Nov 13, 2019 Economic Development Partnership Board on 2019-11-13 11:00 AM

432 good afternoon. My name is Marty rivers. I'm chair of the economic development partnership board. It is 1102 and we will call this meeting to order. Thank you all for being here today. Our first item for consideration is the minutes of our October 9 2019 meeting that was dispersed in advance. So we got a motion. Second and a second. Any further discussion? I'm sorry. Motion to make a motion. He made the motion that Chris went second. And any discussion? All those in favor say aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. That's our approved. Our next item is EDP 19.081. Receive a report, hold a discussion and give staff direction regarding the annual marketing plan from the Chamber of Commerce Office of Economic Development. And Erica Pangberg will give that presentation today. So as you know, Adam Fevoreski has left the general chamber to pursue other opportunities. So what you won't see in these slides is the number one item on our marketing plan is to search out and hire a new marketer. But that pending we have this completed before he left. So I'm going to go ahead and share with you what our plans are moving forward. Okay, our office is hired, contacted by the city to do the marketing of the economic development activities. And this is just a brief outline of what our plans are for this year. The components of our marketing plan are a timeline for plant and digital advice, maintenance and updates to DentonEDP.com platforms and scheduling for our social media and our plan marketing trips. I do want to say the city of Denton's strategic plan is an action oriented roadmap that's going to help the city achieve its vision. Under that plan are five long term key focus areas, organizational excellence, public infrastructure, economic development, safe, livable family friendly community and sustainable environmental stewardship. Our fulfillment under that plan is obviously the economic development arm. So we're going to continue to pursue that. I know the city is contracting with an outside organization to set in place a new strategic plan, which we anticipate taking place over the next 12 months. So in that time, we're going to continue operating with the old one, but we look forward to what the new plan is going to look like to make sure that we're meeting those deliverables and marketing Denton in the most effective way possible. Some of the publications that we market Denton in are Site Selection Magazine. And the other one is the Dallas Regional Chambers Economic Development Guide. We partner with site selectors across the country and also obviously with the Dallas region to bring visitors and draw attraction to Denton. So those are big printed publications that we participate in. Karen, are there any other printed publications that we're in? Another thing that we do is there's a, there are so many site selector shows, trade shows, opportunities to market Denton across the country that with an office of two people, we can't cover them all. And it's also not financially sustainable to hit all of them. So what we do is we park it. We partner with site selectors. In this case, his name is Mark Darcy, and he hits all the shows that we can't get. And he goes to represent Denton and takes our banner and takes our information so we can have coverage across multiple areas at the same time. Some of those trade shows and contacts that we have through him are listed here on the screen. And that's a sample of our banner. I believe we have a new banner. It's actually the banner that's on his website. Okay, and we have a new banner that he takes with him also that features Peterbilt. That's right. Maintenance and regular maintenance and updates to DentonEDP.com. I'm sure you're all familiar with this website. We want to keep the information up there as current as possible. And we're working on an updated plan that will launch in 2021. Our social media platforms that we're active on posting by monthly on LinkedIn, weekly on Facebook and weekly on Twitter. We are funded in two ways. So we're funded publicly through the contract with the city. And then we also raise our own private funding. That funding is broken up into our professional development and our target marketing, and then private is just for target marketing. Under the operations publicly funded budget. These are the way we break out our budget planning and so professional development. Those are memberships in the TEDC and the IEDC for continuing practices, best practices, and continuing certifications, recertifications. We also participate in targeted marketing groups, Team Texas, the Southern ED Council, the DFW, Martin Team and NACAR. Erica, what does the two mean? There's two trips each year for those. We're two marketing opportunities. On the private side, as you know, under our contract, we are required to raise a minimum of $75,000 in private investor dollars. And we use those dollars to maintain memberships in these groups and to fund these trips. Any questions so far? So with the $75,000, is that enough for these? And if you raised more, would you do more in this department with your private funding or would it go towards something else? I'm not going to say that isn't enough. Of course, if we raise more, we would absolutely do more. There's always more to be done. We split it up. It's split under the requirements of the contract. So we try to use those dollars on the private side also as effectively as we can in other areas that will supplement areas of the contract. You might so we raised more than $75,000 this year or use some of those funds to go into action. Right. So we did raise more this year. And right now, Jessica from the city's ED office, and Marshall Culpepper who works with Stoke, we wanted to pursue we know we talk a lot about technology being something we want to pursue. So Jessica and Marshall are at a tech conference right now in San Diego that we use private funds to send them to to build those relationships. So