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July — August 2019
The proposal: Liberty Mutual announced in February 2019 that it would leave Mishawaka and sell the 93,556-square-foot building it had built in 1985 at Lincolnway and Main. Mayor Wood proposed that the city buy it for a new city hall, and signed a letter of understanding in July 2019 at a price of 2.35 million dollars in TIF funds. The building's course — the phased move of 2022 to 100 Lincolnway West — is the government record's; the argument over whether the city should own it at all is this section's.
The argument: The documented skeptic was Councilman Gregg Hixenbaugh, who had prepared an amendment to the purchase: market the big building to a private-sector buyer even while the city designed its own conversion of it. He held the amendment off when Mayor Wood committed, on the record, to doing what it asked — marketing the building to a private buyer from the moment the city took possession, expected in March 2020, until construction bids were in. The Common Council then voted 9–0 on 5 August 2019 to buy, and the Redevelopment Commission gave the final approval on 19 August.
The balance: Printed at anchor size, the episode is the modern council's clearest documented argument: a unanimous vote that was unanimous only after the dissent's condition had been adopted as the mayor's public commitment. The city's money, the building's fate and the mayor's word are all on the record; the government record carries the act, and this section carries the disagreement that shaped it.
Sources:
- South Bend Tribune, 5 July and 5 August 2019 — the Liberty Mutual departure, the letter of understanding, the Hixenbaugh amendment and its holding-off, the 9–0 council vote and the 19 August Redevelopment Commission approval, as carried in the government record, Government.