Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Wednesday, May 12 meeting of the Economic
Development Partnership Board.
We're so glad to have everyone available today, and for those looking in from the audience,
we welcome you as well.
We have an agenda item with several items, the first of which is to consider the approval
of the minutes of April 14, 2021.
And I'll give everyone a chance to take a look and make sure that you have no concerns.
And once you have reviewed them, please, we would entertain a motion to approve the minutes.
I move approval of the minutes as presented.
We have a motion to approve the minutes.
Do we have a second?
Jason Tomlinson seconds.
And now discussion, do we have any discussion of the minutes as presented?
Any changes, concerns?
Hearing none, seeing none, we'll do the, we'll do the visual vote.
Jason Tomlinson, you.
Yes.
Tina Albert, I let's see, Jesse Davis, I, Joel Jester, I on a Clark, I Lee Ramsey.
Now does Dr. Wilson vote, I forget, no sir, neither Pam or Dr. Wilson as ex officio members
vote, but you do.
So we'll need your vote.
John Baines approves the minutes.
I think we have a unanimous approval of minutes and we'll move on to the next agenda item.
EDP 21-019, receive a report, hold the discussion and give staff direction regarding an incentive
application for Dynagrid Construction Group LLC.
And I believe Erica, you're on board for the presentation.
Yes, I'm just pulling the presentation up now.
Thank you.
Can everyone see the presentation?
Yes, I can.
Well, good morning.
My name's Erica Sullivan and I'm the analyst here at the city's economic development department.
And I'm going to be presenting an incentive application from Dynagrid and discussing possible
incentives.
The company itself, Dynagrid is a civil contractor that provides industry-leading civil construction
services to renewable and conventional energy markets throughout the United States.
They're founded in 2012 and have a current annual revenue of 88 million.
The company is seeking to move their corporate headquarters to Denton from Louisville.
They currently employ 191 employees and plan to add 82 new jobs over the five-year period.
Total jobs are estimated at 273.
They plan to invest in additional equipment and build a new facility here in Denton.
And they are interested in our Denton location because the numerous suppliers and vendors
that they have located here, the site location and ability to expand and construct a new
complex.
They have the option to add new jobs at their existing location in Louisville, but we prefer
to build a new facility here in Denton.
The proposed facility will be at corporate headquarters and will be situated on a 15-acre
site along Mosh Branch Road.
Their goals are to reduce the impact of relocation, expansion and site improvement costs.
They also have a goal of encouraging high-wage job creation through company expansion.
They're proposing to build two buildings.
The first is a 30,000-square-foot office building.
The second is a 10,000-square-foot shop building.
You can see the rendering here.
The complex will include a shop that will maintain the company-owned equipment and vehicles
and will be the primary hub for their fleet.
And the corporate team will be housed in the main building, and this will be comprised
of accounting, executive, HR, safety and project management departments.
The main components of their application, they wish to construct and expand a corporate
headquarters facility.
The targeted sector in our policy is renewable energy.
Our new plan, targeted sector, the industry code that falls under that, is poured concrete
foundation instructor contractors.
Their projected capital investment is $6 million for improvements and business personal property.
Jobs, as we discussed, are 191 will be relocated, 82 new jobs.
Their weighted average wage is $74,277, with a total payroll of $6.1 million.
It's roughly $1.2 per year.
So in this table, you will see the job and wage information.
The jobs are added over a five-year period and will come to 82 when complete.
The wage data and average wage by job type is included in the table that follows below.
You will see that the number as well as the percentage is included.
Their weighted average annual wage, again, is $74,277.
I want to point out that over 100% of their employees have wages above the Denton County
average and median wages.
You can also see that 62% are above the $65,000 wage category, and then another 54% fall under
our policy's goals of increasing jobs in the $75,000 or more wage.
In this table, you see the strategic plan alignment.
You'll see that there's attracting new investment, targeting environmentally conscious businesses,
and green marketing as well of the city's sustainability goals that are in line with
this project.
The incentive policy general provisions and priority considerations are included in this
slide.
General provisions, this project creates quality jobs, and the targeted sector is the renewable
energy as they cater towards this market as well as conventional markets.
The applicable priority considerations include promoting business and community investment,
expanding and diversifying the tax base, promoting public-private partnerships, increasing jobs
with wages above Denton County's median wages, an increasing percentage of jobs paying over
$75,000, encouraging higher-skilled, knowledge-based jobs, engaging in sustainable practices and
activities, and generating new customers for municipal activities.
Also included in the policy under the Chapter 380 program, you will see that they meet three
of the five provisions.
Under other considerations and additional considerations, they meet two of those, which we've mentioned
here.
And then under the Economic Development Investment Fund, we require that an applicant meet two
or three criteria.
They meet two of the three criteria here.
You'll see a summary of the incentive proposal.
