Sep 09, 2020 Economic Development Partnership Board on 2020-09-09 11:00 AM

Good morning it's Wednesday September 9th my name is Marty Rivers I will call the Economic Development Partnership Board to order thank you everyone for being here today we've got a few things on our agenda and we'll go ahead before we before we get started on that Jessica has some new folks that she would like to introduce yes so somewhere on your screen is the face of Dan Rosenfield so Dan has now been with us I think this is Dan's second week on the job and he is a new analyst in our department and so you will be seeing more of Dan in the future but I wanted to make sure that everyone had a chance to say hi and see his face and then I also want to acknowledge a special guest that we have in our meeting today so if Mayor Watts if you want to turn on your camera and join us briefly we have a little bit of a surprise for the board today well this might I hope this surprise doesn't me showing up doesn't ruin the board meeting no you know hey I tell you we've got a I've got a proclamation I want to read for Marty Rivers and I want to say a few words before and after I read it because these proclamations you know they're they're wordy they're legalese they're the same kind of words but I really just want to first thank you Marty for just the many years of service on the Economic Development Partnership Board I mean you've been a stalwart member you were for six years got off came back on and just your service to the community in this capacity has just been phenomenal and I think it's made a huge impact so I just want to take the time personally to thank you for that and I saw you lean back in your chair so I know you're getting you're getting a little bit uncomfortable but that's okay that's all right you're looking for votes now oh we can't we can't talk about that with city resources now Marty don't you know don't get me don't end it before it starts so anyway I want to read this proclamation then Jessica if it's okay I would just like to give the anybody on the on the board and who's on the call just an opportunity to share some of their thoughts as well if that's okay don't don't want to hijack the meeting but I think this is important to recognize people who people like Marty who really who really been just a great community leader for Denton so this is a proclamation by the mayor of the city of Denton whereas in recognition of Marty Rivers for his service and leadership to the Denton community and whereas mr. Rivers served on the Denton economic development partnership board of directors from 2006 to 2012 and then 2014 to 2020 and has served as chair and vice chair of the EDP board during his tenure and whereas mr. Rivers has also served on the downtown economic development task force including serving as chair the downtown Denton TURS board the Denton charter review committee the citizens bond review advisory committee and the zoning board of adjustments for the city of Denton and whereas mr. Rivers has tirelessly championed economic development and support of the Denton business community and whereas mr. Rivers has provided great benefit to Denton through countless volunteer hours in support of the city of Denton the Denton economic development partnership and the Denton Chamber of Commerce Denton economic development partnership board excuse me and the Denton chamber of commerce and whereas the city of Denton is extremely grateful to mr. Rivers for his selfless leadership and service to the city of Denton including his unmatched contributions to economic development and the entire business community in Denton now therefore I Chris Watts mayor of the city of Denton Texas do hereby declare and proclaim today September the 9th 2020 as Marty Rivers day in the city of Denton that's right and urge all citizens to recognize and honor the many contributions of Marty Rivers to the community and to the city of Denton so thank you Marty for just all your time and service and I and I'm sure that this will not be the last we see of you and you're in capacities of leadership for our community so I just that's all just give him a big warm round of applause so if anybody I just open it up and then I'll scoot on out after the comments but Marty again congratulations and thank you and when I looked at those dates I thought we've we've been serving about the same time in different capacities so I really do appreciate that because I know how how much time it requires and and how many times people catch you in public and talk to you about things that are going on so again thank you very much anybody want to comment and Jessica I'll let you sort of acknowledge people who who raised her hand I'll get on mute now counselor Briggs thank you yeah I know that we haven't served that long together in your long service of dedication but I have enjoyed serving with you that time that we have here I've learned a lot from listening to you and your questions and and you go beyond and above for our community and I appreciate that and thank you and thank you for making the city better for your dedication to do that John a good morning I would just like to extend to Marty Rivers a great big thank you thank you thank you I have really enjoyed working with you these many years and one of the things I like about you the most Marty is you always come prepared and I know on some of these boards and commissions it is kind of easy just to kind of just come in and do your do but you really go beyond the the the required measure and you always want to do a good job and I just commend you for that and it's for me it's just been an honor to work with you and wishing nothing but success as you go to your next board thank you Jill I just want to say I've served with Marty Rivers and a couple of