About: Jeff Pruitt

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pruitt@fortwaynepolitics.com
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I am a lifelong Democrat that likes to call myself a populist Democrat. In this sense I think more power should be shifted to the people and away from politicians and the elitist interests that attempt to control them. Philosophically I suppose I would classify myself (if I must) as a fiscal conservative and a social liberal. In general I believe in ALL of our inalienable rights and thus by definition realize they are not provided or doled out by the government. I'm originally from Kansas and a graduate of Kansas State University with a degree in Physics and I moved to Fort Wayne in the summer of 2000. I don't claim any special expertise in the government arena other than I follow it very closely and always have. In that sense I suppose I'm a pundit - I'll leave it up to others to decide if I'm any good at it...

Posts by Jeff Pruitt:

Woeful ISTEP Scores for FWCS - See The Data For Yourself

12/5/08 @ 12:29 am

The ISTEP is the standardized test taken by all Indiana students in grades 3-8 & 10. Regardless of what one thinks of standardized testing the truth is this is the benchmark used to gauge a school’s success. The Fall 2008 scores were released today so how did Fort Wayne Community Schools do? Abysmal, as you probably imagined (3rd grade scores were especially horrible).

Of course if you read the FWCS press release then you might think everything is A-OK:

Fall ISTEP+ results released today show FWCS followed state trends in many areas on this year’s assessment.

If you want to be generous then you would call this spin. If you’re feeling honest then you would call it… well nevermind. Either way the truth is FWCS lost ground against the state average in 3 out of the 7 grades in English and 6 out of 7 in Math.

But this might not tell the whole story right? After all, maybe this was just a bad year. So what we need to do is see how the scores are trending over multiple years. We also need to adjust for changes in the ISTEP test (i.e. how does the test difficulty change from year to year). Well I’ve done that analysis and it ain’t pretty.

I went back and looked at the last 5 years worth of data. Both the FWCS average and the State average for English and Math are given. In order to adjust for variations in test difficulty I also calculated the ratio of the FWCS scores to the State average scores. Those are shown below as well.

A ratio above 100% means FWCS is outperforming the state average, a ratio below 100% means our scores are lower than the state average. If the district was making progress then this ratio would be steadily rising. Instead what you see is that the ratios are either flat, or in the case of Math scores, steadily declining. This isn’t spin people, this is raw data and the data don’t lie - FWCS is moving in the wrong direction.

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Filed Under Featured, Local Politics | 26 Comments

FWP Word Of the Day

12/3/08 @ 10:54 am

Moral Hazard
From Wikipedia:

Moral hazard is the prospect that a party insulated from risk may behave differently from the way it would behave if it were fully exposed to the risk. Moral hazard arises because an individual or institution does not bear the full consequences of its actions, and therefore has a tendency to act less carefully than it otherwise would, leaving another party to bear some responsibility for the consequences of those actions.

Filed Under National Politics | 2 Comments

High Performance Government Network Council Discussion

12/3/08 @ 10:46 am

Last night city council once again discussed the topic of the High Performance Government Network and what they are actually providing the city. Readers will likely remember that the HPGN is an organization comprised exclusively of former Mayor Richard’s direct reports that was given a 3-year, $95k/year contract in the waning hours of the Richard administration.

The council brought the topic back to the table because of the recent State Board of Accounts audit that claimed the contract should have been brought before council and also claimed that the HPGN employees were in violation of the city’s ethics code. The city’s HR director took some time to explain the contract (I missed the first few minutes of this) including the fact that HPGN will put in roughly 600 hours on the contract which, for those of you scoring at home, means we are paying them $158/hour.

The city did put forward one employee to speak on behalf of the organization:

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Filed Under City Council, Featured | 20 Comments

We’re Screwed

12/2/08 @ 12:18 am

I know we focus on local politics here at FWP but we just cannot ignore the current financial crisis. The more I read on this topic the more depressed I get. Perhaps at some point I will make a substantive and detailed post on the topic but I’m to the point now where I simply cannot bring myself to explain how dire the current situation is.

Nearly every economic indicator is in complete free-fall with no end in sight. The federal reserve has already cut rates to 1% and now they are considering monetizing our debt - i.e. buying government debt back from the public to inject liquidity. The Fed is out of options.

We are in this current situation because consumers, businesses and our government could not live within their means. Easy access to credit has completely bankrupt our nation and our government’s response is to make credit more readily available? The Ponzi scheme is over and now there will be hell to pay.

Unemployment is going to skyrocket and I don’t think there’s anything we can do. We’ve developed massive and unsustainable trade deficits while eliminating nearly all production capabilities. The only hope I see would be to stop the current financial bailout and put everything we’ve got into a government-backed financial stimulus to move us (back?) towards a sustainable production-based economy.

