Apr 15, 2026 Economic Development Partnership Board on 2026-04-15 11:00 AM (SPECIAL CALLED)

All right good morning welcome to the meeting of the economic development partnership board is April 15th Wednesday April 15th we've established a quorum so I call the meeting to order at 11 a.m. I begin with presentations from members of the public comments from the public so now we're going to start with the first item calling out so we'll now begin with the item for consideration item A EDP 26-008 consider approval of minutes of the March 11th 2026 economic development partnership board regular meeting are there any questions about the March minutes I got a motion from Rick I got a second from Jeremy Fikes with those can I get a move on the item B EDP 26-009 consider approval of the minutes of the March 23rd 2026 economic development bar report economic development partnership board retreat special called meeting from Lucy second from Lee Ramsey all in favor all right move on to item C EDP 26 - oh one oh consider approval of the minutes of the March 24th 2026 EDP be retreat special call meeting are there any questions about those minutes and I get a motion I got a motion from Amy take a second second from Vicki bird all in favor all right any opposed all right we've got the minutes out of the way go to item D EDP 26 - oh one receive a report hold a discussion and consider recommending approval to City Council regarding an incentive agreement for Tio sky for a sales tax rebate on construction materials up to ninety four thousand five hundred dollars a job-based grant up to two hundred and twenty seven thousand dollars and an ad valorem rebate on real property improvements and business personal property up to four hundred ninety thousand five hundred and sixty four dollars and a headquarters grant up to fifty thousand dollars under chapter 380 of the local government coach chair recognizes Brittany Saltillo to present at this I'm here to present an overview of Creteo skies incentive application we first started working with the company back in September 2025 when they reached out to inquire about the size we heard back from the company in December January timeframe but they wanted to move forward with one of the sites in addition they were also exploring another side in the DFW multiplex we hosted them for a site visit in February 2026 and now today joining us for the company is Ellen McCarthy she's a senior vice president of global government affairs and they have contracted with KPMG and Bob Maida is also here he's a tax managing director and he's here to represent the company it started the company was founded in 2025 and they're undergoing rapid growth there are currently exploring two sites in the DFW Metroplex to assemble a large-scale manufacturing facility that will enable the company to establish itself as a dual-use producer for the autonomous aerial robotics the manufacturing facility will design produce tests and refine the company's autonomous aerial robotics product offerings here in the final stages of closing the acquisition of multiple operating UAS assets in the very near future and they're strongly capitalized with initial funding raised through existing partners and additional funding commitments from outside investors the company is also in the process of evaluating options for their future global headquarters providing a central hub for ongoing corporate acquisitions product management and strategic planning within the next few years project overview the autonomous aerial robotics industry is rapidly growing and the country has an immediate requirement for American-made at scale UAS the company is a dual-use grown manufacturer that wants to focus on both military and commercial markets and say they will focus on defense security inspections agriculture law enforcement and search and rescue logistic and construction industries the company is planning on leading the industry by creating the first Western at scale unified intelligence and actuation platform that is monetized through services and they're uniquely positioned to win with its seasoned leadership team so Scott wine is a current CEO of the tail sky Scott is also the former CEO of Polaris which is the recreational vehicle manufacturer he served with the company from 2008 to 2020 becoming chairman in 2013 and during which he transformed the company from a 1.9 billion dollar company into nearly seven billion dollar global power sports leader he also led the company through significant growth including major acquisitions portfolio diversification and expansion into international market the company also has representatives from that formerly were employed by Boeing the chief technology officer and they also have expertise in AI autonomy and advanced manufacturing Ellen McCarthy she has experience in government relations during her career she was a former chief of global affairs for Polaris which is how she knows Scott and she has secured over 200 million dollars in congressional funding throughout her career and she was a former Senate Finance Committee adviser she's also retired a retired Marine lieutenant colonel the company plans on leasing a facility at 3411 Mingo Road building number two the building is a little over 165,000 square feet and it's at the 280 288 3d logistics part they will make several improvements to the building including adding a manufacturing floor and office space build out additional facility modifications climate control systems and adding power distribution upgrades it will also add manufacturing equipment tooling assembly fixtures testing equipment and other personal property within their incentive application the company estimates to create 23.5 million dollars in total capital investment 12.6 million dollars in improvements 10.9 million dollars in business personal property and a total of 258 jobs currently the building is evaluated at 16.4 million dollars with the estimated improvements in business personal property we estimate it will create 18.8 million dollars for a total of 35.2 