Logan County Regional Planning Commission begins process of taking back administration of the local Enterprise Zone

 

[July 05, 2023] 

Amidst concerns voiced by would-be Logan County Enterprise Zone (EZ) recipients, the Logan County Regional Planning Commission (RPC) met on Wednesday, June 28th to discuss a possible reassignment of the Administration of the EZ.

The Enterprise Zone is a designation by the State of Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity that permits communities to establish an EZ and offer sales tax exemptions to businesses that are building new construction or additions to their businesses.

When the EZ was established in Logan County, it was awarded to the RPC. That commission in turn designated the Logan County Zoning Office as the administrative body for the zone.

The purpose of the zone is to document geographic areas as within the EZ that also include a percentage of residents within the area as poverty level citizens, unemployed or underemployed. The goal is that by giving sales tax breaks to business developers, the business will have an increased need for employees, which could result in employment of those citizens living within the designated area.

Up until early 2022, Logan County’s Zoning Office was managed by Will D’Andrea. However, at that time, D’Andrea resigned the position, and the zoning office was filled by two employees, George Mencken as the zoning officer and Beth Davis-Kavelman as EZ administration along with Economic Development for the county.

At the June 2022 workshop meeting of the Logan County Board, Mencken was considered to be out of order by board members and as an end result was relieved of his duties as Zoning Officer. In July, the board then made the decision to put the two part-time positions back to one and moved Davis-Kavelman into a full-time position.

This month, the Board heard from local businesses who have applied for Enterprise Zone benefits. They were told that applicants were seeing long delays in the process, and a lack of communication from the EZ administrator. They expressed concerns they were unable to move forward with projects because they were awaiting word on their applications.

Board Chair Emily Davenport said that the zoning office had a lot of work to do for the fiber optic internet grant application, and she personally had requested that Davis-Kavelman put everything else on hold until the grant applications were completed. This had obviously caused some delays. In addition, Davenport said the office had been relocated three different times in the last few weeks which had caused more issues. Finally, employment ads for an assistant for Davis-Kavelman had been placed three times and yielded no viable candidates. Davenport said that the office had recently hired an assistant and that work was moving along much more quickly.

At the June 28th meeting of the RPC, these circumstances were discussed, along with the concerns of applicants, concerns from the county engineer, county board and Lincoln city council and members of the public.

RPC Chairman Blair Hoerbert said the topic had been discussed at the regular meeting of the commission as well, and the conclusion of the RPC is that it should perhaps take back the administrative duties of the EZ and manage the program internally.

The commission members heard from County Engineer Brett Aukamp that Will D’Andrea would be willing to help with getting the program up and running again. The commission would need to hire a permanent administrator in the future.

The membership reviewed the EZ documents received from the state and are confident they do have the authority to manage the program on their own, but also discussed seeking legal counsel. Because this issue involves the county board, they will not be able to use the county attorney, Brad Hauge. They will look into hiring someone outside of the county, if needed.

The meeting closed with no voting action and a decision to carry the discussion into the July 5th meeting.

The July meeting will take place tonight (Wednesday July 5th) at 7 p.m. at the Orr Building, 628 Broadway Street, second floor, in Lincoln.

[Nila Smith]