- Welcome everyone. Thank you for attending the meeting of the Monroe County Economic Development Commission.
- Today's date is June 9th, 2026. We're meeting at four o'clock in the Natt Hill Room here at the courthouse.
- My name is Fred Schultz and other members of the commission state their names for the record and then
- we'll have a roll call of who all is in attendance today.
- My name is Isak Asari. I'm a member of the commission. Greg, can you hear us? You are muted. We cannot
- hear you. Can you hear me now? Yes. All right.
- What am I supposed to say? I'm supposed to say my name is Greg Travis and I'm here. Right, attaboy.
- All right, would those else in attendance who please identify themselves? My name is Liz Fiddle. I'm
- county council at large from Monroe County. I'm Jeff Cockeraw. I'm with the county legal department.
- Doug McDaniel. I'm president and managing member of
- Skyentia LLC and also the managing member of interchange investments. My name is Clark Greiner. I'm
- the interim CEO with the Bloomington Economic Development Corporation. Great. Right. Next on our agenda.
- Now, let me call the meeting to order. Next on our agenda is an election of officers for this year.
- I've been the past president of the commission for a couple of years in a row and would be more than
- happy to hand off the baton to any of those willing to just reach out a little bit. I heard that Mr.
- Travis was very excited at the opportunity, but I have not heard that from him.
- I've already done it once before. Sorry, I interrupted you. Say what you were saying. Oh, I was going
- to say I've already done it once before. I don't want to impose that on anyone else. I'd like to move
- that Fred Schultz be elected our president for this year. You want to second that, Greg? I don't know.
- I like Fred.
- But I'll second it. You're the best leader. And I don't know if you want to do the total slate, but
- you also need a secretary. I would then nominate Greg Travis as secretary of the Monroe County Economic
- Development Commission. Second.
- All of those in favors of that slate of officers. We do need to do a roll call because we have one member
- attending virtually. Oh, we cannot all in favor. Okay, so great. Well, more than willing to call the
- roll on this. Okay. Atta boy. Commissioner Schultz. Yes. Commissioner Sarri. Yes. Commissioner Travis.
- Yes. The motion that was approved three to zero.
- All right, there we go. That's efficiency. My understanding is next on the agenda, we have a review
- of a tax abatement request from Skentia. Did I pronounce that correctly? Yes, it is. Oh, good. OK.
- All right. All right. Mr. Greiner and Mr. McDaniel, feel free to take it away. I will pass this over
- to Doug McDaniels.
- president of the of scantia and he is seeking tax abatement for expansion of his operations here in
- Monroe County and I'll let Doug talk a little bit about that and some of the benefits. I will first
- off I really want to thank you for the opportunity to come before you today and especially thank you
- for let me go first here because I have a 7 to 8 year-old tournament baseball game tonight.
- first base coach and if I'm not there for the first pitch, my son who's the head coach is likely to
- fire me. So I really appreciate that. And full disclosure here, Mr. Travis and I go way back. In fact,
- I've known Greg for a long time.
- And in fact, his father was one of my favorite professors at IU. And I still think very fondly of both
- Dr. Travis and his son, Greg. So I wanted to let everybody know that we have a history and we're good
- friends. And I hope that doesn't have any impact whatsoever on what we're doing.
- But anyway, I wanted to give you just a brief overview of what Skientia is, who we are and what we do.
- And Greg could probably do this better than I, since he worked with us for quite some time. But we're
- a software, basically a software engineering firm here. We're located, as you're probably aware, out
- on Loesch Road here. And we work almost exclusively for the Department of Defense.
- Most of our focus is on force protection systems. So the software that we work on generally is used
- for sensor integration, for persistent surveillance systems. So we've supported virtually all the branches
- of the service, not the Space Force, because mostly what we work on are ground-based
- persistent surveillance systems. Now we're moving now into more of the counter UAS or unmanned aerial
- systems realm, as well as integrating artificial intelligence into these systems. We're doing everything
- we can to help keep our warfighters as safe as they could possibly be, which I consider a huge blessing
- to be able to do that and to make a living knowing that we're keeping our warfighters safer.
- I never served, but my son spent
- virtually all of 2008 in Afghanistan. So I know, or actually in Iraq, and so I know what that's about.