the answer is yes, we'll absolutely do more. That's always the goal. Eric, I have a question. Yes, sir. It says 1819. Is that and the one before it said 1920. So I'm sorry, I don't want to go backwards. I didn't know. That's his marketing trips. You're right. So should that other one by 1920 also? Okay, that's okay. I just wanted to make sure. Thank you. This is the plans for next year. We want to maintain what we're doing. And we're going to add a few things as directed. Like I said, we are in the middle of searching for a new development director. And we also have formed a we meet with our private investors, check in with them and see where they want to go. So we're looking at planning for new opportunities. And under the consultants that are coming in, we've asked them to tell us if the areas that the city and the chamber have decided to target on are the areas we should be target targeting. So we're going to get those answers first before we make out any more specific plans and planning trips. But we are looking to do the most effective marketing on Dennis. I did have one other question. Yes. What do you find to be your most productive endeavor when it comes to the marketing? Where do you get most of your bang? Or is that is that a fair statement? I'm going to defer to Karen, I mean, I know a lot of it has, there's so many, it's, it's a matter of timing, we're maintaining relationships with site selectors. So a closed deal is always going to be the most productive. We're going to point to that's the most productive thing we've just done. But Karen, if you want to talk about some specific opportunities. And like Erica says, it's a relationship building process. It's getting the name of it out there. Currently. Right one this way. No, that way. There it is. Team Texas is on both our operations and private side. That is where a delegation from the state go out and advertise the state. You don't advertise didn't even talk to someone about didn't, of course, but you're advertising the entire state. And we try to do is two of those every year. And then we last year we had enough funding to do two and private two and operations. And the other kind of off tangent there, sorry. The operation funds are normally annual conferences, or specific conferences to a industry, where sometimes the private side is more of a consultants, more that relationship building, not necessarily all about the particular targeted industries. And thus far, the probably the best one that we've gone to are the team Texas ones, because they have a variety of industries that they're looking at for manufacturing, aerospace, industrial specs, and things of that nature. Thank you. Like I add the site selectors, because they can represent so many countries, and my country's so many companies, and types of companies, instead of going just to an industrial conference, site selectors are working for companies all over the United States will have the relationships with those guys who are in that business. A company that's looking at moving their headquarters from California to Texas is going to hire somebody to do that we're not going to have a relationship or meet someone in a conference and they're going to call us directly to the site selectors that are the ones that that's what I was going to add, it's collecting as many already established relationships as we can, is where we're going to get the best bang for our buck. I have one more question. Yes, sir. So you say you have these sites selectors that we're using to help send us business. How do we make it worth their while? How do we make them happy? What do they get out of it? We're not we're not using them. Companies hire them and we have to stay on their radar. Just like we don't have site selectors. Companies hire site selectors. And we need to make sure they know that in Texas out there, we're raising our hand enough to where they recognize. Absolutely. Okay. All right. Thank you being responsive as RFPs and providing the data that they're requesting as well. Absolutely. The more information that we can get them the quicker the process. Thank you for educating product. And here's where you did that. Are there any more questions? So what's our plan for replacing this condition that we have to fill now? What kind of person are we looking for? We're looking for someone with a minimum of six years already working in the industry looking for someone who is a certified economic developer. That's not a certification that you can begin to apply for until you've already been working in the industry for years. We're looking for someone from a city who is either coming from a metro or a city this size already. There's lots of personality types that I would love to put in there and get them the necessary certifications, but we don't have that kind of time. So we're putting together a search committee of people who understand the economic development of this region. And I believe we've even invited a former economic developer to sit on our search committee. We're looking for someone who's already at the top of their game and has those relationships that we talked about. We don't want to waste any time. So you know, typically when you you know, you have somebody believe like this, you can reevaluate, you know, what he what he or she brought to the table, what did they always what was their strengths, what were their weaknesses and how you going forward, find somebody that maybe has more, you know, different strengths, less witnesses, all the above. So once again, how do we how do we find this person? Do we send out? Do we use social media? Do we use, you know, our people that we know in the industry? How do we identify our candidates, I guess. So we already have the listing on the TTC and IEDC both have job listings. So most economic developers will who are looking for work in Texas will go to one of those two sites to look for that. So they are already looking for us. We are actually also talking to a group that head hunts these particular candidates. So we're