The first part of the Chapter 380 grant is a relocation expansion grant in the amount
of $40,000 that's being proposed, and this would allow to pay for reimbursement of relocation
costs and site upgrades.
The second is a stratified job-based performance grant, and that totals $109,500.
And then there's additional consideration for employees living in Denton through a residency
bonus grant of $19,500 that assumes 75%.
And then a total Chapter 380 grant of $169,000.
This would be accomplished through a Chapter 380 agreement with the Economic Development
Investment Fund as its source of funds, and the agreement would include a limit on the
term and cap on the funding amounts.
This application, it would also be possible to nominate them to the Texas Enterprise Zone
program if they wish to pursue that.
In this table, you'll see the incentive in more detail and the project revenue that would
be generated from the project.
So again, it's broken down into the different components of the grant, so the expansion
grant, typically a one-time grant of $40,000, then you would have a job-based grant as jobs
are added over the five-year term, followed by the residency bonus for a total of $169,000.
And then in the table that follows, you see the estimated city revenue generated by the
project.
And the first is the existing taxable value, which is land, and that comes to $75,670 over
a 10-year term, and the revenue from improvements to building and business personal property
would come to another $277,510.
So the total property tax value over the 10-year term would be $353,180.
What you'll see here is the proposed contractual cap for job-based positions.
You'll also see the different categories that these are broken into, and the amount of grant
per job, which increases as the salary increases.
Again, it would be $109,500, projected total jobs of $51,000, and these could come on at
different times as long as they don't exceed the term or the cap.
Over the benefits, the qualitative benefits of this project include quality jobs created
and investment in human capital, the pipeline for university training programs and reduction
of brain drain, recruitment and expansion of a company, and diversifying and expanding
the tax base.
The quantitative benefits include the 10-year total property tax revenue, which is estimated
at over $350,000, with a rate of return of 30.4%, and the payback period would be 3.4
years.
The summary and staff recommendation is a five-year performance-based incentive, again
with a cap not to exceed $169,000.
This is broken up into the expansion grant of $40,000, a stratified job-based grant for
new jobs up to $109,500, the residency bonus of $500 per employee for a total of $19,500,
and then this would be funded via a Chapter 380 agreement using the Economic Development
Investment Fund, and then if they wish to pursue the Texas Enterprise Zone program,
we could nominate them as an enterprise project.
So the options and recommendations before the board today are to proceed with and recommend
the staff recommendation, to modify or create a new incentive recommendation, or to offer
no incentive recommendation.
Be happy to entertain questions.
I'll take this down now.
So Erica, what is the staff recommendation?
The staff recommendation is the $169,000 grant, composed of the expansion grant of $40,000,
the stratified job-based grant in the different categories of $109,000, and then we're estimating
the residency bonus to be another $19,500.
Thank you.
Do we have any other questions from the floor, questions or comments?
Jill Jester is being recognized.
Thank you.
And who is here representing the entity to answer questions today, may I ask?
We have Charlie Ferreira, which is the CEO and President of Dynagrid, and then Don Clark,
the site work manager.
Well, I want to thank you both for coming here today to make yourselves available to
us.
I mean, obviously, the numbers are the numbers.
It looks like a great opportunity to improve the quality of life here in Denton.
I do have a question, though, you know, it takes a village to make Denton a great place
to live and work in, and jobs are not the only way to contribute to the quality of life
in Denton, but I didn't see in the application or presentation is any kind of community involvement
or incentive to be involved in a nonprofit.
I saw that you're not a member of the Chamber of Commerce as a fairly large business here
in Denton, but is there some kind of sponsorship or some kind of incentive?
You know, for those nonprofits that help our parks, help our elderly, help young people,
help businesses, et cetera, can you kind of give us a little idea of what has happened
and what's your vision in the future for that?
Sir, I think you may be muted.
I see you talking, but I can't hear you myself.
Hold on.
Okay.
Can you hear me now?
Okay.
No issues being part of the Denton community.
Obviously, we've become part of the economic plan with you guys, and we will embed ourselves
into the community like we have in Lewisville.
I help out with the North Texas Food Bank on a monthly basis.
Have no issue helping people, you know, get a better life or help people less fortunate.
And I think one of the things that has always been important to me is being a business owner,
and especially a business owner of a company like this, it's not all white collar jobs.
It's everybody.
You know, you don't need a college education to make $100,000 a year in this company.
You can make money, and it's important that everybody has the opportunity to succeed and
not necessarily have a college degree or a higher degree.
We have a lot of employees that have done very well with this company, and you can see
by the average salaries that, you know, our workforce is probably comprised of 25% white
collar, 75%, you know, operators, foremen, superintendents, craft, craft people.
Well, I hope you all will consider joining the Chamber of Commerce as we try to lift
up each other and explore other ways to get involved, and I know any of us would be happy
to have lunch or a cup of coffee to chat about those opportunities.
Thank you very much.
>> Thank you.
