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HomeMy WebLinkAbout02-18-20 BID Minutes - Special Meeting Downtown Business Improvement District Board Meeting Minutes February 18, 2020 Attending: Jolee Barry, Mike Basile, Eric Bowman, Ileana Indreland, Erik Nelson, Eric Sutherland Absent: Susan Neubauer, I Ho Pomeroy, Emily Cope, Chris Naumann Public Comments: None. Minutes None provided. Finance Report None provided. Executive Directors Report None provided. Discussion and Decision Items 2020 BID Renewal Board Discussion Minutes provided by Eric Bowman, Chair. I recapped my meeting with the group of concerned property owners. I boiled it down to a couple of questions that the board needed to address. Does the board think it's appropriate and capable to be the voice of the property owners? If so, then is Chris the correct person to lead the BID. We were unanimous in our opinion that the BID board needs to evolve into a board that is more engaged with it's constituency and works harder to be proactive on advocating on important issues facing the property owners. We discussed the need for additional "forum" meetings with stakeholders and also the need to have some joint meetings with the URD to better understand the URD work and make sure the property owner's voice is heard on URD issues. The BID may need to go back to meeting every month in order to stay properly informed on key issues and have the structure in place to communicate effectively. There is obviously a lot more that needs to be figured out here. The board decided that it felt we owed Chris the chance to prove himself in the BID manager role with the new focus moving forward. While the group of concerned property owners felt there was no fault of the board in the BID's absent or ineffective leadership the board felt otherwise and agreed that as a group we need to do more to be proactive, provide expectations for the BID manager, and hold the manager accountable to those expectations. While we don't doubt the validity of the complaints of the property owners group, this is the first opportunity the board has been given to address those with Chris and we didn't feel it was appropriate to terminate his role without the board working with Chris to rectify the issues first. We also felt that course of action didn't hold the board appropriately accountable for its lack of engagement and oversight and doesn't do anything to ensure that any future manager of the BID is anymore effective in their leadership of the BID. The board will work to come up with specific measures of oversight and expectations for Chris and if those are not met then the board will look at not renewing Chris's contract. It's our intent to work on some of the details surrounding this during today's meeting and if needed to have another meeting to come up with a detailed plan to present to concerned owners. We do have a tight timeline to work within though so we need to keep the ball moving.