The city has been touting the fact that Fort Wayne is one of the 30 finalist for the All-American City Award. 10 winners will be selected. The city has been attempting to raise money to send some 25 or so individuals at a cost of about $1000 per person on an all-expense paid vacation to the newly renovated Tampa Marriott Waterside Hotel and Marina where they will participate in the American Idol of Cities grand ceremonies.

The goal is to raise $25,000 for travel, hotel and other expenses. The city has already raised more than $6,000, said Rebecca Karcher, spokeswoman for Henry. Local businesses and people are also encouraged to donate to the travel fund.

CRITERIA
For a community to be named an All-America City, it must be able to demonstrate successful resolution of community issues through collaborative effort. Award winning criteria include the following: active citizen involvement, effective and efficient government performance, maximized local philanthropic and volunteer resources, a strong capacity for cooperation and consensus building, community vision and pride, inter-group relations, community information sharing, and intercommunity cooperation.

All-America City Award Criteria

Participation of the public, private and nonprofit sectors and key constituencies to the maximum extent possible; Recognition and involvement of diverse segments and perspectives (ethnic, racial, socio-economic, age, etc.) in community decision-making; Creative use and leveraging of community resources; Significant and specific community achievements; Projects that address the community’s most important needs; Cooperation across jurisdictional boundaries;

Cooperation across jurisdictional boundaries? The city of Fort Wayne and the County of Allen = cooperation?

Fighting over bridge repairs
Fighting over the wheel tax, (which city council approved today).
Fighting over the 911 call center
<insert your example here>

Or take the Wayne Township office and the infighting there not to mention the investigation by the Local Government Efficiency Study Committee.

Clear demonstration of project results and impacts (dollars raised or lives impacted); Projects which have impacted the community significantly within the last three years, and have potential to continue improving the quality of life; and at least one project should document ways in which the lives of children and youth have been tangibly improved.

I guess that means they can’t talk about The Harrison, or Renaissance Pointe or the Public Safety Academy, to name a few.

Deputy Mayor Greg Purcell will be part of the group, as will Larry Wardlaw, vice president of Asher Agency Inc., a marketing firm in Fort Wayne.

Oh that’s nice, send someone from the Asher Agency. If you recall, Asher sold or gave a list that had been given to Asher for the purpose of a certain republican candidate’s political campaign to Fort Wayne Community School’s Yellow Ribbon petition group. That violated confidentiality standards that clients expect to receive when dealing with sensitive personal data.

On top of that, Asher was paid $15,000 for a new logo for Fort Wayne Community Schools, (paid for by you) that was nothing more than a knockoff of their own logo. A 10 year-old could have done that, (image courtesy of Fetchy). Maybe Wardlaw/Asher could donate the $15k towards the trip?

Although the city has been preparing for the competition since August 2008, Wardlaw said he was only recently called in to help “jazz up the show.” For the next few weeks, he will coach delegation members and act as emcee for the group’s presentation, he said.

At what price? Asher’s the most inept expensive agency in town.

The All American City Award is old and tired. Nearly every large and mid-sized city has won the award at least once, and personally, I just don’t see the value. Take the $25K and feed some people.

You may disagree, and if you do then I suppose the question to ask is, does Fort Wayne deserve it? Click here to see what people in Salisbury, Maryland have to say about their attempt.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 27th, 2009 at 11:20 pm and is filed under City & County Government. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.