Sep 09, 2019 City Council on 2019-09-09 11:30 AM (Special Called/Joint Meeting with the Economic Development Partnership Board)

good afternoon it is well not afternoon yet and so it's Monday the 9th 1136 and after determining a quorum is present and thank everyone for being here I'll convene this joint meeting of the economic development and partnership board with with City Council and I'll allow Marty to do the same Marty Rivers chair of the economic development partnership board and will call our economic development board meeting to convene as well okay and then real quick note so the microphones because we don't have enough for everyone they're live and if you could leave those on just so they can pick up everyone and anything you say can and will be reported so you've been fair warned I mean thank y'all and so here we go we'll get started with it I'll just call a first item agenda item which is a ID 19 20 60 63 receive report hold discussion and give staff their direction regarding the economic development partnership board roles responsibilities and membership structure all right good morning morning council members and board members big audience today trust Rogers director of economic development so I'm going to be doing all of the presentations today I think so so at the August meeting of the economic development partnership board and the board discussed a number of topics that they wanted to have come before City Council and the board at their joint meeting and one of those was to go over the membership structure and the roles and the responsibilities of the economic development partnership board so I'm gonna give you just a very brief overview of that and then just turn it over to you guys for for the for the discussion and I do apologize to the EDP board this is all information they've seen before very recently so a quick background and the actual economic development partnership began in 1986 and the board wasn't created until 2003 however and that was as a result of the last comprehensive strategic plan that was done at the time the ordinance established that the board's role was to provide economic development policy guidance to both the City Council and to the chamber board of directors and you'll see the four main roles of the board as it was established which was recommending and incentive policies acting as a recommending an advisory body to the City Council for specific incentives making recommendations to the city and the chamber economic development in terms of their budgets and their work plans so the original 2003 ordinance established that there would be seven voting members and two ex-officio members it was made up of two City Council members two chamber board of directors two top 20 sales tax or ad valorem taxpayers the president of UNT both the city city manager and the chamber president served as the ex-officio members that ordinance was amended four times additional board members were added some of the duties were expanded to include aviation related incentives and branding and marketing for Denton Enterprise Airport over time Denton ISD superintendent was added the Denton black chamber of commerce and the Denton Hispanic chamber of commerce commerce were added and eventually the TWU president was added the ordinance that's in existence today was adopted in 2017 it contained a number of notable changes first it made board members eligible to serve again after they had met their term limit but they could sit off the board for one year seats had to be vacated if you no longer met yours your requirement for the seat that was being held so if a City Council member was no longer a City Council member and they were a former City Council member they would remove be removed from that seat and a new City Council member could be appointed and then it removed any of the duties related to the economic development budgets and work plans I will say we do bring those to the board on a regular basis still for review so even though that's removed as a formal responsibility that's something that the department and the chamber staff still bring to the board as you're aware since we just went through this process there is a nominating process that's established by the ordinance it requires the appointment of a nominating committee that's a three-member nominating committee two council members one chamber member their nominating committee meets develops a slate of nominees verifies that they are authorized to that they can sit and with the seat that they've been designated for that they want to continue serving they recommend those nominees to City Council this is the current list of the chamber excuse me the EDP board members and their terms the newest member being council member Jesse Davis who is actually it has first EDP meeting as well as City Council meeting there are term limits you can serve three two-year terms with the exception of the UNT and TWU President and then moving on to the roles and responsibilities so again the major role and responsibility has not changed the role of the board since its inception has been to provide economic development policy guidance to the City Council in the chamber board your duties have been that the board can create committees or task forces to assist with any implementation and they've done this through the downtown task force the newly which is now really renamed as of their last meeting the downtown economic development committee the board's also responsible for the development of incentive policies and recommending those policies to City Council recommending specific incentives as authorized by law and then considering and making any recommendations regarding branding and marketing for the dinner prize airport and with that that is my overview so I will turn it over to you both mayor pro tem and Chairman Rivers to have the discussion thank you questions for her staff so I'll leave because I mean I just think it's important and I think it's that we would entertain adding more either more seats or removing his seat to get more of a as didn't grows I think we need a larger presence of business owners or I don't know I don't I'm not fully locked in on what that would look like or what those parameters are but I just think there needs to be more another seat at the part two at the table that would encompass those that are working for starting businesses here to get that perspective and I think the opposite of that is true with the council positions I see the value but I also would would argue that that value is kind of conflicted because it's you're the decision-maker ultimate decision-maker you're in the room it's it I think it kind of stifles or could stifle conversation or overly wait one individual's perspective versus the collective so that's kind of out of all these things that to me the board makeup is something that I'd like to see study but I just don't know if there's an appeal for that so I'll listen yes sir I think that's very interesting and thought-provoking I'm Eric Bratton one you made a similar point when we had a meeting of the TIF board downtown TIF board and it led me to iterate to suggestion that the council role might be ex officio I think it's might be helpful to be in the room but you know we already get a vote so I think that is interesting I also want to add a shout out to Mary Ann she's a friend and a faithful watcher of this television program I'd said I would say hi okay thank you any other yes first time caller longtime listener no sorry I would say my initial reaction to the makeup is I would I think when you get too many people at the table some serious conversations can get lost because of the time constraints as well as what knowledge we're looking for in most of what we're doing is looking at economic development what kind of incentives what kind of industries are best targeted for the city of Denton and I think that we do have business owners such as myself I'm a small business owner John Baynes is a small business owner we do have small businesses represented and as far as the makeup I have one other thing I'd like to throw out and that's the requirement that the chambers representatives are currently voting members of the board of directors that was changed a few years ago and Mike I've got a couple of concerns with that but one concern is the longevity that anyone has on this board and their ability to stay on that board because we also have term limits in the Chamber of Commerce and so that does limit who can be here and although the term limits here on this board can extend a few years I feel that we do lose something if we are constantly having new people at the table that have not seen the type of incentives that have worked before have not worked before or why something was changed in the past I'm not really sure I did look through all of the materials beforehand and I see I think it's just for City Council in the Denton Chamber of Commerce and not for the Hispanic or black Chamber of Commerce and so I would just this seems like this would be the time to throw that out as far as the requirements so that we get the best people forward that can communicate back and forth with the chamber and represent businesses interests that are here fair question do you Jessica do you have an answer to that if it applies to all boards or chambers it does apply to both the City Council and the chamber board there is also and a notation on top 20 taxpayers that if sorry I don't have my glasses that if a member is no longer a top 20 City of Denton taxpayer or employed by one their appointment is also terminated that's on section c3 on page 3 of the ordinance but the only the question regarding the Hispanic chamber no and the black chamber of commerce no okay it's actually not even a requirement that that member be a member of those organizations they are simply nominated by those represent those organizations the way that it just says one members nominated by the black chamber and one neighbor one member is nominated by the Hispanic chamber okay so when I look around the room I don't think there's anybody in this room that was involved in economic development when this was formed except for myself so there's there's which is one of the problems with that I have personally with the chamber additional chamber requirements and even the City Council requirements when we started the economic development the new partnership board the City Council and didn't chamber representatives had to be on the council and on the board when they were nominated but if they rolled off were done with their terms or didn't get re-elected or whatever the city nominating committee could still renominate those people on the board after the fact so if you if I was on the chamber this has actually happened to me and I had spent my six years at the Dent Chamber of Commerce but I still had two years left to be able to serve on this board if the city chose they