hoping to not use social media probably. And again, as far as the metrics for evaluation, that's something that the site selection or the selection committee is looking on. Absolutely. Will this board be involved in that selection party anyway? Or is that no, that's a chamber internal. I don't mind confirmation, but Jill and Jeff Jill is chair Jeff is incoming chair and myself. That's Jim Fikes. Jim is the former chair of this or member of this committee, the Chamber Board, Tim, Francis, Francis, who is with us cold storage. He's actually a former economic development general plan manager. So I could be great to make that decision. Interested? You know, there's room. I'm not volunteering for it. But if you need somebody else to sit in. I think it's an important, important higher forces at this point in time. I'm wondering, you know, a lot of our you know, this consulting thing we're going through, obviously, we're very early in that process. It would be nice to have kind of completed that. And let them give us some feedback over what that role needs to look like, if at all different than what it's looked like in the past. But you have a better feel for that. You hit the nail on the head. We're in the middle of a relook at how we should do things city and chamber wide. And we've got a job opening. And if those results come back, you need a different set of skills or do this a different way. So one of the things that we've talked about is even pursuing somebody to do this on an interim basis. I'll ask that. So if we if we wait, how much ground do we lose? You know, if we wait, you know, three months or six months to, you know, get some feedback from the study. We're also obviously want to when we have final candidates narrowed down, we'll want to meet with the city staff also because that's somebody that they're going to work closely with. We want to open all the lines of communication and make sure that that's going to be a successful partnership. Thank you. Anyone else? Thank you. And on to our next regular that we're just gonna talk about it. Our next item is ADP 19. That's your way to receive report whole discussion to give staff direction regarding canceling the regularly scheduled meetings for December 11 and January 8 for the partnership board. Understanding is we don't have any items to speak of in the next month. And then the eight just give them the way it falls is right after the holidays. And doesn't mean that we couldn't call especially called meeting if we had something pop up. Just want to throw the idea out there to talk about a lot of times we have trouble making quorum in those months because of the holidays. And that's not specific to this committee. It's with a multiple committees. If we have a project that has a timeline of anybody wants more meetings, let's go back. We don't have anything pressing for the December 11 meeting. And then the January eight is only a week after I think there's a lot of folks on vacation a week before if something pops up, we can certainly try to get everybody together and have a meeting. So anybody want to make a motion regarding those two days so move second, enthusiastically second cancel the December and January meetings like I want to be heard. Any further discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. And our last item or item D is our staff reports. And we've got our staff here. If anybody wants to talk or anything you want to point out and make sure we're aware of nothing really to point out a customary. Eric and I are here to answer any questions. I think it's the city data. There's not anything present. It just says ongoing. Some of them have a number. If it says ongoing and there's no number, does that mean there's no number? Well, for example, like if you take the site visits, business retention and expansion visits, that's going to continue. You have a target set for the year, but it ends at the end of fiscal year and then it starts again for the next fiscal year. My question is if it's blank, does that mean zero? Yes, if it's blank that we only have one month of reporting. So yeah, okay. I have a opportunity maybe to I like to get the groups consensus on for a pending item to talk about in the next couple of months. The city has drastically changed the development fee schedule for new projects. And there's been a lot of conversation going back and forth on the schedule. And I think that that is important enough subject to its economic development subject to as far as anybody coming to town that wants to do any kind of development, whether that's big, large or small. So I would love for get your opinion on whether that's something you'd like to take up as a group just to hear the discussion on that. We it's been through city councils, but there's meetings going back and forth between local folks and city staff and the development office. But there's there's some drastic changes and what it's going to cost to bring a new project to do. Can you give us a taste? Well, there's been a number of changes done at the state level. It's not just specific to Denton that we're trying to incorporate what the state is requiring. That's part of it. The other part is the fees, the fees. So dramatic increases in fees that I'm getting feedback is not comparable to other cities. Yeah, so that fee schedule has already been approved. Before this fiscal year, we did a cost of service study in the development services department. And there was a $3 million subsidy from the taxpayers that was popping up those. And so we tried to right size the fees a little bit. And so I mean, I would be okay with having the support review those and look at them. But as far as what we can do to change them, I'm not really sure if that's what you wanted to discuss. I think I would like to see this board hear about what the fees are. And I would love to get a assuming this happened in the course of the business. But what is if I'm bringing a new multifamily project to Denton and my fees are X, is that the same? What are the fees and the other