million dollars after the improvements are completed current city revenue is at ninety eight thousand dollars with the building with the improvements we estimate an additional hundred eleven thousand dollars for a total of two hundred ten thousand dollars our incentive proposal to the company is a 65% chapter 380 at alarm rebate for eight years on real property improvements in business personal property with a cap of four hundred ninety eight thousand five hundred and sixty four dollars a 50% sales tax rebate for construction materials based on their ability to I'm sorry the cap of ninety four thousand five hundred dollars it's based on their ability to obtain a Texas direct pay permit and it's a one-time rebate in addition we're offering a job-based grant up to 227 thousand dollars and a headquarters grant up to fifty thousand dollars and the headquarters grant will be provided if they choose it as a location as our headquarters and we're providing them up to two years to make a decision fingers crossed the company will hire a variety of positions including production and quality test technicians supply chain warehouse staff production engineers facility staff controller and HR personnel and a plant manager with executive staff the average salary for those positions is seventy eight thousand seven hundred eighty seven dollars and currently we at their last jobs ET report that we ran is sixty four thousand one hundred dollars which is the Denton County average salary the company will also provide health and television and a 401k match which is something that we ask on our scoring matrix and going back to the job grant proposal we estimate that we are funding up to a hundred and twenty three jobs with a cap of two hundred twenty seven thousand so for jobs sixty that are funded sixty five thousand to over a hundred thousand dollars that's ninety eight jobs and then we added a didn't resident residency bonus for twenty five jobs up to twelve thousand five hundred at five hundred dollars per job on the economic impact report the net benefits lesson centers estimate is nine hundred fifty thousand seven hundred fifty five dollars but the city would generate over a ten-year period for the county it's four hundred eleven thousand and the school district is a little over one million the rate of return for the project is twenty point six percent and the payback period is four point six years benefits of this project is this will serve as a catalyst for additional UAS opportunities and didn't we just posted a mobility summit that focus on mobility and we think that this would be a great segue to open up more opportunities to recruit similar companies this is also within our strategic plan under connectivity or transportation and logistics this also will create additional research partnerships and employment opportunities with UNT, UTW, and NCTC and there's potential to test some of their technology at the Dent Enterprise Airport or UNT's UAS test center so our staff recommendation is a chapter 380 abalone rebate on real property improvements and business personal property at 65 percent up to eight years with a cap of four hundred ninety eight thousand five hundred sixty four dollars a 50% sales tax rebate for construction materials up to ninety four thousand five hundred dollars a job based grant up to 227,000 and headquarters grant up to 50,000 and Ellen and Criteo Skye they're a bit of a rush to move forward so they can finalize the site and so we are proposing taking this to City Council next week on Wednesday so by the time we posted this presentation we weren't able to have we were able to have a draft agreement we do have some of the performance measures that will require for this incentive as an additional slide but I just wanted to state that any questions you go back to the salary in benefits slide and you said the average in Denton is 64,000 right so these are good paying jobs with benefits up to 200 was it hundred or up to 225 jobs is that the other spot probably higher closer to 300 I was really conservative in all of my estimates our capital investment says 23 million it'll be somewhere between 25 and 50 million we anticipate jobs closer to 300 but I didn't want to overestimate anything no appreciate the transparency there thank you I just wanted to get that on the record yes ma'am I'm on the and just forgive me if you explain this the economic impact report over ten years slide you've got salaries there and then it says fifty seven thousand eight hundred and thirty six average what is that reference yes so that includes all the positions that are proposed so what happens is with the economic reports it includes indirect jobs that are created so that can include small businesses that hire more employees waiters and waitresses to supply potatoes guys employees or maybe their additional suppliers and so that's estimating the potential salaries that go into that average wage okay so it's a little bit lower but yeah so it's not the current average wage and it's not the anticipated average wage for the company correct okay just want to make sure and then can you talk about you know it's a lot of people to hire are they going to be building are they working on the software what is it that these what kind of positions are these I want to thank Clay and Brittany for working with us over the past several months and Elena Glassman from congressman Jackson's office is here so thank you so I want to start by explaining because we're a newer company but we're not a traditional startup and I think that will feed into your question about how are we going to hire 250 to 300 people in the next couple of years so we've spent the past couple of years looking at over 200 drone companies UIS companies we've identified six that we're acquiring in the next two months and those are operating businesses with revenue we're going to create the manufacturing hub and integrate those businesses here in Denton we funded the initial 50 million dollars for our business from partners of our business we have another 