- We call to order this meeting of the Monroe County Redevelopment Commission of July 15th, 2026. If we
- could please call the roll. Commissioner Martin. Present. Commissioner Kiesling. Here. Commissioner
- Jones. Present. Commissioner Tucker. Present. Is Commissioner McCarty online?
- I can't read them. TSD, can you see if Colin McCarty is online? No. All right. First item is the Currie
- profile bond discussion. Jeff, you're reading this, I'm assuming. Yes, and I think what I
- I think what triggers this this issue is the question of whether Richland Township and Ellisville will
- be merged. We will not have an answer to that until November when it goes through the election process.
- Discussing this with bond council if they are merged and there is no debt on that in that TIF district
- and that TIF district would go away.
- Uh, we currently have a bond in that TIF district, but it was one through with, with, with the cook
- group and we were accelerating the payments to pay that off early because the short, the short explanation
- to the long history is, uh, COVID hit and they decided to go a different direction. Right?
- I've reached out to representatives of the company, of Cook, to kind of get their thoughts on them.
- I let them, and when we look at the claims, you'll notice that there is a very small claim in this packet
- for payment on that bond. So we're not fully paying it off. And so we wanted to alert you to that because
- that was a discussion that we had had over the previous few years and why we are deviating from that
- for at least the short term to kind of
- get wrapper heads around whether we want to pay that off or not. I did speak with Lisa Ridge and I think
- we're going to try to explore a possibility if you guys wish us to to you know maybe do some kind of
- bonding including this district and the west side to finish up the Curry reconstruction project. That
- seemed to be one way where we can maintain that in that
- TIF district while still having a project that would serve the district. But as, and clearly we want
- to hear back from the company to kind of get a feel for what they want to do and how that is. I think
- there's currently about $10,000 left in this bond. So that's why our bond payments less than $200. Now,
- since it's changed ownership,
- responsibility would still stay with cook they still are they still have are the ones who have the the
- amount that we spent out of it right and we haven't we didn't spend that much out of it we essentially
- we did the bond closing costs is essentially all the all the all that we're funding in that district
- because the question would be what if we would want to fund more things in that district
- I think if we want to fund more things in that district, we need to have some... I guess I don't really
- want to get involved into whether... I mean, clearly if the merger doesn't happen, then we're fine.
- If the merger happens and we don't have debt, then that's when the issue comes. I guess I would rather
- have the debt and not gamble on
- and that's really not the right word either, but not take the risk that if the merger does occur and
- we lose the district when really we'll know that answer in four or five months and we could do nothing
- or we could do something to keep that district in place. I guess my feeling is if we hear back from
- the company cook that they really
- Just want the bond to end and I think there's reasons the rdc should want that bond to end because it's
- got a high An amount that could be pulled out of it the fact that it that hasn't it's it's still basically
- on the books I think that that's something to look at I mean which was why we were trying to pay it
- off as quickly as we could But I also don't know if the curry profile project or the curry reconstruction
- project is necessarily
- that we want to go through the expense of issuing a bond form, right? We'd have to look at the numbers
- and that was kind of next. Okay, all right. Any other questions on that issue? Move on to item three,
- the tax abatement application. Yes, and this has gone through the county council. And by statute, the
- county commissioners review it because it's in the TIF district.
- Kind of wanted to give you guys a heads up and let you let you know what's one of the things that is
- happening in that TIF district. This this company currently has its scantia is the is how the company
- has indicated that they want it to be pronounced. He also indicated a way where it said in Latin that
- is different than that. But they are going to essentially they're going to go from 40 employees to 70
- employees and they're going to increase their payroll by.
- over $2.3 million, the average value of this real estate abatement is $10,000. So over the course of
- 10 years, they are going to be paying $100,000 less in taxes over that 10-year period, but their wages
- are going to go from $4.2 million to $6.5 million.
- Is this a graduated or is it fixed for the term? It'll start out at 100% and then year 10 it'll be...
- Do we have an estimate of how much of an impact it has on the TIF revenue? Well, it will not decrease
- the TIF revenue because what they're doing doesn't exist. Their current facility, which this is an expansion
- on their current facility, will still be in place. That is still be taxable. This won't lower that value.
- this would not have any negative effect it would just the implementation of the new development will
- will take a little bit longer. Is that common for a owner of a building to have a to apply for an abatement
- for it? Is that commonplace?
- Yes and no. I guess we have several statements where the owner of the building also owns, which is the
- case here, the owner of the business also owns the LLC that owns the real estate, and that has to do
- with, I assume, taxes. But it's not uncommon for the business and the person who owns the property to
- be related, or the same person,
- but under different. Okay, that's where I kind of assume that might be the case, but I. I would say,
- we probably have, I don't know, seven or eight different abatements out there, and I would say probably
- half of them have this kind of arrangement. Okay. They've been notified. Okay.
