The Legacy Fund: An Intro
The Fort Wayne Community Trust and the City's Changed Landscape
In 1974, the city of Fort Wayne was facing a problem. The city’s electrical grid, maintained by City Light & Power and last updated in 1934, was in need of work. Wear and tear had resulted in decreased power generation efficiency, the power plant was on the verge of violating both state and federal pollution laws, and the City was looking to avoid another rate hike. City Light & Power was however running at a deficit, and had been for years.
A solution presented itself in the form of Indiana & Michigan Power expressing an interest in purchasing the property. The lease would head-off the City’s obligation to pay increasing costs for energy generation and capital improvements. A referendum on the purchase was held and more than 17,000 residents voted in favor while 10,000 residents voted against. Seeing that the community was generally in support, the Fort Wayne City Council met to establish some ground rules and a lease was agreed upon.
In September of that year, Mayor Ivan Lebamoff signed a thirty-five-year lease of the municipal operation to I&M for $55.6 million and was quoted by the Journal Gazette describing this as “a legacy [left] for the citizens of Fort Wayne.”
Over the course of the lease, I&M made payments to the City that started at $1.4 million and eventually increased to $1.7 million per year, a portion of which was accrued to the Fort Wayne Community Trust. By the time the lease was set to expire in 2010, the Community Trust had accumulated $36 million. Following litigation over the terms for the end of the 35-year lease, the city emerged with a new agreement for a $39.2 million lease over 15 more years, titled the “City Light Lease Settlement.”
In the lead-up to the expiry of the original lease, Mayor Tom Henry established a Legacy Fort Wayne Task Force to deliberate how best to allocate the funds from the Fort Wayne Community Trust and the new City Light Lease Settlement. On their radar was economic development, infrastructure development, and youth initiatives.
The City of Fort Wayne Community Legacy Fund—usually just called “the Legacy Fund”—was launched in 2011 with $74 million in funding. Some primary uses of the fund have been to provide catalytic capital for downtown revitalization efforts. The projects pursued and undertaken during Mayor Henry’s tenure include the Electric Works project, the Riverfront Development, and the North River development, as well as Village Premier.
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