COUNCILMEMBER	PRESENT	ABSENT
Councilmember Tornatta	X
Councilmember Sutton	X
Councilmember Abell	X
Councilmember Goebel	X
Councilmember Raben	X
Councilmember Wortman		X
President Winnecke	X

President Winnecke: Would you please stand and join in the Pledge of Allegiance, please?

President Winnecke: Good afternoon. Its nice to see folks here that are interested in contributing to the discussion on the tax phase-in guidelines. What we have before us today is a 37 page document prepared by Councilman Tornatta. It is quite detailed, it offers distinct requirements and guidelines that companies must meet in order to be eligible for a tax phase-in. As we consider the suggestions by Councilman Tornatta, I would offer that I believe some form of guidelines are important, however, I believe that we must be cautious and not create guidelines that are so cumbersome we create an obstacle to economic development. I think there’s a fine line between holding companies accountable for their tax obligations and creating an impediment to economic development. I hope we don’t cross that in this process today. Since we do have several people here to speak on this issue and more walking in, I would like to lay out just a few rules so that everyone can be heard in the allotted time that we have. First, I’d like to limit each speaker to his or her remarks, no more than three minutes in length. We will hold a sign up for one minute and a sign up for 30 seconds and we’ll call time at the end of the three minutes. I’d like Councilmembers, if possible, to refrain from asking questions or offering comments either in support of or against the position that anyone takes before us. I would ask that you hold those comments or questions until after everyone in the audience has had an opportunity to make their presentation and we’ll open up to Council discussion and questions after that. And for clarification, we will not be voting on this document today. I anticipate we will have many different opinions that will be expressed here this afternoon. I believe it would be most prudent for the Council to consider each position and return at a later meeting for either more debate or a vote on this document or a revised document. And we’ll also be passing out a piece of paper for people to sign and I would ask that when you begin your remarks if you would state your name and either your company or organization that you might represent so we have that for the record, that would be great. I’m not sure how many would like to speak but I know a number of you would. Mr. Coker, would you like to begin?

David Coker: My name is David Coker, I’m president of the Vanderburgh County Taxpayers’ Association. And I have not seen this 37 page document. Virtually all I’ve seen are four of these sheets that pertain to personal property, real property, tax phase-in application for residential in distressed areas, and residential in economic revitalization. Someone sent these to me and this is all I’ve had access to, but I do have a few thoughts. The first one being, it might be worthwhile to look at the environmental record of any company that might potentially be coming into this area. I recall a few years ago in the ConAgra circumstance in Posey County, we did a little profile on the environmental record of ConAgra and the Beatrice Corporation, which was a division of them, and come to find out, you know, that they had one of the largest environmental cleanups, that they ended up paying for something like 69 million dollars. It was a Woburn, Massachusetts situation. And then ConAgra had a number of environmental problems themselves as a corporate entity. That’s one thing. As for revitalization of real property in residentially distressed areas, it might be interesting to know whether or not any of this property is destined to become Section Eight federally subsidized housing. Because, you know, basically, its going to be subsidized and it doesn’t seem probably right to give somebody a tax break on one hand, while at the other hand, the federal government is, you know, paying for the rent. A couple of other things that came to mind, it would be interesting to know whether or not the employees of a proposed firm contributed to a political action committee for political purposes. And whether those monies were used for local races or federal races. I think that might be something that we would be interested in knowing and finally, its been said that in the past, certain questions have been asked about what kind of corporate citizen is this company. Do they contribute to the arts? Do they support education? Do they, you know, do they contribute in some way to non-profit organizations? It might be interesting to know what their philanthropic behavior is in other places where they’re located. Are they responsible corporate citizens, basically. Those are some of the observations and I’d like to see a copy of the report at some point, if possible. That’s all. Thanks.

President Winnecke: Thank you. Its on the Internet. Who else? I know several of you want to speak. Ken?

