MCEDC

Institutional Memory

by

At the last Culver Town Council meeting, Greg Hildebrand, President of the Marshall County Economic Development Corporation (MCEDC), made a presentation on 2024’s accomplishments and some overall accomplishments through the last several years. Culver’s representative to the MCEDC board turned in his resignation that night as well. Greg told the board he was researching their question about public officials as MCEDC representatives.

As Culver’s first MCEDC representative and as such, a founding member of the MCEDC Board, I found the question surprising. But then I checked the MCEDC website and there is only one board member still there from the early days. Greg is the 6th person in the staff leadership role, so he has no knowledge of the start-up.

Every institution, whether public or private, must evolve. Unfortunately though, when institutional memory is lost, that evolution can involve back-tracking, repetitive spending, and potential repeating mistakes. In the case of MCEDC, the original representatives met for nearly a year before actually forming the corporation and hiring staff. We met with multiple existing Local Economic Development Organizations (LEDOs), which were set up with various structures in order to try and determine what was best. These ranged from local government departments to quasi-government /private partnerships to independent private corporations. We met with site selectors to determine with which form they preferred to work. We met with the State economic development arm, to get their take on what was most effective. Once we determined that the private corporation structure was most flexible and preferable, we researched various corporate forms before deciding on becoming a 501c(6) corporation. Then we hired Ice Miller, one of Indiana’s leading law firms in the area of economic development to help craft our by-laws. Three key take-aways from this:

  • Many site selectors and companies considering a move do not want it public until a decision is made. If the LEDO is a government department or has government representatives on the board, there is a concern about required disclosures that make the potential new business squeamish. For this reason, MCEDC prohibited public officials from holding board positions.
  • A public funded LEDO has more strings attached due to direct tax payments covering costs. MCEDC was set up with service contracts to the various government bodies, so that the services are provided on a consulting basis. This has allowed funding by local Redevelopment Commissions. (It has also caused a few problems regarding flexibility due to government bodies specifying deliverables… not something included in the original contracts.)
  • 501c(6) status makes the corporation a tax exempt entity, but with different abilities and restrictions. This allows contributions from private corporations and individuals to be tax deductible. One other key benefit is a 501c(6) is allowed to lobby government representatives.

The decisions made and the reasons for making them were lost with the retirement of the original board members.

The loss of Institutional Memory has been demonstrated to me in the past from other boards on which I have served too. A new board member has a “new idea” or one they’ve used elsewhere. Institutional Memory could demonstrate how something similar was tried in the past with the associated success or failure. That doesn’t mean the idea may not be worthy of implementation or in the case of past failure, trying again, but maybe it can be improved by past experience or there may be unique reasons why it didn’t work in the past. It could even have left a bad taste in the mouth of donors/supporters and that alone is a reason to avoid it. Board turnover may prevent that experience from moving forward. Sometimes with strong-willed, long-serving staff leadership, the Board gets overshadowed, deferring to staff leadership when staff leadership’s tenure exceeds that of any board member. The Staff becomes the Institutional Memory for better or worse…

I don’t have a great solution for this. Board minutes would be the first line of defense, but there is a wide variety in the way organizations keep minutes, ranging from the bare minimum required by Robert’s Rules, to copious detail on every side conversation. Each has its uses and there are differing schools of thought on which is appropriate for different organizations. Minutes rarely catch everything though.

So here are a few suggestions from my experience on multiple boards:

