ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION
OF WAYNE COUNTY, INDIANA
Board Meeting Minutes
Thursday, June 15, 2023
BOARD MEMBERS PRESENT:Foster, Gaddis, Johnson, King, Robinson, Tanner, Turner, Zaleski

BOARD MEMBERS VIRTUAL:

Fennimore, VanDerBurgt

BOARD MEMBERS ABSENT:

Bolser, Cenova

STAFF PRESENT:

Shaffer, Doty, Fisher, Lindsey, Mitchell

GUESTS PRESENT:

Saunders, Gary – Wayne County Council
Emery, Millie – Hometown Media Group

1. CALL TO ORDER
Board Chair Sherrilyn Johnson called the meeting of the Board of Directors of the Economic Development
Corporation of Wayne County, Indiana to order at 4:01 p.m. on June 15, 2023.
2. APPROVAL OF MINUTES
a. 2023 April Minutes
Johnson stated the minutes from the April 3, 2023, board meeting need to be approved. No corrections
were noted.
Motion to approve April 3, 2023, minutes as presented by Turner, seconded by Zaleski.
Motion carried.
3. TREASURER’S REPORTa. 2023 April Financial Reports
Jim Tanner reported the Economic Development Corporation is under budget MTD by $18,335.49 andunder budget YTD by $47,138.68. We had 2-line items over budget during April due to budgeting.
Motion to approve April financials as presented by Tanner, seconded by Zaleski.
Motion carried.
b. 2023 May Financial Reports
Jim Tanner stated the Economic Development Corporation is under budget MTD by $8,528.50 and under
YTD budget by $55,667.18. Line item 1367 Employee Health Insurance showed a negative and 1369
Disability Insurance was due to Health premiums were not deducted yet; 3323 Travel Lodging and Meals
is over due to staff attending conferences, this should even out by year-end; 3343 Vehicle Insurance isover due to annual premium being paid; 3349 General Liabilities is over for the month due to annual
premiums and these should also even out by year-end; 3368 Outside Services-Cleaning is over due topaying 2 months of cleaning in May; 3373 Programming/Consultation is over due to budgeting; and4445 Office Equipment-Computers is over due to purchasing Shaffer and Mitchell’s new computers.
These items were approved in 2022 for purchase in 2023.
Motion to approve May financials as presented by Zaleski, seconded by Robinson.
Motion carried.
4. CHAIR’S REPORTJohnson stated the Executive Committee reviewed and approved EDIT Grant Compliances for 3 localcompanies. They received updates on Liberation Labs and the Viking Group. We also discussed the$500,000 allocation from the Consolidated EDIT Fund to the HELP program. Today, the EDC board is being
asked to prioritize how the allocation should be invested in Wayne County projects identified through theHELP planning process.
a. The HELP Program Priority ProjectsShaffer presented a spreadsheet to the group listing projects determined by the HELP core committee tobe considered for funding. After lengthy discussions on various HELP projects, Johnson asked the groupfor a vote on which projects the EDC should fund with the $500,000 allocation. The following projects willbe funded:
1. $50,000 to the My Community My Vision matching grant program.
2. $60,000 to Creating Places park projects.
The following communities will each receive $10,000:
Richmond, East Germantown, Economy, Dublin, Milton, and Cambridge City
3. $390,000 to the creation of a county-wide Blight Elimination Program that will be administered by theEDC.
Motion to approve $110,000 of our Consolidated EDIT allocation will go towards supporting the CreatingPlaces projects and Wayne County’s My Community My Vision project. As presented by Zaleski, seconded
be Tanner.
Motion carried.
Motion to approve $390,000 of our Consolidated EDIT allocation will go towards implementation of acounty-wide Blight Elimination Program as presented by Turner, seconded by Foster.
Motion carried.
5. EDC STAFF REPORTS
Fisher – Fisher stated that we had 102 attendees at our annual meeting this year. She continues to work on
updating Zoom Prospector with building and site changes. We are currently working with Gunty Atkins from thecounty and GIS support to update the Certified Technical Park map in the database. During the month of May shereached out to 20-25 MakeMyMove candidates that are in the “pre-approved” and “offered” status to see if they
had any questions or concerns that we could assist them with.
She also reported that we have renewed our Verizon Wireless account and have reduced our monthly rate byapproximately $40. She has started work on the 2024 Budget.
Lindsey – Lindsey reported that she submitted 3 projects to the IEDC during April and May. She said we evaluated
3 EDIT grant compliances with Executive committee and submitted 1 EDIT grant compliance package. She said
work continues with the child care program.
Doty – Doty said she spent most of her time in April and May preparing the presentation for our annual meeting.
After the annual meeting she wrote our new release, edited photographs for it, and worked on items for our social
media platform postings. She and Shaffer are looking at next steps for the Home in Wayne brand strategy to movefrom the research phase to the implementation phase of the project. She will be meeting with IronGate in thecoming weeks to discuss how we will share the new brand strategy with identified partners and stakeholders, aswell as EDC’s marketing and communication committee, and the newly formed marketing and promotion
roundtable group who are focused on ways we can join forces to strengthen Wayne County’s social media reach.
She said we believe we have found resolutions for the technical difficulties we had with the Jobs EQ portal andwill now be developing a FAQ section for the webpage. We will expand the brand through our connections anduse by partner organizations.
Mitchell – Mitchell said she met onsite with Heartland Environmental, asbestos, and environmental inspector andshe also met onsite with Patriot Engineering to review site parameters. We need to remediate the Toschlog andTalbot properties prior to doing the control burn. She reported the WWRSD industrial park seat representive,Ron Holbrook is moving from the area and his seat on the board will be replaced by someone else at SugarCreek.
She also attended the American Planning Association conference in Philadelphia.
Shaffer – Shaffer said we closed on Liberation Labs land purchase, and they have invited us to attend their
groundbreaking on June 29. She said all board members should have received an invite to this event. She reported
that we have received a lot of attention from the state with the announcement of Project Thomas which has now
been identified as Anchor Ingredient. Shaffer said she has been asked to provide a MakeMyMove program updateand reviewed information with the board. We are considering an expansion of this program to include apartnership with InVets to help recruit veterans and potentially recent college graduates not from Wayne County.
More to come on this as information is collected.
Johnson asked if there was any other business to discuss. No comments were made.
6. ADJOURNMENT
Johnson adjourned the meeting at 5:07 p.m.
NEXT BOARD MEETING – Monday, July 10, 2023, at 4:00 p.m.