>> Absolutely.
>> Now, who was that that was just speaking?
I see one name.
I see Don Clark, but I see two people.
I wasn't sure.
>> I think that's really Ferreira.
>> All right.
I was speaking.
>> Okay.
So, Don Clark was speaking or Ferreira?
>> Ferreira.
>> Oh, okay.
Mr. Ferreira.
>> I don't know who that is.
>> Well, please forgive me.
I heard the names, but I only saw one name on the screen.
I wanted to kind of reiterate just a little bit.
I think it's having lived in the Denton community since 1983, having been a businessman here
in Denton since 1986, I think one of the things that I have seen that's really important is
we like for our companies to do well, but we also like for them to contribute to the
community and as Jill was saying, the nonprofit and organizations and memberships and that
type of thing, and even though this particular application did not seem to address a lot
of that, I think it would be good if maybe as an addendum, you would kind of give us
an idea of some of the things you would like to do and your company would like to do.
I think we're all about helping.
So anything you would like to do to help the community, we would love to do work with you
on that.
So we would love to hear from you.
>> I would love the opportunity to go to your high schools and explain to kids that they
don't have to go to college if they don't want to because college isn't necessarily
for everybody and you can have a good life and a good career without having to go to
college.
>> You know, one of the -- we have an organization that I represent that's called the Denton
Black Chamber of Commerce, as well as I'm a member of the Denton Chamber as well.
And one of the programs we've been pushing is getting back into the trades.
And because a lot of folks -- and hopefully nobody is hearing this and taking it the wrong
way, you can spend a lot of money and maybe not get as much return on your investment
as you might like in the educational process.
And so we want to see more folks win.
And I think this type of opportunity would certainly do that where you have, you know,
the job opportunities that don't require a college degree and more training.
And I'd like to hear a little bit, too, about the renewable energy.
Tell us a little bit about that.
>> We do a significant amount of work in the renewable energy market.
We're large in the solar wind markets, battery storage.
We build the battery storage stations where they collect the energy and redistribute it.
You know, the wind farms, the foundations, we do the civil portion of that.
But we're heavily involved with that across the country, not just Texas, but with a number
of major places.
We work with Encore, you know, Brazos Electric, the municipal, the city of Garland, a lot
of local agencies, American Electric Power, Vistra Energy.
So, you know, we have great relationships in the space.
And that type of work has been significantly increasing over the years.
And we're, you know, considered a major player in our space for what we do for those markets.
So, you know, we do what we can to help expand those.
We're looking at utilizing solar power for some of our external lighting things in our
new facility to practice what we preach as well.
But we're a major player in those markets, especially battery storage and solar.
Thank you for that.
My ears peaked up when we talked about the renewable energy, but I wasn't sure what that
meant.
And I'll give the ground to any others that would like to ask questions, because I tend
to talk a lot, so please forgive me.
Any other questions from the floor?
Hearing none, we'll entertain a recommendation, a motion on the recommendation of staff.
Lee Ramsey?
Yeah, I make a recommendation.
We go with the staff's recommendation and move forward with the process and nominate
them for the Texas fund.
Thank you guys for considering Denton Move Your Business.
We know there's a big cost to that.
It's not cheap to move your business.
And that's way more than these incentives.
It's, yeah, we just want to do a little part to welcome you to Denton.
Thanks, guys.
Thank you.
We have a motion.
We have a motion on the floor.
Do we have a second?
John, I'll second that, Lee.
Great motion.
Absolutely.
I agree.
It's an important move for us.
Mark, thank you so much.
We have a motion and a second.
Do we have any further discussion?
Hearing none and seeing none, we're going to do the visual again.
Jason?
Aye.
Tina?
Aye.
Jesse Davis?
Aye.
Jill Jester?
Aye.
Tony Clark?
Aye.
Lee Ramsey?
Aye.
Steve Edgar?
Aye.
Mark McClellan?
Aye.
John Baines also gives an aye, so we have a unanimous approval of staff recommendation.
And we'd like to thank you, gentlemen, for considering Denton.
I'm sorry.
Mr. Baines, did we get Mayor Hedspeth?
He's not on the screen, but he is in the meeting.
Oh.
No.
Yeah.
No.
I'm late to the party, and I'm an aye as well.
Okay.
Lee, how are you?
All right.
We also have Mayor Hedspeth.
Welcome.
Welcome, Mayor.
My apologies.
So, we have a unanimous recommendation for the incentive package to be given to Dynagrid
Construction LLC.
And we extend the hardest of welcomes to you and look forward to working with you for many
years to come.
Thank you, sir.
Thank you very much.
We look forward to it as well.
Appreciate the opportunity.
You're welcome.
All right, we're moving on to the next agenda item.
And thank you, Erica, for that presentation.
That was a good presentation.
Thank you.
EDP 21-018, receive a report, hold a discussion, give staff direction regarding the annual
business awards.
