Posts by: Jim Sack
When Mitch Harper is angered his eyebrows raise to give him a hawk-like look. His hairline pulls back and his ears lay closer to his head. It is a menacing look. That is what other members of council saw last night as the councilman from Aboite swooped in on an unsuspecting City Utilities consultant. The matter [...]
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City council voted last night to put some of your tax dollars to work for a private developer. The announced cost will be a bit under a million dollars, one can guess that will eventually be spent.
My good friend Greg Leatherman, who runs the Redevelopment Commission and who has been the target of withering, [...]
Continue Reading →Dr. John Crawford asked a new question last night concerning tax abatements: what is the tax savings to the company. He could have reversed the question a bit and asked how much will this cost all other tax payers.
Dr. Crawford is one of three councilmen-at-large, a sort of local version of a senator, elected [...]
Continue Reading →Controller Pat Roller, Andy Downs of the Downs Center, John Stafford of IPFW and others presented last night on the very complex tax policy changes that are coming to Fort Wayne and all of Allen County. It was a superb, but bewildering presentation punctuated by scores of questions and caveats that point to the highly [...]
Continue Reading →I am still confused, and I think everybody in the room at last night’s city council was challenged to understand the lengthy PowerPoint presentation given by the city controller as introduction to the 2014 city budget debate.
For the past year a task force, the Fiscal Policy Group, has worked in private to reform the [...]
Continue Reading →And, Marty Bender was just that, Frank. He called Tracy Neumeister, director of internal audits for the city, everything but the pickled behind of a three-legged skunk. Among the toasts offered were: “inquisition…make work… you seldom get it… (more) make work… a waste of time… running roughshod… extremely rude… (the audits were) pretty much a [...]
Continue Reading →The city’s open house on State Boulevard was the best of local democracy and a bit less than the best. First, the State Boulevard project is controversial for a number of reasons:
It will increase traffic flow and speed through a couple historic neighborhoods thus diminishing property values. It will increase truck traffic. It will eat [...]
Continue Reading →“A tale of two cities,” said Tom Lewandowski. “It was the best of times and the worst of times,” replied City Councilman Glynn Hines.
It would have been a humorous moment, two men quoting Dickens, had it not been so sadly true. Lewandowski was commenting on the gushing exuberance of a parade of economic development [...]
Continue Reading →There is a famous recording from the BBC in the early 1930s. In a resonant upper-crust English accent the baritone man read the station break: “This is the BBC in London.” Five tones counted down to the exact top of the hour. Bong. Then he went on: “Now the news, I am Julian Chamberlain. There [...]
Continue Reading →Russ Jehl was the only member of council last night to question the propriety of a deal between the city and Kelley Automotive, among others, that would transfer a large plot at the corner of Lima and !-69 from your ownership to that of Mssers. Kelley and Friends.
For a bit of background, the area [...]
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