could renominate me the chamber could nominate me as their representative and the city city nominating board could renominate me on that even though I'm not on the chamber board anymore that also has to be approved by the chamber board if they're if they're willing to let me serve while I'm not on the board as a past board chair I'm privy to all the information and everything that goes on there so I was able to continue on that we changed this in 2017 technically I was no longer eligible to be on this board and represent the chamber of commerce so they are reappointing me as one year board member every year to keep keep that flow going the same thing happens with City Council so if you want somebody to have any kind of historical perspective on decisions that have been made or recommendations that have been made or what's going on you know with a razor ranch all those going back years Denton town crossing that's coming up you pretty much have to get put on this board the day you start on the chamber board and the day you start on City Council if you want to serve all six years on this board and that's a tough task for any new people because you're learning city and chamber 101 was you start out pushing you throw on this board so I would I would like to see the chamber be able to choose who they want to represent the chamber regardless of if they're on the board or not that's been discussed at the chamber board level it seems to me that the chamber of commerce ought to be able to choose who they would like that still has to go to the nominating committee that's the nominating committee is to City Council people in one chamber person so it still has to be vetted out by the nominating committee and approved by the by the City Council and that's exactly how it is right now with the black chamber and Hispanic chamber they just get to pick somebody to be on the board to represent them I don't know why that couldn't be the same for the Denton chamber technically I don't I'm not I mean I'm not sure how the process works at the other chambers but the Denton chamber votes on and approves and makes the recommendation to the nominating committee who that person is I guess that's the same thing that happens at the black chamber and the Hispanic chamber mr. Beck's chairman I just want to say while I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer I am pretty sharp I'm pretty sharp but it takes a while to get your arms around this thing and it seems like if you get your arms around it and then you roll off you're losing the benefit of the knowledge that's gained so I know personally it took me a while just to kind of get a rest and all the things that all the simultaneous equations that are going on at the same time and I think there's some merit in looking at some longevity issues rather than brevity for the sake of variety got it sir. Councilmember Riggs. So I agree I'd be willing to re-examine the the chamber requirements so that it matches the other chambers not necessarily so much the City Council because I was part of that conversation and I actually lived through one of that I actually lived through it so I kind of have a little bit background on that but I feel like the shape the chamber should be allowed to nominate whomever they want and that shouldn't and Council City Council should be responsible for for for their own so I'm okay thinking about changing that requirement in the future just so that it matches the other chambers. Councilmember Davis. We're having this conversation because as the new guy in the room it is quite a bit like John said to get your arms around and it cuts down on the amount of time that a new member has to spend you know taking lunches and having appointments and meetings kind of trying to play catch-up with the rest of the board if there's not so many of us new at the table every time around I think a good compromise might even be well one the old requirement that you have to meet the membership requirement at the beginning of the first term like Marty mentioned but then even a some kind of compromise might include past board members or past council members that way someone who let's say they are in their final term limited years on City Council and they go on the economic development partnership board they develop a knack for the work and they're doing good work but the City Council could have the option to keep such a person on as their nominee and still kind of achieve the same purpose of having a City Council member on the board which I think I think I understand the the argument about maybe not having City Council members as voting members or maybe not even having them in the room but I think for something kind of this top level I think when we're talking about policy decisions that ultimately the City Council is gonna have to undertake I think it's valuable to have council members on the partnership board part of the conversation from the beginning because otherwise what you get is a whole nother learning curve when you get up there at the podium someone in Jessica's position or she herself is having to tell us you know well here's what the partnership board talked about and here's what they are concerned about and we have the same conversations over and over again and some of those are very complex and very interrelated so I like having a City Council member actual council members as part of the partnership board but an option might include past or recent council members or past or recent chamber board members to kind of get that longevity. Thank you. Council Member Wright. I'm in agreement that once you've been on as a chamber board member that you should be able to stay on for the length of it. City Council members I do think it really needs to be a current City Council member we serve we serve on other boards in partnership like the CVP we're on there as a council member but it's really to be able to have some council members with a knowledge base of what's going on so when it comes back before the full council and we go into discussion things can come back through us it's no different than given some of our subcommittees that are committee on the environment mobility committee some of those subcommittees that knowledge base is coming back and if you allow former council members to continue on they're not able to really bring it back to the full council so I think I would prefer to keep the council member the way it is but take the chamber board members out of that grouping. Okay so let's probe that idea a little further though just so I can understand it if I can't if the terms don't line up so a council member loses an election or does not run or whatever that looks like how do you do you in how do you envision that working as far as is there a revisit of that nomination at that point so it so does it sync up with each year's election how do you see that managing that holdover of a council member or kind of filling that gap so if a person's term limited but they can't run again but their their current EDP service allows them to continue to serve you're saying truncate that but I want to understand the mechanism that you would envision using to are using to to make that happen. Yes sir. Well the nominating committee meets every year in July to come up with the nominations forward so you'll know by that point if one of the council members who's serving on that board is no longer on council you but then pick a new member that's fairly simple. Got it but you say so it's not instant though so there may be a gap there may be a gap and you're okay with that okay just the next normal looking at one or maybe two meetings yeah so just the normal side that's what okay yeah and you could have that the former council member can serve until the new one's appointed but cannot be reappointed there you go situation okay that's good language okay. Council member Meltzer. So just to keep keeping track where people are standing I support what council member Ryan proposed as far as being a current council member I'd still stick with the idea that the council representation ought to be ex officio part of the conversation but the vote of the you know the Economic Development Partnership Board should represent the community to council and entirely agree with the sentiments that the various chambers ought to be able to select their own representation. Thank you anyone else any thoughts okay so just if I was a if I was a canvas that I mean I think there's I I can agree with with councilmember Meltzer on the ex officio approach but that there's only two of us so I don't know how much traction that has but then also the the chamber voting or member representation there's significant support to revisit that and normalize those with the other two chambers looks like the here's historical perspective then is is noteworthy that there's some kind of way to make sure we maintain that whatever those policies kind of that would make sure we maintain the historical knowledge there yes sir council member sorry sorry to be late to the conversation but I did want to to underline something that chairman Marty Rivers said I know I would be I would have had a difficult journey here if he had not been here I mean he's provided some insight and has been able to kind of keep us on track when we look like we're about to undo some things that didn't need to be undone and without that longevity and that history I think we would have revisited and redone things unnecessarily so I don't know if we need to have a separate conversation on how to to just deal with chamber issues and then also have a separate conversation on just how to deal with council so that once those conversations come back then you mail the two and so that way we can move forward yeah yeah I think maybe some maybe some scenarios that have played out in the past to kind of give each body a chance to look at that and maybe see what it looks like and in previous good examples like Marty used I think that's that's important to kind of see it real life but so thank you for that and then just the approach council members how to stay on our offer kind of the timing between those visits and then the note I have the other note that council member if the term comes up then it's there maybe there's a provision on reappointing that type thing so to manage that but that's adjust over there any other thoughts or comments for staff to note or revisit okay oh yes I don't want to go off topic today and I know we've got a full agenda but it seems like this would be the agenda item that would go underneath at some point in time if we have another one of these potentially putting on the agenda or maybe for City Council to put on how the recommendations of this board could be if it can be crafted in a way that is more useful there are a lot of smarter people than me in the room and I've learned so much from being on the Economic Development Partnership Board so if there's anything that we can include or anything that we could be doing to help the City Council make good decisions I just hope that you know that we are very interested in that and that is the role that we serve and so if at some point in time we do have that kind of time to have that conversation or that you all have that time which is limited just wanted to make sure that we're on the same page and we're doing the best job that we can in supporting Denton and giving you the information excellent I agree yeah because that knowledge base is valuable as we saw in our last meeting that just kind of understanding regionally and statewide what others are doing it's kind of it's very helpful so all right well thank you very much and so I will call that'll conclude item a and so I'll call item B which is ID 19 2064 receive a report and hold discussion and give staff direction regarding the Economic Development Investment Fund I apologize again to the Economic Development Partnership members who have seen this presentation I did add a new slide for you guys just to mix it up so again at their August meeting the Partnership Board discussed items that they wanted to bring forward to discuss with City Council and so they did a review of the Economic Development Investment Fund so I'm gonna give a pretty high level overview of that funds and then go into what their specific recommendations were for the discussion today so history on the Investment Fund the purpose of the fund was to be able to provide a cash grant program to increase Denton's ability to compete for large or targeted economic development projects and those grants are intended to be performance-based grants and based on a couple of criteria that will go over later very quick history of the fund it came about in 2014 when the city expanded its incentive policy which is required by law for abatements to include cash grants in August of 2015 the Partnership Board recommended creation of the actual Investment Fund that was a direct outcome of the Denton Rising investment action team action agenda council directed staff to create the fund in August of 2015 and in August of 2016 and I do apologize there's a typo in your in your presentation that I fixed in this version that it was ordinance 2016 - 229 that originally created the funds and this was later incorporated into the required investment or incentive policy which it was adopted in 2018 so fun details the fund is funded through $150,000 per year allocation of mixed beverage taxes one of the requirements of the fund is that a grant made from the fund would require a separate chapter 380 agreement that's a performance-based council approved agreement to date we've only received one app like direct application for use of that fund and that application was withdrawn the fund has a criteria that to be eligible to receive a grant from that fund you must meet at least two of the following criteria when provide higher wage or knowledge-based jobs and those have some specific definitions but higher wage generally an average annual wage of all jobs over fifty five thousand or twenty five percent of the jobs over sixty five thousand knowledge-based jobs are those that require special or theoretical knowledge an advanced degree or some other level of advanced training substantial capital investment of 15 million or a recruitment or supplier target which are the targeted sectors that are adopted also in the incentive policy this is just to give you a little overview of what the fund looks like today so at the end of this fiscal year at the end of this month we estimated about six hundred nineteen thousand dollars in the fund and by the end of the next fiscal year about three-quarters of a million dollars being in the fund so at the EDP meeting the discussion centered on a couple of key points first being a targeted balance a targeted balance was not set in the ordinance that created the funds although it was a part of the original recommendation for the creation of the fund there's no fund minimum or cap meaning that there's no requirement that it meet a certain stay at a certain threshold or that we're targeting is and capping at a certain level and there's no mechanism outside the mixed beverage tax allocation that directs funds into the investment fund so during the EDP discussion and they wanted to bring forward a couple of suggestions when more flexibility in terms of use of the fund as you saw they're very specific criteria that have to be met and they wanted to discuss possibly setting a minimum or a cap on the funds we're examining the mechanism that's used to replenish the funds if they're used a review of the return on investment of the funds an increased use of mixed beverage taxes and they looked at a roll-off analysis which I will show you on the next slide a re-examination of their criteria for use and an evaluation of other cities and their use of cash grants so just to give council a picture of what the roll-off analysis looks like we essentially took any of our existing incentive agreements and forecasted them in reverse so as if they're instead of we forecast them how they impact our budget this is the incentive agreements as they roll off so as you'll see there's a few that are rolling off in the next fiscal year and so this is the estimated dollars that would have been paid to that grantee had that continued but it's now going to be coming back to the city as that roll-off occurs so over we did a 10-year analysis and over that 10 years would be about nine million dollars that's going to be recaptured by the city if you just look at our property and sales tax chapter 380 grants we also did an additional analysis on our tax abatements and TERS grants that would if those were recaptured that would be about eleven point five million dollars and so I will just go back to this slide because this these were the items that the UDP wanted to discuss with City Council but I'm happy to answer any questions that you have. Councilmember Meltzer? Yeah I wonder if you wouldn't mind spending a little more time on the last slide I'm just not sure I really get what the what the impact is of this analysis what what is it saying there's going to be 20 million dollars that would have otherwise gone into so this is dollars so for example this sales tax incentive that exists with Denton Crossing is in existence today so we're currently making a grant back to Denton Crossing when that agreement terminates those dollars will cease being granted back to them and they'll roll it back into the general fund so we're taking a recapture perspective of those were dollars that we're currently expending they're now coming back to the general fund if that makes sense. You know what would sort of be your your headline on this that that these programs are you know now resulting in an in a benefit because of having done the incentives now? This would be right so the incentives created this the existence of your played into a part of these companies choosing to come here or participate in a certain level of activity and now those companies are generating solely to the general fund we're not reinvesting back to the company if that makes sense it's just this isn't dollars that are now going back to the company for any type of incentive it's just purely coming back to the city so yeah I guess I'm fishing for like you know drawing a conclusion about ROI I guess someone else can give a perspective yeah John and then I'll commit John did you have a comment? Chairman Rivers? The reason she's looking at that is we've had some discussions at the partnership board level on if we if the city chooses to have some funds that we can use towards economic development how do we get there faster than $150,000 a year to get that balance up so that we can really have an impact and one of the theories is as our incentives that roll off start rolling off expire that's six hundred that first six hundred and seven thousand dollars is now going back to debt and crossing in a year that'll go back to the city and so the city is not missing that money so we can it's not taken away so instead of going into the general fund it could go into an economic development fund and not reduce the city's budget and so that this this is an analysis we asked for on what's happening over the next every year so okay Mr. City Manager yeah I think that it's interesting but it doesn't really correlate very well to how we do our budgeting on an annual basis some of these deals start fast fall off start trending negative some of these deals you know lose purchasing power each year so you know we typically forecast out in the general fund three three and a half percent growth to absorb the the escalating cost of doing business in the in the city so I think rather than trying to this really is kind of around paying in a square hole I mean if we really wanted to get somewhere from a practical perspective you know and we wanted to make sure we had a amount of a million dollars just for as an example in there it would just simply be taken care of as an as a council funded supplemental in the next budget but it does not work this way from a practical perspective as far as how it gets absorbed in the budget so I just caution everybody that it is interesting but some of these deals are actually going backwards that we've so you can't look at it from a linear progression to say this is how it's going to work it's this is a theoretical snapshot in time with no real basis tied to you know baseline over time so we need to be very careful here and instead if we want to talk about you know expanding the uses and this particular fund and giving a little bit more flexibility that's that's fine that's great obviously we're at some disadvantage with other cities with the forays but I would just probably recommend a council just funded you know the incremental difference as a supplemental take a look at a little more flexibility the rules and we move on. Okay. Councilmember Meltzer. Yeah so I guess thank you for that clarification for me the analysis that would be most helpful in between the first part of the presentation and the discussion would be an assessment of what has worked what hasn't what has what what has worked well generally in other places and as and I think this sort of enterprise of you're using incentives for economic development is probably about I don't know 20 25 years you know out in the public sphere and a lot of you some really good learning I've done some reading on the subject to suggest for instance that you know as we currently do that it's not necessarily remunerative to do 20 and 30 year deals because companies move around so five five to seven year deals or probably that kind of thing I mean you know what are what are the you know the success criteria that generate the most return for the city I guess would be what I'd be looking for that would help me kind of enter into the rest