Good morning everyone. My name is John Baines and I have the honor of being the chair for
the Economic Development Partnership Board. And we want to call the meeting to order.
And I believe we have a rather decent agenda this morning. And the first item is to consider
the approval of minutes of May 12, 2012, excuse me, 2021. And that's EDP 21-022. We'll give
everyone a chance to look at those minutes briefly and see if you see any items that
require an adjustment. And once you've read them or you're ready, you can just give me
a wave and that'll give me an idea of how long I should wait or not wait. Thank you.
Chair, if you need a motion, I'll go ahead and move that we accept as presented pending
any corrections forthcoming. We have a motion on the floor. Do we have a second? Second.
Lee Ramsey second. Okay. Do we have any further discussion before we call the vote? Okay.
Seeing none, we have to do, because we're in this somewhat hybrid situation, we'll have
to take a roll call vote. So we'll go around the room and we'll start with me. I'll start
with me. I'm in favor. Jason? Yes. Lee Ramsey? Yes. Jill Jester? Aye. Mark McClellan? Aye.
Gerard Husspeth? Aye. Steven Edgar? Aye. We have a unanimous passage of the minutes. Thank
you very much. We'll move on to the next EDP item. EDP 21-028. Receive a report, hold
a discussion and give staff direction regarding a memorandum of understanding between the
City of Denton and the Denton Black Chamber of Commerce. Who will lead that conversation,
Jessica? So for the staff presentation, we'll have Kay Brown-Patrick, who is our business
development administrator. And then as you can see on your screen, we have Mr. Gorey
and Mr. Hill here from the Black Chamber of Commerce. And so we'll let Kay start this
thing, get the presentation going, get the conversation going. And then certainly we
invite the board's feedback and Mr. Hill and Mr. Gorey to participate as well. Thank you,
Jessica. And Kay, you have it. Good morning, everyone. I'm going to go ahead and pull my
screen up here. So we're going to go ahead and get started on the presentation. So as
you all are aware, the council passed the economic development strategic plan in February
as a guiding policy for economic development goals in Denton. One of the things that was
mentioned in that plan was a call for coordination with the Denton Black Chamber of Commerce
and other multicultural organizations to provide business information and resources for minority
owned businesses. Staff have met with the Denton Black Chamber of Commerce on several
occasions this year and to discuss the partnership in the area of support needed and the role
of each organization in developing and supporting a sustainable relationship for business support
within the community. So to enhance that relationship, the city and the Black Chamber of Commerce
have prepared a memorandum of understanding for your review. The MOU identifies the scope
of the partnership between the city and the Black Chamber of Commerce, and it also establishes
guidelines for the process of developing mutually understood roles and responsibilities to entities.
The agreements between the City of Denton Economic Development Department and the Denton
Black Chamber of Commerce, both ad hoc and standing joint committees and task force can
be created by mutually agreed upon between their executive board and the EDP board. There
has been no commitment from either party to provide funding. However, the city may allocate
resources and funding on a case by case basis for a specified program and events that are
offered by the Black Chamber of Commerce in the form of sponsorships. And one of an example
of that would be we recently collaborated on a how to do business with local and state
agencies with the Denton Black Chamber of Commerce for minority women owned businesses.
And the resource that was allocated from the city side was myself, and I worked closely
with one of the staff members there to put that on. And then they were going to utilize
our zoom platform because of the capabilities of that, but they ended up purchasing their
own. So that's just an example of resources and more than that, but that's just an example
of how that what that will look like. The city and the DBCLC will work collaboratively
to share visions and goals for business and economic development purposes. And the city
in alignment with the policy will promote activities and events that are hosted by the
Black Chamber of Commerce. Any trainings that they've done, they have done a great job.
They've been hosting a monthly activities and events and trainings this year. And so
with this MOU that allows now for us to promote those activities on our social media sites.
Both entities will engage at minimum with quarterly meetings or updates on progress
regarding any programs and city led initiatives. The Black Chamber of Commerce will provide
a informal annual report to the economic development department regarding any of their activities,
any changes that they may have on the board side, staff side, and then the city will provide
their executive board with updates and presentations on any city led initiatives that affect business
and economic development. And at minimum, we will provide that to them by annually.
