Memorial Day 2011
Memorial Day is a holiday that has been established to remember members of our military who have fallen in the line of duty. Almost every male in my father’s family and my mother’s family have served in the US military. We were all enlisted and we all served between four and eight years. All of my relatives served in the US Army while I served in the US Navy. I cannot tell you how much ribbing I have received at family re-unions in Anderson, Indiana…
None of my relatives died in the line of duty. Many were wounded and quite a few saw combat; however, they all came home.
I do not know anyone who died in the line of duty. All of my relatives who served in the military had friends who died in conflicts from World War Two through today.
I only have one relative who served in Iraq or Afghanistan. My relatives are much older than me and served in WW2, Vietnam, and Korea instead…
I was lucky enough to serve during peace time on a nuclear powered submarine.
I hope all of you spend some time today remembering those who served their country and never came home.
I especially hope you consider this when you are deciding who to vote for in the upcoming elections. Both Democrats and Republicans are continually supporting our involvement in conflicts in the Middle East and I am very discouraged by our involvement in these conflicts.
Mike
Squabbling over a new “permitting process” for Fort Wayne and Allen County
Local politics in this area is generally relatively relatively non partisan; at least when compared to National Politics. That has not been the case for the last couple of days…
The truth of the matter is that the “land permitting” process locally has been a serious impediment to business development for decades. Pretty much everyone knows that this process has been broken for a long, long time.
The business community finally convinced our local politicians that the process needed to be changed and this was a valid campaign issue brought up by all three major Republican candidates for Mayor.
Indiana Tech to open a law school in Fort Wayne in 2013
Indiana Tech plans on opening a new law school starting in the Fall of 2013. They would like enrollment to be 100 students for the first year and they expect annual tuition to be about $18,000 per year.
This will be the fifth law school in Indiana and the only one to open since 1894…
Basically Indiana Tech is giving two main reasons for opening a new law school in Fort Wayne in 2013:
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- The first reason, and this reason seems perfectly valid to me, is that many Indiana attorneys currently go to law school in neighboring states and Indiana Tech would like those students to attend law school in Indiana.
- The second reason is much more suspect. Per several studies Indiana has fewer lawyers per capita than most other states.
To be honest with you I am glad Indiana Tech is going to open a law school. I just hope that the taxpayers do not have to heavily subsidize it…
Mike Sylvester
Tommy Schrader, Democrat, City Council at Large
As I have previously mentioned on this blog the Republican slate of at-large candidates was comically weak this year. The truth of the matter is the Democratic slate was significantly weaker.
Consider the results on the Democratic side:
- John Shoaff, 29%
- Gordon Anthony, 25%
- Tommy Schrader, 20%
- George Guido 14%
- Nic Tash, 12%
Tommy Schrader is a “perennial” candidate of sorts who has ran for office several times. He raised and spent no money in this primary race.
Tommy Schrader somehow won the Democratic Primary; he in fact received the 3rd highest vote total. This indicates the weakness of the Democratic slate of candidates.
Kevin Knuth file a challenge with the election board and claimed that Tommy Schrader did not meet the residency requirements.
The local newspapers have covered this story and according the the local newspapers:
- His only income is from Social Security Disability payments
- He takes medication to assist him with various mental ailments
- He went to Green Bay Wisconsin in March and stayed in a hotel for three weeks and then a homeless shelter for four weeks.
- He changed his voter registration in April and voted in the Green Bay Mayoral Election.
So last Friday the Allen County election board met and heard testimony from Mr. Schrader. Since Mr. Schrader openly admitted he changed his voter registration and vote in Wisconsin in April the Election Board unanimously decided to remove him from the ballot since he had not lived here for the last year.
Determining residency is very difficult (Look at the new Mayor of Chicago…).
I personally think the Allen County Election Board clearly made the right decision by removing Mr. Schrader from the ballot.
Mike Sylvester
Crazy Pinz
Yesterday, the Fort Wayne City Council voted down a rezoning effort (Z-11-03-09) by the owner of Crazy Pinz, a local family-oriented entertainment center. The owners wanted to expand their services on the outside of their property to feature outdoor games and activities that could be in use from June through September each year for parties, company picnics, etc. Also, the outdoor area would feature no amplified sound or excessive lighting and would only be in operation from noon until dusk (or 9pm, whichever comes earlier) each day. This issue has become rather controversial because of the potential impacts on the residential properties directly surrounding the Crazy Pinz property.
Unfortunately I was unable to attend the actual meeting but I watched the taped meeting later last night on Public Access. For anyone who may be interested, this meeting is definitely worth a watch, if nothing else for the entertainment value. The issue caused a great deal of back-and-forth and noticeable frustration.
2011 Fort Wayne City Primary
The 2011 Primary is in the books.
I was very dissappointed that Paula Hughes won the Republican Primary for Mayor. It is amazing that three polls were done and in two Brown was ahead and in one Brown and Hughes were even. When the votes were counted Paula Hughes won with 56% of the vote.
It was an impressive victory for Paula Hughes. Turnout was abysmal; under 13% in fact. I tend to beleive that the low turnout must have favored Hughes because she likely had a very good “ground game” in place.
Mike
Who I voted for this morning, and why
There were only three contested races on my Republican ballot in my precinct today.
For Mayor I voted for Liz Brown. I have discussed my reasoning in several recent posts. If Doden wins I will be able to support him in November as well…
For City Council at-large I changed my mind since my earlier post. I decided to vote for everyone except Marty Bender. For reasons I posted earlier I do not want Marty Bender to be re-elected. The Republican “at-large” field is EXTREMELY weak. It is likely in November that I will vote for Crawford (It kind of kills my soul to vote for him), Shoaff, and someone else as yet to be determined or I may just vote for Crawford and Shoaff. I will look at this closer over the next few months.
