Councilmembers Send Budget Letter To The Mayor
On Tuesday three members of the city council sent a letter to Mayor Henry regarding the 2009 budget. According to Tom Didier, Liz Brown and Marty Bender, tax increases are pretty much off the table. They also suggest that a good budget will have to start from leadership in the mayor’s office:
Although there have been recent suggestions to look at reducing the homestead credit or raising taxes, it is imperative that in order to make informed budget decisions that we council members first know that all departments have taken the necessary steps to reduce costs wherever possible.
The best job that the City Council can do with respect to passing a good 2009 budget comes from your leadership as our Executive. We will look at the budget you present and challenge spending where it may seem unreasonable.
You can read the full letter here.
The Marx-ist Struggle
Phil Marx, of the blog My HUD House, has been featured in the most recent edition of Fort Wayne Reader:
Inner city blues
Blogger Phil Marx of My H.U.D. House chronicles his day-to-day struggles with drug dealers and his frustrations with the F.W.P.D.
Link (Fort Wayne Reader)
“Late one October night in 2006, a Molotov cocktail exploded on the back porch of Phil Marx’s house. Another burst in the back yard, while a third smoldered in the front.
Marx doesn’t live in Baghdad or Mogadishu or Kabul. He lives in Fort Wayne, in a house on East Suttenfield just a few blocks from the headquarters of the Fort Wayne Police Department. For almost 13 years, Marx has been waging a war with the drug dealers in his neighborhood who use his corner — and sometimes his front yard — as a place to do business”
Be sure to check out the full article!
Related FWP posts:
Marx Is Still The Best (2008-05-09)
Are You Reading The Best Blog In Town? (2008-03-11)
Everything Is An “Economic Revitalization Area”
This Tuesday the City Council will hold a public hearing about declaring the corner of Wallen & Coldwater an economic revitalization area. So what is an economic revitalization area anyway? Well it’s specifically defined by state statute ( IC 6-1.1-12.1)
Sec. 1. For purposes of this chapter:
(1) “Economic revitalization area” means an area which is within the corporate limits of a city, town, or county which has become undesirable for, or impossible of, normal development and occupancy because of a lack of development, cessation of growth, deterioration of improvements or character of occupancy, age, obsolescence, substandard buildings, or other factors which have impaired values or prevent a normal development of property or use of property. The term “economic revitalization area” also includes:
(A) any area where a facility or a group of facilities that are technologically, economically, or energy obsolete are located and where the obsolescence may lead to a decline in employment and tax revenues; and
(B) a residentially distressed area, except as otherwise provided in this chapter.
First, let me just say that this is basically in my neighborhood as I live less than a mile from the site. Second, in no way, should this area qualify as an economic revitalization area. There have been over a hundred new homes and apartments built in this area, a new shopping center that is filling up, a gas station, and a major office complex - all in the last 5 years.
This area is clearly showing strong signs of economic growth and frankly I find it insulting that the city wants to label something in this neighborhood an Economic Revitalization Area. The city has and continues to abuse the tax abatement process and I believe this property is another example of that.
Just read the state statute cited above and then visit the area and you tell me if it meets the spirit of the law. In fact the city should be publicly challenged to specify exactly which part of the above statute they are using to declare this area an Economic Revitalization Area.
The city council needs to end the current piecemeal abatement process and do one of the following:
- Approve abatements that only go to ACTUAL Economic Revitalization areas
- Streamline the abatement process so everyone gets one without any of the bureaucratic red tape
- Lower the tax rate for everyone so companies receiving abatements are not given an economic advantage over their competitors
FWCS Remonstrance - One Year Later
Kelly Sodurland has an article highlighting the one year anniversary of the successful remonstrance put forward by the Code Blue Schools organization against Fort Wayne Community Schools’ $500 million facility project. I think the important thing for voters to remember is that the board has decided to put politics ahead of progress:
After abiding by the state’s one-year waiting period, the board could introduce a new proposal, but administrators and board members say there are no concrete plans to do so soon.
For one thing, there have been no formal discussions on how to formulate a new plan.
Now why would that be? Many of the buildings do need serious repairs and yet the board, and the district, has done next to nothing to identify and address those looming needs. Of course it wouldn’t have anything to do with reminding the public, right before an election, about their previous grandiose facility plans would it? Nah, that’s just too cynical.
An Open Suggestion For YLNI
Over the past year or so I’ve had the opportunity to meet several people involved with the Young Leaders Of Northeast Indiana (YLNI) organization and I’ve attended a few of their events and meetings as well. The people I’ve interacted with are an impressive lot that truly care about the future of our community.
They have hosted influential speakers, held roundtable discussions/debates and, in general, they’ve encouraged their members to become involved in the community. For brevity, I really am shortchanging the good work they’ve done but you can check out their website for more information if you’re so inclined.
What I would like to see from the organization now is a push towards policy involvement. I’m not suggesting the group has to cut back on anything they are doing now - far from it. I just think this community needs an organization willing to put forth leaders to guide the future of the community and end, to quote county councilman Paul Moss, the “incestuous relationships” that are abound in our local government.
In my opinion, the most effective means to change local government is by applying a ground-up approach and that means a wholesale change on the various boards and commissions that make up our government. YLNI has a plethora of members that would be great additions to these boards and I would suggest they start by lobbying for one of their members to fill the empty spot on the Plan Commission.
