Commissioners hold brine hearings, discuss tax abatements

By Tay­lor Kaser –

Begin­ning at 9:30 a.m, the com­mis­sion­ers held two hear­ings regard­ing sur­face brine appli­ca­tion imme­di­ately fol­low­ing their May 16 meeting.

Appli­ca­tions were sub­mit­ted by Jack Fis­burn to apply brine to road­ways on his prop­erty, includ­ing the Car­di­nal Cen­ter and campground.

Com­mis­sioner Tom Harden explained that this per­mit is updated yearly and has been a granted in the past. He also stated that final approval of the per­mit can only be granted by the Ohio Depart­ment of Nat­ural Resources.

No one was present on the appli­cants side to speak. Com­ments and ques­tions from the audi­ence were then allowed.

Mem­bers of the pub­lic voiced con­cerns over the use of brine. Donna Carver cited exam­ples from her research, of brine being under reg­u­lated and going unmon­i­tored by the Depart­ment of Nat­ural Resources. She also men­tioned cases of ground­wa­ter con­t­a­m­i­na­tion linked with the use of brine.

After lis­ten­ing to pub­lic com­ments, the com­mis­sion­ers approved both permits.

Approval was granted for Direc­tor of Oper­a­tions Pat Davies to sign an Edu­ca­tional Part­ner­ship Agree­ment with Mar­ion Tech­ni­cal Col­lege. A stu­dent, cur­rently attend­ing Bowl­ing Green Uni­ver­sity, will work part time for the Devel­op­ment Office this summer.

Funds were trans­ferred by the Court of Com­mon Pleas, Zon­ing Office, and the County Engineer’s office to cover the force account contracts.

Chair­man Tom Whis­ton was autho­rized to sign an agree­ment regard­ing ongo­ing ser­vices through the Adult Pro­ba­tion Authority.

An addi­tional $32,810.54 was cer­ti­fied by the Bud­get Com­mis­sion and is appro­pri­ated to the cour­t­house ren­o­va­tion project.

Sta­tus reports for Com­mu­nity Devel­op­ment Build­ing Grants were approved, as well as the Com­mu­nity Hous­ing Improve­ment Pro­gram fund.

Susan Pey­ton, Mayor of Card­ing­ton, was approved for appoint­ment to the Regional Plan­ning Com­mis­sion, to rep­re­sent Cardington.

A pub­lic hear­ing is being held on June 13 11 a.m for a re-zone appli­ca­tion from Marengo Fab­ri­cated Steel, Ltd.The appli­ca­tion asks that a par­cel be re-zoned from res­i­den­tial to indus­trial. Sep­a­rate hear­ings have been held and approved by the Regional Plan­ning Com­mis­sion and the Zon­ing Commission.

A new sep­a­rate fund was set up for funds col­lected by the Treasurer’s tax lien sales. The amount in the offi­cial cer­tifi­cate was $11,590. Those funds were then appro­pri­ated to salaries and other expenses.

Job cre­ation and devel­op­ment was dis­cussed at the com­mis­sion­ers May 21 meet­ing. Whis­ton described a recent mode meet­ing he attended in Columbus.

While there, he said he and Devel­op­ment Direc­tor Pat Davies spoke with the Vice Pres­i­dent of Aber­crom­bie and Fitch, they dis­cussed the “busi­ness atmos­phere in the state.” Con­cern­ing their busi­ness, he said that Ohio’s biggest com­pe­ti­tion isn’t from Indi­ana or Michi­gan, but the Netherlands.

Whis­ton explained, “Why he [the V.P] thinks some of the steps we’ve taken in the past cou­ple years, have made us much more com­pet­i­tive to receive projects.”

“We’re up against peo­ple that already have facil­i­ties that are built and ready to go,” said Whis­ton “So peo­ple some­times won­der why we don’t get projects started here; that’s why.”

“I think the one that it has shown,” Olen Jack­son said of join­ing Colum­bus 20/20, “is when we mar­ket a piece of prop­erty, it gives you a vision right there of what we’re com­pet­ing against. It shows the uphill bat­tle that we have.”

The V.P explained that when the com­pany first went to New Albany in 2000, the income tax was 1%, in 2003 it was 2%. He said that change is almost a deal breaker for companies.

Whis­ton relayed com­ments made by the V.P, “Most states don’t have local income taxes, so when he has some­one from New York come here and they give them a ben­e­fit pack­age; they’re good until they’re told about the local income taxes, that’s enough from a busi­ness stand­point to almost change things. He says tax deter­mines almost every­thing they do now, as far as site loca­tion and that type of thing.”

Bob Suther­land, in atten­dance, asked how the county deter­mines what kind of abate­ments and incen­tives per­spec­tive com­pa­nies can receive.

“The biggest thing to deter­mine it is the site itself, once you do that, there’s not a lot of lee­way for us to make offers.” answered Whis­ton, he said some busi­ness don’t ask for any concessions.

Suther­land then asked if 75–100% tax abate­ments, if the school agrees, were ben­e­fi­cial to the county?

“I think a lot of cases they look at it , if it’s neu­tral from the stand­point of tax over a long period of time, if its cre­at­ing local jobs, that becomes the main deter­mi­nate. One of the num­ber one things peo­ple want is a place to work. So if we could get a busi­ness here that employs a cou­ple hun­dred peo­ple, and we have a neu­tral tax con­se­quence and yet we cre­ate jobs.” Whiston.

Suther­land also inquired what kinds of jobs, includ­ing salaries and ben­e­fits, the county hopes to create.

“I guess fun­da­men­tally, if you look at it from my stand­point, I don’t think the county cre­ates jobs or deter­mines that. Busi­ness is the one that cre­ates jobs.” Whiston.

“These [the com­mis­sion­ers] don’t con­trol that as much as your school boards, city coun­cils and may­ors.” said Trea­surer Dan Green of who decides what tax abate­ments are granted, “The school board why they con­trol so much of it is because they get the most of the tax.”

He used the exam­ple of the Card­ing­ton school board hav­ing the author­ity to grant a com­plete abate­ment to Yutaka, when they con­structed an addi­tion for project research and devel­op­ment, worth $24 mil­lion. “They have the most to lose so they have the biggest voice, they can waive that but they don’t. ” said Green.

The meet­ing con­cluded with dis­cussing ways to make the pub­lic more aware of issues and attend pub­lic meetings.

Also approved at the meet­ing: Whis­ton was autho­rized to sign a sta­tus report for the Neigh­bor­hood Sta­bi­liza­tion Grant for 2008. Cer­ti­fied money was appro­pri­ated to other expenses for the cour­t­house ren­o­va­tion project in the amount of $11,599.61. Trans­fer of funds were approved for Job and Fam­ily Ser­vices and the Law Library. An appli­ca­tion for road cross­ing on Co. Rd. 24, Lin­coln Twp., to bore was approved.

Posted by Randa Wagner on May 23 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.