FORT WAYNE, Ind. (WOWO): Fort Wayne Mayor Tom Henry delivered his annual State of the City Address yesterday to a standing-room-only crowd at the Grand Wayne Center… but not everyone was a fan.
Republican Mayoral candidates Dr. John Crawford and Tim Smith were also in attendance. Crawford, who also serves on the City Council, tells WOWO News Henry took too much credit for himself.
“For example, Parkview Field… City Council had to make the hard choice to approve Parkview Field, which started this momentum,” Crawford says. “In 2014 we had a $12-million budget deficit. The Mayor has no vote on that type of public funding, the Council had to make those hard choices (on what to cut).”
He does admit, though, that the City is in good shape.
Smith added he felt Henry didn’t address what he called the city’s “growing debt” to pay for recent developments and upgrades.
“Our total liabilities have grown from $600-million to about $1.2-billion in the past ten years. A lot of the cool stuff we’ve done, we’ve done with debt.”
Listen to the State of the City Address here.