350 million dollars that we are raising through equity and debt so we're very well capitalized we have existing drone manufacturing that we're bringing here to integrate and leverage the various technology and systems into our platforms so the jobs we are in the process we've interviewed several plant managers and plant engineers we have a plan for who we want to hire and need to hire I'm excited about UNT when I was here a few weeks ago I went there and I met their head of engineering and saw their UAS test facility outside so we think Denton is a great place to you know in the Denton area is a great place to find talent and hire so that's one of the reasons that we found Denton to be appealing especially for the UAS market and we're looking at in your question about are we building a new plant no we we found a box so 3411 Mingo Drive is a logistics building we have a general contractor lined up I have a couple of architects I've got to decide which one to use we're going to build a third a two-story 30,000 square foot office space the rest is going to be planned for you know as you can see the wars in Ukraine and Saudi Arabia there's an urgent need for a robust sovereign American UAS manufacturing base and that's our mission Scott wine a former Naval Academy graduate me retired 20-year retired Marine to war veteran Bam Bam Smith Robert Smith 30-year Navy seal you know we're very focused on Department of War we will sell civilian to the civilian world commercial world as well but we feel there's a mandate to be a premier American manufacturer of drones today the number one manufacturer drones is Chinese company and we are focused on building a Western supply chain base we also are leveraging AI will be an AI native company and that doesn't mean eliminating jobs it means working more efficiently whether it's hiring whether it's supply chain whether it's the management of your business we're integrating that at the very ground level does that answer your question yes so it's mainly logistics as opposed to the manufacturer manufacturing we're acquiring the logistics building which is like a blank slate we're building the manufacturing in that site as well as the office space for our engineers and for our tests there's two acres adjacent to this facility that assuming the FAA approves it will do some tests some of our testing there later today I'm meeting with the municipal airport to see if we can do some drone testing at the airport as well but it's not logistics it's manufacturing it's development there's a lot of software that goes into these the drone itself is like the bus and then you have to build the frames and that's going to happen here in Denton as well and if I may just follow up so I'm assuming that from what from what you've said you've looked very seriously at Denton and I assume that part of your decision-making has to do with the proposed incentives and what you are hoping that are granted here today important part of our decision yes okay just wanted to make sure that we were it's that and you know just like the partnership that Brittany and Clay have showed us and even Congressman Jackson's office you know visiting UNT they're excited to have us here too so I feel like it's a welcoming community for business when I found out I took this job at Criteo Sky I knew how to spell drone but I didn't really know anything about drones right but I reached out to Congressman Jackson's office I was like if you were to manufacture UAS in Texas and you're just where to go and they're like good and Brittany gave us a list of potential properties we also have been looking at North Richland Hills there's one site that we've identified there that would work for us and as far as any security concerns I assume that that is all built in as far as any considering the nature of what you'll be doing we'll have a secret level manufacturing section for our defense yes and and appropriate protocols to make sure those those systems and if you know and if you don't you know don't feel put on the spot but what are you looking for in determining a location for your headquarters here in the United States so I think Texas we're looking at Texas I mean we've decided up front Texas is a good place it's very favorable for industry so we're looking at Texas no other states I didn't apply for the attack because you know you've got to say you're looking somewhere else so business favorable environment we want to make sure we can hire people right that's gonna hire 300 people in the next two years so we need we need a place where there are qualified educated talented people and this is a location where you can do that we're focusing on the Dallas area and I honed in on debt because of reasons I explained did I answer your absolutely and thank you so much for letting me continue with a few questions no I mean that's why I came I think from Virginia this morning don't put this in the minutes like my own I slept through two alarms well thank you very much I just wanted to tell you all that our city is so unique and so cool but the thing about your location is in my district so I am excited to see that not only are we excited about our downtown area and north west area you know everything's going with everything's going north with you all being over there you're gonna help drive more interest over to our eastern sector that's one thing that appealed to me as well is there's more space it's a little more open rather than having our manufacturing site in a heavily industrialized area there's more space so that's that's really cool thank you all for that consideration the other thing is so we're the city council is meeting on I'll be here for that meeting all right so we say yes for you how long will it take from a yes vote to get to a point where you are now hiring and settled in what do you all think about so if you're a general contractor we haven't signed a lease yet you know but we're talking with the landlord once we sign a lease and get occupancy approved certificate of occupancy the plan is put a