Good morning. My name is John Baines. I'm the vice chairman
of the Economic Development
Partnership Board and I gladly announce that we have a qu
orum. We will now call the work
session to order at 1104. Our first order of business is
item number EDP 18-046 which
involves a sales tax discussion regarding the Golden Tri
angle Mall. We have been informed
that this particular item is being removed from the agenda
and there's no need to have
either a closed meeting nor an open meeting session that
was scheduled for later on in
the meeting. So with that being the case, I'd like to take
a little poetic license and
I'd like to welcome aboard Jason Tomlinson from Texas Women
's University. Welcome to
the board, sir.
Thank you very much.
I look forward to working with you. The next item on the
agenda for our consideration
is the approval of the minutes, EDP 18-039 and I will take
a few moments just in case
you need to refresh yourselves. We have a motion on the
floor to approve.
Second.
We have a second. Is there any discussion or any changes
that need to be made? Hearing
none, all in favor of approving the minutes as presented,
please signify by saying aye.
Aye.
All against, same sign. Any abstentions? Okay. Thank you
very much. Let's see. The
next item on our agenda is EDP 18-045. We will receive a
report, hold discussion and
give staff direction regarding the 2018-2019 economic
development partnership agreement
between the City of Denton and the Denton Chamber of
Commerce and this presentation
will be made by Caroline Booth.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This is going to be a short
presentation. It's a fairly straightforward
item regarding the contract for the upcoming fiscal year
between the City of Denton and
the Denton Chamber of Commerce for the purposes of the
economic development partnership. As
far as background, this is a long-standing, long-term
partnership between the City and
the Chamber. The first agreement was entered into in 1986
and the contract allows for the
city to provide funds for the administration and operations
of the Chamber's Office of
Economic Development and there are some bulleted items as
far as what those funds cover and
the Chamber this year has requested $238,000 approximately
in funding, which is the same
amount that was requested for the current fiscal year. In
the current fiscal year, the
agreement has been significantly different from prior years
in that it included some
specific goals, deliverables and metrics along with
enhanced clauses on financial reporting,
insurance and indemnity because we have an active legal
department who wants to make
sure that everybody is protected and to date this year, the
Chamber has either met or exceeded
all of the terms of the agreement.
The draft agreement, which is included in your backup
packet for the coming fiscal year,
it follows the same format as the current years, but it is
updated to include shared
strategic initiatives, a revision of the goals related to
website and social media marketing
to revise the increase down from 20% to 10%. 20% increase
is unsustainable over time. So
we -- I'm sorry, I should back up and say that all of these
changes, my office and the
Chamber's Office of Economic Development as well as their
board leadership, we met and
conferred on all of these items. So these are agreed to
items in the contract. So again,
revise those goals related to website and social media
marketing. We did add a new goal
for contacts made at marketing events and the reporting of
those contacts. That was
something that was left in this year's -- as a year to
establish a baseline expectation.
So we're just adding the numbers in there. We did increase
the number of site visits
from target industry companies by one. So it's up from six
to seven in the proposed
contract. And then we also -- because one of the most
important things that the Chamber
does in terms of economic development is engage the
business community in Denton with economic
development through the partnership investment program. So
we felt like it was important
to recognize the fact that they have been doing good work
in this area on an ongoing
basis for a number of years. And we just tied some goals to
that, again, with their input
and agreement to what would be a reasonable expectation
there. As I said, Chamber staff
and board leadership was involved in the drafting. They
reviewed everything. And there were no
requested changes. That's it. So happy to answer any
questions.
>> Mr. Banks? >> I have a question.
>> I have a couple of questions. First, the increase
engagement on social media. I'm wondering
this is just a thought as opposed to putting in Facebook,
LinkedIn and Twitter, you know,
throughout the year there could be something else that's
more relevant or one of these
could be phased out and something else. Is there a reason
that there are these three
versus just saying social media engagement? >> So those are
the platforms that the Chamber
currently uses. And I will say that there might be some of
these questions that are
more appropriately answered by Chamber staff. So Adam, do
you have any contributions on
this? I mean, we wanted to work with them as far as what
they were using. They did not
inform us that they have any plans to make any changes or
updates to their platforms
in the coming year. So you can speak from there as long as
you talk towards the microphone.