All right.
It's hard to believe that it has been a year almost since we've done the last business
awards.
But I'm going to turn it over to Kay Brown-Patrick, our business development administrator, to
give a presentation, and will give us one second because Erica's actually at the control.
So Erica will pull it up and then Kay will present.
Good morning, everyone.
Good morning.
I have it pulled up on my screen as well.
So let me pull it down because it's trying to show my presentation.
So I wanted to come and Jessica, thank you for the opportunity to present this to discuss
with you all the annual business awards.
Next slide, Erica, please.
As you all may know, each year the board recognizes local businesses in the categories currently
of small and large business for the recognition of awards, and on top of the city departments
that recognize businesses as well.
What staff is seeking direction in is extending and adding additional business recognition
categories in order to extend the recognition opportunities and also to redefine qualifying
businesses the numbers that will determine whether they are under the small and large
business recognition awards.
So I want to make sure that I point out, we're not getting rid of the small and large business
recognition categories, we're wanting to add additional categories.
So okay, you're seeking direction, how do you want that communication?
I have some additional slides.
So when I walk through, I'll propose the categories and then the numbers.
All right, thank you.
So currently, the category that you all utilize, the current categories is for small, they
are less than 100 employees, and for large, it's over 100 employees.
So as you can see there in the city of Denton, the numbers of the businesses that fall in
each one of those pockets of employee numbers.
And so as you can see, the over 100 employees, 102 businesses, so only 102 businesses qualify
currently to fall into the large category, and then almost 5,900 are in the small category.
So we're wanting to propose to redefine what qualifies a small business.
And so we'll let you all determine that, but as you can see, the numbers, the numbers there,
I think we would recommend small 1 to 49, and then adding additional, the 50, the over
50 to the large, it'll only add 119 business, but then it will also provide some additional
options in the large category.
Next slide, please.
Also the proposed categories that we would like to add to the business awards is business
ally award, minority woman veteran owned business of the year award, and an entrepreneur of
the year.
And the coming slides will help define what will qualify these businesses.
Currently this is the business awards criteria for the small and large business recognition
awards.
We will keep that criteria for all with the exception of the business ally award.
Each of the proposed awards will have this general criteria plus any applicable criteria
that we will discuss in the following pages.
For the business ally award, this business must be a business or organization that has
served as an ally in the community and supporting the business community.
Their proposed criteria will be business support and connections, public or private education
partnerships, and community relations.
For business support and connections, what we're looking for there is that they support
city policies and programs that support business businesses, they provide business education
opportunities, they are developing new programs, even partnering with our public and private
education partners regarding workforce, higher education.
I know you guys just mentioned in the previous discussion about being involved in the community,
and so that is also in addition to that, their level of commitment and involvement in the
community as well.
For the minority women veteran-owned business of the year, it's for a small business that
is owned by an ethnic minority, a woman, or a U.S. armed force veteran serving as the
majority owner.
They will have the general awards criteria we mentioned earlier, plus they must be recognized
by the state as a MWBE or HUB certified business.
So in addition to the general awards criteria that was listed earlier, this is in addition
to the criteria for this particular award.
And then lastly, for the proposed entrepreneur of the year, an individual or group of individuals
who have demonstrated a high level of entrepreneurial spirit, leadership, and determination and
creativity in the community, and this award will have the same general awards criteria
as the small and large business recognitions.
Also wanted to add, Erica, you can go to the next slide, also wanted to add the chamber
does have their awards as well, but this is just an extension to that, and the criteria
is different, and also some of the chamber awards, you must be chamber members for some
of those, and this is citywide, our business community at large.
So the direction we're seeking is does the board want to amend the definition of large
and small business or the small and large business recognition award categories, and
then do you all want to add the additional proposed award categories?
Ms. Kaye, I have a question.
Yes.
So just to kind of clarify the amendment, are you saying or are you seeking then from
50 employees and higher is large business, is that what you're asking, just to clarify
that?
Is the board's, whatever the board would like, our recommendation would be that it would
only add 119 businesses, but yes.
Okay, I see, so you're redefining from 1 to 49 be small business, 15th grade or be large
business.
Yes.
I understand.
Okay.
I just wanted to clarify.
So how does a business be considered for an award?
The process, so there's two different categories, so we have the city departments, they recommend
some businesses that they've worked with throughout the community that they want to recognize.
The EDP board for small and large recognition, they propose some businesses, and then also
sometimes staff may nominate businesses, and what takes place is we bring those nominations
to the board, and then there's a discussion held amongst the board in regards to that.
There's a sheet that's provided to you all in regards to that general award criteria
that was listed to make sure that those businesses meet that criteria.
Staff will contact those businesses and get information in regards to those questions.
How many jobs have you created?
What is your level of involvement in the community, and then we bring all that information package
back to the board.
Okay, I see.
So businesses have to actually, I don't want to say apply, but provide information for
your proposal?
