ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION
OF WAYNE COUNTY, INDIANA
Board Meeting Minutes
Monday, February 4, 2019
BOARD MEMBERS PRESENT:

Bolser, Frame, Golden, Leisure, Parker, Templin, Turner, Warner,Yaeger, Zaleski

BOARD MEMBERS ABSENT:Salazar

STAFF PRESENT:

Shaffer, Doty, Mitchell, Geres

GUESTS PRESENT:

Crist, Duane – Indiana American Water
Dunlap, Nick - Citizen
McClane, Brenda – Hometown Media Group
Sowers, George – EDC Attorney
Truitt, Jason – Palladium-Item

CALL TO ORDER
Board Chair Robert Warner called the meeting of the Board of Directors of the Economic DevelopmentCorporation of Wayne County, Indiana to order at 4:00 p.m. on Monday, February 4, 2019 in the EDC
board room.
APROVAL OF MINUTES
Warner stated the minutes from the January 7, 2019 board meeting were on pages 2-6 of the board
packet. Motion by Parker, second by Frame to approve the January 7, 2019 minutes as presented. Motion
carried.
TREASURER’S REPORT
February 2019 Financial Report
Templin provided the treasury report. He reported the committee met on January 31st to review theJanuary general ledger. He reported the salaries have been budgeted according to pays per month, but
the rest of the budget was divided by 12 for each month. He reported on being under budget $9,587.87
MTD and YTD. Motion by Parker, second by Turner to approve the January 2019 financials. Motion carried.
COMMITTEE REPORTS
A. Executive Committee – Warner reported the committee met on January 31, 2019 and discussed
Elder-Beerman, Opportunity Zones, and the Brady Ware and BSE Partners engagement letters.
B. Industrial Park Committee – Mitchell reported Elijah Welch was the committee chair this year andthat she would provide the Industrial Park Committee reports. She reported the committee
discussed MIP planning with Todd Thomas. He reported there are 4 wetlands that emerged becauseof broken field tile and estimates the repairs at $2,000/tile and there is a beaver dam contributing tothe wetland around the railroad and estimates that repair at $10,000. With the assistance from
Beals-Moore, bids would be prepared to review at the next committee meeting. She also reported
the staff internally reviewed reports of Phase I and found that the Environmental Phase I wascompleted 25 years ago and didn’t include an archaeological review. The committee approved
completing a new Phase I on the remaining acreage. She reported on the farm lease with Tom

Hutchings allowing him to farm the land. The Board of Works approved us to move forward withleasing it to him. Lastly, she reported on the WWRSD and that they received updated pricing fromConnersville.
EDC STAFF REPORTS
Geres – Geres reported on completing the cost of living survey, filing the business entity report, attendinga Richmond Art Museum marketing and membership committee meeting, touring the Matthews facility
with Mitchell, Shaffer, Max Worland, and Paul Lingle, working with Optivise IT to install her and Doty’s
new computers (which are laptops with docking stations,) scheduling meetings for Valerie, working withSignGrafx on a ‘land available’ sign for MIP Phase II, attending the Wayne County Area Chamber ofCommerce annual dinner with staff, Bob Warner and Larry Parker, attending the Blue Buffalo tour withstaff and Bob Warner and Chad Bolser from the board, providing a treasurer orientation to Randy Templin,and working with Webb and Associates to complete the 1099s by the deadline.
Mitchell – Mitchell reported working with the Wayne County schools on the Find A Job Friday schedule,
which is where employers come to the schools’ lunch hours to answer any questions about employment
with their company. There are 8 participants this semester. She reported on meeting with Purdue MEP
on new initiatives. She reported on completing the exit interview with the regional stellar group. She
reported the Indiana Bond Bank has a Flipping Finance Challenge where they will bring together federal
and state funding agencies.
Doty – Doty reported on working with Shaffer, Mayor Snow, and Commissioner Paust on a press release
for the former Elder-Beerman building purchase. She posted the release on our website, LinkedIn andemailed it to her media list. She reported on meeting with Angel Groves and Mary Walker of theTourism Bureau and Ed DeLaPaz of the Wayne County Area Chamber of Commerce to create a unified
response for people looking to relocate to our area. They plan to meet again to further discuss this topic
and plan to create a packet or brochure that all partners can use. She also plans to meet with morepartners to discuss ways to collaborate. She reported that Valerie and her met with the Hoosier
Opportunity partners to discuss working with OnVine Media to create short videos for companies. She
reported the marketing committee meeting is coming up on Wednesday. She reported a soft launch of
the HomeInWayne.com website will be late this week and will be a work-in-progress. Lastly, shereported on attending her first Center City Development board meeting.
Shaffer – Shaffer furthered on Geres’ report on the Cost of Living Index and added that we have awidget on our EDC website that allows individuals or employers to compare the cost of living in Wayne
County to other cities that participate in the survey. The widget will be added to the Home in Wayne
website as well. She reported new business development activity included a new lead from the East
Central Indiana Regional Partnership – Project Fulcrum, which included a two-phase RFI to complete.
She is working with four existing companies on expansion projects and completed one BRE visit. She
toured Matthews with Mitchell and Geres from staff and Max Worland and Paul Lingle from Coldwell
Banker Lingle. The EDC will be sending out an e-blast to the site selector and local business list throughMailchimp in hopes to receive leads and set up site visits for the facility. She is waiting to hear back fromthe HR team on their plan for displaced workers through July. She reported on touring Blue Buffalo withstaff, Bob Warner, and reported Chad Bolser was there with his Ivy Tech team too. They are up to 109
full-time employees and aspire to hit 160+ and will add shifts throughout 2019. They werecomplementary of the workforce and added the acquisition by General Mills should not impact anyplans locally. She reported on attending the Eastern Indiana Human Resources Association board
meeting and plans to present to the group in March on an overview of the EDC, what we do and why,

