-term viability plans. Neither of which showed they had any chance in hell of becoming viable in the long run. Here’s what I wrote at the time (more detail was in the full post):
Chrysler’s plan is lame. The document they released is about 4 pages long with next to nothing in detail. I guess they didn’t want to write the truth - they are bankrupt and have no hope of long term viability.
GM’s plan is much more detailed but the analysis is the same - they are bankrupt. Their US industry sales assumptions are ridiculous. They conveniently assume that the market bottoms out in the 1st Quarter of 2009 and gradually builds back up to bubble-economy numbers.
Now I’ll admit that I didn’t believe the government would say that these plans did not show viability. I fully expected this to be an exercise in futility where the government would say “see, they are now poised for success” or some other lame response. So imagine my surprise when I read this from the administration’s auto task force report:
The plans submitted by GM and Chrysler on February 17, 2009 did not establish a credible path to viability. In their current form, they are not sufficient to justify a substantial new investment of taxpayer resources.
Well, well, well - a little honesty is quite refreshing. And firing the jackass who ran the company into the ground was a good first step too, something Geithner has refused to do to his Wall Street buddies. But this is only part of the problem. I think everyone realizes that GM’s liabilities are simply too large and they must go into bankruptcy. But since the administration has been unwilling to restructure the banks I certainly didn’t expect to read this:
While Chrysler and GM are different companies with different paths forward, both have unsustainable liabilities and both need a fresh start. Their best chance at success may well require utilizing the bankruptcy code in a quick and surgical way. Unlike a liquidation, where a company is broken up and sold off, or a conventional bankruptcy, where a company can get mired in litigation for several years, a structured bankruptcy process - if needed here - would be a tool to make it easier for General Motors and Chrysler to clear away old liabilities so they can get on a path to success while they keep making cars and providing jobs in our economy.
People need to realize how important this statement is. Right now bondholders have been unwilling to take a loss in order to help these companies restructure. Their reasoning is that they don’t believe the government will allow these companies to fail - a classic example of moral hazard. They fully expect the government to bail them out and pay the bondholders at 100%. This is problematic for the auto industry because the unions (and others) are willing to renegotiate their contracts but only if the bondholders take some losses too.
The very best thing the government could do is put GM into bankruptcy and make the bondholders eat it. This would send a clear message to everyone that their junk bonds are no longer backed by the government and nor should they be. This will also force the private sector to begin restructuring their debt without government intervention. Of course it will shock the market to no end but unfortunately that probably needs to happen to get things back on the right track.
The only question I have is how can Obama listen to Geithner and this auto task force when their approaches to similar problems are completely diametric?
Sheriff’s Officers Commit “Legal” Armed Robbery
Our national police state continues to grow and one can easily find evidence right here in Allen County:
Going 62 in a 50-mph zone, a Jeep barreled west on a slippery, snow-covered Airport Expressway on Valentine’s Day and blew past an Allen County sheriff’s squad car.
[...]
In the Jeep’s back seat, police found more than $26,000 in cash wrapped in a stocking cap.Though officers held the two men for a short time in squad cars, they were eventually released without charges, save for the driver receiving a citation for driving with a suspended license.
And the money? The police kept it.
Funny, I always thought that if you forcibly took money that didn’t belong to you then that was called robbery. And just because you use a gun and a badge instead of a gun and a ski mask doesn’t change the fact that it’s armed robbery.
Having that much cash is not a crime, but police have the right to seize it if they suspect it has been used or procured through criminal means.
Right to steal your cash for no reason? Where does that right emanate from exactly? I once read this pesky document called the US Constitution and it sure seemed like this was expressly forbid:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
If taking your cash without charging you with a crime isn’t “unreasonable” then I don’t know what is. Just read the rational the sheriff’s officers used to rob these men of their money:
police seized the money because the driver could not give an adequate reason for having that much money. First, the driver said it was to buy a car, according to the police report. Then, he said it came from working at various jobs. The passenger said he had no clue about the money.
Those factors allowed police to take the money.
First of all, the reason is none of their damn business - period. Second, how is the driver’s statement not 100% consistent. He said it was to buy a car and that it came from working various jobs. What “factor” would reasonably allow the police to steal their money? Here’s their explanation:
“If it’s way, way over and above what a normal person will carry, and if things don’t add up (on how it was acquired), we take the money,” said Lt. Art Barile, head of the sheriff department’s vice and narcotics unit and the Allen County Drug Task Force
That sounds scientific. What exactly is way, way over and above normal? Who decides that? According to the article even amounts as low as $1000 have been seized. My grandfather used to carry $1000 on him every day of his life - it was normal to him. But according to these authoritarians my grandfather should’ve had to explain why he had it and where it came from.
We now live in a police state where the authoritarians can stop you for no good reason, steal your money and call it perfectly legal. Sounds scary to me. Oh you can file some paperwork to try and get your money back to be sure; I’ll bet that process is easy and straightforward right?