Yes, we will collect that information for your discussion.
Just for the sake of reference, I believe, I know that Jimmy Mejia's company has received
an award.
Have any of the other individuals on this board, have their companies received an award?
Yes, I think that was when I met Tina last year, was when I was presenting her with an
award for Peter Builds, and I believe Lee has, Martino Group has, no, or Lynx has received
one, and I think that may be all who's on the call, but Jimmy is on the call with us
now.
He was able to join us.
Yeah, I would say, I personally think that redefining it for 15th grader is a good thing.
I don't, I mean, there's a lot of competition from the 1 to 49, so you'd have to do a lot
to stand out within that big group.
I agree.
Well, Tina, would you like to make that recommendation then?
I do recommend that redefining from 15th grader be in large business.
Okay.
Do we have someone to second that motion?
Second?
This is Jill Jester.
Okay, don't mute me.
Let's see.
So, we have a motion and a second, and do we have any discussion before we take the
vote?
Chair Bain, are you going to do the two recommendations separately, because the additional recommendation
was adding the...
Yes, okay.
Let's do this one first, and we'll do the other one in a second, how about that?
Okay.
I see no one opposed at this point for, excuse me, no discussion, so we'll entertain the
vote.
We'll take the vote.
All in favor of making the change include 50 to 99 as a new category, signify by raising
your hand.
We'll do the vote.
Let's see here.
We're going to start with Jason.
Jason?
All right.
Tony Clark?
Aye.
Jill Jester?
Aye.
Jesse Davis?
Aye.
Tina Albert?
Aye.
Lee Ramsey?
Okay, I see you.
Steve Edgar?
Aye.
Mark McClellan?
Aye.
Jimmy Mejia?
And then Mayor Hutspeth?
Aye.
Okay.
So John Baines is also an aye, and so we're going to include another category, and then
your second recommendation, Kay, is?
The proposed expand the award categories to include Business Ally of the Year, Entrepreneur
of the Year, and the Minority Women Veteran Owned Business of the Year categories.
Okay.
Chairman Baines, I'd like to make a couple of clarifications, if I could.
Please, please make a clarification for us.
Okay.
First, I think that the, I saw a slide that said the Small Business Award from this board
began in 2009, but I know that it has come about since I've been on the board, and I've
not been on the board that long.
It's 2019.
That was a typo.
That's okay.
Secondly, I also wanted to clarify that our business awards with the Chamber this year,
we have different categories that are similar to these, and you did not have to be a Chamber
member, and actually several of the finalists are not Chamber members, just to let you know
it is citywide.
This would be a big change.
I don't know how many of you all have attended the City of Denton awards, business awards,
but typically you've got the fire department, and they give one award, and you've got the
police department, and they give one award, the parks department, and they give one award.
So I also would be interested to hear from our mayor and our mayor pro tem as far as
if there's been any feedback, because, of course, if we keep expanding, then, of course,
all of those other departments can expand as well, and is there any concern there as
far as expanding the number that each department can give just in general, and then we can
get down into the specifics of the individual proposed added awards?
I'll defer if Mayor Hedsmith or Councilmember Davis, if you have any comments.
If not, I can provide a little context, and so you're correct that we don't have a set
number we're striving for, and in fact we went back and looked at our records.
We always offer to all city departments, if they have a business that has stepped up and
helped them in a particular year, what we found is that not every department gives an
award every year.
It kind of ebbs and flows.
Sometimes we have more than others, and sometimes we have less.
So we don't have a particular number that we're trying to get to, and generally, if
a department says we have two or three businesses that we want to nominate, we've allowed that
to go forward.
There was never a set number on the other department.
I've never seen that.
That's interesting.
I've never seen that at the awards a department give more than one other than this board.
Yeah, we've had a few instances where they kind of presented a joint award to two kind
of groups together or to kind of a collective, maybe two companies that had worked together,
but we haven't had a requirement.
My only other concern would be that just the possibility that it would dilute the importance
and the special or around one or two, but of course it's up to this board, and other
than that, I would just say that we do need to make sure that we are in our lane as far
as supporting economic development, and I'm not saying that these don't as we dive in
deeper to the criteria that's been proposed, but that is what we do, and that's what we've
been focused on in the past as far as who has been adding jobs to our business community,
and so that's kind of been the focus in the past, just making that notice we go forward
in discussion.
That point that you made right there is exactly why we wanted to bring these to the board
for discussion and kind of get your feedback, particularly as Kay and I discussed, as these
new categories kind of tie with some new areas that were identified in our strategic plan,
so we thought that it was worth having this conversation and say, are we ready to make
a little bit of a shift here, want your feedback, so certainly that exact thought is why we're
here today.
In particular, I'd like a little more drill down in the business ally, because that does
seem like something that we have considered in the past as far as voting on the small
or large business.