- We currently have 40 employees, a vast majority of whom live here in Monroe County. We have about a
- handful of employees who are no longer in Indiana. Well, just really about three who
- Originally we're here in Bloomington and then for whatever reason their spouse got a job elsewhere and
- moved. And then we have a couple up in West Lafayette where that P school up north is located. We're
- kind of outgrowing our current capacity. We have a 6,000 square foot office and lab space building there.
- I probably should explain how interchange investments and Skientia are related. The co-founder of Skientia
- and I, the remaining co-founder, there were three of us initially and one of them retired. But both
- of us are also the members of an LLC called Interchange Investments. And Interchange Investments actually
- owns the real estate. And when you work for the federal government,
- It's just advantageous and makes more sense to have a setup like we have. But at the 6,000 square foot
- building that we currently occupy, we're about outgrowing that, not only the office and lab space, but
- also the parking that we have and all that. So we undertook an effort to look at expanding on our current
- plot. And our plot is big enough for an additional building. We've got a little bit over two and a half acres.
- property there. And so we've gone through the design phase on that and we're in the process of getting
- final numbers for what it would cost us to build another 6,000 square foot building. So essentially
- doubling our current capacity. And in that process, I have learned an awful lot, I can say without question.
- But we're trying to now get down to does it make economic sense?
- for us to do this. Can we afford to do the building here or should we look at other options? Now, as
- you might imagine, since we do a lot of our work through and with NSWC crane, there's kind of a big
- push for the support contractors to have their facilities out at Westgate. I've been in Bloomington
- full time for
- about 50 years now. And I have a great affinity for Bloomington and my great preference is to stay here
- in Bloomington and in Monroe County. But we're still trying to work on doing the financials on this
- to make sure it makes sense for us. And if we did have the opportunity to get some abatement of some
- of our taxes, it would certainly
- be beneficial for us and obviously greatly appreciated. So again, I thank you for letting us come to
- present today. Thank you for your time and greatly appreciate any consideration that you would give
- to our request for tax abatement. I'm more than willing to take any questions you may have. How many
- additional employees would you anticipate adding over the next few years?
- We're hoping to add 30 additional employees over the next five years or so. Now, when I tell my partner
- that, he looks at me kind of like I'm crazy. But we are a team. So I guess I should have explained a
- little bit. We're, by design, we are subcontractors. But we're subcontracted to a lot of the big prime
- contractors around here, SAIC, Amentum, HII, which is
- what bought a lion. So we've been working for a lion for a long time. But in fact, this week, I'm in
- the process of putting in three proposals. And two of those are for an electro-optic infrared integration,
- big multiple word contract. Another one, Purdue University, for a little effort we would be doing with
- them. But we're also
- I can't say who the prime is, but we're also teamed with another one of our partners on a big counter
- UXS. So it's not just UAS, it's for surface and underwater. And those, I don't know if you're very familiar
- with how the government in particular DOD does its contracting now for support services. Typically what
- they do is they award very large
- what they call MAC, multiple award contracts. And so when you get a contract, then you basically compete
- for the task orders under that. But my, I believe we're in a very strong position because of the technologies
- that we support, because of the threats that are out there, the emerging and the current and emerging
- threats out there, especially the drones and a lot of the technologies
- And actually, even a lot of the products that we've been supporting for quite some time are very useful
- in detecting, classifying, identifying the drones. And so I believe with the big push for DODs, if they
- get anywhere close to a trillion and a half annual budget, I believe the floodgates
- We'll kind of open. We want to be in a position where we're able to take advantage of that and bring
- a lot of that work here to Bloomington, to Monroe County, and also to help keep some of the recent graduates
- from most, we have about half of our staff from Rose-Hulman. Okay, a lot of engineering. About a third
- of our staff are from the school right up the road here, IU. And so we actually have somebody.
- from Purdue on our staff too, but. So our goal is to be able to provide opportunities for these new
- graduates so they don't have to go outside this area to be able to work in a high tech, high paying
- career. So you're expecting an increase of about 30 over the next five years. What's the amount that
- you're expecting to invest in the property?
- For us to build this building, we're looking at about a million dollars. And you need to expand the
- footprint of, I mean, can a lot of this be done remotely? Do you have a secure facility, or is it? Well,
- yes, we are a secure facility. That answers the question. Because you actually need things to happen
- within your facility. Right. And while some of the work
- We are different from a lot of the support contractors because we don't do what I refer to as butts
- in seats where our employees actually go out and sit at crane or someplace else. We do allow some remote
- work, but my philosophy has been when we hire, especially when we hire kids, the young graduates, I
- want to sit them next to somebody who's got experience. We've got folks there who have a decade or two
- or three or
- close to four, designing, developing, deploying, and supporting these systems. And there's virtually
- no substitute for that kind of experience. I was just trying to get at the need to expand the facilities.