>> Currently we are using Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.
LinkedIn is to kind of market
towards the site selection community and C-level executives
. Facebook is kind of geared towards
marketing to keep the community, people engaged with what's
going on. And then Twitter is
to keep everybody apprised of what's going on with what we
're doing. We're open to
using other channels as well. So we do other media outlets
also, some advertising and things
like that. >> And my thought was just to increase the
flexibility because, you know, technology is constantly
changing as well as social media
platforms for all we know. Snapchat could be the business
link of the future. We don't
know at this point. So it was really just a thought as far
as flexibility in where the
focus is over the next year as new platforms emerge.
>> It seems to me like since we have a history and can
apply numbers and expectations to
the deliverables because we have a history with what they
're already using, it makes
sense to leave those in there specifically. However, that
doesn't prohibit the Chamber
from opening a Snapchat account. Whatever mysterious app is
yet to come. And then if
it's something that they find effective, we can, you know,
talk about it and discuss possible
inclusion in the future. Is that a kind of a compromise?
>> It's not a sticking point or anything. >> We're open to
anything related to marketing.
Our job is to market the community, to get prospects here
and get the site selectors
to give us first look. So whatever it takes to accomplish
that goal is what we're open
to doing. >> Okay.
>> And I'm just curious, why is this an ordinance? If we
have an agreement between the Chamber
and the city, that agreement will roll. I'm just interested
why make this an ordinance
that will then have to constantly change with the specific
numbers. And included in that
is, you know, I don't know that the Chamber would have any
way and have any knowledge
of how to -- the metrics involved or who is involved in the
determination of business
owners rating Denton as a good place to do business.
>> Okay. I'm glad to answer both of those. Because it's an
expenditure of funds, there
has to be an ordinance attached to it. That's municipal law
related. So that's why we have
to do this every year. And then in terms of the shared
goals that you reference that are
stated in the ordinance itself, that was at a request from
one of our council members.
Those goals are something that's included in the city's
strategic plan as long-term
goals. And in our contract discussions with Adam and the
board chair of the Chamber, Eric,
we thought that it might demonstrate some alignment of
purpose if we could say that
we share these goals as stated in the ordinance. And my
office has the responsibility for charting
the progress of those goals. So that's not something that
we are holding the Chamber
to. That's something that we in conjunction with the city
manager's office gauge and we
have our methodology for doing that. As far as the survey
that will be conducted related
to business owners rating Denton as a good place to do
business, that's something that
was actually rolled out, I believe it was done in 2015 the
last time. And it was a survey
that was undertaken with the assistance of a national
consulting firm by the city manager's
office. They're going to be doing that again two more times
. So it's standard methodology.
It's used by a lot of communities. But that's what we're
going to be using to gauge progress
on that goal.
Is that solicited through, you know, do they select
businesses at random or is that something
any member of the public, whether they're involved in
business or not, could log on
and --
The business survey --
It could be skewed, is my concern.
It's specifically targeted to businesses.
Okay. Thank you for that answer.
Any other questions on this point? And your recommendation
once again is?
Well, my recommendation is approval of the contract. But
this is an informational presentation
to this board. There's no -- you all are not required to
make a recommendation on this
particular item. So that's questions and answers. And when
you all are satisfied, then we can
move on to the next one.
Any other questions from the committee? There being none,
we thank you very much.
You're welcome.
Thank you.
The next item on the agenda is EDP 18040, Receive a Report,
Hold Discussion, and Make
a Recommendation to the City Council Regarding the Economic
Development Plan Grant Agreement
Between City of Denton and Golden Triangle Mall. That item
is being removed because of
the request being removed.
We now come to EDP 18043, Staff Reports. And the first is
--
Did we skip one?
Yes, sir. It's right here at the bottom. It's kind of
hidden.
Oh, I did.
Yes.
Sorry, Michelle.
She thought she was off the hook.
Okay. That's what you get when you get a kind of a -- what
do you call it? A backup quarterback?
Give me a little time in there. Get my feet under me.
EDP 18044, Receive a Report, Hold Discussion, and Give
Staff Direction Regarding Nominations
for the Upcoming Business Awards Breakfast.
Michelle Cunningham will be making that presentation.
It's that time of year again. We will be having our annual
Mayor Council breakfast that is
part of our Business Appreciation Business Awards Breakfast
on Thursday, September, I
believe it's the 27th. So that will be going out. We're fir
ming up some pricing and things,
so we have not announced to Council yet, but that will be
in their Friday packet. And at
that breakfast, we typically -- the Economic Development
Partnership Board as well as UNT,
TW, NCTC, the Small Business Development Center, and
Downtown Task Force, et cetera, recognize
businesses and appreciate them for their investment in the
City of Denton. And this has been going
on for quite some time. I think we're almost 15 years into
it. But if you look at your
packet, Exhibit 2 indicates the Business Recognition Awards
criteria. And historically, this has
been what the Economic Development Partnership Board had
adopted as their award criteria.
And so also I believe in there you will see that in the AIS
it lists some of the past
recipients. Almost all at this point, virtually all of the
Denton's larger employers have
been recognized at some point or another. And not just by
the Economic Development Partnership
Board, but again by departments, the airport, DME, police,
fire, et cetera, over time also
participate in this breakfast and have given recognitions
to both large and small companies.
What I've handed out is a matrix, and it's just a
suggestion or an exhibit for you to
consider. And on it, on the first page, are three of the
larger employers. You may recognize
Target and ACME Brick from the last go-round. And also on
the second page, TRCA, I think
John, last year you had mentioned looking at some of the
smaller businesses as well.
And we're certainly open to suggestions for those. When we
come back to you at the beginning
of September, we'll ask you to go ahead and nominate the
business that you want as your
recipient. But if you don't mind, I'll just briefly cover
some of the things here. Winko,
you can see the amount of investment. One of the things
that's asked is what do these
companies bring to the community? And Winko does
participate. They're in the United Way.
They're a North Texas food bank partner. And they also
donate at a corporate level. If
you get to them a month ahead, you can ask for school-
related funding, fundraiser money
from the corporate group. Where they've innovated is
surprisingly a number of their stockers
or actually millionaires. In their stock options, they have
an employee stock option program
that begins at, you know, for employees that are 19 or
older that work a thousand hours,
their first year. The company gives that stock to the
employee. The employee's not paying
for it. They have folks that started with that company
because the annual growth in
valuation on that stock has been 18 percent a year. And
they actually have stockers that
are millionaires and that are working there. So it's one of
the wonderful things that they
do for employees. And we will tell you from visiting Winko
that they, on their own volition,
got with Texas Workforce of North Central Texas and
designed with the help of people with
special needs an area to help them train so that they could
actually work at the company.
And their plant operations director states that they're
some of the most inspirational
people to the rest of the employees because they do hire
individuals with special needs.
And they are focused on providing that outreach to the Dent
community as well. The valuation
was 79.7 million in 2018. They have about a, it vacillates
a little bit because they
lose and gain, lose and gain, but it's the general
employment is 150. And I will mention
that on top of that valuation, we were just looking at the
building, their business personal
properties about another 63 million. So they are, they're a
wonderful addition to the city.
With Target Corporation, we talked about Target last year.
They have again United Way Board,
Serve Denton Board, North Texas Food Bank, Our Daily Bread.
They do Denton ISD grants
for field trips and things specifically with Wilson
Elementary. And their employees have
a goal of volunteerism. Target's the first company in the
nation that provided 3% for
education before taxes. So they were a leader in that kind
of innovation or that giving
back from a corporate standpoint many years ago. And you
can read through the innovation
information. 63.1 million valuation in 2018 and again about
150 employees. Acme Brick.
And these last two, I've got 2017 valuations in because the
2018s should be posted to shortly
because they've been ruled, but there were some ARB things
in there. So with Acme Brick,
I think they're going to come in at about 34 million. But
anyway, Acme Brick of course
has been here forever. They are premier, they're Berkshire
Hathaway Company that has been a
chamber member for many years. They donate to UT Arlington
for a masonry program there.
They're the largest brick producer in the nation. And of
course they have that huge
facility here. And they continue to grow and build new
brick and tile products. So I think
the tile products with all the things, the home shows that
you see on television and
all the innovations and design, a lot of those things are
Acme Brick products. And then last
year we had added Little Guys Movers and TRCA. And actually
Little Guys Movers were UNT students
previously. And so University of North Texas actually
presented to them. We did not select
them here. And when they were talking to us about folks
that we might know that were UNT
alums, we mentioned them and they did receive or were
recognized last year. But in looking
at some of the small to medium sized companies, the award
criteria had been developed around
the amount of investment and physical taxable investment in
the community. And you like
to with many, many of our companies, they're excellent,
excellent companies. They are tireless
contributors to the community, et cetera. However, their
physical equipment, it's a
knowledge based thing. So their employees may be spending
in the community, but there's
not a lot of taxable valuation there. So it becomes
difficult when you're looking at folks
like that to determine how far the board wants to move away
from the larger companies and
if you want to maybe at some point go to maybe more than
one award, that's up to you all.
But Technology Resource Centers of America is located on
Virginia Circle. If you drive
over the bridge, you will on 380, you won't see them
because they're down by the railroad
tracks. But this started as Telephone Resource Centers of
America and they were rehabbing
telephone equipment and reselling it. And now they are
providing web and data management
for a number of companies and you would be amazed. Anybody
from Dick's Sporting Goods
to not Pet Boys, O'Reilly, yes. And Fort Knox, they do some
homeland security, they're
former military. They have 53 employees that are here, that
vacillates somewhat too because
they send sales teams out to do the actual physical
installation of the wiring and everything
that they need to do, point of sale systems in companies. P
.F. Chang's is another one
of their clients. So they're, I believe number two or three
in the nation for what it is
they do in size and yet they're this quiet company that's
here in Denton. So that's,
they do own their building, they bought the former Baker
Distribution Building and they're
leasing half of it out at this point. And they have about
1800 employees that are contract
employees, so they are not located here physically in Dent
on. They are teams that go out that
help companies when they're having problems. So they have
stellar service records as well.
So these are some folks that you may want to consider and I
guess I'm looking for any
suggestions that you all may have about anybody else you
would like to see on this list for
the September meeting.
Michelle, do you have a timeframe that you need that
information sent to you?
Yes, if you could do that maybe I'd say by in the next two
weeks that would be wonderful
because that'll give me some time to interview some folks
if I need to to try and find out
about their community service. These folks do not know that
they are on this list and
we've not advised anybody. We typically try and find out
the information that we can so
that we can evenly present to you the criteria information.
Michelle, we have a question from Councilwoman Briggs,
please.
Yes, ma'am.
Not necessarily a question but more of a comment because I
was looking at the criteria and
I think you mentioned earlier the list of past award
recipients and if the criteria
stays the same we're going to have to just keep renomin
ating the same people over and
over again I think. I mean unless we get more people in,
more larger companies in. So I
would like to see either the criteria tweaked a little bit
or another award added because
I do believe we have a lot of other medium and small
businesses that deserve it in my
mind when I kept going through. Like I kept thinking of
somebody who's been here for ages
and ages and they have contributed to the community but
there were some things that
just weren't there on the other qualifications. So that
would be my recommendation or ask
to do either or. And I guess a question I have because I
have been to the business breakfast
and I wonder how the invites are sent because when I'm
there I see the same people and then
I think oh well I wonder why this business or these people
weren't invited. Can you
kind of go over how that is done? Yes, the Mayor Council
breakfast is by invitation
only because it is part of economic development's budget
and we do have a relationship with
the Chamber of Commerce to help support economic
development at the Chamber. Chamber investors
are allowed to bring a certain number of people as well
dependent upon their investment as
an economic development investor at the Chamber and
typically we try to limit it to two representatives
from the city's top employers and so that's why you see
major employers there and when
you see banks there that may be or real estate companies or
whomever who have more folks
there than two it's because they are Chamber investors and
that structure right now lets
them invite I believe up to four people. So are there any
other businesses that aren't
Chamber members that are invited? Not that aren't large
companies or are companies that
are in our targeted areas. No because again we're paying
for breakfast and so you know
we've there's so many medium and small size companies we
are a service community. We have
a number of you know vital service providers here as well
but they're smaller they're
not major companies so it's just the major employers that
are asked. Councilwoman are
there some in particular that you're interested in having
attend? Well I just wondered about
the process and how people are invited and I had when I
posted people said you know well
I didn't get an invitation and I had no you know response
like well you know you're not
a large you know employer or something so I'm just curious
you know why and like I said
as far as the criteria go and awards I just want to make
sure that we are acknowledging
our medium and smaller businesses on a different level
besides just retention business retention
visits because I that's a one aspect of it but I think that
we also should acknowledge
them in our community in other ways. Okay. Any other
comments or questions? For the tweaking
you might want to look at putting a percentage so if it's
the economic impact based on the
number of employees that might be a way to tweak it to be
able to expand to the number
of companies and how they have impact so if it's a company
of only 20 or 40 people they
can compete on a more fair footing with the Winko that has
many many more does that make
sense? Expand a little bit. If it's a percentage if you
look at a percentage base if you look
at a percentage base versus an absolute dollar amount
certainly a Target or Winko should
be able to always be the number one or number two but like
a TRCA which has a smaller footprint
because they can't hire that many people in Denton they
still have a large impact and
they also have the ability to have a large impact on our
city and we should be able to
recognize them for their contributions and that way we can
compare you know at least
maybe not apples to apples but at least you know apples to
something that's close to
an apple. I'm hearing a couple of recommendations from you
Councilwoman and from you Mr. Rondele
perhaps if you could communicate those to Michelle then
that we can perhaps we can modify
the selection criteria if you have time. Anything else? Any
more questions? Thank you. Thank
you very much and we look forward to having any other
additional considerations to you
by August 22nd. Let's see if the backup quarterback can get
a pass completed now. Let's see.
All right. Now we go to staff reports. EDP 18043 and we
have five items here. Okay I'm
just gonna do this from my seat over here and I'll touch
quickly on the city economic
development departments staff report items. The first thing
in your packet is a letter
in support of the Greater Denton Arts Council's application
to the National Endowment for
the Arts for a grant that's called the Our Town Place based
grant and GDAC is looking
to host an event in the form of a community block party in
the fall of 2019 and one of
the key elements of being eligible to apply for this grant
is a partnership between a
nonprofit organization in this case GDAC and local
government in this case the city of
Denton so we are supporting them in their application by
assisting them in preparing
the application and partnering with them in aspects of
actually planning and executing
the event. One of the things that is helpful in making an
application like this is letters
of support from various organizations and because of the
deadline that we were on we
communicated directly with Marty Rivers as the board chair
in order to prepare and get
him to sign a letter of support so this is the letter that
he signed on behalf of the
board and we just wanted to communicate to you that this
was done on your behalf by your
board chair and we are finalizing the application with GDAC
at this point and I'm glad to answer
any questions about this if I can. Any questions from
before? Okay and then following that
you will see the statistical trends and news of Denton
report I'm not going to delve into
that but would be glad to answer any questions if anyone
has them it is the update that you
will see every month. Carolyn I would ask if I'm sure that
you have spent innumerable
hours on this document so if there's anything you'd like to
at least bring our attention
to I'm sure that everyone read everything in the packet but
if there's something you'd
like to bring to our attention I think it would be great. I
think something just to
point out in general is Denton has had a spate of housing
starts in residential areas around
loop 288 and FM 428 lately so we're seeing just kind of in
general an uptick in residential
construction that is definitely one trend that we've seen
over the past several months
so I think that's just a general thing for people to be
aware of if they weren't already
so residential growth. Thank you. You're welcome. Following
that we have our RFI summary and
it's labeled June but it's actually the July summary and
you'll find that on page 90 of
your packet. It was pretty quiet in terms of RFIs or RFP
requests that we received and
we were unable to respond to either of the two that we
received. The first one because
we did not have the existing buildings or the size of
property that was required and
then secondly we did not have the ability to serve their
water and wastewater needs
for the second one so that is the update on that. Then on
page 91, 92 and 93 you'll see
our direct lead summary and as you recall this is a running
list that we just add to
as these new ones come in. There was a site visit on July
24th that I unfortunately was
unable to attend because I was out of town but my
understanding is that it was a very
productive and positive site visit with a company looking
for a 10 acre site at the
Denton Airport and they were provided with a significant
amount of information following
the site visit and we will continue to stay in contact with
them going forward and we'll
update you on that as we have new information. And I think
that moves over into Adam's portion.
Let's do it from here. And through the Chamber's economic
development department we had eight
new projects in July totaling 44 for this current fiscal
year. Just to summarize some
of the projects that we're currently working on, not the
most active projects as I call
them and these definitely aren't all of them but the top
four that we're currently working
with, Project Redwood is a fairly new project. It's an
aviation aerospace company which is
a city targeted industry. We're working this one through a
consulting firm out of Richmond,
Virginia. It's 40 million capital investment. It will be
100 new jobs at $43 an hour so
very high paying aviation aerospace jobs. They're looking
for 25 acres to build a 180,000
square foot facility which will consist of hangar space,
office space, back shop and
support area. The site that we're looking at is actually a
really good site that we
don't have any other development on currently. It's a city
owned property 150 acres on the
west side of the airport runways so they would utilize that
runway and that would be the
first development in that area. So we think this is a very
strong project for us to target.
We have made the initial short list of several cities that
have small airports and we've
entered into an NDA, a non-disclosure agreement with the
company. Project Conrad, this is
one that I've been working on for 8 to 10 months now and I
'm sure you all have heard
it several times from me. They're getting very close to loc
ating here. They're going
through the contract phase right now and closing. They're
looking at, they currently have 20
locations across the United States. Here in Denton they're
going to build 20 to 30,000
square feet. They'll have 30 new jobs so they aren't
requesting city incentives or anything
like that. They are currently closing on an 8 acre site out
at West Park next to Anderson
Merchandising. I'm sure you're all familiar with that
location. It is not closed yet but
we'll probably be able to announce that next month. Project
Crown is another one that you
have all heard from me for about a year now. It's still in
the works. Once again this is
another one that's going through, working on closing right
now. It's 98% sure it's going
to happen. We can't announce it yet but we're getting close
. This company manufactures forklifts
and small lift trucks. We're currently working with the
brokers to get them in the north
building at Westgate Business Park. That building is 171,
000 square feet. There's only 20,000
square feet left so the company would move into that
smaller space while they're waiting
on building three of Westgate Business Park to be
constructed which will be 73,000 square
feet. Move into the small space, get started and then once
building three is done they'll
utilize that whole building. It's another great project for
us. Project Ingredient is
a brand new one. I wanted to highlight this one because we
do a lot of these marketing
trips and consultant forums, trade shows with Team Texas
and things like that. This is one
that we met at the IFT which is the International Food
Technology Expo and I'll get in next
into the marketing activity why we decided to do this show.
One of the projects located
at this one specifically said they wanted to build 150,000
square foot facility on 15
acres here in Denton. Their customer is Tetra Pak so they
need to be located as close to
Tetra Pak as possible. We did a surge provided on with
three sites already in close proximity
with a one mile radius so we're currently working on that
as well. Project Sagebrush,
another new project. We're working this one with Newmark
Night Frank out of Los Angeles
and they have a Dallas office as well so we're working with
four different consultants out
of their offices. This one is advanced manufacturing so
once again a highly targeted company. They're
actually doing two projects. So one they want to locate the
headquarter large office project
in downtown Dallas within the city of Dallas city limits
and then in Denton they want to
do their advanced manufacturing project looking at 20 acre
sites to construct a 250,000 square
foot facility. We've located roughly six sites that we
presented to them that are under consideration.
