Redevelopment Commission - Regular Meeting

We'll call the meeting into order. This meeting is being live streamed this evening by Under Production Multimedia.

If everyone would please rise, let's begin with the Pledge of Allegiance.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you. We'll do a roll call vote. John Spencer here. Jeff Dean here. Derek Combs is also present. We have a forum. Brings to our presentations. We have two presentations tonight. The first one is 835 Pike Street. Sarah Caffrey. Welcome.

Good evening. Hello, good evening. I am Dr. Sarah Caffrey. I'm a veterinarian and a lifelong resident of Charlestown. So I grew up here. So I practiced a little for 20 years, but I wanted to be closer to the kids. So my plan is to take this property and turn it into a small animal veterinary clinic. So I've got all the plans drawn up, the engineers and everything, and everything will fit in there. So other parts of the country have outside interest stores for animals, so they don't have a waiting room kind of area. Kind of a COVID brought a lot of that on. So it makes it very nice that you can walk into your SAMR and be checked out in there and everything. And I can do low-cost spay and neuters and vaccines. I worked on the caravan and everything with the Maine Society over in Louisville. And they do it out of an RV, basically. everything from surgery to wellness exams and everything. So I'm going to turn this little building into a veterinary clinic. I've already formed a corporation, so I'm here to apply for the DeSade redevelopment commission and grant for roof and siding and gutters. I want to kind of leave the brick along the bottom. One is kind of a pan behind to remove that from the concrete block wall. and everything because it is on there fairly well on the parts that the guys have removed and everything and do siding from there up and you're reading the gutters and everything the trees are coming down Duke Energy has assigned specialists they come and take them out of the lines and Then J.D. Dillings is going to take them all over the ground and everything. So I have five parking spots. And so that is my plan if I am awarded any of the money is to make this building look like something and run a veterinary clinic out of there. I've already formed a corporation. I've already been doing things for family and friends, kind of mobile, you know, kind of thing. We're going to get a veterinary outreach over in Sellersburg. And so we're looking for a veterinarian to take place over there and everything to do and I work at the Jeffersonville Animal Shelter and everything doing space and neuters and vaccines on Wednesdays for them. And so it's been kind of a fun couple years just kind of filtering around and doing different things versus, you know. So questions or anything for me?

Have you decided on your hours for this place once it opens?

Probably going to be Tuesday through Friday, every other Saturday. And I won't stay late on Wednesdays because Reverend Jones and the church and everything there does. With Main Street Baptist, they do church on Wednesday evenings and everything. We grew up with Reverend Jones and his kids and everything. And so after his wife's passed away, he's moved over to the little house and everything. So we will not in any way interfere with that. So we're not going to stay real super late and everything in the evenings. So I'll leave that. at 8 to 5, 8 to 6 at the absolute most, but on Wednesdays be a little bit shorter. The only thing, Saturdays, you know, just because people can't get in during normal business hours during the week, and every other Saturday, even doing a half day, you know, that way people that have jobs that are nine to five, which is, you know, this is the first time in my life I've worked nine to five, it's very hard to make doctor's appointments and to get anywhere without taking an entire day off. I always had Sunday and Monday off, so we always had that day. it do you see any any problems with with oh okay no no i was like i was just curious what you thought about in terms of your schedule yeah well and that makes it nice because everybody's got sunday and monday off and everything i am working with veterinary assistant i've known for the past couple years she's going to school in her undergrad right now and she wants to get into doing veterinary school too and there is a young man in washington that's going to come volunteer at the shelter with me and everything that wants to go to veterinary school We need more veterinarians and more young people wanting to go into it because there's a shortage. And so if I can encourage anybody to do that, by all means, come work with me. Come work at the shelter. Save a life. You get a lot of experience in things animals that way.

And one would certainly think you have a market with the two apartment complexes close by that young, I mean, small animals, that kind of thing. Yeah. They would be able to jump right in there. Yeah.