- Well, it's because I want them sitting together, like we're sitting together today. Fantastic.
- So as a mentor, mentee kind of thing, I'm a firm believer
- I know I'm a little bit old-fashioned, but I'm a firm believer in face-to-face. Yes. The point is you're
- going to expand, and the folks that you intend to hire, you expect them to be in Monroe County and to
- be working physically here as well. Absolutely. So even if they were to live outside, they'd be coming
- into Monroe County. That's absolutely correct. In fact, when we have applicants who say, oh, I'm looking
- for remote work, I tell them, thanks. You say we'd rather do it in person.
- pretty much require our new hires to be willing to dedicate time in the office with our experienced
- experts. I'm sure Mr. Travis also has questions, but could you talk to me a little bit about how you're
- integrated into the rest of the ecosystem? Are you working closely with other organizations out of
- the mill or out of the amplified Bloomington? Are you working closely with the university? Tell me about
- this, because particularly this space and UAS, we're trying to be sort of the center of the universe
- here in Indiana. Everything that's going on in Crane, there's a lot of really exciting things happening
- with particularly unmanned and awareness and all of those things.
- on board in terms of, I see where this is going economically. But just curious, could you tell us a
- little bit of the picture of how this is also benefiting other businesses that are in this space that
- are in the region? Sure. Well, one of our biggest primes right now is TriStar. And you're probably familiar
- with them. We're working with them. In terms of our association with Crane, I should have mentioned
- that I have almost 20 years experience working at Crane. And so we still have a lot of contacts there.
- A lot of the work that we do is with and through Crane right now. Where I'm also potentially going to
- be named to a working group for the Indiana Initiative for Drone Dominance. Because I have been talking
- to the Indiana Economic Development Corp. And I actually know Jan Shuler Hicks pretty well. And Governor
- Braun had designated her as the lead for the I2D2.
- Fantastic. So yeah we're trying to get as engaged and as active in those things as we possibly can because
- we see that as our future. And if you guys don't mind if I just interject a few things here. Mr. Mcdans
- is also when you look at kind of his the human side of this 75 percent of his employees approximately
- live in Monroe County
- Which if you look at some of the other traded sector companies that we work with, it's approximately
- 50%. So I think that's an outstanding thing. Wages are going to be well above average by the time you
- calculate benefits and everything else. It's going to be right around that $100,000 range. And then
- Scantia also pays about 90% of its employees health insurance premiums and 100% of their premiums for short.
- long-term disability and things like that. So I think there's a wonderful upside to this. And the types
- of jobs we're going to be hiring for are going to be software development, cybersecurity, and data analysts.
- So very high-end types of jobs and professions for us.
- I apologize, but that's something I failed to mention and my cyber guys are probably shooting me for
- that, but we've grown into a fairly large contingent of cybersecurity specialist analysts. We have several,
- we have a handful, and Greg's familiar with this because he was a cybersecurity guy who are SISPs, which
- is the gold standard for cybersecurity and the DOD, Certified Information Systems Security Professionals.
- And in fact, we just had another employee obtain a CISP. And one of the things that we do, obviously,
- we always encourage continuing education, because if you're not continuing in the area that we're in,
- you're falling behind big time. So we encourage that. We pay for folks to get there. And we just had
- one of our cybersecurity professionals finish her master's in cyber as well.
- Greg, any questions or? So I mentioned to Jeff yesterday, obviously, that my background was Schiantia.
- So I don't know if there's any, you know, if I need to recuse myself in any way, shape, or form from
- this. But I will, at risk of imprisonment, I'll say that I've known Doug for well over a decade. And
- I know him as a man of just impeccable
- integrity, so I absolutely wouldn't have any problem with this at all. I would just say that, you know,
- unless you're going to get a pecuniary interest in the business, I think you're free to vote if you
- wish. If you don't feel that you can be that neutral overseer, you're more than welcome to kind of abstain
- or recuse as well. We have people vote on things, people who they used to work with all the time, and
- that's never been an issue.