Ken Robinson: My name is Ken Robinson, I’m executive director of Vision-e, Evansville Regional Economic Development Corporation. My comments are directed towards the proposed tax phase-in guidelines for Vanderburgh County and represent the views of someone who has been involved in economic development promotion and facilitation for over 20 years. This ordinance, as written, will have a negative impact on our ability to attract jobs and investment to sites and buildings in Vanderburgh County and could hamper our ability to work with existing companies wishing to expand within the county. Site selection is a process of elimination. The prospect is looking for ways to take you off the list. Their goal is to get their list of potential sites or communities down to a manageable size and work in depth with the two or three candidate locations that meet the client’s requirements. Our job is to make sure that we get on as many lists as possible, then to do everything within our power to make us the preferred community. This proposed set of guidelines and rating systems will, in my opinion, inhibit us from even getting on the initial list. Prospective companies are looking for sites or buildings in a business-friendly community where all their keys costs, business factors can be justified. Competition for jobs is fierce. And if we fall short on any one of these factors, we will be eliminated. My concern is that if a prospect determines that our local tax phase-in requirements are restrictive or difficult to work with as compared to other communities, we will not get on the short list. If a prospect is determined to come to this area, they will most likely approach nearby communities with site location requirements and we will never get the opportunity to promote the advantages of a Vanderburgh County site or building. In fact, I was told when St. Joe County in South Bend added this type of language to their tax abatement ordinance, economic development deals dried up. When I spoke to other economic development directors around the state about this issue, they indicated this would shut down any attraction efforts and would stifle development. Economic development is also an attitude. I encourage you to develop a set of tax phase-in guidelines that projects a positive attitude that Vanderburgh County is open for business. I would also encourage you to develop the guidelines in such a way that it provides you, as elected officials, maximum flexibility and the ability to deal with each proposal on a case by case basis. I’m asking for your help in this matter and commit to work with you to develop the best set of economic development tools in the region. We deserve nothing less. Thank you.

Kim Howard: Hi. I’m Kim Howard. I am here for the Chamber of Commerce for Matt Meadors who had another meeting and a conflict that he couldn’t get out of. And I have a letter, I have copies for everybody here of the letter that was written by Matt. In the letter Matt says:

“I’m writing to express my strong opposition to the resolution currently under consideration by the Vanderburgh County Council to establish criteria and guidelines regarding the granting of tax phase-in to business and industry seeking to invest in Vanderburgh County.

The proposed resolution mandates that construction contractors and subcontractors performing work associated with a company or project receiving tax phase-in must pay a “common construction” wage, and must conduct random drug testing of its workers. This type of language evokes a strong, negative reaction from the business community. It will be viewed by many business owners, site locators, and other key decision makers as anti- business and, therefore, our community will be seen in the same light. Many of these decision makers will simply remove Vanderburgh County from the list of considered sites. In a highly competitive global economy, where we compete community against community, state against state, and nation against nation for investments and desirable, good-paying jobs, this is not the message we want to send, not how we want to be viewed, and not the end result we are striving to achieve.

The Vanderburgh County Council presently enjoys tremendous flexibility in its decision-making process regarding the consideration and awarding of tax phase-in to applicants. This flexibility allows the Council to make decisions based on the merit and potential of each individual applicant within the context of the community’s economic conditions and/or strategic vision at any particular period in time. It is a competitive advantage the Council enjoys over other communities. It is counter-intuitive and counter-productive to pass a resolution that will restrict the Council’s decision-making flexibility and/or options, and undermine one of our community’s competitive advantages.

We need to send a clear message that Vanderburgh County is business friendly; that we value investments and desirable, good-paying jobs. And, we need to ensure our elected officials enjoy maximum flexibility and options in the decision-making process. This resolution does neither, and is bad public policy.”

