government

Culver Action Plan

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In October I pressed the Town Council to move forward with an Action Plan to start implementation of the Comprehensive Plan.  Unfortunately the first meeting scheduled was a bust and at the next Council meeting discussion of another meeting got tabled until after the first of the year.  I understood why the Action Plan meeting was put off until after the first of the year, but I think there are discussions that can be had now.  The Town Board, Plan Commission and Redevelopment Commissions are the ultimate arbitrators of how this moves forward.  I put the following thoughts down in an email to chairs of those entities in hopes of getting this moving forward.

  • I pushed this last month because I thought we should develop an interim plan, with the goal of reviewing an action plan in late May or June before budgets are prepared.  I think the Action Plan needs to relate to the budgets, but there are also things that could happen in the next six months that would require time rather than dollars.  The Action Plan should be reviewed and updated annually before budgets.
  • The Action Plan should be part of the jumping off point for the Capital Improvement Plan.  Having a rudimentary Action Plan in place will give Bob and the new Town Manager a jumping off point at the first of the year.
  • The Redevelopment Commission isn’t hamstrung by the annual budget timing, so they could possibly move forward on some spending items that fall in their purview and are suggested by the Action Plan.

Low/No Dollar Action Plan for the next six months: 

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Affordable Housing Task Force

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The Dream of “Affordable Housing”

At a meeting Thursday evening I was asked why MCEDC (Marshall County Economic Development Corporation) is included in the Affordable Housing Task Force for Culver and I didn’t give you the best answer.  Let me see if I can do better here.

One of the things that came from the MCEDC BEAR meetings was the need for more good employees. In the last six months the unemployment rate in Marshall County has dropped another percentage point to 4.5%.  (Doug Anspach, former PEDC Director, used to say that at 4% unemployment everyone that is able and willing to work is working.)  Since no one is stepping up to address this employment issue, we have added “Workforce Development” as one of our four main action items in the MCEDC strategic plan.  Housing is just one of the issues that needs to be addressed under workforce development. 

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Indiana Regional Cities Forum

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Through my position on the MCEDC (Marshall County Economic Development Corporation) board, I have met Regina Emberton, President and CEO of the Michiana Partnership.  Michiana Partnership is a regional organization that includes Marshall County and they are involved with marketing our area.

She shared the forum information below regarding IEDC‘s (Indiana Economic Development Corporation) promotion of their Regional Cities Initiative.  It’s not something I can attend, but I thought it was worth sharing here.

I truly believe the old adage that “A Rising Tide Lifts All Boats”.  We need to work together as a region to grow our economy and our fate is at least peripherally tied to the success of South Bend/Mishawaka.

INDIANA REGIONAL CITIES FORUM

November 21, 2014
10:00 – 11:30 a.m.

Gillespie Conference Center at the Hilton Garden Inn
53995 Indiana 933
South Bend, IN 46637

The Indiana Economic Development Corporation (IEDC) is holding regional forums across the state to discuss the governor’s Regional Cities Initiative and key findings from the study that benchmarks peer cities around the nation.
We are relying on you as leaders in your communities to invite others who should also attend. You can do so by simply forwarding this invitation. The types of individuals in your community who may wish to attend could include school superintendents, college/university leaders, Rotary and other volunteer groups, chambers of commerce and other business groups, elected officials, community foundations, religious leaders, arts organizations, economic development professionals, and other civic or business leaders. All are welcome to this meeting. 
Please visit www.indianaregionalcities.com to learn more about the Regional Cities Initiative.

Culver Comp Plan Implementation Meeting

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As a partial rebuttal to my own post yesterday, I attended the Culver Comprehensive Plan Implementation Meeting on Tuesday night.  This meeting was held at the Depot and was part of Houseal Lavigne‘s contract for preparing the Comprehensive Plan.  Several of us on the initial comprehensive plan steering committee requested that this be included in hopes that the seed would be planted with Town officials on why the plan needs to be a reference document and not something just completed and set aside on a shelf.

Here’s the partial rebuttal part…  The Town Council, Plan Commission, Redevelopment Commission and Board of Zoning Appeals as well as the original Steering Committee were requested to attend.  Drumroll please…  4 0f 5 Town Council members were there, 4 of 9 Plan Commission members were there, 3 of 5 Redevelopment Commission members were there and 2 of 5 Board of Zoning Appeal members were there.  For Culver, that’s a damn fine turnout!  It’s a partial rebuttal because this was the regular night for the Plan Commission and they also had a plat review on their agenda.  There shouldn’t have been any issue getting a quorum there on their regular night!

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Meeting Participation in Culver

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facepalmMonday night I went to the regularly scheduled meeting of the Culver Redevelopment Commission at 5:00 at the Culver Town Hall.  I arrived to find the door locked.  I looked at the notice on the bulletin board and it stated that the regularly scheduled meeting had been changed to 4:00 and that they had added a joint meeting with the Town Council which they had moved to the Culver Library at 5:00.

As I’ve said here before I tend to cut volunteer board members a lot of slack.  They give a lot of time and often only receive slings and arrows from the public in return.  I don’t think that’s an excuse for making public participation difficult.  My position as Culver’s representative on the Marshall County Economic Development Corporation Board means that my representation there is closely tied to the work the redevelopment commission does.  I attend almost every meeting of the redevelopment commission.  It is on my calendar to be there on the third Monday at 5:00.  It frustrates me to no end when I make a special effort to be at a meeting only to find that they moved the meeting, with private discussion between meetings.  I’m not special.  They don’t have to let me know.  But I think it’s disrespectful and says something about their relationship with MCEDC.   While they have fulfilled the letter of the law by posting it on the bulletin board at the Town Hall I also feel it does a disservice to the community.  There is also a page on that same bulletin board listing all of the regularly scheduled meetings.  If someone other than myself had gone down to see when the next meeting was, read that list and didn’t check later to see that the meeting had been rescheduled they would have been standing out there fuming like myself.

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