County Council Member Questions Why Public Safety Academy Couldn't Be New Home For City Police

FORT WAYNE, IN (Indiana's NewsCenter) --- One Allen County council member, opposed to co-locating city and county police downtown, wants to know why the City of Fort Wayne isn't putting its headquarters in the Northeast Indiana Public Safety Academy on the south side of town.

Republican Paul Moss realizes as a county council member, it's not his job to make decisions for city government, but he does think that facility is being underutilized, and that it's an argument for why the county shouldn't put more of its own money into the co-location plans.

The public safety academy, near the old Southtown Mall, was built to be a regional training center, but Moss says tens of thousands of square feet are sitting empty, and could house city police headquarters, allowing the county to go ahead with the favored plan of Sheriff Ken Fries to build a county police headquarters at Adams Center and Paulding Roads.

He says pursuing that would save the county about five million dollars.

Paul Moss/(R) Allen County Council: " I think that the best thing for the taxpayers would be for the city to do as it stated originally, which was to move the city police, in other words find a place for the city police other than the Creighton Avenue building. I think that the Public Safety Academy is a very good option for that."

Chief Rusty York/Fort Wayne Police Department: " We didn't feel that that location would probably be appropriate for some of the business we do. We thought a downtown location would be much better."

The location issue isn’t the only problem Chief York has with using the safety academy as a headquarters.

He says there isn't enough space there for city police, and that the space isn't configured the right way either.

The county council takes up the funding of co-location at a scheduled meeting on Thursday.

The co-location issue is a divisive one on council, and it’s not clear at this point if the body can muster the necessary four “yes” votes to provide funding to move the co-location plan forward. Stay up to date, subscribe to the Local & Regional RSS Feed. What are your thoughts on this story? CLICK HERE to leave us "Your 2 Cents."

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