  1. Minutes should be digitized and searchable. They should be easily available to current board members as a reference. They should be searchable by dates, names and key words. (When I was Secretary of the MCEDC Board, I kept a running to-do list of board decisions that I included at the bottom of the minutes and updated it monthly with new things directed by the board and removing things that were completed in the last month. The Executive Director hated that, but it was useful for accountability.)
  2. Along with board minutes, institutional history should be kept. This can be in a narrative form, added to monthly and included in total, attached to the first meeting of the year’s minutes covering the previous year. This should include successes and failures, in enough detail for a new board member to easily understand what happened. This should also be easily available to current board members in a searchable form.
  3. Board members should be encouraged to provide a summary of their time on the board with the associated highlights and missed opportunities. What stands out when looking backwards can often provide insights and direction for what comes next. This should also be easily available to current board members in a searchable form.
  4. Paid staff should be encouraged to provide their input since they are the day-to-day face of the board and have invaluable insight into what is happening. That said, they should be reminded when necessary that they are not board members, do not have a vote, and are charged with carrying out the board’s directives. (Most of those I have worked with understand this and use their influence judiciously, but I have worked with some that abuse this or balk at taking direction from the board when it doesn’t go their way. They and the board must understand that if this happens too much, it is time for a parting of the ways…)
  5. The searchable sources under 1 through 3, should be consulted anytime there is a new project, staffing change, board reorganization or other activity that could be positively influenced by what came before… This should be a staff function, but should also be considered by anyone suggesting something new or a change in direction. Learning from the past is invaluable.

I believe strongly in refreshing boards and the regular influx of new blood. I think term limits are a reasonable approach to allowing board members a way out as well as a way to encourage new blood, even though this is at the expense of Institutional Memory. But that doesn’t change the fact that the loss of Institutional Memory causes mistakes to be repeated, costs to be repeated and some people to be re-offended. There is a balance for which we should strive, else like MCEDC above, we lose the benefit of the work done in the past.

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” – George Santayana, The Life of Reason, 1905

Growing or Dying

by

Years ago I was part of a group that went to New Bremen, Ohio. We went there as a delegation from the Culver Chamber of Commerce to meet with Jim Dicke II, to discuss how to turn around Culver and possibly get his assistance. Jim had been instrumental through his company, Crown Equipment, in revitalizing New Bremen. From that small group and the then Culver Chamber Board, the Culver Second Century Committee was born. (More on that another day.) One thing he said in that meeting has stuck with me over the years, “Communities are either growing or dying. There is no such thing as staying status quo.” (I don’t know if it was a personal statement or someone else’s, but I always attribute it to him.) I’ve repeated that over the years in multiple settings. I generally try and attribute it to Jim, but even when I don’t, I’m not too concerned, because it fits with one of my other favorite quotes, “Plagiarism is the Sincerest Form of Flattery.” Which I first saw in a B.C. Comic by Johnny Hart…

In this case, I am asking that question about Marshall County, as one of the first actions of the new County Commissioners was to enact a moratorium on projects that involve Solar Farms, Battery Storage Facilities, Carbon Capture and Data Centers. While I understand some of the arguments about Solar (though I don’t necessarily agree, I’ve discussed that here and here), I am particularly interested here in stopping Data Centers.

Data Centers have been protested in other areas for many reasons. One of them, NYMBYism, seems to be the main one behind these efforts. The protests are not coming from our Amish community, so most of the protestors have cell phones and use the internet. I assume they’re not against them as a concept. I also find that interesting coming from the Commissioners, some of whom have expressed their support for our new President, Donald Trump. In a January 7th press conference, President-elect Trump introduced an investor group, DAMAC, planning to bring $20 billion dollars in data center investment to the U.S. In the speech, he specifically called out Indiana as one of the places to benefit from this investment. Though apparently not Marshall County, per our moratorium.

The others reasons don’t seem to apply or could be controlled. There are complaints from other areas that they use too much power… but that’s what’s drawn them here… our somewhat unique position as a crossroads of power grids. Interestingly, the same reason that the solar farm developers have been drawn here, though for the opposite use, i.e. solar farms uploads power and data centers downloads power. The second complaint is excessive use of water, but that’s been mostly corrected and we don’t have a water shortage here. Also, in other areas they are concerned about the draw on existing water infrastructure, but this moratorium is in the County… which does not have a water system. The third complaint is potential pollution from back-up generators, but again, we’re on a major grid line and if that goes down, there’s a lot more to worry about than back-up generator exhaust! A couple of interesting resources here and here.

The main point here is that we seem to be moving towards an anti-development stance in the county. This despite a new national movement to reduce development impediments, Marshall County seems to be focused on setting up road blocks. I realize that some of this is grassroots, but that doesn’t mean it’s based in facts. It seems to be more based in NIMBYism and lack of knowledge. All of these things would increase our tax base, with minimum disruption to our communities. Yes, they should be researched and possibly controlled, but two years from now, we may lament being passed by.

