October 13, 2023 - Shelbyville City Council Votes to Abandon Shelbyville-Bedford Partnership and Hire Their Own Economic Development Director
by: Joshua Blevins



Tensions between Shelbyville City Council and the Shelbyville-Bedford Partnership exploded into public view at Thursday evening's City Council meeting. The item on the agenda was a motion to appropriate $100,000 to the Shelbyville-Bedford Partnership, but it quickly devolved into council members airing their grievances over their treatment by members of the Partnership.

City Council had requested a meeting with Partnership members to be held earlier in the day to discuss some requests they had before agreeing to $100,000 in funding. Instead, the Partnership Chairman met privately with City Mayor Randy Carroll and told him the Partnership would not agree to one of the city's requests and was non-committal on several others. The Partnership also refused to attend a meeting with the full Council.

Councilman Haile expressed his concerns that the Partnership had removed the city's two members from their nine-member board based on earlier votes to not fund the Partnership, despite the fact that the board contained other members that had not made similar financial contributions to the Partnership. He also felt insulted by the recent Traders Bank reception welcoming Chick-Fil-A to the city which only involved members of county government and the Partnership. No invitations were sent to members of city government despite the fact the city put up $300,000 in taxpayer money that was instrumental in Chick-Fil-A coming to Shelbyville.

Councilwoman Ewing stated that soon after the city originally entered the Partnership, three employees were brought onboard without city input. Salaries at the Partnership have now reached $270,000 a year. Additionally she felt disrespected by the method the Partnership has used to bring businesses to town, using code names like Project Turquoise and Project Cardinal. City Council was not informed Project Cardinal would be a chemical plant built in the Industrial Park until after it had already been approved under the code name. During the Partnership's initial meetings with the Council they had also promised to become an independent entity soon based on business contributions, yet have continued to exist primarily off taxpayer money.

Eventually Councilman Christie proposed a three-part motion that the city hire an economic developer, that person be hired by City Council and the Mayor supervise the application process. That motion passed by a vote of 4-1 with Councilman Feldhaus being the only no vote and Councilwoman Isaacs absent from the meeting.

Councilman Turnbow then proposed a motion that the city specifically NOT fund the Partnership and that motion passed on the same 4-1 vote with Feldhaus again being the only no vote.