Harrison Square debacle continues

I have posted very little about the failed and misguided Harrison Square Project. 

I truly think at least 90% of Fort Wayne at this point realizes that the Harrison Square Project was poorly thought out and has 100% failed by ANY definition of failure.

The only real result of this project has been a little “Economic Re-arrangement” in Fort Wayne. 

Councilman John Shoaff has finally brought up the $5000 per day penalty that Barry Real Estate should have paid to the City of Fort Wayne since June 1st, 2009.  Barry Real Estate has been contractually obligated to pay the City of Fort Wayne $5000 per day since June 1st because they breached their contract to build the Harrison Square Condominiums by June 1st, 2009. 

The City of Fort Wayne to date has made excuse after excuse for Barry Real Estate and has failed to collect a dime.  The City of Fort Wayne has underfunded pension plans and is looking at very “tough” budgets for the next couple of years and desperately needs more revenue.   When you factor in the loss of revenue from the loss of Navistar over the next three years the City budget looks especially grim. 

I personally think the City of Fort Wayne is failing its fiduciary duties to the taxpayers of Fort Wayne by not collecting the money from Barry Real Estate that the City is due.

It will be interesting to see how the City Council members align themselves on this issue.  I fully expect the Mayor’s office to continue to make excuses for Barry Real Estate.  I fully expect Mitch Harper (R), John Shoaff (D), and Tom Smith (R) to attempt to hold Barry Real Estate to the terms of their contract.

I am not sure about the rest.  I have a feeling they will stand as follows:

1. Marty Bender (R), he will support the Mayors office as usual.
2. Liz Brown (R), I have no idea.
3. Karen Goldner (D), I expect her to support the Mayors office.
4. Tom Didier (R), he supported the original project and I expect he will support the Mayor’s office as well.
5. Tim Pape (D), he supported the original project and I expect he will support the Mayor’s office as well.
6. Glynn Hines, (D), he supported the original project and I expect he will support the Mayor’s office as well.

So I think it is likely our Mayor and our City Council will decide to let Barry Real Estate get away without fulfilling their contract with the City of Fort Wayne which disgusts me.  Please realize that if you stop paying your City Utilities bills they will turn off your utilities.  If you fail to pay your property taxes the County will sell your house at auction.  For some reason Barry Real Estate is not required to pay the money they owe…

Mike Sylvester

Fort Wayne City Council and the K2 ordinance

There are a whole lot of important items that the Fort Wayne City Council needs to address; however, K2 is not one of them.

It is hard for me to believe that our City Council has wasted so much time regulating another substance that likely only need to be regulated for minors.

Here are some ideas for the Fort Wayne City Council to spend time on rather than regulating substances like K2:

The City pension funds are underfunded; this deserves serious attention.

The City and other local Economic Development groups have given numerous tax incentives to companies who have completely failed to do the items they promised they would do in order to qualify for these tax credits.

Navistar is pulling out of Fort Wayne over the next three years and this will damage our City badly.

The City of Fort Wayne is going to have serious budget problems over the next couple of years.

There are many more items I could list; however, I think these four are sufficient.

I am disappointed that our City Council decided to regulate K2 for adults.

I have to admit that the first time I ever heard of K2 was the press coverage on the topic due to the proposed city ordinance.  That leads me to beleive that K2 is not a huge issue; at least not as important as the three items listed above…

Mike Sylvester

Council Should Amend Proposed K-2 Ordinance

The city council is considering regulating the K-2 product (and other similar products) which is described by some as a “synthetic marijuana”. Users of this product allegedly receive a marijuana-like high but will not test positive for marijuana. Currently there is no Indiana state or federal law restricting its distribution or posession.

The ordinance for consideration, sponsored by Mitch Harper and co-sponsored by Tom Didier, would introduce a fine system that would penalize businesses up to $2500 for selling the product and individuals up to $1000. One criticism that has been made about the product is that while it is labeled as something you shouldn’t ingest, it is obviously being smoked by the vast majority of the people who purchase it which is likely the real intent of the manufacturer.

