2nd District Republican city councilman Russ Jehl is calling on Mayor Tom Henry and Fort Wayne to fulfill unfinished infrastructure projects from the 2013 capital improvement plan.
No action was taken Tuesday, but Jehl’s presentation did open a dialogue between the body and city’s Public Works department over infrastructure.
The city’s plan has been a thorn in Jehl’s side since the last five-year document expired in 2018 with what he says half of its projects incomplete or not even started. He says eight neighborhoods in his district are awaiting fulfillment of the expired plan’s promises, while six more have seen infrastructure deteriorate.
“Only one neighborhood in the district will receive substantial concrete street repairs this year, meaning I have to go to over a dozen neighborhoods with bad streets and tell them I have no idea when they can expect relief,” Jehl said.
Fort Wayne Public Works director Shan Gunawardena was on hand to explain how things have changed with the department’s focus on infrastructure, shifting to a graded 1-to-10 scale based system for what -- and when -- gets fixed.
“We pick the neighborhoods with the worst streets and program them for improvement,” said Gunawardena. “We also try to make sure that every district has at least one major project happening because we don’t want to put all our money in one part of the city.”
He says the department used to do this analysis every three years, now it happens every two years.
Five residents in Jehl’s district also spoke on the need for the improvements they were pitched when the original plan came out in 2013.
