COUNCILMAN’S CORNER
Recently I learned about a surprising development regarding the taxes we all pay which is a good example of the old adage: “The devil’s in the details”. The state legislature passed legislation–which sounds logical–prohibiting property taxes from being more than 2% of the current value of the property. That sounds like a logical measure and makes sense on the surface. Unfortunately, companies which decide bond rates for the city, county, school boards, etc. have decided that local government units may not be able to pay off bonds due to the new tax law. As a result we are now in the “Catch-22” situation of possibly having to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars more to pay off higher interest rates on public bonds. I’m sure this problem will be resolved eventually.
A few weeks ago several Elmhurst High School parents contacted me because of their concern about the safety of students walking and driving to and from the school. There are several factors contributing to the problem. Traffic on Ardmore is increasing, Sandpoint Road is to be closed to the west resulting in more student drivers pulling out on to Ardmore, more development has occurred along Ardmore, and there are quite a few more students at Elmhurst. Meetings are currently underway with leaders of the school PTA, FWCS and Elmhurst school administrators, Fort Wayne traffic engineers, City Council Legislative Assistant Molly McCray, NEIRCC planning agency (directed by Elmhurst grad Dan Avery), area residents, and yours truly. Our goal is to come up with some answers to make Elmhurst students safer.
I’ve been happy to hear that our representatives in Indianapolis are considering changing state law in an effort to control the fireworks problem which is out of control. Since new state law took effect huge volumes of powerful fireworks have been detonated in residential areas and citizens are very upset. This matter is basically controlled by state law which will hopefully be revised by the legislature. In the meantime call the police desk at 427-1222 if citizens are using fireworks after 11 pm or obviously violating the city noise ordinance!
The 3 Rivers Festival was a great success this year. Don’t miss the ongoing events at Headwaters Park during the coming months. I’ll see you there!
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