different capacities and some of the words that come to mind when I think of Marty Rivers is smart passionate loyal honest and humble and I have asked him to step up where he has already paid his dues he has already served his time to be someone who has thought of as a pillar of this community and yet he always answers I want to do what we need to do no matter what capacity that is in and his humbleness has always hit me right where it counts as something that is important in a leader I want to say that I don't think the city of Denton would be as good of a place to live without Marty Rivers and I know that I will never be able to repay the goodness that he has shown in helping me in my roles and in help helping educate me where he has been before and I have not and so I just want to say on behalf of your friends your family and the community you are very much appreciated and we are all in a better place and we love you Marty did anyone else ready to move on yeah I'm already real quick I want to echo and thank the mayor for the proclamation and just echo what everybody said as a fellow banker I'm proud of what you've done for our community and you are a real asset so thanks for all you've done looking forward to many more years of your service thank you thank you Marty thank you mayor I appreciate that I've never been more surprised and then I'm fighting back tears it means a lot to me so thank you so wonderful you betcha you bet thank you for all the kind words I've enjoyed the ED board more than anything I think I've volunteered for just because of the work that we've done and and really to make the city a even better place than it is and I appreciate and I've many of you on this screen and people before me or my mentors and people we've worked with alongside a lot of different things and I'm just excited to be a part of it so thank you thank you so much I appreciate it thank you Marty congratulations thank you I probably still have to take out the trash at home when I get home tonight we'll have the proclamation delivered to you Marty we'll see if we can use that as an excuse to get out of that today that's exciting thank you so much we'll get on with our meeting going forward and our first item up for agenda is EDP 20-039 consider approval of the minutes from August 12th meeting entertain any motions we've got a motion for mark and a second from Jill any further discussion I will hearing that I'll go around the horn so to speak and ask for confirmations of for against I guess we didn't take a roll call when we got started forgot to do that all right Bob you're up on my list first Bob Ames is Jesse I'm John yes Tony Jill here we're voting this time on our minutes yes yes yes yes yes Jason yes mark Mark you in favor yes sorry in close first we can't hear you there you go I got a laptop yesterday I'm having issues so I'm a yes thank you so much appreciate that all right our next item is EDP 20-032 receive a report hold the discussion give staff direction on the economic development partnership and the proposed contract between the City of Denton and the Denton Chamber of Commerce right so some of you have already seen and/or participated in this presentation multiple times but I'm gonna go through it pretty quickly just to keep the partnership board apprised on what we have been working on so give me one second I'll pull up the presentation so as you know the city and the chamber have a ongoing partnership and where we divide responsibilities related to our economic development efforts and that partnership actually began in 1986 and that was the first version of the agreement and it's changed over time currently and the city provides funds for the administration of the chamber's Office of Economic Development and the primary responsibilities include the prospect generation activities marketing activities in support of the Small Business Development Center over the past few years the city and the chamber have worked together to improve the agreement and clarify roles and define responsibilities so this year the plan changed a little bit because we were going through the strategic planning process so throughout the past year as you know of course we've engaged stakeholders and drafted our new strategic plan which we will provide an update on the status of that later in the meeting but the strategic plan really became the new guideposts from which our strategies and our work plans are being developed so both for the chamber and the city cooperatively working through that implementation matrix that you all have received to determine what needs to be our focus areas going forward so just as a reminder of what are those underlying principles for the strategic plan and that includes core resiliency future focused inclusive growth entrepreneurial spirit and cultural vitality and we focused on three goals accelerating recovery in a post COVID environment fostering growth and strengthening community inclusion so with those things in mind and the strategic plan nearing completion that we started working towards aligning the partnership agreement with those goals and strategies so we focused on resetting those applications and evaluating the relationship in that new context and creating shared goals and objectives we also focused on increasing and improving communication between agencies in order to remove barriers to success and think that's really important and we'll talk about how we're going to do that a little bit differently moving forward but really we were focused on on transparency openness a sense of trust and really developing a singular team mentality instead of two separate offices working on the same project it's it's one team working together so we came up with this abbreviated matrix that you see here where we aligned the