- I would just add a couple of things. I think the average over 10 years that this abatement is going
- to receive property tax is about $10,000. So over 10 years, it's going to be about $100,000 savings
- to that, $2.7 million in wages. We currently pay 2% at local income tax, which is well over $10,000
- a year. So I think from a net
- funding, I think this process and this program will bring in more revenue to local governments than
- it will take away. I think that's particularly important given what's happened with our Senate roll
- act one from a couple years ago and those are the kind of things we need to keep in mind when we look
- at it. Greg, I don't perceive any sort of actual, well there's certainly not an actual conflict.
- ask you to recuse yourself if there was an actual conflict. But not only is there not an actual conflict,
- I don't see a perceived conflict. So I have no issue with you voting. Okay. I always like to keep it
- on the on the up and up. Well, I have any additional input or are there is there anybody from the public
- online that would like to speak?
- hearing none, I would entertain a motion to approve the recommendation for the tax abatement. So moved.
- Is there a second? Seconded. All in favor? I know we have to do the roll call. Commissioner Schultz. Yes.
- Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.
- Yes. Yes. Yes.
- I'm very grateful for your kind words and I'm humbled that the group here has agreed that we're doing
- good stuff and that you're willing to pass this along as approved. So thank you so much. Thank you.
- Thank you. I'll also just generally make some comments if it's okay. Of course, yeah. I meant, I didn't.
- I think if we're able to add comments to our, I mean, and I'm happy to go to County Council
- Councilmember Fiddle is here. I thought it would be useful to say I think generally this space,
- it's one, a target investment area for us in Monroe County. Two, it is going to grow. I mean, we're
- seeing hundreds of millions of dollars putting toward just this question of anti-drone things, what
- they're doing at crane.
- tens of hundreds of millions of dollars that are being invested there to expand that economy there.
- So I just, it's like, I mean, then the fact that they're localizing this here is a really good place.
- So I'm just, it's, yeah, it's exciting. Cause I think a lot of that's being located in other places.
- So our whole goal of creating that corridor of defense work. So I'm excited about it. All right. Moving
- on next on the agenda, we have a review of tax abatement compliance forms.
- Yes, I think maybe I'll go through these kind of generally, and then I think there's one in particular,
- and I believe Mr. Smith from Alverweiner may have joined the meeting. I guess we have six different
- companies applying for or who have had their compliance forms for their tax abatements. I would say
- of those six, there have been four who are in absolute compliance with their
- with their SB1s and their compliance firms where they've exceeded both in the number of employment and
- the wages. And those are Phoenix and Lazarus. That's one company Phoenix owns the property, or Lazarus
- owns the property, Phoenix is the company. GLC, Bloomington, LLC, Tacis, and Baxter. And I will just
- note that Baxter is above compliance, even though we are unsure whether they're
- final abatement is even going to be operational yet because we don't know if the improvements have been
- made. I would say Prevelli, LLC, if you look through the minutes, at the last, at the meeting two years
- ago, they made a presentation that says, hey, our headcount is going to be lower, right? But we are
- hiring people at higher wages. And so if you look at that, their headcount is still 12 above where they
- were before the abatement was approved.
- but their wages are over $300,000 more than where they expected them to be. So what they said two years
- ago is that, you know, we're kind of doing a trade-off where we're going to hire people at a higher
- rate, but we're not gonna necessarily hire as many. So that one is not technically in compliant with
- their SB1, but it follows the logic that they had explained at pre. And I remember that, yeah.
- And then the last one is Oliver Winery. Hopefully you received the email update. We looked at the form
- and it just didn't look correct with their wages and numbers and all that. They indicate, well, when
- the SB1 said when they got the abatement, they had 63 employees and they were going to add 21 more and
- their total wage was going to be
- right around $5.5 million. Where they are at is they're at 59 employees. And I think their wages are
- just north of $4 million at this point.
- Mr. Smith is here, maybe he can explain it. But the response that working with the BEDC that we got
- was, the industry they're in has taken a little bit of hit since COVID ended, which is probably, and
- this is all rewiring, so it might be a good thing for society as a whole, but probably not the best
- for their business. What happened, I believe,
- Go on, go on. And plus, the numbers we're looking at, the 59 does not include any of their part-time
- wages. And I think when we looked at this two years ago, when you included the part-time wages, then
- it was much closer to being compliant. But the information we have just doesn't include the part-time.
- Where are we in terms of years of this abatement?
