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