The crews working on the Amazon data center in New Carlisle came from Mississippi, Tennessee, and Florida. The crews on the solar farm projects in Starke and Pulaski counties came from out of state too. The crew on the north pumping station job near South Bend came from Canada, did defective work, left town, and stuck local taxpayers with the repair bill.
How does anyone know? Because St. Joseph County has a rule that requires every property tax abatement to come with a paper trail. Every abated project is required to file annual records showing what its construction workers are paid, where they live, and whether they’re legally allowed to work in the United States.
Councilwoman Amy Drake has tried to repeal that rule. Twice.
Drake has sponsored three tax abatement bills in an 18 month period, twice she came after the disclosure rule directly, as part of a wholesale repeal. Twice the building trades packed the room. The third time, she came back with a smaller scope and got a piece of the abatement removed.
Now she is asking primary voters to re-elect her so she can try to erase St. Joseph County’s local labor protections a fourth time.
The first time she tried
Bill 21-24 was filed Feb. 6, 2024, with co-sponsor Joe Thomas. It would have repealed Sections 35.01 through 35.46 of the county code in their entirety. Here is what Drake’s bill would have changed:
Out: the wage floor, set at 125 percent of the county’s average wage.
Out: the requirement that a majority of project work go to local companies.
Out: the rule that the company’s contractors and subcontractors all have to follow federal anti-discrimination law.
Out: the certified payroll residency disclosure.
In: a two-page application form and a grant of “broad discretion” to the County Council.
The bill failed 5-4 at the March 12 public hearing. Republican Council President Dan Schaetzle joined Democrats Rafael Morton, Diana Hess, Mark Catanzarite, and Bryan Tanner to kill the bill.
The second attempt
Drake came back nine months later, on Sept. 27, 2024 with Bill 109-24, and filed the same repeal. She added Republican co-sponsors Mark Root and Randy Figg alongside Thomas.
James Gardner of Operating Engineers Local 150 told the Council that contractors on the Amazon work in New Carlisle had already brought in workforces from Mississippi, Tennessee, and Florida. He had documented the same pattern on solar farm projects in Starke and Pulaski counties. He had sent the documentation to then Sen. Mike Braun. He offered to share it with the Council that night.
Murray Miller of Laborers Local 645 was more blunt: taking local workers off these jobs “should not be an option.”
Jason Piontek of IBEW 153 and Scott Calentine of the Carpenters Union of Northern Indiana followed. Piontek said local labor utilization was essential to building “resilient, thriving communities.” Calentine said the question wasn’t union versus non-union. It was whether tax dollars should support the people who pay them.
Kevin Connery told the Council about the north pumping station job. The Canadian company. The inferior product. The defective stainless welding. The repair bill picked up by local taxpayers after the company left town. “Anything that has to do with a tax abatement,” he told the Council, “is local money.”
Bill 109-24 failed 5-4. The same five members who killed Drake’s first bill killed her second.
Earlier the same night, the Council heard Bill 119-24, an abatement for a private contractor that the Plumbers and Pipefitters had also come to oppose. Brock Wislich, business manager of Local 172, told the Council: “I don’t believe that an abatement for a contractor in our county is the right thing to do. Most of us contractors are self-funded. Giving taxpayers’ money to a contractor to build a new facility, I don’t believe that’s the right thing to do.” Drake voted yes. The bill passed.
The piece she got
In 2025, Drake came back with Bill 52-25, co-sponsored with Andy Rutten. This one didn’t try to repeal the whole ordinance. It went after the affirmative action provisions: deleted the definition of “Minority” from the code, stripped subsections from the application and annual reporting requirements.
The bill passed 5-4 on July 8, 2025. Catanzarite, Tanner, Hess, and Shabazz voted no. The Board of Commissioners signed it the following week. It became Ordinance 48-25.
The wage floor, the local requirement, and the certified payroll residency disclosure all survived. They survived because Drake lost her early attempts to remove them from the ordinance.
What’s on the ballot May 5
Drake will say her bills were about competitiveness. She said it at the dais. She said it in her Substack newsletter.
The council meeting minutes tell a different story. They show a councilwoman who heard, in person, from representatives of five building trades locals that her bill would let contractors hide where their workforce comes from and her bill would remove protections for St. Joseph County workers. Drake voted to repeal those protections anyway.
When a company gets a tax break, the tax bill doesn’t disappear. It shifts. Homeowners in Mishawaka, South Bend, and New Carlisle absorb it. They are entitled to know who their money is paying. Drake authored bills to take that transparency away. Twice.
Logan Foster
Logan Foster founded Redress South Bend and reports on local government and public records in South Bend and St. Joseph County. He is 31 years old and is majoring in finance. He is a Cleveland sports fan and a longtime season ticket holder of the Cleveland Cavaliers.
