Andrea Cook Quote on Steve Jobs
“I want to be like Steve. I’m restless with a passion to not only be innovative and creative, but to make an impact on jobs, industries, community and my family. I want the line in between to represent something meaningful.”
Andrea Cook – The Midas Center
Andrea wrote an interesting piece on Steve Jobs’ effect on her life, from which I took the above quote. You can find it here.
The Don Quixote Club
I have been interested to watch the various happenings regarding the wind farm proposed by NextEra in southern Marshall County. My position on the Marshall County Economic Development Corporation (MCEDC) Board has given me the opportunity to be aware of this from early on.
I must say that I have been impressed by the way Marshall County officials have approached this. I have not necessarily been pleased with the county position that we should remain an agricultural based county, but using the wind farm model as one way of promoting that is effective. They did their due diligence on the issue before creating the zoning ordinance changes that allowed these farms. Marshall County officials met with county officials from counties with wind farms to review their ordinances and discuss what they thought they did right and what they did wrong. Our new county ordinance section that covers wind farms is an amalgamation and improvement on the ordinances of other counties that preceded it. I think they have done a good job.
Again from my interactions with MCEDC, I know that there are at least three wind farm companies considering sites in Marshall County. For months now I have known the name of one of them. (I just heard the name of one of the others for the first time last week.) I have seen announcements and attended presentations by one of them. I only know one of them that has tried to educate the public. In all cases that is NextEra. I am in no position to vouch for them and what they are doing other than to say that they are the only company that is being open about it. To the best of my knowledge, they are the only one that is an American company too.
I went to the presentation by the Concerned Citizen’s of Southern Marshall County (See their website here) that was held at the Culver Elementary School Gymnasium. While most of the information was interesting, I was disappointed where exaggerations were made. Unfortunately those exaggerations made all of the information suspect. An example of this was the discussion of the heights. The statements made at the gymnasium meeting were as follows: The proposed windmills are to be 450′ tall. That is equal to a 45 story building. That is taller than the skyline of Indianapolis which you can see from over ten miles away. It didn’t take much of an Internet search (here) to find that the tallest building in Indianapolis is the Chase Tower. It is 48 stories tall. It is 810′ tall. I don’t question that 450′ is a damned tall structure that will be seen from miles away, but why exaggerate it.
As many of you probably know, I am a board member on the Lake Maxinkuckee Environmental Fund (LMEF). I have been on the Fund board for over ten years and have served on the council for six. Because of my position on the MCEDC board, some felt that I had a conflict of interest in this issue, so I have chosen to recuse myself from LMEF votes on this issue. That has not particularly mattered since the votes passed unanimously sans my vote. I have participated in the discussion and have been disturbed by the turn it has taken. To my knowledge this is the first time that the Environmental Fund or Council has taken a position such as this without doing due diligence back up with independent consultants such as J.F. New & Associates. I was particularly disturbed by the recent email that went out from the fund stating that “we must not knowingly cause harm to any living thing.” Really? We have always promoted being good stewards of Lake Maxinkuckee as a resource, but statements like that cause us to drift dangerously towards the environmental whacko fringe.
I have taken a position through MCEDC that wind energy is a positive economic resource for Marshall County to use. As a member of LMEF, it appears that I am on the other side of this issue. Before the LMEF meeting I drove to White County and trespassed, walking right up to the base of one of the windmills. I was unmoved…
I really have no personal stake in this issue. I don’t find the the windmills visually objectionable, but I completely understand the position of those that do. I have to question some of the other things being dragged in and exaggerated to bolster their point though. I will continue to read the information from both sides with interest.
Credits to xkcd web comics for the wind turbine comic at the top of the page.
Culver Garden Court Update
Main Corridor with Drywall Installation Underway
It’s been a while since my last update on Culver Garden Court. Things are proceeding quickly.
Rough-in is complete on wiring for the electrical, security and fire alarm systems. Plumbing rough-in is complete. HVAC rough-in is nearly complete. This has allowed installation of the wall insulation. Exterior wall insulation is complete and sound batts have been installed where required between units. Drywall installation has begun. The first thing to be drywalled will be the ceilings. This will allow blown-in insulation to be installed in the attic.
On the exterior, the faux stone wainscot installation has begun. Most of the stone is in place. Next will be wall caps and the column bases. Once wall caps are in place, siding and soffit installation will begin.
Sidewalk Construction Underway
Installation of concrete walks and curbs is currently underway. This will allow us to proceed with paving preparations. We made some decisions on revised locations for the sign and flag pole, so the installation of those items can proceed as well.