responsibilities based on the skill sets and the staff and and the major projects and priorities that each entity could perform and so we assigned primary responsibilities to each entity and that those include items that that team is fully responsible for so those are those cradle to grave projects that they might need assistance from another staff member but they're gonna serve as the primary project managers in those joint efforts those are projects where those entities are going to be the lead agency but they're gonna have to rely on the expertise or relationships or resources that the other might have access to and then lastly our cooperative efforts are the areas where we work together and that a project manager might get a sign from either or or there might be a cooperative group working together but really we thought this was a great breakdown to show how we can work together so we drafted a work plan that's included in your backup that really ties each of the efforts that we're doing over the next year and for that for the chambers agreement it ties all of those work plan items directly back to specific items in the strategic plan like I said that became the guidepost for how we were going to work towards implementation so we started by identifying what goals were important what focus areas were important and what efforts were those primary year one items in the implementation matrix that need to be needed to be addressed and so those are broken down and on each of the project areas you saw on this slide are broken down this way and so I'm not gonna go through all of those because it's quite a number of pages and it's pretty detailed but just to give you a sampling of how we worked through that process and why the agreement looks a little bit different is because of that focus on tying work plan items to the strategic goals and tasks and all similar process is being done on the city side as well for the city staff so in terms of defining success we're changing and how we're going to really define success before we had a very specific metric based approach and instead we want to adopt and focus on implementation of the strategic plan and to do that we have to recognize that it requires collaboration so we can't say that one person or one entity is fully responsible it's about a collaborative approach and then we want to focus on consistent engagement with the business community on decisions and policies that impact them and then we also want to hold ourselves and each other accountable for implementing the strategic plan and staying on task and staying focused on those goals and strategies and with that we have to maintain a set schedule of meetings check-ins and reportings that all kind of detail on the next slide and then the last two I think are incredibly important and that is open communication and frequent interactions excuse me and that's because like I said our goal is to function fully as one team not as two separate teams but one team together so we have to communicate and make sure that everyone knows who's doing what and why certain projects or assignments are being divided among the team and then the development aspect of this is that we have to stay focused on our key outcomes which are job creation talent retention a streamlined development process and that our economic development efforts benefit both the city and the chamber so in terms of documenting success like I said we're switching from a metric based approach to an outcome oriented approach metrics are still going to be tracked but they're not going to be required for compliance in the contract because like I said we're shifting that implementation strategy to focus on the strategic plan and the underlying goals and outcomes identified in the strategic plan so with that we've established regular dialogues to focus on that openness and collaboration and the establishment of a singular team so that includes weekly stand-up meetings between myself and the and Charlie or the new future VP of economic development with the chamber and monthly staff progress meetings we're putting together a work group that's going to include the chair of the partnership board utility staff city management the chamber president so that everyone is up to date on where we are on implementation it also includes a singular integrated quarterly economic development report that will be delivered to all of the entities and that work to support economic development so whether it's the partnership board city management city council or chamber board that reporting is going to be done really focused on not who's doing but what but what's getting done which is a very big difference in how we've reported in the past and then lastly we'll be scheduling semi annual presentations of implementation progress and economic development efforts to the city council in the chamber board if they're so interested just to make sure that everyone has an opportunity to see what's happening the changes that are going and really where we're focusing our efforts and our priorities we felt this was the best way to communicate the message so the agreement that you have in your backup is a one-year agreement that will begin October 1st 2020 ending September 30th 2021 it does include an option for a one-year extension if both parties agree and the funding mechanism is a little bit different chamber is going to have an established goal of raising a hundred and twenty five thousand in private contributions in the city will match a hundred and twenty five thousand and there is a clause in the contract that the city and the chamber agree to work together if that funding goal needs to be reviewed during the term of the agreement we wanted to make sure that we we set ourselves up for success and knowing that