- This was approved in 22. Their estimated completion date hasn't occurred yet. So it's in 2027. Typically,
- we would take that into a little bit more of a count. But since their actual employment number of full-time
- employees is less than it was when the abatement was granted,
- That's why we invited the company to come and explain to you what's going on and what's going on in
- the processes because that is, we certainly don't expect or hope that there will be less people working
- there after you get an abatement. So that's kind of... In terms of the infrastructure and development
- investments, where are we at with that? Well, it looks like
- If you go on the assessed value of what was put in there at about 50%, if you go to the actual cost,
- they're at a third. So they've put, they estimated that they would have eight million, I think that's
- eight million 300,000 and it looks like they've actually put in $3,350,000 worth of money.
- Of course, the assessed value is different than the actual cost of the equipment, but that seems to
- be that maybe they haven't also put in the investment that they had anticipated. You mentioned something
- about 50% on this piece of paper. It's not on that piece of paper. That piece of paper, we reached out
- to the company and there was a clerical error. Okay, so where would that be on this piece of paper?
- So instead of 34, the actual is 59. Oh. Salaries of 2.8, it's 4. Okay, that's critical. Sorry. It is.
- I did not see that. Somebody from the company is? It's Eric Smith. Can he be promoted to TSD?
- Hi, sorry, let's try and figure that out. Well, can you hear me? Yeah, we can hear you. Hi, Mr. Schultz.
- Okay, great. Thank you for joining us today. Sure. Were you able to overhear the conversation and Mr.
- Cockerill kind of explaining the numbers, giving us an update, were you able to hear all of that? Yeah,
- yeah, I heard most of it, yeah.
- Okay, one of the things he had mentioned is that the numbers don't include part-time staff that Oliver
- has. Do you have an estimate as to how many part-time staff are currently with? Yeah, I checked yesterday
- and it's about 49 part-timers. And do you have a sense of what that what
- Um, kind of on an average of, of, of what part-time employees are being paid and how much that total
- payroll would be. Uh, it's probably, um, gosh, I can tell you real quick, hold on a second. Apologize,
- you've been ready for that. It's gonna be around.
- roughly I mean probably about two or three thousand two hundred fifty thousand a year there was a little
- garbled I apologize I'm like 250 a thousand a year
- Is that 49 port timers? Yeah. I'm sorry. I apologize. I'm sorry. That's wrong. So I am reading the report
- right now. That was way off. Sorry, almost 700.
- 600,000 Did you hear that yes, okay That would average out to approximately $12,000 a year part-time.
- Yeah for each part-time person Yeah, okay And what was the if you know? back
- when the application was made am I correct here yeah should be yes so at the time of the application
- there were there was a projected 63 full-time and I believe the application says there were maybe 21 part-time
- Is that correct? Am I reading it correctly? No, I think they had 63 full-time or full-time equivalencies
- in 2022, and they were going to add 21 new positions. 21 new positions. Right, right. Do you anticipate
- or do you recall or do you have information about the number of part-time employees that were employed
- back at the time of the application? I'm just wondering if... Yeah, it would have been very similar
- to what it is now. We haven't really... Our business is pretty...
- as you imagine in our tasting room, it's a brick and mortar building and we're somewhat constricted
- about how many people we can have in there any one time. Our business is improving there, but I would
- say it's probably very similar. I can get actual numbers to you later, but it's probably very similar.
- Thank you so much, Mr. Smith. Could you
- Because our job is to look at this tool of a tax abatement and see whether or not it's working. And
- so I guess I'll just ask you straight up, what is this tax abatement allowing you to do? Because the
- story on paper makes it seem that you've got a tax abatement to do investment.
- that we haven't yet been really able to do the investment, that market has changed, and I mean, we can
- make a recommendation of compliant, not compliant, or substantially compliant, and then leave it to
- the county council to say, well, maybe this was totally outside of your hands, but do you, like, can
- you make the economic argument that having this tax abatement has helped your company in some way, shape,
- or form, and then consequently helped Monroe County?
- Yeah, I mean, it's definitely helped our business. I mean, it's allowed us to continue to invest in
- the property. So we've added manufacturing equipment over the course of the last few years. And we're
- continuing to do that. We have another piece of equipment we're putting in later this year. Has the
- rate of investment been what we hoped it would have been? No. And that's just because
- like, as I mentioned, the email I sent, you know, we did this investment at a time when we were coming
- off three years of incredible growth, and we are expecting to continue to grow. That has not happened.
