FORT WAYNE POLICE VS "DRUG WAR" "MARXISTS

i'M A MARXIST. Phil Marx. i'm a fan. I relate to what he was trying to do, and finally succeeded. been there, done that.
way to go phil.
YES WE CANNABIS- BARACK OBAMA, CANNABIS, HAWAIII (and the curse of lono?)

pREAIDENT bARACK OBAMA- I INHALED. FREQUENTLY. THATS THE POINT...

I INHALED...

cheech and chong

FBI director- drug war

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dea head gets owned

flys in the face...

california 1 billion dollar industry in CA.

HARVARD ECONOMIST ON WHY MARIJUANA SHOULD BE LEGALIZED

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cheech and chong debate geraldo, and ann coulter
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sRXR_pk_MVA&feature=related

more people would speak , it they didnt also have to sit through interminable tedium, and minutiae, of the sausage making that is city council. we just want the bratwurst, pass the mustard.
ie: why not let citizens air their greivances every week, ad the beginning of the meetings. waste the time of the city council members- they are getting paid, and let the restof us go home then , and watch the show on video replay, at 10 pm, where we can enjoy a beer, and a comfy chair. AND SMOKE A BIG FAT HOME-ROLLED JOINT. (theres no smoking at city council. smoking ban , you know...
thats the problem.
cheech and chong- CBS

the Imperial council seems to think we havenothing better to do than sit in the cheap seats, watch the circus clown juggle, and do their sideshow clown acts, while ringmaster Mitch mc's the festivities.
so the cronstructive criticism for reform, which would help make it more convenitnet for citizens to speka out, would be to have "public hearings/ soap bos at the start of all city council meetings, every week, everyone speaks,until they have said their peace, let council dialogue with the citizen, the get on with the "official meeting". Stop wasting the citizens time, making we the people sit and wait to speak, till the very end, after hours of the aforementioned chicanery, and manuvering, and let Mr smith air his grievances. let mrs Jones petition her govt for redress. and do it at the citizens convenience. if the politicians in their ivory towers are annoyed, and delayed, and inconvenienced, imagine how we all feel? and for the record, i was bringing "tea bags" to city budget hearings long before the present 'tea-party" was concocted.
daves not here
Let me tell you about a friend of mine, who i am always happy to be a willing accomplice, or the robin to his Batman.

Reminds me of the struggles of another citizen activist, tom Ostrognai, who led the crusade for the so-called "drug den ordinance"- which required landlords to not allow illegal activities on their property, such as drug dealing, illegal gambling, or prostitution.
Tom had an old school VHS video camera, and armed with that, and little else, he would go into the 'hood- where he owned several rental properties, and surreptitiously video tape " alleged" open air drug market deals going down, and then show these onhis cavle access TV show "Drug WAR", which received national media attention. He was accused of being some kind of outlaw vigilante, trying to take matters into his own hands by his detractors, but to others, his supporters, he was widely admired for using technology, and his intelligence, and viet nam Army training, to help clean up this city, or at least drive it underground where it wasnt so blatant. And I know tom, and there was also a bit of Mocking satire - in that he was sying " look at me, you stupid cops. I can clean up this city while you people choose to do nothing and ignore the problem.
tom Ostrognai, and I would talk on the phone, or sit at his house, or one of his many side venture, and he would tell me of his battles with Payne brown, Public safety director- "what an idiot", and how he would "Make the Mayor Squeak", on many of Mayor Helmke's call in show s, where his loyal "Ostrognaistas would tag team the phones, with nagging questions. nEVER A DULL MOMENT, AND A GOOD TIME TO BE HAD BY ALL., except the Mayor, of course. who for all his praises as the "golden child", was mediocre, nominally incompetent, and mostly a blow-dried puff head, derided by both the conservative GOP, as a RINO, and annoyed the Democrats for not defecting, to his ideological kin. not to mention all the gun rights advocates, who finally sent him packing for his heresy. He now is a gun control scold, and media whore i n washington DC, where everytime theres a shooting, Helmke trots out, says gunns bad. no guns good. what is a dangerous person, exactly, anyway, and who decides?
CHEECH AND CHONG- THE COCKROACH

Ostrognai was also the driving force behind the "report a drug house, save a child bumper sticker" campaign, which listed the chiefs direct FWPD phone number, so citizens could go right to where the buck stopped in the PD.
I recall a similar battle, as Ostrognai intrepidly harangued city council for weeks on end, for months, until they finally gave up, and passed it, after all kinds of excuses.
the most appalling thing about it was after the drug den ordianace passed, many of its main opponents, then crowed about it constantly in their re-election campaigns, cynically praising how it helpe close down "X"number of drug houses last year, etc.

Its a shame that the city Police are so useless, and it takes sooo long to clean up a city by depending on them, and that a few brave ballsy, "git-r-done" , mission accomplished people can make a difference.
way to go phil!




excerpt from angry white boy post..
http://www.angrywhiteboy.org/index.php/2011/04/13/finally-a-citizen-at-the-mic/
Apr
13
2011
Finally, a citizen at the mic
Posted by Jim Sack in City & County Government, Fort Wayne
By Jim Sack

The star of last night’s council meeting was a citizen, Phil Marx. It was a dose of reality after an evening of mud-wrestling.