Evan Beck: Good afternoon. My name is Evan Beck. I’m here as president of Woodward Commercial Realty and also Woodward Development and Construction. I thank you for your time this afternoon on a very serious subject in our opinion. Again, as some previous speakers have indicated, I’ve had a limited amount of time to dissect the document. I received a copy of it this Monday evening of this week. But through my review it became an absolute top priority to only focus on this document for the rest of the work week before and leading up to this meeting today. I will commend the leaders of the community for trying to indoctrinate a new term for tax abatement and tax phase-in. I think that’s a very productive term in how this is viewed in the community light. Its very important that we remain flexible, that we remain competitive in how we attack economic development opportunities that this county has brought forth and the future. Our companies have been very fortunate in involving itself with two very successful projects in the Accuride world headquarters located on Evansville’s east side and then more recently, Graham Packaging located in the Vanderburgh Industrial Park. Neither of those times did we, as a company, actually put in a recommendation for tax abatement. It was the tenant that came to us requesting that as an incentive. But the most important aspect is that we maintain the ability to see that when we look across the table at these prospects, that it’s their perception and their perspective that’s most important. Its not anyone in this room, its their perception and their perspective, will they locate in Vanderburgh County or in the city limits of Evansville. Its all about retention, expansion and development. In my opinion, the language that’s currently being considered for this document would be like the death penalty for Vanderburgh County and the future of economic development. It seems to me that the language in the document is trying to control how the pie is potentially sliced. In my opinion, if this language is approved, there will be no pie to slice. We may have a document to sit back and be proud of, but then no deals to talk about in the future. And that is very concerning to us as a company and also as a community leader. There is some language in the document that, in my opinion, leaves a very open mind to interpretation. Where this group today may interpret the document one way, two, four, eight years from now, it could be interpreted in a very different way, and in my opinion, its very risky as we move into the future. Things that concern me the most are the restrictive business practices section of the document, which are found in the guidelines and criteria and definitions part of the document. Most important, as we go through today’s discussion, I’m here requesting that this document be rejected in its current form. We would be open to any requests in the future to have any discussions in an open forum with any of you here today. Thank you for your time and consideration.

Richard Lamb: Good afternoon. I’m Richard Lamb. I’m with the challenged properties here in Evansville along with RCI Construction Management, Reddinger Constructors. We have developed two properties in the Vanderburgh Industrial Park as spec properties. Both tenants have come in and asked for tax phase-ins. We worked locally with our own developments as well as nationally with other clients. We self perform a considerable amount of our own work and we subcontract other work out as well. When we subcontract the work out, we go out to the lowest most responsible bidder and each bidder performs the project based on his own merit. We let the market establish the rate we pay our employees. We need new taxpayers in Vanderburgh County as you all know. We need to do what we can to develop that new taxpayer base. New businesses want to be welcome when they come to Evansville, Vanderburgh County. This proposal, proposed ordinance, in my opinion, will stifle growth and stop economic development. How the construction is performed should not have any effect on how any business would benefit from these phase-ins. As a developer, we fight for every penny and reduction of cost to make our project attractive to a prospective client. These restrictive business practices that are mentioned are going to be expensive, to say the least, and the facts prove it. They will increase costs. And I urge you as a developer and as a taxpayer in Vanderburgh County that we establish guidelines that will be productive and conducive to business and don’t make it something that is horrendous and have a negative effect on our economic growth. Thank you.

J. R. Gaylor: Good afternoon, my name is J. R. Gaylor, I’m president of C.E.O. of Associated Builders and Contractors of Indiana. We’re a state and national organization of builders and contractors in the commercial and industrial sector. Representing local contractors, we rise in major concern about some of the same provisions and the requirements, particularly the common wage requirement. First of all, I’d like you to think about what that’s doing right now in the public sector in your community. As you know, common wage law applies to any public job over $150,000. If you’ve looked recently, the wages that you’re paying for public projects appear to be very inflated compared to the market place already. For example, and I’m most familiar with the electrical trade, the common wage paid to electricians in your county currently are almost $80,000 a year. Our surveys show the market, the truly common wage is about $50,000 for electricians. The Indiana Department of Commerce shows that about $43,000 a year is what is paid to the typical construction worker. So my first point is, I’m not sure that your county is getting really your bang for your buck in regards to current use of common wage on public projects. I also looked at the number of public projects that your county has done; all public projects in this county for this year, there’s only been nine public projects. That’s counting city, schools, county work and so forth. For your size of population and in other parts of the state, it would appear that possibly these inflated wages are already chilling economic development in the public sector. Just to give you a comparison, Boone County, a growing county, much less population, their public wage expenditure so far this year is 103 million dollars. In Hamilton County, 39 million dollars for public construction. Those are all being paid with common wages, not the inflated wages, so my suggestion is you might be a little bit concerned that the public common construction wage system is really not getting your bang for your buck for taxpayers at this point. Secondly, if you mandate that for private work, I can guarantee you that will poison economic growth. It will drive businesses away if you require someone to build these projects to pay $10 to $15 a man hour more, you will poison economic development. I can give you two examples in closing of St. Joe County where I was personally involved in two projects. Two years ago there was a five million dollar expansion project. They have the same ordinance that you’re considering. A company wanted to expand five million dollars worth of work. They ended up moving and building a new facility in a next door county because of this wage requirement there. And just two weeks ago I got a call from a Dallas contractor, again St. Joe County, wanting to build a 50 million dollar distribution center there. They couldn’t believe this ordinance was in place. They said, where else can we go? They’re going to Ft. Wayne, Allen County, and passing up South Bend, St. Joe. I would suggest you let the free enterprise market work for your county. Thank you, sir.

