By Jim Sack
It was nearly a love-fest at the co-location summit yesterday. First, Sheriff Ken Fries and Police Chief Rusty York all but held hands as they sang the praises of the other and endorsed the idea of co-location. Then the architects gave their upbeat overview of numbers concerning the final two options, Scheme A or Scheme B, surprisingly with not many dollars separating one from the other. Then the elected officials from Roy Buskirk to Paula Hughes voiced their approvals. In the end, co-location a la Scheme A, was agreed to: public safety in One Main and development and administration in 200 Berry. Unanimous! Only Paul Moss, who had served as devil’s advocate and more during the months of haggling, sounded like he wanted to vote “no.” Three county commissioners, one mayor, three members of city council and three members of county council all clasped hands and sang, as one cynic noted, Kumbaya. Paul had no option.
Now the motion, to co-mingle county and government functions, “for the good of citizens,” as Paula Hughes reminded everyone, moves to county council for its approval and to city council for a report. City council has already approved the funding, the mayor is on board, as are the county commissioners. Paul Moss, Roy Buskirk and Paula Hughes voted in favor, so unless the other members of county council manage to over-rule them the matter, for the moment, is done.
From the 30,000 foot level, as another councilman put it, the decision has been made. Now to the trenches.
During the negotiations the mayor promised a million dollars to help the county see his point of view. The question one councilman, John Shoaff, asked is where will that money come from? Whatever the source, and you know how tight, tight, tight the administration use to say their budgets were, the Mayor will have to send any appropriation down to council for approval. I will guess that Councilmen Harper, Shoaff and Smith will not make it easy. Tom Smith has already stated he will not appropriate a dollar more. It is also possible that a fourth and a fifth member of council may put themselves in play to trade a vote on the million for something they might hold dear, say a critical appointment to a sensitive board, for example.
You can also bet that in the not to distant future there will be a parking garage near 200 Berry.
You can also bet that unforeseen expenses will crop up. They always, always do. So, the mayor will have to come and ask again and again for a few hundred thousand or so to make things work. It is inevitable. But the inertia is now on the mayor’s side and it will be increasingly easy to find the money despite the tight, tight, tight budget, despite a year or two of dramatically reduced revenues on the horizon.
Mitch Harper may have set the tone. He said that the city county building has been a work in progress since it was opened with walls constantly moving to accommodate different office configurations. It will continue that way at a greater speed now that there is a “second” city hall in downtown. The money will be there.
On first blush, the new layout with the police/sheriff ensconced between the Meeks Center and the Court House makes sense. Having the leadership and the development team on Berry also seems to make sense. It will save some people many steps. It should make for better communications between departments and lead to greater efficiencies. It should. Expect revisions to be made a number of times before the moving vans, which were not budgeted for, arrive. Should you care to know the mayor will have the prime offices on the forth floor. The commissioners will be down the hall. Council, both city and county, will be on the first floor…
So, the meeting ended with a round of applause for Cory Miller and Ron Dick, the two architects, from two competing firms, who collaborated to drag this concept of combining governments through the political minefield to safety, or near safety. There should also have been a strong round of applause for John Stafford who moderated, cajoled, negotiated, prodded, schmoozed and escorted the concept to fruition.
For the rest of us it is now our job to remind the politicians they are doing this to streamline local government, to make it more efficient and more user-friendly. You and I are the users. This should not be left to them, alone. The city’s web site has the full report.
But, we should appreciate what the have done. It has been a sloppy, awkward process, a bit of village democracy. Nelson Peters laughed at the end of the meeting, after the self congratulations had subsided, and said, “now on the healthcare.”
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I can’t be the only person horrified by Tom Henry and his bipartisan cronies’ lust for power. Our system of government was supposed to work by placing many layers down so power like Henry seems to want couldn’t be amassed. Apparently buzz words like ” efficiency” and “streamlining” have lulled people to sleep and they aren’t seeing the annexations, land speculation, and development deals being foisted upon Fort Wayne, Allen county, and soon, I fear, Whitley county. King Henry is determined to have his finger in everybody’s pie.
Have you looked at how completely out of whack the salaries are for your mayor, sherriff, et al. with other cities and states? These people are spending your money like drunken sailors and telling you to f*** yourselves if you don’t like it. Smaller government never was supposed mean fewer people taking on more power for ever increasing amounts of money. It’s supposed to mean less intrusion into people’s lives and more control to the citizenry. Ask the Elmhurst parents how in control they feel right about now.
As I watch the march of the Henry Kingdom into tiny, rural Whitley county, I can’t help but wonder why the citizens of Fort Wayne aren’t fighting back against this obviously corrupt administration.
As a Whitley county resident, I am confused at you comments.
How is Henry imposing into my county?