17 August 2017 Dearborn County Redevelopment Meeting Notes

17 August 2017 Dearborn County Redevelopment Meeting Notes

Present: Jim Deaton, Chairman, Dave Deddens, Jim Helms, John Rahe, Alan Goodman, and Jamie Graf (non- voting school board member)

Also present:Sue Hayden, county administrator and economic development director, Andrea Ewan, attorney, Leah Bailey covering for Gayle Pennington.

ABSENT:Gayle Pennington, Auditor and DCRC treasurer.

Deaton read the Title VI statement as required by law, even though as the only person present I said he could skip it.

APPROVAL OF MINUTES- June 1st Minutes approved

UNFINISHED BUSINESS:

CLAIMS AND FINANCIALS- paid the web hosting fee at $35 per month and Ewan Law office for about 9 months of meetings/consultations for $2812.50 and Barnes and Thornburg for legal analysis of using TIF money for expenditures relating to One Dearborn services to the DCRC for $1116.00.

NEW BUSINESS: 2018 Budget - Sue Hayden explained it was for about $98,000 per year - same as last year. They put the $70,000 in for their budget and this covers One Dearborn Fee for Randall’s services in case the TIF changes proposed for this aren’t approved. Budget approved.

ONE DEARBORN REPORT: Presented by Terri Randall- said she’s plugging away all by herself over at their IVY Tech office. 

Land Acquisition- Randall said DCRC had voted in the past with the owner in West Harrison TIF and the seller wanted to modify the acreage that been to be sold. Land Consultants had to make minor survey adjustments so you’ll get a bill for that. The purchase price changes a little. Seller will be carrying the mortgage. They will need to talk to commissioners before this closes. Thinks everyone is in agreement and old price was $55,000/acre. It’s about an acre more. Changes were made to the agreement related to certain guarantees. Andrea wrote in language to allow DCRC to escape from the sale. The seller was helpful in agreeing to that. They get half back if they back out. Deddens asked who was paying Andrea when Randall was talking to her. DCRC is if Deaton is instructing her to do this on DCRC behalf. Helms said Tom Stone should be complimented as they had contracted with him on this long ago. Ewan said the farm contracts will continue until decided to use the land and amounts worked out in the contract. Randall said this adds to the 42 acres you already have. This packages it better. She has had an uptick in leads and someone is already looking at that parcel now. She cannot tell then anything more yet. That’s why executive session was called off this morning. Payments will by semiannual on this property.

Amendment of TIF Plans- by August 25th these documents have to be in and Randall’s working to get those in. Barnes and Thornburg produced a book so they now know what can be in a TIF plan! It’s easier to start from scratch and replace the existing TIF plans. Tom Pittman helps with this. The book is what they can do but Deaton says you have to be careful looking at it. Then the attorney tells you how you can do certain things. [NOTE: Basically it’s how much can we get away with. They have to write in more language to get to do things the law was not originally intended to do. What impact do these new things have on the taxpayers and schools, for example? Why are we changing all the TIFs for a $70,000 fee issue with One Dearborn? Why not just pay that out of budget and leave the TIF money for the actual infrastructure needs?] 

Acquiring lands will require amendments to the TIF plans. Randall said she couldn't  get plans from other areas that did these things that Barnes and Thornburg suggest. Sept 25th is PC and her goal is to get the TIF documents done by then. Sept 5 Commissioners Meeting also for Deaton and Randall to be there to get their approval before they present the offer on the land discussed earlier. (see above- this was confusing as it got mixed into this 2nd item’s discussion) She has been talking to McCormack on this TIF hearing already. 

Aurora Industrial Park Sign- talked to Tom Pittman because Ewan had questions about how to pay for the sign. Randall said maybe we are approaching this wrong. She had passed Rushville and saw the sign on their Industrial Park just like our proposed one. They provide just the name of the park. Not the individual businesses. The cost was about $40,000. So a letter was sent to the businesses there. This will let them know what they are thinking to do. They need to know if the businesses want to pay for their own. Letter went out yesterday per Sue Hayden. Deddens noted that no one paid for his signs for his business. That expense belongs to the business owner. The main sign is OK. Deddens said he could send this out to 2-3 bidders. They need an RFP for demolition of the old sign and a new one. Approved. TIF documents are her first priority before the sign is done per Randall. 

Washington Township West Aurora TIF Expansion- Kaiser Pickle incentives were based on the first property and now they are working in the old D&S Machine property. They didn’t want the publicity of the incentives. They are pleased with the workforce here. This will overload Plan Commission. She wants to do this after the West Harrison TIF is done. Discussion of whether there were other lands to consider. Consensus was that Kaiser was the most viable one. They will get to this later this year.

Duke Energy Site Readiness Program- she was running o over night the proposal. They were graded - for no table of contents and got a C on mapping because they weren't labelled with a name or directional arrow. She complimented Andrea Shuter- in GIS- because they need utilities mapped. Going to have conversations to have utility mapping layers done. Randall found in a drawer a survey for Stone property with ROWs and easements for utilities. Soil borings and preliminary environmentals. Used some of the work from Skally’s. Had to put in species of wildlife etc. The first run looks good- but we have areas to improve. They will come in town Aug 31 to walk the property and bring in all utility providers to meet with the site selectors. They will then critique that portion. Randall will present findings and what we learned from it. 

REDI Cincinnati had a dummy project lead to go through so she spent a full day working on that. They had 3 consultants to evaluate that. REDI had chosen one site form each state. On state tax rates, personal property, utility rates etc. They bragged on Indiana because we had a lot of flexibility bringing IVY Tech to the table for the work force. Grant possibilities for work force development. Utility rates are higher in Indiana than other places. State incentives are lower in Indiana. They apparently don’t give incentives for workers from out of state. Providing land would help offset this per Randall. Has a lot of work to do. 

Rahe said we need to talk to reps about reciprocity for real estate licensing for out of state realtor developers. She talked to Barnes and Thornburg about this. Hoping to take it up this year. Bordering counties with Illinois have it- why not Ohio and KY for out SE IND bordering counties. Other companies want to know how to get IN licenses to do work here. She’s going to talk to board of realtors for this. 

ATTORNEY’S REPORT- none

OTHER BUSINESS- none

ADJOURNMENT -10:17 AM 

Christine Brauer Mueller

Lawrenceburg Township