Hat tip to Jeff Pruitt
The city has decided not to exercise the $25,000 option to buy the Omnisource property. This means the commercial negotiations are over and the city now has no legal standing to keep the results of the environmental study secret. We need to know if contamination to the property poses a public health risk.
This also means the city wasted $25,000 when it bought the option in the first place. It would have been even more of a waste if the city actually bought the property. Government should stay out of real estate speculation.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Contributors
Search This Blog
Pages
Offices on the Ballot - Allen County 2024
OFFICES ON THE 2024 BALLOT ALLEN COUNTY INDIANA FEDERAL President of the United States United States Representative Dist...
Blog Archive
-
▼
2007
(547)
-
▼
December
(31)
- More needless government interference
- Accident Followup - and a question for all of you
- The city must disclose what's in the environmental...
- ONE v/s FWO - My Opinion FWO!!!
- Our policians and the NFL
- Doug was in an accident
- Fort Wayne Combined Sewer Overflow
- Before you use your computer again, read this
- Friday NIght and the IPFW Libertarians
- Election Board meeting today
- Thursday night
- Health Care part 1: Fast track FDA approval
- Public Access Live
- Incandescent light bulbs to be phased out.
- At least let veterans smoke in their clubs.
- New Sentinel has an interesting piece tonight
- Democrats, President Bush, and the failures of Con...
- NIPSCO
- Office Update
- A little experiment
- New Media New Rules Public Forum Dec. 20
- LPAC 2.0 turns 3
- National Party Resolution on Ron Paul
- Some good news
- New Building, the good and the bad
- Open Thread Post: Presidetial Primary Edition!!!
- My new blog is up
- Would this work here?
- New Office, the good...
- Hillary Clinton calls NAFTA a mistake.
- My take on the New Hampshire hostage taker
-
▼
December
(31)
-
Several people have asked me what I think will happen in the next few months. I am going to give you my opinion on how I think things will g...
-
I went to the Northwest Area Partnership Meeting tonight. This is a group that consists of many neighborhood association officers/ Quite a ...
-
In the comment section of an earlier post Sam Talarico commented that he was surprised that the News-Sentinel published my analysis of the r...
Labels
- 2008
- 2014 Elections
- 2016 Election
- 3rd District Congress
- 6th District Congress
- Abuse of Powers
- Administration
- Administration of the Blog
- After Dark Night Club
- AKA William
- Allen County Election Board
- Allen County Libertarian Party Bylaws 2020
- Andrew Horning
- Angry White Boy
- Annual Convention
- Annual Yard Sale
- April Fool's
- bailout
- ballot
- Barack Hussein Obama
- Barack Hussien Obama
- Benjamin Franklin
- Bill of Rights Day
- Bob Barr
- Borders
- Born Again American
- Candidates
- Chris Spangle
- Citilink
- City County Building
- Civic
- Commissioners
- Community
- Congress
- Congressional Pay
- Consultants
- corporate welfare
- County Government
- Courts
- Crime
- Dan Drexler
- David Roach
- death
- Debates
- Democrats
- Donald Trump
- Doug Horner
- Drinking
- Early Voting
- Economics
- economy
- education
- Elections
- Entreprenural Initiatives
- Enviroment
- Equality
- ethanol
- Events
- Excercise
- F6
- farm Animals
- Federal
- Federal Government
- Feedback
- Flag
- Flood
- Food and Beverage Taxes
- Foreign policy
- Forms
- Fort Wayne
- Fort Wayne City Council
- fort wayne mayor
- Fort Wayne Police Department
- Fox News
- fraud
- Fuel Efficeincy
- Fundraiser
- Gary Johnson
- Geoff Paddock
- George Mason
- GLBT
- Glenn Beck
- GOP
- government
- Government Waste
- Grassroots Inititives
- Green Links
- Haiti
- Harrison Square
- Health Care Reform
- Heartland Communities
- Honey
- HRC FW
- Humor
- immigration
- Income
- Income Taxes
- Indiana
- Indiana House District 83
- IPFW
- Jack Evans
- James Madison
- Jdimytai Damour
- John Schick
- John Sidney McCain
- Joseph Biden
- Journal Gazette
- K P Nfr
- Kevin Leininger
- Kody Tinnel
- LaPorte County LP
- legacy fund
- libertarian
- Libertarian Party
- Libertarian Party of Indiana
- Libertarians AT Large
- Links
- Local
- LPIN
- LPIN Officers
- Mark Skousen
- Memorial Coliseum
- Military
- Minimum Wage
- Modest Proposal
- MrTacoJosh
- Music
- My HUD House
- Nanny State
- National Debt
- New Blog
- New Design
- News Sentinel
- Next Business Meeting
- occupy movement
- Oprah
- OUTright Libertarians
- OWS
- passenger rail
- Penn Jillette
- Phil Marx
- Pictures
- Planning
- Political Parties
- Politics
- Pot Holes
- Powers Hamburgers
- predictions
- Presidential Nominations
- Press
- QR Codes
- Queer Cincinnati
- Questions
- Radio
- Random Facts
- Real ID
- Robert Fuller
- RSVP
- Sandbags
- Sarah Palin
- Save Maumee
- Scott Wise
- Secretary of State
- Senate
- Sicko by Michael Moore
- Social
- space
- spending
- State Convention
- State Of Indiana
- State of Michigan
- Stephen Moore
- stimulus
- Street Dept.
