News and sports in the Whitewater Valley

By John Estridge

My plan was to write one editorial/analysis on the timeline surrounding the Curtis Ward/Chuck Campbell/Brookville Town Council calamity that will negatively affect every taxpayer in Brookville and possibly in the entire county, especially Snob Knob, Snob Hill or whatever one wants to call it.

However, the part about the READI Grant and the Residential TIF area made the one editorial/analysis too long. Thus, you now have two editorials/analyses instead of one, but the two should be read together.

Thank you and my apologies all rolled into one statement.

READI Grant

There is a new, huge grant program in Indiana called the READI Grant. It has $500,000,000 available, one-half billion dollars, in Indiana alone.

A large amount of money from the Biden Administration was dropped on the states to foster economic development. Instead of local governments asking for money, this initiative is more for the private sector but it is in partnership with local and state government entities.

It is administered through the regional level, which for us is SEI READI. SEI is a six-county conglomerate including: Union, Franklin, Dearborn, Ripley, Ohio and Switzerland counties. Our person involved is John Palmer, president of the Franklin County Economic Development Commission. He is appointed by the Franklin County Commissioners.

It is one of those programs that look great on paper and if everyone abided by the very loose rules, would be excellent for this area and other areas around the state, but I fear it is rife for possible corruption and misuse.

Case in point apparently is Brookville Town Council President Curtis Ward.

According to Regionalopportunityinc.com, Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb announced the grant initiative on May 2, 2021. Thus, Ward knew about the implications of the READI Grant prior to his purchase of the lots on July 7. (See the other editorial to understand the importance of Curtis’ purchase of nine lots adjacent to the Pig in a Poke Golf Course.)

Ward wrote a grant application for the READI Grant asking for $4 million-plus for infrastructure for the Snob Hill area, sanitary sewer, water line enhancement and more.

Under general information for the grant application, Curtis Ward is the submitter. The project name is Reservoir Hill Housing Initiatives. The category is Quality of Place/Quality of Life. Other subcategories it is under are: Infrastructure (electric, water/sewer, transportation, broadband, etc. and Tourism or Recreation.

This is a verbatim project description in the grant application. And incorrect capitalization is Curtis’.

“This project will support three developments that are currently shovel-ready and will add over 220 housing units to Brookville’s housing inventory as well as position the area for future development sites. The 3 (sic) proposed developments range from single family homes priced $200,000-400,000, to townhomes set on Brookville’s first condominium development adjacent to the proposed Municipal Golf Course. The third development will also include houses overlooking both the Brookville Reservoir and the Historic Downtown of Brookville. The complete project will provide access to water and sewer by extending sewer main to the Reservoir Road residential area (currently without sewer access) and by upgrading approximately 2 (sic) miles of water lines to increase water flow and provide better fire protection to current/future residents.”

Project location (on grant application)

“Reservoir Road from Current Town Limits at Crestview & Reservoir north to Clover Drive & Reservoir Rd. This project will also include Clover Drive, Hogan Road, Spaeth Road and Keeler Drive.

“The proposed developments are located off of Keeler Drive (Battlepoint LLC), Par Drive (S&W Homes) and Reservoir Rd (D&G Development).”

Battlepoint LLC is Brian Bauman, John Lucas and Mike Lucas. S&W Homes is Curtis Ward and Todd Sacksteder while D&G Development is Dave White and Greg Graf.

This next part is for those living on Snob Knob/Snob Hill/Snob Subdivisions.

Grant Application question: “Is this project part of another planning effort? Is so, please name the plan.”

Curtis’ answer: “The Town of Brookville’s Voluntary Annexation of properties on Reservoir Rd area surrounding the golf course, which is set to be purchased by the Town of Brookville.”

Look at that. He states it himself. The golf course is set to be purchased by the Town of Brookville. This was submitted prior to August 30, the grant’s deadline date. It is imperative for this grant to have the town purchase the golf course. Without one, there is not the other. Also, the “voluntary” annexation is also imperative to the overall plan.

And, of course, “voluntary” annexation is a misnomer as a few developers – the ones mentioned in this grant application — will decide the annexation over the majority of the Snob Knob residents.

Under contact info is the following:

“The Town of Brookville. Tim Ripperger, Town Administrator” and “Curtis Ward, President Brookville Town Council.”

OK, who is writing this grant application? Is it Curtis Ward, the developer/real estate agent or is it Curtis Ward, the town president?

This next is important, but I want to warn you it is detail-oriented so please keep it in mind but it is important to the whole outlook.

Under which organizations, businesses, governments or individuals are supporting the project are:

“Franklin County Water Association (water provider), Brookville Wastewater Treatment Facility/Brookville Water Works (sewer provider), Brookville Redevelopment Commission (TIF Funding) (My emphasis because this is important to the whole), Sycamore Gas (utility provider. Will upgrade developments with gas availability), Battle Point LLC – developer of 50 acres to 60 new home tracts, S&W Homes LLC – developer and builder for 96 condos on 12 acres, and D&G Development LLC – developer for 40 acres overlooking lake and town, 65 lots. (Also, my emphasis).

