Homicides in Allen County

According to the Journal Gazette homicides fell to a 10 year low in Allen County this year. There have been 18 homicides this year. There were 31 homicides last year.

Sometimes I think I focus on too many negative things on my blog.

I am glad that the homicides in Allen County dropped to 18. This is good news.

The full story can be found at the Jounral Gazette:
<http://www.fortwayne.com/mld/journalgazette/16354656.htm>

Mike Sylvester

President Ford's funeral has minimal attendence from elected officials

I have never been a big fan of "State" funerals in The United States; however, many people in the United States seem to enjoy the pomp and circumstance...

There have been many stories bouncing around the internet and local blogs about the fact that incoming Democratic Majority leader Harry Reid is skipping the funeral. I have heard many people on the right take extreme exception to this...

All of these poeple need to read the article in today's Journal Gazette entitled "D.C. Statesmen skip ceremonies."

The story can be found here: <http://www.fortwayne.com/mld/journalgazette/news/16354594.htm>

If many on the "right are mad that Harry Reid did not attend the funeral of Ford what do they think about the following:
President Bush chose NOT to attend the funeral of a past Republican President. This is a
MAJOR slap and makes Harry Reid's choice minor!
Only 35 of the 535 members of Congress attended the funeral.
3 of the 9 Supreme Court Justices attended.

Very few elected officials attended the funeral...

Mike Sylvester

Death by hanging

Saddam Hussein is to be hung tonight at 10 PM EST. There are a lot of things about this that deserve discussion:

1. He was an evil man and I think he should be put to death.
2. I like hanging as a punishment. One of the positive effects of punishment should be
deterrence. I think that capital punishment should be VISIBLE to the public.
3. It will be interesting to see what happens to the levels of violence in Iraq after this. I
certainly hope that there is not a surge in violence because I do not want to see more of our
soldiers killed. I am afraid there will be a rather large surge in violence.
4. It disturbs me a great deal that he will stay in US custody until a few minutes before the
execution. This shows me that we do not trust the Iraqi government to do something as
simple as having Hussein in their custody for ANY length of time... This is scary folks.

Read the story here:
<http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/12/29/D8MAQ1U82.html>

Mike Sylvester

A little common sense please

This article in the JG tells it all:
<http://www.fortwayne.com/mld/journalgazette/16341146.htm>

Of special note is this excerpt from the above JG article:

"Library officials first learned of the leak a few weeks ago when the diesel fuel in an 800-gallon storage tank was gone. Officials weren’t sure whether the tank had a leak or someone had siphoned the fuel from it. More fuel was put into the tank so the level could be monitored, Krull said.

But the fuel began to disappear again, so the library called an environmental consulting company. It confirmed a leak in an underground pipe connecting a smaller feeder tank to a backup generator, which provides electricity to run emergency lights throughout the building. Both the small tank and the generator are in the same room, and the large tank is in a separate room, Krull said."

I have one major problem with this:

800 gallons of fuel oil are missing. They are not sure if it leaked or was stolen. This kind of thing happens, it is not a big deal. The problem is that ACPL put more fuel in the tank and then it leaked out again. That is stupid. Fill the tank with water!. Do not waste fuel and do not put more fuel into the spill area. Good grief.

A little common sense can go a long ways...

Mike Sylvester

Fort Wayne Downtown Parking fees

I decided to take a glance at the City budget for 2007 and at "parking" specifically. I found a statistic that will absolutely blow you away.

The budget calls for the collection of $176,875 in fees from Parking meters.

The budget calls for the collection of $535,000 in fines from Parking tickets.

In other words, the City collects OVER THREE TIMES as much in fines as it does in actual fees. Scott Greider posted on his blog that a Parking ticket only cost him $5...

This is amazing.

Mike Sylvester

Downtown Fort Wayne parking

I go downtown about twelve times a year. I go to occasional meetings and events of a political nature and I sometimes go downtown for other reasons.

This week I went downtown twice.

When I go downtown I almost always park in the Parking Garage next to the City - County building. I pay more; however, I can leave my car parked as long as I want. I do not mind walking a few blocks so I have always parked there...

This week I decided to park at the parking meters on Berry Street. Did you know that the longest you can park in those spots is an hour? The meters only allow you to go up to 60 minutes at a time.

I like to walk. I often walk from place to place rather then drive my car a few blocks. These parking meters are VERY annoying.

Tuesday I went to lunch at the Dash-In. I had to leave lunch and go put more money in my parking meter. It was annoying. Those parking meters should allow you to park for 2 hours and pay for it all at once...

