GOSHEN — A special Elkhart County Council meeting to consider tax incentives for a new employer swerved into COVID-19 territory Thursday when the council also made a sudden push to unlock county office buildings. One member also announced plans to seek legal advice regarding signatures on an ordinance that set fines for businesses found to violate the county’s face mask order.
The discussion on the county buildings issue followed a decision to move forward with a request seeking a seven-year tax phase-in for a manufacturer to set up near Bristol as county council members met for a special afternoon session. The agenda for the proposal meeting only called for discussing the economic development proposal, though a notice that the meeting was scheduled had language that cracked open the door for other issues to come up.
Omaha, Nebraska-based Valmont Industries plans to build a facility and regional headquarters for manufacturing and producing concrete utility poles for the energy industry, Chris Stager, CEO of the Economic Development Corp. of Elkhart County told the council.
In a presentation, Stager said plans call for investing nearly $30 million to build a 75,000-square-foot facility on an 80-acre property Valmont wants to purchase west of Maple Street, south of downtown Bristol. The plant would employ about 94 workers at an average wage of $23 per hour.
Stager said the company expects to have the new factory operational by October or early November. Work to rezone the property and for Bristol to annex it would also be underway as the project moves forward. The facility would be separate from a Valmont plant that currently operates along Charlotte Avenue in Elkhart.
Council members expressed optimism about the project by a company that would help provide more economic diversification beyond recreational vehicle manufacturing in the county.
“I think we should give this company a chance,” council member Tina Wenger said. “We know that we need to open up our economy because of what has been going on from COVID. And Number 2: I think is a diversified kind of product that our county might benefit from.”
Mike Yoder, former county commissioner and now Bristol’s town manager, also praised the project after he was said to have helped draw Valmont to the new site.
“This is going to be a solid win for the town and for the county,” Yoder said.
The council voted 6–0 to approve a declaratory resolution, which outlines details of the project and includes the seven-year tax phase-in on equipment and real estate. Council member Randall Yohn was not present at the meeting. The issue is expected to be considered again at the county council’s next regular meeting Feb. 13.
COUNTY BUILDINGS RESOLUTION
After the vote was taken, the council immediately transitioned into introducing a new non-binding resolution that called on the county commissioners to re-open free access to county office buildings.
“As a council, we highly recommend that the Elkhart County commissioners suspend the closing of the Elkhart County offices to the public,” the resolution stated as it was read aloud.
Council member Doug Graham argued the facilities, including the County Administrative Building along Second Street in Goshen and the Public Services Building near Dunlap, have adequate protections to help employees avoid exposure to COVID in the form of plastic barriers, hand sanitizer and face mask requirements. With those steps in place, he believed opening the buildings would be of better service to the public.
The discussion echoed similar pushes County Commissioner Brad Rogers made during two commissioner meetings earlier this month. The other two commissioners, Suzanne Weirick and Frank Lucchese, disagreed with Rogers during those conversations.
Council members, like Rogers, argued the county buildings aren’t known high-foot-traffic or congregation areas similar to large stores and restaurants. Graham believed having staff meet residents at the door invited more personal interaction that way than allowing people to walk in and meet staff at office windows.
“If it’s okay for Walmart and Martin’s and Kroger and Joe’s Pizza and everything else to be open, why can’t we be open to serve the public? That was my biggest problem,” Graham said.
Weirick responded to concerns, saying the county doesn’t have resources like large stores to staff people at building entrances to make sure people coming in are wearing masks and taking other precautions. She also pointed out the decision was made amid a significant health crisis.
“When we put this in place, not only were we at (level) red, the situations in the hospitals were so dire that we couldn’t provide service,” Weirick told the council.
Doors to the office buildings have been locked since late November, when the county grappled with climbing numbers of COVID-19 cases and hospital overcrowdings. Entry was limited, with residents encouraged to make appointments and/or call ahead to be let in so they could conduct business with the county.
Now, Weirick said, the county’s COVID-19 positivity rate has fallen below 15%, pushing the county down from a red designation to an orange designation, potentially on the way lower still to a yellow designation by next week, according to Indiana Department of Health data. Saying there’s been progress in reducing coronavirus activity and hospitalization rates, Weirick believed the commissioners were already expecting to look at unlocking building doors next week, with guidance from the Elkhart County Health Department, independent of the council’s new resolution.
Weirick said after the meeting that nobody is happy with having to take steps to address the COVID pandemic, and she stood by decisions made during the frequently changing situation to try and reduce the local spread.
“One of the things that I have stressed form the beginning is this requires agility,” Weirick said. To be able to treat the virus, we really needed to close our structures to free public access.”
She also said residents have not been denied access to services at county office buildings while the doors remain shut.
Following the discussion at the meeting, the council unanimously approved proposing the new non-binding resolution.
And prior to the vote, Wenger told the council she plans to meet with a representative from the Indiana Attorney General’s Office over the weekend about fines the county put in place for violators of the county’s face mask order.
Wenger said she wants to discuss the validity of signatures on the ordinance, passed by the commissioners at the end of November, which set up the fine schedule to work in conjunction with the health department’s mask mandate. Wenger directed her concern at Mike Yoder’s signature, who, while no longer a commissioner now, was in the final month of his term in that office when the ordinance was passed. Wenger also pointed to County Auditor Patty Pickens’ signature while noting she put her name on the document as procedure to attest the commissioners signed it.
Wenger said this is part of an effort to ask the commissioners to rescind the fine ordinance, and she hopes to discuss the issue more during the next council meeting in February.
“The small business owners are still ... telling us, ‘Please, this does not help us. And this is not a good way of treating ... our community, ... our small businesses,’” Wenger said.
The ordinance called for imposing fines on businesses and organizations found to have repeatedly violated COVID health directives. It also lays out that first-time violators won’t be fined, but are expected to work with health department staff on following expected precautions.
Weirick noted progress has been made on that front with declines in the number of complaints to the health department this month.