City council member Shirley Rose Monday night changed her mind and voted to support her fellow members' move to give $250,000 to help the Knox County Development Corp. purchase another 50 acres in the U.S. 41 Industrial Park.
“I do think this is bad timing for our city,” she said before casting her vote, “because we need sidewalks, curbs and other things like that to make our city look better.
"And I don’t think this is a 50/50 deal," Rose said. "I just hope before we get into any more of these conversations or deals we all get a little more say-so.
“But I will vote 'yes' tonight because I believe in the KCDC and I believe in its leadership.”
Councilman Tim Salters said the “relationship” between the city and KCDC could be looked at more closely come budget time.
The council gives to the KCDC each year just under $200,000 in support of the corporation's economic-development endeavors.
“In October when we look at our budgets, it might be a good time for all of us to look at this relationship,” he said.
KCDC members asked both the city and county councils to partner with them on purchasing the additional 50 acres, dubbed the Worland Property. Each entity gave $250,000 — the city council gave the measure final approval Monday night — and KCDC president Kent Utt said last week that the organization had closed on the purchase.
That land combined with another 50 acres purchased last year, the Lewis property, now gives to the KCDC about 100 acres to get shovel-ready and market to industry leaders looking to build in Indiana.
Rose had said last month that she was against the move, both because the money was needed by the city and because most of the benefits (mainly increased property-tax revenue) from development in the industrial park go to the county rather than city.
In other business, Vincennes Housing Authority executive director Linda Fredrick and board president Tim Thompson presented the city $40,000 as a payment in lieu of taxes.
It was a $7,000 increase over last year.
The organization since 1976, Thompson said, has given to the city more than $928,000 in payments in lieu of taxes because they believed it their “duty, pleasure and all around right thing to do.”
The council also voted to vacate a portion of 14th Street near the Cub League baseball facility as a part of a land exchange recently struck with the organization.
Kirk Bouchie, director of the youth baseball organization, said the league is pursuing the possibility of selling its batting facility to someone interested in operating a year-round business there and leasing it back to the league during the youth baseball season
But even though Cub League owned the building, it didn’t own the ground underneath it.
The city owns much of the property and leases it back to Cub League, Bouchie said.
The deal struck was for the city to give Cub League the ground in exchange for the parking lot located across the street.
Cub League purchased a deteriorated house there years ago, razed it and turned area into a parking lot.