St. Joe County council narrowly passes ‘Community First Investment Ordinance’

SOUTH BEND, Ind. — A difference of opinions over how to best put the community first at Wed. evening’s Saint Joseph County Council meeting. 

It was a busy agenda with several important bills being voted on, including one that’s being called the ‘Community First Investment Ordinance’ by the five petitioners of the bill, Daniel Schaetzle, Bryan Tanner, Mark Catanzarite, Diana Hess and Jennifer Shabazz. 

The Community First Investment Ordinance deals with revising the county’s tax abatement policy down from a 24-page document to nine pages. In a close vote, the bill was passed 5-4. 

Councilman Bryan Tanner believes more small businesses will be able to take advantage of the county’s tax abatement policy with the new revisions. He explained the language prioritizes local businesses, while using regional contractors when local isn’t practical. 

“…there’s exceptions to the rule for the massive operators like the Amazons or the GMs because they can navigate that process, but the small companies cannot, then that’s a barrier to those small operators from accessing this resource to expand their investment in our community, in the jobs that they create, and the households they support,” said Tanner. 

He also explained parts of the updated policy include some Indiana code, such as an enhanced tax abatement guideline which includes up to a 20-year abatement. That was something that wasn’t written in the original ordinance and was a concern for some, like Councilwoman Amy Drake. 

She said the revised policy limits companies seeking open bids and believes the policy shouldn’t include the section about a 20-year enhanced abatement, along with several other concerns. 

“This abatement doesn’t guarantee anything for local labor... and just a few more comments on this as a whole, it’s a guiding document and you’re saying it’s setting a standard, but it’s really too big for the 93 percent of our small businesses in our county,” said Drake. 

President of South Bend’s Chamber of Commerce, Jeff Rea, said he doesn’t fall into the ‘for’ or ‘against’ category for the ordinance. He explained it’s been a goal for the county to improve the abatement policy for the last 15 years and believes this ordinance is better than the one before, however, he still has some concerns, asking the council when it would be okay to use regional contractors versus local contractors. 

“What’s weird for us is there’s no clarity in terms of how you pick those contractors, so businesses are picking contractors for a lot of reasons. One, because they get a good price from it, one because they can do the job when they need it to be done, one because they have a special expertise, those kind of things, and so curious as to if you’ve thought through the process of this because not everybody is gonna be able to meet this local requirement,” said Rea. 

The Community First Investment Ordinance now heads to the Saint Joseph County Board of Commissioners, where they will either sign the revised policy or veto it. 

Two other important bills were also discussed and voted on at the Wed. meeting. The first was a resolution over the future of Portage Manor, which passed 6-3. 

It is so commissioners can discuss the possibility of a local Catholic school moving into and taking financial responsibility of the building, but several council and community members were concerned, wanting the property to have a more formal open-bidding process. 

The other bill was an ordinance amending the regulations for massage establishments petitioned by the county’s health department, which passed unanimously 9-0.