Andy Downs sure does get around for such a young fellow. As we all know he’s on the election board, nuff said there. Then we all know he was a former board member of Common Cause - Indiana until he quit over their witch hunt for Matt Kelty. How deep does his affiliations really run?

The affiliations cross party lines at times but I suspect not by design. An interesting appointment is this one.

Mayor’s Citizen Appointment to the City of Fort Wayne Board of Zoning Appeals (Andrew Downs).

And recently this:

Two New Members Appointed to Housing Authority Board
Mayor Graham Richard has appointed two new members to the Fort Wayne Housing Authority Board of Commissioners. The new members are Andrew Downs and Jomare Bowers-Mizzell.

I bet Gary Probst loves Andy’s addition to the Housing Authority Board. Gary seems to like section 8 housing apartments. Recently (around 2003) in Aboite he built an 88-unit section-8 eligible apartment development. The site is located on the north side of the 12500 through 12700 blocks of Illinois Road/State Road 14, approximately 1,000 feet east of its intersection with West Hamilton Road. In an acronym; it’s in BFE.

I see residents from that facility walking down the shoulder of Hwy 14 clutching Meijer bags all the time. How far is that? 3-4 miles? I guess Scott’s is too expensive.

Probst’s initial plan request did not include curbs, gutters, or sidewalks. It’s not on a bus line, near a grocery store (okay maybe over a mile away if you count Scott’s) or any type of daycare facilities. Hey, come on down out of the hood and live in the country; we have no services for you however.

He also operates Renaissance Health Care which in a report published by the Journal Gazette from January of last year stated the following:

- Failed to monitor abnormal blood sugar levels for one diabetic resident; although the resident’s blood-sugar levels were abnormally high at least 20 times, the resident was not reassessed after insulin was given, and there were no doctor’s orders regarding treatment when the resident’s blood sugars were abnormally low.

- Failed to ensure the ice machine was in proper working order to prevent contamination of the ice in the holding bin.

Sorry got away from myself and this is not really meant to be focused on Andy. It’s Sunday - I’m just poking around Google.

Does anyone else find it interesting that of the five board members of the Fort Wayne Board of Zoning Appeals , four are appointed by the mayor? One of those members is none other than Barney Niezer. You talk about getting around -Neizer’s brother Tom is like a fly on stink when it comes to real estate transactions in Fort Wayne. He represents Barry Sturges. Remember Barry?

Does anyone else find it funny that if you want to appeal a zoning request the one lawyer in town that possibly makes more zoning requests than any other lawyer in town has a brother on the Board of Zoning Appeals?

Another Graham Richard appointee to the appeals board is Mike Bynum. Bynum is the neighborhood president of the Southeast Area Partnership, which by the way is in the area where the “Come as you are” church is proposing building those $200K or so homes. Tom Neizer is the “Come as you are” church’s attorney. Dang it.. I was just beginning to believe that the good old boy network really didn’t exist.

Shoot. I almost forgot to mention this tidbit. Mike Bynum is also the current secretary of the Fort Wayne Plan Commission and sits on that board with Barney Niezer, Tom Neizer’s brother. So if you don’t like what the plan commission says, take it to the City of Fort Wayne Board of Zoning Appeals. Barney and Mike will most likely help you out, since Mike and Tom’s brother Barney voted on it in the first place. Then again, there’s a good chance that maybe Tom was representing the party that requested the change. What’s that Charlie Daniel’s song again?

I guess I should reach out to one of you lawyers.

If your zoning request gets turned down by the plan commission, why are you going back to an appeals board that in part most likely represents the plan commission and their interests?

Happy Sunday.

AWB

Last 5 posts by AWB

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This entry was posted on Sunday, June 24th, 2007 at 6:35 pm and is filed under City & County Government. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.