I don't do any large animals. I wasn't raised on a farm. So, you know, it's one of those, I don't do the large animals, but I know there's quite a few grants and everything. They're trying to encourage large animal veterinarians because there's such an basically a veterinary desert for you. I've got friends and some of my daughters that they have veterinarians come over from Louisville and everything just to see their horses and everything because they can't get anybody, you know. So there really needs to be more large animal vets. And so they're doing grants for tuition reimbursement and everything. You can practice for three years in a rural area. I hope you meet someone and stay there for a while, you know, and start to practice it and really enjoy doing that because part of it is the human safety. help and screw replies and everything coming closer and everything to the United States. And hopefully they don't reach Indiana, but I'm not completely convinced of that from what they're putting out there with that department and everything. It's one of those, I think I will be fine. I have a lot of people in the community, a lot of people that have followed me from all over the world, all around and kind of things because a lot of people don't like the corporate idea of things. You know, when Chewy's buying up everything, Margaret's, and you know, it's kind of an interesting dynamic. This will be easy, convenient for a lot of people. And with the partners there and everything being dog friendly, they have their dog wash and everything there. And you'll see all the little dogs walking around and everything. And there's quite a few animals in the community and the community cats and everything. You feed the community cats, don't you? I know you do. But we do the TNR with the shelter and everything. And so we released them and we took their ears and stuff. A lot of people very much enjoy seeing them and worry about them. They don't see their community can't come up and everything.

What's your target, they told me?

I was hoping for the end of August was my hopes on things. I've got walls, everything inside. I've got the air conditioner, heating and air and everything sitting in my house, in my garage. I've got so much stuff in my house.

I've got 1,200 square feet of time sitting there.

Oh, I get the roof and everything done. They've already done the doors and windows replacement and everything. And the double door is maybe a compliant door and everything. And so, you know, I don't get as many people that are able to, you know, that are real sure. I'm not going to get a lot of people on scooters. It's one of those, that way I can get pretty much, I have a door for anybody that is able to come in and everything. And if I can do some low-cost stay and new years and everything there because KBO is super busy. I mean, we've got people coming from multiple counties, coming from Salem, coming from Haley, coming from all around. because the clinic is so far away and so far broke down and you know people don't want to drive so hopefully i can help the community and we're working to put microchip scanners down at the park and hopefully at the state park and everything so that way if the dog is lost they can go by and scan it and return it to them And, you know, so we try to encourage people to microchip their animals so they can get back to them. You know, Louisville made an ordinance that they have to have a microchip in their animals. We've been doing a lot of people from Louisville, even coming over to the veterinary outreach and everything, just get a microchip. And because it's the ordinance, it has to happen because they've got so many strays, they can't get back to where they belong. And it prevents people from going to the shelter. So, oh, they don't run out of space.

I make a motion we approve the application for the facade grant for the location.

In the estimate of the work, I mean, obviously, Dr. Catherine's spending more than what was in the application, but that does qualify her for that maximum of $10,000. And it's reimbursable. Okay. So once you expend that, if it's approved, once you extend it, then you just would provide receipts and then we would reimburse you for that. Which we can work on that after the fact.

I'll second. We have a motion and a second. Any further discussion? Thank you for bringing it to the table.

Thank you. Thank you all. Thank you for your time.

If not, I'll ask for a vote to agree with all those in favor. Please say aye. Aye. Thank you.

Thank you very much. I appreciate your time.

Ms. Sonsa, our next report, the 2025 annual report from the legal group.