this is such a significant change in this particular agreement that we had the opportunities to sit back down together and talk about how how progress is going in terms of the fundraising as well and then lastly is that work plan gets adopted as part of the agreement which includes the schedule of meetings and reports so we'll be able to define and document how we're doing going forward and so our our goal today is to get the EDP rectus sorry to review the ED the contract with the EDP and get your recommendation and if it's a affirmative recommendation we'll move on to City Council and City Council will have the ordinance and agreement on the September 15th council agenda for consideration so with that I will stop sharing and open it up to questions if there are any I do know many of you have seen this and and heard this so okay no questions just a comment that I really love this I think that the one team shared goals is really great idea I'm excited about the the future of this relationship I think it's it's it's pretty exciting you know we have the strategic plan and the key focused areas all of those have been through council it's a document it's approved I think this is a fantastic way to go about this so I just wanted to put it out there that I'm pretty excited about this John one question and one comment I would like to say congratulations on such a wonderful document it's very impressive a lot of work has gone into it I can tell the the only question I had was was the hundred twenty five thousand from the chamber is that a doable goal every year I see Erica shaking her head okay so the previous contract called for seventy five thousand dollars and we had been raising depending on the year maybe eighty to eighty five thousand and so we the chambers got some work to do especially in light of the current environment but I think the consensus is with our new strategic plan once that gets adopted in a form and when we are able to hire a permanent vice president of economic development in place we're gonna have to go get after it and get the community involved and we think that'll that'll be very positive one of the skill sets that we're looking for in a new chamber staff person is is fundraising and and connections in the Metroplex so good point we got a lot of work to do and we think we're up to for the challenge thank you sir we knocking on your door saying put me down no yes I I didn't have a question but I just wanted to commend especially Jessica Erica and Charlie all of them are on this call this was not an easy task in light of COVID and the shortfall that the city is facing how to press forward as I sincerely believe we need to do with economic development and I just want to thank those three and city staff and the chamber volunteers that met weekly to hammer this out in light of where we are financially in light of the new strategic plan and the partnership and so and I appreciate mr. Baines your comment it was a lot of of work and coming together and really putting our community first and so I thought that that's a very valid question as far as can we raise that amount you know we are biting off a big chunk more than we normally have done however we all very deeply feel that this is something very important to the didn't community as a whole and so we are committed to doing what we can to max these goals and certainly would not take it on if we did not think it possible and in everyone's best interest so again just thank you especially to Jessica and Erica you guys really came to the table and made this work thank you Jill as chair of the Chamber of Commerce board would you tell them that it was presented to the board so this has been presented to our board of directors which are elected by the seven to eight hundred businesses members that we have here in the community and that has been approved and that buy-in is very important especially with the fundraising component that is included we've also had a past chair of the board update just this morning wherein we also went through what this relationship looks like what our obligations are just wanting to make sure that everyone knows what we are taking on in our partnership and coming to the table and working just like the city does towards economic development I also had the opportunity as well as Erica and Jessica to present this during a work session to City Council and as far as I can recall it was only positive as far as the changes that have been made in the progress that has been made and it's been I truly and I said this before to City Council I truly believe that we are entering a new era of our partnership and I think it just really opens up a lot of doors and in new ways that we can market our account so that we get the best businesses and the best jobs possible thanks anybody else have any questions or comments all right good job Jessica on the presentation that was very thorough appreciate everybody's hard work we'll move on to the we have to do a recommendation yes so that we can move it forward and have it on the council agenda next week we would appreciate a recommendation all right Keeley so would that need a a motion to approve the recommendation okay well I'll make it I'll second we have a motion for Keeley in a second from John any further discussion all right all those and well we got to go around the board again don't we all right Bob I John I Tony I Jill I Keeley yes Chris I Jesse I Jason I Mark and I'm an I as well all right motion carries thank you so much good job and I think Steve when I do we get Steve oh Steve moved on me down the bottom Steve I don't know this this whole Marty Rivers day I might have a different opinion on this thing I thank you you're picked your picture square moved in your pictures gone so I'm sorry I missed you there