It’s one thing to lobby for change and try to steer the ship from the outside but it’s quite another challenge to try and take the wheel yourself. YLNI has shown to be an effective and impressive community-building organization and now they should consider taking the next step which is to influence public policy by getting more involved in local government organizations…
Sewer Restrictive Covenant Will Remain In Place
The restrictive covenants will not be removed as the Plan Comission voted 4-3 against it. Ken Neumeister, Paul Moss and Harold Kleine were the only votes for lifting the covenant.
The head of the Sewer District is livid. Speaking to people in the room:
You can go thank them for killing Holmestead. Unbelievable - they killed our opportunity. It makes absolutely no sense. I’m not going to sit through this listen to Bill Brown ask “Why aren’t you doing this?” I don’t know why the hell we didn’t do it. We had a different director of City Utilities, the environment was different…
My final thought on the matter - Holy crap the people still can win in this community…
Canyon Cliffs Vote - 4 of 5 Minor Plats Not Approved (Update 2x)
Minor plat 1 was approved by a 5-2 vote.
Minor plats 2-5 failed by not getting 5 votes - the vote was 4-3.
Since the majority vote wasn’t actually against the applications they will remain open indefinitely.
It was hard to tell who voted against the plats - Gonzalee Martin was one of them and I believe Susan Hoot and Bill Brown Harold Kleine (plats 2-5) were the other two but I’ll have to confirm that.
Frankly I’m a little shocked…
Update: The JG reports that Harold Kleine was the vote for plat 1 and against plats 2-5. They had a closer seat than me so they’re probably right. Also as the JG reports Kleine didn’t say anything during the debate so that one kind of came out of left field.
I believe this means the developer can still build on the property but they will do so under a different set of rules and they will be limited to how many (14?) they can develop at a time.
Update 2x: I had an opportunity to briefly speak with Bill Brown during the break and he said that the developers can only develop 6 lots under the first minor plat ordinance that passed although they will likely challenge the commission’s vote in court. However, he said they could develop the rest under metes and bounds although that wouldn’t allow them pursue as quality of a development due to certain restrictions.
Canyon Cliffs Plan Commission Vote - Liveblogging
Just got here and things have been underway for about half an hour.
2:04 PM - Susan Hoot says she voted for the minor plat ordinance but doesn’t remember anyone discussing the “stacking” of properties like is happening now.
2:06 PM - Bill Brown says the minor plat ordinance needs to be revisited so that its purpose statement is actually in the ordinance (no kidding).
2:08 PM - Hoot says the minor plat being discussed goes against Plan-it Allen; nobody challenges that assertion
2:13 PM - A bunch of gobbly-gook about whether or not this specific piece of property is prohibited under the minor plat ordinance. If the minor plat ordinance is not approved the developer could still develop 28 lots over 2 years.
2:18 PM - Hoot says “I’m in disagreement with all of this. I don’t think we’ve done a good job for Allen County and I’m sorry I’ve been a part of that. I don’t think we can stop Mr Bodenhafer from developing the 28 lots but I want to go on record as saying I’m against what’s happening out there.”
2:20 PM - Commissioner Bill Brown states that just the fact that this type of approval could happen in executive committee means the ordinance should be revisited. Also says some people would’ve liked to have seen this donated to ACRES but the property owner can do what he wants.
A Historical View Of The County’s Bridge Financing Failure
The county council and commissioners would have you believe that the current financial crisis involving bridges was somehow unforeseen or unavoidable. The truth is everyone knew it was a poor decision to eliminate the county’s cumulative bridge fund - the county’s own highway director Mike Fitch even told them as much.
So just keep in mind that when commissioner Nelson Peters tells the public that the county has enough cash reserves to maintain bridges in the county it’s because they created that reserve on the back of bridge maintenance.
$750k per year used to go to maintenance but in 2002 they decided to send it to the general fund instead. They simply started playing a shell game hoping the problem would go away. So let’s a take a brief historical tour into what actually happened and shed some light on the current problem:
Montagano Looking Strong
Third District Democratic congressional candidate Mike Montagano is only one of 22 candidates nationwide to have raised more money than the incumbent. He’s also only one of 9 candidates to have more cash on hand than the incumbent. From the Montagano press release:
“Any time you outraise an incumbent, especially someone like Souder who funds his campaign with contributions from oil companies and then votes to give them tax breaks despite rising gas costs, it gives your campaign a huge amount of momentum,” Montagano explained.
I had a couple of different people suggest to me that Montagano wasn’t doing enough campaigning. I tried to explain to him that the guy has been everywhere and is out raising money which is exactly what he needs to do at this point. He simply cannot win unless he’s competitive in the fundraising arena.
Meanwhile, the challenge is starting to mount for Mark Souder:
- Montagano crushed Souder in primary votes
- Montagano has outraised Souder
- DCCC has added Montagano to their Red to Blue Emerging Races List
- Indiana is in play for the Presidential race
- Evan Bayh could be Obama’s VP choice
I never would’ve guessed it months ago but Montagano may be the Democrats’ best chance to pick up a Congressional seat in Indiana. And don’t think that will go unnoticed by the national party…
