Andrew Jarosh

Son of a Son of a Politician: Paul Helmke: Behind City Hall Doors Andrew Jarosh

For a dozen years, up to the dawn of a new millennium, Paul Helmke led Fort Wayne as mayor of Indiana's second-largest city. It was a time the community grappled with a flood of drugs, escalating crime, an eroding tax base, a flight to the suburbs and downtown decay. And it was a time when the politician's controversial alliances with such people like Bill Clinton, and his unpopular political decisions, like annexing suburbanites fleeing Fort Wayne, made him somewhat of a pariah within his own Republican party. Get a behind-the-scenes look, in Helmke's own words, at the players and events that helped shape Fort Wayne, and how his version of good government positioned the community for years to come.