Can't we all just get along? No, but I'll think much better of you when you're gone:
Hugs, laughter and a few tears closed the year for City Council on Tuesday as three members bade farewell to their colleagues.
Three-term Councilman Tim Pape, D-5th; one-term Councilwoman Liz Brown, R-at large; and one-term Councilwoman Karen Goldner, D-2nd, cast their final votes as council wrapped up its year-end business.
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I know I risk inviting a juvenile retaliation here, like, "Oh, he was just being redundant," but I think this warrants notice:
Fort Wayne city councilman, Glynn Hines apologized Tuesday night for a F acebook comment he made earlier in the day.
On his Facebook account, Hines said, "...we must re-elect President Obama or settle for some.....Retard Republican!"
Sunshine Review is a group that, among other things, grades governments on transparency, comparing what's available on their websites to what should be provided. Here's the good, the bad and the ugly from its latest report:
Reading Kevin Leininger's column today on the possibility of a countywide smoking sort of took me back in time:
Smoking foes aren't overly interested in civics, of course. Tobacco Free Allen County, for example, claims it wants to protect workers and cites statistics purporting to show that 1,240 Hoosiers die from secondhand smoke every year and that fine-particle air pollution in Fort Wayne declined 94 percent after Council's ban took effect.
The Journal Gazette turns in a standard-issue civics lesson editorial lamenting the record-low 26 percent turnout in this year's city election. The piece goes through the usual list of possisble turnout inhibitors (the negative mayoral campaign, apathy and cynicism, the too-complex main issue of municipal finance, civic burnout) before concluding that nothing can probably be done in the end and delivering the final lecture to recalcitrant voters:
Tracy Warner contemplates the Occupy movement and the conflict between First Amendment rights and setting a precedent of not enforcing the rules: "Still, at least in Fort Wayne, the Occupiers don't seem to be causing trouble or costing much money, so it seems their First Amendment rights should prevail." He then dips into the magic bag of historical analogy and comes up with the Boston Tea Party, wondering what would have happened if that event from almost 238 years ago had been denounced as the Occupi
Fort Wayne in the spotlight:
The Indianapolis Colts are a sad, mopey, miserable football team that aggressively drains the life force out of anyone who watches them play because they want them to win.
If any of you have a chance to attend an event at the Baker Street Station, you should take the opportunity to see a historic Fort Wayne site that's been lovingly restored instead of demolished or neglected into ruin.
Welcome to Black Friday 2011, the new "you can't do anything without making a political statement" milestone. If you decide to stay home just to avoid the mad frenzy, you could also be accused of supporing the "Occupy Black Friday" movement, an offshoot of Occupy Wall Street that seeks to shake us out of our materialistic stupor or something ("hit the corporations that corrupt and control American politics where it hurts, their profits").
I think it might be a little premature to cite this article as evidence of the coming death of the mall, but if you want to test out the idea, just visit Glenbrook a few times between now and Christmas:
