Jasper Common Council passes Jasper Action Team recommended tax abatements

The Jasper City Council met Wednesday night for their regular meeting and the Council voted to adopt an ordinance that sets up property tax abatements and schedules that incentivize business expansion and growth in Jasper.

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Ordinance number 2011-25 is based upon the Jasper Action Team Incentive program that they wrote and presented last year.  The program concepts were picked up by State Representative for District 63, Mark Messmer and turned into legislation at the state level that all cities and counties can implement to help grow both new and existing businesses.

The ordinance was written by Jasper City Attorney Sandy Hemmerlein and a group put together of City Council members and others in the area.  It creates an environment where both new and existing companies can obtain certain tax abatements based on several criteria:

• Investment in property and equipment
• New employment: number of new full-time equivalent jobs
• New employment wage level
• Use of existing infrastructures
• Years the company has operated in Jasper

A scoring system is used to determine the total number of points obtained to reach percentages of tax abatements over a number of years.

After the meeting, we spoke with several in attendance to get their reaction to the adoption of the ordinance.  First is Jasper Action Team leader Rick Stradtner.

Next, Jasper Chamber of Commerce Director, Nancy Eckerle.

Dubois County Area Development Director, Jim Dinkle.

Finally, Jasper Mayor Schmitt added his thoughts in the press conference afterwards

This morning, we speak with State Representative for District 63 Mark Messmer to get his take on the importance of passing this part of the program.

The payroll incentives part of the Jasper Action Team program was not in the ordinance passed Wednesday night.  Mayor Schmitt says that will come later after there is a clearer path to making it work county-wide.

In other business, the council passed two ordinances that vacate a portion of College Avenue and a 50 foot right-of-way road so that Vincennes University Jasper can move forward with building the new Advanced Manufacturing and Technology Center on their campus.

The new building will sit near the Jasper Arts Center, right on top of existing College Avenue as it moves to the west towards Meridian Road.

The Council accepted the recommendation from the Utility Service Board and passed the ordinance as a measure of goodwill and cooperation with VU in their quest to build the new facility.  Meridian Road will then be re-routed during construction to pass around the north side of the new building and then intersect with the rest of the campus in front of the Jasper Arts Center.

The Council also passed salary ordinances giving civil city and utility employees pay increases of 3%.  Mayor Schmitt states that employees did not get any raises in 2009 and only minimal in 2010.

An ordinance was passed that sets the tax rate for the 2012 advertised budget.  That rate is 84 cents per $100 of assessed valuation.

A re-zoning ordinance was passed on the property at 2603 Newton Street.  Batteries Now will expand into the building with the retail operations for their scooter sales business.  Owner Jeff Tunks reported to the council that they are out of space in their existing building.  The re-zoning was from B1 to B3.  B1 does not allow for the sale of motor vehicles, B3 does.