of the discussion. Mr. Banks. Thank you thank you Todd city manager Hauman help me with this conversation when we were talking the other day about our target market for the types of businesses we wanted to attract to Denton as far as trying to wave them down and bring them here we realized that our seven hundred fifty thousand dollars wasn't quite enough of a coffer so the conversation was surrounded around how can we get to two or three million dollars quickly I don't know there's a lot of conversation under there but that's where we're jumping to that you know to make to have a treasure chest that that gives us a little more how would you say attraction power yeah the goal is you know is fine I think there's a lot of practical ways to get there we again we could we've become very very much in tune the last few years of trying to budget down to an effective property tax rate which starting to limit our flexibility a little bit some of the in so some of the growth that incremental growth that we're seeing in the sales tax is becoming even more important to us in terms of just delivering basic operations so if we wanted to build you get a couple of options I mean all money is fungible we could obviously in order to make a deal take place you could dip into fund balance to make it happen you could issue CEOs if there was enough of a return on investment that makes sense to everybody and that you had the proper guarantees from a business and I think the other thing is we just simply if we wanted to get to a million or two million dollars over the next few years we could just budget in right off the top you know in one of the very first supplementals we would fund is a dollar amount to try to get us there out of the under the budget each year we typically will have we in fact I wouldn't say typically we always start our budget process with one-time requests one-time dollars so that's how it probably recommend if we're looking for kind of a sinking fund for economic development which is what you're what we're talking about but if you had a deal that was very attractive and brought just a huge benefit to us it may make sense also if we needed the cash right away to do some kind of a matching grant issue is a short-term CEO so you're really not limited anywhere it's just a matter of what you want in the bank and you know I think what's more I think what's more important to the conversation is what kind of additional flexibility do you want EDP and City Council I have in this process so you're gonna hear at the next agenda item Jessica talking about updating our economic development plan I've asked her to go ahead and get moving on an RFQ to bring in a firm to help us identify what opportunities may be out there that we're currently not looking at how's the market changed since the last time we had our economic development plan updated there could be some other ideas that this external consultant brings into us that we haven't even thought about so I think it all goes sort of hand-in-hand right now but you're not limited at all you know and how we would get there it's just more of a matter of what do you need to work with and how would you like to expand your your portfolio your toolbox here Councilmember Briggs and then we'll come back Councilmember Davis and then Councilmember Ryan yes I just have a few points so thank you city manager for bringing that up because I had on here the the consultants that in the next presentation and I think that's a great opportunity for them to know about this fund and to come back to us as we discuss it on uses and possible structure and framework and funding mechanism for me I'm very open to discuss a growing the fund and having the opportunity to help smaller developments you know smaller businesses with those that meet those criteria that wouldn't necessarily go and be able to get the larger grants and incentives so supplemental budget I think that's great to bulk up this fund to begin with and then continue the maybe increasing the mixed beverage taxes a little bit to continue to help fund that so it doesn't get low if we decide to use it as something to keep going and then maybe we could do the supplemental every year look at that to keep bulking it up but have that opportunity for the beverage taxes to keep funding it on a smaller level but so for me with when we're talking about the incentives going back to it I'm okay with maybe a percentage but all of the funds going back in I'm not so on board with and I I see that logistically that won't work but even if it would whomever agreed to those incentives probably knew that once they expire they were going to go back into the general fund and help after they did their job to support the business and they were gonna go back and support the general fund so I would be I'm inclined to keep talking about growing the fund and getting it larger and using it for really great creative smaller developments but I'm not I'm not for completely giving everything back in to this okay and then the councilmember Davis thank you mayor pro tem so I'm also glad that the city manager brought up the plan it's always good to have a plan when we talk about these things but I'm glad that we're talking about this now because we know that going into an economic development plan that one of our priorities I think needs to be either reshaping or redefining or defining for the first time really how we fund an economic development fund and the place that that plays in the bigger picture of economic development I think we do have to look at it kind of holistically we can't rely as we have so far on 380s and tax abatement deals and that kind of stuff but at the same time I'd like to get a little bit better idea from you Jessica if you could tell us and for those kind of following along at home what kind of expenditures the cities make from a fund like this what makes them different and what makes them more flexible or or better for one deal or the other as opposed to the stuff that we're more familiar with the tax abatement deals the sales tax deals that kind of stuff my my only experience in operating a fund similar to this was I worked for a city that operated a 4b corporation and those dollars while pretty specific there's there's a law that says what you can and can't use them for but typically for cash grants that's what they were they're still under a chapter you'd still have to execute a chapter 380 agreement that's the mechanism through which that occurs the actual contracting document but it didn't we used it for for essentially a cash a cash-based incentive so it wasn't an abatement on the property tax it wasn't a any type it wasn't tied to something else it might have been here's our criteria you're creating X number of jobs therefore we will incentivize you this many dollars per job and that's how that's how we did it but that's one very specific example otherwise I'm happy to look at any other community and there are communities in the Metroplex and across the state that don't have for a or 4b and do economic development very well and so looking at what they do or looking outside of the state of Texas where maybe they don't have that mechanism and they use that cash-based grant system more effectively and what they do yes sir so I understand cash grants you just cash on the barrel head to bring a business is in but I guess with an economic development fund that doesn't have those same restrictions is there another city in the Metroplex that you're aware of that has has a fund like ours it doesn't have restrictions other than those that we choose to place on it I'd have to look at their specific policies and they would be self-imposed restrictions but city of Plano does not have for a or 4b and operates uses a two cents on their tax rate to fund their economic development fund and then the city of Richardson uses a partnership much like ours a city chamber partnership to fund their economic development and so I'd have to go back and look at their specific policies related to that do we know what kind of things they spend that money on is it just pure cash grants are they project based are they I mean do we know how they spend that money I have to I'd have to look at some of their some of their deals we did look at one that that Plano had executed recently and it was sort of a what they couldn't get to on their abatement side they use the the cash to match that's the only experience I have but I'm happy to research all of those kind of make a brief comment yes sir so just to follow along with that I think that kind of underlines the importance of having the strategic plan in place so we know what the fund is for at the same time I think we do need to look creatively I don't think increasing our mixed beverage tax by itself the proceeds from that that earmarked for Edie I don't think that by itself will do the job I don't think that if we're serious about an economic development fund that we're going to be able to nickel-and-dime our way there and to the city manager's point about the incentives rolling off I completely understand your your point that it's kind of a it's a conceptual exercise it's a way to kind of look at what we expect may be coming back from some of these deals is kind of an ROI perspective but as a conceptual exercise I think it could be useful to say that a target a guideline may be as councilman Rick said a percentage of what we're seeing back from some of these developments I agree with her though that the entirety of what we're seeing back from past incentives we rely upon those to keep the city city afloat and we rely upon those to kind of absorb some of our growth so I'd be very interested in seeing some function of past incentives that have worked going back into the fund however we decide to structure that thank you and then I'm gonna have councilman Ryan just one second so I'll allow the city manager to respond then we'll go to councilman Ryan yeah we're happy to go through that exercise I think one change that we're probably be recommending to council and the EP is is just some kind of a guaranteed floor on these especially sales tax deals that's really been the problem with trying to budget with these is it looks like there's this incremental amount coming back on the tax roll but what we've seen in a couple of cases happen especially with fairly significant sales tax deals they in the latter years they started going backwards on us and so the natural growth in the other sectors of the economy is sort of masking those deals and I think if we want to take this kind of a direct linear approach which is fine philosophically but you've got to be able to prove that what we thought would happen happened and that has not been what we're experiencing in some cases in some cases it's very clearly that these are great deals or they're happening but we've had a couple of cases where the market has changed so dramatically on folks