POSITIVE NEW YEAR CHANGES – Message From The Mayor

I wish you all a very happy, healthy and prosperous new year!

One of the most anticipated events of 2019 is the completion of Promenade Park, the first phase of Riverfront Fort Wayne, located at 202 W. Superior St. The grand opening celebration will be June 21 – 23. I’ll share much more about the celebration in the coming months. You can view the progress of Promenade Park construction at www.riverfrontfw.org.

Recently, we invited residents to offer input about the next phases of Riverfront Fort Wayne. During the meeting, attendees learned about the progress being made to design Riverfront Fort Wayne beyond Promenade Park. The next steps include creation of a comprehensive riverfront neighborhood master plan, analysis and recommendations for infrastructure to serve new private development and manage the floodway, and schematic designs and construction documents for further public improvements along the rivers’ edge.

Residents visited several interactive stations and offered ideas for what they’d like to see in the still-evolving riverfront district and offered ideas about ways to connect residential neighborhoods to commercial areas, provided insight about elements they think need to be improved upon in the riverfront area, and also provided feedback on draft guiding principles for the current work.

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These next steps are all about creating a vibrant district that is unique to Fort Wayne. We want to create the right mix of commercial, retail, housing and public space that will be welcoming to all residents and will be a point of destination for our region.

A new year often brings positive changes and this year is no exception at Fort Wayne Animal Care & Control. The business office will be adding an hour of service to better accommodate residents. The business office is used for owners wishing to surrender their pets to the shelter, lost and found pets, pet registrations and law enforcement issues. A complete list of new hours for both the business office and adoption center is listed below. The adoption center will now close at 6 p.m. on Wednesdays.

Business Office: 11 a.m. – 6 p.m. Monday – Friday; Closed Saturday and Sunday

Adoption Center: Closed Mondays; Noon – 5:30 p.m. Tues, Thurs, Friday; Noon – 6 p.m. Wednesdays; 11 a.m. – 3 p.m. First and Third Saturday of Every Month

In an effort to focus on public safety concerns, Animal Control Officers will no longer pick up animals owners wish to surrender out in the field. In the month of November, 223 animals were surrendered to the shelter by their owners, only 27 of which were surrendered in the field to officers. Owners will now be required to visit the shelter to surrender their animals. By discontinuing this service officers will be able to concentrate their efforts on emergencies while shelter staff will be able to gain a better understanding of why the owners need to surrender, refer them to available resources to keep their pet and gather more information about the animal entering the shelter.

To help pet owners that need to surrender their pets, Fort Wayne Animal Care & Control recently teamed up with Adopt-a-Pet.com to help people rehome their pets without ever bringing them to the shelter. The free resource allows pet owners to adopt out their pets with assistance from Adopt-a-Pet.com’s staff. I do not recommend using Craigslist or social media sites like Facebook to rehome pets as they do not have an application process like Adopt-a-Pet.com

The New Year also brings changes to permit pricing specifically for breeders, groomers, pet shops and kennels. The new permit pricing will be available at fwacc.org starting January 2.

Finally, I encourage you to come downtown on January 26 for the 7th annual Winterval event. It will be a full day of indoor and outdoor fun for all ages. There will be ice carving demonstrations, carriage rides, rugby, a model car display, a Rivergreenway bike ride, live music, games and crafts. The activities will take place at the Botanical Conservatory, the Community Center, the Allen County Public Library, the Old Fort, Science Central, Headwaters Park and more. You can find a list of all of the activities at www.wintervalfw.com.