The other two I can kind of see carved out a little easier, so maybe we can expand a
little bit on what would differentiate who would win a small business of the year versus
this carve out to be a business ally, because in my mind, whomever would win one of those
big awards, the small or large business of the year for economic development, would also
have these things built in as a necessary component, but I'll be listening.
Yeah, so currently for the small and large business recognitions, there is no criteria
in there in regards to their support for business, for the economic development policies and
programs, new development of program education opportunities, mentoring and training, so
on that criteria sheet that was provided to the board, it kind of outlines that, and that's
an additional category of criteria that's added to just the business ally category.
That is not considered for the small and large businesses.
There may be some crossover, you're absolutely correct, but particularly the business ally,
I'll use an example, not to say that there will be the award category, but for US aviation,
they have created a workforce pathway program with the Indian ISD, so that's considered
they're an ally, they create an allyship with Indian ISD, a business that may be open to
creating internships for UNT and TWU, so that business ally category kind of has some things
there that assist in differentiating between the large and small business categories.
In these particular categories, I went through the strategic plan to look at, and it did,
it has a mention there of greater support of supporting entrepreneurs and recognizing
entrepreneurs and minority-owned businesses and marketing and such, so they weren't randomly
selected.
Jessica's point, we try to tie it back to the things that were mentioned in the strategic
plan that was passed by council last year, but to see your point, there may be some duplicates
of effort from the chamber, but that's why these recommendations say adding and expanding
opportunities to recognize businesses, as opposed to just one a year from the chamber
awards.
If I may comment?
Go ahead, Tina, please.
Well, that was my comment, because I'm not familiar with all the awards that the city
gives, is this a duplication, are there other awards that are very similar to this?
That's kind of my question, and then for me personally, on talking about the ally award
versus small business, if a small business goes above and beyond, it includes these things
that an ally does, and that's what makes them stand out even further for them to receive
the small business award, so it would be, in my mind, hard to differentiate what is
an ally versus, you get the ally award, and then another company gets the small business
award, or would the same company get both?
If I could ask for a point of order here, if we're having a lot of discussion, and I
think we ought to go ahead and make the motion, second it, and then have the discussion and
include that so we can come to a conclusion, so can I get a motion to entertain the second
recommendation from Patrick, please?
I'll give the motion.
Okay, Jimmy's making the motion, we need a second.
Steve Ageroff, second.
Thank you, Steve.
And please continue the conversation.
Thank you.
And Chair, just so I'm clear on the motion, is the motion for all three proposed awards?
That's correct.
Okay.
So, discussing the ally award, I tend to agree with Tina is, you know, a good business that's
going to win that award is probably doing the things, it should be doing the things
that are being asked of this ally award, because, you know, internships and all those things,
that's just good business that we, that a lot of people already do.
I think it kind of waters down the other awards, if you add this one, this particular one in,
because it's all just good things that, that if you're involved in your community and doing
business, and that's part of what makes you get recognized for the nomination of that award,
just my opinion.
If I may add for the patient as well, this award also includes organizations, so if an
organization has an ally, like a United Way, NCTC has created business opportunities above
and beyond or created a new program for business support based on our strategic plan, but also
it opens the, it's the only award that allows organizations that have served as an ally
to the business community to be recognized.
So I would consider the business ally award to be more prestigious than the small business
award, is that the path that we're going to take and that you're recommending?
I'm not recommending any hierarchy, just that the award is added to the, to the, to the
category list, but it is the only one that allows organizations to be recognized that
have worked to, as an ally to the business community and not just the business.
As a small business owner, I'm probably putting too much on the table here, but my time is
is, is challenged and when I think of the, the kind of the universe that I'm in, there's
a lot of businesses I'm not aware of and so to, for me to come up with a recommendation
in these different categories with my other time commitments might be difficult and then
if we were just rely on staff, then that's a different, that may be a different population.
So as far as populating those that are going to be recognized, to me that's a big challenge,
you know, taking the time and then having the understanding of these different categories
and putting some, some names on the table, that takes a little bit of work and some time
to do that.
So I don't, I'm conflicted in that I rely on the, on the city recommendations, but at
the same time, I realized I have some responsibility as well, you know, to, to put some names on
the hat.
So I'm just a little challenged when there's a little more work to do, a little more work
to be done.
So Mr. Davis.
Thank you, Mr. Chair, you know, this is not the biggest problem in the world to have,
but I am kind of concerned like Jill is with award creep, I guess, what you call it.
It's just, you know, we have so many people doing so many good things in the community.
We certainly want to recognize them all, but I'd be just as happy with just the small,
large and then hub, the historically under utilized businesses, the minority woman or
veteran owned businesses, I agree with some others that the other categories we're talking
about entrepreneurial spirit, you know, that's job creation stuff, that's business creation
stuff that that's baked in to the other things, the allies stuff that's kind of baked into
the categories that we already have that make you the small business of the year, the large
business of the year, or the hub business of the year.