Thank you. So as part of the Indiana statute, one, you're required to present your annual report to the Department of Local Government Finance and have that uploaded in their portal prior to April 15th of each year, which you've done. But then another requirement is at some point in that same year, you need to do a public presentation. about how you've operated and spending your tip dollars. So normally we do that in June. So here we are doing that today. So some of these things will look very familiar to you because they're the same as they have been previously. So this is the 2025 presentation. Those were the commission members for 2025. You can go ahead. Other way. One more, there we go. These are maps, visuals of the TIF districts and the number of parcels. So this starts with your largest TIF district, it's Central Charlestown Economic Development Area, established in 2005. It has 325 parcels. Then it was expanded, it's two times. So the total area, it has 886 parcels. then there are these are the other tips that you have as well the indian-american allocation area which was enacted when the city sold the water water utility to indian american water the renaissance project economic development area which is where the our compartments are cat a corner from the square That's its own area. And then we have the Depot Street, which is where Forest Edge is. And then we have the Shadow Lake Economic Development Area, which was actually part of Central Charlestown area. And we de-tipped that and then made it its own area in 2022. The increment collected on these is captured from the assessed value. We'll get into that a little bit later. but only on commercial property, not residential property. So we'll get into that in a minute. You can go ahead. These are the overlapping taxing units. that because of the TIF, that revenue does not pass through to these units unless the redevelopment commission wants it to do so. So these are the overlapping types of units that would be affected and are affected by this. So this is basic TIF mechanics. So the theory is that you have a base assessed value in these areas and that due to various improvements that you make that assess value then increases at some point. And so you actually capture the difference in the base and the increment and that comes back to the redevelopment commission for you to use in TIF. So you can go on to the next one. This is the same thing in a different way. Your TIF districts, most of them are 25 years. At some point in time, those tips could live forever, but now they've been capped at 25 years. So the theory behind it is, if not for the improvements that the community has made, then that assessed value does not grow. And once that assessed value grows and it falls off after the 25-year tip in this example, then all of that new increased assessed value goes to all of those types of new tips again. So then we get into revenues and expenses for the Forest Edge redevelopment bond. That's a little different because that was set up specifically for Forest Edge for the bond with the city issue to assist in that development. So this was taking excess money from that after we had distributed money to the Forest Edge development. This is what was left. That's actually been distributed to the others. Then we get into Central Charlestown TIF where it talks about beginning balance, ending balance after expenses. Then we move on to the next one, which is the Indiana American TIF. You see the fund balance, the revenues, expenses, and then the TIF cash balance at the end of the year. We'll go on to the next one. Same with North Clark Hospital TIF. That one obviously looks a lot different than the rest. And we can address that later. You can go on to the next one. Then the Renaissance Tift, again, the art apartments, it's a small, probably the smallest one besides North Park. It's the smallest one that you have. That finally has hit. And just to remind everyone that in Indiana, you pay taxes a year later. So just because something is completed in 25 or 26 doesn't mean that the city gets the revenue from that right away. So it took a year or so for once that was completed to realize the full assessed value of this one. So you can move on to the next slide. This is for the ban on anticipation note that the redevelopment commission had issued last year to fund the commons project that's going on right now in the square. So that's what this is. And so that money was deposited here at the city, and that's in a TIF fund also, even though it's not directly related to one specific TIF. You can go on. A Shadow Lake TIF, we have been investigating this with the county and with Baker Tilly. We feel like some of the parcels may not be adequately represented in the Shadow Lake TIF. It might be in the Central Charlestown TIF still. even though we have the parcels outlined and what should be in Shadow Lake. And again, this doesn't seem like a lot. That is one reason. Another reason is this is for 24 pay 25. So most of the shop and office at Christianity plus one of those industrial buildings may have been completed in 25 and may not have been assessed. we feel like in 26-27, you will get the full assessment for that. So you can go ahead. And then this is the Depot Street TIF, which again, is the same situation. We see the development out of the ground, but that's not fully assessed until it's completed. So again, in 26-27, we might realize the full investment there. You can go ahead. This is a neutralization report that Baker Tilly, the financial advisor, does and submits to DLGF. This shows what the cash flow increment assessed value was, what the projector of revenue was, what the actual revenue is. Just because we project it and we know what the tax bills are going to be and we know what the increment is doesn't mean that you always receive that revenue. That is precluded on people actually paying that property tax. Sometimes that doesn't happen. So there could be a little bit of a discrepancy there. That could be the reason. And then what we think the pay 26 assessed value would be about 136 million. And then the projected revenue from that would be about $3.8 million. Again, we can't bank on having that. This is just an estimate. We don't really know until people pay and we can get the money from the county. You can go ahead. I'm not going to go through all of this. These are activities that have been done in 2025. There have been a lot of things that are ongoing, a lot of new things started. Forest Edge should be completed this year. I know there are people living in some of those apartments now, but it's not fully completed. And there are a lot of other projects that we're doing that we started this year. So you can flip through. I'll probably go one more. One more.