This will have to be the Mother Of All Stimuli - I’m talking $2-4 TRILLION. The obvious place for this investment would be in new energy development and infrastructure. If we could dramatically alter our economy and efficiency through new energy technology (think the type of changes brought on by the computer) then we might be able to turn this around.

The average automaton is too busy watching reality TV to see what’s coming but it’s gone to hit them like a runaway train. Maybe that’s the way to go - ignorance is bliss. For the rest of us, well we are so screwed…

Filed Under Featured, National Politics | 16 Comments

Some Things Never Change

12/1/08 @ 2:00 am

Hundreds of small and medium-size banks failed and giants like Citibank and Chase Manhattan were in distress. Their problem was too much speculative lending: the major banks had gambled on Latin American debt, and then, as those loans went bad, like amateur gamblers trying to get square they’d bet even more by leading the whole industry into a binge of commercial real estate lending.

The inevitable collapse of the real estate boom really shook the banks. Uncertainty about the value of the real estate collateral securing their loans made bankers unsure how much capital they actually had - leaving many of them paralyzed, frightened, and reluctant to lend further. Big businesses were able to tap other sources of funds, such as innovative debt markets that had sprung up on Wall Street - a phenomenon that helped keep the recession shallow. But small and midsize manufacturers and merchants all over America were finding it hard to get even routine business loans approved. And that, in turn, made the recession unusually difficult to snap out of.

That passage was from Alan Greenspan’s book “The Age of Turbulence” and was in reference to the Savings and Loan crisis of the late 80’s and the following recession of the early 90’s.

Note that the morons at Citibank were making stupid decision then as well. I wonder if the fact that the government bailed their sorry asses out once led them to take on extra risk in the future since they figured the government would bail them out again? Nah…

Filed Under National Politics | Leave a Comment

The Galloping Gobbler, Poison Control & Happy Thanksgiving

11/27/08 @ 10:32 am

I just returned from running in the Galloping Gobbler - a 4 mile race organized by councilman Mitch Harper. I’m not sure how many people were there but it had to be close to a 1000. I had a great time and was able to run the entire race without requiring medical assistance so I suppose it was a successful race.

Speaking of medical assistance, last night I got together with the What’s Going Down(town) bloggers to brew some beer and we had a minor incident. While transferring the beer from one fermenter to another we removed the airlock and I was informed the airlock was filled with vodka (about an ounce) so I could go ahead and drink it.

After drinking I quickly realized that it wasn’t vodka. After a little discussion we remembered that the airlock was filled with Star San sanitizing solution instead of vodka. So I read the label on the Star San bottle and it said to call poison control immediately - just great. So for the first time in my life I called poison control and they were really helpful.

At first I thought the solution I drank was undiluted but then I realized that the Star San was diluted one ounce to 5 gallons of water so basically what I drank was just water - disaster averted. I’m starting to wonder if this wasn’t some sort of grand conspiracy to throw me off my game before the Galloping Gobbler race. Either way, the moral to the story is don’t drink anything you didn’t pour yourself or watched someone else pour. Yea I realize most people learn that in 2nd grade - I guess I’m a little slow.

I’m getting ready to start smoking our turkey and just thought I’d pass on a Happy Thanksgiving to anyone that might be reading today. And if you get a chance you might as well root for the sad sack Detroit Lions - they should win at least one game this year…

Filed Under Featured | 6 Comments

Hell Freezes Over

11/26/08 @ 6:38 pm

I can’t believe it. The News-Sentinel has acknowledged the existence of bloggers and actually (gasp!) linked to their respective blogs. Bob Caylor of the News-Sentinel reports on last night’s tax abatement discussion at city council:

A proposal to update the city’s system for awarding tax abatements to new or expanding businesses won a generally favorable reception Tuesday night from City Council, although council members suggested several areas they would like to revise.
[...]
Three people spoke during a public hearing on the proposal. All are bloggers who follow City Council closely.

Steve Parker, who runs www.aroundfortwayne.com, praised Brown and Goldner’s work, but he raised the question of whether the council would endorse the use of a tax abatement to help attract a casino.

John Kalb, who frequently contributes to www.fortwaynepolitics.com, applauded the ordinance. Kalb has frequently criticized the city’s use of tax abatements in the past.

Jeff Pruitt, who runs the www.fortwaynepolitics.com blog, said it was a step in the right direction. However, he said he still opposes tax abatements. Instead of selectively rewarding business expansion or relocation, the city should lower taxes uniformly to stimulate investment, he said.

Actually the News-Sentinel has been better about this than the other local paper so I guess I shouldn’t be completely surprised.

