COUNCILMAN’S CORNER
I hope you had a nice Thanksgiving holiday with your family and friends. Around Thanksgiving there was some good news regarding a project important to the Southside and to the entire community.
The owner of Southtown Mall chose not to fight the city’s condemnation efforts in court. This opens the door for the much-needed rejuvenation of Southtown Mall to move forward. I suspect that the current mall ownership saw the recent city election results as a mandate for the city to proceed with its plans to save Southtown-which I believe is the correct analysis of at least one of the reasons for the outcome of the November 4th elections. I’ll continue to do everything I can to help rejuvenate Southtown Mall with its many benefits including 500-800 new jobs!
As you are probably aware, there’s been more discussion in Indy regarding how to fix our state property tax system, which is currently in turmoil for a variety of reasons. We’ve all received 2 tax bills for 2002 (payable in 2003) with a “final” 2002 property tax bill still pending for early 2004. During and since City Council budget discussions and passage of the city budget in September 2002 and September 2003 there has been a strong, ongoing effort by a solid City Council majority and the Mayor to keep the property tax rate and levy well below the maximum allowed by state law. Unfortunately, other governmental entities—some controlled by appointed rather than elected boards—utilize property tax dollars much more than Fort Wayne city government. I support efforts by our state officials to rewrite state code to require that any governmental board or commission which has the ability to spend our tax dollars be elected rather than appointed! This is a good topic to discuss with your state legislators during the next few weeks.
Recently I’ve received calls and emails from a few citizens of the “Waynedale News” area regarding missed leaf pickups. I’ve pointed out those locations to the Street Department, which generally does a very good job with leaf pickup, snow removal, and street resurfacing. Call the Street Department at 427-1235 if you are missed whether it involves leaf pickup or snow removal. If the problem isn’t corrected soon call me or email me and let me know.
The November 26th kickoff of Fort Wayne’s downtown holiday celebration was very impressive! Several thousand people were present at what is becoming a major annual event for our city. If you have kids and/or grandkids be sure they see the lighted Santa Claus, Christmas wreath, and Christmas tree downtown during the holidays. The Headwaters’ Park ice rink is now open and should provide a great skating venue this winter even if it’s not cold enough for the ponds in our city parks to freeze over. Have a great December and call or email me with any suggestions for making Fort Wayne an even better place to live.
Tom Hayhurst
City Councilman
4th District
432-8418
tom.hayhurst@verizon.net
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