Today I had a meeting downtown and parked on Berry street again. There were 54 minutes on the meter when I pulled into the spot. Knowing that my meeting would take about an hour I decided to put a nickle into the meter anyway and push my time up to 60 minutes.

It turns out that was one of my better decisions today. When I got back to my car the parking meter was blinking... I was out of time. The "Parking enforcement" officer was about four cars down...

Parking is something that MUST be addressed if we keep pouring money into downtown Fort Wayne. There are good and bad things about the current downtown parking situation:

Good things:
There are generally plenty of places to park. I have never had a hard time finding a place to park. I have lived in a lot of places where the same could not be said.
It is inexpensive to park downtown.
It is inexpensive to pay parking tickets downtown.

Bad things:
Some of the parking meters allow you to park for only one hour.
People who do not go downtown have no idea what the parking rules are since some of the signs are wrong and different parking meters have different maximum amounts of time you can park at them without coming back and putting in more coins.

What do you think?

Mike Sylvester

New poll

My new poll is about a new Baseball Stadium being built downtown. You may vote once per day in this poll...

Polls are often very inaccurate. Polls on a blog are extremely inaccurate.

I just do them because I find the results interesting!

Mike Sylvester

Results of my most recent poll

My last poll asked this question:
Who will blow it worse over the next two years in Washington DC?

The final results were:
Both Dems and Reps 62%, 48 votes.
Dems 22%, 17 votes.
Reps 12%, 9 votes.
Neither 5%, 4 votes.

Mike Sylvester

New blog you may be interested in

Scott Greider has an interesting blog called "Scott's Simple Story."

Scott is a native of Fort Wayne. He and his family currently live in New York. They plan on moving back to Fort Wayne next year. They have purchased a home downtown and Scott plans on getting involved with the effort to re-vitalize downtown.

Scott is an architect and a Libertarian. Scott is 100% in favor of re-vitalizing downtown Fort Wayne and brings an interesting perspective to the discussion.

From Scott's blog you can link to several other sites that provide information about both "The Wizards" and downtown development.

I have put a link to Scott's Blog on my sidebar. I have him listed under Fort Wayne blogs since he is moving back to Fort Wayne in the near future.

You can also following this link to his blog:
<http://greiders.blogspot.com/>

Mike Sylvester

Karen Goldner and the 2nd City Council District of Fort Wayne

I met with Karena Goldner today. She is the 2nd candidate I have talked to who has declared their candidacy in 2007.

Karen Goldner is a Democrat and she is running for the City Council position in Fort Wayne's 2nd City Council District. I live in the 2nd City Council District as of this most recent re-districting due to annexation.

Karen has a financial background and has worked for the City in the past. We talked for almost an hour and a half and I was quite impressed with Karen Goldner. She understands that "Economic Development" is not the same as "Economic Re-arrangement!" She has a passion for the future of Fort Wayne and she has a strong personality.

I have not talked to Don Schmidt, the current 2nd District City Councilman in quite awhile. I am still hoping that a Libertarian will step up and run for the 2nd City Council District; however, I doubt that will happen.

If the 2nd City Council race is a two way race between Karen Goldner and Don Schmidt I would currently vote for Karen Goldner hands down. I would not even think twice about it...

I look forward to watching this race over the next year and I hope that the race is a clean one that is focused on the issues rather then personal attacks!

Mike Sylvester

Auditing, AUD, portion of the CPA exam

I got my score for the auditing portion of the CPA exam I took on Nov 30th. I passed with an 82.

I took all four portions of the exam in the last five months of 2006. I passed 3 of 4...

I will retake the REG section in mid January. I will not studay very much...

Mike Sylvester

Another neat thing to do in Fort Wayne

There are a lot of neat things to do in Fort Wayne. I get tired of people who sit around and complain about how boring Fort Wayne is.

I spent eleven years away from Fort Wayne; about half of those years I was in the USN. I lived in Florida, Upper State New York, California, Hawaii, Nebraska, and Missouri. I have traveled all over the US and the world. I have spent time in about 25 different foreign countries.

My wife and I purposefully decided to live in Fort Wayne after considering MANY places. In the end there were several reasons we decided to have and raise our children in Fort Wayne, Indiana:

1. We think family is an important aspect of raising a family and most of our small family lives in this area.

2. Cost of living. We decided we wanted to live in a large house on an acre of land. That eliminated several locations.

3. We think that Fort Wayne is a relatively safe City and that Allen County has two strong public school districts.

This evening we went to the 12th annual Fantasy of Lights at Franke Park. This is a great place to take your family and the money goes to a great cause. The light display runs from Nov 22 - Dec 31. Sun - Thur it runs from 6 - 9 PM. Friday and Saturday it runs an hour later.