curtain up so we can put a manufacturing line up immediately and just start on one of our one of our systems we already have orders lining up even though we you know our partners that we're acquiring as far as up and running and like full speed ahead Gordon Lighthizer is the general contractor I'm talking to they said by the end of fall so be quick you know speed is our middle name number two there are four to five hundred members of the North Texas University Drone Club and number three similar patrol is a consumer of drums we fly for FEMA during disasters and we cannot fly anything but a u.s. manufactured because the Chinese are monitoring the other the system so when we're flying for FEMA which we do extensively we're really limited on what we can do because we don't have enough u.s. manufacture drugs one of the drugs we're acquiring flies and hurricanes or tornadoes and that's good to know I'm glad they will stay in place and we're not a venture capital firm we're about aggregating and growing so we will keep those businesses in place and continue to invest in them but also invest in our make all our manufacturing here what's happened with a lot of these drone companies it's fractured industry they have you know a couple of tables in their manufacturing room and they can't build scale so this would be a credo to those this would be this would be this is where we would manufacture to scale and quickly yeah Kim thank you for being here thank you for having me do you have any projections on how much of your business model or business revenue will be based on federal government contracts probably about 60 to 67 percent just looking ahead five years ten years what are you looking for as a community that we would say hey you know this is an industry that I think is at the it doesn't sound like it's the beginning but it's the beginning because it's fractured so so what does a community like us does to prepare on the growth and expansion and the direction that you guys are going and I'm talking to universities but just curious about the future employment the future development like what is it that we can partner and say hey you and T here's opportunities for your students hey here's here is here's the manufacturing jobs here's the technical analysis we want in the future yeah so I think part of that is you know advanced manufacturing software system integration they're not just assembly jobs these are high-tech positions so as the UAS ecosystem grows and advances those jobs will as well my CEO and we also have somebody who's on the ground in Ukraine and we're looking at a few companies to partner with there as well what they've told me every two weeks there's advancements in the in the drones right so it's not like we're gonna put in a few screws or we're assembling a couple of things this is a an industry that's growing and advancing at a very rapid place at pace and I think the jobs well does that answer your question it does it does and it's harder it's a crystal ball that is not clear right now because of what you just said because my brother was in Ukraine you know doing medical work since the beginning he's like everything is changing so fast it war is not what it used to be notice everything else I remember more story in the Marine Corps you know all of a sudden we started learning how to fight urban warfare and that was a big thing and then when I went to Iraq the second time the IEDs were everywhere and that was a whole new way now it's drones you know we want to make sure our service members are safe and our country is safe so I think that's an important mission for our company I don't want to sound like like a goal or anything like that but I think it's important and I think being in debt and being in a place where we can really partner with community is important for our success ready to go back to the recommendation I just want to make sure if you're done with me I'll get out of the spotlight everyone's done asking questions I think we are thank you so much for your input and thank you for visiting us all right so guess what I'm gonna look for is a motion to recommend or approve the stated so I got a Rick's bailing me out here all right I got a motion from Rick can I get a second all in favor I I any of any opposed all right motion passes thank you very much and thank you thank you coming all right we're gonna move on to working session call item PDP 26 - oh one to receive a report and hold a discussion regarding Greek business program and recent sustainability award winner recognized Karen for burner thank you thank you yeah as I said I'm Karen burner I'm the sustainability engagement specialist with the city of Denton's environmental services and sustainability department and I'm just gonna talk to you today a little bit about the green business program and the awards that we gave out in 2025 so today's focus we're gonna go over a back a little bit of a background of the program and an overview and what it means to participate in the program then we're gonna talk about awards and recognitions including our 2025 awards that we gave out with a project of your highlight from our friends over at ESAP they're gonna come up and tell us about so with the background there was a pilot program launched in 2019 with nine participating businesses that pilot ended in 2020 and then the program was put on hold through the pandemic and through some staff changes but we did have a full program relaunched in January 1st of 2025 and we've now completed that first calendar year a small overview of the program it it's meant to encourage sustainability within businesses and provide resources to highlight or initiate green practices so basically we want to meet businesses wherever they're at and provide some guidance and resources for any sustainability goals that they might have or if they have corporate sustainability goals help them reach that area within their local businesses here in Denton and the focus areas are water conservation, energy conservation, transportation, materials management