While a data center wouldn’t employ a lot of people in the long term, it would generate jobs during construction. Once completed, it would be low impact on roads, i.e. no semi-traffic as with other manufacturing. Besides the building itself, they do not use up as much land. They are often taller than our general manufacturing construction, sometimes building 90 feet high. They don’t have larger numbers of regular employees, so no acres of asphalt parking lots. We already have setback requirements, impervious surface requirements and if we don’t want to give exceptions on heights, we have existing height restrictions.

But we currently have a moratorium. So what is our alternative? MCEDC has spearheaded three shell buildings in the past, with what seems to be great success. Are more on the horizon? The last one the building in the Plymouth Industrial park at the SE corner of Pioneer and Jim Neu Drive, which currently houses Divert. It has been occupied since 2022. Is there another in the works? Seems that there should be.

I don’t know what the answer is to the growth question. MCEDC is trying, but it’s hard to do without the County behind them and with headlines that make us seem anti-development. If the County Commissioners and County Council have another plan, I haven’t heard it yet. Hopefully they have something in mind. Because Communities are either growing or dying and I don’t think they want to preside over the latter.

Edit: Yesterday, January 28th, 2025, I attended the PIDCO Annual meeting. The guest speakers were from NIPSCO. The topic of data centers came up as well as wind & solar. Several things of note were mentioned that I thought were worth adding here:

  1. Marshall County is well positioned to vie for these new developments do to the proximity to the new transmission lines.
  2. Any infrastructure or increased capacity costs related to a data center would be born by the developer and not the existing rate payers.
  3. NIPSCO is eager to help if we would choose to pursue a data center.
  4. NIPSCO is required to have capacity for it’s projected power needs, exclusive of renewables like wind and solar for those time when renewables aren’t available, i.e. when the wind’s not blowing and the sun’s not shining… Regardless of whether wind and solar developments are pursued, NIPSCO is exploring battery storage to even out their capacity and take advantage of storage to supplement electric service when production costs are at their highest.

County Development for the Future

by
MCEDC’s Greg Hildebrand

There was a County Development for the Future meeting last week and after my post on collaboration, I was pleased to see that it went back to its roots this month. MCEDC president, Greg Hildebrand, gave an update on some of MCEDC’s activities in the past quarter. He then allowed Marshall County Plan Director, Ty Adley, to speak about an upcoming initiative to update the County Comprehensive Plan. From there it transitions to reports from the communities on their projects. A few of these were Stellar Region wrap-ups and READI 1 projects, but there were many discussing their submissions for READI 2.0.

The meeting was pretty positive, with everyone supporting each others’ initiatives and inviting each other to come see the results of their work. There was none of the negative competitive complaints that have been aired earlier this year. This could partially be due to many of those voices being absent, but if they had attended, I don’t think they would have had reason to express negativity. It was all good.

Ty Adley, Marshall County Plan Director

The idea of doing a new Comprehensive Plan for the county should be an opportunity for more collaboration and was my main take-away. It’s all about how it is created, accepted and used though. In the last couple of years, I have served on two comprehensive plan committees. The differing results have been somewhat stark.

Plymouth’s plan was embraced by the Plymouth Plan Commission and and the Plymouth Common Council and Administration. I think this had a lot to do with their participation on the process. Within a month of adoption, implementation meetings were started and subcommittees where formed. A zoning review committee was formed and some zoning ordinances changes suggested by the comp plan have already been passed. A marketing committee was formed and a new logo is already out there with buttons being passed out and new banners being placed on light poles. There is a sense of urgency and the need to continue the progress.

