Harper Trying To Close Potential Ethical Loophole In IT Contract
In a previous post I put up the video of councilman Mitch Harper’s comments during the IT contract debate. Harper pointed out that the contract requires the city to hire a consultant to monitor the benchmarks throughout the lifetime of the contract.
During the meeting he suggested that the contract be modified to ensure that no former city employee could fill this role without first having been removed from city employment for a period of at least two years.
Given the High Performance Government debacle from earlier this year Harper is right to try and close any potential revolving door between government officials and private consultants. Unfortunately, the administration is resisting these efforts thus far suggesting they be given the “flexibility” to hire whoever they wish to perform those duties.
Is it really too much to ask that the independent auditor reviewing these benchmarks not be a former city employee who has just recently quit? Why does the city continue to push this nonsense? The citizenry has very little tolerance for the hiring of consultants in general and even less for the revolving-door variety.
You can read Harper’s letter to Ron Ehinger (the attorney handling the IT contract for the city) below:
Canyon Cliffs Discussion Deferred 90 Days
That was the quickest meeting I’ve ever been to. The County Plan Commission’s only business in this special meeting was to vote on an application from Oakmont Development to defer another vote on the original project for 90 days. Discussion on the lifting the sewer restrictive covenant was deferred for 90 days as well.
I suppose that gives the developers time to let their frivolous lawsuits kick in and potentially scare the three opponents of the project.
National Democrats Still Losing Votes On 2nd Amendment
The Democratic Party’s draft 2008 platform has been released and once again the party is pushing an anti-gun agenda, including a renewal of the Assault Weapons Ban. A diarist at Daily Kos had an excellent post on this topic that’s definitely worth reading but I want to zero in on one specific point:
Gun ownership is election-deciding for pro-gun people and a non-priority for everyone else.
I couldn’t agree more and I think strategically the party has to decide if this is a policy really worth fighting for. It seems to me, even if I put myself into the shoes of an anti-gun person, that the risk-reward ratio is not in the party’s favor.
IT Contract Held But Will Likely Pass Next Week
The contract was held until next week because the council didn’t feel comfortable approving a contract of this magnitude that wasn’t 100% complete. Despite the hold it seemed quite obvious to me that the ordinance is going to pass.
First let me say that all the nonsense about “not outsourcing jobs” and “all the jobs will be local” needs to end right now. The city’s CTO, Clifford Clarke, admitted tonight that at a minimum the help desk jobs will be in Indianapolis Houston and not Fort Wayne. Of course that sounds slightly different than what
Clarke told Indiana News Center just a few months ago:
Both have operations in the United States, but their headquarters are in France and India. Clarke argues even if these are foreign based companies, the money would stay local.
Evidently not all the money will be local. In fact there’s nothing in the contract that says any specific number of employees must be local. So just so everyone knows, a vote for this contract will, with 100% certainty, cause Fort Wayne to lose jobs.
Will The Strong Arm Tactics Pay Off?
The county plan commission will have a special meeting at noon on Thursday to “reconsider” the Canyon Cliffs development. They will also “reconsider” lifting the sewer restrictions that would allow the city to expand its sewer service to the Canyon Cliffs development.
Of course this occurs only days after Bodenhafer and the rest of his band of thugs filed a personal (and frivolous) lawsuit against the three commission members who originally voted against the project. The question is whether or not the developers’ strong-arm tactics will pay off?
Since the development needs 5 votes to proceed I would strongly suggest that the 3 members that voted against the project not even bother to show up to Thursday’s meeting - a protest if you will. Maybe if they don’t show then they won’t get sued…
John Crawford On IT Contract
Former at-large councilman John Crawford penned an op-ed in response to councilwoman Karen Goldner’s letter regarding the city’s IT contract. I respect Crawford and I voted for him this last election cycle but he’s wrong on this. Let’s dissect his letter a bit:
The fact was that there were no local companies that were qualified to do this scope of service.
With all due respect, Crawford isn’t qualified to make that statement. He doesn’t know enough about IT companies or their services to pass judgment.
Furthermore, the idea that no local company could do this job is ludicrous. Aren’t we going to use all local employees? That’s what I keep hearing, so no local company can manage these employees to do the job? Does anyone else really believe that?
If one city or county starts putting up trade barriers, then others do so, ultimately decreasing economic activity.
The Buy Local ordinance, just like the Buy Indiana ordinance put in place by Governor Daniels, would only penalize those communities that already have barriers against ours. That was thoroughly documented during the debate and so Crawford’s point here is moot.
It also is not fair to increase one citizen’s taxes to pay for a higher-cost contract to subsidize another citizen’s business who couldn’t win the contract in fair, open competition.
I must’ve missed the meeting when Crawford voted against Harrison Square or the hundreds of tax abatements he voted against. What? You mean he supported Harrison Square and numerous other tax abatements? You don’t say.