which just means diversion from the landfill so recycling, composting, things like that wildlife, community resilience and it's also meant to be an opportunity for businesses to network and collaborate with each other to gain to increase sustainability throughout the city so some of our some of the things that were done within the green business program this past year this picture on your left is actually it's a lunch and learn that we did it out at Peterbilt so we know that some of these employees they do reside within the city of Denton and we'd like to get information out to them and we do provide workshops but they're on weekends and after in the evenings and we know not everyone's going to be able to come out and get to those places so we want to come to them where they're at give them some free food so nice incentive to come and listen and then for this class we talked about the city of Denton sustainability incentives we have so people who live in Denton are able to take advantage of those and then on the other side that's at ESAB so we like this program to be a collaboration not only do we want to provide resources for the business but we can help each other so over at ESAB they are actually a registered wildlife habitat within the National Wildlife Federation's community wildlife habitat program and that is a goal that the city is working on to become a certified wildlife habitat city so ESAB gets this beautiful area that brings in wildlife it helps Denton critters as well as gives the employees a beautiful spot to sit and look have their lunch have their breaks all of that and we did get the Bird City to Texas designation as well this year and so having the things like the bird houses that they have all over their campus is perfect so for awards and recognition within the program it's based on three categories and it's by employer size so the small businesses are 1 to 75 employees a medium is 76 to 300 and a large is 301 above and they can win awards in resource conservation which includes energy water materials management transportation and then wildlife and community resilience so in the end we can have up to nine awards if we have all three employer sizes for all three categories and then we also have project of the year which is one award for any size business based on the sustainability project that they are proudest of that year basically at the end of the year we have a little report they can fill out for whatever they've done and send it in and then we decide from there who wins project of the year so for 2025 he said one the wildlife and community resilience award they also got the resources managed conservation award and project of the year and then over on the side we have Peter belt who won the transportation award for 2025 and for our project of the year I'd like to invite our representative from east of up to talk about it a little bit well firstly let me say thank you for having us over here my name is Bruce I'm the senior director of operations for North America from the south Kimberly Smith I'm the environmental health and safety manager so it's been exciting just being here and just reflecting back because it goes back to my time but Kim and I started I started as a plan manager there and then we started working on all of these programs and then just goes back flashback memories like wow the last few years what the difference we have made but this one is very close and dear to us because when we started having working from Michigan moved into Texas not used to the necessarily the weather but started seeing our employees going through a lot of these cases of water and then used to go to get some of these sashes that we would give it to our employees that we went through these a lot of things that we went and then maybe one is like God what are we doing for sustainability and we start looking the number of plastic that we throw around as well and I will leave it to Kim who came up with the solution because this is where I think having a good DHS partner and she understanding the core of our business and more importantly taking care of our people it was important to our community so you want to go ahead and talk but how you went about getting this water station yeah actually I just did some work with research on the water stations and this fit our facility so we have eight stations and they're just around our entire facility but not only that we provide water belt bottles for our employees so our employees love this we give them a what new water bottle every year and like you can see we say actually saved 77 of water last year so it's it's huge and not only from a sustainability point view but also from employees our top thing is to take care of our employees and they like it what's important is they taking that message to their homes so we started giving out yes as companies we do do the branding in terms of our own ESOP logo bottles and everything but they started taking back to their homes teaching the kids as a company we're using this as a best practice across all the other sites that we have in North America in fact I'm responsible for Mexico too so if we started this program there as well try to spread anything that we can do sustainability you don't need to reinvent the wheel something simple as this it should help our employees and help our earth let's go for it so this is something that we take pride in and we thank you for the city of danger to come in it was a surprise to be one day they walked into this and hey you got your awards like wow okay we didn't realize that but it once again thank you so much for the opportunity well and if there's anything else you folks want to know or understand even with the other project that could be briefly touched upon LED is a big thing saving energy we also use the local community help like French East landscape of which helps us in drip irrigation we also use nonprofit organization so this birdhouse that you see it's a foundation USA we actually use them and every month they're giving us 20 pounds of bird