The term is due December 31 of 2023, but because this is non-binding, that is that's fluid
and either party may for any specified reason terminate with written notice. So staff is
here to recommend that the EDP board recommend approval of the MOU outline the partnership
with the intent to bring the MOU forward to city council consideration later this summer.
So with that, I will take any questions. Mr. Goree, did you have any input? I did get your
message in regards to the whereas in the actual document, but we hadn't had a chance to speak.
So if you were Mr. Hill had any input, but I know I met with you two for review of the
MOU at the end of April. So if you guys have anything that you would like to add to that,
you can do so at this time. Thank you, Kay and the board for inviting us. I think you
are taking a good step forward on things that haven't been done and didn't that needs to
be done with the MOU. First thing I'd like to mention with the signature, if it's approved
by our board, our president doesn't sign any documents. This should be signed by our chairman
of the black chamber commerce. So if you could correct that, that would be the first thing
we'd like to have you address on the MOU. The second item, and it's a group of items
on the MOU, and I'm not pulling up that MOU, the document itself, but when you pull up
the document, you'll see some, whereas the black chamber commerce agrees to do so forth
and so on. And the next statement said the black chamber agrees to do so, so, so forth
and so on for small businesses, minority and women owned businesses. That's a good statement
except for one thing. There's no mention of the black chamber doing anything for black
owned businesses. We do not want to be lumped in the category with small business owners.
We do not want to be lumped in the category with minority business owners and women owned
business owners. In the past, this has been a disaster for black owned businesses and
any organization to be lumped in. It dilutes our effort and we're unable to have any functional
results from that. If you look at the city, I think your chair, John Baines, had asked
the city once before, DME, the county for A&D availability and disparity study to show
what businesses has been done for black businesses. There's never been a study. There's no paperwork.
There's no history. So when you're going to dump the black chamber in with other organization
and don't even mention the term black, then we're going to see that we're going to be
lumped in. And if you look at HUB, HUB is something that started in 1991 and a couple
of the state representatives, we're looking at dissolving HUB because HUB has been diluted
with so many other organizations. HUB now is African American, Hispanic American, Native
American, Asian Americans, disabled veterans, and white females. Mind you, of all the contracts
that have been given, state level, city level, county level, national level, white females
are getting, where blacks are getting about 1.3% of the state even have over $200 billion
budget. We got 1.4% of that. White females are getting 60% of that. We do not want to
be lumped in there and get lost in the shuffle. So if you could correct these whereas, and
I don't mean to be in no pun intended, but correct that whereas, well, we want to be
as a black chamber commerce want to do things that promote black business owners. Our goal,
our mission is the creation, development, and general wellbeing of black owned businesses.
Not that we don't care about minority owned businesses, but that's the job for the big
chamber to deal with minority business. Our role as a black chamber is to deal with black
owned businesses. That's our primary goal, and that's our primary emphasis, and that's
where our work is today.
Kay, if I could ask you and Jessica to pull up that schedule that I submitted. And as
Mr. Gorey said, thank you. Thanks to the Economic Development Partnership Board for beginning
this conversation. It has been well overdue. And for those who have not had the pleasure
of dealing with the statistics, this is just a little view. Are you able to pull that up,
Kay? The documentation.
I did not bring that over to City Hall with me in digital form. I do have it in written
form. I did print it off, but I did not have it in digital form. I was not.
If you could, if I could be allowed to share a document, and it's mainly for informational
purposes only, I think some of the audience is not aware of the disparity studies that
have been done and the history that Mr. Gorey is speaking of. Is that okay, Jessica? Can
I get?
I'm not sure if we have the capability for you to share your screen. I'm just not sure
about that. I need tech support, but I'm going to try and get my email. We're in a remote
situation, so I don't have my email on this computer, so I'm going to try and get into
it remotely, and then I'll pull it up if I can.
Should I email it to someone?
It's in my email, so I just need to try and get into my email, sir.
