DIG weekly dig up.

DIG weekly dig up question:

What are your opinions on the public forums recently held by the city, YLNI, and IPFW?

Did you think they were informative?


To reply to this question, leave a comment or send an email to thedowntowntimes@yahoo.com.

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The DIG weekly dig up is a weekly question to gather input from the public on recent events, announcments, or projects.

To reply to a DIG weekly dig up, send an email to thedowntowntimes@yahoo.com,

or reply to the question in a comment.

Northside Harrison Square Meeting

I was unable to find out any information about the Northside Harrison Square meeting, and was unable to call, so seeing how it seemed interesting, I decided to attend anyway.

First of all, the meeting was very well put together, in my opinion, right from the start. They discussed some (not many though) details of the project, went over the project itself as a whole, and then after about a half-hour they opened it up to questions and comments from the public for discussion.

One comment that I found interesting, was when a lady from the North Anthony (?) neighborhood association had mentioned a "sense of urgency". Mayor Graham Richards replied to this comment with different reasonings of why there is, if any, a sense of urgency, including the fact of how crucial it is to get this project underway this year, or the CRED money will be lost, as CRED will not exsist after 2007. This means that if the project hasn't gotten at least somewhat underway by the end of 2007, we loose the CRED money, which could essentially add up to a little over $10 million. This could easily bring Harrison Square to a hault.

Other questions included anything from funding to questioning of the bridges being able to take on so much traffic.

Overall, it was a very informative meeting.

City Officials that attended the meeting included Mayor Graham Richards, Deputy Mayor Mark Becker, Councilman Tom Smith, County Commissioner Bill Brown, Nelson Peters, and others.

If you were not able to attend this meeting, the Mayor's Report to the People sessions will take place next week, as well as other Harrison Square meetings to follow in the coming months.

Reaction to recent opposition to Harrison Square project.

A poll was taken recently by The Journal Gazette and Indiana's Newscenter regarding downtown and the Harrison Square projects.

The results aren't much of a surprise at all, with about 70% of participants saying that downtown revitalization is important, but many did not support the stadium project or a third downtown hotel. However, there was a greater amount of support for downtown parking and retail developement.

Deputy Mayor Mark Becker had the following reaction to the results-
"If all you plan to do is build a baseball stadium, don’t do it,” he said. “This is not just a baseball stadium.”

Dan Carmody, director of the Downtown Improvement District, also had a reaction to the poll results, saying “I think we have to do a much better job of selling the project,” .

On WOWO's The Pat White show, many called in with their reactions to the poll, as well as the Harrison Square project. Similar results were found.

Some, such as City Councilman Tim Pape, are questioning the accuracy of the poll, and the Journal Gazette reported him saying that even he might opose such a project if the questions were asked to him in the manner that they were asked to other Allen County Residents.

To see poll results, visit:
http://www.fortwayne.com/mld/journalgazette/16513544.htm

To see reactions from city officials to the poll, visit:
http://www.fortwayne.com/mld/fortwayne/news/local/16513264.htm


Feel free to leave your comments and feedback regarding the poll and the Harrison Square project.