Some might consider this consumer fraud but I would not agree with that position. I think the label was put there partly to avoid future regulations from local governments and law enforcement. But, more likely, the labeling is there to avoid existing regulations regarding food and drink products. I think nearly everyone would agree that those who smoke the product know full well why they are buying it and what the real intent of the manufacturer is. Thus the fraud isn’t on consumers but on what the manufacturers probably believe is an over-bearing government.

Harper has pointed out that his proposed ordinance is relatively modest and will mostly effect younger children who can obtain the product from a local neighborhood store and experiment with a “THC analog” substance. On a wider scale, he recognizes that this ordinance won’t have much of an impact on adult use since those users can easily drive to other cities to purchase the product.

My position is that regulation of this product is unwarranted. There are no credible studies or evidence that I have seen to suggest this substance is dangerous. But even if there were, I do not believe it’s the government’s responsibility to make decisions for people regarding what they want to do to their own body. I do sympathize with trying to protect children but that is the job of parents and not government. As for adults, they are more than capable of deciding if they want to ingest this product.

How is this different than banning trans fats, high fructose corn syrup or any other health-related product? I do not believe that Harper is a Souder-esque drug warrior - I think he’s merely trying to react to community requests that something be done about a product that many think is targeting and harming children. Therefore, I think an appropriate compromise might be to regulate the use such that minors are prohibited from purchasing or possessing the product - the same standard we apply to tobacco purchases. While perhaps not an ideal solution, it would still follow and support what I believe is the true intent of the ordinance - namely to restrict impressionable kids from trying something that might be potentially harmful and addictive.

At the end of the day I believe that in a free society people should be free to make their own decisions - even bad ones. The city council should reject this ordinance or at least amend it in such a way that doesn’t restrict adults from making choices about what they wish to do with their own body…

A Welcome Change in Transparency

The new deputy mayor, Beth Malloy, seems to have smacked some sense into Mayor Henry when it comes to transparency. Councilman Mitch Harper has been working with Malloy and also crafted an ordinance to require all city spending to be posted online.

the council this month unanimously approved an ordinance requiring the city to post all of its expenses online. The new law only provided an exception for employee compensation and did not mention economic development efforts. Yet unlike the consulting report, the Henry administration supported this effort.

Deputy Mayor Beth Malloy told the council the work can be done at little or no additional cost.
[...]
Councilman Mitch Harper, R-4th, wrote the online expense bill for the city and said he was glad to see the support from the administration. He said it appears Malloy, who replaced Purcell last month, has been given the authority to take control of the city’s transparency efforts, which should make them professional.

“She seems to represent something of a change,” he said.

Harper is being diplomatic here but I don’t think there’s any doubt that previous deputy mayor, Greg Purcell, was not a major advocate of open government provisions. He was an old-school bureaucrat who didn’t understand how technology has shortened the news cycle and that any effort at information control was futile and ultimately counterproductive.

While I don’t support the idea of a deputy mayor in general, it does appear that Malloy might be the person who can finally start giving mayor Henry some much-need good advice…

A Local Newspaper’s Quote of the Day

From their editorial supporting Mayor Henry’s proposal to create a task force which would look at changing what city contracts require city council approval:

After a bit of saber-rattling and defensiveness over City Council criticism of consultant contracts, Mayor Tom Henry proposed a common-sense, fair method of addressing the issue.

Henry created a panel that includes Council President Marty Bender and two other council members. In a move that was both practical and politically savvy, Henry asked Bender to appoint critics of the contracts from each party, Republican Liz Brown and Democrat Glynn Hines. The panel will also give Henry a voice by including new Deputy Mayor Beth Malloy and have a somewhat neutral member, City Clerk Sandy Kennedy, whose office serves as the council’s secretary and record-keeper.

Neutral? Are they kidding? There’s nothing wrong with Kennedy being a choice for the panel but let’s not pretend that she would be neutral. That is disingenuous. Of course the whole idea of a panel is ridiculous in the first place. We elect members of city council to legislate and we don’t need a special panel to help them do that.

