Frustrated by lack of collaboration with city council to address local priorities
Tom Didier made the following statement following the public release of Tom Henry’s supplemental funding proposal for tax rebates Fort Wayne received from the State of Indiana:
There have been no conversations between the administration and city council to work on identifying priorities for the projects Mayor Henry proposes funding with the additional tax rebates. I’m frustrated because we never get asked for input on these matters, but we always get asked to pay the bill.
I support the progress we have made downtown, but these rebates were from taxes paid by everyone and the city needs to do a better job to make sure all of its residents benefit from these funds. When these funds were announced in May, the mayor said, “We’ve decided on some focus areas that we feel are truly areas that the citizens of Fort Wayne have been asking for, and wishing, and in some cases dreaming about, for a number of years.”
The areas he mentioned at the announcement were neighborhoods, neighborhood parks and improvements to the general park systems along with community development and energy and environmental concerns. I don’t see those priorities reflected in his proposal. What I didn’t hear in that announcement was downtown and riverfront development, and that represents roughly half of the spending in this proposal.
Fort Wayne residents are ready to see real investment in their neighborhoods and honest efforts to engage neighborhood leaders. This proposal reads more like a wish list of projects and not like an effort to collaborate for a brighter future for our city.
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