While you're doing that, let me give everyone an overview, a high overview. I don't want
to belabor the point too much, but this is an opportunity to at least address the point
adequately for everyone. There were some statistics at the state level on how much business goes
to African American businesses, Latino businesses, Asian American businesses, right on businesses,
and however, if you use the term minority, you don't really get to see the impact on
the black-owned businesses, as Mr. Gorey was saying. This particular document kind of gives
you a snapshot that if you simply look at the grouping that says minority-owned businesses,
it's deceiving. This particular document broke out the percentage and the dollars that actually
went to African American-owned businesses. I can pull it up now.
All right. Thank you so much. This is 2006. I rushed in this morning to find a document,
and even though it's old, it'll still give you kind of the idea. If you go and look at
HUB dollars, let's see, let's see, $36 million, and HUB got $10 million. However, African
American-owned businesses got $320,000. Let's go down to a friend, TW, $38 million, HUB
$4.6, and of that, African Americans received $1773. Then you go down to, let's see, Texas
A&M, $173 million, minority business owners, excuse me, got $38, and then African Americans
got $2 million. Texas Department of Transportation, up above, $6 billion. Minorities, $700 million,
and then African Americans, $46 million. Then we'll go to the very bottom, UNT, and sorry
to pick on you, Steve, and Mark. This was in 2006. I know that the numbers have improved,
but UNT had $68 million in expenditures, $13 million went to HUBs, and African Americans
got $427,000. It just basically kind of makes the point that if we don't track the amount
that goes to African American-owned businesses, we get lost when we get to the idea of what
kind of progress we're making. And I'll make this kind of as a statement, as an African
American-owned business, I've received one contract with the city of Denton. However,
I have invested in being a volunteer in various aspects to see if I could make a difference.
So I've basically said, I'm not going to pursue the money, I'm going to see if I can pursue
the influence. And so that's where my emphasis has been over the last 30-plus years. And
so Mr. Hill, I didn't know if you had anything you wanted to say while we were on this conversation,
or if any of the other members of the board would like to have a conversation or make
a point. So thank you for listening to me, and thank you, Jessica, for pulling that up.
Thank you, Mr. Baines. This is Steve Hill. Just taking a look, even though this information
you shared with us was dated, and I know that we've made significant, when I say we, UNT,
has made significant progress since then, especially in the last five years. But I can
see. I can see the concern that Mr. Gorey points out, and that you pointed out, John,
you know, how, you know, if you just combine everything into one overall category, how
some parts of that category can be lost, or maybe not getting a fair share of the success
that we've seen. So I don't have any additional comments, but I do understand, and I'm not
sure what the recommendation is as far as the verbiage to go on the MOU, to change it.
We need to change it to say Black-owned or African-American-owned businesses would be
its own separate category. So that way, while we do applaud the effort, without that, I
think we would have some dilution in both our understanding and monitoring progress.
And if I may, if I may really quick, and Matt, you can step in here, then. So I had a meeting
with both Mr. Gorey and Mr. Hill, and I forgot the other individual's name, to review this
document as it is now. At that time in the review, this wasn't a change, so it's gone
through legal. So there are a couple of items in the document that are directly pulled from
the strategic plan, verbatim in its references to sections. So in those sections, it says,
it calls out women and minority-owned businesses. The other whereas is, and Matt, correct me,
you can jump in here, we can make those changes, but if it's speaking directly to the strategic
plan, then we will keep those, whereas the same, but the other ones, we can change to
Black-owned businesses. Absolutely right. Okay. Okay. I just want to make sure that
I pointed that out. And then, Mr. Baines, your email, I wanted to let you all, to let
you know, and I'm glad you mentioned that, in January, I met with the finance department
to discuss disparities in spending and efforts that can be taken to address that. And that's
where the webinar about how to do business with, and then we had the diversity, the DFW
minority council on there on the call and some other individuals speak to that. But
finance, they were very open to pursuing a vendor utilization policy. They have not been
tracking spending and dollars at all, whether it was hub or minority or Black-owned businesses.
