Business View Magazine | April 2019

165 can receive some support from Logansport’s County Economic Development Income Tax (CEDIT) reserves. In addition, Logansport, which owns all of its utilities – water, electricity, sewer, and storm- water – has established an economic devel- opment rate for businesses in the city. “We are one of two municipalities in Indiana that has gone with NextEra Energy out of Florida, which is, essentially, Florida Power & Light’s marketing wing for solar and wind power,” Kitchell explains. “So what that’s done is let us drop our power rate, substantially. Companies like Tyson will save about $75,000 a month on their energy bill, which is significant. Power intensive industries that want to come in here will get 25 percent off their demand charge the first year, 20 percent the second, 15 the third, 10 the fourth, and five the fifth. That’s an added incentive to get them to come here.” Kitchell reports that last year, there was a very strong, bipartisan effort among the city, the county, and the state to get an area designated as an Opportunity Zone under the auspices of the federal government’s 2017 Tax Bill. “We wanted to extend it from Grissom Air Reserve Base, which has the largest runway in Indiana, through the county, to Logansport’s industrial parks,” he notes. “Unfortunately none were designated, but that’s a great tool for us if we can land that and I would hope that, in the