The Jefferson city council at a special meeting Tuesday approved by a 3-2 vote an $800,000 incentive for BriMark Builders, developers of the Cobblestone Inn that will be adjacent to Wild Rose Jefferson. About 15 persons, many of them members of Greene County Development Corp, were at the meeting.
Council members Shannon Black, Lisa Jaskey and Larry Teeples voted in favor; Harry Ahrenholtz and Gary Von Ahsen voted against.
The incentive will be spread over 14 or 15 years, city administrator Mike Palmer said. It will come through tax increment financing (TIF) as a rebate of a portion of the increased property tax the city will collect on the improvements to the property. The city will still realize an increase in property tax revenue, but the increase will be $800,000 less.
All council members reported constituents had talked with them or sent emails about the incentive since Jeremy Griesbach of Brimark Builders and Tom Timmons of Wild Rose made a presentation at the council’s regular Aug. 26 meeting. (Click here for that post.)
Jaskey spoke first in support of the incentive. She read portions of an email she had received from an unnamed resident, who wrote that extending incentives will show the rest of the state that Jefferson and Greene County mean business, that it is the kind of place that would partner with companies and help them grow.
Von Ahsen said that at the outset of discussion with Cobblestone two years ago, he thought the$800,000 TIF incentive that was offered then was “a little bit of a stretch.” He said the incentive was more than some people were comfortable with, “but I thought we should bite the bullet because it was something that was needed in our community.”
He said when the more recent plan for the larger hotel was drawn, and the financial incentive requested was not larger, he was at first pleased. However, when he found Wild Rose would build a hotel at the casino if BriMark did not, he thought differently. “I have a fiscal responsibility to the people of Jefferson, and whether we approve this or whether we don’t, the hotel is going to get built. It’s in the works,” Von Ahsen said. “I’ve had enough people approach me who are strongly opposed to the TIF that I can’t justify in my mind using this amount of money, taking it away from the county and from the people of Jefferson to justify doing this.”
Teeples said he had received many calls about the proposal, but only two people were against it. “It seems that after the overpass was completed and a positive casino vote, things economically started off in Jefferson and started moving in Greene County. I sure would hate to think that we would give a ‘no’ vote and stop the growth and what we’re doing. I don’t know if it would or not, but it sure could send out a message to future businesses coming into the community,” Teeples said.
Ahrenholtz said that most of the people he talked with opposed the incentive. BriMark has assembled local investors as the Jefferson Hotel Group, which Ahrenholtz finds to be “a very positive feature.” Timmons said that should Wild Rose take over the hotel portion of the project, there would be no local investment and no indoor pool.
Ahrenholtz said that it is reasonable to expect that if Wild Rose built the hotel it would still be a 71-room hotel and most of the economic benefits of the original Cobblestone project would still happen. He said that based on what he knows and on what constituents have told him, the $800,000 incentive is excessive and he voted no.
Black was the last council person to speak. She said a public purpose would be accomplished by disbursing the funds. She said she was afraid the city would look like bad business partners if the council backed away from the incentive. “After the 75 percent approval on the casino, do we want to say ‘Let’s put the brakes on here.’…We’re in a partnership and to me it makes sense and I think we need to continue to move forward,” Black said.
The order of the roll call was Ahrenholtz- no, Black- yes, Von Ahsen- no, Jaskey- yes, and Teeples- yes.
At the outset of the meeting mayor Craig Berry had suggested a “compromise” that would replace the 15-year TIF incentive with a 3-year tax abatement and a 10-year rebate of increased revenue from the city’s hotel/motel tax back to Cobblestone. It was a complicated plan that would require amending the city code. Berry requested a full discussion and vote on the TIF option before talking about the compromise plan. That became unnecessary after the vote.
However, discussion on the approved incentive and the impact not approving it might have had continued for another 15 minutes after the vote. Berry said Timmons had also told him a Wild Rose hotel would be smaller and with fewer amenities than the planned Cobblestone Inn.
Resident Don Labate questioned the purpose of an incentive and the reason for it after Wild Rose committed to building a hotel. He is on record as opposing the casino, and he questioned whether the hotel and casino are one project or two. The distinction between ownership of the two was explained.
Greene County Development Corp director Ken Paxton said that incentives make it easier to attract a new business to a community. “If we had not passed this (the incentive) and it got out in the press that the city had agreed on a TIF and then under opposition had backed off from it, for me to go to another business and say, ‘Hey, come to our community, and maybe we’ll give you tax dollars,’ the chances of them coming have just dropped 50 percent,” Paxton said. “We’ve lost significant opportunity as far as bringing people to our community….This is a partnership… To back out at the last minute and all of a sudden have to go back to Ground One and have to go back and redesign it, find somebody else to do it… that kind of information gets around.”
Mike Mumma, a member of GCDC and Grow Greene County, pointed out that with the increased cost of the larger hotel and the same incentive as previously offered, the city is “getting more bang for the buck.” He said the county will have a nicer and more timely hotel with leaving the incentive in place. He likened discussing the incentive at this time to playing Monday morning quarterback, and reminded the council that Wild Rose is investing between $40 and $50 million in the project.
Chuck Offenburger, a rural resident, was the last to speak from the audience. “I do see it as all one thing, in a bigger way than just a casino or a hotel. I think the bigger thing we’re talking about is the future of the county and of the town. I see it as all put together as so critical to the chance to grow finally, after all this time in decline here. It’s well worth the discomfort it causes for people to think this way and incent things like this,” Offenburger said. “I think we’ve got a lot more incenting probably to do in the next couple of years to put this whole bigger package together and make it fly. I think we’re going to have a really strong place to live after that.”
Ahrenholtz assured the council he would give the council his full support. Von Ahsen clarified that his “no” vote came from his fiscally conservative approach and was not connected to his thoughts on the casino.
In other business, the council approved hiring Roxanne Gorsuch as administrative assistant/payroll clerk. Gorsuch has worked at Peoples Trust & Savings Bank for 27 years. She will start at an hourly wage of $14.75.