2nd District City Council was hard for me. All three Republican candidates are candidates I can support in November. I decided to vote for Jehl. I think Jehl may well have a better chance to unseat Goldner than the other two. Jon Olinger was the deciding factor for me in this race… That being said I will support who-ever wins this race in November.
Does anyone know why the Republican “at-large” field is so weak this year? The Republicans did a good job filling other portions of the ballot; however, some of the Republcians running for various districts should have ran for the “at-large” seats.
Mike Sylvester
Fort Wayne Primary Races for City Council
I have only followed two of the primary races this year since I worked so much up until April 18th. Those two races are for the 2nd District (The district I live in) and the field of at-large candidates since I will be voting in that primary as well.
First off I think the three candidates running for the 2nd District in the Republican primary are all three people I could vote for in November. Gaines is running a lower key campaign and seems unlikely to be able to win; it seems more likley that Gutman or Jehl will be the victor. This is a primary that I did not get involved in and I feel that I will be able to support whover wins the Republican Primary against Karen Goldner in November.
The four candidates running for the three spots on the ticket for the at-large City Council seats are an entirely different story. I am not sure what happened this year; however, this is the weakest group of Republican at-large candidates that I have ever seen. Lets look at the field:
First off is incumbent Marty Bender. Marty Bender is a Republican in name only. He is often referred to as “The Mayor’s City Councilman” because he votes with the Democratic Mayor’s Administration very regularly. Marty Bender is a good man; however, he is not a Republican and he consistently votes for things a conservative would not support. Likely what makes me most angry is the fact that he refuses to recuse himself from votes on votes he should recuse himself from. A good example of this is the fact that he votes on his own pay raises as a City Policeman rather than recusing himself from those votes. There is no circumstance where I could possibly vote for Marty Bender.
Next is John Crawford. John Crawford has been identified as a Conservative and somewhat Libertarian individual. That being said he supported the smoking ban, Harrison Square, and the Public Safety Academy all of which were things I would not have voted for… Mr. Crawford was defeated four years ago and I was glad he was defeated; I certainly did not vote for him four years ago since there were better poeple to vote for. That being said the “at-large” candidates are so weak this year that I am currenly planning on voting for Mr. Crawford in the Republican Primary on Tuesday. In fact Mr. Crawford is the only at-large candidate I will be voting for on Tuesday.
I do not know too much about Tom Friestroffer; however, what I do know is enough to ensure I do not vote for him on Tuesday. He has four main points on his website. One of these points is that he is a strong “housing advocate.” What on Earth is a strong housing advocate? Based on his past positions he obviously supports a lot of Government interference in the housing sector and I personally think the Government should have NO INVOLVEMENT in the housing sector. His campaign website is one page and tells us nothing about his positions on a wide variety of issues. His campaign website is very poor. At this point I cannot vote for Mr. Friestroffer.
The final candidate is Ivan Hood. I have researched Mr. Hood somewhat and I just could not learn enough to make a good decision about Mr. Hood. At this point I have decided not to vote for Mr. Hood on Tuesday either.
With this weak field of Republicans I am pretty much 100% sure that I will be voting for Crawford (R) and Shoaff (D) this November for the at-large race. It remains to be seen if I will just vote for those two or if one of the remaining candidates will “trip my trigger.”
That being said the Republican “at-large” field is extermely weak and somewhat disappointing…
I think Eric Doden likely should have ran for City Council “at-large” and served at least one term before he decided to run for Mayor…
Mike Sylvester
Congress is inept, President Obama should be impeached
I am sick and tired of watching our elected officials in Washington DC ignore the US Constitution.
I personally do not feel that the President of the United States has the authority to commit our military forces to action in Libya without the approval of Congress. Please realize that the current Administration has specifically stated that Libya does not present a military threat to the United States nor is it in any way vital to our national security or economic interests.
When our forces were first committed to Libya there was a tiny amount of outrage from a very few Republicans and Democrats. This outrage was very minor and did not come from the leadership of either Party.
The current “NATO” operation in Libya shows us several things:
- Congress is inept and refuses to realize that Congressional authorization should have been obtained prior to committing our forces to this civil war.
- President Obama is a hypocrite of the highest order. On the campaign trail he attacked the Republicans for foreign misadventures and specifically outlined the criteria that would need to be met before he committed our forces to another conflict. Libya clearly does not meet those criteria.
- The Democrats have continually insisted that the Republicans were using the US military too often in the middle east. They have had the power to stop this since they won the elections of 2006; that being said they just keep continuing to escalate our foreign wars.
- NATO has proven to be inept. The United States is providing an incredible amount of logistical support to the operations in Libya and the United States is flying combat missions in Libya; however, the US is flying relatively few actual combat missions. Even with direct support from the United States NATO has proven to be incapable of effectively removing Khadafi from power.
- The UN authorized a no-fly zone. That resolution is being interpreted as a resolution that will lead to regime change. Nato is not enforcing a no-fly zone; it is taking a side in a civil war.
- Numerous civilian deaths can be directly attributed to the bombings by NATO in Libya. Heck in several instances NATO has accidentally bombed and killed the rebels.
- If the rebels win they will assuredly kill a lot of innocent civilians who supported Khadafi, will the UN intervene in that?
The United States should in no way be involved in Libya. President Obama and almost the entire Democratic Party are hypocrites…
Mike Sylvester