One of my biggest complaints about traditional media has been what I perceive to be an establishment bias. What I mean by that is only one side of the story gets told - typically that of the politician or the developer - and everyone else is ignored or downplayed to a significant degree. Kudos to Caylor and the NS for breaking that mold.

Of course I’m not sure how Caylor got the blog links past his editor - maybe he was on vacation, heh…

Filed Under City Council | 3 Comments

The Harrison Shipwreck

11/25/08 @ 7:15 pm

Chris Schoen, CEO of Barry Real Estate, came before the city council tonight to report on the “progress” of the Harrison Square condominium project. Let’s just say there wasn’t a lot of good news (although there was some).

Schoen began by telling council that this market is as bad as he’s ever seen and thus Barry Real Estate has changed their financing package to include a first mortgage for only 50% of the total cost. Despite this reduction in first mortgage debt, Schoen said they have still been unable to secure financing on the project.

Schoen said the strategy moving forward is to try and finalize contracts within the retail portion of the building since banks are currently not lending for condo projects. And if there was a silver lining to Schoen’s presentation it was the progress he cited in the retail portion. Schoen said the following retail tenants were close to signing agreements and would encompass 90% of the total retail space:

As for the condo contracts there was no progress to report. Because the project has changed those that have agreed to contracts in the past will have to be revisited. Schoen said they have had a handful of committed buyers that have stuck with them and he felt those buyers are still committed. However, he did not specify what that number was.

The new drop dead date for groundbreaking is Opening Day April 16, 2009 and that will be put into the condo contracts in order to try and strengthen the financing package - “We believe we will deliver on the full promise of Harrison Square,” Schoen said.

This discussion was actually worse than I expected. I thought Barry Real Estate would have some concrete number of condo contracts signed and/or real estate square footage leased. Right now the official number for both of those is zero. Furthermore, I am not convinced that retail leases will be enough to secure the financing they desire.

Hopefully the outlook will change before April 16 but right now this project is stagnant….

Filed Under City Council, Featured | 16 Comments

History As Our Guide For Condo Rhetoric

11/25/08 @ 5:02 pm

I would caution everyone to cast a critical eye towards statements made by Barry Real Estate at tonight’s city council meeting. They have a history of making statements that simply do not pan out. Will we get a realistic assessment tonight or more of the same?

He (Chris Schoen, Barry Real Estate) stated the projected construction period is 10 to 11 months. To hit opening day of the ballpark, it would require a start in the July 1st to August 1st window. He stated that a more likely start time window is August 1st to September 1st.

we believe that a 50% debt level would be very acceptable. We clean the package up, we’ve simplified it very much - if you will, we’ve still gotta come up with that number of units to get a bank to do it. If in the end, we’ve only sold ten, we have a contractual obligation to the City. If we have to come up with a way to fund 100% of it, right now I don’t know how I’d do that, but we’re committed to figuring out how to do that.

Henry said the developers had a goal of having 30 people put down payments on a condo by the end of the month (July), and he thinks they are close to meeting it.

Filed Under City Council | 1 Comment

911 Consolidation Update - Sheriff Fries Is The Only Roadblock Left

11/25/08 @ 3:54 pm

I spoke with commissioner Nelson Peters last week about a variety of topics including the controversial county pay raise proposal which I previously wrote about. We also discussed 911 consolidation and I wanted to update everyone on where that stands (I’ll also have a future post on the Bridge Maintenance fiasco).

To make a long story short, Sheriff Ken Fries is the only major roadblock left in consolidation. Peters has submitted a draft proposal for consolidation to Mayor Henry that would make take the two 911 departments and put them under the umbrella of the Multiple Agency Community Partnership. A joint city-county appointed board of directors would oversee the operations with the director of Homeland Security also having a seat on the board.

While Sheriff Fries continues to resist consolidation, Peters did admit that the commissioners could force the sheriff to go along with the consolidation plan. I asked Peters point-blank if the mayor signed off on his proposal would he have the support of the other commissioners and he said no. Peters indicated that commissioner Bill Brown is still against forcing the sheriff into consolidation.

I asked Brown about his position on this and he said “I’m not interested in forcing the sheriff to go along with consolidation. I just don’t think that’s good public policy.” While Brown is pushing for buy-in from the sheriff, Peters doesn’t think it’s going to happen. Peters said he hopes Brown will ultimately come to the conclusion that he has - namely that the only way it’s going to happen is if the commissioners force it.

My thought is that Sheriff Fries has had a long time to become part of the consolidation process and if he hasn’t bought in by now then he probably never will. As of today, nearly everyone is on board and there’s a proposal on the mayor’s desk. The only one holding it up is Fries and, based on the conversations I’ve had, it doesn’t sound like that’s going to change anytime soon…

Filed Under Featured, Local Politics | 10 Comments

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