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.