The cost is $5 for a car load.

We enjoyed ourselves and I think some of you might enjoy it as well!

You can learn more at:
<http://www.awsusa.com/aws/index.shtml>

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Mike Sylvester

Harrison Square, new plans unveiled for downtown baseball stadium in Fort Wayne

Well the big announcement was made and I have had a chance to look it over. Both major newspapers have stories about it and their statistics contradict each other on several points. This project is still in its planning stages and so I think that some variance should be expected.

To make a long story short the proposal would build a new baseball stadium downtown for the Wizards. This project cannot be started without a new hotel coming to Fort Wayne that has at least 300 rooms... This project would also include a new parking garage that the City would manage, 60 upscale condo's and a small amount of retail space...

After looking the proposal over; it is not as bad of a proposal as I expected.

In my opinion there are several good things about the project:
1. I like the fact that they want to use an entire city block.

2. It sounds like they no longer want to demolish Memorial Stadium. Memorial Stadium will
be paid for on July 1st of 2007. It is a good baseball stadium and I do not think it should
be demolished. I am encouraged that IPFW thinks they may be able to utilize that
facility. This needs to be explored fully.

3. It sounds like the City will not abuse its power of Eminent Domain on this project beyond
its shameful seizure of Belmont Beverage's property over five years ago.

In my opinion there are several bad things about the project:
1. The project hinges on a new hotel being built in downtown Fort Wayne on the property the
City of Fort Wayne shamefully stole from Belmont Beverages with its abuse of eminent
domain. The occupancy rate of Fort Wayne hotels fluctuates between 42% and 49%.
Several new hotels are going to be built in Fort Wayne in the next couple of years on the
north side of town. The City of Fort Wayne should not get into the hotel business...

2. The City plans on building a 1000 space parking garage and having The City manage it.
This is a very bad idea. The City cannot efficiently run a Parking garage!

Many Fort Wayne residents have utilized the Parking garage that is located next to the City
County Building in downtown Fort Wayne. This existing parking garage has room for 985
cars and is about the same size as the proposed new parking garage. I would argue that the
existing parking garage that is next to the City County Building is located in one of the best
possible locations downtown to make money. It is right next to the City County Building and
it is one block from the Jail and the Court House.

Per an independent Fort Wayne CPA named Ron Reinking the City lost approximately $930,052 dollars from 2002 - 2005 on this strategically placed parking garage. This certainly does NOT bode well for a City managed Parking Garage in a location that will draw far fewer people.

There is also another problem with the Parking Garage idea. Half of the parking spaces will
be reserved for Lincoln employees during the work week. This means the parking Garage
will lose even more money each year. Another City Parking Garage will be another money pit that the taxpayers are forced to pay for each year.

3. There are a lot of people saying that the public money will not be coming from tax payers
and that displays a lack of understanding on how government works. All public money
comes from the tax payers... We will be paying for it one way or another.

4. About half of the money from the project will be public money, that is very discouraging.
I would think that a project like this should be almost totally funded with private
investment. Past projects have been built 100% with public money; so maybe I should look at 50% as being an improvement over some of our past mistakes.


I will have to look into the financial side of this project in the future. I have learned not to trust figures for projects that the government provides; they are often inaccurate in my experience.

I will reserve judgment on this project until all of the facts come out. I can say this much; the project as outlined is better then I expected. I do wish that Fort Wayne would stay out of both the Hotel and Baseball business. Fees are skyrocketing in Fort Wayne and I think Fort Wayne should focus on ways to provide the services they provide in a more efficient manner!

Mike Sylvester

Fort Wayne Downtown Development

Fort Wayne officials (Democrat and Republican) will be announcing their most recent scheme to re-develop downtown Fort Wayne at the expanded Grand Wayne Center this morning.

The Grand Wayne Center is the PERFECT location for them to announce their most recent plan to develop downtown Fort Wayne.

The Grand Wayne Center was expanded by stealing private property from successful local businesses in the name of "progress."

The Grand Wayne Center loses money every year and has drawn little or no new business to downtown Fort Wayne. The only accountants who think the the Grand Wayne Center is making money every year are those accountants directly employed by Fort Wayne. ANY independent accountant quickly comes to the conclusion that the Grand Wayne Center is losing money each and every year.

