New Council, New Mayor

So tomorrow will bring the new year and with it a new government for our city. Many things have happened in our city that have left me frustrated and at times downright angry. However, I believe our elected officials are stand-up citizens that are doing their best to forward the interests of this city. I've attended or watched most of city council meetings this past year and I've been impressed at the intellect and bipartisanship of the current councilmembers - there are no "duds" in my opinion.

And while we are losing 4 members from this impressive group we are replacing them with qualified candidates in Karen Goldner, Mitch Harper, Liz Brown and Marty Bender. The only one I'm skeptical about at this point is Bender. Personally I do not believe city employees should be allowed on council and I also found him the least impressive of the new candidates. Having said that, Bender has been a public servant and previous councilmember so there's a body of work there that speaks for itself.

One thing I hope to see from the new council is less group-think. At times I felt like certain councilmembers were voting on issues just because everyone else was or because they didn't want to rock the boat - I hope the new members shake that up a bit. To the outgoing members, I say thank you. It's a tough position and the pay isn't great but trying to improve your community is important and something people should be commended for.

Tom Henry will become our next mayor and it will be interesting to watch him grow into that role. There were many, many times I agreed with Mayor Richard, but other times it was difficult for me to support him because I perceived that he simply didn't believe in open government. I sincerely hope that mayor-elect Henry continues the good work of the Richard administration while simultaneously promoting open government and citizen participation every step of the way.

Finally, I would like to extend an invitation for you all to join the local blogosphere. Several local officials are readers and commenters and I believe all of you can offer a unique perspective that people would enjoy. The local blogosphere is constantly growing and I don't think we're going away anytime soon so you know the old adage - "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em"

Election Board Hearing Coverage

I won't be able to attend the Election Board hearing about the unreported contribution from Dan Turkette to the Kelty for Mayor campaign. It would be great if another blogger/citizen that was there would post their thoughts on what transpires. If you don't have your own blog then e-mail me your comments and I'll be happy to post them later tonight...

The meeting will take place at 3pm in the City-County Building in the Commissioner's Conference room. That's the meeting room directly atop the escalators. Here's the official meeting notice that describes what's going to take place.

2nd District Recount Finished

There were 13 ballot challenges made and two of them will likely change. However, of these two, one belonged to Goldner and one belonged to Schmidt so there will be no net effect from those. There is one additional vote that could potentially go for Schmidt because the machine read it as a no-vote. All other challenges are not likely to stick and even if they did there will not be enough votes for Schmidt to overtake Goldner.

It will soon be official - Karen Goldner will be the next 2nd District councilmember. Congrats to Karen (again)!

More coverage (including photos) from Roger McNett at OurDems

Does Don Schmidt Really Want a Recount?

Ben Lanka's story in today's JG left me wondering how serious Councilman Schmidt is about the recount in the 2nd District council race. The recount continues to be delayed and Election Board member Andy Downs didn't leave much doubt about why that is happening.

Downs said scheduling conflicts pushed the recount back until just days before the Dec. 20 deadline for the recount to be concluded. He said this is atypical of recounts, many of which begin before Thanksgiving.

“I’ve never seen people who requested it (a recount) less interested in getting it done,” he said.

The voters certainly deserve to know who won the race but it doesn't sound as if councilman Schmidt is too anxious about getting that done. Voters also remember that Schmidt didn't do much campaigning leading up to election day either...

John Shoaff Moves Into 1st Place

On election night it appeared that Marty Bender finished in first place in the city council at large race. However, councilman Shoaff informed me tonight that the election board is going to report that he won the most votes and not Bender as was previously reported.

Congrats to councilman Shoaff, Kirk Moriarty, Susan Mol and everyone else involved in the re-election effort...

Election Night Interview with Dan Turkette

We met up with Dan and a few other Republicans at Columbia Street West. In the interview he talks about the Kelty loss, Steve Shine and the future of the Republican party, John Crawford and a possible Matt Kelty challenge of Mark Souder.


Dan Turkette from FWL on Vimeo.

Election Night Interview with Kirk Moriarty

Readers of this blog may not know who Kirk Moriarty is but they should. Kirk was John Shoaff's campaign manager and as such deserves a lot of credit for John's re-election and 2nd place finish (I know he was hoping for 1st but I'm sure he'll take it). Kirk was well organized and worked nonstop to get Shoaff's message out to the voters. Any of you future candidates would be wise to try and get Kirk to run your campaign.

As an aside I also want to mention Susan Mol. Susan played a critical role in Shoaff's campaign as well, and she utilized her organizational experience from the Code Blue Schools petition drive to help get Shoaff re-elected. Readers will get to hear more about Susan's skills when I post the interview I did with Evert Mol in the near future. I put that interview on the back-burner during the election but I think readers will really enjoy it.

Also, I am very proud to say that I walked multiple neighborhoods for John and worked the polls for him on election morning. However, my role was insignificant compared to the work Susan and Kirk did...


Kirk Moriarty from FWL on Vimeo.

