Good afternoon. My name is Jill Jester. I'm the current Vice Chair of this board and I
would like to welcome everyone as we open the Economic Development Partnership board
meeting. Today is Wednesday, November 10, 2021. I want to start before we start going
down the agenda to welcome a couple of new members to the board that we're thrilled to
have. I'd like to begin with Susan Holmes. She is the UNT President's designee. We're
so happy to have you here and do you mind telling us just a little bit about yourself?
Sure. Susan Holmes. I'm with the University of North Texas. I was at UNT and left and
I returned in this role of corporate and government relations in the office of the president. So
I look forward to being part of this group. Wonderful. We're very glad to have you here
and please feel free to speak up offline or online with any questions, comments, concerns.
We value everyone's input here at the table. Our next and last new member almost needs
no introduction here with what he's done in our city. Cary Gorey is a representative from
the Denton Black Chamber of Commerce and a friend of mine and we're so glad that you
are volunteering here with us on this board. Do you mind, for those that may not know you,
tell us just a little bit about yourself? As you'll see, my name is Cary Gorey. I am
currently the chairman of Denton Black Chamber of Commerce. I've been head of that position
for the last 14 years. I'm a retired state farm agent here in Denton. That's what brought
me here 29 years ago. I enjoy working with the city, economic development. The board
has been a pet of mine that I'd like to see. I happen to be a representative of the Denton
Black Chamber with the city of Denton and hope that we can do some wonderful things
together. We look forward to hearing your input and I look forward to working with you
on this board, Mr. Gorey. Thank you. We are going to reorder a bit of our agenda today
to take care of some very important business that I'm thrilled to do. At this time, I
would like to introduce our mayor, Mayor Hutzpeth, who has a proclamation on behalf of the city
council and this board to present to our beloved John Baines, our former chair of this board,
Mr. Hutzpeth. Mayor Hutzpeth. Is that all right? It's acceptable. Thank you very much.
Not a lot of it. Yes, got to check with you. It's important, man. It's important. So honored
to be here. Thank you. Apologies in advance. I have a veterans event that I'm going to
slide out to, but I did want to be here just to kind of honor what I believe to be my friend
and he's been just a true servant in our community and has brought a lot of people together.
He's stood in a lot of gaps and some contentious moments and brought reason and kind of some
pragmatic approaches to things. So really appreciate his wisdom and contribution to
the city at large, this group. And then, oh, by the way, John, I have a bag of receipts
that I'm going to drop off on the way out. And then I need you to process through. I'll
see you in a little bit. Never mind. I'll hang on to them. Okay. And so the proclamation
reads a well, and John, come on up. Come on up here. They need to see you. They need to
recognize I didn't start winning campaigns till I won John's vote. Once I won John's
vote, then things started going the right way. So here we go. It says a proclamation
by the mayor of the city of Denton to all whom these presence shall come greetings,
whereas in recognition of John Baines for his dedicated service and leadership to the
Denton community, and whereas John served as West Park Tour's number two board and
didn't need economic development partnership board from 2015 to 2021, where he serves as
a chair of both boards during his tenure. And whereas John tires Lee champion economic
development and the support of Denton's businesses community. And whereas John has provided great
benefit to Denton through countless volunteer hours in support of the city of Denton, the
Denton economic development partnership, the Denton chamber of commerce, the Denton black
chamber of commerce and the small business development center. And whereas the city of
Denton is extremely grateful for John and his selfless leadership and service to the
city of Denton, including his unmatched contributions to economic development and the entire business
community in Denton. Now, therefore, I Gerard Hutz, but mayor of the city of Denton, Texas
do hereby declare and proclaim November 10th, 2021 as John Baines day in the city of Denton
and encourage all citizens to recognize and honor the many contributions of John Baines
to the community and the city of Denton. We give him a hand.
Yeah, got it. Let me slide out of your way. I wasn't expecting this cake or something.
Thank you for the thoughts and the words. They mean a lot. I am so happy to have served
the city of Denton in various capacities and I look forward to my friend Kerry Goree stepping
in and continuing the conversation and continuing to carry the torch. Thanks to all of you for
making my time so pleasant. And I look to see you around town as we go forth. And I'm
going to head back to the office and you guys have a great day. Thank you very much.
That was wonderful. Just wonderful. Thank you again, John. Thanks for the example you
set for all of us. We will now move on to business under our agenda items for consideration.
We will begin with item A, EDP 21-031, consider approval of the minutes of August 11th, 2021.