feed to support the natural habitat in addition to that our employees are very big we support the local church of we raised about 12,000 pounds of pantry food I think it was good Easter out country is what we did that daily bread a big proponent we go about doing that there's an animal shelter I'm a big animal guy but love to try to do these animal essential drives so we try to give them all of this stuff so anything within the community we're doing here so again it's all about community we can hear come here and I can talk to you but presentations even there was margins it's all about community is that something that is near and dear and that's what we need for the future on our generations to come and that's near and dear to us at least if the folks in Indian as well as in peace up so again thank you for the opportunity but you are more than welcome to come and visit us whenever you want to see anything else that we have in our facility thank you thank you congratulations it's really great and the first first annual project of the year something be very proud of so congratulations again well thank you all right we're now going to move on the item EDP 26 - oh 13 receive various reports we've had two downtown economic development committee meetings since the last report a couple of months ago particularly exciting I want to thank Christine Portello and her team the group is very engaged and one of the reports was how have we been doing giving incentives and what does that mean to the community and the return on our money is what well over 200% I suggest to the team that maybe we discuss at a future point time how we go to the council and ask for some more money we've been doing such a good job of putting it in the downtown community and getting a return on the money to try to help people in the downtown area attract people to the downtown area so that is a future agenda item but I want you to know the people on that committee are very engaged I'm privileged to be representing this board to work with any questions for Rick again kudos thank you so much for what you do quarterly directors report on the Brittany all right we had a very productive q1 this year in the news didn't was featured a variety of times in multiple news outlets Tetra pack broke ground on their 22 million dollar expansion their u.s. and Canada headquarters which is based in didn't and it's aimed at enhancing food and beverage product development the project will add a product development center and a customer innovation center doubling capacity to support rapid small batch prototyping so we're very excited about that and then Germany based Arvato announced that they are leasing a 270,000 square foot facility and didn't as well this actually got a lot of likes on our LinkedIn page they are let's see there's data center supplier supporting inbound and outbound flows of sensitive hardware and complex like love delivery services for active and under construction data centers not actually data centers are supplier for data centers and then this now featured us and two times during the first quarter this first article was really helpful we received a lot of leads after it came out it's called didn't aims to go from the FW's best-kept secret to next boomtown did anyone get a chance to read it by chance well I'll send it to you after this meeting and we were also featured in an article talking about life sciences and how DFW is aiming to recruit more other companies in this field I got one quote that says we have land that's it I want anyone that's reading this to know that they should look at us if they're going to expand their life science company and of artists is a gift that keeps on giving we continue to see articles that future Novartis and other expanding to didn't partner events the team attended the economic development partnership coaster event that Dave put on thank you Jamie we also attended the American Cancer Society's bright edge Texas Innovation Summit this is how that Pegasus Park in Dallas if you're not familiar with Pegasus Park they're also a life science hub that's funded by private private donations and corporate sponsorships they've been a great job landing some of the startups in this field from all over the world and so the American Cancer Society they have a division that supports cancer treatment startups so they they actually fund some of those businesses which is pretty cool and then we also did the stalls ribbon cutting this company has gone over beyond to support local vendors and they wanted to make a big show for the groundbreaking so I know several of you were able to attend they got two large long horns to represent Texas they had the contract of the local vendor they had all types of food and it was a great event and if you see Brian Hatmaker the CEO please don't thank you for all of his efforts because he really wants to support the community the next day after the salts event he came to our Mobility Summit and he presented on why didn't and so he had a really great a few great quotes according to council member Jill Destory and so we wanted to make sure that we share those I don't want I wish I didn't write him down I wish I could share him today I it's been a lot of things going on but that was a great event so we also our Mobility Center the remote mineral Pearson event and we had over 200 registrants it was a pretty great event considering it was our first time putting it on together and then this was a partnership with UNT the economic partnership and multiple other stakeholders dr. Terry pull and actually volunteered to pay for the entire event through NSF grant that he applied for previously which was amazing and this was actually his recommendation so he knew that we wanted to start this tech ecosystem and start recruiting some of the mobility companies in and so this was just the first step of hosting it so now we feel like we have a better path forward of how we want to maybe structure our incentive policies and board retreat I took a good photos of our work sessions I have a