Culver has been making false starts. After Culver’s Stellar projects were finished and their projects from Marshall County Stellar were finished, Culver began an initiative they called Culver Crossroads, patterned after Marshall County Crossroads. (Marshall County Crossroads was the group that spearheaded and achieved Stellar Region designation for Marshall County.) Subcommittees were established and meeting were held. From those meetings it became clear that Culver’s Comprehensive Plan needed updating. Most of the easily achievable goals from the 2014 plan had been made through the Stellar designations. Culver Crossroads became the Comprehensive Plan committee. Culver started this project around the same time as Plymouth or a little earlier. Culver’s plan took longer to complete. There was much more community participation in Culver, but despite that, there was much more community rancor regarding the plan. The plan went through several additional community meetings and rewrites. But the biggest difference is that the Culver plan was completed last Spring and there has yet to be an implementation committee established. The Culver Plan Commission cancelled a meeting this summer because they didn’t have anything to do! Really? After the 2014 plan, the Culver council immediately created a strategic action plan and started working it. That lead to Culver’s Stellar designation. That same push isn’t happening this time. Not only that, the Culver Crossroads committee never officially disbanded, but effectively just evaporated and lost all momentum.

So here’s a short list Ty and the county plan commission can consider to make the post planning process successful:

  1. Keep the energy flowing. While there is generally some sense of relief that the planning process is done, there needs to be a conscious effort made push pass that and focus on the excitement of a new plan and the potential it represents.
  2. Encourage implementation by keeping the plan front and center. Plymouth has made it agenda item at council meetings and plan commission meetings much as both Plymouth and Culver did with Stellar. This means putting it on the commissioners’ meeting agenda and the plan commission agenda so it’s seen at every meeting and advances can be celebrated and any lost momentum is questioned.
  3. After their 2014 plan completion, the Culver town council created a Strategic Action Plan (SAP) pulling out the top items to pursue and identifying a budget to make this happen. Culver’s 2014 plan identified housing as a prime issue, created a housing subcommittee and that subcommittee’s research resulted in Culver’s pursuit of Stellar Community designation. This should be a function of the county commissioners, since they set the county direction and prepare budgets.
  4. As Plymouth has done this year, use the comprehensive plan committee to seed an implementation committee and new subcommittees to address specific issues. In some cases, new leaders have emerged where they had specific interests, but may not have had the same energy for the plan as a whole.

There are other things, but those are the top ones that I’ve seen be successful and move the plan forward. Good Luck Ty! This will be a big undertaking!

And good job Greg! MCEDC needs to keep “bringing the communities together” high on their priority list.

LIHTC & Stellar

by
Linda Yoder

At the December meeting of the Culver Redevelopment Commission (CRC), Linda Yoder, Executive Director for the Marshall County Community Foundation (MCCF), made a presentation on One Marshall County. One Marshall County is the new umbrella organization that Marshall County Economic Development Corp (MCEDC) has spearheaded. Linda and I serve on the collaborative council discussing this new initiative and Linda had volunteered to make the presentation of the need for One Marshall County before the CRC. This also included a request for funding.

There were a few math errors in the presentation, but one of these jumped out at me was during the discussion of Stellar and the investment that Marshall County Crossroads brought to local communities. The numbers quite clearly did not include the investment from tax credits provided by IHCDA. The Low Income Housing Tax Credits (LIHTC) provided by IHCDA amounted to the biggest single project investment from any of the State agencies involved in Stellar. In all, through the tax credits and loans, Plymouth and LaPaz shared $14 million dollars of investment in their communities with Riverside Commons. That investment didn’t show up in the presentation numbers. This is no shade on Linda! She didn’t prepare the numbers…

The Paddocks in Culver

This isn’t the first time for this. Culver received approximately $10 million in tax credits and loans for The Paddocks, but that number rarely shows up in their Stellar discussions. These would be huge contributors to the ROI discussion, since local investment in these projects was largely limited to in-kind waivers and some inhouse work. (Culver contributed nothing to The Paddocks project. Plymouth gave waivers on improvements to surrounding alleys. LaPaz waived sewer tap fees and secured matching INDOT funding to improve the street serving the project.)

Riverside Commons Plymouth

I think there are a couple of reasons for this lack of acknowledgment: 1) The Stellar Committees don’t really understand the program and 2) Unlike many of the project which were directly municipal projects, i.e. parks, trails, etc., that required more active involvement, the LIHTC portion of Stellar is directly administered by the project developer, so there isn’t a pass-through of dollars. The LIHTC award creates a private project. Where there was some shifting of dollars amongst the other municipal projects within the Stellar awards, that was not an option with LIHTC.