Paul Green: Mr. Chairman, my name is Paul Green. I’m with the Southwestern Indiana Building Construction Trades Council. I came to this meeting today basically just to hear what was going on with this resolution and I sat that back there and I heard all this testimony. The two projects that were discussed by Mr. Beck were both done on what would have been common construction wage prices. Both of those projects were done union. And the numbers that Mr. Gaylor put out there, about $80,000 a year for a wage earner in construction, which I’m quite familiar with, too, I’m also president of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, and I’m an electrician by trade, I’m quite disappointed to find out that I haven’t been paid what I should have been. I haven’t made $80,000 as an electrician since I’ve been in the electrical trade. Electricians here make around $50,000 under the common wage. A lot of the testimony and a lot of the things that I’ve heard here today just aren’t true. The projects that are done here now, not necessarily in Vanderburgh County, but in southwestern Indiana, the vast majority of them are already done union. And I use the term union because that is where most of the common construction wage is set because that’s the most common wage paid. The reason that it is the common wage is because it is the common wage. The vast majority of projects done in Evansville and Vanderburgh County are done union, private and public, and that is the common wage. This thing, the – Accuride, Graham Packaging, those projects were done union. The entire project that was done at the Target was done under a PLA, which was done union. The common construction wage does not stifle anything in any county. The one project, the Wal-Mart on the west side, we were low bidder on that project. We had a contractor who was actually low bidder, union contractor, and they rejected us because we were union. But that’s just Wal-Mart. So I can give you dozens of examples and I would also love to make time to meet with any of you to argue these points and to show you that the common construction wage does not stifle any projects that would come to Vanderburgh County. This is just not true. It seems that whenever an ordinance or a resolution or anything comes up that gives the working family a chance to make a decent wage, send their kids to college, have decent health and welfare, have a decent pension, that everybody jumps up in arms over it. And I was very disappointed to hear that the Chamber of Commerce is against substance abuse testing in the workplace in Vanderburgh County. Thank you.

President Winnecke: Thank you. Anyone else who would like to speak to this before we open it up for discussion among Councilmembers? Okay. Who would like to start? Troy?

