© 2020The Journal Gazette

TUESDAY, AUGUST 4, 2020 FORT WAYNE, INDIANA LOCALLY OWNED SINCE 1863 www.journalgazette.net

$1.50Journal GazetteThe

Wild finish at Men’s CityHeath Peters wins championship in playoff

SPORTS, PAGE 1B

INSIDE

Read & recycle: B Volume 157-217; 4 sections, 24 pages

To subscribe, call 1-800-324-0505

INDEX

Business 6B

Classifieds 4C

Crossword 5C

Obituaries 2C

JG Perspective 4A

WEATHER

Partly cloudyHigh in the mid-70s.FORECAST,

PAGE 2A

LIVING

Heart of fighter20-year-old ready to ride first roller coaster after receiving transplant PAGE 1D

Electric Works is on life support.

In a unanimous vote Monday, the Fort Wayne Re-development Commission terminated an economic de-velopment agreement with RTM Ventures, ending public involvement in the $280 mil-lion mixed-use redevelopment project south of downtown.

But the development team is adamant the deal isn’t dead.

The move eliminates $62 million in public funding – $10 million of which would have come from the city’s Legacy Fund. As proposed, the project would redevelop the abandoned General Elec-tric campus on Broadway with new commercial and re-tail space.

In an email Monday night, City Spokesman John Perlich said the agreement is also nul-lified for the Allen County Fort Wayne Capital Improve-ment Board and the Allen

County Commissioners.But the project’s support-

ers might have a glimmer of hope.

Christopher Guerin, the Redevelopment Commis-sion’s president, said the city would consider “any new or additional or other proposal” brought forward by RTM or another developer in the fu-ture. Guerin, who made the motion to terminate the agree-ment, attended Monday’s meeting via telephone.

Perlich said the city and

RTM Ventures would have to enter a new economic devel-opment agreement – with new funding commitments – if they find a way to go forward.

RTM Ventures owns the site, having purchased it from General Electric for $5.5 mil-lion in September 2017.

In a presentation to the Redevelopment Commis-sion, Nancy Townsend, the city’s redevelopment director, and Jon Bomberger, an attor-ney for Faegre Drinker Bid-dle & Reath LLP, said RTM

Ventures was missing about $30 million in construction loan commitments and about $21 million in private equity.

Bomberger said the city had received a construction loan commitment letter from Midland States Bank, stat-ing it would lead a “syndica-tion of up to $62 million, of which Midland States Bank would take $12 million.” The city had also received written commitments from 3Rivers Credit Union and Lake City Bank for $10 million each, Bomberger added.

Syndication involves mul-tiple lenders funding portions

of a loan to a single borrower. “There was the sugges-

tion,” that First Merchants Bank and Old National Bank had committed to $10 million and $12 million toward con-struction financing respective-ly, but no formal commitment letter had been delivered, Bomberger added.

“We have received emails that reference a commitment will be coming,” he told the commission.

The project did secure the necessary state and federal tax credits, but Bomberger said

City terminates GE site dealPulls $62 million; developers say Electric Works still aliveDAVE GONGThe Journal Gazette

Works, Page 5A

The Allen County Election Board is mov-ing to accommodate voting in the presidential election Nov. 3.

To allow for social distancing among staff and volunteers, the board will set up shop in Expo IV at Memorial Coliseum, Beth Dlug, director of elections, said Monday.

The move will take place Aug. 17, and the board’s office at Rousseau Centre downtown will be closed that day, she said. The office will reopen Aug. 18 at its new location.

The relocation is expected to be temporary, with Election Board workers moving back to Rousseau on Nov. 16, Dlug said.

But the new site will affect many board functions, including serving as a site for early voting and as the place to receive completed absentee ballots.

Dlug said COVID-19 precautions have ne-cessitated the changes, which follow adjust-ments made this year for the primary. Then, the board’s usual early-voting site in the

Distancing prompts move; return downtown Nov. 16

ROSA SALTER RODRIGUEZThe Journal Gazette

Election, Page 5A

Election Board finds more space at Coliseum

NEW YORK – A New York City prosecu-tor fighting to get President Donald Trump’s tax returns told a judge Monday he was jus-tified in demanding them because of public reports of “extensive and protracted criminal conduct at the Trump Organization.”

Manhattan District Attorney District At-torney Cyrus R. Vance Jr. is seeking eight years of the Republican president’s personal and corporate tax records, but has disclosed little about what prompted him to request the records, other than part of the investigation related to payoffs to two women to keep them quiet about alleged affairs with Trump.

In a court filing Monday, attorneys for Vance, a Democrat, said the president wasn’t entitled to know the exact nature of the grand jury probe, which they called a “complex fi-nancial investigation.”

They noted, though, that at the time the subpoena for the tax filings was issued to

Judge hearsplea to releaseTrump tax infoProsecutor says reports of‘criminal conduct’ justify itLARRY NEUMEISTER Associated Press

Trump, Page 5A

Ice cream time is family time

Katie Fyfe | The Journal Gazette

The Lopez family enjoys some refreshing treats Monday outside Zesto Ice Cream on Broadway.

CHICAGO – July in Chica-go ended as it began: Mourning the death of a child whose only mistake was venturing outside to play when someone with a gun came to the neighborhood hunting for an enemy.

On Monday, two days after his department released sta-tistics that revealed the month had been one of the deadliest in the history of the city, Police Superintendent David Brown repeated what has become a grim ritual of recounting the death of a child.

This time, the story was about Janari Ricks. “Nine years old, (he) was shot and killed while doing what every child in our city should be able to do without a second thought … playing with friends on a warm summer evening just outside his front door,” Brown said. “Now, instead of plan-ning for his future, Janari’s parents are arranging for their

child’s funeral.”His death underscores a

surge in gun violence in the United States that has been building all year.

• In New York City, there have been 237 homicides in 2020 compared to 181 for the same period last year. The July 12 death of a toddler, fa-tally shot by a stray bullet in

Brooklyn as he sat in his stroll-er at a cookout, rocked the city. The 1-year-old boy’s tiny cas-ket was decorated with cartoon characters with a teddy bear and Elmo toy sitting on top.

• In Los Angeles, homi-cides have increased 14%, from 155 to 177, as compares

Children caught in crossfire as gun violence surges in USDON BABWIN Associated Press

AssociatedPress

Nathan Wallace holds a button of his daughter, Na-talia Wallace, on Monday, in Chicago. Natalia, 7, was killed on the west side of Chicago on July 4.

Violence, Page 6A