That was previously distributed via email and you have a hard copy in front of you,
Exhibit A, the information agenda sheet and Exhibit 2, the draft minutes. At this time,
I will entertain a motion and a second and then we can have discussion as far as any
proposed edits. Move approval of the minutes. All right. It's been moved and seconded. At
this time, is there any discussion, any proposed changes as the received drafted minutes? Hearing
none, I will call a vote. And just to let you all know, we're transitioning from Zoom
world into in-person world. So if we could, when I ask for all the ayes, if you would
not only say aye, but please raise your hand. We do need an actual count. We don't necessarily
need to go name by name, but we will need a count. Same thing with any nays or abstentions.
Please raise your hand as you indicate verbally. Thank you so much. So at this time, I will
call the vote. Approving the minutes as previously distributed. All those in favor, please signify
by saying aye and raising your hand. Aye. All right. Any opposed? All right. And the
motion carries. Moving on to items for consideration B, EDP 21-047, received nominations and elected
chair and vice chair. At this time, I'm going to turn it over to Erica Sullivan, our ED
program administrator for the city, to give you a little background on what these positions
are. Thank you. Yes. I just wanted to give you an idea of what the chair role entails.
So as many of you are aware, the chair leads the economic development partnership board.
Some of you may not be aware, but the chair is also the chair of the tax increment reinvestment
zone number two, our West Park industrial tours. So why don't you be aware of that?
We normally try to schedule a meeting on the same day and the West Park tours is usually
a shorter meeting in order to be cognizant of everybody's time. Another item that is
part of the strategic plan is a work group. So there's a monthly work group meeting that's
involved. We've been doing those mainly via teams. That's one that we aren't required
necessarily to have in person. Another item that you may be asked to do is what Jill was
recently doing for us is some of our business awards. We normally have a mayor council breakfast,
but we did them in here at the chambers and then we went on site for a number of the awards.
You may also be asked to visit a business with Kay. She's our business retention and
expansion person. So you may be asked to do that as well. So the chair would be involved
in reviewing genders and of course giving staff direction and insight for the board.
All right. Thank you, Ms. Sullivan. So at this time, on behalf of the board, I will
open the floor to nominations. Once we receive all nominations, we will then take a vote
to elect a new chair. This is a one year term. I would like to make a nomination for Jill
Jester. That's me. Any other nominations from the floor? Okay. With that, okay. Well, with
that, we will take a vote. All those in favor of Jill Jester serving as chair of this board
for the next year, please say aye and raise your hand. Aye. All those opposed, please
same sign. And those abstaining. Well, yours. No abstention. Now let's really get into it.
At this time, the chair will entertain nominees for a vice chair position. Myself having served
in this position for the past year, it really mirrors the description that Ms. Sullivan
gave as far as the chair. The vice chair is also invited to those standup meetings where
we discuss any red flags or anything that happens in between meetings that need input.
It serves a similar role and is invited to participate in all of those leadership activities.
Any other questions about that role before we open the floor to nominations? Okay. Well,
at this time I will entertain nominations for the vice chair position. Madam Chair. Yes.
And nominate Steve Edgar. And are there any other nominees to be voted on for the role
of vice chair? Any. All right. Well with that, we will go ahead and take a vote on Steve
Edgar serving as vice chair. All those in favor, please signify by saying aye and raising
your hand. All right. Any abstentions? All right. Thank you. Steve Edgar will be serving
as vice chair and thank you for accepting that responsibility. I like that Tina seconded
and then opposed. Well, every board has one, so we've got. Well, thank you very much for
the vote of confidence and I will do my best. At this point, we will move on to item D,
D P 21 dash zero four nine. Receive a report and hold a discussion and appoint or reappoint
members to the downtown economic development committee. There is a substantive group of
information that you all receive that shows who is up for reappointment that they have
now introduced staggering those roles so that not everyone rolls off at once. I think before
there weren't so many parameters, so that is in front of us. Currently council member
Davis serves as our representative and serves as chair of that committee. So at this time,
I'll turn it over to miss Sullivan to tell us more about what action needs to be taken
before us today and any information needed. Thank you. The downtown economic development
committee is a subcommittee of this board. It was formally called the downtown task force.
