Tipton mayor, commissioners reject Shovel Ready

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July 6, 2009

EDC chairman says group is done trying to obtain status

By DANIEL HUMAN The Kokomo Tribune Mon Jul 06, 2009, 10:35 PM EDT

TIPTON – The Tipton mayor and county commissioners have rejected a proposal to obtain Shovel Ready status for a business park.

Attorneys for Tipton Mayor Dan Delph and the Tipton County Board of Commissioners sent a letter late last week stating they rejected the proposal. They cited unanswered questions about how the Tipton County Economic Development Corp. had used tax money and abatements in the industrial park.

Delph and commissioners Ken Ziegler, Jane Harper and Mike Cline compiled a list of 18 questions, which they presented to the Tipton EDC in March.

“Every organization must be accountable to someone,” Cline said in a statement issued by the attorneys. “It is especially essential when the money managed by an organization is the taxpayers.’ We have tried to meet with them, and obtain information as to their use of the public’s money only to be told that we could not have the information or weren’t entitled to it.”

Vance Voorhis, chairman of the Tipton EDC’s executive committee, said the organization did not answer any of the questions because of the threat of a lawsuit.

Delph and the commissioners met with the Tipton EDC on March 30 to address their questions. By the end of the meeting, Voorhis and one other Tipton EDC member remained.

“The people left after the lawyers started speaking and said, ‘We’re suing you,’” Voorhis said. “The request was not, ‘Answer all your questions.’ The request was, ‘Return all your money.’

“... When you threaten to sue somebody, you have an entirely new venue with lawyers talking to lawyers. When you have that in play, it’s not about whether you want to answer questions or not.”

Delph could not be reached for comment Monday.

In the letter, Delph and the commissioners state that they are in favor of Shovel Ready, but they will not approve it until their questions are answered and business operations at Northgate are more transparent and accounted for.

The Tipton EDC has tried to obtain Shovel Ready status for the business park since last year. This was the second time the project has been turned down.

The Indiana Economic Development Corp., which grants Shovel Ready status, rejected the Tipton EDC’s first proposal, citing a lack of community support.

In order to counteract the lack of support, the Tipton EDC received endorsements from the Tipton Common Council and Tipton County Council. Neither council could formally approve the proposal, but they wrote letters of recommendation in favor of Shovel Ready.

The only signature the Tipton EDC needed to obtain was Delph’s.

In June, Voorhis promised the Tipton County Council that if the mayor rejected the Shovel Ready proposal, the Tipton EDC would no longer pursue it and allow someone else to obtain the status.

“We will not be pursuing Shovel Ready on any level in the future,” Voorhis said Monday. “... The only people that are hurt by not having Shovel Ready are [the director of Community and Economic Development] and the taxpayers.”

What is shovel ready?

The Indiana Economic Development Corp. grants Shovel Ready status to properties as a way to lower development costs, expedite permitting and increase marketability of an industrial site.

Of Indiana’s 2,446 industrial parks, 47 are Shovel Ready. The closest to Tipton is Logansport Industrial Park, which is about 45 miles away.

• Daniel Human is a Kokomo Tribune staff writer. He can be reached at (765) 454-8570 or at daniel.human@kokomotribune.com.

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