SOUTH BEND COMMON COUNCIL NOTES

7/23/18 Meeting 4th Floor of the County-City Building
Present: All Council Members
Absent: Bob Palmer, Council Attorney

14-18 Zoning Exception at 1619 S. Michigan Street, District 3 (3rd Reading)
This is the former Bonnie Doon location that now has a JJ Fish carry out in the front. They want to use the rest of the space for a used car lot business. Although there are 6 other used car lots near by, 3 muffler shops, 2 auto repair shops, Community Investment is bucking this one as "not in keeping with the plan for the area". In Committee they said they would continue it until the owners could make advised changes. At Council they took a vote instead. Mr. Conrad Damian said 23 people in the SOAR neighborhood group don't want another car lot.
Owners agreed to remove the fence from in front of the property, add parking green islands, put landscaping in the greenlawn and use existing signage
Zoning exception was denied. Oliver Davis and John Voorde voted for it, the other 7 voted against it.

25-18 Zoning Amendment at 4546, 4566 & 4612 N. Lake Blackthorn Drive, District 1(3rd Reading)
0.76 acres, Coorman Real Estate Group, Rezoned from Business to Single Family/Two family. All around this property are single family homes and they want to parcel out 3 more lots as part of this development. This is part of District #1.
Passed Favorably - Unanimously

31-18 Amending Ordinance 13-75.5(0)(6) Chapter 13, Article 5  (3rd Reading)
Concerning Disorderly Houses and Prohibiting Dealing in Marijuana, Hash Oil, Hashish, Salvia, Synthetic Drugs and Synthetic Lookalike Substances. "Disorderly Houses" is a legal term and actually includes businesses that may be selling these items. Mr. Will Smith, who is a Citizen member of this committee got up to speak in favor of the measure.
Greenwood, Indiana is another city with a similar ordinance.
Passed Favorably - Unanimously

32-18 Amending Ordinance 10546-17 (3rd Reading)
Adding new salaried and wage positions to the ordinance fixing maximum salaries and wages of appointed officers and non-bargaining employees for the 2018 Calendar year.
This pertains to the AmeriCorp Grant. It creates a DIRECTOR position at $45K-$55K per year and a GENERAL MANAGER position at $35K-$40K per year. The $150K grant will cover 66% of the cost of these and the city General Fund and Wastewater Fund will make up the difference. There will be 10 AmeriCorp workers given a Stipend to do this work. They can give their Stipend to grandchildren as an education fund. When the grant ends the City Controller says the positions will be eliminated.
Passed Favorably - Unanimously

RESOLUTIONS: 

18-26 Zoning Appeal for 1235 W. Napier to pave a nearby parking lot to accomodate a current church and a future church. 
Passed Favorably - Unanimously

18-31 5 YEAR ABATEMENT for all of these properties:
  902 N. ALLEN
1145 N. BROOKFIELD
1306 N. BROOKFIELD
  914 N. CLEVELAND
  903 N. COLLEGE
  917 N. ELMER
1101 N. ELMER
1229 N. ELMER
1329 N. HUEY
1110 N. JOHNSON
  749 N. LAWNDALE
  913 N. LAWNDALE
1138 N. OLIVE
1530 VAN BUREN
As residentially distressed area for Historic Lincolnway West Homes, LP. These 14 homes will have garages and basements.
Passed Favorably - Unanimously
NOTE: This means the Limited Partnership will not need to pay any property taxes for 5 years. This will amount to over $3M. Other taxpayers will have to make-up the difference with their taxes.

18-32 10 YEAR PROPERTY TAX ABATEMENT FOR:
South Bend Brewery Place for Historic Lincolnway West Homes, LP. This will house 22 apartments and will also qualify for Low Rent Credits from the government. Rehabing the building is estimated to be $6.4M.
Passed Favorably - Unanimously
NOTE: This means the Limited Partnership will not need to pay any property taxes for 10 years. This will amount to $1M. Other taxpayers will have to make-up the difference with their taxes

NOTE: In the last 10 years there has been over $800M in Tax Abatements. Many are 8 to 10 years, so the taxpayers will not see any tax benefit off those properties in the near future. They will need to make up the difference with thier property taxes. The reason given for these Abatements is often job creation, but records show that rarely happens.