Today our Democratic and Republican elected officials will unite in a massive public ceremony. Arm in arm we will see both Democrats and Republicans in elected office trumpet their new downtown project and they will once again talk about how this project will re-vitalize downtown Fort Wayne.

Rumor has it that this project will involve a downtown baseball stadium, another government subsidized hotel in downtown Fort Wayne, and some retail facilities.

Many of you will read my blog and you will think to yourself that I am against all efforts at downtown redevelopment. That is NOT true.

I am against projects that will NOT improve downtown and that will waste tax dollars. This project certainly will NOT do any of the things "they" will promise.

I will discuss this announcement later today after the announcement...

I have to go and work...

Mike Sylvester

Public Access TV, Thursday night

To All,

Please tune in to Cable Chanel 57 on Thursday from 7P – 8P.

The guest will be Kyle McDonald, the new Executive Director of the LPIN.

We will be happy to discuss anything of interest to you.

The phone number is 422 – 3902.

I’d LOVE to go off on a rant about the bullcrap NO SMOKING ban. I really would.

Respectfully,

Doug Horner
Secretary, Libertarian Party of Allen County
(260) 704 - 4698

Matt Kelty for Mayor

I am the Chairman of the Libertarian Party of Allen County. The Libertarian Party of Allen County does not necessarily share my views!

I am extremely impressed with Matt Kelty and his campaign for Fort Wayne Mayor.

If people like Matt Kelty and Bill Larsen were in charge of The Allen County GOP I would most likely still be a Republican today; alas, they are not and the local GOP is a large government organization that continually is in favor of expanding the role and scope of our local government.

I think there are a lot of "grass roots" Republicans who still believe in:
A smaller government
The Constitution
The rights of the fifty states to pass their own laws

Matt Kelty believes in all of the points I have listed above...

I attended a Christmas Party that Matt Kelty held tonight and I had a great time. I talked to many of the people who attended this event and I enjoyed talking to them. They were a group of great people who all seemed to believe that the government has gotten too large. This event was attended by "grass roots" Republicans and by a smattering of Independents.

I only saw one person at the event who could be considered a "Republican Insider" and that was City Councilman Tom Didier. I am not sure if Tom Didier is going to publicly back Matt Kelty; but, I hope that he does.

I spent a fair amount of time talking to Marvin Hoot and his family at the event.

I think it is both sad and typical that the "good old boys" in the Republican Party are going to back Nelson Peters en masse. I do NOT think Nelson Peters is a bad man; I just think it is time for change. Primaries USED to be held to allow the voters to choose the candidate that would best represent them in the upcoming election. The Allen County GOP seems to feel that it is the job of the "good old boys" to choose a candidate for their members. I think that this is a sad and destructive policy!

Unless a LIbertarian decides to run for Mayor Matt Kelty will have my full support.

I am extremely impressed with Matt Kelty and I think it is time for a change in Fort Wayne!

As a small business owner I think that I have to support Matt Kelty because we need a Mayor who understands that small business is the key to Fort Wayne!

Mike Sylvester

Another "must read" article

AWB has a great post about a horror story here in Fort Wayne.

Please take the time to read it:
<http://www.angrywhiteboy.org/index.php/2006/12/19/this-is-terrible-just-terrible/>

AWB plans on buying those kids something for Christmas and several of his readers plan on helping. My wife and I will help as well...

Mike Sylvester

Credit Card Rant

My wife and I use our credit cards a lot. We like the "cash back" and "reward" credit cards. We always pay our balance in full every month.

We decided to change credit cards.

I took about one hour to research various cards on the internet. I narrowed it down to four cards.

I contacted each credit card company.
One company I sent an email to
One company I exchanged 6 emails with
One Company I talked to two different people on the phone after navigating an awful phone
messaging service.
One Company I sent three emails and one phone call

In each case I requested the company send me a paper application in the mail. After two weeks; I have yet to receive one...

I have repeatedly been told to apply online, apply on the phone, etc. I keep telling them that I want a paper application...

I like to read the fine print...

They are incredibly inefficient...

Mike Sylvester

Nerd score

I took the nerd test that many local bloggers are taking. I scored a 16%...

I must be getting old (39 years)...

Mike Sylvester

Next meeting of The Libertarian party of Allen County

The LPAC will be meeting Monday night at 7 PM. The public is invited to attend!

December's meeting is at the Lucky's (formerly Munchie's) at the southwest corner of Dupont and Coldwater. We will meet infomrally at 7 PM and the formal meeting will begin at 8 PM.

Mike Sylvester