They have now started to code spending now to collect data that's required for a disparity
study to take place. And I can send the disparity study from Dallas. Disparity does exist in
Denton. Dallas' disparity study included Denton in their disparity study, and it highlighted
the disparity that took place. But the city of Denton has to have their own disparity
study in order to put an actual program in place. But they have started making efforts
to addressing that by going ahead and encoding some of the vendor data, start collecting
the information in regards to spending. They've also implemented a Amazon beta program. So
anytime anyone in the city is shopping for anything on Amazon, it prioritizes if a minority-owned
business or Black-owned business provides their product, it places them at the top of
the list to prioritize spending with the Black-owned businesses from the city standpoint. So I wanted
to make you all aware of what's going on internally to address the disparity in spending.
Do any of the other partnership board members have a comment? I do have two more comments
before I wanted to leave this topic, but I didn't want to dominate the conversation.
I wanted to give way if anyone had a question or a concern. I'm going to give you a little
story and then I'm going to give you a real-life example about opportunities. My nephew grew
up in a tough part of Houston and the Bloods and the Crips, two gangs, were courting him
as a teenager. He reached out to me and said, "Uncle Johnny, can I come and live with you?"
He would come to us in the summers and he realized we had a different lifestyle. And
this is a rough kid coming to live in my house with my kids and there's going to be some
issues. And so when he came to live with us, he couldn't even look in the eye, his handshake
was weak, his grades were poor. So we had to spend extra effort to bring him up to the
standard where my kids were. But the amazing thing was my kids were jealous. They said,
"Dad, you gave him four french fries and you only gave us two. Or you gave us a dollar
and you gave him $5." So there was a lot of comparing as to the effort that was being
expended. And eventually my explanation to them was, "Your cousin is in a deficit." So
when did you do some extra to bring that family member up to the level of the other family
members? So here we are, city of Denton, you got to do a little extra effort to bring those
that are less than on up. Mr. Gorey would probably not mention this, but I'll mention
this on his behalf. He brought a proposal to the city for his company and an idea that
was never thought of before. He and his business partner brought it to the city. It was an
insurance benefit for all of the city employees. The city of Denton had another employee who
worked with the same company. And so rather than the benefit going to Mr. Gorey and his
associate, all of the premiums and the benefits went to this city employee. So off the table
went a significant amount of revenue over many years to a city employee who was not
a minority. I know Mr. Gorey has addressed that concern with some other things, but this
is an evidence of where we have to work together to make sure that the opportunities are both
there and they were equal. The only difference was the statement, the final statement was
the city felt this was best for its employees. So thank you once again, Kay, Jessica and
other committee members for the effort to improve in this area, allowing for African
American owned businesses to have a better participation in the economic success of our
community. So unless we have any other comments, Mr. Gorey, I didn't know if you wanted to say
anything else before we left this area, otherwise we'll move on.
No, I just appreciate the opportunity to express the ideas that we want you all to really help
bring into realization because an ideal is just an idea. We want the ideal to get off
the table and become a reality for the city of Denton. As John said, myself, he Steve
Hill, we volunteer with the city over many years. I've been a city, I've been a business
owner in the city of Denton for 28 years. And as John said, the one time I came to the
city for an idea, Jessica and John, they gave it, they gave the bid, they gave the contract
to a city employee who brought the same thing to the fire department. And they said, regarding
of best value, we're not going to even look at you Kerry and your idea, even though you
brought the idea to the city, you caused the city to do a feasibility study with all the
employee groups and they came back and said, we want to go with that. And when we readdressed
the city, they said, well, this employee is for city rep for the fire department and said,
we brought this to the fire department, it's best that we make the whole city do what the
fire department is doing. Irregardless of your program, if it's better or worse, it
doesn't matter. We're just going to go with what the other city employee did for the fire
department and disregard what you did. I had a meeting with the mayor, he's been there,
he can, he can follow us for this. We met with the mayor, they told us we hadn't even
made a decision yet, Kerry. At the second meeting, they sent us a memo saying, we're
going to have a meeting to tell you why we did not choose you. From the time they told
us with the mayor, they hadn't made a decision. All of a sudden, they made a decision and
they want us to sit in a meeting to tell us why we weren't chosen. This is the things
that we are, hopefully the economic development partnership, partnership board can help eliminate.
And I see friends of mine, Jill Justus, she has understanding of what we've been through.
She's been a very big partner of ours. I don't have to explain a lot of these things to any
of you all. I know the names of many of you all here today and I hope you have an understanding
that we're not here to tumble the the House of Cards. We just want our hand will be played
fair. Thank you, Kerry. And unless someone else has another comment, how do we conclude
this section, Jessica and Kay? Do we need to go back and make those revisions and then
bring them back once again? Or tell us how we're going to proceed. No, sir, I think we
would welcome a motion just with the amendments as presented the section that Mr. Gorey was
referencing. I think we can have a textual change that really doesn't impact the spirit
of the agreement or the body of the agreement. So we can just make that adjustment as recommended.
And so the motion can just include that change to the language. But I do before the motion
is made, I want to encourage the board members. You know, it's been a while since we've looked
at the strategic plan itself, and there's a very specific reason that we wanted to make
formalize our relationship with the Black Chamber of Commerce. And so I encourage you
to go back and look at those sections of the strategic plan because inclusivity is so important
to economic development, and it is incredibly important to me as a director in making sure
that we're fulfilling on those promises. We adopted that strategic plan, and we said this
is important to us, and so we are here to make those things happen. And so I hope that
the board understands, you know, this is a goal of this department, and so we appreciate
Mr. Gorey, Mr. Hill, Mr. Baines, your input in working with us, with myself and Kay on
this MOU, and we feel this is a very important step forward.
So who will make that from the amendment?
I'm happy to make the amendment. And if we can just, if we need to specify again what
that change is, what paragraph and what it's changed to, Jessica, did you get that down?
Can you maybe read that to us so we know exactly what it is we're changing?
Yes, we will change the language in the whereas clause that says, whereas the city desires
to enter into a non-binding memorandum of understanding with the Denton Black Chamber
of Commerce to assist with support of Denton's Black-owned businesses and provide business
assistance to such businesses. We'll make that change. It's on the first page of the
agreement.
Okay. So if I could, Mr. Baines, I would like to move that we amend the memorandum of understanding
between the City of Denton and the Denton Black Chamber of Commerce, as Ms. Rogers stated
in one of the whereas clauses, as she just stated on the record at this time.
And there's one other section. We'll make that same language change. There's another
pair of two places where it will replace small minority and women-owned businesses with Black-owned
businesses in the whereas.
If I could modify my motion, the motion will be to conform the entire document to specify
the goal will be in Black businesses and Black members of our community versus the global
term for all minorities. And any necessary scrivener's changes will be made as needed
with the intent.
We have a motion on the floor. Do we have a second?
This is Jason. Second.
Thank you, Jason.
Chair, just to be clear, this is a motion to approve the agreement with those changes.
Is that correct?
That is correct.
Okay.
Thank you, Mac. So we have a motion and a second. Do we have any further discussion?
Hearing none, all in favor of approving the motion on the floor with friendly amendments,
signify by saying yes. And we'll start with you, Jason.
Lee?
Aye.
Jill?
Aye.
Mark?
Aye.
Mayor Hutzpeth?
Aye.
And then where is my friend from the hospital?
Mr. Edgar had to leave, unfortunately, at 1130.
Okay. And then John Baines also approves the motion with the friendly amendments. I believe
we passed that motion unanimously. Thank you all for both the conversation and your attentiveness
while we had it. Thank you.
Thank you.
Yes. And Mr. Hill and Mr. Gorey, you are more than welcome to continue with us, or you can
go about your morning and we'll give you a little bit of time back.
All right. Thank you.
I think I may just hang out with you for a minute. I may learn something else.
Okay.
I have a patch of grass that I haven't finished mowing, so I'm going to get to that before
it gets too hot. Or I get into hot water.
We wish you the best, Mr. Gorey.
Thank you, Sarah.
Thank you.
We come now to EEP 21-029, Receiver Report. Hold the discussion and give staff direction
regarding nominations for the annual business awards.
