The first question to answer is what did we pay for the Energy Center?
The following PDF shows we paid a Total of $21.8M
Energy Center Transfer for $22M netweeen cit and builder
This is really just a complex Loan scheme as explained in this information from the Vendors website.
It wasn’t like the Newspapers didn’t keep us abreast of what was occurring but few noticed or were concerned.
This story is from 2010
Problems became obvious in just a few years. In the 2012 Carmel Redevelopment Commission audit, they realized the City was not collecting the fees that were a part of the agreement.
Not only did the CRC NOT pay its bills they wanted to argue it wasn’t THEIR mistake but the Performing Arts Center!
In spite of State Audit PAC says it does not owe CRC money suggests CRC do audit of their books as PAC has done theirsThe had their story and they were sticking to it!
Energy Center uncollected fees of $800K wants spread among other depts to keep CRC whole
Beside the uncollected funds the Energy Center much like Keystone, Brookshire, the Lurie Building and Performing Arts Center did not stay in the green long with hundreds of thousands of dollars needed on multiple occassions for Emergency repairs.
They came back for additional funding just two years later.
What was not collected in 2012 was not paid in 2013 nor were 2013’s bills paid either. The issue was by the time the ‘News’ caught wind of the story the 2015 Mayoral race was over and Brainard had won yet again.
In fact as this diagram demonstrates by not collecting funding from the City of Carmel (Citizens tax money commited for the purpose of creating the ‘savings’) Mayor Brainard, in effect, gave the city a ‘Loan’, which he forgave (though the state did not) and by ‘not paying the cities own bills’ we lost every benefit promised.
It will take 13 years before we are at break-even again.
(my apologies the graphic below is confusing the top is from an article in Current in Carmel, the bottom half, right side was excerpted form a June 2015 IndyStar article by Chris Sikich. )
After the 2013 CRC audit was released after the May election it became obvious the CRC was unable to make the expected payments and they were again chastised by State regulators. The problem was the results of the audit were not widely known publicly till June 2015 well after the election.
June 4, 2015
A very late State Audit of the CRC, a gag order on Rick Sharp to prevent him from discussing said audit and a Stop Sign was all it took to win in 2015… Well that and over a half a million dollars ($517,050 to be exact!)