All members of the meet the current requirements for reappointment and Jesse Davis was appointed
to an unexpired term on November 11th 2020 is also eligible for reappointment. The only
member not wishing to be reappointed is Monte Jensen. So staff has made a recommendation
you'll see in your AIS for consideration and this is Jason voter from just Saudi downtown
right on the square. He's a downtown business owner has served on various boards Main Street
executive board for six years, chamber board for three years, Main Street Foundation for
four years and Denton community health clinic for two years. The company has also assisted
the city with some of our proposals such as the HQ two for Amazon and help downtown businesses
pivot from in person to moving online. We've been a great mentor and the result, but representatives
also required to be a downtown business owner and they meet that criteria. Great. So incorrect
me if I'm wrong. The what needs to be voted on by this party is by this board is first
of all adding Jason Bodar which probably most of us know he's very involved and has been
very committed in the especially in the downtown area and it seems to I believe is a very good
recommendation from city staff. Additionally at page 13 of our packet we can see down here
the names of those persons mostly in bird Beth Lewis Nick Miller Bob Moses Georgina see who
are willing to serve again and need reappointment have agreed to that reappointment. In addition
I was able to speak offline with councilmember Davis who is willing to continue to serve
and he is an unexpired spot there and can continue to serve as chair of that is our representative
on that narrowing of what we do to just the downtown area. Is there a motion to reappoint
those as presented by staff here today to move forward and that's all that's needed
brought in this motion. I move for that. All right. All right. It's been moved and seconded
to appoint or reappoint the members of the Economic Development Committee of the downtown
Economic Development Committee as recommended by staff. All those in. Is there any discussion?
Yes. There are 13 members that's that's the maximum member on this board. Yes. It's nine
to 13 and 13 is the maximum. How many? I believe we have 13 with the addition of Jason Bodor.
Sure. Since this is an extension of this in this board is there a regular report out on
the progress and all the improvements? So there are well our representative is councilmember
Davis so when action is taken you know we do ask for updates additionally there is a
staff city staff economic development representative who is also there. I know I certainly know
that we have had reports from that committee on more than one occasion but I don't know
if it's monthly but I also don't know that they necessarily meet monthly if there's no
actionable items but Councilmember Davis could you tell us a little bit more? Sure. So action
items that particular committee doesn't have action items in and of itself almost everything
is a recommendation forward to another group either this one or the Turge Board but then
also Christina Davis in the Economic Development Department does a really good downtown summary
report and it is it's useful to all the Main Street folks it's useful to anybody who does
business downtown and usually it's usually a weekly end of week kind of report and so
that all include things like openings and closings street closures construction all everything
going on downtown she does a really good summary of so and that's basically an email list to
get on and I don't think we I don't think we publish that anywhere on like a city website
or something it's just a kind of a courtesy email that goes out weekly and then action
items from the committee again just flow through other groups. And I would probably say anyone
that would like to be on that email I don't want to send out emails to those that aren't
interested in the reoccurring updates other than what happens in this board meeting but
if you would like that you can send that to me or if you know Christina you can send it
to her directly. So very good question. Another question. Yes. What do we consider as the
boundaries when we say downtown? There's a map in the back. Let me see what page that's
at. Page 30. 17. Attachment line. And that is set by city council is that correct? That's
not something that we decide or that group decides. It's in the policy. We have a number
of different maps for downtown. The downtown implementation plan area is a little bit different
in our tourist district has a little bit different boundaries. And I'm happy to send those out
to anyone who's interested. And that is page 17 in our entire packet of what currently
is included in that committee's purview. And on the back of the map is the current list
of the committee members. You'll see there's 13. And Monty Jefferson would be replaced.
Are there any other questions or comments before we call the vote to appoint and reappoint?
All right. It has been moved and seconded at this time. We will vote on the appointment
and reappointment as presented by the staff. All those in favor, please signify by raising
your hand and saying aye. Aye. All those opposed, please signify by saying nay and raising your
hand. All right. And the motion carries. We will move on to items for consideration EEDP
21-050 staff report. There are a couple of exhibits that were included in that, but we
will now open it up to back to you. Thank you. You'll see that we have our 2020/21 fourth
quarter activity report to give you an idea of what we've been doing, as well as at the
end of the report, some of our partner organizations have been doing. Main Street Stoke, for example.
We also have the 2020 net revenue report on incentives. And this report examines the fiscal
impacts to the city for the incentives granted and evaluates the efficiency of the public
investment. And it has been redesigned and condensed from prior updates. I believe it
was 30 pages prior. So it's in a much more readable format at this point. I'll give you
a little highlight on it. Since 1999, the inception of our incentive program, the city
has invested 22 million in tax incentives and in return has benefited from a net increase
in property and sales revenues in the amount of 71.3 million. The total rate of return
for incentives awarded, this is the benefit, is to 324%. And there have been a total of
8,402 jobs created and retained by these incentivize projects. You'll also see the Denton County
and ISD represented there as well. And if anyone has any questions, I prepare the report.
I'd be happy to answer now or later, if you want to dive into it in more detail.
