Warsaw Economic Development Meets to Swear In Members
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David Slone-dslone@timesuniononline.com
The Economic Development Commission rarely meets, but it did late Tuesday morning for members to take the oath of office and elect officers. After Warsaw Mayor Joe Thallemer gave Bob Sanders, Dan Robinson and Tom Allen the oath, the Commission elected Allen to continue serving as its president. Robinson was elected vice president. Thallemer asked City Planner Jeremy Skinner to explain to everyone present what the Commission does. “The EDC has a few tasks really that they’re required to do, and they only come up when you’re doing certain types of development,” Skinner said. The last time the Commission met was for the Martin’s Super Market development, he said, because it was commercial. “And you can do certain types of tax abatements and even TIF projects in a commercial build, but in order to do that the EDC has to participate as part of that,” Skinner said. Thallemer asked if that’s “where you make an economic revitalization area,” and Skinner said yes. “But it’s not all economic revitalization,” Skinner said. An ERA doesn’t necessarily need the Commission’s approval for industrial – it’s only applicable if it’s commercial or residential or a combination. Robinson asked what the difference was between the Economic Development Commission and the Warsaw Redevelopment Commission. Skinner replied that the Redevelopment Commission deals with tax increment finance districts and the EDC does not. “Now, you may have approval portion for a project, say if Martin’s had been in a TIF and they were doing something. You could have still had part of that approval process, but it still would go through the Redevelopment Commission,” Skinner explained. Thallemer said, “I think they want a member of the county” – Sanders is a county councilman – “as some type of oversight, just like they’ll have a school board representative on the Redevelopment Commission. When these decisions are made, these economic revitalization decisions or other decisions that this group makes, there’s tax implications. The legislature probably set this board up for that specific reason, to make sure the county knew what the city was doing.” He said the Commission members’ terms are for three years.