with significant sales tax deals that if we compared them year over year they would actually be probably back three or four years ago at those levels so there is no incremental amount to be bringing on it's only simply so I think if we're going to take that approach and try to try to get there it's simply going to have to be from a pro forma analysis measuring it up deal by deal which is what we've been communicating the new potential vendors that looking at coming into the city for one of these kind of deals we've got to be able to prove this stuff up otherwise natural growth just masks what's happening out there thank you customer right yeah I think a couple of things to look at one is the reason we can't do that for a 4b is that we are maxed out on sales tax right now and that was a voter approved half since I think it was in the late 90s early 2000 somewhere somewhere in that time point that now we don't have that ability but we have been staying at or very close to the effective rate some great budgeting done by our city staff over the past few years and I prefer to look at an approach that's great to have these numbers to kind of know what we are maybe having come back but I'd rather look at that half cent that we added in the early 2000s can we incrementally over a five seven ten year period just like we did with the street maintenance fund with our franchise fees we were taking that a section each year and if the budget warrants one year that we can't because of something happening with it it might skip it but that gives us a way to start working what would normally be finding a 4a 4b into that position thank you okay councilmember Melton a couple of areas to explore one is do we have a clear shared understanding of what didn't work why there were no takers on the current program I do do we know that just there isn't a market for hundred two thousand grants or what's what's our understanding I think the last few deals that we've seen we've actually compared them to the two very similar deals and it's been enough to get the all those deals closed with the one that Jessica's talking about we had actually contemplated a cash grant to help do some modernization of facilities and they ultimately chose to relocate their do their expansion in Fort Worth I believe it was so we haven't really needed to go that far with these other deals that have come through that's not to say that there's got to be something that comes in that we haven't anticipated it's really special it isn't gonna need that but we just haven't seen that request yet where we've had to dip that into those funds in order to get a deal done I guess I would just say I'm really pleased that our next step is getting a consultant in to kind of get the thought process right I really can't follow this conversation about whether it's nickels dimes or millions if you don't know what worked what hasn't worked what are models of success how do you know what to fund so I think you know getting understanding our history understanding the general field setting clear goals you know that'll that'll tell us what the funding needs are so I think we're a little bit maybe premature for for getting to you know picking the solution I don't know that the answer is more dollars it might it probably is I guess because everyone seems to think so but you know if there were no takers at all I mean maybe people don't know that we have it maybe it's not structured the right way you know I just don't think we understand the problem well enough to start seeing the solution so I'm really looking forward to having the consultant help us organize that process so this may or may not be on topic I'm looking to the lawyer so on that with the consultant and with this discussion will that conversation on scope of work come back to the EDP board because I think it would be really important to have that conversation with the board especially if we're we're trying to get I mean it don't come back to you in the next agenda item did you say scope of work for the consultants I think I want to I want to pick up I want to try to at least find where we all are so we can communicate that to you so so I'll start and then we'll if you'd be so kind of a swing around this way and everyone else but I think to your question and what we talked about so minimum a minimum cap and a maximum kind of thing I think is a lot of this conversation in my experience on economic development partnership board and so I'll start and I'll ask everyone to kind of at least give your perspective so for me I think a minimum would be three million dollars and I think a max in that fund would be five million you know just so that kind of is the range I think we need to grow to and I think we replenish to that so if it's three to five million and we award something I think we need to then have a mechanism in place to get back to three million and be in line for the next and so if we can start down here and if you can just tell me your your what is your max what is your minimum and and that way at least staff has a an idea of the room I think a million dollars is a reasonable minimum and I don't see the need for any capital why not grow as far as we can so three five sounds great I don't know if I can give a good answer based on what what our track record is for people coming and asking for grant money maybe a great floor but if we haven't seen that man sure it's very many thoughts so I remember the discussion that we had and how we this three million number kind of came about so I have a lot of direct experience in these deals with large corporations three million dollars is just not even it's a minimum bargaining chip and my other comment was you know what are the things that that companies are looking for they want a site that has power that has water that has sewer they don't want to pay those costs so whatever it takes to deliver those things to the site if you don't have that then there's no there's no it's a non-starter right and so you know what to get power to a site and I don't worry it's two million bucks right and then my point is we have Adam Adam I think is here right from a perspective of you know what you know what deals flew over the city or flew by the city we we have someone that gets paid to do these things he has a treasure trove of knowledge of deals gone by I would imagine that we wouldn't need a consultant necessarily to tell us when you could tell us right so that's kind of I sit here and I hear the comments it's like yeah we definitely need you need a vehicle to get people here that you want to have come here whether that's a small business or a large business or whatever it is and I wouldn't necessarily think that sales tax is the reason that you'll want them here I think you want them here for property taxes and drilling the tax base for sales taxes of businesses are already here it's not just a business as it's a retail outlet that wants to generate sales tax in and of its own so those are a lot of comments there but the original question three to five man sounds like a reasonable range to get in on deals great insight I appreciate that council member Davis I agree with a three million dollar minimum and the reason I say that is I don't think we need a necessarily a cap I think we need to get serious about this fund I think we haven't had any takers because one we're not really sure what we need it for and we haven't decided amongst ourselves how we're going to use it and how we're going to market it and I think we whether it's through the consultant or through knowledge we already have institutionally I think we make need to make that decision and make it quickly I'm not sure that we're taking as quite as targeted approach as we could with our our intentions with this fund but I think it's a lot like when you go to your financial advisor and they ask how much you're saving well it should always be more there should be more in this fund there just should be and we as council member Ryan said we lost some opportunity with some ways to do that the other cities have available but some of our best competitors do not have for a or for be available to them and they're able to maintain sizable funds that do the work so I think three millions a good minimum to start with I mean I think we need to figure out how to get there quickly and keep going thank you Joe please I'm certainly not an expert in this field however in the input from some of the flagship entities that we have in this city and in their input of how to get like-minded and prosperous groups I would agree with the three million as a minimum and I'm not hearing a reason for a cap so until I hear a reason I would go my input would be no cap necessarily thank you I think one of the most helpful comments I've heard so far was about assessing what it is that potential applicants are looking for right so and it may not be a specific dollar amount it's certain problems solved for them so I think that would be a tremendous place to start is a clear assessment of what our customer wants and then you know organize what we do based on that so I'm not going to participate in sort of the group think of picking out a number you know until we do the proper you know kind of learning but that that would be a great place to start let's find out what in fact our prospects need and how do we meet those needs zero good and then Marty I did not say that number Marty go ahead a lot of really good conversation I appreciate all everybody's input the the number is going to depend on the size of company coming and if we're taught you know the the last couple of years we really haven't had a very large amount of economic incentives even talk about the last two that we looked at were a hundred and fifty thousand roughly and two hundred and fifty thousand dollars and we're talking you know thirty to forty thousand dollars a year incentive to a company the most recent one was by headquarters was trying to move here from California and be all honest it wasn't real exciting but it was also only a hundred and fifty thousand dollars over four years they're not moving from California to any place for a hundred and fifty thousand dollars and the fund is 750 right now that we don't we're not even on the radar for three you know at seven hundred fifty thousand dollars I'm encouraged that that three to five would be a nice range to get there some of our discussions on the EDP board have been if we get to our goal and it's real easy for me to throw a number out because you guys have to figure out how to fund it on City Council but Tony does what happens if we get a project in the council decides to spend some money how do we get back up there so you know I want that balance to stay there and as far as projects I mean I'm thinking of a couple that sand out that Aldi and Target both had to invest I'm going to say millions it may be two million dollars each or so in infrastructure road