I’ve had hand surgery, so I’m behind on completing my blog entries. Sorry Lurkers! 🙂 I did have a few thoughts on the last Culver Town Council meeting. I’m not going to get into the controversial things, but I am disappointed in some of the procedural things and thought I would comment on those here.
The first one I found odd involved the approval of a PUD request. The request was approved without issue, but later in the meeting, Culver Fire Chief, Terry Wakefield, circled back to it. All of the buildings included in this PUD are going to have fire sprinkler systems, so due to the location, this will require a fire pump. The designers have been in discussions with Chief Wakefield regarding this and he had requested a hydrant be placed on the property. This would have improved the fire rating at this site and the surrounding area. He said the request was denied. A couple of questions I would pose regarding this:
This seems like a missed opportunity here, but maybe one that can be corrected in the future…
The second issue involved the rescinding of matching dollars for Blue Zones. That match was contingent on other funding which hasn’t come through, so the use of the dollars is pretty much moot at this point, but my concern now is the methodology employed here.
Blue Zones was discussed at multiple meetings before the funding was approved. Presentations were made, public input was allowed and the allocation was passed. Then it was added to the 2023 budget. Once again there were opportunities for discussion and input. Throughout the past year, the Town Manager, Ginny Munroe, has promoted the project with the Council’s blessing. Reports on it were intermittently included in her Town Manager’s reports to the Council.
On the 13th, at the end of the meeting, after all of the agenda items were finished, including Citizen Input, it was brought up under Council Members Issues. The rescinding of support was voted on with minimal supporting information, a split 3:2 vote, and no public input. Was there anything illegal about it? Not that I know of… Was it completely out of line with Culver’s stated values for open communication? Undoubtedly. In my opinion, anything that has gone through as much preliminary discussion and input before being voted in should at least be an agenda item before being voted out.
Culver has done this in the past and I believe there should be some kind of resolution to change this. Projects that are supported and fostered by the Council shouldn’t get dropped without at least minimal conversations with those affected. I don’t think this usurps the Council’s prerogative to change their mind, but citizens that invest time and money into projects with the Council’s support shouldn’t be cast aside without due respect and consideration.
Both of these items are “water under the bridge” at this point. But they should be opportunities for reflection and, hopefully, opportunities for new rules and procedures to do better in the future.
A little history…
I’ve talked about my friend, Roger Umbaugh, a couple of times here. Roger was a past board member of on the Marshall County Community Foundation (MCCF). While on that board, he was also on the MCCF Investment Committee. When I joined the MCCF board, I also joined the MCCF Investment Committee.
One of Roger’s goals was to get MCCF into a better home. While the generosity of Key Bank was always appreciated, it was not always the best solution. On top of that, the Community Foundation had grown and needed more space than was available at Key Bank. When financing for the community pool project was under discussion, Roger found a way to finance it using New Market Tax Credits and to put MCCF in a position to facilitate this while also getting a new home as part of the deal.
Another of Roger’s goals was to see some of MCCF’s investment funds invested back into the community. He always thought it would serve two purposes… providing some income and doing good in the community. At the start, he didn’t know that there was a name for this: Impact Investing.
When the New Market Tax Credit project needed additional funding, Roger broached the subject of MCCF providing the funding gap as a loan. This resulted in $500k of Community Foundation funds be loaned to the project. This was a win-win for MCCF and project.
After Roger’s passing, I wanted to carry this forward for him. In his name, I championed designating the $500k as the start of an Impact Investing Fund. I also suggested that the fund be named the Roger Umbaugh Impact Investing Fund. The board voted to approve both measures. I have the feeling that this will be a draw to a different kind of donor for the Community Foundation. Another win-win.
This is still new. I have sat in on a seminar on Impact Investing. I have done a little research. There appears to be a lot of different ways we could approach this. At the last MCCF board meeting, I suggested that we should start this process by setting some goals which we’ll be doing in a future meeting. This seems to range from self-run scenarios to hands-off options where 95% of the heavy lifting is done using outside financial institutions.
So… I’m throwing this out here to see if there is any input from followers. This is your chance to add suggestions on how this new venture should be structured. Any ideas? Contact me by email (mail@easterdayconstruction.com) or feel free to use the comments.