- item are minutes. We have minutes for the meeting of March 25th and May 20th. These were in the packet
- that was distributed for our prior meeting which got canceled. Does anybody have any additions or corrections
- to these minutes? I would just say that I spoke with
- And she wanted me and so in the hard copy package to add to the minutes of May 20th that there was no
- meeting in April of 2026. And I added that under the roll call and call to order section of those minutes.
- People start looking for the minutes for the meeting that we didn't have. And that change would have
- been made today.
- Any other additions or corrections? I assume I can do these together. Correct. Do I have a motion to
- approve the minutes of March 25th and May 20th? I move to approve that we approve the minutes of March
- 25th and May 20th, 2020. I don't have any corrections. We have a second.
- I'll second that. We have a motion and a second. Excuse me, I want to make one correction. Yes. It probably
- ought to be noted that I was absent from the March 25th. It doesn't say whether I'm a member of it or
- not, but I think it probably ought to say that I was absent. On the May 20th? The 25th. March 25th.
- I was there on the 20th. And typically I will indicate who is present and not indicate who is not. Yeah,
- he just indicates who's here. Okay. All right. We have a motion and a second to approve these minutes.
- Jeff, you want to call the roll? Mr. Martin? Yes. Mr. Kiesling? Yes. Mr. Jones? Yes. Motion is approved.
- Three to zero.
- Next item are the claims. We have essentially our bond claims this month, the fire truck claim.
- And then I, well they are the town of Holtzville fire truck for $249,045.28.
- The bond of 2015 for $193,551.25. Our bond for 2020 at $323,606.25. The Hunter Valley 2021 bond for 1,230.
- the County Bridge investment bonds of 2023, $56,384.80, and the 2018 Cook bond for $133.25. Jeff explained
- the issue with the Cook bond. I had a question. Why do we end up with this County Bridge improvement
- bonds? How does that come back to us at that amount?
- Well, that is the bond that was for the Fulton Pike Bridge. And we had pledged half of our TIF revenue
- from the Fulton Pike TIF towards payment of that expense. I think if you look at the packet, the RDC
- was paying $76,000, a little over seven out of Fund 4922.
- And the highway department out of the, I believe that's the major bridge fund is paying 633,000 in another
- 119,000. So they are paying the bulk of that, which was expected. Right. And the other one is the Hunter
- Valley bond. There we had, we have paid
- some on work for that and we'll discuss that project. This is the second fire truck payment this year?
- I think this year, yes. Does anybody have any questions about these? Already mentioned.
- Is this all we're paying on the fire truckers? Do we have some more to pay? I forgot. We pay twice a
- year that amount and we're going to pay it for five years and I believe this is year, this would have
- been ending year two is my memory. I was just trying to, my brains weren't working to think about it.
- I didn't see any documentation. So this is the second payment, right? The second payment this year.
- Right. I believe we made payments last year. We did.
- We paid a million of the 2.5 million total. Yes. Any other questions? Do I have a motion to approve?
- I move to approve the claims for today in the amount of $943,950.83. Okay. We have a motion and a second
- to approve claims.
- In the amount of $943,950.83 distributed, as I had stated earlier, presentation of these claims. Jeff,
- please call the roll. Commissioner Martin? Yes. Commissioner Kiesling? Yes. Commissioner Jones? Yes.
- Motion is approved, three to zero. Do you have the signature copies? Yes.
- that to yours please. Okay next on our agenda we have staff comment. You are the staff you get to comment.
- I think after I sent this off Commissioner Martin asked about for an update on the Hunter Valley Road
- project. I reached out to Steve Kreider and
- Who is the developer for that project and asked him what his plans were? and he sent something back
- an email that indicated that they did not get their all their permitting in place prior to April 1st
- and so they could not do any of the tree removal during during the because of the bat season and so
- that he anticipates that
- when that window reopens in October, they're gonna begin their construction project, and they believe
- that they are gonna target substantial completion during the fourth quarter of 2027. He also mentioned
- that he thinks his costs are going to go up somewhat, and so he may come back to the RDC to kind of
- have a conversation about how to handle that. And so, I would anticipate that at some point he may come
- back and we'll have
- discussion. Interesting to note that succession of delays is increasing our cost on the project above
- what we anticipated, which often happens. And it would be nice if we could figure out ways to get an
- alignment with
- our upfront expectations and the actuality of the by being able to push people to meet specific time
- deadlines or have a negative consequence on their activity because it's easy for them to delay. And
- I think Lisa Ridge would have to be part of any conversation about that because I think the major delay
- on this one is something that she has dealt with on several projects of her own and
- Every time I looked at it, I asked her about it, and she's like, this is not out of the realm of what
- she's hearing people are going through for getting that permit. The difficulty is North of here. Yes.
