Community

Culver’s Transparency Efforts

by
October 25, 2022 Town Council Meeting audience was full with people concerned about The Dunes.

I’ve been amused and bemused by some of the hub-bub on TGL and at the Town Council Meeting regarding the READI Grant award for the Culver housing project on South Main Street. The Town of Culver truly is above average in their efforts to keep the public informed, but no good deed goes unpunished… That effort sometimes comes back to bite them when something requires them to be nimble.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I was unhappy with the way the Town handled the READI grant decision and project selection, but that doesn’t mean they did anything clandestine. There were discussions in advertised public meetings regarding this project, The Dunes. But this is a case where the Town fast-tracked the application process in order to get it in by the application deadline. Sometimes timelines are dictated by others.

Spirit Townhomes Conceptual Drawings

Unfortunately, part of the issue is the uncertainty of Culver’s push to participate in READI. In the 6/14/22 Town Council Meeting, the Town Manager said Culver was unlikely to participate in READI: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jKWHap7j99g Time Stamp 21:44 because they didn’t want to proceed with the housing project submitted in the first round: Culver Sand Hill Farm‘s submission for Spirit Townhomes (Which was done with the Town’s blessing.) That was confusing for me, since in a recent Plan Commission meeting she referenced this and said they couldn’t have done The Dunes without that submission! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4Jd1gPlNzA Time Stamp: 1:36:45 Just to be clear, I have no connection to The Dunes. I had a much smaller project in mind, which would have been community improvement and in an already developed residential area. I was disappointed in the change in direction the Town took.

Preliminary Plan for The Dunes development on South Main Street.

Part of what’s interesting with the public outrage is, this project could move forward without the PUD aspect. It was already in the works with this developer before READI became a factor. The Redevelopment Commission was already working on a commitment to this. READI just allowed the capture of grant funds.

Very little, if any, of what is planned couldn’t be done under the current R-2 Zoning District designation as I pointed out in the Plan Commission meeting referenced above. The use of a PUD will allow the developer some additional flexibility and will allow the Town to capture TIF dollars, which they would be unable to do in a straight residential development. This becomes somewhat of a win-win, though that hasn’t been explained well. Those that are unhappy with the idea of 60 acres of new residential development on those parcels should have paid more attention when they received notification of the, annexation and rezoning several years ago. Both those things were made public and required public hearings before the Plan Commission and Town Council.

As someone who participates in town meetings and town committees, I’m always shocked by those that chose to remain ignorant of what is happening around them. It is unfortunate that everyone can’t attend meetings and be involved, but thanks to advances in technology and in large part, thanks to Covid, Culver is broadcasting nearly every meeting and posting them for posterity as well. I have also cringed at some of the things that they have recorded, but it’s a learning curve and their willingness to put themselves out there is commendable. They have gone above and beyond the other local communities where I attend meetings. They are also more open to public input in these meetings.

The whole debacle with The Dunes looks so familiar with what I went through with the Sand Hill Farm apartments and, in the same neighborhood as The Dunes, what I went through with Culver Garden Court apartments. Yes, The Dunes has hit the press a little late, but I don’t know that it would have mattered. Both my projects were well publicized and detractors still came out of the woodwork in the 11th hour. With the negativity currently expressed and the recent “win” against the 415 LSD townhouses, I would expect the Plan Commission and Town Council meetings to be interesting in the next few months…

Construction Career Month in Indiana

by

Governor Holcomb has declared October “Construction Career Month“. It’s great to see this recognized, but we at Easterday Construction Co., Inc. (ECC) promote this year in and year out.

Over the years, we have sent dozens of employees to various forms of construction training in order to advance their careers. This has varied from National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) accredited Apprenticeship Training through Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC) to leadership seminars to task certifications, such as welding to various safety training events. We believe strongly in helping our employees advance their careers.

Over the years, we have also participated in Culver Community Middle School Career Days. It has been interesting having the opportunity to spark interest in the construction trades, dispelling myths and touting benefits. One of my favorite things, that seemed to garner interest, was to point out that with a successful career in construction, you can drive through your community and see the results of your efforts in the building projects with which you’ve been involved. In my case, there are four generations of Easterday Construction projects in Culver and the surrounding communities.

One class was particularly memorable as it had a student that was a daughter of one our our superintendents. Not only did she listen raptly, I heard that she repeated my presentation at home. It was obvious she was proud of the work her father performed. While these kids are too young to be concerned with the financial side of obtaining a higher education, they were generally surprised to hear that construction offered a career path with similar outcomes to many college degrees. Hopefully, sometime in the future, this will make them think hard about taking on college debt. Maybe they’ll come to see me to talk about the advantages of construction apprenticeship… where ECC picks up the cost of their education.

The Roger Umbaugh Impact Investing Fund

by

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.

More Stellar Signs

by
Bremen Stellar Sign

As I said in my previous post, I have been disappointed in the lost potential of the Stellar signs. At the time of that post, I hadn’t had the chance to see the signs in Bremen and Bourbon. I had the opportunity to see those signs the other day. While both of these seemed to be making better use of the opportunities and goals set for these signs, they are still under used.

Bremen is doing the best with use of it for town events. It had quite a few different local events listed, but there was still the ubiquitous Time & Date filler and “Welcome to Bremen”. Nothing was shown regarding the events outside of Bremen when I was there.

Bourbon Stellar Sign

Bourbon wasn’t being used as much with the Time & Date filler prominent. Bourbon did make the move of including other local connections. They included screens with their town website address which I thought was an improvement and something the others should consider. (The sign was legible up close, but obviously not enough so for a picture.)

As I stated in the previous post, I realize there are limitations to the time municipal employees have to keep up with these things. Just this past week, I was please to see that Culver’s sign had shown some improvement, including advertising the “Paint Out” that was scheduled here this weekend. But events like the Paint Out should be showing up on all of these signs. The opportunity for cross-county tourism is a real one, plus the event would have been seen by travelers passing through those communities too. I’ll keep an eye on all of them for improvements. Time will tell. The opportunity is still there.

Stellar Signs – Wasted Potential

by
Culver Sign
Time Temperature

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:

  • Define what each community wants their sign to say about them. I doubt the message will be “It’s 12:30pm.”
  • Find the right person in each community to manage the signs. If there is not a municipal employee available or capable, cast the net further. A set of rules can be established by the municipality (should be done anyway) and let a trusted individual run with it.
  • Explore ways to turn the cross-promotion over to Marshall County Tourism. I realize their mission is to bring in people from outside the community, but Culver’s sign was placed to be visible to people that are crossing the County on State Highways. Isn’t getting some of them to stop, the point? A side issue here is that when I went to the Marshall County Tourism Calendar, there are no events in September. REALLY!?! Not even the Blueberry Festival… So maybe this isn’t a good suggestion.

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.