18-35 APPROVING BUILDING LEASE FOR SOUTH BEND HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION
Located at 319 Niles Avenue in the amount of $20,825 for the next 5 years. They found none of the City properties could accomodate ADA as well. There is a 6 mos out clause should it need to be moved.
Passed Favorably - Unanimously

33-18 ZONING AMENDMENT (First Reading)
Establishing Historic Landmark Status for the Civil Rights Heritage Center, formerly known as the Engman Natatorium at 1040 W. Washington Street

18-34 ZONING APPEAL for 719 and 721 W. Rex Street. (First Reading)

NEW BUSINESS:
Councilman Oliver Davis - Would like 3 updates from the Administration. He wants the Council to recieve updates on Police incidents without having to rely on traditional media. He wants an update on the Homeless status. He wants an update on the South Shore project.

Councilwoman Karen White - After meeting with the LaSalle Neighborhood they have 5 priorities and one of them is being worked on. This is a result of the July 18th meeting.

Councilwoman Jo Broden - Wants an analysis of the PSAP (9-1-1 Call Center) funding before they head into Budget since the City and County co-fund the center. She also wants the Community Investment plans for the Southeast Area put on the agenda to be voted on since it has been over 2 years.

Councilman John Voorde - He has gotten 7 calls about the rising property tax assessments and suggested they have the County Assessor have an informational session for Citizens. He also noted this is a County function, not a City function.

PRIVILEDGE OF THE FLOOR: (Citizens are only give 3 minutes. It used to be 5 minutes. Council President Tim Scott reduced the amount of time Citizens are given for input.)
(All comments below are paraphrased summaries, not actual quotes. See Council video for exact comments.)

Mr. Jesse Davis - Wants to know what happened to over $100K in landscaping equipment the City bought but let a company use.

Mr. Jason Banciki-Critchlow - Thinks $1M should be moved from Community Development Funds to Drug Treatment. This would help people and the image of the City since investors are not impressed with seeing drug addicts in front of many businesses.

UAW Union Member - Honeywell has demoralized the workforce and the retirees. He says they now have to pay substantially more for their insurance and that money could have been spent in the community.

Pastor Kenneth Lee - 1st District - They have worked for 7 years to improve the neighborhood and get the "South Bend Home Repair Program" in their area. It cuts off at Elwood and it needs to extend further to Bendix/Lathrop since many Seniors need assistance with their roofs to keep their homes.

Ms. Thelma Williams - Far Northwest Neighborhood Association - The neighbors are working to improve the area by picking up liter and helping each other, but the City needs to help by extending the "Home Repairs" boundary and cut tall grass in the area where the raccoons are living.

Citizen - 311 Call Center is not effective. She gets no call backs and no results on compaints about trash, missing garbage cans, conditions of neighboring properties

Mr. Brown - Wants more information released about recent police incidents.

Mr. Lee Gloster - UAW Union Steward wants the Council to create a Resolution to tell Honeywell to return healthcare to retirees and stop giving them tax breaks when they are hurting thier workers and the community.

NOTE: Great to see so many Citizens participating in the process! Please keep attending and speaking up! The Mayor and Council need to hear YOUR VOICE and YOUR CONCERNS!

FROM LAST COUNCIL MEETING:

Bill #23-18 UTILITIES - They amended the Local Standard Regulations for the Water Treatment so when there is a large industrial dump of heavy metals into the waterways it can be "averaged out over a month" even though it is a health hazard to the community.
Passed Favorably - Unanimously
NOTE: This means reporting to the EPA and the Citizens will show nothing abnormal happened and heavy metal industrial waste will not show up in the graphs and data as abnormal.

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