Just a few weeks after Mayor Tom Henry seemed to declare war on Indiana Michigan Power, the city administration set its sights on another longtime and important city vendor: National Serv-All.

The timing is a coincidence. And no one disputes that the city should get a fair price from I&M for either selling or again leasing the old City Light utility. Nor does anyone question the process of periodically placing the garbage contract out for competitive pricing to make sure residents pay the smallest amount possible for quality garbage collection.

But some civic leaders and politicos are questioning why the city came out with guns blazing against I&M and now is poised to end its long-term relationship with National Serv-All in favor of a start-up company with no track record. I&M and National Serv-All have long relationships with the city, which pays each millions of dollars each year for its services.

To give flexibility and encourage innovation – particularly in the money-losing recycling side of refuse pickup – the city issued a request for proposals rather than use a bidding process that lists specifications for all facets of the garbage contract. While bidding requires the city to accept the best and lowest bid, the request-for-proposal process allows city officials to negotiate with potential contractors to match service and price. So it is perplexing that the Henry administration chose to negotiate only with the start-up vendor, Earth First, and shut Serv-All out of the process.

Perhaps the city’s hardball stance will help residents in the end. But the city’s unusual tactics also risk creating bad blood with two important city vendors, sending out the message that doing business with the city of Fort Wayne isn’t worth the trouble.

Town hall secrecy

Given the rancor and disruption that has occurred at numerous congressional town hall meetings on health care, anyone sponsoring such a meeting needs to keep pretty tight controls on how it’s conducted to make sure people are allowed to speak and have their voices heard.

But refusing to allow taping of an event that hundreds of people attend is both foolhardy and a bad practice that pulls a completely unnecessary veil of secrecy over a public event.

U.S. Rep. Baron Hill’s attempts to prohibit taping of his town hall meeting last week backfired in a big way.

A student who wanted to record the meeting asked Hill why she couldn’t. Hill – in a tone and demeanor that could well be described as arrogant – responded, “This is my town hall meeting, and I set the rules.” Fair enough.

The Southern Indiana Democratic congressman paused, then said, “Let me repeat that one more time. This is my town hall meeting for you, and you’re not going to tell me how to run my congressional office. Now the reason I don’t allow filming is because usually the films end up on YouTube in a compromising position.”

How do we know he said exactly this? The clip is on YouTube. One can find small and unobtrusive video cameras these days.