lot more by the way I just want to feature all of them and thank you so much for spending eight hours of your week in March to talk to us and provide feedback and collaborate I think it was a great retreat it was a first retreat that I think that economic partnership work out in quite some time and but we have really great board members and my team and I left thinking you were confident about the results and just the overall feedback that you provided so thank you and I think that we have a good path forward as well right we felt confident that we feel more aligned we felt more alive than what we thought we didn't know what we were going to hear from the retreat but it was a great event all right partner events that our department led Federal Reserve met with UNT and actually coordinated with UNT, TWU they hosted a get-together at Docu Stadium I attended in the morning and we're multiple business stakeholders including some in the room were in attendance and then during lunchtime Chris and Polita our main strip manager hosted a downtown tour for the Federal Reserve so their pictures in the top right Matilda hosted a no more grow more workshop and this featured a free tool through the Denton library called reference solutions and it's for market research we also attended several UNT tours at the media arts facility in the UAS testing center and then zip line I don't know if the video will work we assist it well I'm gonna let you watch this first the volume work so we assisted zip line with their launch at the Walmart on University Street so zip line is a different type of drone there are all types of drones as we're learning right and their drone in particular will go over the destination dropping point and they'll drop the package via a stream which is pretty cool because in my mind I thought I'll just see a regular drone that just drops the package in total but they dropped the package by a stream which is different to see so we helped them typically they partner with municipalities and to feature City Council members and receiving a gift so my your husband brought his daughters along so that was a fun time all right trainings workshops and conferences two most notable trains that we attended Vanessa Sparsa she is all of our board secretaries for economic development she attended the Texas Economic Development Council basic training workshop so we're very thankful for all the help that she provides us and I'm most proud to say that all of our team has attended a basic economic development course because we believe that if you're not learning you're not growing you're not growing you're not innovating if you're not innovating you're not competing we want to be competitive with other cities and then also Erica Sullivan our team served as a panelist on a webinar called cities that model good economic development transparency you know Erica she's one of those organized people that you've ever met but that I've ever met actually and so this was perfect for her to represent the department all right going to our Q1 recruitment stats we have 25 active projects in the queue this seems to be our average running total we had 10 new leads for the quarter that came from a variety of sources we had two city incentive applications that came through our office we also hosted five recruitment visits and 14 leads were reclassified so those went from active projects to reclassified those either went to cold or lost or they transferred to business support the good news is that we only lost three and then recruitment outreach a chance Clay Parker will reach out every month via email to targeted industries via email and so he had reached out to 266 leads for downtown we have four very visits for new downtown grant leads and then for leads that were lost they're either not moving forward with the project or two that went cold and then we have 20 recruitment outreach attempts our high stats so we received 18 from the governor's office and Dallas Regional Chamber we submitted on 12 we did not submit on 8 and we didn't have any leads converted unfortunately out of the ones that we did submit we had five point two billion dollars in potential capital investment and then a potential of 8700 jobs and so the majority of the leads came from the governor's office then I will hand this off to Matilda we then talk about music and film we had a nice I would say a nice little break in quarter one so not as many permits that applications that I received but I've been working a lot on internal projects to better our film program especially working with Scott on a new film ordinance I attended the media arts career kickstart so talking to a lot of students about their next steps after graduation and then fine arts theater announcer tentative opening in August so Kristen and I have been working with them on several different projects related to the theater and their impact on downtown as well as film and then Brittany and I did submit one RFI for film which is kind of exciting and new foray into a different industry that we normally target for our eyes and then music there is a Denton band called Smothers that is in the jambaloo music prize aiming to win $20,000 which musicians can use $20,000 I'll just say it like that so it's kind of a local competition they're DFW based bands but jambaloo is a regional music festival hosted by jambaloo and then Mullen and Mullen law firm so they have concerts for about a week straight at different venues within Dallas and Fort Worth last year they did have Andy's venue in Denton participate but since that closed they were not in Denton this year but they might come back I had some conversations with them and then we've just been working with Dallas music office on some potential initiatives as well learning from them and seeing what maybe we could implement in Denton so kind of slow on the permit side and the interactions they have with external people but we're very busy on the internal side of working on programming. Okay upcoming events we have a Denton job fair tomorrow and attending