all right our next item is EDP 20 - 0 4 0 receive report whole discussion give staff direction regarding the nomination and selection of business recipients for the annual business awards so if the board remembers at our last meeting we discussed oh sorry Jill is this not if this is being broadcast should this part be broadcast since we're discussing who's going to be presented an award we have broadcast it in the past oh okay then no surprise for everyone okay so you all three people that are watching please keep this a secret so the board at our last meeting we discussed potential nominees so staff has gone through and done a lot of research on various contribution for the businesses if you'll also recall we talked about that we won't be holding the breakfast annual breakfast this year so we're going to work on a virtual award and so we're still working out the details on that but we're certainly going to make sure that the businesses are honored appropriately and so I'm going to share the screen now and I do apologize there is going to be a lot of information on your screen it's also in your backup it's probably easier to follow along if you have it available in the agenda packet I'm going to go ahead and bring it up so these were the nominees for the large and business awards Aldi Fisher 59 Jostens Peterbilt and US cold storage and all of those nominees met a number of the criteria that's required for the business award I'm not going to go through all of these in details and just to let everyone know again that they all of the businesses met some of the criteria and I'm going to scroll down and just so we can highlight some of those and some are newer businesses some have been headquartered here for some time and many local and a lot of local involvement in terms of leadership whether that's in in their field or in environmental stewardship and then certainly all of the businesses have very large tax value contributions being very large facilities and contributions to the community in that way and also have a very large number of employees and have significant investments in the community and so it's are there any questions and I'll bring it down just so I can see everyone questions related to the large businesses and I do have Erica and Christina here with me they did a lot of the heavy lifting on the research so if there are questions I may need to defer to them and you remind us who's won the last few years yes let me get to that page in mine so in 2019 the winner was embassy sweets and in 2018 the it was target distribution center in 2017 it was Victor Technologies 2016 Safran 2015 flowers baking 2014 Tetra pack the only previous winner that's on the current list was Peter built Peter built one back in 2008 but we received a nomination again this year as they had made a significant contribution to the cove it's fun to help support the community Kaylee I have a question about Fisher 59 and I could just be going off of memory because we we did hear a lot of these but under environmental and energy design I I thought they were building an LED facility or they were doing some type of a building that had energy efficient pretty strong energy efficiency and some technology in it am I am I mistaken they were when we initially talked to them they were looking at getting a bronze and lead uh-huh but I didn't find any information with them actually getting that oh okay okay well sometimes it takes a time to get the certification but that doesn't necessarily mean that it wasn't built in that way so I was just I was just curious that's because it wasn't on here so but thank you any other questions comments I didn't that was a lot of information that did you and I've read this and I've forgotten it did you show how much Peter built donated to the covert fund with United Way I don't think we have the exact number listening I was gonna say I bet we have someone on the call who knows the answer and Peter goes been here 40 years not 30 and we we converted our entire facility to LED lighting three years ago so Jill I'll make a comment as I will on on both of the sections I kind of went through and did my own scoring because I just I like numbers and as far as which you know boxes are ticked and what I'll say is first of all of course we are so lucky to have each of these employers in our city and are very grateful for all of the good work that they do what I found was that Peter built really stood out as you know as far as our criteria had far more ticks of the box than some of the others you know I think I brought up in the last meeting a concern about someone winning an award twice however we're looking at the past year and at least from what I'm seeing from the materials gathered it seems that Peter built has has led the way by far as far as what information we've been given anybody else have any comments or questions or does anybody want to make a motion that was sounded almost like one Jill Keely has her hand raised yes I I agree and with that and so I will make a motion to approve Peter built as the 2020 as the 2020 large large business further large business recognition award or business recognition award yeah I'll second that all right we have a motion by Keely and a second by John any discussion I'm gonna just comment that as long as I've been on this board Peter built has been the gold standard for the kind of companies that we want in Denton as far as their employment base their investment into the city and and to the people of the city they they're annually the largest group of folks corporately and individually to you not donating to United Way it is super involved and I can't think of a better company to do that so thank you Peter built and I will go back around the horn again starting with Bob for Peter build is that