Are there any questions or is there any discussion at this time regarding the report? Unfortunately,
there are no other action items today. We've not had action items for a month or so. So
we have not had a meeting, just to have a meeting. However, there was some business
to take care of today. So it's not a long meeting today as we say hello and goodbye
to board members. But I have approached Ms. Sullivan about helping us with maybe some
nuts and bolts presentation, generally about economic development in Texas, what's available,
and then specifically to the city of Denton, because decisions have been made that are
out of our hands that determine what our capabilities are in economic development. So what I guess
I'm asking is, is this something that, and this is just open to discussion, there's no
action item. Is that something that everyone would like a refresher on and to participate
in or is that something that maybe we just make voluntarily not part of the board time
and/or do we want to maybe do this in the January meeting? We kind of talked about a
couple months, but December, I know, gets crazy. So maybe we'll do it in January.
Yeah, so our attendance is pretty hard.
So I'll just open it to input at this time as to what your interest is in participating
in something like that. I think refreshers for everyone is a good idea while we, so we
have a frame of reference in what is even in the ballpark that we can do.
I do want to say in the past, we've held our board orientations right before the meetings
to those who wanted to attend and those who didn't. One of the questions I want to pose
here too is, would you like a virtual or in-person meeting? Because we could do a virtual at some
point before the next meeting, or we could also do it right before in-person. It's your
preference.
Yeah. So I'll open the floor.
Yeah, I think an update would be great and just knowing what our tools in our toolbox,
you know, what we have to deal with, what we don't, what the other cities we're competing
against, you know, what are our opportunities here compared to, and using our tools we can
at our highest level, because there are some limitations that we have here in the city
on what EDC tools we have, and everybody just understanding what those are, I think would
be a great.
I think an in-person, I like it better. You only got something going on in the background,
you know?
Yeah.
X-Men, you can answer that.
Other input from other members?
I agree.
I'm sorry.
I think that's fine. I was just going to agree with the gentleman who already spoke.
And I was just going to say, perhaps if we could have some historical changes that maybe
have occurred either to broaden what we have opportunities in or to narrow the focus of
what we are really responsible for reviewing and supporting as well.
Certainly.
It gets pretty technical, so for those of us that are lawyers, because we like words,
it's helpful to have a fleshing out of what the numbers look like and what our parameters
are. Additionally, I don't know maybe at the same time or maybe at the next meeting, maybe
have a quick refresher of our strategic plan and the matrix that was created so that everyone
has assurances that actions that are taken by this group are always in line with what
has been agreed to by the city council from community input, from our consultants, et
cetera.
So they can kind of see why everyone's doing what they're doing, I think is always a good
idea.
So it's a good idea to have that up there that we're all going the same direction.
Okay.
So it sounds like to me, and correct me if I'm wrong, that the consensus is in person
and perhaps before the board meeting in January.
Would that be -- does that sound like the consensus?
All right.
Okay.
Is there anything else at this time before we adjourn and go on our way?
Okay.
I would like to thank our ex officios who are here today, Aaron, Kendall representing
the Chamber and Kay and everybody who's here on behalf of the staff.
What I would like to do is just make sure that we're all educated to ask the best questions
and give the best input that we can, whether that's online or offline.
Maybe at some point we could arrange something outside of this meeting just so that we all
get to know each other, get to know where each other -- what our backgrounds are so
that we know who to ask questions to if we have questions.
I mean, that's kind of the point of this group is that we represent a lot of varied groups
in town that are interested and have input to economic development.
So I'm honored to serve this year, and it is much appreciated, and you are all appreciated.
So with that, anything else, Ms. Sullivan, before we adjourn?
The only other thing is that we're working on our new building to be able to hold meetings
there, I'm told possibly January we may be able to hold that in our new development services
building over on the other side of the post office.
So you might be hearing from us regarding that.
Well, again, I want to welcome Ms. Holmes, Mr. Gorey.
Thank you for giving of your off time to come spend it with us, and we hope that it's rewarding.
And with that, I don't think we need a vote to -- yes, one more thing?
You know, I would add, I'm David Gaines, assistant city manager, if I haven't met you before,
it's a pleasure to see everyone in person.
Just wanted to note as we're talking about the staff contacts, obviously, you have Erica,
we have a great economic development team, you always have me to reach out to as well.
Our economic development director position is obviously vacant right now.
Just want to let you know we have posted that position, it's been posted for a few days,
we're using a recruitment firm to help us find the best candidates.
That closes on November 26th, so hopefully we can have some interviews in December and
move forward, but we'll keep you updated when we hopefully find a great candidate and move
forward.
But just wanted to give you an update on that process.
Well, thank you for that update, it is very much appreciated and I know that it will continue.
With that, thank you everyone, we are adjourned and I hope the rest of your day goes well.