- Now, we have had a really good start to the year. We're like six months in, and we've grown every month,
- so it seems like we've turned the corner. And we'd like to think that
- those investments are gonna increase as this goes on. We just need the case volume to support it.
- But yeah, I mean, it's allowed us to continue to invest in the business. We do hire in Indiana where
- we can and especially Monroe County, we just hired two people this week. So that helps. Yeah.
- Help us understand. So you mentioned that you have seen growth since beginning of the year. So kind
- of talk to us a little bit about that. What have you seen? Is there like a particular niche that you
- found or is there kind of a geographic area that's opened up? Yeah, so what's happened is we are really
- pushing to gain market share.
- across the country. It's not really like one particular market. We've been really trying to like,
- I guess, in national accounts, which is like Walmart, Kroger, Meyer, and Sam's Club, we've been really
- pushing to get place in Target. We've been pushing to get placements in those that are permanent, not
- just like they come and go. We've also released some new wines, the Spritz wines, as well as a new cider.
- The ciders are in cans. That's not the old brown bottle that you've probably seen. And we're also going
- to be putting sprits in cans as well. So we're trying to respond to what's popular right now, which
- is the ready to drink format. So that's what gave us hope. And like I said, the wine industry is still
- declining. It just is, but we've been gaining market share every month since
- since beginning of the year. So while our competitors are dropping, we're actually increasing. So it's
- more just out-hustling people than anything else. It's really just working hard to improve where others
- are dropping. If I can add something there that... Sure. Eric, you also, one of the things, you picked
- up, what, 11 new states for distribution. Is that accurate? Maybe you could expand on that.
- So future growth would be anticipated? Yes, future growth is anticipated, and we're anticipating it.
- We're already ahead of last year. Right now, we were beating our budget thus far. And if our expansion
- keeps going throughout the country, then we'll definitely have a good year. We are trying to, well,
- I guess what I want to say is we haven't
- We're not adding any new states this year, but we're trying to really grow our footprint outside of
- the Midwest. And we were in 45 states, but the Western states, we're not that strong in. So we're really
- trying to like, whereas like Gallo, which is the biggest brand in the country, they're saturated every
- state in the country. Well, we're saturated in Indiana, Kentucky, and Ohio, right, in Michigan. We're
- trying to oversaturate the market
- in these Western states and in Texas, in Florida. We're trying to break into Publix in Florida, which
- is really hard, but obviously if anybody's been to Florida knows that there's a Publix around every
- corner. And we have not been able to get into Publix yet. So it's little things like that and like breaking
- into, oversaturating these other markets around and breaking into new stores. And in terms of the continued
- investment,
- you have every intention of continuing with what was proposed? Yes, we intend to continue to invest
- in the property and continue to. Our footprint in terms of the buildings is somewhat limited, right?
- But we know if you've been out there, you know we're sort of behind the property. There's a ravine and there's
- private property to the size of it. So we're kind of boxed in in terms of like, is that a whole lot
- more room to build new buildings? But we 100% intend to invest in the property and improving. I thought
- the amendment was for like more manufacturing rather than more footprint on the land. Well, I was just
- saying if we wanted to like, if we needed to
- It is from the equipment and that's worth spending it on, but I was more just saying we were somewhat
- limited in the space we have, but we are investing in the equipment for sure. In the original proposal,
- it was focused on that equipment growth to expand the business opportunity, right? I think that's what
- got approved. I think that the
- If we go back in time to when they came to us, they had a real estate component to what they wanted
- and they had a personal property state or component, the real property component due to state law because
- they have to have a liquor license or a title, whatever license. They weren't eligible for that. And
- so they just got the personal property. And I apologize, I was not involved in the original discussion.
- But to answer your question, we are continuing to invest in equipment. We are continuing to look for
- ways we can increase our bottling line efficiency so we can get more products out in the market. We're
- looking for ways to improve the capacity of our warehouse through pallet racking and things like that.
- So we are definitely investing in the business. And if we get the volume that we're hoping to get, then
- we'll be able to have more employees.
- So I mean, my theory of change here would be, and tell me if I'm wrong in interpreting it this way,
- that the tax abatement has allowed them to continue to invest in the property. It has not yet yielded
- the return on investment that we expected. But they're continuing in that direction. And the idea would
- be if they grow as a business that they'll hire more people and then we'll get all of the public good
- that we wanted.
