City Councilman Arp’s proposal of cutting Mayor’s Office budget voted down

FORT WAYNE, Ind. (Fort Wayne’s NBC) - Late Tuesday afternoon, City Council president Jason Arp released a statement saying he proposed budget cuts for the mayor’s office, because, he says, more evidence from the mayor’s recent crash and OWI arrest needs to come out. Namely, police body camera video.

Arp recently penned a letter to the city attorney, asking that several questions be answered that primarily had to do with whether taxpayers would have to foot the bill for damages caused by the crash.

The mayor later said he would pay for all damages involved.

Read Arp’s statement, in full, below:

“At tonight’s Council meeting I am putting forth cuts to the Mayor’s operating budget. As City Council President, I have been working with our attorneys and staff to ensure questions related to the incident that occurred October 8th have been answered. Many of the questions we have asked were answered in a timely manner, however we have asked that the video evidence from the night of the event be preserved for Council’s review in order to conclude our inquiry into the matter. We have been told that the video evidence will not be available until the case is closed upon sentencing.
While I have confidence that our request will be granted in a timely manner, I am requesting a cut of the Mayor’s Office operating budget. The budget would then be restored once all of the information requests have been fulfilled. Budgetary action is one of the Council’s few means of recourse to ensure accountability. We are hoping we will know the week of November 9th and that we will be able to promptly restore these budget items.”
Councilman Arp.

The mayor’s sentencing date is set for November 7.

Arp’s proposal didn’t get the support needed from council to move forward.

“For me, the budget cut to cut the mayor’s entire budget was not appropriate,” Democratic Councilwoman Michelle Chambers said. “I felt like that was being used as a weapon to achieve some answers to questions that have been answered already. I don’t believe it is our place to leverage and weaponize a budget to deal with a situation that is not related to the budget.”

Chambers also said for any council member to ask for the police body cam video is inappropriate, because it’s not their responsibility to do so. Fellow Democratic Councilman Geoff Paddock said he agreed.

“I did disagree with his cuts tonight. I think obviously a majority of us did, feeling it was not appropriate to go through line item by line item on the mayor’s budget, particularly when there is no rhyme or reason to that,” Paddock said.

Council did approve the overall city budget for next year at the meeting. Following the vote, a statement from Mayor Tom Henry was released, which says in full:

EDITOR’S NOTE: A previous version of this article incorrectly stated that city council discussed and voted on Arp’s proposal, with most council members voting against it. Council voted on the overall city budget, not Arp’s proposal.