Posts Tagged “Karen Goldner”

It’s been all over the news. Congressman Andre Carson, Indiana 7th (D) and the Congressional Black Caucus whip, said at a CBC event in Miami that some in Congress would “love to see us as second-class citizens” and “some of them in Congress right now of this tea party movement would love to see you and me … hanging on a tree.”

Carson also said the tea party is stopping change in Congress, likening it to “the effort that we’re seeing of Jim Crow.”

Fort Wayne City Councilwoman Karen Goldner apparently doesn’t have a problem with this. Around 4:00 today she posted, this on Facebook.

Karen Goldner I wish Andre Carson were OUR Congressman. Sigh.

If I lived in the 2nd District, Russ Jehl would certainly have my vote in November.

Karen Goldner and Tim Pape are whining like school yard children over City Council President Mitch Harper and County Council President Darren Vogt’s decision to hold a joint meeting of city and county councils  to review an ordinance that will cost the city/county $1.4 million before it goes to their respective councils for a vote.

It should be noted, (and Pape and Goldner never mention this), the ordinance only appropriates $700K. There is nothing in there that spells out when they have to do anything, or what they have to accomplish. Just give Tom Henry and Beth Malloy $700K to buy more software and contract some of Beth’s friends to provide retraining programs for employees who aren’t very nice to applicants. There are no deadlines, no benchmarks, no nothing. Just cash.

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By Jim Sack

So the big item on the agenda last night was a $30 million bond proposal to further clean our drinking water. One council member after another offered appreciation to the administration for the way in which the project was structured and for the recent briefings the administration gave to council members leading up to the committee vote.

The usual suspects who most often support the administration voiced their approval: Karen Goldner, Tim Pape and Glynn Hines. Even John Shoaff said it was wise and appropriate. Mr. Shoaff is usually to bonds as a mongoose is to cobras. He doesn’t like them for a variety of reasons, mostly the additional cost, but last night he express approval and appreciation of the project. Other council members around the table asked a few questions and made a few comments, but nothing unusual until Liz Brown, candidate for mayor in the Republican primary, and councilwoman-at-large, jumped in. Read the rest of this entry »

By Jim Sack

The star of last night’s council meeting was a citizen, Phil Marx. It was a dose of reality after an evening of mud-wrestling.

What Mr. Marx vividly and dramatically detailed to council was a litany, a long-long litany, of the abuse he and his neighbors had long endured and against which they had fought and defeated in order to take back neighborhood from thugs. Mr. Marx read police statistics for just one street, his, that were simply amazing -knifings, screw-driver to the head, shootings, assaults, false 911 calls, battery, vandalism…jeez, Louise. The list went on and on and on to the discomfort of all members of council and everyone in the audience. Read the rest of this entry »

By Jim Sack

Scott Harrold and Elissa McGauley sat before council last night as an example of city-county economic development cooperation and left nearly everybody in the room scratching heads to try to understand the tangled and intricate proposal they had introduced.

Harrold and McGauley are both economic development specialists with the county and city, respectively. McGauley, who called Howard her “counterpart” at the county, works to help businesses gain tax abatements and to oversee their compliance with the promises they make to the community in exchange for your help.” (The tax breaks they receive means you will have to pick up a share of their abatements, and millions in tax “incentives” are handed out each year in the hope the company will 1) keep its promises, 2) create jobs and, 3) add to the economic viability of Fort Wayne and Allen County.) Read the rest of this entry »

The year, 2008. The subject, DNC Haiku. The author, Karen Goldner. What the hell is a Haiku you ask? I had to ask myself the same question. Read the rest of this entry »

By Jim Sack

The drowsy end of the two-hour meeting might have been the most interesting. Charles Eberhart from somewhere in Waynedale lumbered to the open mic. A few weeks back he had affably pushed Pickle Ball, a downsized version of tennis for geezers like me…and foggies like him. Last night he called into question, in an equally affable manner, that the city and the county had both hired the same guy to represent them in matters concerning co-location in the old and new city halls. Eberhart wondered how either entity could trust the negotiator to have their interests foremost. He noted that Ken Neumeister was that man and then quipped that Neumeister had boasted about how he had already saved the county more in the deal than the substantial amount they are paying him. Hmmm? At whose expense. Eberhart, a retired union man, added that such an arrangement would have been unthinkable in management-labor negotiations of his era. You could see eyes on council narrow as they considered the implications. Read the rest of this entry »

By Jim Sack

Mitch Harper was on time, in plenty of time, but is still getting his sea-legs.

Marty Bender was mercifully silent.

Sampson and Udris were stellar.

Mrs. Brown had her attack collar on again.

Mr. Howard clarified with a smile.

Mrs. McGauley went on and on and on.

And the smell or a rat was detected. Read the rest of this entry »

By Jim Sack

I can only imagine the frustration Mitch Harper must have felt as the shiny new president of Fort Wayne city council struggled in his car plowing through snow, slowed by the grey-hairs in their rear-wheel-drive Buicks, to get to the meeting he was to chair, a meeting in which eight other council members were patiently (to degrees) waiting, where the city clerk had laid out the table as if for Thanksgiving dinner, where two “real” reporters, a couple scruffy bloggers, an intern, a police officer, the new fire-fighters union chief, a few administration representatives, two men from City TV and a couple of aspiring candidates patiently checked their watches in the hope that by staring at the second hand the president would magically appear.

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By Jim Sack

Here’s what I have learned from sources high and low.

The benefits and problems of instituting a local city court had been researched by City Clerk Sandy Kennedy for months before its introduction. Fort Wayne had such a beast in the past, and before which I once had to pay my dues to society. $49 and costs.

The five “signators” to the introduced ordinance included as least one member of council who was surprised to see he had “signed” on. Read the rest of this entry »

By Jim Sack

What a mess.

The agenda, often with misspellings and other little problems had two big holes in it last night.

First, Tom Smith sort of welcomed a pair of the local high and mighty to the table by saying they were not on the agenda. Huh???? Papers shuffled all over the place. Council members scratched their heads. Eyes darts to and fro. They, the representatives of the Grand Wayne Center, WERE supposed to have been on the agenda, seems somebody had simply failed to add them and their report on the written agenda. Then, much later, at the end of the meeting two representatives of the administration, Matt Gratz and Bobby Kennedy strode to the table to help council conduct a vote on another matter that was missing from the agenda, amendments to the garbage ordinance. Was it the City Clerk’s office that dropped the ball or the legal department of the city. Fingers were pointing in both directions and each was pointing at other. Call it a scrivener’s error. Just move on. Read the rest of this entry »