Election Night Interview with Kevin Knuth

Allen County Democratic Chairman Kevin Knuth had a lot to celebrate last night and we snagged him for a couple of minutes to do an interview. We asked him about the performance of Karen Goldner, Joe Fox and himself...


Kevin Knuth from FWL on Vimeo.

Election Night Interview with Karen Goldner

We spoke with Karen shortly after hearing the news that she ousted 36 year incumbent Don Schmidt. Karen was obviously excited and ready to take on her new challenge as a Fort Wayne city councilmember...


Karen Goldner from FWL on Vimeo.

Election Night Interview with John Shoaff

Four years ago John Shoaff received the 3rd highest vote total in the at large race and this year he finished 2nd just behind Marty Bender. John has done an excellent job on council and I'm thrilled the voters of Fort Wayne have chosen to re-elect him. In this interview he talks a little bit about his campaign and how he approaches his responsibility on council.


John Shoaff from FWL on Vimeo.

Election Night Interview with Joe Fox

Joe Fox was the Henry for Mayor campaign manager. In my opinion Joe did an outstanding and professional job. I think he did exactly what the Henry campaign needed to do every step of the way. Joe and everyone else involved with the campaign deserve a lot credit for last night's victory. We caught up with Joe just seconds after Henry's victory speech and asked him to tell us how he felt


Joe Fox - Tom Henry's Campaign Manager from FWL on Vimeo.

Interview List

As I mentioned in the previous post, Brian Spaulding and I conducted a number of video interviews at last night's party. Here's a list of the interviews we'll be posting later today

Tom Henry
Joe Fox - Henry Campaign Manager
Karen Goldner
Kevin Knuth
John Shoaff
Kirk Moriarty - Shoaff Campaign Manager
Dan Turkette

Election Party Photos

I attended the election party with Brian and Scott Spaulding who are the creators of the Downtown Fort Wayne Baseball blog. Scott took over a hundred photos and I want to share some of them with everyone. Brian did the camera and editing work for a number of interviews we did throughout the night and I should have those up later today. So a big thank you to the Spaulding brothers for their efforts in capturing the best moments of last night's victory party.

Mayor Elect Tom Henry

Henry Campaign Manager Joe Fox

Tim Pape

Glynn Hines

Karen Goldner

Karen Goldner and Democratic Party Chairman Kevin Knuth

Sandy Kennedy

FWL Interviews John Shoaff

John Shoaff

FWL Interviews Tom Henry

Election Day 2007

Senator Lugar Endorses Liz Brown & Ignores Matt Kelty

I previously wrote that I was little surprised that Senator Lugar had not done a fundraiser or offered Matt Kelty any kind of public endorsement. This is strange because Kelty highlights the work he's done for Lugar and even has a picture with him on his website. But now one must really wonder what's going on between Lugar and Kelty because Lugar has publicly endorsed Liz Brown in a recent mailer (shown below).

What does it say about Matt Kelty that Senator Lugar won't do a mailer for him but will for Liz Brown? I think it says Lugar agrees that Kelty should not be our next mayor...

What Are You Doing to Help Henry Win?

As a political junky you have likely already made up your mind in this year's mayoral race. If you support Tom Henry then you also know how scary the thought of Matt Kelty as mayor actually is. All of you understand what is at stake but more importantly - what are you doing to help Tom Henry win?

It is not enough to show up on election day like everybody else. People like yourselves that are this engaged in local politics need to go the extra mile. We can all sit around and discuss things on the internet but at the end of the day we need to get people to the polls. Don't sit back and think you've done your part - you can do more. We're coming down to the final push towards election day and I am certain the Henry campaign would welcome your help.

This Saturday there will be a major grassroots effort to help spread the word about why Tom Henry needs to be our next mayor. Why not call Democratic headquarters and ask to volunteer for the Henry for Mayor campaign? Take part in the nuts and bolts of campaigning - it's actually quite fun. Don't sit back 2 years from now and regret the fact that you didn't do enough to get Tom elected.

If you want to find out what you can do then call the Henry campaign and ask - 478-8239

Or if you have general questions just shoot me an e-mail - jpksu@hotmail.com

Just do something - this is too important not to...

Karen Goldner Wins JG Endorsement

I'm sure most of you already saw that Karen Goldner got the JG endorsement but I wanted to post about it nonetheless:

Voters in the 2nd District can’t go wrong no matter which of the major party candidates they select for City Council. Nine-term incumbent Don Schmidt has a long track record as a fiscal watchdog. Democratic challenger Karen Goldner is a former high-ranking city official well acquainted with city government and especially knowledgeable about economic development.

While either candidate would represent the district well, we give the edge to Goldner.

I think this is the most interesting race to watch. Karen has run what appears to be an extremely effective campaign combining grassroots (knocking on every door) and traditional (impressive fundraising) campaign methods. Meanwhile the old-school analysts seem to think this won't make a nickel's worth of difference but I'm not so sure. Personally, I think this will be the only competitive district race come election night.

The real question is will Karen's efforts lead to victory? If so, I think you're likely to see a wholesale change in the philosophy of future local campaigns. This litmus test, if for no other reason, makes this the race to watch...