So I kind of prefer to keep it just at those, those three, I like the addition of recognizing
some folks that maybe don't get as much recognition as they they deserve for historically deserved.
But the others well intentioned, I think, but maybe a little bit, a little bit much
we diluted just a little bit dilute the prestige of the other awards just a little bit when
there's so many categories available.
So Mayor Pro Tem, once again, to underscore your recommendation, then you just want the
one rather than the other than all three.
Yeah, just the just the one new one, we've redefined the other two, or I guess, reestablish
re categorize the other two new criteria there, and just the one new one.
So that would be either amendment to them, I can propose that as an amendment to the
motion.
However, the moment prefers.
I think that makes that makes sense, I think you said it better than I did, Mayor Pro Tem.
So you're making an amendment, then, instead of having those three categories, we'll just
have the one for the woman on minority veteran category.
Is that correct.
That's correct.
That's my best the amendment I'm offering.
Okay, we have a friendly amendment.
Do we have a second to the friendly amendment.
I have a second.
Okay, Tina Albert.
Okay.
Once again, any, any more discussion.
I do have one more point I would like to make, though, please, if we're redefining small
versus large with the number of employees, I believe Kay on your slide for the minority
women in the veteran says one to 75 employees.
So would you change that criteria for that award to be the one to 50.
Yes, ma'am.
Okay.
Thank you.
That's my clarification.
I wonder with that was necessary if that's necessary to limit the size.
Yes, that's what I was gonna say is blowing it up.
Yep.
So as the dust settles, what are we going to do with the chair right now you have a
main motion to approve all three categories, you have a an amendment to that motion for
just the minority women owned and veteran owned business.
So if you want to take action, you would vote first on the amendment.
And if that's approved, then you'd have a second vote on the main motion.
Okay, so let's let's follow our lead counsel here and let's vote on the friendly amendment
to have just the one category without numbers.
Okay.
All in favor of the friendly amendment, we're going to go around Jason Thomson.
Tina Albert.
Aye.
Jesse Davis.
Aye.
Jill Jester.
Aye.
Tony Clarke.
Aye.
Lee Ramsey.
Aye.
Steve Edgar.
Aye.
Mark McClellan.
Aye.
Jimmy Mejia.
Aye.
And Mayor Gerard Hutsmith.
Aye.
John Baines agrees to the friendly amendment so we have a unanimous approval of the friendly
amendment.
So let's go back to the main amendment to have all three.
Isn't that correct counselor?
So now yeah, the main motion now has been a change to just to a motion to approve the
one category.
So you'll have a vote on that motion.
Okay.
So we okay.
So the friendly amendment changed the original.
Yes.
Oh shit.
Okay.
All right.
So now we're going to vote to have the one category and we're going to go around once
again Jason Tomlinson, Gerard Hutsmith, Jimmy Mejia, Mark McClellan, Steve Edgar, Lee Ramsey,
Tina Albert, Jesse Davis, Jill Jester, Tony Clarke, John Baines says aye.
So we have that one amendment and we're done with that particular presentation it looks
like.
I'll let you have some more Kay.
All right.
Thank you.
And thank you.
Thank you for your thoughtfulness and thank you for your inclusiveness.
As a veteran you know sometimes I forget wait a minute you know let's have a little recognition
here every once in a while.
And then the woman owned businesses I mean this is a different category as well and thank
you for taking the time and the thoughtfulness to be more inclusive.
I want to echo that Kay.
We appreciate ideas.
Ideas are always good and we never want to be stuck in the same place.
We always want to be moving forward so thank you so much and please please do continue
to bring new ideas to us.
Thank you.
And thanks to all of the partnership board for taking the time to have a really meaningful
discussion.
Thank you so much.
We're down to the last item of the of the agenda ADP 21 P 21 dash 0 17 staff report.
Jessica Rogers.
Yes sir.
So you have in your packet the second quarter statistical trends and news of Denton report
so I encourage you all to take a look at that and certainly reach out to us if anything
pops out.
We're really excited to get the census numbers hopefully before the next quarterly report
and maybe make some updates on those.
We're not quite sure when the city level data will become available fingers crossed sooner
rather than later so that we'll be able to update some of those and we're also looking
forward to some of our universities coming back fully in person next year and so certainly
that'll influence our student residences and those sorts of things that we report and I'll
just remind you that we do have that sort of we're tracking a couple key statistics
related to covid recovery to keep in mind office rents things like sales tax collections
things like that that we're really seeing some some very positive signs here in our
local economy.
I think we're going to have a great summer and you know hopefully by fall we'll see some
some real stability returning to our local economy.
