Despite facing the uphill battle of unseating an incumbent mayor – and his formidable war chest – Fort Wayne Republicans have several excellent options to become the city’s next executive, according to the local party chairman.

Five Republicans are seeking the seat, but three – Paula Hughes, Liz Brown and Eric Doden – have clearly separated themselves from the field in terms of campaign structure, money raised and developed platform. Allen County GOP Chairman Steve Shine said any of the three would make an excellent mayor, and he is pleased with the tone of the campaign to date.

“It’s been very professional,” he said. “I think the candidates have judiciously used portions of their message to differentiate themselves rather than to disparage the others.”

Shine believes this harmony will lead to a unified party come the fall, making it easier to combat Mayor Tom Henry and his campaign account, currently holding about $600,000. The three Republicans all reported having less than $100,000 on hand after the last reporting period.

Although the three share some common beliefs – anti-gambling, anti-abortion rights and anti-Henry, for example – each brings different experience and ideas for how to transform the mayor’s office. The winner on May 3 will face Henry – who will almost assuredly win his party’s nomination – for a chance to win the four-year term that pays $123,600 this year.

Paula Hughes

As the candidate running the longest campaign, Paula Hughes has divulged the most about her experience and her plans for office.

The former Allen County councilwoman emphasizes that during her tenure, the council took the county from $8 million operating deficit to a $22 million surplus.

To escape financial ruin, Hughes and the council slashed many of the departments’ budget requests. The council also pushed several property tax increases to finance such projects as staffing the Wood Youth Center – increases so large the county had to request permission from the state to enact them.

In 2004, she said a $7.1 million tax increase was necessary to provide for public safety – one of the county’s most important duties.

Hughes pledged to take her experience in the county to help balance the books in the city, which she has hammered for expanding its debt. Coming a year after Republicans were swept into power in the U.S. House because of concerns over the federal debt, Hughes has used a similar approach locally.

In separate events, she pledged to never raise property tax rates as mayor and to cut the city’s debt by a quarter. Critics have noted that a large portion of the city’s debt is set to expire in the next few years without any action.

Her budgeting plan is modeled after Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University, which recommends such strategies as paying off the smallest debt amounts first, regardless of interest rates.

Hughes has made reducing the debt such a big portion of her platform that she said the money the city will receive from the lease and sale of its electric utility should be used to reduce that burden. The city has about $40 million in a trust fund currently and would receive $39.2 million over 15 years if the state approves the settlement.

During her campaign, she highlighted small city expenses she believes are excessive: pledging to reduce her salary as mayor to less than the governor’s and eliminate the mayor’s take-home vehicle. She even sent a mailer criticizing Brown for voting to keep the mayor’s salary at such a high level.

Her experience on the council allowed Hughes to develop strong GOP allies, and she counts many county officials – including Sheriff Ken Fries – as supporters.

But she also has worked to improve the city’s core, serving as the first full-time president of the Downtown Improvement District. She pushed to build an arena downtown during the debate over expanding Memorial Coliseum and supported the Harrison Square development.

Liz Brown

City Councilwoman Liz Brown has been one of the loudest critics of Mayor Tom Henry since they both took office on Jan. 1, 2008.

She has developed the reputation of being a tough, aggressive questioner of city staff, but also as someone who can be abrupt. Brown was rebuked during her first budget session after asking for more time to prepare her budget cuts.

Over time, she was able to secure some legislative successes. She wrote the bill requiring the mayor to release consulting reports quarterly – a law prompted in part by the city’s hiring of gambling lobbyists. Such contracts are now posted online. Brown also pushed to lower the mayor’s spending threshold without council approval from $100,000 to $75,000.

But Brown has likely been most outspoken on issues where she has not been able to find a lasting consensus. She touts the fact she proposed millions of dollars in cuts to city budgets – but the vast majority of them were rejected, many by an 8-1 vote. She has also been the lone council member to oppose all city union contracts because she doesn’t believe city employees should be getting raises during a down economy.

The inability to make changes from the council table is one reason Brown gives for running for mayor. As mayor, she said she would be able to change the culture of city government to one of helping businesses succeed and reducing waste.

Her plan for using the electric utility money is to place it in a savings account and allow city departments to borrow from it for projects. This would prevent the city from having to borrow from banks or other organizations, reducing interest costs. Specifically, she said it would be used for infrastructure projects that promote economic development.

Unlike the two other candidates, Brown has not spent much time formally releasing planks of her platform – instead relying on building grass-roots support for her campaign. She has raised and spent far less than Hughes and Doden, although Brown said she is hitting her budget targets.

Politically, she has been able to appeal to some of the hardest-right supporters in the party as was evident in her surprise third-place finish in the caucus to replace Rep. Mark Souder. Among her supporters are rookie Rep. Bob Morris and Zach Klutz, the Republican member of the county election board.

Brown’s stances haven’t all been hard-line, however. She supported Harrison Square when running in 2007 and supported Henry’s proposal to raise sewer rates 86 percent over five years to meet federal requirements to reduce raw sewage from flowing into area rivers.

Eric Doden

Businessman Eric Doden is the only of the three candidates with no political experience.

The director of a local private equity firm, Ambassador Enterprises, Doden has spent his life trying to help make a profit for several companies.

The experience in running businesses, including turning some failing ones around, is critical to how he would run the city, Doden said. On more than one occasion, Doden has said there are different skills required to be a legislator and an executive, and he is the only one with that experience.

The least known candidate politically, Doden has aggressively laid out plans for what he would do as mayor. Mostly, he talks about making the city welcoming to entrepreneurs – which he sees as the key to driving economic growth in the city.

He pledged to attract 1,000 such business startups to the city in less than a decade by encouraging angel investment funds, creating business-plan competitions and aggressively marketing and recruiting entrepreneurial students at local schools. Doden has said one of the mayor’s top jobs is to be the city’s “chief marketing officer.”

Doden wants to set aside $15 million of the electric utility settlement to create an endowment fund to provide loans to developers. He said the money would be used to provide gap financing in an effort to encourage $100 million worth of investment in the city. He previously said he would like to hear the recommendations of Henry’s task force before deciding how to use the rest of the money.

His campaign has also discussed how the mayor can be a champion for local schools and universities to show investors they can find quality workers in town. In addition, he said he would want to work with local non-profit organizations to keep parents involved with their children’s education. He also said he would use his business practices – such as setting goals and holding employees accountable – to improve service in the city.

With his lack of political experience, however, also comes a lack of institutional knowledge on the inner workings of city government. For example, when asked what type of goals he would set for his departments, Doden said he would need to get more acquainted with the departments before setting goals. His campaign has been fairly big on creating a vision for the city – he says he is the only one with a plan to grow the city’s economy – but it has lacked some details on how to achieve that vision.

Doden’s campaign has been able to raise and spend more money than any of the other Republican candidates. He has received much of his support from family members and fellow business executives, including Larry Weigand and Richard Freeland.

As the campaigns enter their final nine days, voters should expect to hear even more from each of the three front-runners as they push for those final undecided Republican voters, according to Andy Downs, director of the Mike Downs Center for Indiana Politics.

In a race expected to generate 18,000 votes, every one matters.

“What voters should expect to see is more of the candidates in every form possible,” Downs said.

This includes more television commercials, direct mail and even volunteers knocking on doors, he said.

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