Fort Wayne Left Gets Some Ink

Kathleen Quilligan of the News Sentinel noted my contribution to Mitch Harper's campaign and asked me about it. She could've easily identified me as simply a member of the Democratic Party but chose instead to point out that I'm an author here at Fort Wayne Left. I think she made the right choice and I hope the relationship between traditional media and blogs will continue to grow:

For example, Mitch Harper, a Republican running for the District 4 City Council seat being vacated by Democrat Tom Hayhurst, received a donation from Jeff Pruitt, a Democrat who contributes to the Fort Wayne Left blog.

“I consider Mitch a friend, and he’s a blogger,” said Pruitt. “More than those things, I think he’d make a great City Councilman.”

The other half of the quote was why I think Harper will make a good councilman - something I've shared privately with many readers of this blog. Harper has experience in government and is also an advocate for open government - he supported my letter to the Public Access Counselor for example. He also wants to get more people involved in the various boards and commissions that make up local government - especially younger people. I have nothing negative to say about Chris Stewart and I have a lot of respect for the guy since he took up the seat left vacant by Charles Langley.

But since the blog was brought up, by name, in the local paper I thought I should post something about it...

Campaign Finance Reports

I went down to the election board at noon and scoured through the campaign finance filings. I'm not going to bother posting every candidate's numbers but I'll include the ones that caught my eye.

Matt Kelty
Total - $313,575
Cash on Hand - 10,012.56

Ouch. Matt did better than the $200k I predicted but only has $10k left compared to Tom Henry's $300k. Several of the city council candidates have more cash on hand than Matt Kelty. Also, $45k of the amount raised is specifically earmarked for his legal defense fund. It's never good when 15% of your fundraising has to go towards criminal legal fees. Kelty did spend $45k on a TV media buy with a company called Strategic Media. I know some criticized Tom Henry for not using a local ad agency despite the fact that the one he chose is probably the premiere political ad agency in the country. So those critics should be equally dismayed that Strategic Media's address was listed in Ohio. There also seems to be some confusion about whether or not the Jehl's loaned Matt another $10k. I know Kevin Knuth was looking into this so I'll just wait and see what he comes up with.

UPDATE: I forgot to add that the Rost loan doesn't appear to be paid back as the Kelty campaign has over $100k in debt according to the latest filing

2nd District
Don Schmidt raised approximately $10k and has about $500 cash on hand. Meanwhile his opponent, Karen Goldner, raked in a huge amount of cash - $47k with $34k left. I knew Karen had been campaigning hard but this took me by surprise - nice work. Karen's run a constant grassroots campaign and also has a ton of cash to spend down the stretch. This will be an interesting race to watch.

At Large
No surprise that John Crawford raised big numbers - $143k. Crawford is known as an excellent fundraiser and the people trying to oust him had better be organized.

John Shoaff also reported an impressive $44k with $35k left. With that much money on hand we should see/hear a lot more from Shoaff down the stretch.

4th District
Chris Stewart raised an impressive $15k despite his late entry into the race which equals what his opponent Mitch Harper raised.

Libertarians
They raised some money with Doug Horner leading the way. I forgot to write his numbers down but I think it was around $2k. Libertarians Brightbill and Diaz showed $0 raised.

My Vote is In

I hate waiting in the election lines so I decided to walk down to the Election Board office in the City-County building and cast my vote today. I would encourage others to take advantage of this if you're in the downtown area - I was in and out in less than 5 minutes.

I'm not going to do city-wide endorsements here at FWL but I decided I would share with everyone who I chose to vote for.

Mayor - Tom Henry
This decision was a no-brainer. Kelty is a train wreck and I'd like to keep the city from going down the toilet. Henry has the experience, and the support of experienced people, to keep the city moving in the right direction. He'll be an honest leader and one I think we can all be proud of.

3rd District - Deb McBride
I don't have anything particularly bad to say about Tom Didier. However, he didn't support the smoking ban and he did support Harrison Square so I simply won't support him. I've had the opportunity to speak with Deb several times and I think she would make a good councilmember. Unfortunately her campaign has been very low-key so I don't think enough voters have heard her message.

At Large - John Crawford, John Shoaff, Denise Porter-Ross
John Crawford championed the smoking ban, in an election year nonetheless, and if that were the only reason to support Crawford he would still get my vote. However, Crawford has also been very willing to engage citizens in discussion of the issues and his arguments are typically well-researched and logical.

John Shoaff is the candidate I agree with more than any other candidate on city council. He was for the smoking ban and against Harrison Square. At almost every council meeting I find myself nodding in agreement when Shoaff presents his opinion on the issues.

The toughest decision for me was between Liz Brown and Denise Porter-Ross. I've had the opportunity to meet Denise and I know how hard she works to give citizens a voice in local government. Ultimately the deciding factor for me was Liz Brown's comments at the YLNI forum where she seemed to indicate that she would support the state's current property-to-income tax redistribution option. This would significantly raise my taxes and hurt many other working class families as well.

UPDATE: I forgot to include Sandy Kennedy. She is very well respected and has done a good job as city clerk. Nobody is running against her but she likely would've received my vote anyway