- But it becomes a significant problem over time that you end up having to pay for somehow. Any other
- things you wanted to bring up?
- That's the big one. I think the other one is, I assume that you guys are comfortable with me working
- with Lisa to see if the Curry Pike reconstruction, if that makes, if issuing debt for that makes sense,
- probably reach out to the financial advisor to get their input on that as well. Okay. And commissioner
- comments. Brad, let me start with you since you're right there. No comment.
- The only thing I wanted to bring up, I've got this residential TIF thing and I've been trying to figure
- out. When I went to the fair, I took some circuitous routes to get there just because I could.
- And it occurred to me that if we can find an area that is big enough, that does have predominantly
- residential, has a little bit of commercial opportunity, that we might be able to make something work.
- So I kind of scoped out the area between 48
- Are you south or north of 48? What is west of the north-south road west of the airport? West of the airport.
- West of the airport, the north-south road. The major one over there. I'm trying to think of the name.
- I can't remember the name of it now. Heart Street's part of the curvy. Yeah, that's... Heart Street's
- immediately east of the... Heart Street would be the road. Basically, curvy turns into Heart Street,
- right? Right. So that's not it. It's the north-south road, which is west of the airport. That mile marker
- is out there.
- the name I'll know it but I can't that up again well there so that's an area roughly three miles wide
- maybe four miles wide and then go south down maybe all the way to like May Road so it's a big area but it's
- to be 99% residential at the present time. But it does have some very large acreage. It has some areas
- closer to town that could see development. I think there's a way to probably get a sewer into part of
- it, either building a new plant or looking on to city. The city actually owes the sewer district about
- 40 lots out there.
- service at this point. You're thinking Garrison Chapel. But that's an area where we might look at a
- district that could last for maybe 30 years or something like that. But it's going to take some study
- to figure out whether that's even feasible because it is such a large area in terms of
- what the impact would be on county tax revenues, if we take out some of the additional revenues that
- would be coming in, what our obligations would be for other kinds of infrastructure in the area. We
- get significant development there. I'm sure that there have to be some fire improvements in that area.
- But I think that's the only area I could think of where we might have
- opportunity for commercial development along 48 on the north along 45 going cutting right through it
- what was your southern boundary again probably down to May Road or something like that pretty far south
- it might be an area that's worth taking a look at and what I would like to do is get the the Commission's
- for me to start working with the county surveyor on doing a little mapping and trying to get some of
- the tax data for parcels we would identify to see whether that kind of thing is possible. Looking at
- historically what the tax increments have been in that area. And we had in the past looked at around
- the airport. Right. Which this is, but we didn't go that far south, right?
- We want that for west. Sounds familiar. And it could be that, I mean that would be one of the areas
- where we could pick up some industrial development in that area. Where's north of 48 to it? North of
- 48 Graceland Township? Yeah. That would be, I guess reorganized. Well north of 48 we wouldn't worry about.
- We would be in it. South of that would be Van Buren. Essentially, I think it all would be in, some of
- it might be in Bloomington Township. Could be that it's all in Van Buren Township. I'm not sure.
- But I think, I mean, we would need to work with the surveyor to get a list of parcels, look at the
- value of those parcels and how that's changed over the last few years to know if we're getting enough
- growth there to even start building any money coming in. And then check with the zoning stuff concerning
- what kind of commercial potential is there that's already zoned, what the zoning is on the residential
- areas, whether there are some other areas where we could get
- higher densities, which is certainly going to be needed to get affordable housing kinds of things. But
- I think it's worth taking a shot. It's the only one I can think of. And I think there's also some probably
- infrastructure needs right now in that area. I know there's some drainage and those kind of issues that
- the county needs that we need to resolve. And so that would be part of what we could
- You know, I think there's a more likelihood there. The only other one I can think of is picking up the
- Smithville Sanders Sanders Smithville area going south lake. But I don't think that that's as likely
- to get any kind of commercial development as the areas off to the west southwest. When you say commercial,
- are you including like a multifamily or are you talking
- A possible multifamily, but I'm mostly thinking about commercial business. Employment centers and things
- like that. Yeah. Yeah. But I think it's worth it. I mean, I think it's worth taking a look at to see
- just what might be possible there. If no one really objects, I will start contacting the surveyor and
- planning and see if we can get a little data about what might be possible.
- He might be interested, I haven't talked to him recently, but he's looking for stuff. Certainly we'd
- have to get, a lot of people would have to line up behind him before we could actually. Oh, absolutely.
- But I think if we don't continue our search for residential TIF opportunity, it just isn't gonna happen.
- It's one of the few options that we've got available
- County can get behind affordable housing initiative and I will do that any other comments questions
- anything working on it that's all I can say okay all right with that I'll entertain a motion to adjourn
- I'll motion to adjourn. I second.