City adds parking on Washington in West Central
 
Following through on a request from the West Central Neighborhood Association, Fort Wayne'€™s Traffic Engineering Department has added on-street parking on the north side of Washington Boulevard between Van Buren and Garden streets.

The no-parking signs were removed last week following the resurfacing this summer of Washington Boulevard.

“The City has to balance the needs of drivers with the needs of residents when adding parking. On-street parking is critical for Fort Wayne'€™s central neighborhoods, and this location was a great opportunity to provide additional parking for the residents and visitors to West Central,” said Mayor Tom Henry.

Water Quality Report Mailed to Water Customers
 
Fort Wayne City Utilities has compiled water quality data for the year 2007 and the news is good. City Utilities continues to provide its drinking water customers with an abundant supply of clean, safe water at a reasonable cost. Public water utilities around the country are required to provide the results of water quality testing to their customers on an annual basis. City Utilities recently mailed its Annual Drinking Water Report to each of its approximately 75,000 customers. The report shows any contaminants that were found in the City's drinking water in 2007. All tests showed the water to be as good or better than required by federal and state regulations. The report is also available on the City's Web site.

City employees to repair house as part of Day of Caring
 
More than 25 City employees are scheduled to repair the exterior of a house as part of the United Way of Allen County'€™s Day of Caring Aug. 8.

Neighborhood Code Enforcement has selected a deserving homeowner whose house has code violations that can be fixed in a day. Lutheran Social Services is providing paint and painting supplies. The Parks and Recreation Department and Street Department are providing some equipment and some prep work prior to Aug. 8.

This is the fourth year City employees have repaired a home as part of the Day of Caring.

City, partners host small-business forum

The City of Fort Wayne, the Indiana Small Business Development Center, SCORE and Women'€™s Enterprise will offer a free small-business workshop 9 a.m. to noon Aug. 21, in the Omni Room of the City-County Building.

The forum will cover small-business legal structure, financial statements and recordkeeping for taxes. Registrations preferred but not required. To register or more information, contact: Denise Porter-Ross at (260) 427.2603 or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

311 call center now handling inquiries for water filtration, water pollution control plants
 
The City'€™s 311 call center is now taking calls from the public for the water filtration plant and water pollution control plant.

The 311 call center, “one call to city hall,” handles non-emergency service requests from 7:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Monday through Friday. Every report is assigned a tracking number to provide accountability and follow through. The call center can be reached by calling 311 within the City limits or at (260) 427-8311. The center'€™s e-mail address is This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

The 311 call center handles the following departments'€™ resident inquiries: solid waste, neighborhood code enforcement, street lighting, street department, signal shop, water maintenance, sign shop, sewer maintenance, water filtration, water pollution control plant, right of way and parking control.
     
Residents can also use the City'€™s Web site to report weed violations, potholes, missed garbage or recycling collection, abandoned vehicles on public or private property, or a streetlight out by clicking on the 311 logo on the homepage of www.cityoffortwayne.org.

City collects 885 pounds of food for Community Harvest Food Bank
 
The City of Fort Wayne collected nearly 900 pounds of food during a summertime non-perishable food drive for the Community Harvest Food Bank. City employees as well as County employees and visitors to the City-County Building donated food that will go to families, children and individuals in the food bank'€™s nine-county service area.

“Hunger is an increasing problem in Fort Wayne and across the country as families feel the financial squeeze of increasing food and fuel costs. Thank you to all the employees of the City and County who donated food and all others who shared with those in need,” said Mayor Tom Henry.

The collection totals for each location were:

'€¢ City-County Building           370 pounds
'€¢ Fort Wayne Fire Department     250 pounds
'€¢ Fort Wayne Police Department    135 pounds
'€¢ Neighborhood Code Enforcement  87 pounds
'€¢ Fort Wayne Street Department  43 pounds

Mayor, Clerk, City Council President speak about proposed local government reform
 
Some of the City'€™s elected officials discussed the recommended changes to municipal government from the Indiana Commission on Local Government Reform in a television show now airing on City TV.

Mayor Tom Henry, City Clerk Sandy Kennedy and City Council President Tom Didier joined Don Geradot, Monroeville Town Board President, and moderator Vince Robinson to discuss the recommendations for town and city government in the Kernan-Shepard report released last year.

This five-part series has programs to recap the report, cities and towns, counties, townships and schools with leaders from each of those governmental entities discussing the report'€™s recommendations and how they think it would affect their unit of local government. The shows air on Comcast Channel 58 and Verizon Channel 28.

For a link to the commission'€™s report, click here: http://indianalocalgovreform.iu.edu/assets/docs/Report_12-10-07.pdf.

City'€™s GIS manager attends software training, conference

Kevin S. Holle, Fort Wayne City Utilities/Public Works'€™ Geographic Information Systems Manager, attended the Intergraph© 2008 training and users conference, and received the Achievement Award for completion of the Infrastructure Management Certificate Program. The program focused on using GIS software to manage public infrastructure such as water, sewer, storm, and street asset management, utilizing Intergraph'€™s© GeoMedia'„¢ flagship software.

The City'€™s GIS Department utilizes Intergraph GeoMedia Professional software. To access the City'€™s public GIS Web site, visit http://maps.cityoffortwayne.org/.