So we're very excited about what we're seeing in some of these 2021 kind of early indicators
and with that I will just say I'll throw in a comment and just let everyone know that
about 1030 p.m. I don't remember the exact time councilmember Davis can correct me but
the City Council did unanimously approve the ranch land incentive agreement that this board
had seen back in December so we are very excited to welcome ranch land to Denton and for those
of you who will be in attendance at the economic development partners reception investors reception
this evening and the CEO of ranch land will be joining us so we're happy to introduce
you to mr. Ken Davis just go ahead mr. Davis thank you chair I can just add something really
quickly on the heels of that let y'all know what was important to council on the unanimous
of everybody had their own reasons for voting voting yes right they had their own criteria
and how they got to yes but it was interesting to see a new council with new faces folks
with different lots of different priorities different things they ran on different things
I want to talk about voting unanimously on an economic incentive to getting right there
right out in front of it I thought that was interesting to see and some of the things
that were important in the conversation were business practices corporate practices especially
in the realm of food processing and meat processing ethical and sustainable and sustainable processing
of meat that was important to council good wages was important to council the types of
jobs we talked most about corporate jobs but of course they also do their logistics company
right so they're going to have folks kind of not necessarily directly employed by them
but a lot of transportation contractors and things so lots of different jobs across the
spectrum coming here with that company but also that it was a corporate headquarters
that was important to council that there was a large number of folks that would be hired
our local market they're only bringing about seven people with them from their current
location a large number of folks hired to work at their corporate headquarters which
would be located in an otherwise disused building in Denton so all of those things kind of came
together I think to result in that unanimous vote I thought it would be important for this
board to know going forward the sorts of things council was was looking at thank you mayor
pro tem I did have a couple of questions that I needed a little clarification on okay what's
the do we have a projected date for the awards banquets awards program yes great question
and so currently so staff is looking at two dates in location and so currently September
10th was the date that was available on the third location when we were calling around
and getting information so tentatively September 10th but when it is solidified to what you
guys know and for those that are new it's typically a breakfast so if you're looking
at maybe kind of tentatively blocking out that date on your calendar and uh I better
approach him um where do we go to get updates on the progress of the road construction in
the city I don't want to make you smile but I did want to I want to so um let me let me
get my browser window up while we're talking um so I can give you the exact uh url but
we have a construction update page we've got a road closures calendar we've got a construction
interactive map um let me make sure I'm giving you the right web page and I can copy and
paste it into the if you just google a city of denton understanding construction or city
of denton improving denton you can find it and then I guess never mind I was gonna say
I can put it in the chat but of course this is a a special city secure zoom where we don't
have um offline chat that people can't see this is a it's a toma thing so um if you all
email me I can send it to you but if you just google city of denton construction you'll
find it pretty quickly thank you so much you should be improving denton.com should take
you to the main page improving it kind of it kind of does oh you have to click around
just a little bit to get to improving denton gives you a lot of the headlines that we want
you to see right but they get to the click yeah to get to drill down to the the reports
that you really want to see um just just google it'll find it you'll find it and in concluding
um do we have any updates from the um from the universities and the schools on any changes
we should expect.
So John first of all good morning everybody it's good to see you all um some of you may
have heard that um our lagrone academy our career center the atc is um becoming a standalone
campus in years past we've had students you know do half a day at denton ryan geier or
braswell and then you know return back to their comprehensive campus we're going to
continue with that programming but we have a lot of our students who are not engaged
in band choir orchestra athletics student government other leadership positions that
um are are are interested in their careers and internships and those things and will
be going to the lagrone academy full time uh starting in january um i mean starting
in august and um in preparation for um an additional career center um for us to study
the the viability of that in the eastern section of the district um and our next capital improvement
project so um just wanted to wanted to put that out there because it's a different way
we're offering courses uh moving forward so um really good career development kinds of
things and i sent the links to our our latest uh our latest recipient of the incentives
so a recommendation for the incentives i'll send those links this morning in an email
thank you thank you superintendent any work from the university any updates quick updates
go ahead i was just gonna say you know this has been a tiny time for all but we appreciate
all the work and other students i think uh one thing i have to say is we we anticipate
being back to permitting to normal procedures for the fall the summers will be some parts
some on time we at twu at least uh we always have we've maintained students on campus we've
been about a 24 percent uh on campus versus or hybrid versus about and online but we'll
shift back to normal in the fall and our so far uh orientation numbers all those numbers
look like they're on par for prior years so it looks good thank you thank you jason similar
update with uh you and t we are expecting fall to be uh essentially fully back to normal
uh july 4th is probably a good good transition date for for many of our operations and some
of you may have heard the news that we just penned a brand new agreement with the university
of texas austin for high performance computing uh needs a massive expansion of our programs
and capabilities so we're very excited about the implications of that for our university
community our research community especially jessica back to you and i think we'll conclude
i i can't top all of that
well thank everyone for taking out of your time and your schedule and for your participation
and our efforts to make denton a good place to live work play and raise families thank
you very much should we conclude yes sir you can adjourn all right we'll see you at the
next meeting thank you