What Mr. Marx vividly and dramatically detailed to council was a litany, a long-long litany, of the abuse he and his neighbors had long endured and against which they had fought and defeated in order to take back neighborhood from thugs. Mr. Marx read police statistics for just one street, his, that were simply amazing -knifings, screw-driver to the head, shootings, assaults, false 911 calls, battery, vandalism…jeez, Louise. The list went on and on and on to the discomfort of all members of council and everyone in the audience.

Then Marx, who led the fight against the gang-bangers and drug heads and thieves,handed out a bit of credit. Assistant Chief and councilman Marty Bender, he said, would make multiple stops and ever-so-slow patrols through his neighborhood on a daily basis to show the colors, to run off perps, to simply check to see if Mr. Marx and neighbors were still standing! Over a period of years Marx and others fought back and, as he noted last night, took back their neighborhood from the derelicts who had terrorized him and everyone else on the block. Marx then read his list of infractions from a more recent police cycle and it all came up goose-eggs. Apparently, closing one den of thieves, one house, changed the entire tenor of the neighborhood. Mr. Marx again gave praise to Marty Bender, lauded Chief Rusty York and all the officers who had taken time to ride down his street to just check and to show the colors.

Mr. Marx also voiced his appreciation to Council President Mitch Harper for starting the curative ball rolling by writing on Mr. Harper’s blog about the ongoing battle of neighbors vs. low-life. Mr. Marx, noticeably, did not express appreciation to his councilman on the east side during his recitation of the ordeal.

For Mr. Marx is was an empowering ordeal that he could well have done without. Few of us want to be harassed by young toughs with their hats on backward, tats climbing their arms, their pants sagging to their knees and uttering threats, especially while we are on a ladder cleaning gutters, as Mr. Marx recounted. Mr. Marx fought back and relentlessly demanded the city take notice. It was apparent from what he said and how Mr. Bender responded that the city took a very long time to take Mr. Marx at his word and then an even longer time to weed out the gutter-dwellers.

So, I hope Mr. Marx will make stay involved in government, in holding official feet to the fire and help other neighborhoods rid themselves of these poor, neglect young miscreants.

Mr. Marx would be a better nominee than most for our local “leaders” citizen of the year award.

Meanwhile, council distinguished itself in a fight over procedure, or, rather, make that two fights over procedure.

The first tussle was between President Harper and Councilwoman Golder. It was a mess. He proposed to change a decades-old process allowing “prior approvals.” Ms. Goldner defended the system. She said she could not see the difference between what he was proposing and what was currently in effect. His “new” system, he said, (suspension of the rules) and is in keeping with Roberts’ Rules of Order; the other process, prior-approval, is not in keeping, he said. He explained that his “new” system, which is really the older system revived, would end the questionable newer system (prior-approval) he said was put in place to “wire around Jimmy Stier.” Some of you will remember Jimmy. Essentially, prior approval was the fast-track system; Mr. Harper’s new system, (suspension of the rules) which was the old system, now raises the bar substantially requiring unanimous approval at a key point to move forward.

Another way of looking at it, the “prior approval” system anticipated that council would later “make good” on its promise by formally and legally passing said ordinance. Until it was formally passed, however, its legality was suspect and could leave 1) a contractor holding the bag, 2) a big hole in a street and 3) lawyers licking their briefs. (As a side note: Liz Brown, contradicting her normal pro-business position, uttered something in support of Mitch: it’s “not our job to get every ordinance out the door as fast as possible.” This is the woman who frequently complains about the city putting too much red-tape in the way of business.) The new system…or old system revived…is less subject to lawsuit.

The debate was nasty at times with Ms. Goldner being interrupted in mid-sentence by the normally polite Mr. Harper. She asked permission to continue with her thought. “No,” he snapped. Murmurs from other members at the table. Glynn Hines rose, rolled his eyes and poured himself a coffee at a side-stand in obvious muted anger. Eventually, Mrs. Brown offered a canned motion in support of Mr. Harper, which passed, and the matter ended, but not without tarnishing a bit the reputation of council.

As for the process, it was clumsy. Apparently, a couple council members knew what was coming, as witnessed by Mrs. Brown’s memorized motion, but the whole mess could have been averted with a little broader consultation.

Then, Mr. Harper invited a pair of vendors to the table to criticize the city’s handling of the cleaning contract for the People’s Palace. The two vendors leveled a number of charges and insinuations against the process and said they felt it had been “very questionable.” Mr. Pape asked, as a point of procedure, whether the two were being given special treatment by Mr. Harper and pointed out the irony of procedure being violated to discuss a perceived breech of procedure. It was the second mess of the evening.

Later, Jim Howard, the purchasing manager, had a chance to defend the way in which the contract was bid. He challenged each and everyone one of the arguments offered by the losing bidder. Again, as she did last week, Mrs. Brown asked Howard if the city could save money by not advertising bids as extensively as it does, as is required by law. Interestingly, she also encouraged greater government transparency later in the meeting.)

Another high point was the presentation of a clock to Mr. Pape for his years of service to the community. He accepted it graciously, if a bit prematurely. He has another seven months left on his contract. One can easily note that he is a changed man since his announcement not to run. His humor is lighter, less pointed, he offers more compliments, he tries to moderate disagreements, of which there are sufficient number.

Otherwise, it was a frustrating evening of arcane procedural wrangling juxtaposed against the message Mr. Marx presented at the dais. Marx and the rest of us are on the front line and need more help in protecting and improving our neighborhoods. Meanwhile, council parses words, toss barbs and otherwise looks petty.