03-24-14 Common Council Meeting Minutes

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REGULAR MEETING MARCH 24, 2014 Councilmember Ferlic- the Community Investment sends both of these forward with a favorable recommendation. Presenter (Nobel America Ethanol LLC) - We bring before you the resolutions for Nobel America Ethanol LLC for new operators of the ethanol plant here in South Bend. As we discussed earlier to the committee this is a unique resolution for the public hearing today. This is a situation where when we were negotiating for the purpose of purchase ethanol plant to become the new operator the plant was then assessed as personal property for the books of taxation. Upon completing the purchase and acquisition of the plant and after beginning to make improvements to the plant the assessor made the decision to reassess the property as real property. The presence of the building certainly adds a component to this that the local ordinance say you cannot uphold a building permit in order to receive a real property abatement. Members of the corporate and community investment in the council and the crowd that stands before me, we have given them permission to pull the building permit as it was formerly personal property at that time, so while we are asking for building exemptions in the ordinance in real property abatement up to 8 years in addition to that the approval of tax abatement on personal property up to 5 years. Nobel America's has been a good corporate citizen thus far, plans to invest approximately $32 million in the Ethanol plant to bring it back to the state of our facility, secondly to be here for a long, long time. In the event that personal property tax and the real property tax abatements are granted today, we know that the company is doing their due diligence now, economic forecasting to determine which would be of the most value to the company in the long term then the plan is at that time, choose to accept either the real property abatement or appeal to both the assessor and the state assessor to have it reverted back to personal property. In the event that it is kept as personal property abatement full tax abated over a 5 year period would be $102,000 total taxes paid would be $105,000. If it's a real property tax abatement, total taxes abated would be $1,562,000, and total tax paid would be $4, 443,000, total number of jobs created would be 50 with a guarantee rate between $25 to $27 an hour. None for or against: Councilmember Scott- I want to thank you for your investment. One thing Chris, I want to note that we had a meeting done once this gets turned on, we had a sewer issue with the old ethanol plant, not too much of a water issue, but councilman Davis had to deal with a sewer smell happening in the first district and the second district and I want to make sure that we have those meetings and talk about it. I did verse the subject with Dr. Garner, on the utilities committee but I want make sure we are all on the same page moving forward with that. I am supportive, I appreciate the jobs and investment in the city of South Bend. Councilmember Henry Davis- I am supportive of this because of what is going on with it, however I am very unhappy with the process with our tax abatement to saying how it is being utilized maybe there's some miscommunication or misunderstanding on my end. However based upon, me reading what's going on how it's being structured. I'm going to be unclear in and really unhappy, right now I am reluctant to say yes, I want to yes to it, but we really need to change some of the ways that we are defining who gets what, and how to get it and so that it suggests an output for the city and it's just not necessarily a bad driven approach to getting more jobs and expanding our tax abatement because we may be losing out more than we are actually gaining. We may be spending a lot more on getting variables back and that was one of the conversations that we had earlier today but you have my support on this one, sir it is not your fault. This is a part of the things that have taken place for a number of years that I have gotten to the point where I'm looking forward to a sub- committee meeting with in a month so we can have a very nice discussion on how this going to work. Presenter (Nobel America Ethanol LLC) - I'll just say thank you in the whole manner for your investment and thank you to the community investment. I know the assessor's office has originally said this was personal property tax and when you went back to them they said no it looks like it will be real property when they reassessed the property. Thank you to for being flexible in getting this thing moving that's great work. Thank you. Councilmember White- I would like to say this has been a long time coming a long process. I would like to thank councilmember Oliver Davis and others who have worked very hard to 23