what we're voting yeah voting on here okay John yes Tony yes Jill I Keely yes Chris maybe you want to abstain Jesse I Jason I Mark all right and Steve yes and thank you and I'm an eye as well motion carries and so the next discussion to small business of the year yes and let me pull the evaluation criteria back up and move down to our small businesses so we received a number of nominations for small businesses and those included Armadillo Ilwerks bearded monk chestnut tree John Williams's businesses Eastside Oak Street Miss Angeline's as one go key pools just Saudi surf pro of Denton 10-1 cheese and United Way of Denton County and I will say that just Saudi was nominated and selected by the downtown and Economic Development Committee just so that this board knows that they have already been selected for the downtown award but same thing we had gosh a lot of things that we learned about these businesses in the process I think Christina was in charge of the small business research I'm not sure I'm looking to see if that's that's the case but we had a large large amount of community support and outreach by all of these businesses really helping each other out particularly this year many giving donations or working to find creative solutions for their employees throughout coved and and and keep their businesses not just going but some of them even really thriving in it in a new environment and many we have some newer businesses others that are a little bit more established and older that have been here for a while and all represent and leadership in in the community very involved we have board members I think Main Street chamber board members and Terz board members that are all represented by our downtown businesses and very successful in terms of innovation and and technology and how they create a unique environment many of the reasons people come to Denton are these businesses and their big draws in terms of tourism and visitors also have significant environmental stewardship from some of the businesses as well as helping to revitalize downtown things like Miss Angelin's opening in the past year that was renovation of an old house that was located next to Eastside and then because they're much smaller they don't have as much tax value contribution they're much smaller footprints but know that most of these businesses are also contributing sales tax or they're drawing visitors into our downtown area or other parts of the community and contributing in other ways that it's really hard to quantify and so with that I'm going to take down this list and and know that one's a lot of information as well so I do apologize for the tiny print and I hope everyone could read it oh and our path we've only done this award for one year and law as TACA was the first recipient of that award all right Keely comment I know that United Way is on here as a list of small business and it's different and I know that we allowed that to be on but although they've done magnificent things for our community and our city would not have made it through this time without them I feel like if we wanted to nominate them we should select a nonprofit organization and keep it in that category because we have a lot of small businesses here that are very deserving of this award at this year I believe so that would be my my first comment as far as the United Way I they should be recognized in some form or fashion for sure but I don't know that this award is the one to do it thank you I think Jill had her hand up next I know everyone's waiting with bated breath to hear what my scoring system revealed to me that I will share with you all but with my scoring system what I came up with was a clear finalist group and then what I think in my scoring system hit most of the boxes just to start the conversation what I found was that East Side Oak Street, Miss Angelina's, Serve Pro of Denton and United Way of Denton County definitely hit most of our criteria as far as what I was able to discern and in my scoring edged out of all of these again wonderful businesses and you're absolutely right these businesses are the reasons that people want to come here and live here but I found that Serve Pro ticks most of those boxes so that was my analysis and I'm looking forward to hearing everyone else's conversation thank you Jill John yes this is a this is a speak it with forked tongue comment Christina although I don't want to put you on the spot I really want to rely on your expertise you know you you were digging around in the in the depths so in your digging who really stood out to you and you know I'm just interested because I didn't spend as much time as you did I just wanted to get your impression well I think there's there's many great small businesses downtown they've all done an excellent job pulling through this time that we've gone through the last few months we did have a really outstanding job done by Jasadi I haven't had an opportunity to do much with Serve Pro but like Jill pointed out they do check a lot of the boxes thank you I take by your silence that was the end of your your comments okay thank you Jill I just have a comment I'm so sorry that I did want to make to the entire group as far as looking forward I did notice that six of the nine that are nominated are all like right around the square and I know that there are other small businesses of course that are also deserving of being nominated so I would just encourage us to remember this next year and to you know maybe think outside that the people that we run into most often just to make sure that we are canvassing all of the city of Denton but that's just something I noticed thank you the as Jessica mentioned the downtown task force the committee that's a subcommittee of this group did pick Jasadi as the downtown