Board of Commissioners - Special Meeting

All right. Good evening, everyone. Welcome to our September 21st, 2026 special meeting. I will call this meeting to order. If you all will please stand with me for 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. You may all notice that Larry had to leave for just a little bit, so he will be back for the next meeting. He is usually my invocation person, so I am going to take this task on. If you all will please bow with me. Lord, we just come to

Commissioners, do you have any questions for Gretchen?

all right thank you sir i appreciate that that was a great presentation i also want to thank you all uh for coming tonight as well all of the ones of you that are on the the board for the edc thank you um this truly just shows um you know how important this is to to all of you as well so i appreciate you taking the time to come out um commissioners i will turn it over to you all for any questions or comments that you want to make regarding this um I can start with you, Commissioner Wartman.

I think it was important to point out when people see that $2.9 million, one penny on the tax rate it was 4.6 i think it's 4.9 now that's almost half a penny that a future board by using this option is able to either stabilize or possibly reduce so when we see 2.9 it might not seem like a lot but that that is a half a penny on the tax rate that we're talking about that we could reduce so i just i appreciate all the work that you've put in and uh and commissioner patrick all the work that you guys have put into this, and I think it's great, but I just wanted to point that out compared to what i

And Commissioner Pittman, you have joined us, Sir. I know you missed the presentation. I didn't know if you had anything, any questions you wanted to ask.

I appreciate you letting me go so I can let my wife back in the house. You made it. I want to start out by saying I do appreciate the intent that is behind this of trying to save taxpayers from overwhelming property taxes. I understand that's the intent, and I do appreciate that. But there's some things about it I just can't agree with, and you probably already know what I'm going to say. Whereas commercial growth has mental impact on infrastructure and school growth relative to residential growth, I think there are an awful lot of citizens who would disagree with that, and I'm one of them. I

Thank you, Commissioner Pittman. Commissioner Jones, did you have any questions regarding this or comments you'd like to answer?

Mr. Eller, I want to thank you for your work when you presented this framework for an initial time in front of all of us with this plan. I was very impressed with the thought process. I really appreciate you took everything that I said and incorporated it into the agreement and got it in there. So you got an agreement that I'm perfectly happy with. And I think it's going to be great for the county. One thing I wish you would have done When you called it a grant, I wish you would have called it the Eller grant, because that's what I'm going to refer to from now on. But no, you did a great job,

Thank you, sir. And Commissioner Patrick.

Yeah, I want to thank Madam Chair John and Gretchen for the, you know, the brainstorming session that this thing was birthed from. I feel like that was yesterday that we were doing that meeting. It's moved so fast, but it was, what, three weeks, a month ago, six weeks ago? I mean, it's been a long time coming, but thank you all. And I don't think without putting all of our heads together that we could have made this as robust as it is. I do want to point out that it also is for large and small businesses, including and especially local small businesses. I feel like they had been felt like they

We got 2 seconds. Alright, so we have a motion and a second. Are you all in favor or if you are in favor, please say I to move the hold on. Let me get my words right. To make sure that we move the. This resolution to new business. And it will be item. Yes sir you have a question yes.

If we move this to tonight's agenda under new business.

Yes, sir. So just to clarify, you're not talking about putting it on tonight's regular meeting? Yes.

No, it'll be on the new business tonight instead of us taking action on it in this meeting. That way, public can be allowed to comment on it in our regular session. All right. So all those in favor of moving this to the new business item F7, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? All right. That carries 5-0. Thank you. And I do want to take an opportunity to just say We had this discussion in a meeting with Gretchen with the EDC that we have every month. We talk very openly in that meeting. Anyone that's been ever in an EDC meeting with me knows I'm incredibly open about my thoughts and concerns re

All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? All right. This special meeting is adjourned. Thank you all.