Jamie Adams with EDP and Christina Davis on our team along with the United Way what we're solutions have been working hard to put this together and so this year they decide to get a little bit creative and they're hosting mini master classes they will be presented by UNT and NCT career coaches and so the titles are aspire to be hired leveraging social media in your job search optimizing your job search and tell me about yourself creating the effective elevator pitch because they found that last year that some of the candidates were probably needed some help right and so they're offering these free classes which is great. Right now there's 46 employers that have signed up and they've stated that they will create over 1,600 jobs. There's 1,600 jobs available I should say. Matilda and Clay will attend the EarthX conference sustainability conference in Dallas and then the team will attend a getting started on upward mobility tools and strategies for local leaders webinar. National Small Business Week is coming up if you have any ideas to celebrate let us know. Clay and I will be attending the exponential trade show in Detroit Michigan that's a UAS focused trade show and so we hope to bring some of those companies back and put them in touch with Criteo Sky and then on May 27 BizNow will host their first in county state of the market and so many of the news companies are wanting to move further north in future Denton and so which is great news. So I will serve as a panelist along with Greg Johnson with SVN. So if you want to hear me outside this meeting please register for that a bit. But most importantly Judge Eads he will be the keynote address for that event. Where is that by the way? Lakotian TV. Lakotian TVA actually. Yes we put them in touch and I don't know what they decided on. We're hoping on the NBC suites. Can we get an email to the board when there's more information? Thank you. If you have any suggestions let me know. I think they typically look for sponsorships so just throwing that out there. City Transitions. Sarah Hensley our city manager. She held her going away celebration on March 27 and so we're going to miss her. I put this picture of her on the top right. The shirt says HUB believer. So I first started working here we met with HUB early on and that's all she could say during the meetings. I'm a HUB believer. So we got her a custom-made shirt and Cassie Ogden is now our appointed interim city manager and so she's already hit the ground running. She served as a moderator during the Mobility Summit. She's featured in the bottom right and Christina Davis on our team she will be retiring in May. She's been with the city for nearly 20 years and so that will be a big change for us but she's seen a variety of changes directors over that course of 20 years. So we'll be hosting a retirement party for her which we will send to you via emails what we want to attend. And that is it. Any questions? Any questions for the staff? All right hearing none we're gonna move on to including items, announcements, and reminders. So first I'll ask the question. I have to read this for me. I got a smile on my face. Oh we have two. Oh future agenda items. Was that already on there? No, it's a separate item. I'm sorry. No, go ahead. Future agenda items. All right, so coming up on May 13th, we will have, we have a tentative guest speaker. I can't confirm until we confirm the guest speaker and based on our board report feedback, Vanessa Esparza, she served on the Dindy Young Professionals group. So she wants the leader, the chair, what is his name? Dan. Yeah, what's his role? He's pretty much the chair of the company. The chair to come and speak to the group to learn more about their goals for young professionals. We're excited about that. And that's it right now. Of course we have projects in the queue. It's a matter of time of getting them through the process. Thank you. Right now are there any questions? Alicia said she should have it by the time our May meeting comes around. With posting schedules, you never know. So it's May, June time frame. Any other questions, comments? Yes ma'am. I'm unopposed. So please come to my swearing-in May 12th at 2 p.m. in the council chambers. Yes, thank you. Anyways, everyone's welcome and I hope you can come. Thank you. May 12th. That's correct. Any other announcements, questions? Yes ma'am. I'm sorry. I need to call for my concluding items. I haven't done this before. I don't know what's going on. All right. Does the board have any other business to discuss or suggestions on what they wish to discuss in the next meeting? No, mine was going to be concluding items. Go ahead. I was just going to make an announcement. It was just going to be something to the lines of what Jill just announced. I'm not sure if we're in that area. We were concluding items. Yes. Well, I was just going to announce that to you all that, you know, this is my last meeting coming off the city council. And you know, you all know that I'm running for school board. So that's going to be a beautiful transition for me if I can, of course, receive the votes. So I'm excited about that. But as I was listening to all of these really cool things happening and you know what's happening to us with the quality of life piece and I'm speaking to our company here, it's just going to be so hard not to. I'm going to find some kind of way to stay in here, you know, stay in the midst of things. So I'm really looking forward to the growth that we're going to have before us. And I just thank everybody for all the support here in the last five years. Any other concluding items I apologize. I need two more cups of coffee. Does the board have any other business discuss or suggestions on what they wish to discuss in the next meeting. Hearing done, our next EDP meeting is scheduled to be Wednesday, May 13 2026 at 11am please let staff know if you're not able to attend the meeting and submit your notification of absence online. There's no other business, I will adjourn the meeting at 12pm. Thank you very much.