- but we're still in that risk sort of, you know, it's not exactly working yet thing, but it's been outside
- of their hands. And I think the outside of their hands is kind of one of the key components because
- we hold people accountable unless it's due to factors beyond their control, right? And he's indicated
- that the market has changed dramatically and I think
- group right for what they're doing and it probably is still changing it sounds like that some of the
- the changes are now maybe starting to favor the company at this yeah their market shares increasing
- and all those kind of things so i mean i think that's ultimately the question for the county council
- that they'll have to answer when they look at this is well are they in compliance and if they're not
- in substantial compliance is it do you
- decisions the company made, or is it due to factors that they didn't make and they had to react to?
- I just remind me, because we only do this once a year, so I always forget. Because ultimately, we make
- a recommendation to the county council. Is it within our space to say that something is substantially
- compliant, for example, instead of saying that it's fully compliant? I think what you
- What I think you recommend is whether you recommend whether the council should or should not approve
- continuing the baby, right? And so if you wanted to say, hey, we find Revelli and Revelli is the kind
- of the question mark of whether you'd want to include in there because they are over in salaries, but
- under a number, right? Find them in compliance with their SB1 and then when to make a different finding
- for all of our winery like we,
- don't think they're necessarily in compliance, but we think it's due to our factors. Certainly can,
- or you could just say, hey, we recommend approval. I would tend to suggest with Audra Weiner, maybe
- you give a little sub, what your decision is on that, because I think that would be helpful for the
- county council.
- out loud would it would a six-month well I think it was statutorily they have a year right they'll check
- in every year you could do a six-month check-in that certainly is okay it's just you know if they check
- in it's more free are the counties information gathering right as opposed to having I mean we're
- We're here. They have an annual. All right. I understand that they have an annual. Right. But if we
- maybe schedule something in six months and just say, hey, how's it going? I wonder if that's if so.
- But to recommend noncompliance, the county council would still have to make that decision. Correct.
- And if we if we said not compliant,
- Does that require that the county council hold like a hearing or something? Is there like a more official
- way that they do non-compliance? The county council, if they find it non-compliant, I believe that kicks
- off a hearing schedule. It's just not automatic then, yeah. Right. And so I just feel like amongst the
- three of us that the conversation is just about. Right. I mean, is this, was this outside their hand?
- Are they doing what he said they're going to do? Right.
- If we were to recommend not to say that they were non-compliance, or the county council would be the
- same thing, then in my experience, what happens is that four horsemen of the apocalypse appear. We've
- never done that. My thought process does not assume that they're, that it should, that I'm not assuming
- that they're not compliant,
- because of something they've done wrong. I am fully that they have not hit the goals as stated in the
- application because of things outside of their control. I certainly expect that. I don't think anybody
- predicts that every state around Indiana, for example, would allow infused THC, but Indiana and somehow
- or other that just might impact alcohol sales, right?
- you know, so I fully understand that it's, I'm just trying to think of what, you know, as being responsible
- to the role that we've taken, what's the, what is the information or what can we do to assist the county
- council within, about why we feel they're not compliant, but it's not in their control and they're doing,
- and they're working towards compliance.
- I was just, I'm here on the city side, we had a situation very similar where, you know, economic development,
- amended, not compliant. And this conversation and to your point about should we do a six month
- I think basically that council was able to set up a hey, okay Here's some things that we really want
- you to focus on And I just you know, so as I think about that allowed also thinking aloud as you are
- I mean, it's like but What would even the recommendation be? well over winery This is what we'd really
- like to see this Take and and that that leads me to say that I mean I think that I
- I think that it is evidently completely outside of their hands in the sense that we couldn't come up
- with, hey, in six months, we hope this. No, no, right. It's not our job to manage their job. And nor
- am I suggesting that you suggest that. I'm also thinking aloud off of your thought, right, is that I
- think that that's a really good
- test for whether or not, if you could create a remediation plan, then it wasn't outside of their hands.
- We can't create a remediation plan, so it's clearly outside of their hands. I guess if that's the feeling,
- I think what you could do is separate out the Oliver Winery and recommend approval of the tax abatement
- due to the noncompliance was
- due to factors beyond the control of the company. Saying that we're recognizing they're not making their
- goals, because I don't think there's a way to not recognize that, but to say, hey, but we discussed
- with the company and we found factors beyond their control. And that's the recommendation to the county.