Brookville Redevelopment Commission has been talking/not talking about the TIF Funding for months but has taken no action because BRC President Todd Thackery has said he is waiting for Curtis to put exactly where he wants the parameters to be for the residential TIF District. Again, Curtis, who has the most to gain from this whole scheme, is in total control. The BRC has two appointees directly on the BRC: Eric Johnson, who is titled the BTC vice president and the real BTC vice president, Brooke Leffingwell.

Residential TIF is something new in Indiana. Prior to this, a TIF was used for industrial and commercial purposes. The county has two TIFs for commercial and industrial purposes, the TIF belonging to the Franklin County Redevelopment Commission and the other, which encompasses almost all of Brookville, and is under the auspices of the BRC. Thus, while this is the first residential TIF, it is the third TIF for the county and the second TIF for Brookville.

A TIF district takes the assessed valuation of the area at the time of its inception and then any increase in the assessed valuation within the TIF district for the next 25 years goes into the TIF funding. Funding for other areas remain stagnant such as for schools for 25 years. TIF funds can be used for a number of purposes including bonds to pay for infrastructure and improvements, private-public partnerships and items of this nature.

As of this writing, Curtis has not made public his residential TIF area, but I would imagine it will be Snob Knob even though the “voluntary” annexation has not yet occurred.

Farther in the application, Curtis puts the projected cost of the project at $29.7 million. Public funding is placed at $4.57 million and private funding at $21.6 million. Four companies are mentioned in the private funding. They are: Sycamore Gas, $725,000; Battle Point LLC, $2.395 million; S&W Homes LLC, $16.075 million; and D&G Development $1.865 million. S&W includes in its investment, development and housing construction.

Anyone who believes public funding will be that small in relation to the whole, I have a friend who has swamp land for sale in Florida.

The amount of READI Grant requested is $4.07 million.

Another seemingly major conflict of interest in this situation is the project’s financial plan.

“The Town of Brookville has engaged Baker Tilly in creating a fiscal plan for the proposed project area in conjunction with the annexation study. We intend to leverage all available grant programs and funding opportunities to provide infrastructure to the project area. In addition, the town intends to use ARP (American Rescue Plan) funds, TIF increment and utility bonds to assist in project match. Finally, we are also using Baker Tilly and Bose McKinney to establish first residential housing TIF to capture increment in these 3 developments to help fund future costs through bond Anticipation Notes/TIF Bond.”

Thus, taxpayers will again pay for these consultants to do the planning for private development where the private developers will be enriched at our collective expense.

The timeline in Curtis’ grant application is also interesting. Please, especially Snob Knob residents and Brookville taxpayers, take note:

“Infrastructure planning/bidding process/annexation complete by end of June 2022. Sewer/Water upgrades/installs complete within 1 year Single Family Developments have lots ready for resale during year 1 Total build out of multi-family development within 5 years after infrastructure upgrade.”

Next part is: “Describe the necessary resources, connections, and buy-in to proceed?”

Curtis’ answer is: “This project is part of a current 3 year long plan to provide growth opportunities to the town of Brookville. Our strategic focus is to create a higher quality of place that attract new residents who can enjoy the recreational amenities we have while contributing to the workforce in our region.”

His next paragraph brings in the county officials and school board members as well as the school district administration. The before-mentioned people, who by standing silently on the sidelines, makes them culpable and complicit to everything that has apparently happened – illegally and unethically — and continues to happen not only to the town’s taxpayers but the county’s taxpayers as well.

“We have previous consensus from county council, county commissioners in supporting annexation of this area so the Town of Brookville can implement a targeted emphasis on housing expansion. We also have buy-in from the school board who places value in kids in the classroom versus a non-realized tax increment that would be foregone due to Housing TIF creation.”

And

“We have three ready and willing developers who are committed to completing their developments as quickly as possible.

“We still need additional resources in terms of funding opportunities for future projects beyond the READI initiative.”

Under “Describe any potential challenges or barriers the project must overcome?”

Curtis’ answer: “Rising costs of services and materials is a challenge. We’ve had multiple projects increase 25-30% due to market inflation.”

And my favorite for you up on Snob Knob currently doing nothing with your collective heads in the sand bunker: “We do anticipate some neighbors being resistant to sewer expansion because they believe they will be forced to hook on at a high price.”

You should more than anticipate this as it will become reality, an expensive reality, but it is just one of many expensive realities waiting for you. You had better have a lot of room in your budget so you can pay more than your part just to make Curtis and his buds richer.

And really, they will not appreciate you one bit for doing it.