All in the name of the War on Drugs. Welcome to Mark Souder’s America…
Progress On The Harrison? Not Quite
From a local paper’s editorial:
Now, Brody said, the developers are open to considering whether the residential component should consist of apartments instead of condos. The apartments could become condos in the future. Brody is right to note that “in this environment, all possibilities need to be explored.”
That sounds like good news but unfortunately the word is that it’s not entirely true. The developer is under the impression that if they go this route then they would lose their New Market Tax Credits and they aren’t willing to do that. They may or may not be right about that, I haven’t been privy to their discussions with the city but the program CAN be used for mixed use development per the NMTC FAQ:
Can the NMTC be used for housing?
As in the above question, the law requires that the NMTC be used to make loans or investments, or to provide counseling for businesses, not to develop affordable housing. In certain circumstances, NMTC may be used to finance mixed-use projects, where less than 80% of the gross rental income comes from dwelling units.
I think the truth is that Barry Real Estate had an original plan and profit number in place and they have been unwilling to deviate from that. They now want you to believe that the credit crisis has been their downfall but that’s not true. They couldn’t sell these condos well before the credit crunch.
If they are waiting for the credit markets to bounce back to their irresponsible ways of the last decade then we are never going to see anything built on that land. They need to find a creative solution to this problem and stop waiting for the magic fairy to come and sell their condos.
If the contract has to be renegotiated in order to change the project from condos to apartments then let’s do it. Hell, we haven’t stuck to the original contract anyway so it’s basically useless. But it’s time for Barry Real Estate to shit or get off the pot. No more stonewalling, no more hand-waving, no more “drop dead dates.”
Just get the deal done…
Question of the Day for Republicans
From a local newspaper’s recent column:
Expect the commissioners to seek to raise Bloom’s profile in other ways over the next year before she heads into a contested primary. County Councilman Roy Buskirk has already expressed his interest in trying again to unseat Bloom. In 2006, Bloom won with 54 percent of the vote in a race that saw little campaigning by Buskirk.
So my question is - why does anyone vote for Linda Bloom? I’m not being a smartass here (at least not completely). I truly don’t understand it and would like some feedback…
Public-Private Partnership Bamboozle Goes National (Part 1)
The citizens of Fort Wayne know exactly what to do when government officials start talking about public-private partnerships - grab your wallet. What that phrase means is that government has decided to privatize the potential profits and subject the taxpayer to all the downside risk. See Harrison Square, Renaissance Pointe and the Public Safety Academy for examples.
But now the entire nation will get a firsthand look at these “partnerships” since the Obama administration has issued their plan to solve the problems affecting our financial system. The gist of their plan revolves around forming public-private partnerships to buy up the toxic assets weighing down the banks’ balance sheets.
Let me start by explaining what the Treasury Secretary, Tim Geithner, has proposed:
Barry Real Estate Recognized for ????
Email sent to Rachel Blakeman in response to her press release on the Alliance Breakfast this morning:
Rachel,
What specifically has Barry contributed to Fort Wayne in the last year? I don’t see a single building or other improvement that they can claim ANY contributions toward it’s construction. Can you help me out so I can understand how the complete failure of ALL they promised can be recognized for “investment in our comunity”?
And don’t try to tell me that they invested ANY OF THEIR MONEY in suites at Parkview Field! They received payment in advance for the lease of all the suites, far in excess of the cost for those that they said they would fund- so it wasn’t their cash being used.
And Parkview paid the first year of the naming rights cost up front.
Why didn’t the Alliance recognize area taxpayers for the huge “investment” that they are making over the next 20 to 30 years to pay for the Lincoln Life Parking Garage and Parkview Field? They sure should have been recognized in that list!
John B. Kalb
Those Darn Racist Basketball Referees
I laughed incredulously while reading a guest column in today’s News-Sentinel. It was written by Jonathan Ray, CEO of the Fort Wayne Urban League, who surmises that a lack of diversity among high school basketball officials might be having an adverse effect on the dreams of high school athletes. I’m not kidding:
Year after year, children’s dreams are deferred by questionable calls that appear to be biased. In the spirit of Hoosier Hysteria and fair competition, Blake Ress (commissioner of the Indiana High School Athletic Association), it’s time to require diverse officiating crews. Officials shouldn’t have a rooting interest.
[...]
The officiating crew of Tim Dailey, Dennis Jackson and Greg Bowman had a big impact on the 2009 Wayne Sectional final between Peru and Wayne high schools. Just maybe a lack of diversity caused them to make a no-call with 50 seconds left when a Wayne athlete was fouled and pushed out of bounds.With three men, you would think the right call could be made. One play earlier, an official overruled an out-of-bounds play where the near official gave Wayne the ball. That play was reversed and the ball given to Peru.
[...]
A dream was deferred for some. Diversifying officiating crews might make every call an easy call, no matter whom it affects.
I certainly believe diversity has it’s place and I’ve written about it before (see comments) when voicing my support for councilman Hines’ outburst against Mayor Henry. But suggesting that racist basketball officials are somehow corrupting the outcome of high school basketball tournaments strikes me as incredibly ridiculous.
This doesn’t quite seem like the kind of hard-hitting issue the CEO of the Urban League should be focusing on…
