Comments on Advance Indiana™: Media Gets It Wrong On Sullivan Hardware Zoning Dispute

Get your facts straight. The remonstrators were wi...

2014-12-29T11:48:39.490-05:00

Get your facts straight. The remonstrators were without power to cite Sullivan's Hardware for any zoning violations. The employees working for Mayor Greg Ballard were responsible for the numerous citations filed against him, and his administration brought a civil action to enforce those violations. Four people appointed to the Board of Zoning Appeals heard the evidence from all sides--the city, the petitioner and the remonstrators, and sided with the city and the remonstrators. It's extremely unfair and cruel to blame them for laws they didn't write and acts of government officials they didn't appoint or over whom they have no control.

Totally agree, ruascott. Blogger gets it wrong by...

2014-12-29T11:09:52.200-05:00

Totally agree, ruascott. Blogger gets it wrong by omitting key context info on the remonstrators as well as the severity of the violations.

The people determine the zoning regs (thru their reps), and the people can revise their zoning regs (or enforcement) by making their voices heard. There is huge support for Sullivan's in this instance. The people are speaking!

There are only two 'neighbors', and only o...

2014-12-27T08:59:32.433-05:00

There are only two 'neighbors', and only one lives anywhere near the location. They weren't complaining due to actual parking issues. They are complaining because that's all they do, and have done for years. There aren't parking problems due to the store and never have been.

Your commentary is more misguided than the news outlets you complained about. You don't explain the long history of these two miscreants, a history that has long opposed every development of any sort in the area, as well as worked actively to close existing businesses.

You dragging in stories about subsidies to commercial stores downtown is bizarre.

LOL @ the Roadhouse reference

2014-12-26T21:00:30.344-05:00

LOL @ the Roadhouse reference

This is a really good summary of what has occurred...

2014-12-24T19:02:26.617-05:00

This is a really good summary of what has occurred. Good job!

I was at Tuesday's hearing for another, unrela...

2014-12-24T17:28:38.902-05:00

I was at Tuesday's hearing for another, unrelated matter. The two remonstrators who spoke weren't millennials; they were older people, like myself. For what it's worth, I overheard a supporter from the neighborhood say that one of the remonstrators objected to all most anything. (NIMBY) To me, it was an easy case - while some individual items may have been minor, some aren't, and the accumulation of Sullivan's violations at this site are quite extensive and are simply too big to ignore. While they have a nice little business that many like, they are trying to fit 10 pounds of fertilizer into a 5 lb bag.

Fehribach reminds me of The Master character in Ma...

2014-12-24T11:53:46.362-05:00

Fehribach reminds me of The Master character in Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome who sits on the shoulders of The Blaster character, mask and all. Without The Blaster, The Master is nothing.

Amen, Anon 2:43 & Guest 8:29. Clients have reh...

2014-12-24T11:00:53.568-05:00

Amen, Anon 2:43 & Guest 8:29. Clients have rehabbed properties on the H&H list & Gary's right, the fines can be exorbitant. There was a time when they were much more reasonable to work with & citizen solution oriented.

The current environment is one of morbid overregulation; hostile, not business or owner friendly. Show me a property or business & I'll show you code violations; including public property, including those harassing Sullivan Hardware- ask any bonafide, independent property inspector.

Except in rare instance, most problems can be reasonably solved (by reasonable people) neighbor to neighbor. We routinely make out of pocket improvements to and / or assisted, properties neighboring our development projects (with permission of course), as good neighbor policy. Most people are reasonable.

The focus should be on regulatory excess / bloat & state designed fee traps; perverse incentives of destructive & gluttonous statism.

The examples are endless- but what's up with the county health department spending our tax dollars to advertise a Dick & Jane jingle on radio, about influenza & holiday hygiene? Unlike private sector accountability linked to production; where's the measure of reach & purpose linked to a nursery rhyming public sector?

We have too much, morbidly proportioned, gluttonous government, grotesquely gorging on the life, talent, energy & property of its people.

Did Brad Wesley try to shake down Sullivan and he ...

2014-12-24T10:22:49.428-05:00

Did Brad Wesley try to shake down Sullivan and he refused?

From Roadhouse

At Red Webster's place

What happened? Did you get robbed?

Every week.

So what does he take?

- Who? - Brad WesIey.

Ten per cent - to start.

Oh, it's all IegaI Iike. He formed the Jasper Improvement Society.

All the businesses in town beIong to it.

Everybody pay?

Does a hobbyhorse have a wooden dick?

I wonder who Brad Wesley is in Indy? One of the law firms? Someone else?

I live here. I think it is great to have thriving ...

2014-12-24T08:29:48.822-05:00

I live here. I think it is great to have thriving neighborhood businesses and Sullivans with all their extra "stuff". In actuality we should be after the bureaucracy which needs to quit stifling and let business alone as long as it is not major violations and this is not major it is petty. I also know the complainers which have a history of no to everything and when they don't get their way they keep needling at it.

Go sit in the Marion Co. Health & Hospital Cor...

2014-12-24T07:52:28.861-05:00

Go sit in the Marion Co. Health & Hospital Corporation hearing room at 3838 N. Rural and watch all the little people being hailed in on numerous code violations, often petty ones. Some of them are being slapped with fines as high as the value of their homes unless they make repairs ordered by code inspectors.

Sullivan's 71st and Keystone Store was cited f...

2014-12-24T02:43:27.279-05:00

Sullivan's 71st and Keystone Store was cited for violations after a Code Inspector was sent to the store and spent 1 and 1/2 days searching through every nook and cranny for possible code violations. There had been no accusations of a particular code violation which prompted the visit. One of the violations found were parking stripes that measured 1-2 inches off the required size."Seek and ye shall find". It was an obvious search and destroy mission and poor use of Code Enforcement resources. We have thousands of homes and other buildings in this city that an untrained observer can see violate code and add blight to a neighborhood. That's how and where 12 hrs of Code Inspector's time would be well spent.Sullivan's does not exude "blight" at either location. Instead, it employs hundreds of people, pays beaucoup in property taxes and provides personal, quality service that big box stores don't.
AND-the Do IT Best HardwareStoresConventions is the biggest one that comes to our city. Millions of dollars are spent by its visitors and vendors that attend. Only Sullivan and Cardwell own Do It Best related stores in the city-do Habigs and Dammans bring that kind of income in to the city(or Carsons)? Variances are designed to allow for adjustments from the Code. There were many more people supporting Sullivan's business than the 1-2 folks protesting against it. Public support is supposed to count for something. BTW-Sullivan's "platinum" status in the MKNA is just one indication of the donations he makes to many community organizations. A donation is sometimes a gesture of a good will, not a sign of undue influence.

Sullivan has also been cited for multiple code vio...

2014-12-23T22:16:17.815-05:00

Sullivan has also been cited for multiple code violations at his bigger Keystone store.

Before Sullivan was there it was Kahlo Marathon th...

2014-12-23T22:02:13.443-05:00

Before Sullivan was there it was Kahlo Marathon that had an assload of gas station traffic and service work.

That intersection was for years a real, working, major intersection in Indy before it became all froo-froo with Patachou and the other froo-froo "spaces."

There was an import auto shop on the NW corner, a good local druggist on the NE corner that had a good assortment of newspapers, including the Racing Form, a full-service Shell on the SE corner and Kahlo Marathon on the SW corner.

The froo-froos are trying to make that intersection as a new millennial froo-froo neighborhood, but it used to be a place where real people in the neighborhood came to get real things done.

Sullivan Hardware on Penn keeps a lot of traffic off local streets, including Keystone, 62nd and College by giving people a local option.