City Council Commits To Supporting Stellar Community Application With $1.8 Million
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David Slone-dslone@timesuniononline.com
If Warsaw is named a 2016 Stellar Communities designee, the city expects to spend $450,000 a year for four years in matching funds, but in return receive over $10 million in grants and private investment dollars. Monday night, the Common Council approved a resolution authorizing the city to apply for the Stellar Community Designation. Part of that resolution states the city is committing $450,000 per year from the Economic Development, Redevelopment and various department project funds for a period of four years to be used as an investment match. The resolution is the first time the city has put a dollar figure to its expected match. Mayor Joe Thallemer said the resolution will accompany the Stellar Investment Plan in the city’s application to the Stellar state committee. Warsaw’s plan includes revitalization of the East Market Street neighborhood area, preservation of historic resources, production of affordable housing, promotion of economic development activities, expansion of available transportation choices, enhancements to the Warsaw Park System and promotion of mixed land uses, according to the resolution. Thallemer said he got similar supportive resolutions from the county commissioners, Town of Winona Lake and the Warsaw and Winona Lake Redevelopment Commissions, but there were no dollar figures in those resolutions. “All of these projects, if they were done outside of Stellar, would be competitive projects, and just like a road funding project would require a 20 percent match in road funding. Some of the other have different match requirements, so I asked (City Planner) Jeremy (Skinner) to sit down and look at what funds would be required to fund these projects if they had been done separately outside of Stellar and to understand that there’s a local match that’s used to leverage. So we’re looking at about $450,000 a year for four years, so you’re looking at about $1.8 million that’s being used to leverage approximately $6.5 million in funds and accessible grants in the Stellar designation and probably an additional $4 million to $6 million in private investment,” Thallemer explained. He said the city’s investment of $1.8 million over the next four years will be leverage to about $11 million to $12 million for projects. While the council was being asked for their commitment to this, he said they weren’t being asked to allocate any funds for it at this time. Council President Mike Klondaris said when he first read the resolution he had a few misconceptions about it, but the mayor alleviated those fears. “Coming from the business world, whenever you can invest $1 and get $3 back, that’s a pretty good deal,” he said. Diane Quance, council member and council representative to the Park Board, said some of the projects are already part of the Parks Department’s five-year master plan. She said with grant money from Stellar, the Parks will save money on those projects. The Stellar Communities designees will be announced Aug. 18 at the Indiana State Fair. If Warsaw is named a designee, it will have three years to access the $6.5 million in funds and about five years to complete the projects. Jack Wilhite, councilman, said, “As I understand it, this $450,000 is not additional projects. It’s projects we’ve already considered and are moving forward with. We’re just earmarking them as Stellar projects to get grant money.” “Exactly,” Thallemer said. “To leverage this money. Frankly, I couldn’t have said it better.” Assistant City Planner Tim Dombrosky said two to three projects would probably be done a year from 2017 to 2022, if the city is named a Stellar Community. In other business, the council: • Approved a resolution authorizing the transfer of County Option Income Tax funds to the Warsaw-Wayne Fire Territory. Thallemer said when the territory was first established, the ratio of COIT distributions from the fire territory to the general fund was established based on the levy. At that time, it was approximately 25 percent. “My most recent figures from last year show that the ratio is, fire territory to the general, is 31 percent now. So we’re asking, through this resolution, increasing that $600,000 distribution to the fire territory to $700,000, so that would bump it up to 29 percent,” he said. The distribution is given annually. • Approved the Warsaw Redevelopment Commission 2016 financial report. The Redevelopment Commission approved it at its earlier meeting Monday. “This is a document that is required by all redevelopment commissions to be published to all local units of government to show sources of revenue, sources of indebtedness, projects, financials and essentially to ascertain whether or not there is an abundance or overage of revenue that should be passed through as defined by the state. The Redevelopment Commission this afternoon determined that that is not the case and they did approve the resolution to that effect,” Thallemer said.