Hoosier Opportunity, Home in Wayne, Certified Work Ready Community and WorkKeys as a skills
assessment, Next Level Jobs, and the Indiana Department of Corrections initiative to certify inmates andconnect to local parole officers to find candidates for employment. Lastly, she reported the EDIT grant
ad hoc committee, which is comprised of herself, Mitchell, Bob Warner, Tim Frame, and Chad Bolser,
met to discuss changes to the wage threshold, tighten up the industry sectors, and plans on how tohandle start-up operations. She plans to draft new guidelines, send to George Sowers and thecommittee for review, then to the board for approval, and finally to the Wayne County Commissioners
for approval.
OTHER BUSINESS
A. Elder-Beerman Purchase Discussion
Shaffer reported Doty sent out communication to the board about the Elder-Beerman purchase andreminded the board she had sought and gain their approval at the September 2018 board meeting for theauthorization to enter into negotiations and a purchase agreement in order to gain control of thedevelopment of the building. She reported no funds were used from the EDC’s operating budget, that themoney would come out of the consolidated EDIT fund. The EDC will manage the utilities and vendors by
writing a claim to the county for payment. The Wayne County Buildings and Grounds department will
manage any issues and repairs. There are plans to do a walk-through again and develop a maintenanceplan. The EDC will begin to market the property and Geres will add it to the EDC website and market
digitally, similar to the work she is doing on the Matthews Aurora facility, to both the local business list
and site selector list in Mailchimp. She added the EDC, City of Richmond, and Wayne County are notintending to develop but are looking for a redeveloper and will work alongside the EB taskforce tostrategize on how to market the property. The decision to purchase the property was not the EDC’s alone,
but rather the partnership with the City of Richmond and Wayne County. Due to negative experiencesthat the city/county has had in the past on vacated properties being bought and not redeveloped, it wasdecided the risk needed to be taken to purchase the property and secure its future. She reported there
are door alarms and plans to reactivate the security system, no plans to revamp it any way, just maintainit, and she doesn’t intend to put money into it without a long-term plan. The board questioned thetimeline and when to decide if it is not a viable property and whether it should be demolished. Shaffer
stated at minimum to give two years to try and market it to a redeveloper. The board discussed the needto better inform the public that this was not an EDC decision alone, that there was a task force consistingof both city and county officials that decided on the purchase.
B. Opportunity Zone Proposal
Shaffer reported there was an additional handout on the table that described in detail what an
opportunity zone is and explained that Richmond has two tracts that have designated as Opportunity
Zones: tracts 2 and 9. The City of Richmond, Wayne County Area Chamber of Commerce, Center City
Development Corporation and EDC met together and decided to hire Thomas P. Miller and Associates, aneconomic development consulting firm, to put together a plan to help us better prepare ourselves tomarket these Opportunity Zones and will include a well articulated plan, adapt local development plans
and incentives, and identify sites to secure. She reported there are over 8,000 zones across the UnitedStates and 156 in Indiana in 83 different cities. The board asked how the zones were established and shereported there was a call for proposals and she worked with the City of Richmond to submit tracts 2 and
6 (area of the Midwest Industrial Park) but the state had the final authority and chose 2 and 9. This is atwo-phase project and the major deliverables in phase one are an asset map and land use overview andphase two will include a workshop for local businesses and investors on the key steps needed to takeadvantage of this investment opportunity. She reported the contract is for $40,000 but she is only seeking
the boards approval for a $10,000 commitment with the City of Richmond planning to contribute $25,000

and the Chamber seeking or contributing $5,000. There were discussions on whether to wait for the City’scomprehensive plan to finish up and Shaffer reported that will take 9 months and part of the opportunity
zone caveat is that for an investor to take full advantage of the plan, they must invest before the end ofthe year, so there is no time to wait for the city’s comprehensive plan to be completed. Motion by Zaleksi,second by Frame, to approve the $10,000 commitment from the EDC for the contract as presented. Yaeger
opposed. Motion carried.
C. Brady Ware and BSE Partners Engagement Letter for Audit 2018
Geres reminded the board that Jeff Jackson had resigned from the board due to the merger of Rodefeld,
Kassens, and North and Brady Ware and how that created a conflict of interest for Jennifer North tocomplete our audit as the firm completing the audit needed to be an independent firm. Being that Jeff
Jackson was on the board last year in 2018 (the year that will be audited this year,) Jennifer North reached
out to a firm in her association of accountants to engage in the audit for 2018, BSE Partners. Jennifer will
still complete all the work as she has done in the past and will review our reports internally, will create a
draft, and then send the work to BSE Partners for review and their final approval. The costs will remain inline with her 2% increase over last year’s costs with $1,500 going to BSE Partners and $4,875 going toBrady Ware. Motion by Turner, second by Bolser to approve the engagement letters as presented. Motion
carried.
ADJOURNMENT
Warner adjourned the meeting at 5:04 p.m.
NEXT BOARD MEETING – Monday, March 4, 2019
at EDC of Wayne County, Richmond, Indiana at 4:00 pm