business of the year so I think that we've got them covered sounds like there may be a way for the city to do another award for United Way which would be a really good opportunity to thank them for all the hard work they're doing right now and I would I don't think we could pick anybody on this list that I would disagree with but I think I would the two that stood out to me here John Williams group of bars and Sir Pro so I would recommend one of those two as well I think John has been hit particularly hard during the covert 19 but prior to that his enterprise was quite thriving and quite quite an attraction to to downtown so I would kind of like to throw my my vote behind John Williams group and the associated businesses there they're with you Lee I will as well I know that the last time I recommended chestnut tree and still stand behind that and all the businesses here on on the list and I appreciate Jill's comment about looking beyond the square that is valid and duly noted for sure but I also have been following the struggle of Mr. Williams and how he cares about his employees and all the different innovative ideas and things that he has come up with to make sure that they are still working and so I am I would also like to throw my name behind that company as well those businesses John's John would you like to make a motion to that effect I would motion that the John Williams and his companies be the nominee for the small business award of the year and Keely I will second okay we have a motion and a second any further discussion all right go around the hoard again Bob John Williams group all right John I Tony Jill I Keely yes Chris I Jesse I Jason Mark and Steve I all right and I'm an I motion carries good work thank you staff for gathering all that information I know that's not something you can just go out and find easily so appreciate all the hard work putting that in there I think we've got some really great winners for that and appreciate all the discussion our last item or second to last is EDP 20 - 0 4 3 receive a report hold discussion and give us the status of the economic development strategic plan so when we last left you in August we were moving the strategic plan and the recommendations for funding options that this board made forward to City Council we held a work session with City Council on August 18th and that was very in-depth and we went through a lot of items and received back quite a few questions and items that staff are still working on so our plan is to bring back the strategic plan and with some updates and responses to questions to City Council for a second work session later in September we're scheduled tentatively for September 22nd and we're working with TIP to make sure that we get all of those questions and outstanding items answered and but I of course Councilmember Davis and Councilmember Briggs are here in the meeting today and can correct me if I'm wrong but really the underlying principles of the plan the guiding principles the goals and strategies really had a lot of support and and so we're working on some finer details but the structure of the plan and and kind of the process moving forward we're very favorably received so I'll certainly defer to the council members if they have any additional comments or a different interpretation from the meeting okay comments questions they know it's coming back to them so they have a lot more time to spend with the strategic plan in terms of the staff perspective we are still working around building our work plans going forward and our reporting mechanisms so throughout the month of September we're doing a deep dive into the implementation matrix and specific metrics that we'll want to be tracking and how we'll be bringing those back and reporting those to you so we're hopeful that by our October meeting we'll have maybe the first version the first draft of those reporting mechanisms that I talked about in front of you or at least some concept of those they do take quite a bit of time and we are looking at implementing some different technologies into those so we were working through those that's why Dan is here with us he's helping us really process all of that as well and but then moving forward into our next fiscal year we're going to be doing much more heavy reporting and checking in on that implementation matrix and I'm regularly checking in to make sure that we're we're meeting the expectations and we're tracking where we thought we'd be tracking in terms of implementation and then if there's something that needs to be changed or we prioritize that we're able to do that on a regular basis so are there I've had three cups of coffee so bear with me um can you help remind us what kind of numbers are being considered by council as far as utilizing the existing utility system fund balance and then what do we have any kind of expectation as far as what the five percent of the utility system in the future might look like so we kind of have an idea of what are the numbers we're talking about going into this fund yearly sure I didn't bring that with me and I don't want to give you a number but I can send that to you I can send that to the whole group as a reminder of what then what the values were that we were talking about I apologize that I don't have that in front of me no and I just want to say also good job on the presentation because the the attention that is being given by City Council to the economic development fund that you know those of us that are looking at this constantly know is absolutely necessary to even the playing field and get us in the ballpark so I also just want to say thank you to Keely Jesse our City Council and thank you Jessica and all the numbers people Jesse thanks Marty just kind of piggybacking off of that if y'all hadn't