We had cliques in high school. There were the jock clique and the student newspaper clique and the band clique and the nerd clique. Like that. One thing they all had in common was that they didn't kill people. On the other hand:
Federal and local law enforcement agencies have joined together to form a special unit to suppress gang violence in the city, the Fort Wayne Police Department announced Tuesday.
Some Fort Wayne bar owners say their business has dropped significantly since the city's near-total ban on smoking, a not unsurprising development since the county and some nearby communities such as New Haven have less-restrictive bans. The mayor doesn't even want to hear it, but some City Council members at least pretend to care:
Democratic 4th District City Council candidate Charles Langley is dropping out of the race:
According to a letter written by Langley, he was promoted by the Southwest Allen County Schools Board on June 5 to department coordinator for social studies at Summit Middle School, where he teaches.
When I was a kid, I got pretty good at reading my dad and asking him for a lot more money than I really wanted, knowing I'd get the amount I'd decided on and he'd feel good about having taught me the virtues of frugal restraint. I suppose many kids do that. When I'm in a cynical mood, I ask, "How do you get $100 million out of taxpayers to fix up school buildings?" Scare them with a $500 million request first:
This has huge implications for Fort Wayne, or at least it should:
In a decision of sweeping importance to educators, parents and schoolchildren across the country, the Supreme Court today sharply limited the ability of school districts to manage the racial makeup of the student bodies in their schools.
I have resisted predicting the outcome of the Blue vs. Yellow FWCS bond issue petition drives, because I've thought it could go either way. On the Blue, anti-project side is the fact that this will be the most expensive public project in local history and the fact that people are feeling a little put upon by one government initiative after another. But the Allen County Public Library showed that an army of volunteers can get an expensive project through, and the school system can tap into even more volunteers.
I heard Pat White on WOWO on the way home last night, talking about this guest column in The Journal Gazette by Daniel Young, Central Catholic graduate and a retired policy analyst for the state of Wisconsin:
It's time for the mayoral candidates, both Tom Henry and Matt Kelty, to step up to the plate and discuss the issues.
[. . .]
I saw a report on WANE-TV last night about a group of bar and restaurant owners who say their business is tanking, and they plan to seek some kind of compromise from the city, such as maybe going to the county model that lets businesses declare themselves adults only and thereby permit smoking. Good luck with that.
All those who like to call me an anti-government crank, get ready. The city's new Southeast Area Development Strategy involves lots of planning and incentives, encouraging certain types of businesses and discouraging others:
It targets several areas for commercial and residential development, and even suburban development, Holocher said, because some southeast residents said they would like suburban housing, but no new suburban developments exist on the southeast side.
Give thanks for where you live. Even if Harrison Square surpasses all expectations and creates traffic snarls the likes of which we have never seen, downtown Fort Wayne will still not be like downtown Chicago:
