Our town

Mary Jacobus, publisher of The News-Sentinel and CEO of Fort Wayne Newspapers, is leaving for the Boston Globe. Details here.

Consolidation efforts are moving forward in Evansville and Vanderburgh County, but with a plan not all supporters are in favor of. Instead of a single referendum, the area's legislative delegation favors introducing a bill in the General Assembly that would authorize two consecutive referendums. If the first referendum, approving of the consolidation in general, passes, there would be a second referendum to vote on a specific consolidation plan.

If you'd decided to take a break from Fort Wayne Observed because you read that Nathan Gotsch was taking two weeks off, you should head back there. He's got a guest blogger posting for him. I think that must be like cat-sitting.

The last time I wrote about downtown redevelopment, I noted the growing dispute over where to put a new hotel -- south of the Grand Wayne as originally envisioned, or north of it as now proposed -- without saying what I thought.

Went to the "Fifth Tuesday" City Council meeting on downtown redevelopment tonight. Some random thoughts, in no particular order:

I like my clutter. It keeps me anchored in the real world whenever I'm in danger of disappearing into the Ivory Tower of esoteric debate. Of course the clutter sometimes overwhelms me, at which point it becomes trash. I like my trash. I like the idea that I can leave it outside the house and someone will pick it up and take it away and fling it into a hole in the ground and cover it up. It's the natural order of things.

Haven't visited the Daily Rant for awhile. The one in last night's paper was a good one:

Another reason Fort Wayne is the Dumbest City: They say they are ahead of schedule for picking up leaves. Take a look. The leaves are still on the trees. Eventually, the leaves will fall, and they will be behind schedule.

Never thought of it that way. Guess the city could say it's waaaaaay ahead of schedule on snow removal.

Anyone who has been following this site and a few others knows the local blogosphere has gone to a new level, from observation and criticism to original reporting. One of these days, probably soon, someone is going to start doing something like this, which a lot of blogs will then link to and add to and jump off from, and then we will be at the next level, a local blog version of a wire service.

TODAY'S UPDATE

I did a post last week disagreeing with a state legislator's intention to make disorderly conduct at military funerals a felony, rather than a misdemeanor in line with most other disorderly conduct charges. As despicable as such protests are, making them felonies, I thought, would amount to unequal treatment under the law. That brought a response from Steve Towsley (original post and comments here), who argued that:

When I was around 8 or 9, I inadvertently saw that year's Christmas presents at the back of a closet. I kept pretending for a couple of months, but that was the real end of Santa Claus in my young life. I had learned an adult secret before my parents were ready to let me in on it. It seems overly simplistic to admit it now, but the discovery brought a profound sense of disillusion.