And we have Kay again to lead that discussion. And I believe I have the list of past recipients
if we need it, but I will turn it over to Kay to lead that discussion.
Thank you.
There was no presentation for this particular item. Just coming to you all to receive the
nominations for the business award. As you know, in the past, the board has nominated
for the large and small business. And then at the May meeting, you all approved adding
the minority veteran business of the year. We have those three awards coming to you all.
So we will receive the nominations and then do the legwork in regard of the legwork. I'm
thinking about a workout. We will do the work to retrieve the information in regards to
the criteria that's needed for those businesses.
So Kay, I have a question for you. So we have this information. Were we expected to come
today with names or are you sending us away to get names?
Either or. We were expecting nominations today, but if you do not have any, you can send them
to us. The criteria information from May is the same now. And so you can send us the nominations.
I think there is an August, what do we have for the deadline? August 4th, Jessica?
So at your next meeting, you will be voting and discussing and selecting the winners of
the business awards. So we would need the nominees today at this meeting or via email
in enough time that we can prepare for the August 11th meeting. I think we skipped last
month's meeting, which would have been the first time that we talked about the nomination
process. And I think we had sent that out in the email and just said, be thinking of
this. But if not, we are willing to just tickle everyone's brains today and get you thinking
about it. And then I can follow up at the end of the week and say, send me your nominations.
If that works for the board, we are willing to accommodate you. We have plenty of time.
Some of us, we have dogs that ate our homework and our notes. For the rest of us, perhaps
there are some names. OK, Jill Jester, I see your hand.
Oh, sorry. I just wanted to say, and I also have a dog that ate my homework as well. What
a coincidence. But Jessica, you mentioned some of the past recipients and having a list
of that. If we are able to, which is thank you for your graciousness and allowing us
to make nominations within the next day or so, I think a list of past recipients would
be helpful so that we're not recognizing this thing because there are so many great businesses
in our community. And if someone's been recognized in the past just two or three years, we would
maybe like to look elsewhere. And especially for those that haven't been on the board very
long or for many years, it might be helpful to kind of see who's been recognized and then
everyone just a reminder that the criteria is listed. I mean, it's set forth and is really
a great criterion. So my thought is also to encourage myself as well as others to look
at that criterion and include what they know about how the business meets the criteria
when they make the nominations. Is that the most helpful and in paragraph form or in bullet
points, whatever that may be. But there are very specific things that this award these
awards are for. And just to keep that in mind. And I just want to apologize for not being
prepared with a great set of nominations, which it seems would be so easy to make in
this community. However, I'm prepared as well. Thank you.
We can absolutely send out a list of all of the past award recipients as well as the criteria.
And we can send that out to the board today. We can probably give you to the end of the
maybe another week or so to the end of next week to give us nominations. You can include
anything you know about the company, but you don't have to. We actually have a team of
intrepid researchers and contacts that will find out a lot of things in the process, things
that sometimes we all don't know that businesses are doing in terms of supporting their employees
or educational efforts or those sorts of things. So we are happy to do that. But if that's
the board's pleasure, I'm happy to just send it out, give you a little bit more time.
And in my mistaken or in the past, I thought that staff actually came with some ideas because
of course we're not involved with every single partnership that is going on behind the scenes.
I mean, all that deal with economic development, I think we would know about, but it seems
that in the past that was, you know, and I don't mean to suggest something that would
be inappropriate, but it seems like in the past staff has also said, by the way, in case
he didn't know, look at what this group has been doing. So I just want to throw that out
as a possibility. Yes, ma'am. We will do that. We wanted to give them. We didn't want to
skew anyone's nomination, so we wanted to give the board an opportunity to to nominate
first. But we do have some in mind that we would recommend and we'll add those to the
list. Awesome. Awesome. If I know you don't eat my dog or my homework anymore, OK, bad
dog, bad dog. All right. So on this particular point, do we have anything else that we need
to address? No, sir. I don't believe so. I will send it out to the board and that way
we'll capture the the other board members that weren't able to join us today as well.
