Even if Electric Works' developers persuade Fort Wayne officials to give them more time to secure millions of dollars in private financing — and that is by no means assured — the city has already withdrawn a significant financial commitment, with possibly bigger loses to follow.
I've learned that $3 million of the $12 million in federal New Market Tax Credits the city promised to the $250 million project ...
The Allen County Regional Sewer and Water District is governed by seven voting board members: three appointed by the County Commissioners, two by the mayor of Fort Wayne, one by County Council and one by the Board of Health. Does that create a conflict of interest for board members Justin Brugger and Matthew Wirtz, who also happen to be executives with Fort Wayne City Utilities, which through the district ...
When the Allen County Election Board will meet Tuesday to discuss how best to conduct the June 2 primary in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, its Democratic member will have a suggestion.
Tim Pape, an attorney and former Fort Wayne City Council member, plans to propose a resolution that, if passed by the three-member board, would ask the state and county to provide enough funding for three things:
* The cost of ...
Electric Works developers are seeking a fourth extension of their agreement with the city because of the financial disruption and uncertainty caused by the coronavirus.
"As is painfully obvious to everyone, the COVID-19 pandemic has created extreme difficulties for the commercial workd and has brought much of business to a standstill. Not surprisingly...the pandemic has affected the developer's ability to ...
When Jeff Morris was fired as executive director of the Allen County Regional Water and Sewer District in December, board members of the 41-year-old agency that serves 3,000 customers in less-developed areas said the decision was based on performance, not malfeasance.
But according to documents obtained by The News-Sentinel and interviews with Morris and other participants, that bland explanation doesn't ...
In the midst of a deadly pandemic, Wisconsin voters went to the polls last week after the state and U.S. supreme courts overturned Democratic Gov. Tony Evers' last-minute attempt to delay the vote. The result, according to media accounts, was chaotic: People who voted in person, many wearing masks, endured long lines because of social distancing and a reduced number of polling locations. And the ...
"Making recommendations on sacraments does exceed my authority and expertise."
Allen County Health Commissioner Dr. Deborah McMahan said that last month when I asked what churches were supposed to do about communion in the age of government-induced isolation.
"It's preferred that no communion be handed out, but if so, it has to be pre-packaged and it has to meet the current food safety standards."
Gov. ...
With restaurants closed or operating at reduced levels because of COVID-19, City Council is set to consider a plan to help them using some of the tax they pay — and to give local elected officials more control over that source of funds.
A non-binding resolution to be considered Tuesday requests that the Fort Wayne-Allen County Capital Improvement Board "do an analysis of its current and anticipated ...
Businesses, churches and schools ordered to close. People advised to wear protective masks, clean thoroughly and maintain a safe distance between each other. Residents of Fort Wayne have never had to endure so much to defeat a deadly enemy they couldn't see, smell or touch. Right?
Nope. History reveals how the city's strategy to defeat COVID-19 is remarkably similar — with some very notable exceptions ...
About 375,000 Americans have contracted COVID-19, according to the Centers for Disease Control, and between 10 percent and 25 percent of them eventually will need help to breathe. Meanwhile, there are about 173,000 ventilators in the country, but Harvard Medical School has predicted the number of people needing one could be 31 times greater.
But what if most of those breathing-impaired patients could be ...
With so many Fort Wayne residents and businesses struggling with the devastating economic impact of COVID-19, the high-end cars that once gave Austin Ash and his father so much joy suddenly became an uncomfortable luxury. So they decided to sell seven of them — and local relief efforts could benefit by up to $1.5 million as a result.
"Father and I were sitting down and it just didn't feel right," said Ash, ...
Barely a month ago, 200 community leaders gathered in a Memorial Coliseum meeting room to hear health officials compare the looming COVID-19 threat to the "Spanish Flu" of 1918 that killed 20 million people worldwide, including about 700,000 in the United States and 9,000 in Indiana. Nobody was wearing a protective mask or seemingly concerned about "social distancing."
As I write this, I am sitting at my ...
"We're not mad at anybody," Allen County Commissioner Nelson Peters said in 2017 not longer after a cost dispute ended an agreement under which Fort Wayne and New Haven paid the county to maintain their bridges. "We would welcome them back."
At least one of those rhetorical bridges could be rebuilt Tuesday, when New Haven City Council is expected to consider paying the county $110,000 per year to oversee its ...
Steve McMichael has been mayor of New Haven for barely three months, and already he's planning for his successor. Sort of.
And as so many things are these days, it's all because of COVID-19.
"This isn't something I intend to do. But just in case I fall victim to COVID-19, I want to have a backup in place," said the Republican McMichael, who on Tuesday will ask his City Council to authorize the appointment ...
Are politicians in Washington, D.C., out of touch with the daily lives of the people they represent? If so, for all its damage to America's health, economy and psyche, COVID-19 is egalitarian in at least one respect.
"I'm like most Hoosiers: I'm surrounded by my family, working from the kitchen and using the phone non-stop. I had no idea what Zoom was a week ago," said U.S. Sen. Todd Young, R-Ind., who like ...
In 1991, a day after several hundred AIDS activists had staged a “die-in” near his home in Kennebunkport, Maine, President George H. W. Bush actually dared to suggest that “Here’s a disease where you can control its spread by your own personal behavior. You can’t do that in cancer.”
"If the president listened to public health officials instead of (then-Sen.) Jesse Helms, he'd understand that AIDS ...
Thanks to COVID-19, Indiana's primary has been pushed back from May 5 to June 2. But it's possible a lot more than the date will have to change — including the enlistment of institutional and medical personnel in the voting process.
Allen County elections officials have long sent so-called "traveling boards" to nursing homes and other institutions to help residents who cannot leave or fill out absentee ...
Three days before Gov. Eric Holcomb's March 23 order requiring Hoosiers not engaged in essential travel or services to stay home, my boss handed me a letter that was amazingly clairvoyant.
"To whom it may concern," it began. "Persons engaged in the dissemination of news . . . are exempt from 'shelter at home' or curfews because . . . government at all levels recognize the vital role media plays in keeping the ...
It's been eight years since structural problems forced the closure of the Scott's Food store at North Anthony Boulevard and Crescent Avenue, four years since the now-defunct Marsh grocery chain expressed interest in the property and two years since the building was razed.
The 3.5-acre site's owner, Fort Wayne-based Rogers Properties, figures it's time for a new plan — even though company spokesman John ...
Last Sunday's bulletin at Zion Lutheran Church in Fort Wayne included an admonition to practice "social distancing" in the pews, information about how to deal with COVID-19 both physically and spiritually, a "prayer for our nation, under duress" and a promise that "We are not shutting down church unless ordered to for a time by our political leaders."
Most of my fellow Zion members never got to see it, ...
