Key wind project document missing from Blackford County's records

Article summary:

• The page identified as Exhibit F in Blackford County's copy of the Prairie Creek Phase 2 Economic Development Agreement is blank. Exhibit F was supposed to contain the Reimbursement Agreement that defines how RWE Renewables pays the county back for professional fees on the deal.

• Council President Jack Beckley, the only member to vote no, told the Ledger that two or three exhibits were missing from the version of the EDA that reached the Council before its July vote. Five of the six council members approved the agreement anyway.

• The missing document was signed by RWE and the Blackford County Economic Development Corporation, a private nonprofit run by Executive Director Warren Brown. Blackford County is not a party to the signed agreement. All three County Commissioners promised the Ledger a substantive response two weeks ago. None have come.
  

When the Blackford County Commissioners signed the Prairie Creek Wind Farm Phase 2 Economic Development Agreement with RWE Renewables in early July of 2026, they signed a contract that contains a blank page in it.

As of writing this, September 1, 2026, that page, Exhibit F, was supposed to contain a Reimbursement Agreement that likely spelled out exactly how RWE would pay the county back for the legal fees, financial advisory fees, and other professional expenses the county racked up negotiating the deal. Six weeks after the Ledger asked for a copy of Exhibit F under a public records request, the county still doesn't have it.

What Section 26 says

The EDA runs more than 40 pages of legal machinery covering everything from tax abatement schedules to indemnity clauses. Buried on page 14 is Section 26, "Payment of County Expenses," which reads in part:

Owner shall pay the cost of all reasonable out of pocket expenses and fees incurred by the County for legal, financial advisory and other expenses ('Professional Fees') related to the negotiation, execution, and implementation of this Agreement... pursuant to the terms of the Reimbursement Agreement between the Blackford County Economic Development Corporation and Owner, dated as of October 20, 2025 (the 'Reimbursement Agreement'), attached hereto as Exhibit F.

RWE's obligation to reimburse the county for its expenses is made contingent on the terms of a separate document, the Reimbursement Agreement, that the county doesn't possess. The scope of what RWE has to pay for, when it has to pay, and what the county can do if RWE doesn't pay are all defined by an agreement the county cannot produce.

That agreement was executed on October 20, 2025, nine months before the Commissioners signed the EDA that references it. It wasn't a last-minute attachment that got lost in the shuffle. It had been sitting somewhere for nine months by the time the EDA was signed. The county just doesn't have it.

The county's own words

The Ledger filed a public records request on July 13, 2026, for the executed EDA and every exhibit. County Auditor Lisa Simmons produced most of what was requested over the following weeks. When it came to Exhibit F, her first answer was brief. It "is not a public record."

That answer didn't meet the requirements of Indiana's records law, which requires an agency withholding a record to identify the specific statute authorizing the denial. When the Ledger followed up, Simmons went back through the file. Ten days later she came back with a more detailed explanation. It read, in part:

The page identified as Exhibit F in the EDA is blank. There is no Reimbursement Agreement attached to or contained within the copy of the EDA maintained by the County. The county has also made further inquiries regarding the referenced Exhibit F and has been unable to locate a separate copy of a Reimbursement Agreement identified as Exhibit F in the County's records.

The county doesn't have the document. Simmons exhaustively searched and asked for it. It wasn't there to be found.

Which raises a real question: what exactly did the Commissioners sign?

The Council voted on it without seeing it either

The Ledger sent written questions on August 19 to Council President Jack Beckley and Council Vice President Ryan Goodspeed. Beckley had voted against the EDA when it came before the Council in July. He was the only no vote. The Council approved the EDA 5-1.

Beckley confirmed that the missing Exhibit F was not an isolated oversight.

As I recall, there were two or three Exhibits noted in the EDA that were not included in what was provided to the County Council for our July meeting," Beckley told the Ledger. "I disagreed with the EDA for several reasons, and these omissions were problematic for me. However, the County Council passed it 5-1.

The Council President is saying that two or three exhibits, parts of the contract the Council was voting on, were missing from the version they were given for review. Five of six Council members voted to approve it anyway.

Asked specifically whether he remembered ever seeing the Reimbursement Agreement, Beckley was direct: "I don't remember ever seeing any type of Reimbursement Agreement. It certainly wasn't an Exhibit in the last version provided to County Council before we were asked to take action in July."

Councilman Goodspeed did not respond to the Ledger's inquiry.

The Commissioners promised to respond. They haven't.

The Ledger sent the same questions on August 19 to all three Blackford County Commissioners: John Lancaster, Dan Borgenheimer, and Laura Coons. The questions were straightforward. Were you given the Reimbursement Agreement before you signed the EDA? What's your reaction to the county not having the document now? How would the county enforce its reimbursement rights without the agreement that defines those rights?

Commissioner President Lancaster answered the same day. He said he would look into it and get back to the Ledger by "Friday or Monday afternoon at the latest." When Friday and Monday passed without a substantive answer, the Ledger followed up. Lancaster wrote that he was "beginning to get the information back" and needed "a couple more days to make sure I answer them properly."

Commissioners Borgenheimer and Coons later told the Ledger that Lancaster would respond on behalf of the Board.

That was more than two weeks ago. As of publication, none of the three Commissioners has provided a substantive response.

On the question of who bears responsibility for county contracts, Beckley was blunt: "The County Council does not approve contracts. This authority lies with the Commissioners, and to what degree of oversight they provide to contracts post execution is something they can explain far better than I could."

Whether the Commissioners will explain that, at some point, remains to be seen.

Why any of this matters

The Reimbursement Agreement is the document that tells the county what money it's owed, when it's owed, and how to collect. Without it, the county is operating on trust.

Three specific problems exist regardless of whether the document ever turns up:

1. The county can't enforce what it can't verify. If RWE disputes a reimbursement claim, delays payment, or interprets its obligations differently than the county expects, the county can't point to the terms of the agreement to defend itself. It doesn't have the terms.

2. The county isn't a party to the agreement that governs its own reimbursement. The Reimbursement Agreement is between the Blackford County Economic Development Corporation, a private nonprofit whose Executive Director is Warren Brown, and RWE. Blackford County is not a signatory, even though Section 26 makes the county's payment rights contingent on that agreement's terms. If the BCEDC and RWE amend or terminate the agreement tomorrow, the county may have no contractual right to notice, let alone objection.

3. The county cannot independently verify that reimbursement payments are what they're supposed to be. When money starts flowing back to the county under this arrangement, the county has no way to check that the amounts match the terms, because it doesn't have the terms.

Beckley put it plainly: "When the County relies on information held by a third-party corporation, it creates a distinct separation of legal liability and oversight."

Asked how the county could enforce its rights without the document, he said: "I don't see how the County could enforce any agreement without documentation, but I will defer any questions concerning contract law to the Commissioner's attorney."

The county promised that expenses related to this deal were covered by the project's developers. Missing the primary document meant to uphold that promise is an obvious issue and possibly a symptom of a larger problem.