Group to Study Feasibility of Downtown Mixed-Use Baseball Stadium
A group of community leaders will meet to begin studying the feasibility of a downtown mixed-use baseball stadium. The meeting will be held at 2 p.m. Tuesday, February 14 at the Baker & Daniels law office, 111 E. Wayne St.
Of course it was held at BD’s office, they have a vested interest in billable hours towards the project.
Last October, Mayor Graham Richard announced a call for action to begin several downtown projects as recommended by the BlueprintPlus process. One of the recommendations was to further evaluate a downtown mixed-use baseball stadium complex.
Somehow mixed-use got tossed out.
Group members include:
Mark Becker, Deputy Mayor - BIASED
Steve Brody, Lincoln, DID, GWC - BIASED
Bob Taylor, Do It Best - Neutral
Jack Swarbrick, B&D Consulting - BIASED
Cheri Becker, Invent Tomorrow - BIASED
Randy Brown, Memorial Coliseum - BIASED
*Mike Bynum, City Plan Commission
Dan Carmody, DID - BIASED
Quinton Dixie, IPFW - Neutral
*Steve Gard, Downtown Business Owner
Gerald Hirschy, Spiece Fieldhouse - Neutral
*Paula Hughes, County Council
*Marla Irving, Commissioner
*Phil Laux, Chamber
Jack Lehman, Memorial Coliseum - BIASED R. Brown is already here
Sam Talarico, City Council - BIASED (more billable hours)
Tom Neizer, Barrett & McNagny - VERY BIASED
*Dan O’Connell, CVB
Tim Pape, City Council - BIASED (another lawyer).
Mark Pope, IPFW - Neutral
BIASED – meaning they either had a hidden agenda or they had little in the way of qualifications to be on this committee.
Neutral – meaning they had no hidden agenda and would most likely contribute a meaningful and non-biased opinion.
* – most likely a required asset to the discussion
For example, Tom Neizer represents Barry Sturgis of CB Richard Ellis – one of the most prolific developers of retail space in Allen County. He would be biased and on top of that his brother Barney sits on the Fort Wayne Plan Commission.
Besides Steve Gard I do not see one individual from the community that is a local business owner of a downtown establishment. It will be interesting to see how many of the aforementioned show up on Tom Henry’s campaign finance reports.
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Steve Brody is no longer with Lincoln so what makes an insurance guy qualified to receive thousands of dollars in public funds. I don’t know. How many more are there like him out there?
A nice mini-expose’.
Amazing how we (the people) are never really told the TRUTH in matters that affect us (like this), isn’t it?
Well done.
B.G.
I knew Steve Brody when he worked at LNIMC. The guy is absolutely useless. He was running the portfolio management group and it was a joke! Talk about a solid white old boy network. I doubt he can tell the difference between a stock and a bond. No wonder that complete group dismantled and they moved all assets to Delware in Philly. It was because of useless people like Brody, Joann Becker, Rick Shafer, Dave Berry, Sarv Sidhu, Tim Kilfoil, Pat Chasey and Joe Cullen.
Oh, I think Steve Gard was predisposed to something that would help his struggling Oyster Bar. He was cited as wanted a change on Calhoun ten blocks away for that reason. As for Dan O'Connell of the CVB is doubt he was neutral. His organization would rather want an new attraction.
As for Mike above, I think the Lincoln move was more about Boscia going home to Phily and naming rights on a stadium than anything to do with the people here. Just my perspective.
I voiced support for the project, by the way, as did Liz Brown and the majority of speakers at the public hearing. Shoaff, however, was right: they should have opened their books to prove their strength, and the deal should have been renegotiated after the breech to give the city a revenue stream. Shoaff was right, as was Schmidt and Smith. They were, however, drown out in the rush for a new toy. Terms, terms, term.