Indiana used to be as smart as Arizona, but Mitch Daniels dumbed us down. Or as those of us in Marshall County remember, put us on Heim Time…
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.
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:
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.
There is an old adage regarding investing that when your stocks are down, you haven’t actually lost any money until you sell the stock. Because of this, the corollary has always been, that likewise, the gain is not realized until you sell the stock. Gains and Losses “on paper” don’t really matter, until they are realized when they are converted to cash or traded for other things. President Biden and now candidate Harris, along with some members of Congress are pushing a Wealth Tax, which would tax these paper gains.
As an example, if you bought 100 shares of Apple’s stock in 2010, it was 6 dollars a share. It cost $600 to make that purchase. It is now over $200 per share so your $600 investment is worth upwards of $20,000 or a 33 times as much as when you bought it. But that gain is on paper. You’re not able to use that value to purchase anything until you sell the stock, at which time you’ll take a $5,800 capital gains haircut.
The wealth tax proposal suggests that you should pay tax on that unrealized gain now. But how will the unrealized tax be determined? Apple’s stock’s all time high was $237, but its highest day end value was $234. And on August 5th with the short crash, it was at $207. Those numbers all are within the past month. With the constant fluctuation of stock prices, will there be an arbitrary day chosen? The all time high? An average of the past year? At a minimum, this seems like a record keeping nightmare. Record keeping is already a problem with the current capital gain tax where you have to keep documentation of a stock purchase price, transaction costs, and splits along the way… sometimes over decades. This is worse with a business or property where you have to track expenditures on improvements, depreciation and other things that affect value.
Another local example is what has happened to many families around Lake Maxinkuckee. Their ancestors owned a lake cottage which was bought decades ago. The property was passed down to descendants. Not all of these descendants were wealthy, but suddenly they were wealthy on paper because of the appreciation in lake property values. They were then forced to sell property that may have been in the family for generations because they couldn’t afford the real estate taxes on the appreciated value. The wealth tax could be another hit on unrealized generational wealth like that.
In a Kiplinger.com article, John Goralka posits this concept about estate planning, “The cash people receive from you is more cash than you have.” This translates to day to day things as well. Wealthy people don’t live like Scrooge McDuck, with a vault in the back of their home where they swim in gold coins. How much money do you think Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos have that they can access immediately? More than me, I’m sure, but as a percentage of their wealth, I would guess the percentage is smaller. Wealth is generally tied up in “things” and those things are working to help you create more wealth. Some of those things employ people who provide goods and services. It’s likely that a wealth tax would require forced liquidation of those things to pay the tax. That would result in less investment in those things so that cash that should be put to work in the economy is held back in anticipation of tax liabilities.
John Goralka’s article has made me think about my own situation. I own my home and currently have no plans to sell it. That value adds to my net worth, but it’s not money I can spend. But when I die, that home will be converted to cash to distribute to heirs. A smaller version of what Elon Musk has with Tesla and Jeff Bezos has with Amazon, but the concept is the same.
In our current DEI world, it has become de rigueur to bash successful people. Hard work, saving and investing are out of fashion. Along with the wealth tax, there are discussions about taxing 401(k)s and IRAs where people have saved too much or invested successfully. Envy of wealth has replaced the aspirational goal of becoming wealthy. Most wealth is the result of some risk. Most wealth remains at risk as it remains invested. No government has been good at playing Robin Hood. We should push back on this, as a tax on those creating wealth by a government that can’t live within its means won’t end well.
This is a Culver follow up on the Burr Oak post, Strange Use of Funds, from last September. I still vacillate between amusement at the absurdity of that project and outrage at the wasted tax dollars.
In any case, my bemusement extends to Culver and the thinking that went into the crosswalk from the southwest corner to the northwest corner of intersection of S.R. 10 & S.R. 17 at the end of Lake Shore Drive. First, it’s an absurd place for a crosswalk. As with some of those pointed out in the Burr Oak post, there is no connecting walk on the north side. Second, there are no storm drains or even right-of-way swales, so the condition pictured to the right, is pretty normal when there is any rain at all. Third, in the best of conditions, as shown in the picture below, the corner remains muddy after a rain, the walk is below the road and the surrounding grass, and it runs directly into a gas line marker and part of a stone wall!
This was a Town of Culver project, but I assume this design falls squarely within INDOT requirements. Culver just wanted a sidewalk going west to accommodate Culver Academy students walking to the Family Dollar. This extra little feature was no doubt a INDOT requirement, costing several thousand dollars in engineering and construction. Money spent to solve an non-existent issue, while not fixing real issues, i.e. flooding and obstacles, that make this even less useful, if that’s even possible.
I often wonder if others see these things. For any of you that have looked at this and scratched your head, did you also notice the weird hump in the sidewalk just west of this intersection? The rest of the new walk pretty much follows the curb grade, except for the 20′ +/- section right there that rises up 4″-6″ and then back down for no discernible reason. I suspect someone kicked a grade stake and no one noticed until it was too late, but that’s just a theory. There could be many other explanations. It just looks weird though…
Keep your eyes open people. You never know what you’ll run across. Best to just be amused, because impotent outrage will just make you crazy.
Growing or Dying
January 27, 2025
Kevin Berger
Commentary, Marshall County, MCEDC, Politics, Rants
Community, Development, government, Rants, Trends
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:
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