I drive by the “new” electronic sign at the corner of School Street and Hwy 10 in Culver every morning. I’m disappointed in the wasted potential. It is one of the Regional Message Boards that was proposed and funded through the Marshall County Stellar Region award. From the Marshall County Crossroads Stellar Strategic Action Plan (SIP) pg138: “This project recognizes the importance of marketing and communicating our regional work to the communities we live in, and recognizes the value in shaping our communities as destination places. By incorporating a consistent look and feel in the message boards, our rural communities will have one more method of marketing and communicating our regional plans by grouping them with local news and community events.” Yet, most of the time when I drive by the Culver sign, it is flashing the time & temperature or contains filler in the form of affirmations or admonishments to watch for school buses.
Culver has a plethora of events that could be promoted. If the sign were just used for the events on the Visitors Guide Magnet (See left), there would always be something of interest there. Travelers on the highway most likely know what day it is. If they’re not from Culver, they don’t know that the Gift of Warmth Film Festival was this past weekend. They don’t know that the Stories & Stones Cemetery Walk is coming in two weeks. They don’t know that Fall Fest is October 8th…
Granted, I don’t know how difficult this is to do. If it takes hours to put something up there, then that’s an issue, as most municipal staff has enough on their plate. So maybe the sign should point to the town’s website address, Facebook page or other source of local information. Though also from page 138 of the Stellar SIP: “This form of communication is especially important to those residents who are not actively engaged on social media.” While I am picking on Culver here, I do so because I see it daily. It’s not a Culver only problem. The signs in LaPaz suffer from the same wasted potential.
Another piece that is lacking is the Regional use of the signs. Again from page 138 of the Stellar SIP: “The electronic boards will also allow us opportunities to cross-promote our communities… Many of our communities no longer have a newspaper, and some have only weekly newspapers, so adding this communication tool would provide our citizens and visitors an important way to learn about what is going on locally in Marshall County.” Culver’s Lake Fest, Fall Fest and Holiday Hop should be appearing on our neighboring community signs. The Blueberry Festival and the Bremen Firemen’s Festival should be appearing on Culver’s sign.
This is not meant to be a bash on any of the groups involved. Marshall County Crossroads is doing many good things. It’s just a bit of frustration on the lack of follow-thru. Things like this, which have so much potential, often fall apart in the execution. I readily admit that I’m speaking from my understanding of initial goals, which may well have changed. I readily admit to not knowing the logistics of implementing messages for the signs. My criticism comes from the perception of lost opportunities that I see with the Culver sign on an almost daily basis.
So I tell my employees, don’t come to me with problems without including potential solutions… Here are my three quick suggestions:
As usual, this is me basically talking to myself and my small cadre of Lurkers. If offered this task, I would take it on, but I’m not in the mood to publicly push it, since lately my efforts to help have been poorly received in Culver… and I don’t feel connected enough to take this on regionally without support. This is just another rant, getting something off my chest that has been bugging me.
This falls squarely in the Rant column here, so scroll on if that doesn’t interest you.
The other day I posted about the the READI grants we submitted. (here) The Water Street Townhomes project in Plymouth was part of an application that went in with the original READI call for projects in July of 2021. When I found out that Culver only had one small park project to submit, I asked if they would support a small housing project. I suggested 12 townhomes similar to those suggested for Water Street project. I was told a straw poll had 3 council members in favor and, “You be the lead if you don’t mind. I fully trust you.” This all came about last minute and I ended up spending a Saturday putting together a proforma and submitting an application. Spirit Townhomes in Culver was listed as part of the South Bend Elkhart Regional Partnership (SBERP) READI application submitted to IEDC.
I grew up in Culver and even though I live outside of Culver now, I still consider it my home town, since my business is here and my parents still live here. Most of you know my track record for participation and dedication to helping move Culver forward. (I started to make a list, but it seemed self-serving.) That’s why I participated in Stellar and partnered with the Town on Sand Hill Farm Apartments and The Paddocks, when no outside developers would. Both of those projects met or exceeded the goals the Town set for them. In the months leading up to the application deadline, I was told Culver wouldn’t be participating in READI. Then in the last couple weeks before the deadline, I was surprised by the Town of Culver’s decision to pursue a project with a different, out-of-town developer. I suggested submitting a version of the Spirit Townhomes too and was told there wasn’t time…
Dance With The One That Brought You…
This seems to be a pattern that is repeating. I don’t know if this is a conscious decision or just a careless oversight. In any case, it’s a noticeable departure from the stated goals of supporting local businesses. A couple other examples of which I’m aware:
There are two banks in town. The First National Bank of Monterey and First Farmers Bank & Trust have sponsored Town events, participated on committees, supported the Town by purchasing their bonds, cashing their checks and covered all the minor things such as providing change. The Town shopped their services, as they should, but in lieu of keeping the competition local, they went outside the town and ended up moving their money to Plymouth for minor advantages. Was it really worth it? Dance With The One That Brought You…
Good-To-Go brought in plans to the Culver TRC to demolish their existing building and put in a whole new service station which would have brought additional money to the TIF and improved the downtown. During that same time, an outside developer approached the Town about a new service station at the edge of town (outside the Town’s Comprehensive Plans stated goals), which would have damaged Good-To-Go’s business as well as that of the other convenience store in town. Their concerns were met with derision, including one council member chastising them about prices and telling them that they bought their gas in Plymouth. This was while Good-To-Go had a “Cavalier” pump set up with a portion of all sales from that pump going to the Culver Community Schools. Good-To-Go scaled their project back by half. The other developer’s project never came to fruition. Dance With The One That Brought You…
I’m sure some will read this as just “sour grapes” and maybe deservedly so. But with all three examples here, it’s a question of supporting those that support the Town, not with handouts, but yes, maybe with a little favoritism, in recognition of what local businesses do for the town on a day-to-day basis… As the saying goes, Amazon does not sponsor your little league team or have employees coaching it.