- Student Body President
- Supreme Court
- Tax Protest
- taxes
- terrorism
- The Paradox of Affluence In Politics
- The Second Coming
- Thomas Jefferson
- Three Rivers
- TinCaps
- tom henry
- Top Libertarian Blogs
- tragedy
- transportation
- Updates
- US HISTORY
- Veterans Day
- video
- Voter Centers
- Voter Registration
- Wal*Mart
- welfare
- Wesley In Austin
- Why Libertarian
- William Butler Yeats
- William Larsen
Sitemeter
Followers
About Commenting
Keep it clean and relevant to the post. If you have a question that isn't related to a recent post, email me at enders.robert@gmail.com . You can also email me if you want to make an anonymous comment.
DISCLAIMER
Per the by-laws of the Libertarian Party of Allen County, the Chair is the official spokesperson of LPAC in all public and media matters.
Posts and contributions expressed on this forum, while being libertarian in thought and intent, no official statement of LPAC should be derived or assumed unless specifically stated as such from the Chair, or another Officer of the Party acting in his or her place, and such statements are always subject to review.
Posts and contributions expressed on this forum, while being libertarian in thought and intent, no official statement of LPAC should be derived or assumed unless specifically stated as such from the Chair, or another Officer of the Party acting in his or her place, and such statements are always subject to review.
5 comments:
Robert,
While I generally agree with you, let me add a few more thoughts.
1.) The City may still extend the option, and I believe they are actively working with the property owner to do so. They will use the excuse of "ongoing negotiations" to continue embargoing the report's release.
2.) Fort Wayne Taxpayers paid ~ $50,000 for the testing which to this point only benefits OmniSource. Add this to the $25,000 purchase option cost as well as the additional $12,000 invoice expected for groundwater testing and we'll have paid almost $90,000 benefiting OmniSource directly and still have nothing to show for it. Should the property owner decline to renew/extend the option, the property owner will walk away with all of the benefits, have the testing results paid for by us, plus a tidy sum to boot.
3.) One wonders if the agreement to embargo testing results had anything to do with the sale of OmniSource to Steel Dynamics. Would the company's value have been diminished at the time of the sale had SDI known about a potential environmental exposure?
I'm as much in favor of downtown development as the next guy. And yet, Fort Wayne taxpayers cannot continue assuming the majority of the risk without reaping greater benefits.
Dave MacDonald
I believe the city received an extension for no additional cost. It will run until June 2008, so the issue is not dead yet.
Leatherman says that the study will be released at "some point." "Some point" means it could even be after a purchase - pretty ambiguous. I just did a post on this issue over at my blog.
Apparently, the option contained confidentiality clauses. Why have those clauses if OmniSource didn't think there was something to be found?
"Why have those clauses if OmniSource didn't think there was something to be found?"
After all those years in operation, anybody who thinks the land is NOT contaminated is living in a fantasy land. It's simply a matter of HOW badly contaminated and how high the cost to mediate.
Confidentiality clauses are normal in a deal like this during negotiations precisely for the purpose of keeping outside sources (yes, even taxpayers) from "queering" any kind of a deal.
My guess is your form of redress (as taxpayers) is ousting your administration for making foolish decisions or suing to stop the process after both sides have come to terms and the deal made public.
Tim:
It was a rhetorical question. I realize confidentiality clauses are common, and they are common for just the reason you stated.
To All,
Every State & local govt should release whatever information to the public it has IF that information will affect the public.
This does NOT make good business sense. However, the government IS NOT a business. It is a tool/servant of the people.
This damn culture of government secrecy is frightening. You don't need to know the details of Harrison Square. You don't need to know the results of the environmental study. You don't need to know who is in Guantanamo Bay. You don't need to know...
Bullcrap!
Years ago we had another name for a wall of secrecy: The Iron Curtain!
Respectfully,
Doug
Post a Comment