Tom Henry says when he walked in his new office Wednesday, he felt excitement and anxiety knowing that the job of running the City of Fort Wayne now falls squarely on his shoulders.
Jeff Neumeyer sat down with Henry to find out how he spent his first day on the job.
The learning curve is a steep one.
He met right off the bat with Deputy Mayor Mark Becker and City Controller Pat Roller about an agenda for next Monday's first cabinet meeting for the new administration.
When you stroll into the Mayor's office, you can’t miss the new sign on the door, “Tom Henry, Mayor”.
It shows the transfer of power from Graham Richard to Henry is now complete.
Henry said he spent part of the day reading through a thick “policies and procedures” manual.
But earlier, Henry circulated around the eighth and ninth floors of the City-County Building, meeting with some of the more than 1800 workers who must get used to a new boss.
Mayor Tom Henry/(D) Fort Wayne: " I told them that from time to time, I would be stopping in, not to look over their shoulder or tell them what to do or micromanage their jobs, but rather just to let them know that I'm there for them, because just as much as they're there working for me, I'm there trying to be of assistance to them as well."
Henry says in his first one hundred days, he hopes to organize an employer-educator forum, to try and better match workers with job opportunities in the community.
He also hopes to put together a social services agency summit.
Something similar in the 1960’s produced the Matthew 25 free Health Clinic that has served Fort Wayne’s low-income population for forty years now.
The topic of gambling has crossed the mind of Henry at the start of his administration.
Concerning the idea for a new casino at Buck Lake in Steuben County, Henry wants to push to have that re-located in Fort Wayne, and he will try and lay the groundwork for such a change through the spring and summer months.
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