infrastructure for their facilities which they are getting reimbursed they paid that money up front to add lanes and add new roads and they're getting reimbursed for that through their incentive and so our this fun could be another way to do stuff just like that and by the way those roads are on our plan down the road so they came along finished our roads force ahead of time and we're loaning up you know they loaned it to us and we're paying them back over time and as controversial as razor ranch has been in the last couple years a long time ago they spent ten million dollars paying to widen 380 University Drive from Bonnie Bray all the way to I-35 and they're getting reimbursed from that they widened it wider than text odd had plans at that time and faster and so you know those are the kind of things that if you are just new to this economic development discussion the last couple years that you haven't been involved in about some of the larger projects we haven't really seen any significant projects WENCO was the most recent one that a couple years ago already now that are really large projects so that three to five million dollars well that's a lot of money for our City Council to have to come up with in a short amount of time but you know it's easy to move some numbers around that's still not a huge amount of money in the game we're playing if we want to bring you know Google just there's moving south of the Metroplex or bringing some people over there if we want to get in the game with some of those people we've got to have mechanisms and it sounds like we've got you know whether we have the funds or not if we can issue certificates of obligation down the road or how we get there we just you know we haven't had you know we we haven't had the really news attention-grabbing kind of firms that want to come here recently I mean Amazon really you know we've tried to get into that game we'd all like to have Amazon it's it's very complicated process but we have some facilities here we have some land that's available we could use this fund to buy land or develop land that somebody owns or help speed that process up as Chris mentioned I don't know if everybody knows Chris is with Peter built he's so he's got a very good perspective on what it takes to get a large company like that here but sometimes they need land and buildings are already ready and then we could use funds like this to jump out ahead of the curb and make sure that works and so I'm all for the four three to five million dollars I also try to put on my City Council hat and I think there should be a cap because if that if we don't have the project we want to spend the money on and that just keeps getting bigger and bigger I realize you guys have some pressure to make sure that your money is spent wisely and you're getting a return on investment and the tree fund is what comes to my mind is that thing kept growing and growing and growing and we weren't planting trees and so in my mind you know if we get say we get to ten million dollars and we haven't spent that then maybe that's a time to stop and put that money back in in the in the general operating account and start spending on other services I think there should be a cap I don't know that number is but if you just have this fund out there that keeps getting bigger and bigger unless there's a purpose or a number we're trying to get to for a reason I think probably a capsule a bad idea thank you mr. Baynes thank you I was thinking about that conversation that we had several weeks ago and Erica was kind enough to give me this I believe it was seven industries that are our target and even though I was here on the Economic Development Board I did not know what the target was so I was just kind of sitting here but if we're going to get some of those people here I think the three to five it's going to be you know our minimum and like the others have said that we have to have a way to replenish it it wouldn't just be a one-time expenditure but we've got to make sure that we do that and also take care of the general citizenry and not just how would you say capture money with no spending thank you I think before I would put any numbers out there I'd want to see the results of the next agenda item to see I mean that that sounds reasonable three to five maybe three to eight is it as an overall cap but there's a lot of variables in there as far as utility infrastructure that the city could could do by CEOs and then the fund would pay back over the life of that asset back into the utility department basically pay off those CEOs if we weren't there quite yet one of my concerns on setting a minimum is is that minimum what you're always going to keep because if you set a three million dollar minimum and you've got three point two million dollars available and somebody comes in and says well I'll build here for you know two million here well I fall below my minimum so I can't can't help you out right now so that's where I get kind of hesitant on how that minimum I look at more as goals as opposed to minimums and caps okay thank you I agree with almost everything he said it seems to me like we don't have enough information to put a minimum or a maximum or anything like that on it a three to five sounds good to me but I don't have fits in the overall scheme of things sure thank you customer rates yeah so regarding the economic development fund here we're talking about three to five million which earlier I was talking about smaller development smaller you know businesses which in this conversation it's grown to you know bigger developments and more you know corporations type things that and so that that's fine I completely understand that but I am for cap no minimum for flexibility if we need to use it all we can use it all and then we can build it back up I wouldn't want a company to be able to use it and then we're like oh well we can't go past our minimum then we lose them then we're kind of back at where we are you know to begin with if that's the case and it you know allows more flexibility but I would also like to propose that if nobody wants to use the mixed beverage tax anymore of 150,000 then we should establish another fund for small business grants and we should use that and keep that rolling so this body can look at smaller developments and smaller businesses which continuously gets left out of the conversation Tony yeah Tony Clark 26 years ago have been in banking obviously was involved the chamber over those years and I would say that I've been a little bit frustrated from time to time to see what we could have been in this community that we weren't able to become just for various reasons some of it was political some of it was economic but I will say I'm very encouraged to hear your comments today from our City Council about this whole economic development concept and where we are today but where we need to be in the future because I think we have been short-sighted a little bit and short-handed to some extent to be able to take advantage of some of the opportunities that we've seen we've seen communities around us flourish and I'm not saying that we need to be a McKinney or a Frisco or you know pick a community that has really just grown over the years but I think I don't think we've really utilized a talent that we have generated at our universities here they produce tremendous amount of talent each year all those people have to leave our community and go somewhere else for for the higher paying wet jobs or the specialized jobs that they may have you know concentrated on in college so I think the the fund needs to be you know three to five million sounds reasonable it needs to be substantial needs to be competitive and I'm excited to hear about what the other communities that we compete with that don't have the 4a and 4b opportunities what they're doing how they're funding their economic development program what's making them successful you know by doing that so once again I applaud you guys for this conversation and excited about hopefully where we are going now from from that perspective and look forward to being a part of that else that besides what we have it seems like den knows was like anti-business that's my perspective and I like the way we're going forward and you know trying to track better business like you said we had UNT we have TWU and there's a lot of talent here and everybody has to leave because there's not enough here for everybody to grow so having those incentives I think will help attract other businesses and keep that talent here and keep growing you know I feel like we've really got left behind as far as they like said I've been in the community about 15 years 20 years as well and I've seen how the other communities grew and it was always like then it was always like you want to keep that small town but yet you know the business so it would be nice to get a nice balance going and going in the right direction and at least you know with the three million I think that's a good incentive and it's gonna get people talking but then finally doing something to get track the businesses here okay thank you so it's nice being last because I get to hear everybody said everything pretty great so I can I can agree with what a lot of people say I've been here 17 years and I actually have seen I work at the University of North Texas so I'm a associate VP there and and Denton has really changed for the better I think in the last few years it is much easier for us to recruit high level staff and faculty if their partners have opportunities as well in the Dallas-Port Worth area so that's what we always look at as well but um but I can also see the idea of having some and and retaining our students our students leave so we train all of these great students and a lot of them leave but you know I think some would want to stay if there's opportunities so anything we can do to increase the economics and and so I don't know the number I'm an analytical person so I wouldn't be able to say I'd have to look at data and look at information that Adam or someone else could provide for me to release a given informative knowledgeable number so I can't do that that's fair but I'm for increasing no and I think that the whole purpose is one we've heard from folks that we did not hear from earlier right to get people talking I think it's important I think it's just to understand those thoughts just understand that hey what the data points are what those needs are and what those looks are just to kind of I think it's important to hear from from us when we're in this group setting because it doesn't you know it doesn't happen that often so it's I appreciate those that all that information is helpful and so I'll summarize and then and someone can tell me if I missed anything if there's any other any other thoughts and we'll move to C but the short-term CEO option seems like it gained traction so I don't know what