Region continues streamlining

By Jennifer Decker | Greater Fort Wayne Business Weekly

The goal in streamlining the permitting process is to make it more user friendly to spur business.

Angola Plan Director Vivian Likes recently gave the Angola Plan Commission an update on the process.

To promote that, high performance government (HPG) is a cooperative of 14 bodies through the Northeast Indiana Regional Partnership. The goal is to streamline and improve the permit process.

“We explain how to develop plans to our ordinances. Our goal is to make it as pain free as possible,” she said. “We’re all trying to send the same message and we have that camaraderie with other jurisdictions.

“We want to take you by the hand, but walk you through the process.”

Likes said corporations have told her the city’s process is simplified, but wants to share that through the united effort of high performance government with others.

“What the region’s trying to do is say, ‘We’re committed,’” she said. “The message is come, do business and we can make it easier on you.”

Other participants in HPG include: Allen County/Fort Wayne, Whitley County/Columbia City, New Haven, Huntington, Auburn, Wabash, Rome City, North Manchester, Decatur, and DeKalb, Huntington, LaGrange and Wells counties.