compared to our competitor cities? Are they twice as much less equal to because I don't know that every city is is trying to cover their cost of service and their planning and development department with with fees. And also I would like to see if we could take a project that had gone through our system last year under the whole fee schedule and what the changes to that would be because I'm hearing from folks within Denton and outside of Denton that are wanting to do projects in town that are a gasp at what the new fees are, are and compared to other cities that they're working in. And it's the difference of not doing it. Or maybe instead of doing a project that's all great, you're now doing it with signing. Yeah, I think it would be useful for anybody involved in economic development to know about the process we went through to get to those fees and what they are and like you said, some of the differences between last fiscal year and the current fiscal year. And as Keely said, it was the result of a cost of service study. And that there was a lot of general fund money going into those departments that was not being recovered through the fees and talking about the kind of one for one stuff and engineers looking at plans, not being fully compensated, the city not being fully compensated for the time the staff has been doing those things. I kind of liken it to, you know, when I hear about somebody who says their electric bill is higher, now that they've moved to Denton and they have to be on DME. And I wish we just had like a pamphlet we could handle. Here's the reason why your electric bill is higher. Our rates are actually lower than where you moved from. You just have an old air conditioner or drafty house or whatever it is. I'd like to at least have this community kind of the economic development community, knowledgeable and armed with good information on how do we stack up to other cities? Are we are we in fact higher? Is it higher depending on your project? Is it higher depending on some of the the circumstances of your site and the site conditions that are different? So that we kind of have apples to apples comparisons when a site selector says, for instance, at some conference, you know, I'm having trouble marketing debt. And right now, those fees are so high. And the people who are meeting with those folks know the information, they can say, Yes, you're right, development fees went up last year. But they're not the way you're thinking, or actually, you need to go ahead and start talking to some of our development folks, and planning folks, and getting the kind of real deal on what your project is going to cost, as opposed to what you think it's going to cost compared to last year. So I think more information is always better. And this is exactly the group of folks you should, you should have that information. Yeah, I'm not saying do anything about it. I just like it'd be nice as this group, but it's something that can and may affect economic development. And it's like, this would be a good group to hear that information about it. We can certainly talk with Scott McDonald and talk about bringing something back to the board. We also have something that you all may not be aware of. And we can email out afterwards. But we have open counter. I think Christina's presented this to the board, but not all board members have seen it, depending on when you came on. But you can go on and you set what your business is. You can check zoning, you can estimate all your permits and fees using that. So we could even use a business that we did last year. And this year, internally, we can provide that with for you as well, the same business, Christina can do that. She's our staff liaison for open counter. With the result being a straight difference between if you had applied for it prior year versus this year, what the true difference in the as long as open counter has been updated. I know they've been working on it as soon as it's complete. It's not already complete. We can check on that. I would definitely be in favor. Just good morning. We don't have a agenda posted for this. I know the deliberation is really focused on can we bring this back? I would be in favor of that presentation. And also add in the impact view discussion, which has not come to council. That I would request for that to be the roadway. Yes. Mr. Chair, someone along the same lines is there. I just noticed one of the the businesses that we had approved supporting on the square is already closed. Do we ever do a perform a comparison? I'm gonna make a slight observation about that. So that's the downtown economic development task force grants. The key there is that those are for the buildings and not for the businesses. So for that very reason, the money doesn't go to the business and stays with the building. So the upgrades to the facade stay there no matter who comes back, they have to spend the money and get reimbursed if they do what they want to say. That's the property owner, not the business, the proposed business. It's the property owner. In that case, in theory, having done those upgrades to that building should help them get somebody else in there too. Thank you. Good point. That's a good observation. That's specifically why it's building not on business. So we're, I think we agreed to add that to the one of our agenda items in the coming months after December, January. Yes, we'll definitely look into it. Any other discussion? I would like to take this opportunity to invite all of you to get tickets for our December quarterly luncheon. When you mentioned other communities, the CFO of the Dallas Cowboys will be our featured speaker. And he's going to talk about why organizations like his choose the communities that they did. Who's that? I can't remember his name right now. I knew you would ask me. My name is Jones. It's not Jones. Agent of Jones. Cool. That's CPA, buddy. When is that? It is December 12. Any other observations for the good of the order? Call the meeting adjourned. Thank you for being here today.