that would look like and kind of maybe that there's a session to come back to understand if that was a mechanism what that would look like I think the replenish aspect of things who jumped out a lot wherever we're going and whatever we wanted to do how do we maintain that after usage and what's going to be the the path to recapture wherever we end up I think has resonated and then the the holistic approach to the plan and what we're going to do in strategies and the comment that that approach with the consultant seems to be that would be received well and I'll tell you so just across the room it's it's everywhere from 1 million to 10 you know and so I mean it's just good to know and I think it's important for this group to know those that don't know we that this city like it or love it gives the transit authority this year it'll be 14 million dollars I think last year is 13 million and so as much as you want to say just understand that understand that every year regardless of how many people get on or off that train if it gets used or not or on the buses that's what this community gives and so that's just that's just the data that's just a number and and so we need to understand when we're talking about where we invest in smart decisions as a city there's some there are some points we can kind of measure and say is that where we want to be is that not we want to be in and we can all kind of guide and and lead those discussions but that's that's kind of the number that jumps out at me often so any other thoughts on yes ma'am so I'm the lone wolf that threw out a million dollars I did want to say that I was thinking with my chamber brain and my ED brain so with the chamber being responsible for economic development I want to acknowledge that we do need those larger amounts because we are charged with attracting industry and larger business but I also realize that a million dollars is a lot of money to entrepreneurs and a million dollars is a lot of money to startups and on the chamber brain I'm thinking business retention and I want to attract some of that university talent and I want our university students to know that anything that they have in mind for their future they can do from here and I think it's important that we do have a separate fund or separate criteria that will incentivize those startups as well because a lot of those smaller startups will result in these higher paying jobs yeah no I absolutely agree I think it's it's fantastic I was really encouraged I was in Highland Park talking to a business owner and he has three or four locations and and he mentioned he and his wife mentioned that Denton is a target of theirs and they're they're just they have their locator working now and so that was encouraging to talk about that culture and some some shifts and and kind of seeing some transition so any other thoughts on item B okay very good thank you and then so I will call item C ID 19 20 65 re receiver receiver report and hold discussion and give staff direction regarding the city of Denton's economic development strategies and development of economic development strategic plan so this one is very brief now we'll go through it fairly quickly so that to get to the important part which is you guys just guessing the economic development strategies so just skip right into it so when we're talking about economic development just to kind of set the stage is this sort of is a slide that we use when we kind of go out and talk to people about what is economic development and simply a process that creates retains or reinvest wealth and opportunities in area and how we do that in Denton as we focus on creating this notion of shared prosperity that we don't want to focus on one area at the detriment of others we want to really create an environment where everyone can thrive and specifically through our office we focus on five key elements and that you see they're recruiting and retaining existing business recruiting new businesses retaining existing businesses fostering a thriving culture of artistic creation innovation and technology attracting and developing and retaining skilled and talented workers it doesn't matter how many companies we attract if we don't attract the workforce and the workforce doesn't want to be here we're not going to be effective at that first goal and then managing our special districts and our incentive agreements and then building relationships with Denton businesses and residents so how does the partnership work so don't take this as a comprehensive look at everything that everyone does but just to kind of put it into broad categories of what the city staff does versus what do we share responsibilities with with the chamber under our agreement and then what does the chamber do you under the responsibilities of the agreement and so as you'll see the chambers mainly on the marketing and recruitment side so Adam is out going to meet with businesses travel across the country do the active recruitment and making marketing purchases jointly we're working on prospect development that includes responding to direct contacts responding to leads that come in and certainly talking with site selectors regionally locally brokers who might have somebody who's interested in a property and then on the city side like I said we do a lot as it relates to workforce development we do a lot of technical and advisory support of a business who comes in and says I need help doing X great we'll help you walk you through all of the city processes whether it's an issue related to a fire lane or an electric line or a cable box we have dealt with all of it so we're sort of taking on sometimes a concierge role of what can we do to help every business in our community and we also have some of those cultural programs as well as our technology and innovation programs that we run out of our office so when we also talk to you everyone about economic development we talked about what are our advantages why do you want to come to Denton and what can didn't offer you first and foremost and which is why it's a little bit bigger it doesn't look as big on your screen location and transportation no other city in the Metroplex has the location that Denton has at the merger of 35 E and 35 W it is a request that we get almost every time someone comes and looks at Denton as they're saying I want highway access and nobody has better highway access than didn't and also access to transportation didn't because of its location has access to air rail and highway more conveniently than many other communities in the Metroplex we also don't have a toll road running through our community which gives us an added benefit for any type of large transportation logistical type of operation we have a strong workforce we're the only community in the Metroplex that has two major universities we have a student body in our community of about 50,000 people every year that's about 10 to 12,000 people graduating looking for employment coming out we'd love them to stay here they're incredibly smart incredibly talented and motivated we do have utilities that are a lot of things that other communities don't have to offer like board member Davis said a lot of people come to us and they need electric service so they need water service and they need wastewater service and we're an all-in-one package you only talk to one office most of the time and we can help you navigate that process and then the last three are sort of the what I consider the debt and bonuses right there the things that we're all here for the things that we love and that's the quality of life the affordability and the creativity that exists in this community and those are things that again they don't exist anywhere and actually Councilmember Melter and I had a conversation about this very particularly said didn't greatest asset is its passion for being Denton and we get to go out and sell that time and time again that you won't find another community that cares more than Denton does and that matters to companies that come here and that is sometimes a part of the lead that we get a request for information they're saying tell us about your community we have usually have to shorten our response because we have so much that we want to say about our community so like I said these are the strategic efforts the areas that we're working in I won't kind of go back through all of those for you but I wanted to kind of put those in front of you as we go into the next slide to keep in mind of we're using these efforts to frame how we are focusing the strategic plan and so looking ahead to the strategic plan so it was funded in fiscal year 18-19 so that's our current fiscal year we've split it into two phases of work the first phase is going to be very short and very easy we're actually working through our contract with this chamber of commerce right now to look at the relationship making sure that our performance metrics are where they need to be that they're in alignment with best practices we anticipate that taking probably six to eight weeks from the time that the contract is executed and essentially we're gonna ask someone just to take an objective view that Eric and I have worked together for two months now putting together a contract and come in and take an objective view are we measuring the right things are we doing the right things you know as the partnership working as effectively as we want it to work the second phase is going to be the comprehensive strategic plan probably about six to eight months of work and the reason for that is we're going to engage a significant number of stakeholders in that process so first is an assessment of our community and a comparison to similar communities and we don't want to just look at communities in the Metroplex we're a college town we want to look at what other college towns are doing across the US or what other elements what are they embracing that we need to embrace here in Denton to make that more attractive looking at how we compare in terms of growth business growth workforce growth job development all of those things across the board we also want to make sure we have a clear vision and goals for economic development and as you saw in the last conversation we're not really sure what our fund is for we also sometimes aren't really sure what we're attracting in terms of economic development we want to make sure we have a clear mission and a clear vision that we can stick to as we're executing on those strategies and we want everyone to be engaged in that process and that is I didn't put it up here because it's very long the list of stakeholders that we wrote into the scope or into the RFQ is universities school districts business says community members you name it we want you involved and engaged in this process and telling us what you want to see didn't look like in five ten twenty years then another item that we board member Baines brought up is an I