had the chance to watch that City Council work session I'll echo what Jessica said about the response being very positive from the council but as you might imagine the big questions out there were how do we fund the economic development fund at what levels and how aggressively just like we talked about in this group and some of y'all are in sectors where you represent big big power buyers you big utility users big ratepayers folks who have a seat at that table and we need to hear from on how we use those utility funds some of you have a lot of contact with the residential ratepayers you're lending to folks who are buying houses you're you're talking to people who need to have a sit at that table as well so we need to hear from everybody before we make that decision on how to fund that with either their ratepayer dollars or their taxpayer dollars or something in between so if you have a chance to go back and watch that council conversation I really encourage you to kind of key in on the questions that we're trying to answer on behalf of the constituents and let us know what you think and I'm happy to send a link out to that meeting to this board as well as that will include the the numbers that Jill requested so I can do that this afternoon Haley thank you yeah I am just want to kind of echo what council member Davis said and generally council we were all in favor and know how important it is to have a fund but there were some questions as you'll notice and see on setting goals and in tying certain metrics to to the fund if that was to be given out so any feedback we could get it would be really helpful I just don't mind just add that over the years we've talked about developing a larger larger fund to be able to help us compete with our neighboring cities so I think the consensus is that we need to have that I think how we get there you know it's gonna be a lot of great discussion from City Council I don't think anybody wants to do anything that'll put that burden on our homeowners you know that I think the businesses can generate that income themselves and however you get there but consensus is we need to get there somehow and we've tried in the past and I appreciate City Council and staff picking up the ball and running with this and hope we can get somewhere soon because we got a lot of even in COVID we've got a lot of momentum going right now so this level any other questions or comments thank you thank you thank you our last item is EDP 20-041 staff reports Charlie and Erica do you guys have some information to pass along to us yes we've had a we've had a busy time the last several months so I think in June we submitted 11 Christina correct me if I'm wrong I think we did 11 RFIs in June and nine in July and we only did two or three but we also had we also had two site visits in August and we got another site visit coming up next week and I mean it's it we've been really active it's there's been a lot of activity and and then we're talking to folks that fit into our in into the strategic plan we're talking with a data center that is been very active in talking with DME and and we've made a non-binding we've sent them a non-binding agreement that just so they can know where where they could land but they're in New York and they can't leave because if they leave they got to be quarantined for two two weeks so we don't know when they'll be able to come in for a site visit but we found several sites for them to to look at when they come in and but there's just there's just a lot of activity as you know we've got about a million three and spec buildings either under construction or already completed and that's generating a lot of activity and a lot of interest in it we we've had one site visit that they came in to look at I mean initially we'd submitted one of the spec buildings but they really liked the development that the folks were doing so now they're looking at doing a build a suit rather than buying one of the spec buildings so you know there's there's just a lot of activity I mean our the future of Denton looks very very bright that we probably ought to get sunglasses to pass out to everyone all right thank you Erica Erica anything to add to that no I was I was gonna ask Charlie to talk about all the responses that we've been on but I just want to say I really appreciate the engagement of this committee and again Jessica and City Council members I know that but by now we can recite most of these plans in our sleep we've gone over it multiple times but I would I would agree with everyone else that we are moving into a new area era as far as economic development the engagement level is exciting and it's my honor to be a part of it and happy Marty Rivers day yes is there any other questions for Charlie or Erica I did have a question for Charlie so Charlie just to make sure I was listening properly you've not really had physical visits but you've been doing virtual visits primarily is that correct oh well we've had we've had some site visits of actual visits we've done some virtual but we've had and the one next week will be an actual will be a combination they're going to come look at the site and then we're going to do a virtual zoom call with utilities and incentives and and all of that information but we've had several Christine and I've been on several zoom calls with with that company several times thank you very much any other questions all right I think we got to the end of our agenda I'm the only one that rolls off so you guys get to meet back here next month and I may go play golf or something like that or work I enjoyed working with everybody appreciate everybody's input and discussions and know you guys will move on and thank you for the kind words I appreciate it and with that we'll call this meeting adjourned