Councilmember Tornatta: I’m right here. Thank you for all the comment. I did get some calls. I kind of expected more calls because this is an important document to have and I really appreciate what was said and what has been said, but would always appreciate more things that are concerns of not only our construction people but our citizens in general. In looking back at, we’ve had a meeting, myself, Mr. Winnecke and Ms. Abell, have gone over some things so that the document you see might not be exactly the one that we’ve come up with and I know there still will be some revisions and amendments to the bill. But just to go over a couple of points and then I’ll go over a couple of ideas I have and then we can move on to the next speaker, first of all, I have heard common construction wage and that has been a major sticking point for a lot of people. The common construction wage, I.C. 5-16-7, I believe, as established in our state code and has been brought up, it is essentially for public monies. All these monies that we are allowing in a tax phase-in would be public monies. We have the taxpayer at heart when we do these type of issues. So I thought that would be an important thing to look at in the document. The common construction wage is applicable to non-union contractors as well as union contractors and I think that should be implemented because it is not a union/non-union issue, it is an issue on do we pay our people and do we respect our workers in Vanderburgh County. And that’s something that I wanted to get out. Is it fair? I talked to a tax phase-in recipient and he thought that that was not his concern whatsoever when I asked him about that issue. So that was not – there were some issues. I put in there something about diversity because I think diversity in our workforce is paramount. I think we should hold standards. I talked about drug testing. I want to get rid of drugs in Vanderburgh County and anyway that I can do that job, then I’m all for it. Does it – is it too stringent a requirement? That’s up for, something that I’ll talk about in just a minute. Guidelines are guidelines. This is a guideline supplement. I want to have a more guideline structured document that we can use as a way to get us from point A to point B when we’re talking about tax phase-in. Is it too strong? We’ll talk about that later. Companies must sell themselves; to get a company a ten-year tax abatement gratis and not have them sell themselves to this Council and to the Vanderburgh County people is not what I’m after and not what I came up with when I wrote this – assisted in writing this document. There were a lot more people that went into this than just me, as we’ve mentioned before. Tax phase-in is an important part and I realize that. I’m a business person. But maybe I think about the end-user, which is the person that’s doing the job, the person that’s making – making from the ground up. I’m not so much thinking of the person that reaps the benefit of building the building, collecting the rent. And its not that I want to ignore that person, but when I think about the person that’s building the building, I want to make sure that don’t have an issue like we have with Wal-Mart, where we’re having people come in from outside, who might not be licensed, who we have to patrol constantly, who might not build a quality building. And so this is my way of trying to say that we do want a person to be paid well, we want a person to come in and do a good job and, you know, most of these topics are not issues. But I don’t want it to be an issue in Vanderburgh County. Something that was brought to me is to have a tax phase-in panel to look at this document and I would propose, we’ve had a three person panel on the County Council. I would propose that we do look to have an ad hoc panel that would essentially have a say in this document and I would be fine with presenting that. And some of the people in this room would be obvious candidates to sit on that panel and to go through and create the best document for Vanderburgh County, and make sure that we are coming out with a pro-business yet with a pro-Vanderburgh County document. Thank you.

Marsha Abell: I just wanted to tell the Council that I did get an email from Bill Pedtke at the Home Builders Association, which I’ll be happy to share with you. He had about five comments and I’ll pass it over and you can submit it to the Council if you wish to.

President Winnecke: Other comments or questions from members of the Council? Mr. Goebel?

Councilmember Goebel: Mr. Winnecke, I was wondering if any record has been kept over past phase-ins that have been grante? How many of those grants have been honored or given work to the building trades or union work, what the percentage is right now of abatements given in the past? Is there anyway we can find that information?

President Winnecke: I have several folks involved in this process in the last few days and I think there are several trying to quantify that, but I don’t think those figures are at anyone’s fingertips. It will take some research to do.

Councilmember Goebel: I didn’t think they would be today, but also I think perhaps when we find that information out to go farther and ask those particular businesses that moved in how important this issue was to them when they considered Vanderburgh County. As I think, I don’t know what the example was earlier, but that question was raised.

Councilmember Raben: Mr. President, I think that putting together a document like this is an excellent start and we’ve been talking about this for so long in trying to look at revamping and getting our tax phase-in process refined in such a way that we can feel comfortable that what we grant to one. If the next company comes along that’s similar, that we would consider it in the same fashion and anytime we can get to a point where we’re doing that type of thing, I think that’s a very positive step for our community as a whole. And, you know, there are a number of things in this proposal here, a number of new things, and I suggested at our last meeting that, you know, it would probably take, we’re probably looking at 60 to 90 days to really look at thoroughly, look at this particular document and do it the justice that I think it deserves. And look at all sides of it here. We’ve heard some individuals come forward today that talked about, you know, some other counties that have similar policies like this. I’d be interested, because I wasn’t aware, I would be interested in seeing what those policies are, how similar it may be to this, what the effect may have been from an economic development standpoint, and if there are some weaknesses within our particular proposal and even in our present structure that we can strengthen. I think it’s a very positive thing that we’ve got this proposal out there on our website, on the County Council website. So I hope that those who are interested in this issue will then send emails, what have you, in to give us some comments. Sandie, is it possible for them to email in to the Council to give comments?

