Attorneys get involved in ED discussion

DAVE MOSIER/independent editor

It was the turn of the attorneys on Thursday to sit in on economic development talks held between the Van Wert County Board of Commissioners and Van Wert mayor-elect Jerry Mazur.

The mayor-elect and Commissioners Todd Wolfrum, Thad Lichtensteiger and Stan Owens have been holding a series of discussions on how best to combine the city and county economic development entities into one organization. Talks have been held with a number of groups, including Main Street Van Wert and the Van Wert Area Convention & Visitors Bureau last week.

This week, County Prosecutor Charles F. Kennedy III and City Law Director John Hatcher were brought in to provide legal advice on what the steps would be to create a not-for-profit corporation that would include both the city and county ED offices.

The advantages of having the combined economic development office be a 501(c)(3) corporation was mostly to allow for individuals and organizations to make tax-deductible contributions to benefit economic development.

Hatcher, who has done a number of 501(c)(3) incorporations in the past, volunteered to set up one for the combined ED program, while he and Kennedy would also create and review legal documents needed to establish the overall structure of the combined program. Creating the not-for-profit corporation, tentatively named the Van Wert Area Economic Development Corporation, would also require the entity to have a tax ID number.

The new entity would also feature a combined revolving loan fund program, with the boards of both the city and county RLF entities taxed with the job of coming up with a combined structure.

Both the commissioners and Mazur were relatively confident that administrative fees from revolving loans could provide the money to operate that entity, with the city’s hotel-motel tax and county General Fund dollars funding the overall ED program.

Both sides have basically come to the conclusion that a board with possibly seven members needs to be appointed to oversee operation of the combined ED office. That board would likely include county and city representatives, as well as representatives from the business community and the community as a whole.

Last week, the commissioners and Mazur decided that entities such as MSVW and CVB would not have voting members on the board, but would likely have non-voting ex officio membership. Those entities would also continue to operate autonomously under the control of their own boards and existing administrative structures.

Hatcher also recommended that a statutory agent be hired to act as an agent when legal issues arise.

Yet to be decided is the specific structure for the ED organization and where economic development entities would be housed. Currently, the former Van Wert Municipal Building (originally the city’s U.S. post office), the building where Dave’s Quality Cleaners is located and one that houses the C.J. Sidepockets bar are being considered, with other buildings possibly looked at in the future.

After the ED meeting, the commissioners then considered a request by Joe Dodge, a representative of Elgin Village Council, to vacate several streets that abut property owned by Mercer Landmark in that village.

Dodge said he thought the process would be similar to the vacating of streets a few years ago that bounded property owned by Elgin Service Center.