We have a call another call with them Thursday. They are
looking for they're going to be looking
for city county and state incentives so we're working on
that for them as well. This project
will be 200 employees at $78,000 average wages. And then
last just on some of those most active
projects we're all aware of the multiple speculative
industrial products that are currently working
on closing here in Denton so we're going to have you can
quote me on the number but I'd
say somewhere in the ballpark of at least 2 million square
feet of industrial spec space
by the time all is said and done there's about five to six
different Dallas development companies
that are looking to develop these industrial spec spaces
and these spaces are going to
be ranging from all the way from 240,000 square feet up to
800 and so thousand square feet
and I know Carolina and I have both been working on several
of those as well and they're looking
at multiple sites the site south of Winko is a you know 77
acre side they're looking at
the site north side of Winko that's 35 acres they're
looking at the 104 acre site on the
west side of Western Boulevard which I think is going under
contract pretty soon and in
the site the 44 acre site correct directly next to where US
cold storage is building
their facility would be another location for them as well
so a lot of action on on those
things right now. I had a question. Sure. You said
something 278,000 in wages what was
that? I'm not sorry the product will employ 200,000 people
at 78,000 200 employees I'm
sorry 200 people. You're confusing me. I apologize 200
employees at 78,000 average wages annual
average okay okay good good good 78,000 no that's good that
's good I get to talking
too fast that's okay that's okay no you you're talking okay
I was listening slow so no we're
good we're on the same page. Thank you. The marketing
activities from the last month we
did attend that Institute of Food Technology or IFT Expo we
did that one with team Texas
the thought process behind that is to target these advanced
manufacturing products that
are food related you know for instance you know these
companies would compliment United
States cold storage or Winko foods or Target DC that does
perishable items here in Denton
Aldi's distribution center in Tetra Pak so companies that
are in the you know the food
industry so that was a great a great conference we had two
separate booths we did we did a
booth with team Texas where we had you know booth space we
exhibited with them we also
had a small boutique marketing firm called site location
partnership where we had a second
booth where we did a we sponsored a dent banner so we had
two separate locations I was working
back and forth we got double the leads 51 new contacts came
as a result of the team
Texas booth which we did have one very solid prospect which
I touched on up there that
where they want to be next to Tetra Pak to build 150,000
square foot building and then
at the site location partnership booth 14 leads were
cultivated where we did have one
solid prospect come from that so far and we're still
following up with all the support with
all 14 but the one once is interested in building a are
putting in a 50 to 60,000 square foot
warehouse facility here in Denton. Next on the list we did
the Southern Economic Development
Conference which is a non-profit membership organization
which serves 17 states in the
southern United States. They host conferences and forums
that consist of site location consultants,
construction firms, architecture firms which are all
working projects as well across the
country so we target those also. FDI consultants foreign
direct investment so consultants that
work German companies or Japanese companies you know all
across the board and then economic
development organizations such as ours so we attended that
and just highlight we did
actually receive an award at this one a communications
award of excellence for our website so you
all see that so it's so it's not just me that's always
telling you that we have a good
website we actually we actually gained some some pretty
good national exposure from from
launching that website. Investor relations you know as part
of the as part of the contract
for this year we had to we had to have I think it was 63 or
64 private investors at about
I think this year it was $64,000 was the rate that we had
to had to keep tabs on for our
marketing funds for private investment we're actually at $
77,350 to end the year so well
above that area this next year it goes up to $75,000 which
currently right now we're
still above that mark as well at $77,350 and we are at 64
current private investors no
money left outstanding so we're we're good for the for the
rest of the year. Upcoming
marketing trips for the next month all we have in August is
the net car or it's North
the North Texas Commercial Association of Realtors
Conference it is in downtown Dallas we do pay
for a booth space to represent ourselves as Denton we have
a big Denton booth that we'll
market ourselves at and it's basically targeting all the
Dallas Fort Worth site location consultants
brokers realtors all those people so we we have our own
booth you know they stop by we
tell them about our sites and our great quality of life and
all that good stuff and it's a
great show that we've done every year for at least as long
as I've been here for almost
five years so that's all I have any questions? Awesome. Any
questions or comments? Okay
armchair quarterback let's see what you can do here. Let's
see coming to the end of our
report here let's see does anyone have any items concluding
items that we need to address
Councilwoman anyone else have concluding items? Yes ma'am.