Councilmember Sutton: Okay, so I would encourage as many who are interested in this issue to do just that because we’re trying to, at this point in time, gauge as much interest as we possibly can in this issue. Obviously, there are some here today and some who probably would like to be here who would like to comment on that, on this issue, and then as well, the time that we can take and really review this whole proposal. You know, there’s a number of different things here that I think we could spend some time with, but in the end, what we want to try to do is create a document that ultimately speaks to our interest in being a competitive community. And, you know, one of our previous County Councilmembers maybe didn’t like the whole idea of having to offer tax phase-ins and being competitive against other counties, that’s just the reality of economic development. Now, when we say that we want new companies here, other communities are saying the same thing. The companies that we have here in Vanderburgh County, other counties want those industries and industries that are in other counties, we wouldn’t mind having a few of them here in Vanderburgh County. So because we are in this competitive environment, there are some things that we naturally have to do to put ourselves in a position where we can demonstrate that we’re wanting a growth oriented community. So I think we’re taking a very positive step here and I don’t know what the next step is, Councilman Winnecke, Mr. President, what you might plan to do. You know, I guess from my perspective, if as much time as we can take to put together a very good document that represents this community, whether it’s the committee of three that has been formed up to this point, if they’re going to continue to work on this and bring something back to us, or we might, as Councilman Tornatta has suggested, open it up to some others who may want to serve or have an interest in at least providing some comments to the committee. I would suggest that the committee maybe meet with some of the different groups, maybe with some of the speakers who presented here today and bring back some of the ideas and scratch together this document, and put together a rough draft for us to consider as a Council.

President Winnecke: Thank you. Any other Councilmembers? Mr. Coker, if you can make a comment in 30 seconds or less you can have the floor.

David Coker: I just have a question, basically. I have no idea what the total amount of abated taxes of all the corporations and businesses around this community are, but my question goes to, are these people audited? Are these firms audited on a routine basis to where we are able to ascertain that they have delivered with all of the things that they said that they were when these abatements were granted in years past? I don’t know whether this is an ongoing process, but if its not, its something that probably ought to be done.

President Winnecke: We have a compliance hearing annually with every phase-in recipient that comes before the Council.

Councilmember Sutton: Its usually in the fall, Mr. Coker, about our September meeting, and we – if we find a particular company is maybe falling short of what they had promised, then we have the opportunity to bring them in to hear what their perspective is on why they’ve fallen short.

President Winnecke: Thank you, David. Just to kind of wrap up because we do have our regularly scheduled Personnel and Finance Committee meeting that will begin shortly, but I will just offer a couple observations. One, to reiterate what I said at the beginning, I think its important and its clearly the Council, I think, has the mind-set that creating guidelines are important but I think we should keep, in my opinion, the paramount concern of not creating obstacles or impediments to economic development. While I think guidelines are good and probably long overdue, we need to be cautious as to how far we go. Just sort of rhetorically, you know, if you want to extend the discussion of requiring a common construction wage because a company is receiving phase-in, I guess why wouldn’t you create other opportunities or challenges for the company as long as they’re receiving a phase-in? I think if I were a company looking to relocate here, I’d be afraid of what someone might try to do to create further business restrictions upon me as a business owner as long as I received a phase-in. Just kind of food for thought. To Councilman Sutton’s issue as to what to do next, we’ve had a number of speakers today, what I think I’d like to do is for the committee of Councilman Tornatta, Councilwoman Abell and myself to meet again, go over the notes, go over the discussion we heard today, and then I think we need to sit down with each of the major shareholders in this arena and have specific private discussions about what their concerns are and then come back, as Councilman Sutton suggested, with another draft of this document. And because scheduling is so difficult, I think to get everyone together on a big committee meeting might be more challenging, but I could see us getting together and then a series of private meetings. So I would say in the next week to ten days, the three of us would reconvene to go over what we heard today and then move forward with more private discussions with the interested shareholders. And with that, let me first thank everyone who expressed an interest in coming and coming out today. Your input is valuable to us. Its good dialogue and I think it speaks well for this body that we welcome that. Thank you for your time. And at this point, this special meeting stands adjourned.

(There being no further business to come before the Council, the meeting was adjourned at 3:30 p.m.)