identify our target industries and what subsectors of those industries are we most attractive to you and who should you be marketing to to make ourselves attractive but not just how does it look today we also want to look at what are the emerging trends we've had lots of conversations about we want to get into a certain area but we don't want to get into an area that maybe right now we're primed for but in 10 years that industry may not exist because of technology and changes we want someone who's going to come in and take a very forward-looking approach to those targeted sectors and make help us identify targeted sectors for the future as well and then as I said we'll review the incentives and the tools we really want a full examination of the toolbox that we have how do we craft the incentives how do we craft the messages related around those incentives how do we make sure people know that didn't wants you to be here and how do we craft those incentive packages to make sure that that message is getting communicated we also want to look at recommendations and areas for development and redevelopment we have some very wonderful things happening in this community and we want to make sure that those areas that we want to protect whether they're historically in terms of historic preservation that those are looked at or what growth can occur in areas around downtown we have razor ranch growing we have potential for development on 35 W we want someone to take a look and say here's where you should focus your efforts and strategically think about again Deton in five ten twenty years from now and then lastly the most important thing is the actionable work plan plans are great and then plan sit on a shelf and nothing happens we want actual steps how do we execute on it if you have set this as your mission and you've set this as your vision how do you make it work and so we want actual specific work plans metrics goals targets that my staff can work towards to make sure that we're meeting exactly what we said we're gonna meet and so that's our very broad overview of the scope it was a little bit more detailed than in the document but to get your feedback on all of these things because we are in the process of moving forward with a request for qualifications so certainly making any tweaks or adjustments to this but as you can see it's a pretty comprehensive plan as it exists right now okay thank you Councilor Davis and then we'll come down to Council Member Meltzer just a kind of a quick comment because I think we know kind of where we're going with this but I think the most two important two most important bullet points in your entire presentation are the ones that start with vision and identify on this slide because even just in this conversation I'll take Tony and Keely are great example they both want what's best for Denton they maybe have slightly different perspectives Tony and his comments has has really emphasized larger corporate partners bigger development Keely and her comments has emphasized small businesses and business retention and that kind of stuff but those aren't necessarily mutually exclusive things they're just things that need to be placed into the context of a broader plan and then when we they're not they can they can work together very well actually and I for instance I want you know you think about somebody who wants to build a big corporate headquarters a corporate park well those folks have to eat somewhere those folks are going to give to the arts those folks are going to want to be part of their community so those ideas actually nest together very well in the sense of a broader a broader strategy and I think that's one of the things that we've kind of been missing is we get to this tension between big tax incentive kind of projects and small locally homegrown business and those things kind of butt heads in the public sphere and they don't have to they just don't have to so with a bigger broader strategy that encompasses really what we have all come together and identify is what we want and what we need them to be and I hope that's what this plan can provide mr. Baines mentioned a little while ago seven target industries I would know casting no aspersions on the folks that came up with that that nice list of seven how can you target seven things at once how can that be possible how can you prioritize seven things at once so really drilling down and deciding not just what we want for instance people are always talking about well we'd like to be a technology hub or something like that well maybe that's not a fit for who we are let's find out what's a fit for Denton and let's all get together on the same page and once we do that those three to five years of actionable work plan if they're going to go by real quick and we'll be right back to what's our next three to five years and it's going to go like gangbusters if we have a kind of a common vision together thank you councilmember mountain I would echo those sentiments I would also say and I think this is a really good summarized list I think another piece that fits maybe it's kind of implicit is would that ought to be added perhaps is to identify successful models it's possible for even large groups of very smart people to do stupid things you know you could spend two hundred thousand dollars a job cities have done it you know they kind of went back where we end up there so I would like I would like us as part of our process to identify successful models okay you have thoughts I think the importance of a plan like this is to make sure that we have some common understanding and goals of where we're heading but I think Tony said something pretty important in terms of the other communities that we're competing against and and whether it whether it's in the the basic day to day development processes through the through the city where you're talking about residential development or whatever it's the it's the fact that the marketing community the realtors out there that with that we work with on a day-to-day basis can rely on our plan if we go through this exercise come up with target industries and don't deploy the plan they stop bringing us leads and there has certainly been cases where we've had search consultants that are confused about where we stand what we will support regardless of whether there's a plan in place so through our discussions internally that was really the impetus of bringing this forward to everybody is you can think about this together and we'll wrap kind of the incentive strategy and economic development tools within that target industry and start hitting the development community and in those brokers that we tend to see pretty frequently there's just not that many of them out there that they tend to represent a lot of these site and search consultants so really is important that we get both this group and the City Council to a place where you're comfortable with where we're heading so that those search consultants can rely upon our plan and I just can't emphasize that enough and we hear that constantly with our planning and zoning department and our development department in general what are the rules you know where we go and so really hoping that this exercise kind of freshens it up and kind of builds that that common thought between both groups as we're moving forward and also gives our our staff something that they can feel very confident taking out on the road thank you I have a question this plan here do you want us to kiss it and put a bow on it or do we want to take some time and discuss it I would assume that as much discussion as we could have today would be helpful we're on a pretty tight timeline to even meet a six to eight month framework with this very heavy list of things that doesn't mean that while we are in the process that we can't add subtract tweak multiply rearrange but generally we need to we'll need to start engaging someone to start building this framework pretty soon the reason I ask is because let's say for example review of incentives and economic development tools that's a nice phrase but I mean to take the time to do that here I don't know if we really have that time today the goal would be for the consultant to do that so we would kind of be bringing forward with each of these in different ways it would be coming back to you so when when the consultant is on board and we're ready to have that discussion about incentives and economic development tools we would have some sort of discussion so the consultant would go and do the work they're gonna do and then come back and then we have a conversation yes okay thank you thank you you answer my question I think thank you very much any other questions or because I think for me maybe it's captured in some of the comparison stuff which I'm adamantly against but because I just don't think you can find equivalents right I think you can you can glean some things from but you just can't find true line-to-line absolutes yeah and so but I I guess wherever it falls my ask is the the communities or the areas I've seen grow significantly are almost themed if you will so Texas live kind of that around the ballparks around the Cowboys and then that added the hotel component kind of that vision move forward and then I like the example of Plano versus Frisco so you have dr. Pepper established and been in Plano as long as I can remember and then the lure of the star down in Frisco pulls them away and they're now moving you know what ten miles down the road but it's something about those kind of those and I think you touched on it just come those some of the similarities mixed uses but they all can feed each other worked well together I think those type things and matter of fact DCTA is active in that Fritz star area with UNT that sort of thing so I think those kind of areas where we can find entities that would support each other I think he mentioned that as well and kind of pooling those and saying hey that fits here in Denton here and this could be this type corridor and much like we've done with the the warehouses etc. and the East no West of town so I think those things those synergies I'd love to see what the consultants find would be a good use or good good kind of ways to pool resources any other thoughts on item C so when are we looking to do the consultant that we have a timetable in mind and we have a projected comeback as soon as we can review get and review proposals and get a contract executed which the city does very quickly so it would likely have to go back through EDP and City Council for approval thank you very good well thank you very much for all your presentations and with that I will conclude item C and I'll close out the City Council's portion of this joint meeting with the City Council and Economic Development Partnership Board at 111 can we get a joint picture before we disperse okay so everybody come together in the middle for a picture photo