So I have a couple I have one
request and then just one kind of information I took part
in a focus group for a county
hospital recently and in doing so I asked for some some
data and received it and was
a little bit shocked that well one our population is
growing but we're growing older residents
the college kids are kind of maintaining but our families
and our senior community are
growing and and with that we actually lack let's see health
care is a growing industry
and we actually lack the the specialty doctors in women's
health pediatrics addiction and
mental health so I'm just asking a chamber or you can our
city if this needs to be a
target industry what can we do to get these providers into
our city we have community
members that are leaving our city to go get the medical
needs that they need and that
is pretty concerning and so I'm not sure how how to fix it
but we have on on the the specialty
groups that I mentioned we are above national average for
the visits in our city so it's
pretty significant. You mean going elsewhere? Well yeah so
the the providers here that we
have are just bombarded with visits. The visits that are
received in our city are above the
national average because the the selection is is so small
so I just wanted to kind of
throw that out there with all of you in the room I'm sure
you probably are aware of some
of the issues here and I just kind of wanted to put that
out in the public and also I wanted
to ask okay Mr. Edgar. Where we do see an opportunity or we
do have presence of some
sub specialties we don't have a very deep bench and so it
would be of interest on our
part I'm sure from all healthcare's part and interest in
working with the city in how we
can develop depth in some of those areas as well because
frequently they leave because
the availability in town is there but you're going to be
waiting for a prolonged period
of time. The behavioral health mental health side is a big
bucket in and of itself universally
that we need to put significant thought around and I know
the city has done a lot of work
around that to to bring attention to it but in a number of
those sub specialties and we
can go through half dozen of them probably off the top of
our head that each of us need
the depth of it and the ability to have redundancy of
providers is a real opportunity for us
too. So thank you for waiting and if we can get some sort
of partnership or a report on
on what we can do we can work together on that. That would
be great. That would be really
good. So anyway I was just kind of shocked to see the gaps
in our health care and to
see all the people leaving our community for for health
care. And so the request that I
have is not is that the city in the chamber if you guys can
work together and compile
a list of businesses within our community that will hire
someone with a previous record
because I on the homeless leadership team part of the thing
that we see once we get
someone housed is they cannot get a job to sustain the
house that they're in and not
for not wanting to work but a lot of people have you know
backgrounds in in a record for
different things even you know trespassing and getting
tickets for being in the park
or you know wherever. So I would just like to have and I
think the city and there were
several non-profit groups would benefit from having a list
of those businesses that that
would give them a second chance or an opportunity to work.
And that may take some time together.
Yes. Oh yeah. No I'm yes. No I'm just it's something that's
needed you know because it's
hard to call individual people and I've done that and it's
just not it's not sustainable
and it's not working you know like so. Thank you Council
woman. Any other questions or comments?
Okay let's see. Today we do have two individuals on our
committee who will this will be their
last meeting day. Carol Ann Simmons and Jim Fikes. No. And
we do have a card of appreciation
that we'd like to give to each of you and personally I'd
like to say I've known both
of you for many years and I am tremendously impressed by
both of you and have had the
great pleasure of working with each of you in a number of
settings and you guys have
been great role models and great assets for our community
and so you'll be missed here
but I hope and pray that you will stay active. Jim told me
he's going to work with the rodeo
with the fair and how about you Carol Ann what are you
going to do? Everything else.
No pressure no pressure. I mean you know. Okay well good.
And I plan to continue that
because I enjoyed that. I've enjoyed this board. I've
learned a lot. I told Jill she'd learn
more on this board. The first year you drink it from a fire
hose. It smooths out after
that. Well good. Well let's see. John I would like to make
a comment too. Please. I've enjoyed
my time here. I hope that I've made a contribution. The
growth of this city and the way we grow
this city is terribly important and it's critical to all of
us. We're a huge educational hub
and with the number of people that are moving into the into
the city we need to be sure
that we're continuing to promote our economic development
and bring more businesses to this
town. I know we get chat we get asked a lot how do you
justify some of the incentives
that we provide to some of the businesses. I think you got
to look at what those businesses
are. Razor Ranch was a cow pasture ten years ago and the
number of jobs that it has created
and the number of people I mean Torchies is a good example.
I think there are a number
of employees and a lot of them are part time employees
because they're students but over
a hundred employees and Torchies and if you start looking
at the restaurants and the stores
and the contribution that something like that makes to the
community it's huge especially
with the universe us being a huge university town. So we
just need to continue to get the
manufacturing jobs in here that that are high paid so we
can raise that medium income. Thank
you. Thank you. Carolyn. I will thank Pete Camp for asking
me to serve on this board
eight years ago. Finished out a term for someone and then I
've served two consecutive terms
and I hope as I said enjoyed that and I like to contribute
to something. Smile.
If there are no other concluding items we will
adjourn the meeting at 1156.