- When they can infuse THC into the honey meat, they will.
- But I also think that the indicators that the market might be favoring is positive, and that the investments
- that they've made via this tax abatement have allowed them to position themselves well for that. And
- so I recognize that we're still, as a county, taking on risk. And I mean, I also think that we should
- state that out, you know, forthright. But of a couple of years where, realistically, the investment
- is, I think that we're really putting in here
- Greg, you have any thoughts? Well, I've been on the Economic Development Commission off and on for over
- 20 years. And this has always been a perennial question that we have, which is basically very few firms
- that have ever come before us have been in any form of strict compliance. Because the metrics that are
- used to originally grant the abatement
- are kind of a necessity, they tend to be pretty aspirational. And what they don't capture very well
- are changes beyond the control of the individual companies that happen. And we know that, for instance,
- that alcohol consumption, irrespective of things like THC infusion, is declining significantly in the
- country. So challenges like this for the company are not
- is certainly not unexpected to me. And I think that we would do best to do what we've always done in
- these circumstances, which is we can forward to the county council. We wanna show the county council
- that we've done our job and our due diligence. And we need to note that there are shortfalls
- or discrepancies. But what we've done in the past is said that, yeah,
- You know, there are changes in the industry that are going on and the company is making a good faith
- effort to address that. Agreed. And then what we would do is with regard to the five that we're finding clients
- separate those out from a vote or from a winery vote would then say the reason they're not in compliance
- is outside, we find that it's outside of their control. Would that be a separate form that we sign?
- What I did with the one that you have, I just I separated out, I took all of the winery and I put it
- down in its own category and I said approve the tax evadement and that the
- that the noncompliance was due to factors beyond the control of the company, if that's what you so choose.
- I would move, or do we have a motion? Do we want to talk about Prevelli too?
- I think I say that and then now own the responsibility of saying something. But I think Greg's point
- is sort of sustained here, which is that we are seeing economic public benefit in this case, exceeding
- in one area from where we thought.
- We have any sense though, have they given any information of why the, why there was a, because their
- salaries are higher, but their employees are far less, so. I think the last time, two years ago when
- they made a presentation, they kind of went through it. The company presented, hey, you know,
- we are higher, we are upgrading our equipment a little quicker than we thought we were going to, which
- is going to lead to less employees, but we're paying them more because we need more skills.
- Yeah, so with that, I have nothing else to say, sorry. Just making sure we did. I would move that we
- approve with the added comment for all of our winery recommendations to the county council.
- Is there a second? Craig seconded, but he was muted.
- I got busted seconded. All right. We'll have a roll call. Mr. Schultz. Yes. Mr. Sorry. Yes. Mr. Travis.
- Yes. Motion is approved 3 to 0. Thank you, Mr. Smith for for helping us work through that. I really
- do appreciate it. And we absolutely
- I appreciate your business and the fact that you guys are doing everything very competitive and in a
- stressful market right now. I appreciate you guys too. Thank you very much for your understanding. I
- know we're definitely frying. We want the sales to be there for sure. I'm very optimistic for sure.
- Great. Come out and try a spritz. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Appreciate it. Have a good evening.
- All right. Now it is time to approve the minutes according to my agenda. Yes. All right. We have minutes
- from the last two meetings, which one was August 9th, 2024, and one was June 17th, 2024. You recall
- we didn't quite have a meeting last year, which is
- My fault? I'll take it. I went on vacation. You're not allowed to do that, Jeff. Ever. That's OK. I
- had a great time. You did have a great time. I saw the pictures. All right. I seem to recall that it
- was me that was on vacation. I don't remember it being your fault at all. Anyways. That was a heck of
- a vacation. Didn't you go to Germany?
- started in Amsterdam and up in Vienna. It was a heck of a vacation. No regrets. You're here. I second.
- Motion to approve the minutes. I will second that. All right. Roll call. Commissioner Schultz. Yes.
- Sorry. Yes. Commissioner Travis. Yes. Motion is approved. Three to zero.
- Right on time. That's right. All right. Any comments for the good of the order? When is our next meeting?
- Next year? Hopefully not. Hopefully we get another tax abatement request prior to that and we will schedule.
- Great. Excellent. All right. I'm going to get something for you guys to sign. All right. Well,
- with that, we are adjourned.