Our town

There was a small victory for free enterprise and the marketplace at City Council yesterday. Councilwoman Liz Brown introduced an ordinance to loosen taxi cab restrictions that included a provision to reduce from three to two the number of cabs a compay must have to operate in Fort Wayne. Other council members took Brown up on her idea and went even further. Now,  a person can go into business here with a single cab:

There are different ways to respond to financial stresses. There is the outsourcing approach:

In an effort to cut $2 million from FWCS' budget, the board voted in March to look at outsourcing custodial work. Of 10 proposals, a committee chose Sodexo, an international company with U.S. headquarters in Maryland that serves 6,000 clients in Canada, Mexico and the U.S.

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Many small towns near metropolitan areas have identity crises. It's unusual for a town to want to create one:

We all know the "falsely shouting fire in a crowded theater" exception to the First Amendment (see Schenck v. U.S.). Can a case be made that statements or activities could be actionable even if the standard of falsity isn't met but the person making the statement knows mayhem is likely to ensue, perhaps even wants it to? The thought springs from a reading of "Nightclub lot shooting incites group response," a lengthy story in Frost Illustrated that is recommended reading.

If the Fort Wayne Community Schools board wanted to get the point across that it doesn't care that much about public input, it did a pretty good job:

General comments from the public at Fort Wayne Community Schools board meetings will no longer be televised after the board voted Monday to make changes to two parts of board policy.

Sometimes we make mistakes for no discernible reason. Then there are the slips with an easily understood origin (at least for the one making the slip).

Last week, I wrote both a blog post and an editorial inviting former City Councilman Dr. John Crawford, who is asking for public input on whether to seek elective office again, to initiate a discussion on what constitutes "small" and "big" government. He has a deserved reputation as a fiscal conservative, but he was also in on some quite activist government, e.g. the smoking ban and Harrison Square.

Dr. John Crawford, escorted from public service by voters in the last city election, wants to come back, but he wants us to ask him first. In an open letter to Fort Wayne citizens published in both newspapers (see Page 4a of yesterday's JG or 5a of the N-S), he says his philosophy while serving on City Council was always "fiscal constraint and keeping government as small as possible," and he wants input on whether to run for an office in city government in 2011:

Turns out those of you who've said Indianapolis smells were right:

Indianapolis' signature smell is made of cinnamon and spice and everything nice -- or at least a lot of nice things, including jasmine, gardenia and patchouli.

I've been poor. There were no food stamps when I was growing up, but our family qualified for the government commodities program. I remember standing in line with my parents waiting to pick up staples such as potatoes and powdered milk and giant blocks of orange-looking cheese. I guess that qualifies me to have a skeptical attitude about this:

Food in the news today. It's bad at a bakery:

Aunt Millie's confirmed Thursday the company will lay off 33 people from its Fort Wayne plant effective May 14.

According to Melissa Dunning at Perfection Bakeries, two shifts are also being eliminated.  Dunning said the layoff is due to a decline in bread sales.