Sorry, one more.

There's a lot of projects. You've done a lot of things, been able to do a lot of things. So this, again, is just future activities. You finish off the depot street revitalization sites. It looks so much different than what it looked like several years ago. And that should be completed, the big graph building should be completed this year for sure. And the two outer buildings have already been completed for some time at least. You can go to the next one. And as you see, as long as the commission has the funds and is willing and there are people that want to apply to continue that facade grant program, you've seen a lot of improvement in the city based on that. It may not seem like a lot, the $10,000 that you max that out at, but it really does go a long way and provides an incentive. And as I said, and we're going to talk about soon, there's a lot of different projects that are in progress and those that we will plan for in the future. I think that might be it.

That's it.

Okay. If y'all have any questions or... comments about that.

Well we've said this before pretty much every year but you do a great job of putting all that in place and it makes us it does make us realize that we do more than we sometimes think we do and that you can see the results. I mean obviously you see them around the city anyway but it's good to have that compiled form. So thank you for all the work that you do to prepare for this annual presentation.

A lot of the projects people don't ever see especially things that are in the ground but I think in the last year or so and coming up there are a lot of really impactful projects that people can see coming out of the ground. It's easier to be able to see something, you know, than talk about doing underground infrastructure all the time.

I appreciate you putting all that together. You know, a lot of times you don't understand what money comes from where and how it works, and you're able to explain that real well, and I really enjoy the facade grant. Like you said, it goes a long way for

people in charlestown i mean if you go to max and you get ten thousand dollars you can put that towards something else i mean just like the building we just talked about and several others we've seen so thank you for putting it together thank you thank you jill thank you for being a report that moves us on to the approval of the minutes you provide a copy of the minutes from our may 12th meeting regular meeting that's for a motion to approve the minutes make a motion a second motion a second any further discussion Now I'll ask for a vote to approve all as a favor please have it. Aye. Motion passes. Thank you. You're also provided a copy of the claims for the previous month. I'll ask for a motion to approve the claims. I'll move that motion. I'll second. I'll move motion and second. Any further discussion? If not, I'll ask for a vote to approve all as a favor please have it. Aye. Thank you. Is anyone signed up for other comments this evening?

We will find out. We will find out shortly. No? I might sign it up. Okay. Yeah, if you guys have a comment, you need to sign in, please. That was that exciting. You want to comment? What are you going to talk about?

I was wishing to speak this evening at the public comment portion of the meeting will be asked to state their name, address and will be given three minutes to speak. The commission will not answer any questions during the public comment period. You want to answer any questions?

No, it's just public comment period.

I'm new to this. How long has this commission been in? My name is Joshua Sadler. I live at 131 First Street.

Thank you.

How long has this commission been established, the Redevelopment Commission? This board right here. 2005, I believe. 2005. Is that right, Joe? All right. So, anything else? I think that's right, based on your report. I mean, because all this stuff y'all do up there, the tip, the path, the graph, this, that, and so forth, none of these people understand what that is, man. They don't. But we're going to figure it out. I'll tell you, we're going to figure it out for everybody.

I shouldn't have answered that question, sorry. Probably not.

Anyway, that was definitely one person that signed up for public comment. Okay.

Cool. That concludes the public comment. That moves us on to a weekly group consult report.

