14 April 2025 Dearborn County Redevelopment Meeting Notes

 14 April 2025 Dearborn County Redevelopment Meeting Notes

Present: Jim Deaton, Chairman, Dennis Kraus,Jr.,Tom Tepe, Trevor Bischoff, Jordan Hoffman, Jim Mansfield, and Doug Baker, 

ABSENT: Daryl Cutter (non- voting school board member)

Also present: Sue Hayden, county administrator and minute taker, Anthony Smart, attorney, Connie Fromhold, Auditor and DCRC treasurer.

Title VI statement read as legally required.

APPROVAL OF MINUTES- March 10th Meeting -Approved

CLAIMS:  Bayer Becker $240.00 and $160.00 for attending meetings.  One Dearborn $13,750 for 1st quarterly 2025 service fee.TOTAL: $14,150.00- Approved

FINANCIALS REVIEW- Auditor passed out current financials.

OLD BUSINESS:

Bright Fire & EMS Economic Development Agreement - In order to pay for radios for Bright EMS, they need to have an Economic Development Agreement with them for the $25,000 Smart explained.   Approved

$24,760.12 from Motorola was submitted from Bright Fire and EMS per Sue Hayden. DCRC Board voted to approve that invoice also. 

Moore Lane Property Transfer - if they transfer into the county then they get engineering report done. 

Bayer Becker Report- 3 tasks still working on. Rosenberger  said that Listerman, Tepe, and himself will be meeting on the Moore Drive Improvements. April 28th meeting with the railroad. Not ready to define the property section yet. After that meeting, the engineering, permit, and bidding will proceed. 

Bright TIF Project - based on the problems we came up with there-we came up with the TIF. Rosenberger- Two roads not accepted by the county yet.Those need to be fixed. Plus drainage issues Total for $230,000. They supposedly have comprehensive Plan for the TIF area. Perleberg said that had approved to get help with the Master Plan for TIF. Perleberg said that they might coincide with the county’s Comp Plan update. He thinks that should come first. Daily wants it to be adopted early next year per Kraus,Jr. She was talking about an overlay district, might be wise to wait. Kraus wants to wait to have construction traffic on the old road and not beat up a new one. Tepe asked if the development itself will solve the drainage problems.There may need to be a study to show where all the drainage problems are. The developer is responsible for designing the drainage for their own lot. Every development along there has to design their own drainage detention. Mansfield said he was all in to get this done. Rosenberger said he will bring it back next meeting for them to see what is all going. win there. The Bayer Becker report was sent to the new board members. Board agreed to talk about this again ate next meeting. TABLED until next meeting. 

Rosenberger is setting a meeting with INDOT on the ramp. They need to find out the timeline when they all be done with the study. Hoffman  has some experience with INDOT and he will try to get to that meeting.  

Bright Meadows Park Pledge – $100,000- Additional Appropriation Form for Council- Have to get permission from Council to spend the money existing  in DCRC Fund 4931 that was not in their budget. Approved to go to Council. 

NEW BUSINESS:

ONE DEARBORN REPORT: Perleberg reported- Got the mowing from Drake $1500 brush and shrub along billboard bases. The 26 acre site between Dyke and Hirlinger needs mowing. Re-landscape the US 50 Business Park sign in Aurora for $525. Approved- as his numbers seem reasonable. 

April 24 from 6-8 for the Comprehensive Plan Update Workshop. Asked DCRC to attend. 

ATTORNEY’S REPORT- none

PUBLIC COMMENT- Chris Mueller- asked for clarification on the Council appropriation request. See above under Bright Stellar Pledge. 

This part of the meeting was presented by Baker Tilley and One Dearborn 

OTHER BUSINESS - Training/Information Work Session for New Board Members- 

5 new members this year. Deaton gave brief recap of DCRC from his perspective. He said  Ordinance #13 in 1995 Commissioners established a Redevelopment Commission. In 2012- they were given money by Council to buy land. First thing they did was buying land from the Stone Family. Hirlinger Chevrolet took one piece and Hirlinger gave them the land where the Flour Mill now exists. Then the bakery came in for the flour mill. Dyke Industries came in and expanded to more employees. Not all the companies worked. He detailed about 6 of those. It’s a long time between successes. 

What you really need to know is how we make this happen. Kelso Township TIF (formerly St Leon TIF) and West Aurora TIF, which to Kaiser Pickles which needed to expand. We have more land in West Aurora TIF. We own no land in Kelso Township TIF.  

Andy Mouser from Baker Tilley came in to do a TIF over-view. 

TIF is a property tax tool.It takes base assessed value. Building the assessed. Then after 25 years the entire assessed value gets turned back to taxes. You have to set a Redevelopment Area. You set an EDA ( Economic Dev Area) in the TIF.

Permitted uses of TIF: In past 5 years there has been a loosening up of the TIF money. Like Public safety projects, parks and trails, job training and efficiency project. 

Up to 15% of TIF revenues can be used in the schools and education or capital projects. Some people use them to set up grants for school projects. Capital projects for schools have to be in the TIF. You can expand TIF to include a school. 

Residential TIF limited to 20 years. Has a similar pattern for adoption. Residential infrastructure loans thru Indiana Finance Authority. 

Budget and Annual Spending Plan are different. Some adopt budgets- but the spending plan does have to be adopted and can be amended. 

This DCRC has passed a budget that accounts for some of their things-  Perleberg said they need to look at this. Particularly the NON-TIF funds. They ran into that tax issue tonight with the Stellar Program matching money.  

More slides on examples and how taxes and assessed value relate. He also showed the numbers on each district currently as well. 

Perleberg had more info to add and clarify for DCRC members. Including maybe “re-TIFing.” 

Tom Tepe asked how the TIF areas were set up.Who decided the area and boundaries. Perleberg said that the Bright one was collaborative process. 

[NOTE: In the very beginning, the meetings I attended in early 2000’s it seemed to start with some people who came in with requests for the area in which they owned or had invested in land.] 

In Bright the Economic Development Area is larger than the TIF. 

Perleberg finished off the training session. He passed out info from One Dearborn calling it a 501c6 organization.  He talked about the investors of One Dearborn. Community, State, and Regional partners. READI Cincinnati- gets $10,000 from One Dearborn to join and get marketing. OCRA, SIRPC. They have 19 private sector investors. Hospital, Energy Companies, Cities, Towns, and Counties, Developers etc. If One Dearborn is bringing in an idea, it’s because we are out doing the work in the area. Included the service agreement in the packet. Also talks about relationship with Cushman Wakefield for marketing and promotion. Last year they did 29 Business lead visits. They are a concierge for new businesses as they come in to get answers they need. They are a conduit for regional grants like Stellar grants. 

In Right side of folder are projects - Perleberg wants them to ask themselves questions. Went thru several projects and he showed them which were viable and which weren’t. As these were still in negotiations, I did not post those companies.  

ADJOURNMENT - 7:30 PM

Christine Brauer Mueller

Lawrenceburg Township