Fort Wayne, Indiana, Won't Name New Building After a Longtime Mayor. Pity Poor Harry Baals.

[HipChick]

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/harry-baals-respect-fort-wayne-politicians-jack-spratt/story?id=12884857

The people of Fort Wayne have spoken. They want Harry Baals.

When the city invited people to suggest names for a new government center, thounsands went online to propose naming it after a longtime mayor from the 1930s and '40s

The jokes and faux outrage came fast and furiously. Jimmy Kimmel demanded the vote be honored.

"It's his name! We have a planet named Uranus, and we can't have a building named Harry Baals?" he joked on "Jimmy Kimmel Live." "I really think it's ridiculous."

There is already a street in Fort Wayne named after Mr. Baals, but the city changed it.

The saga of Harry Baals reminds us that in the political arena, politicians (aspiring or otherwise) frequently materialize with uncommon, uncanny or otherwise unbelievable names

[DefenseLawyer]

1. Having by chance just been in Fort Wayne, Indiana this morning

They should name their building after the people of the town and call it "bitter". Not a happy group of folks.

[salvorhardin]

3. Umm... you met the wrong folks then

[DefenseLawyer]

4. Don't take it personally

but northeast Indiana is about as uptight as it gets in this world.

[salvorhardin]

6. Oh, I'll agree to that

I think it's so funny that M*A*S*H chose Fort Wayne to be Major Frank Burns' fictional home. There couldn't have been a better choice.

Of course, this is the city with a church every other corner. But our arts community is awesome, plus we have a lot of tech entrepreneurs who are fairly liberal. There's also, much to my surprise, a thriving GLBT community.

I think once you move beyond the white bread folks, and out into the large arts, Hispanic, Burmese and GLBT communities it gets a lot better.

[DefenseLawyer]

7. I shouldn't dog Fort Wayne

I know there are many fine people there and compared to say Huntington or LaGrange or Columbia City, Fort Wayne is Berkeley. Still if you talk to 10 people, 7 of them are going to be Frank Burns.

[salvorhardin]

2. I'm a transplant to Fort Wayne, but from what I understand he was one of the best mayors ever

The name may have been offered up in joke, but I think it's ridiculous for the current city government to reject it out of hand. Everything I've read says Baals transformed the city and was almost universally loved. Why shouldn't they name the new city-county building after him?

[sufrommich]

5. Mr. Baals should have changed his unfortunate name if he

wanted buildings named after him.:rofl:

[NuclearDem]

8. Excuse me, do you know where McDonalds is?

Yeah, you take a right after the Baals building...