Okay, thank you. I'll just go over a few things real quick. The commons and short street parklet, you can see that. You can see things over the fence now. It's not just some concrete in some places, but the actual pavilion is starting to take shape and all the concrete around it. So it's exciting. Charlestown landing improvements. The mayor and I just got an email today about the $4 million related or from Congressman Couch's office that there's a webinar on Thursday to talk about actually moving forward with something and what the city needs to do to comply with the rules and requirements. So that'll be Thursday. We still have not heard anything from the IEDC or the RDA related to our $6 million application. to help with, to match that. The gazebo and street scape improvements, we discussed that briefly in the last meeting. I don't have those proposals yet, but I will have those for you for your July commission year to get proposals for you to consider to go to the next step, which is starting the design and some real cost estimates for that so we can figure out what we want to do. Also in progress, we've kind of, gotten into a different stage of the Charlestown signage project at Highway 62 and 3 to replace the one that was taken down when NDOT started to do their work there at the intersection. And then talking about the TIF and financial portion of my report, as always, I've updated the commission's cash flow so that if we do entertain projects and you ask me questions, then I'll know whether there's money there who to do that or not. We also prepared the appropriate resolutions, which we'll discuss later on the agenda, and the letters that need to go out before June 15th. There's a change in the rule related to that, or in the statute related to that, in that if the auditor does not get a letter by June 15th, they will automatically take 5% of your tech revenues and distribute those out. And lastly, related to TIF, I brought this up at a previous meeting as well, that we are finalizing our proposal to clean up some of the parcels and some of those expansions, especially in central Charlestown. There are a lot of residential parcels. You don't realize any revenue off of those residential parcels, and so it was suggested that we kind of go through and clean that up. We've done some due diligence on that. We'll run it by Baker Tilly. Frost Brown Todd is coming up with a schedule on how we need to amend those and what that looks like. And in particular, we would recommend that you just dissolve the North Park TIF. The assessed value has dropped down below the base at this point in time. And I don't, if something were to happen out there and you wanted to reestablish that, we certainly could. But it serves you no benefit at this point in time to do that. So you can consider that and we can act on that at a later date. I just wanted to bring that up. That's all I have. Are there any questions? I'd be glad to answer those.

Thank you, Joe. Moves on to old business with the Family Activities Park sport court bids.

So in your packet, you had the letter of recommendation from HWC Engineering. After last meeting, we opened four bids and three of the four contractors did not adhere to all of the, did not either submit, submitted incomplete information or on the wrong forms, there were just some discrepancies in three of the four bids. And the fourth bid was probably three times your budget. It was submitted completely. or complete. So the recommendation from HWC is that you reject all of the bids and re-bid this project.

And all those people can bid again?

Yes. Yes, they can.

You need a motion? Yes. I'll make a motion we reject all and re-bid it. I'll second that.

We have a motion and a second. Any further discussion? 9-0. Is that approved? All in favor please say aye. Aye. Motion passes. Thank you.

And you also have in your packet a proposed schedule for getting that. So right now we're on track to open those bids at your July 7th meeting. So we should have those bids in hand for you to open and go through this again. Hopefully it'll be better. And you said it's been advertised again Friday or something? Yes. There's a date on there, right? So the first advertisement is going to go the week of June 8th, and then the next one will be the week of June 15th.

Thank you. We have a little league facility renovation project.

With that, we entertain the thought of using some redevelopment revenue to do that, using the build, operate, transfer process to go through procurement in that way. So between now and your next meeting, I will provide you with a draft RFPQ and also a schedule. proposed schedule so that you can review that and then we can take action at your July meeting to move forward that process and be ready to advertise that. The project itself, we need to be ready to start that project at the end of June. We have what seems like a lot of time right now, but the time goes by quickly. So if we can get that advertised and you can select someone to go through the scoping period, that should give them plenty of time to thoroughly review it, work with the committee that set up, provide a good guaranteed maximum price, and then work through the final design so that they can be ready to hit the ground as soon as the little leek fields are, as soon as the little leek season is finished, we can hit the ground. So that's what I'll bring to you next meeting, and Ross Browntile will look over that before I send it out to you.

Did you say the end of June next year? I think so.

Is that right, Mayor, the end of June?

I'm not sure you didn't mean this year.

No, no, end of June next year. We're trying to plan ahead, Derek. We want to make sure that it's ready to go.

All right, thank you. Move us on to new business. We have the consideration of Resolution 2026R1, the pass-through of excess assessed value.

I make a motion. I mean, we know what it is, right? So.

We have a motion. Is there a second? I second. Second by Bobby. Any further discussion? No. I ask for a vote to approve. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Motion passes. Thank you. There's no other new business. Our next meeting is scheduled for July 7th at 6 p.m. There's no further discussion. I ask for a vote. Make a motion to adjourn. Second. Motion to second. All those in favor, please say aye.

Aye.