In its first meeting since November, 2019 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Fort Wayne’s Legacy Committee met Wednesday night at Citizens Square.
The body reaffirmed its scoring process for what deems a project worthy of Legacy funding: each member ranks an application on a 1-5 scale, and if it doesn’t reach at least a three, it fails. As of the start of this year, the fund has nearly $20 million left.
While the committee has had problems determining the types of “transformational” projects that deserve Legacy funding due to what it has called a lack of guidance, it unanimously denied a $600,000 request from the non-profit education foundation Questa on an 8-0 vote.
Questa was first granted $800,000 in 2014 to sustain its Legacy Scholars Program for several years, which led to Fort Wayne City Council to establish a more stringent process for determining Legacy worthy projects. That process was put into effect when Questa renewed its request in the committee’s November, 2019 meeting, and it denied the request.
Typically, Legacy funding has been devoted to massive development projects in a supplemental way, such as Fort Wayne’s riverfront development and Electric Works.
Ultimately, City Council gave Questa $200,000 to help bridge the 2020 school year while the bodies sorted out if, or even whether, they should be funding the Questa scholarship.
Questa can still take its latest request to City Council to determine if that funding can -- or should -- be sustained through the city budget.