Henry Administration learns NOTHING from the recent housing crisis

The News-Sentinel has a piece you should read entitled “City sets aside $300,000 for down-payment assistance.”

A huge bubble was created in the US housing market for a variety of reasons.  This housing bubble burst in 2008 and housing prices plunged.

Apparently the City of Fort Wayne learned absolutely nothing from the recent housing debacle.  The City of Fort Wayne will continue its abysmal policy of spending tax dollars to help low income people purchase homes.

Believe it or not the City will spend up to $10,000 per house helping low income people purchase houses.

It is amazing to me that government continues to refuse to learn from their past mistakes.  This program should be immediately closed and not another dollar should be spent on it.  There is no reason in this world that the City of Fort Wayne should select a few “lucky” families and help them buy a house that they often cannot afford.

Good Grief.

Mike Sylvester

Henry Administration drops the ball, again

When Mayor Tom Henry first unveiled his grand plan to purchase a building for City Government his proposal estimated that the renovation costs would be 7.3 million dollars.  When City Council approved the purchase they were told renovation costs would be approximately 7.3 million dollars.

A couple of weeks ago the architects revised the renovations costs up to more than 11 million dollars.

Based on its performance to date I expect the Henry Administration to make large errors like this; however, I certainly hope that our City Council takes exception to this and provides some oversight on this matter. 

It is completely unreasonable that the renovation cost estimate has increased by over 50% before anything has even been done.

I sure hope there is a strong candidate to vote for in the upcoming Mayors race because I really do not want to have to vote for Mayor Henry.

Mike

The Harrison Square Project is a dismal failure to date

I opposed the Harrison Square Project along with a large majority of Fort Wayne residents.  After the project was approved I still posted about it; however, I posted a great deal less about it.

The Harrison Square Project is a complete failure by any definition. 

The supporters cling to the fact that at great tax payer expense a pretty new baseball stadium was built downtown.  I agree that the new baseball stadium is very nice and that it is a pleasant place to watch a baseball game.

Read more

John Crawford forms exploratory Committee

The News-Sentinel has an interesting piece discussing the fact that John Crawford has formed an Exploratory Committee.  John Crawford (Republican) was an at-large City Councilman who was defeated in the last election. 

I have to admit that there is a lot to like about Mr. Crawford; however, I did not support him in his last re-election attempt for two main reasons.

First he supported and championed the smoking ban that was put into place in Fort Wayne.  I strongly believe in property rights and I detest the smoking ban in Fort Wayne.

Secondly he supported the failed Harrison Square Project.  The vast majority of those polled in Fort Wayne opposed the Harrison Square Project; however, it managed to pass City Council with a vote of 5 - 4.  One of those votes in favor was Councilman Crawford.

The entire article is well worth your time; however, I wish to discuss three of its points:

First is this gem; “Crawford would not have voted in favor of the $27 million Public Safety Academy had he known it would fail to support itself, requiring additional subsidies from City Council.”  A lot of private citizens (including yours truly) opposed this boondoggle and correctly predicted that it would not be able to support itself.  You can rest assured that if I were ever on City Council I would have opposed spending a huge amount of money whose basic strategy was “build it and they will come.”

Second is this tidbit “Crawford also was a late supporter of the city’s $125 million Harrison Square project, the success of which he said remains unclear.”  Councilman Crawford’s vote tipped the scales and allowed what will likely turn out to be the second largest waste of taxpayer dollars (The Grand Wayne Center is likely the largest waste) locally.  It is incomprehensible to me that anyone other than Greg Leatherman can possibly believe that the success of the Harrison Square Project remains unclear.  The Harrison Square Project is a dismal failute and the majority of this City predicted that it would be a dismal failure.

Third is this fact.  Mayor Henry has been a completely uninspiring and ineffective Mayor in my opinion.  That being said the only announced candidate on the Republican side is Paula Hughes.  If Mr. Crawford were to join the race I would likely support him over the other two likely candidates.

Mike Sylvester

Next Page →