Riverside Commons – LaPaz, d.b.a. LaPaz Commons

Despite the success of The Paddocks in Culver’s Stellar Community program, Marshall County didn’t even include a LIHTC request in their first application for Stellar Region. I had lobbied for its inclusion and felt that the group slighted IHCDA by not accepting their offer. I lobbied a little harder in their second attempt and Riverside Commons was included in that application, which was successful. This was probably not the only reason, but I firmly believe it contributed to the success of the second application.

There have been some complaints about The Paddocks, but The Paddocks has met or exceeded all of the metrics set forth for it. The same can be said for Sand Hill Farm Apartments, the precursor project that made Culver Stellar and The Paddocks possible. It’s too soon to document that for Riverside Commons, which has different goals, but I have no reason to believe the results will be different. As far as community acknowledgement, the LaPaz and Plymouth councils have done a great job of recognizing Riverside Commons. They each have a Stellar agenda item on their council agendas and request updates for each meeting. Culver did not include The Paddocks in their Stellar reports to the council.

I think it’s a missed opportunity when the LIHTC investment is not celebrated and included in the ROI… But then, I’m obviously biased!

One Marshall County

by
Don’t Give up!

Marshall County Economic Development Corporation (MCEDC) and Marshall County Crossroads started conversations earlier this year about creating an over-arching organization to coordinate efforts throughout the county. This was looked at as the next step forward for Marshall County Crossroads. (Marshall County Crossroads seems to be faltering. Their website has not been updated since 2021. This is at least partially due to a lack of funding.) They created what was called the Collaborative Council, which has adopted “One Marshall County” as the name for the new organization. I was asked to join this group late in the game as they were missing input on housing; a target on the local, regional and State level. As I understood the initial mission, there were two main goals, 1) to try and coordinate the efforts amongst the various groups to better use funds and personnel, and 2) to form a united front and coordinated funding request when READI 2.0 project requests are announced.

While I’m generally supportive of the effort, I’m feeling a bit of Deja Vu’. I helped form the Second Century Committee in Culver. This came about around Culver’s bicentennial as a collaborative planning committee to coordinate the efforts of the various clubs, organizations and the town government. In Culver’s case, it was started as a subcommittee of the Chamber of Commerce. It did a lot of good things, including helping work through a charrette and motivating a new comprehensive plan. One Marshall County has bigger plans, and is looking for funding, but I don’t know that they won’t suffer from some of the same issues that came to plague the Second Century Committee.

The Second Century Committee had a core group forming a steering committee that pushed hard to get it started. There were regular meeting, agendas and great collaboration. But when the torch was passed to new steering committee members, the passion and vision didn’t follow. Without common goals, the group meetings changed from planning meetings, to just lunches. As the direction faltered, the group meetings had less and less participation, until they ended up being just the steering committee meeting amongst themselves. Then, instead of being the planning and vision for the collaborative group, the steering committee started doing projects on their own. Some of these were great, but without the help of the larger group, funding became an issue and the steering committee members became burned out. Their efforts to be independent from the chamber lost them some of their chamber support. In the end, they could not find replacements for the steering committee and the group withered and dissolved.

One Marshall County has more grandiose plans. They are requesting funding from municipalities and are planning to solicit businesses as well. They plan on having a director to make sure things proceed. I like what they are trying to do, but there are just a few drivers of the initiative and as with the Second Century Committee, I’m concerned what happens when those drivers are ready to step aside. I am also concerned that many of the groups they hope to pull under this umbrella organization are not currently involved in the planning. They can’t just assume that they will have to fall into place. As an example, Argos is not interested in participating and plans to go their own route.

My other concern is for MCEDC. As a founding member and past board member, I know the good that MCEDC has done and the gap that would be left without them. One Marshall County is targeting the same funding sources with MCEDC slated to fall under One Marshall County. That concerns me. For those not in the loop, and that includes a lot of those funding decision makers, it is going to be hard to differentiate between the two and justify doubling their contributions. (I understand the ask to be a match of what’s being giving to MCEDC for most of those involved.)

I will continue to be involved. The idea of One Marshall County is still evolving and I think it has potential. It’s just hard not to look at this through the lens of Culver’s, now defunct, Second Century Committee…