Visit with Bob Ady
This is the second revelation meeting which I had through the Marshall County Economic Development Corporation (MCEDC) that I mentioned in a previous post here. Bob Ady is President of Ady International Company and is a site selector. He came here as part of the Ady-Voltage team that is working with MCEDC on a marketing program. As part of this MCEDC hosted a meeting with stakeholders to help them get first impressions of Marshall County. The stakeholders at the meeting seemed pretty positive about Marshall County, but it was interesting reading some of the written feedback, which was a little more mixed. After the stakeholder meeting, Jennifer Laurent, MCEDC Executive Director, and Janet Ady, President of Ady-Voltage, went on site visits to existing businesses. I was to take Bob on a tour of the county looking at the properties that we had available.
Jennifer had prepared a list of properties from our data base for Bob to review. He first reviewed them on paper with me and eliminated ¾ of them just based on their age, interior clear height and other criteria. He said most of them might be adequate for that “one-in-one-hundred inquiry looking for something specific”, but in general they would not interest anyone from outside the area.
From there we took our road tour. We looked at sites around Plymouth including PIDCO properties and Vanco Development properties such as the Tech Farm. We went to Culver and looked at the sites in their industrial zone. We did the same for Argos, Bourbon, Bremen and LaPaz. Of those Bob only found interest in three sites and of those, the PIDCO site was the only one that had true potential.
The reasons for eliminating the other sites were things that I suspected, but it was interesting to hear from an outside perspective:
- The property was not actually for sale, i.e. it didn’t have an asking price set and in some cases there were contingencies to a sale.
- The property was ill defined, i.e. the only map available was a Google Earth representation or worse, just a Google Map with a “pin” for the location.
- The utilities were not available or unclear as to capacity.
- The data base information was incomplete or suspect.
In our tour we drove by other properties that Bob and I discussed that weren’t on the list. The resounding question was, “Why?” Why hadn’t the appropriate municipality approached those property owners about pursuing proper zoning? Why hadn’t infrastructure been extended to those areas to encourage growth? Why were we settling for attempting to market substandard properties (for some of the reasons listed above) when we could be working to create better opportunities. (More competition might also motivate the existing sellers.)
I look forward to seeing how our new marketing program is fleshed out, but it was painfully obvious after that day that one of our problems is a lack of marketable product…
Visit with IEDC
Last month I had some interesting interactions due to my position with Marshall County Economic Development Corporation (MCEDC). First, Charlie Sparks, Vice President, and Kim Rodner, Manager of Operations, from Indiana Economic Development Corporation (IEDC) came to visit Marshall County. They were here ostensibly to review sites. Jennifer Laurent, MCEDC Executive Director, and I met with them as representatives of Marshall County Economic Development Corp. They were being shown around our region by Dave Behr, Director of the North Central Region of Indiana Economic Development. We spent about a half hour in the MCEDC office, about 45 minutes touring some sites around Plymouth and then about another half hour over lunch. After that they were visiting other counties in our region.
PIDCO Land For Sale
I found it interesting that while they knew of us, they were not familiar with the sites we had to offer. This is despite various interactions Jennifer (and Tom Turner before her) had with them and despite the various sites we have listed on their website. They were aware of Plymouth Industrial Development Corporation (PIDCO) and some of the work they had done in the past, but they were not aware of the PIDCO property northwest of the U.S. 30/Pioneer Drive intersection. Of the sites we showed them, they found that one the most intriguing and marketable.
As an example of challenges we face, we had a fairly extensive discussion on how we could change the interstate highway criteria that is often included in site locator requests. Apparently requesting sites within 10 miles of an interstate highway is often an eliminator that removes us from consideration. We discussed modifying the way sites are listed to include limited access highways such as U.S. 30 (and as U.S. 31 soon will soon be) in the descriptions.
This is apparently the first time they have done this kind of tour. They are rarely out of the office despite the fact that site selectors often ask them if they have actually seen the site they are considering. They were spending several weeks touring all 94 counties to see what is available. I thought the personal interaction with Jennifer should pay dividends in the future, but only time will tell.
One discouraging note was their discussion of how they pursued projects. They told of a project they recently landed in “The Region” where they received little or no help from the locals, but still managed to locate a project there. This description was frustrating to me considering the amount of effort that Marshall County puts into attracting businesses and working with IEDC. In the end, it comes down to what the business wants and unless you’re selling that, you’re out of luck. IEDC will be our friend and help, but they are tasked with making the sale too, so they will do what they have to so that new business ends up here in lieu of Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, etc.
Overall, I think this was productive and a good connection to make. It was disappointing that there wasn’t time to show them the rest of the county. Hopefully if we have a few sites (or even one!) that stands out in their mind to generate a call, it will get Jennifer’s foot in the door to let them know what else we have when they call.
Check back for a future entry on my day with Bob Ady, a site selector who I showed around Marshall County.
