SHERIFF FRIES NEXT POLICE CHIEF?
Paula Hughes is penny wise, but pound foolish.
Mrs Hughes was recently endorsed by Sheriff Fries. Not unexpected, because "thick as thieves they are"( Warden Norton-Shawshank Redemption)and the sheriff will likely be our next Police Chief. Did I call it in 2010?
Since Mrs Hughes is the self- appointed financial guru/ tightwad skinflint, riddle me this: How much money did Allen County Taxpayers shell out to pay for sheriff fries's recent "Flying Circus" road trip convoy to some obscure cowpath intersection aka Andrews Indiana, 50 miles SW of here, to assist with armored vehicles, SWAT officers, and so on?
Obstensably, the mission was to help raid a root cellar filled with 200 armed and dangerous cannabis plants, waiting to terrorize Dan Quayles home county.
Tell Me, Barney- how much fuel, wear and tear, overtime, and other expenses did you spend on our behalf to assist assaulting this cannabis garden, because Huntington county is broke? As if Allen County has extra cash laying around to blow on frivolous mis-adventures?
Seems Allen County never has any money to spend. sort of like the preacher asking the rich man to help with a donation to the poor- sorry padre, no dinero, and as the preacher is walking back to the church, sees the rich man in the high-price palace of decadence, living the high life.
Fort Wayne police waste tons of cash- on wasteful vice investigations,arresting poor starving street hookers, while the big fish get away. such as 6800 outstanding felony/fugitive warrants; dozens of cold case homicides, open air drug markets, wife beaters, baby rapers, and other assorted schemers, scum, and criminals running loose in the streets.
So look for the FWPD to be harassing harmless stoners, and social drinkers leaving all the local concerts, clubs, and venues, clogging the courts, and scosting the taxpayers millions in wasteful pointless law enforcement.
Hughes calls for city to use reverse auctions to trim costs
But city purchasing director says system doesn't always bring savings.
By Bob Caylor
of The News-Sentinel
The city of Fort Wayne should trim its purchasing costs by using reverse online auctions, Paula Hughes, a Republican running for mayor in the May 3 primary, said last week.
“A reverse auction switches the roles of buyers and sellers from a typical auction,” the Hughes campaign explained in its news release advocating reverse auctions. “In an ordinary auction, buyers compete to obtain a good or service, and prices increase over time. In a reverse auction, sellers compete to obtain business, and prices decrease over time.”
That argument is so compelling that city officials began using reverse auctions at least as long ago as 2004, when the city used that strategy in negotiations with two companies competing to sell Fort Wayne 14 firetrucks.
It now uses online auctions for certain commodities, such as chemicals used to treat drinking water. Purchasing Director James Howard said the practice has some advantages, but it doesn't always produce savings.
In some cases, he said, it appears that bidders use an online auction simply as a venue for entering the “best offer” they would submit in a typical sealed-bid submission. Other times, more of them compete more actively.
“It's hard to tell where reverse auctions actually pay off. For all reverse auctions there is a built in fee that comes from the winning vendor to the company that sponsors the reverse auction. The city does not have its own software to run a reverse internet auction so (the city) must use an outsourced company. The fee is small but still must be factored in as the cost of doing business,” Howard wrote in an email.
He also said vendors working the reverse system may make when they enter a bid part of their pricing strategy.
That's akin to a practice called “sniping” on eBay, when bidders trying to buy an item wait until just before the auction ends to place a bid. In both cases, careful timing of bids can blunt bidding wars that otherwise might develop.
Howard said that in recent years the city has had better results with sealed bids when it comes to vehicles and road salt.
“It really is a commodity-by-commodity decision, and we have to look at the market (available vendors and how they bid geographically or otherwise) to determine whether a reverse auction is the right course of action,” he wrote
Another benefit of online reverse auctions is provided by the company that operates the auctions.
Howard said the company's work with cities around the country sometimes enables it to connect Fort Wayne with other vendors or suppliers to compete with local and regional companies.
Hughes, a former Allen County Council member, said Thursday that reverse auctions certainly have limitations, such as when securing some services. But she wants to see the city pursue the approach more.
“My sense is there's still a lot of potential there,” she said.
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Posted by david roach on 04/08/11 08:01:00 PM (Suggest removal)
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