And I'll have case and lots of reminders. Wonderful. Thank you so much. Thank you. And
I will send them. We're now on ADP 21-032 staff reports. Yes, sir. So that is me. You
have three staff reports, three items in your staff reports for this month. The first is
a memo that outlines the board appointment process. I can't believe we're doing this.
It seems like it comes up so quickly every year. But included in that memo, you have
a list of all the current board members, your current terms, which term you are on, if you
are eligible for reappointment in this year. And the six seats that will be considered
for the twenty twenty one appointments are going to be Mayor Hudspeth, Joe Jester, Tina
Albert, Mark McClellan, John Baines and Bob Eames. And so those seats, of course, the
UNTC is really a confirmation. UNT president designates their seat, but the council confirms
that nomination. And so we will be going to City Council next week, July 20th, where City
Council will take the first step in this process, which is they appoint the nominating committee,
which is going to be made up of two council members and one chamber board of directors
member. And after that, that nominating committee will reach out to those of you who are eligible
to continue serving, see if you can if you want to stay, if you're interested. And if
there is an open seat, then they'll reach out to the entities kind of listed in the
ordinance to get recommendations. They may reach out to other board members to get recommendations
and move forward. And I say with great sadness, Mr. Baines, you'll note in the memo, has reached
his term limits with us. So his last few months are coming up on the partnership board and
we're internally grateful for his support and leadership this past year. So we will
have at least one new board member joining us in October after this process. So with
that, are there questions about the board appointment process? I know this is a little
bit different. Some of you have served on other city boards, so I just kind of like
to call out, we have a little bit of a different process that we follow. Seeing none? Seeing
none, hearing none. Awesome. Great. I hope that means that my memo was that that good.
I like writing a good memo. It was, it was, it was Pulitzer Prize prize-worthy. How about
that? Wonderful. Other two documents that you have are our standard, our quarterly operational
report. I encourage you to review that. My team, Corey's team, the whole team, everyone
in Denton, I think has been working on an economic development project this past quarter.
You'll see it reflected. At one point this past quarter, we had 65 active projects. That
is more than we've had in entire years sometimes. So that is incredible. There are a lot of
people interested in Denton. If you were, if you were wondering where Corey is today,
he's actually doing a site visit with one of our prospects right now. So I told him
I would handle the meeting and let him handle the business of continuing to promote and
recruit in Denton. The additional report that you have is, oh, I'm sorry, I wanted to mention
one thing. We added a new section to our quarterly report. We added a section on culture and
tourism. We know that culture and tourism is a huge part of economic development in Denton.
And so we, we worked with the CBB to get some key stats in terms of looking at tourism kind
of returning to Denton as the, as the pandemic has subsided and, and led up a little bit.
So please pay attention to that. If there's something that you want more information on,
don't hesitate to reach out. This is a report that's public. You are free to share it with
your own boards and organizations and entities. Please do so. Sometimes I think that it gets
lost how much work is going on in, in this sort of economic development world. So please
take a look at that. I try to summarize as much as possible, but do share accordingly.
And the last report you have is our strategic plan report. It's lengthy as always, but it
does outline everything that we've done this past quarter in support of those strategic
plan identified objectives. So I won't go through all of that. I think it's 30 pages.
But if you have questions, please, please reach out to us. Thank you, Jessica. Thank
you, Kay. Do we have any other items to bring before the partnership board? Here we will
entertain a motion to adjourn. And John, can I just make one comment? Please. I just like
to thank you for letting me ride shotgun with you this morning and thank you for all you
do. We appreciate it. Thank you, sir. Thank you so much. Okay. Hearing none, we will adjourn
the meeting and I'd like to thank everyone for taking out of your busy day. And Jessica
and Kay, please extend to all of the other, Mark, excuse me, Mac and to all of the other
city employees that, you know, behind the scenes that make this thing work. Thank you
for all of the hard work. You know, most folks don't realize all the stuff that goes on in
the back room to run a city. And thank you so much. Thank you so much. And thank you
to all of the partnership boards for board members for your time and your participation
and your interest. Without further ado, then we'll close the meeting and see you next week.
- Thank you very much.
- Bye everyone.
- Okay.