Backgrounder: HUD Serves Up a Plan Without Local Logic
by Josh Claybourn The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) will spend $10 billion this year on “community development,” with most of it allocated to Community Development Block Grants (CDBGs). Approximately $60 million gets allocated to Indiana municipalities, primarily for projects like affordable housing, street repair and subsidizing neighborhood businesses. Part of the lure Read the full article…
Backgrounder: A Council Learns a Lesson — Almost
by Craig Ladwig A rare enlightening discussion broke out at my council meeting last night. A councilman repeatedly challenged an opponent on an economic-development issue to say how he would have cast a hypothetical vote in the past. “Answer the question,” he demanded, trying to pin the councilman as being against a popular civic venue, Read the full article…
Op-Ed: Journalism Without Trust, the Voucher Debate
HAS THE TRUTH become just a detail? The Fort Wayne Journal Gazette recently stepped over the line of protected opinion into either purposeful deception or self-serving carelessness. Discussing vouchers, a July 2 editorial was set under the shock-and-awe headline, “Evidence Casts Doubt on Voucher Education.” It said that a local educator wasn’t surprised by a study “showing that voucher students who transferred from Indiana Read the full article…
Backgrounder: The TIF Sales Pitch Is Wearing Thin
by David Penticuff Loren Matthes, a partner at Umbaugh and Associates, spoke at a Wednesday at our local council meeting about the financial predicament of our city. In calm fashion, for the first time in a year and a half of working on our city’s budget problems, an Umbaugh official spoke in public about our Read the full article…
McCarthy: A Journalism of Misdirection
Misdirection — it is what makes a magician successful. The specific idea is to attract attention away from what is really going on. In a magic show its use is completely necessary and certainly approved, not so much when it is used in presenting news stories. The Indianapolis Star recently gave us a front-page story headlined, “Pence emails to cost state $100K.” The Read the full article…
Op-Ed: Missing Point in Debate over Wind Turbines
by Cmdr. John Pickerill There has been discussion recently over a possible wind farm in my county. Residents close to the proposed turbine towers are concerned about the health effects, about disrupted rural landscape and about what it will do to their property values. Some are suggesting that newly proposed countywide zoning would have excluded the turbines or minimized any harm. They Read the full article…
