Our town

Today's video is for the 3rd District, featuring incumbent Republican Tom Didier and Democratic challenger Christian Nagel. As a point of historical interest, the 3rd is the district served by Mayor Tom Henry when he was on the council. Henry represented the district for five terms between 1984 and 2004, losing the seat to Didier.

Let's go for the big one with today's video -- the mayor's race. In addition to incumbent Democrat Tom Henry and Republican challenger Paula Hughes, it features Haley Arendt. This might be one of your few chances to see him -- as an independent, he isn't getting much coverage.

Sad:

After nearly three hours of discussion Tuesday on a $180 million budget, City Council didn't cut a dime.

While council did not cut any spending from Mayor Tom Henry's proposed 2012 plan, it unanimously approved a motion to freeze property taxes at this year's level, meaning the city will likely draw $3 million from its cash reserves to balance the budget and avoid a slight tax hike.

Today's videos spotlight two of the more interesting City Council races, the ones in the 2nd and 5th districts.

Boy, I'd sure like to hear the thinking behind this:

The political arm of the Greater Fort Wayne Chamber of Commerce will support Democratic Mayor Tom Henry in the Nov. 8 election, Henry's campaign announced Monday.

Woman's work:

Even without Senate and congressional seats up for grabs, 2011 could turn out to be a landmark election year for Indiana women.

Indianapolis, Fort Wayne and Gary could get their first women mayors in the Nov. 8 elections, breaking a political glass ceiling that has been slow to shatter.

When the city election candidates came for their editorial board interviews, I sat down with them afterwards to shoot short videos. It's nothing fancy, just the candidates sitting in the room where we interviewed them, answering five questions each. We shared the questions with the candidates at the start of the interview, so the answers they gave were based on having known the questions for half an hour to 45 minutes. I edited the videos so that instead of just seeing one candidate after another, you can see them in their individual races, each answering each question in turn.

And the winner of the annual stick-up-the-butt award for the complete absence of a sense of humor goes to Tracy Warner of The Journal Gazette, who says a tweet from Republican city clerk candidate -- five months ago! -- is so urgently "callow" and "shallow" that the public flogging should begin immediately. This is the tweet: “Saw parking Nazi on the corner, so I quickly went and fed every meter on the block. Got the stink eye but it felt so good! ” Tracy:

Tony Bennet has generally projected a "take it or leave it" attitude that falls just short of "I do not suffer you fools gladly." So it's interesting that he might have some regrets for his approach:

 Indiana's state schools superintendent says he has fences to mend following his push for sweeping education overhauls that legislators approved this year.

Isn't it sad how we're so thrilled by such little things?