If we subsidize a local company with a portion of its business with a city contract, it will still not survive unless it can compete in all its other contracts with private businesses that will insist on the best quality at the best cost.
This is flawed logic. Proponents of tax abatements, Crawford included, will say that many businesses would not be able to get on their feet without these abatements. Why is the same logic not applied here? Perhaps a local business just needs a solid contract to build from and provide the stability over the next five years to compete in the general marketplace.
I guess I never thought that using local tax dollars to buy local goods and services was a radical idea. By the way, how is the whole NAFTA and “global marketplace” working out for us in Indiana? Is that the model we want to apply locally? These are high quality jobs we’re talking about here - not reams of paper or mechanical pencils…
Will Bodenhafer Just Resign Already
I find it incredibly audacious that, as the president of the plan commission, Charles Bodenhafer did not resign his position before bringing the contentious Canyon Cliffs development before the board. After all, he helped draft the ordinance that he then later tried to exploit to fast track the development.
One has to wonder why an unpaid volunteer wouldn’t just step down in order to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest. But now he’s just gone too far - suing his fellow commission members? He can’t be serious. There is no way in hell any company would allow the president of its board of directors to sue fellow members and remain on the board.
Bodenhafer should resign from the plan commission immediately - it’s the ethical and professional thing to do. Of course the developer community doesn’t want that to happen as he’s far more valuable to them on the board than off…
FWCS Moves To Specialized High Schools
A couple of days ago the JG had a story about the decision by FWCS to move to specialized high schools. Scott Bryson, author of the American Societal Review blog, has an awesome post about this decision and sums up my feelings quite nicely - you should definitely read the whole thing:
First of all, to help student prepare for a global economy should be the province of colleges and trade schools, not high school. High schools should prepare students to enter and succeed in college.
[...]
FWCS seems to think their students will not succeed in a global economy because they don’t understand engineering. This doesn’t even account for the struggles students have with basic english.
[...]
Finally, what are “21st century skills?” Is proper english grammar no longer considered a required skill? It seems math is quickly becoming obsolete since cash-registers tell the employee how many of each coin is required to make change. But when the point of an education is only to get a job, why worry about details like math and reading comprehension.
The last thing FWCS needs is specialty high schools. The kids in this district are struggling with the basics - why not put more resources into helping them with that rather than pushing an engineering and technology curriculum? If you can’t multiply numbers without using a calculator then you have little chance of making it through college.
One of the new specialties is a technology program modeled after the New Tech school in Napa, California. Again, this is a bad idea and I’ll let Bryson explain why:
More taxpayer dollars to be wasted on consultants
Thursdays headline of the Journal Gazette made my blood pressure rise by 10 - 15 points. “Space sharing back on table.”
Two years ago the City of Fort Wayne and Allen County were on the verge of combining and “co-locating” in a building to save costs.
According to the JG article:
“The City scrapped plans to move offices to Renaissance Square in 2006 because renovations were $1,000,000 more than expected. The cost estimates came from a $20,000 study from Design Collaborative.”
Also per the JG article:
The City and County have hired Design Collaborative in 2008 for $45,000 taxpayer dollars to study the costs for “rearranging numerous governmental departments.”
It seems every couple of years we hire a consulting firm to do this study.
How many times do we have to hire Consultants to perform the same study?
Mike Sylvester
Developers run amok in Fort Wayne
I have always been irritated by the fact that local “Developers” have been able to get pretty much any “Development” they wanted approved fairly easily by local Government.
“Developers” only lose when a huge number of citizens get upset and that very rarely happens.
Today’s headline in the News-Sentinel makes my blood boil. “Developer suing 3 for Canyon Cliffs votes.”
Give me a break.
“Developers” have long had their way in Fort Wayne and Allen County and pretty much every body of Government has bent over backwards to accommodate every “Developer” in the name of construction and progress.
This has resulted in Fort Wayne being a sprawling City with expensive City services due to the sprawl.
If we are going to continue to poor money into Downtown Fort Wayne then we absolutely must limit “Development” on the edges of Fort Wayne.
I am absolutely appalled that “Developers” are going to sue three planning commission members and the Planning Commission itself over their votes concerning Canyon Cliffs.
Give me a break…
I wish that the ENTIRE Canyon Cliff’s Project had been killed and I feel that the ”Minor Plat Ordinance” needs some serious revision because if it is interpreted the way the “Developers” and their lawyers interpret it we might as well do completely away with the Planning Commission.
Mike Sylvester
P.S. This is an issue that YLNI and the supporters of Harrison Square should get involved in. Harrison Square and similar projects are doomed to fail if the City of Fort Wayne continues to grow in an uncontrolled and haphazard fashion.
