The Galloping Gobbler
I just returned from running in the annual 4 mile Galloping Gobbler put on by councilman Mitch Harper. This is a great community event and I would encourage everyone who stays in town to join in next year and burn some calories before spending the afternoon devouring massive amounts of turkey with all the fixings.
Last year I sort of lumbered around with a goal of finishing without requiring medical attention. This year, although I have only been running shorter distances (< 800m), I had hoped to show significant improvement. While I’m not going to be a competitive threat anytime soon I did knock about 7 minutes after last year’s time (if I remember correctly). All in all, I was pretty happy with how I finished.
Most importantly it was good exercise and a lot of fun. I just wanted to say thank you to councilman Harper and all the sponsors for taking the time to organize this event every year.
Happy Thanksgiving to all and I hope you get to enjoy it with family and/or friends…
Educational Neglect cases filed in Allen County
The News-Sentinel has an interesting article about this on the front page of today’s newspaper.
Apparently the Allen County Prosecutor has decided to prosecute two women who said they were home schooling their children; however, did not keep the necessary paperwork to prove they home schooled them. The same prosecutors office decided not to prosecute check fraud when it was purposefully conducted against my business; however they have plenty of time to go out and prosecute two people for not properly home schooling their children.
This same newspaper article lists the number of students who had ten or more unexcused absences from the local school district in the 2007/2008 school year. Consider these statistics from the article:
- NACS had .048% of its students with ten or more unexcused absences in the 2007/2008 school year.
- SACS had .059% of its students with ten or more unexcused absences in the 2007/2008 school year.
- EACS had 2.43% of its students with ten or more unexcused absences in the 2007/2008 school year.
- FWCS had 6.4% of its students with ten or more unexcused absences in the 2007/2008 school year.
Mayor Tom Henry flip flops
Last week Mayor Henry announced that the City would be moving to its new palace and that the City and County would not co-habitate.
This week the Mayor changed his mind and now wants to form a task force. This task forced is supposed to explore options for the space needs of the City and County.
I earlier wrote a post where I discussed how dysfunctional our local government is. The City and County have had “space issues” for many years and have completely failed to address them until Mayor Henry got tired of dithering and decided to pay too much for a large building and renovate that building at 200 East Berry.
Unfortunately he was able to convince a majority of City Council to go along with his terrible decision to pay way too much for an existing building and renovate it.
Then the County Commissioners decided it was a good idea to co-habitate with the City in the current City County building and the new “palace.”
Luckily the Allen County Council shot the proposal down because it was going to cost the County far more money then they have available.
This entire process has been a debacle that has stretched over many years.
Now, our Mayor has “back pedalled” completely, and wants to re-explore the options over the next sixty days.
Good grief.
Mike Sylvester
Fort Wayne Public Safety Academy
I am sure everyone remembers the debate a couple of years ago about the Fort Wayne Public Safety Academy.
This is another local Government (Fort Wayne in this case) plan that has 100% failed by ANYONE’s definition of failure.
Believe it or not when the project was proposed there were people who argued that the facility would be so successful that not only would it be self sustaining; however, it would create jobs and revitalize the Southtown Mall area.
The lost decade in America
We always hear a lot about the lost decade in Japan. In fact Japan has now pretty much lost two decades of economic growth…
What you are not hearing is that America has lost the last decade as well. The news media should focus on this rather than how low President Obama bows to the Japenese Emperor and rather than trying to destroy Sarah Palin.
I thought I would look back at the last ten years or so so see how America has done. The results are not pretty…
The Federal, State, and local Governments should all eliminate all housing programs
The real estate market in the United States is huge. There are currently a large number of properties available for sale and available for rent.
There is no reason for the Government to be involved in subsidizing housing at all.
Consider a recent article in the News-Sentinel “ A good idea or a waste of money?”
This article specifically discusses a 214 unit apartment complex in Fort Wayne called the Cottages at McMillen Park. In the 1990’s the taxpayers spent 3 million dollars to improve these units of Governmental housing. Per the article only 1/4 of the units are occupied; almost all of those be people are subsidized by the Fort Wayne Housing Authority.
The Federal Government and other lenders are going to foreclose on the property and sell it at a Sheriff’s sale December 9th, 2009. Then per the article the entire complex will be raised and rebuilt with the help of more Federal tax dollars.
This entire process is predictable and a complete waste of taxpayer dollars.
The administration of Fort Wayne Mayor Tom Henry
Mayor Tom Henry has been in office long enough to evaluate his performance to date.
If you could choose one word to describe his administration what would that one word be?
Mike Sylvester
Silverdome…
Well the Silverdome, located near Detroit, Michigan was just sold to the highest bidder.
Almost 35 years ago taxpayers spent almost 56 million dollars to build the facility…
It just sold; for about ONE PERCENT of the cost of construction. It sold for $583,000…
Wow…
That tells you just how bad it is in certain parts of the country. The facility costs taxpayers about 1.5 million dollars in upkeep per year…
Once again, wow…
Mike Sylvester
Dysfunctional local Government
The County Council has voted unanimously against sharing space with the City in the new Palace the City is going to create.
It is appalling that our local Government officials; both City and County, have again failed to work together to resolve issues.
The City and County have both had “space issues” for many years and now the City and County will be in different buildings.
I am not sure who is to blame for this debacle; however, it truly shows incompetence that the City and County have again proved unable to even coordinate where local Government will be located.
Mike Sylvester
How did this guy ever become Sec. of Treasury?
With the Democrat Peter DeFasio leading the way, the hearing in DC today is finally asking how Tim Geithner ( the tax dodger exemplar) could have ever been offered the job he has been so royally screwing up. They have also asked him to resign and all thinking citizens are replying, “How soon?”.