Last Summer the South Bend Elkhart Regional Partnership (SBERP), of which Marshall County is a part, announced their intention to go after READI grant dollars in much the same way they did with the Regional Cities Initiative a few years ago. Culver Sand Hill Farm was asked to participate as the developer for a project in Plymouth. Easterday Construction Co., Inc. would serve as General Contractor. This project was a small (13 unit) townhouse project on Water Street in Plymouth.
The READI program is being administered through the Indiana Economic Development Corporation and is modeled after the successful Regional Cities Initiative. The funding is designed to leverage State funds in order to bring in private funding on projects the region’s municipalities want to see move forward. It offers up to 20% READI dollars as a match against a minimum participation of 20% municipal participation and 60% private investment. This makes it difficult for larger public projects like parks, trails and social programs to move forward, where there would be no return on the private investment, but provides a great opportunity to meet other goals.
We were pleased that the City of Plymouth wanted to work with us on this and were happy to help, as it fit with Culver Sand Hill Farm’s continued housing efforts. While not a LIHTC project, such as The Paddocks and Riverside Commons, it was an effort to bring additional workforce housing to downtown Plymouth. This adds to Plymouth’s downtown revitalization and it would be within a block of River Park Square, the newly renovated Rees Theater, Wild Rose Moon and adjacent to downtown businesses. Thank you to Mayor Mark Senter and City Attorney, Sean Surrisi, for their vision and help moving this forward! I approached the Town of Culver to see if they wanted to do something similar. I was told that a straw pole of council members indicated there was interest and they would support our application. This came “last minute” and we spent most of a weekend putting an application together, so that Culver could benefit as well.
South Bend Elkhart Regional Partnership was successful in their bid, securing $50 Million dollars for the Region. That was great news. There’s been some confusion about how this would proceed, but both projects were included in the application, so were thought to be secure. There was back and forth at SBERP on whether other projects not in the original application could be considered. In the end, it was decided they would be considered, so that opened other opportunities. It’s still unclear whether projects in the initial application will be given more weight in considerations.
In Plymouth, Culver Sand Hill Farm has worked with the city to put together another application for an E-Hub. This is envisioned to be an entrepreneur incubator with spaces available to encourage new business starts. This project has been on Plymouth’s radar for years and this appeared to be a perfect opportunity to move it forward. This is an exciting opportunity for the city and should be a benefit to Marshall County as a whole.
In Culver, there has been a lot of false starts and back & forth on READI. Culver Sand Hill Farm continued to support the idea presented in the original application, while making some changes to make it better. As Culver’s partner in the Stellar applications, we were ready to step up and help again. We were the only ones from Culver to attend the mandatory information meeting in Argos and were encouraged by SBERP representatives to proceed.
Culver Crossroads created a READI subcommittee, only to disband it when Culver decided not to participate in READI. (We also discussed the possibility of an E-Hub project with Culver, but the committee had different goals in mind and we couldn’t arrive at a viable project.) In the last few weeks, Culver reversed course and decided to submit a housing project application with another, out-of-town, developer rather than proceed with us. Things happen. While disappointing, pushing it without support would be foolish.
Another partner in all these applications has been Brent Martin of SRKM Architecture. He provided the graphics included here and have helped advocate for these projects. Brent has been helpful in articulating a vision for the sites we’re considering.
We’re looking forward to helping Plymouth in their efforts. We should find out if our applications were successful sometime this Fall, making these 2023-2024 projects. Wish us and the City of Plymouth luck!