By Jim Sack

Beggars and girl scouts.

Pitchforks and torches.

It was a full night at council and could have gone much longer, in fact, toward the end of the session it seemed like I was in the middle of a long, uncomfortable trans-Atlantic flight.

Councilwoman Liz Brown likes things tidy. She wants to clean up the city law books to remove questionable laws, including, begging. To her credit she authored revisions that would have corrected some onerous and highly questionable parts of an existing law, such as a provision that one can not beg within two miles of the city. But, after painful debate last night her revisions were all but trashed under a barrage of First Amendment questions and asides concerning unintended consequences. She was pained to listen to the discourse.

Would this revision preclude Girl Scouts from going door-to-door? How about little leaguers selling popcorn. Tim Pape ruminated about the constitutionality of the existing law. The back and forth was reminiscent of that recent marathon tennis match at Wimbledon, never-ending, some points well made. The problem is there is no problem. There are a few panhandlers in Fort Wayne, but few and very far between. They have freedom to do this based on the First Amendment, the one Council President Marty Bender finds so distasteful.

Defining the law so that it targets real offenders like a laser guided smart bomb is probably beyond the kin of our lawmakers and would be so much juicy meat for defense lawyers ready to defend some opportunistic street bum ready to profit from the heavy hand of government. One council member noted that aggressive bumming, putting an outstretched hand in your face or on your shoulder or into your pocket is already grounds for police response. The sense of council was to let it be. But, city attorney Joe Bonahoom will spend time researching the constitutional questions surrounding our current law, at your expense, and Mrs. Brown will search for other outdated laws to tidy up in the city code. Another council member later noted that Mayor Henry was once, when himself a young council member, gung-ho to do the same thing, clean the books of unnecessary or outdated laws, but was pointed in other more productive directions. Mrs. Brown is exceptionally bright, perhaps she, too, can find more productive avenues for service to the community.

David Ross, city engineer, brought a compromise to the table last night concerning the changes to Washington Center Road. Last week he had been sent back, literally, to the drawing board by council in response to well articulated demands from leaders of the surrounding neighborhoods. Ross came back with narrower lanes that would allow for a park strip between sidewalk and traffic lanes. He put a happy face on it, painted a picture of late night, coffee-driven research in dusty design books to find that innovate resolution. Voila, he found it and the neighbors, graciously, expressed their appreciation for a compromise that was brokered by, among others, Councilman John Shoaff.

Mr. Shoaff carried the discussion a bit further. He waved a nationally respected design manual in front of Mr. Ross and suggested that even more could have been done to benefit the surrounding neighborhoods, but noted that INDOT, the Indiana Department of Transportation, drives transportation change in Fort Wayne and is more concerned, he said, with traffic movement -fast and unimpeded – rather than the quality of life in the neighborhoods surrounding their projects. It is a mantra he injects every time he can and is appreciated by neighborhoods and residents who suddenly find themselves trying to protect property values in the face of guys with pocket protectors and bulldozers. Mr. Shoaff is slowly gaining traction with his message, but is frustrated that the city calls for and lauds traffic calming on one project and elsewhere promotes widening, more concrete and faster speeds… through neighborhoods.

The neighborhoods won a second match last night. The neighborhoods surrounding the intersection of Bass and Hillegas opposed a convenience store-filling station complex on that corner. They believed, among other criticisms, that Hillegas and Bass have been improved to improve traffic flow, but that strip development and a dozen curb cuts would significantly slow traffic. They had the backing of the city plan commission which unanimously opposed the Lassus Oil project. On the other hand, the county plan commission voted in favor of the project which entailed selling to Lassus Oil land owned by the county commissioners. One has to wonder. Council voted six against, two in favor (Bender and Goldner) and one abstention, Mr. Pape, due to a conflict of interest. A moment of levity occurred when the president of Lassus Oil, himself a Lassus, announced that he had surveyed the neighborhoods and some “75 to 80 percent” supported that station. The more than fifty attending residents laughed him nearly off the table and councilman Mitch Harper gently cautioned Mr. Lassus about using fuzzy statistics. The final vote the matter will be next week. Seems nearly a hundred emails were sent to each council member on the matter and, unlike their anger over receiving a lesser number concerning Calhoun Street, council members acknowledged receipt of the emails with some respect. Although Mr. Bender who famously and angrily changed his vote on Calhoun because of pesky citizen appeals, voted last night against the neighborhoods. That pesky old right to petition government seems to stick in his craw.

On a side note, the long range plan for the county called Plan-It Allen, was mentioned more than a few times last night on both sides of arguments. It is an existing document that is supposed to be the outline for future development and redevelopment in the city and county. Government drive with great citizen input it is, like so many other community efforts, called up to support arguments and forgotten when it gets in the way of a development. It essentially calls for less sprawl, more intensive development in the city and plenty of green space. Again, Mr. Shoaff frequently reminds council that it was a community effort and the voice of the people should be heard. Last night, it was noted the Redmond Rule, essentially, the right of citizens to discuss matters with council and their government, was observed more fully. Plenty of people trekked to the table last night and told council what they expected. Some council member were obviously uneasy, some applauded the citizen involvement. In all, it made for a long and bumpy ride last night. But that is, after all, the point of the First Amendment: we have the right to dialog with our government, not just to an expectation to sit in our place and listen.

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