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HomeMy WebLinkAbout03-10-11 Economic Development Council Minutes, draft.docx/ City of Bozeman Economic Development Council (EDC) Meeting Minutes March 10, 2011 10:30 am – 12:00 pm Bozeman Professional Building, 20 East Olive Upstairs Conference Room Members Attending: Tracy Menuez (Human Resource Development Council), Chris Westlake (Midwest Welding and Machine), Stuart Leidner (Prospera Business Network), Cheryl Ridgely (Bozeman Deaconess Hospital), Eugen Graf (Graf Construction/Real Estate), Daryl Schliem (Bozeman Chamber of Commerce), Chris Mehl (City Commission) Members Absent: Gary Bloomer (Montana State University’s Tech Ranch) Staff Present: Chris Kukulski, City Manager, Brit Fontenot (Asst. to the City Manager), Aimee Kissel (Deputy City Clerk – taking minutes) Guests / Public Present: Mr. and Mrs. Delaney NOTE: These minutes are not word for word and should be considered in addition to the audio recording of the meeting. A. Call to Order – Chair Chris Westlake Chris Westlake called the meeting to order at 10:35 a.m. B. Minutes – February 3rd, 2011 Motion and Vote to approve the minutes of February 3, 2011. It was moved by Eugen Graf, seconded by Stuart Leidner to approve the minutes of February 3, 2011. The motion passed unanimously. C. Public Comment None. D. Non-Action Items 1. Brief overview of EDC action and direction from the February 3, 2011 EDC meeting. (Westlake ~ 5 minutes) Chris Westlake provided a brief overview of the Feb. 3rd meeting. 2. Economic Development Summit Debrief and Discussion (Westlake ~ 75 minutes) Goal of this discussion: Share what we learned in interactions / tables. Mr. Fontenot explained that his hand-out titled ‘Round Table Discussions’ were notes taken by SIFE members regarding major themes that came out. Westlake: Disconnect between what employers need and what students are looking for. Opportunity to improve communication. Example: Job fair at MSU – none of the local business owners was aware of the job fair ahead of time. Leidner: People at first glad to be sitting at tables having conversations Leidner: Needs for data and how to make it available for businesses Leidner: Comments in regards to planning / zoning regulation changes Leidner: Push to get government out of the way. Balance between regulation and entrepreneur environment Leidner: MSU relationship – voting block of MSU employees doesn’t quite understand business. Education that can be done. Leidner: Overall topics – What more can we be doing from a regulatory side to allow businesses to continue to expand? Leidner: If substantive conversations to be had – yes, but what action? Leidner: Return on investment if city to be involved in economic development. How will the city identify whether the dollars are worthwhile in investing Kukulski: Meaningful balance Fontenot: Providing data, knowledge, info. Fontenot: Looking for guidance from EDC. Seize the moment. Fontenot: Networking, peer to peer mentoring, importance of assessment of how programs are functioning. Serving the purpose set out to serve. Guest - Mr. Delaney: Robust, positive round. Get government out of the way – Inducement and incentive. Mr. Delaney would like the city to completely eliminate impact fees, building fees, etc. for five years. Fontenot: Survey follow up (10 questions) that will be going out to members. Guest – Mrs. Delaney: Lots of positive conversations. She found there are a lot more computer type industries than she was aware of and it would be a good opportunity to tap into MSU students that would like to stay here upon graduation and find employment. Guest – Mrs. Delaney: Onerous for these small technology companies to acquire property in the city – Need a positive perception to these folks – less scary. Less layers to get through. Kukulski: Not one position or area we can solve these things. – every person along the way in the process – need to get the same positive perception. Cultivate culture Graf: Push for developers. All these boards going through – opinions along the way. Boards should be changed to a policy body rather than an opinion body. Kukulski: Do we really need all these boards? Different perceptions. Better way to get public engagement. Kukulski: Commissions role to set policy, not get involved in the minutia of every project. Role of boards as policy makers – Graf: Frustration of submitting plans to so many boards with differing opinions, standards. Ambiguity created with the boards. Ridgely: Tech. co. – entrepreneur companies have short runway to get off the ground. Do not have a team. Need help with a support team to get them going. Ridgely: Finding trained staff was not an issue. Folks risk averse related to hiring. Ridgely: Void in electrical engineering – going out of the area for that. Ridgely: Struggling businesses trying to survive. – Tied to commercial lending, access to credit. Ridgely: Huge need for data, info. Ridgely: Business to business – PR factor, brand in economic way. Exposé on what businesses are here in Bozeman. Ridgely: Networking important – but not within the same industry. Organic networking, smaller groups. Provide those opportunities. Ridgely: Info. exchange. Guest: Mrs. Delaney: Address book with city licenses. Ridgely: New company coming in. Good promotional piece – List what we have here. Mr. Delaney: Never been an economic turnaround without a major building turn around. Guest - Mr. Delaney: Many building lots available. Activity breeds activity. Winners attract winners. Need robust turnaround of activity – which will start with builders and developers. Westlake: Note 1 on SIFE pages – Started with discussion on what is econ. development? Keeping more dollars than leave. Thinking beyond local area – net exporter. Westlake: Branding Bozeman important but also important to encourage people to be self aware of where they shop, do business. Kukulski: Education that the business exists and IS competitive – awareness of options Westlake: Costs to live in Bozeman. Making folks aware of the options. Challenging ourselves. Westlake: Useful to have attendees develop a short list of barriers to business, growth, export, what they need to import (skills, services). – Add to survey? Westlake: Entrepreneurs’ – great in some areas, weak in others. Help with their weaknesses. Westlake: Communication infrastructure needs to be strong. Westlake: Asset – social media. Local businesses to partner with students that can help with this. Westlake: Being at the speed of business. Responsiveness Westlake: JJ from Max Baucus office: If there are experts that you want to bring to area – doors open. Baucus’ office can make connections, liaison component. Westlake: Lack of skilled sales people. Lack of training for sales. Opportunity for Gallatin College? Westlake: Appreciation of the summit. Hopeful that other business owners would come and participate in others. EDC as catalyst. Westlake: Two realtors – talked about how downturn has pushed them together. Success for one as success for the whole. Sense of community growing. – Stronger fabric when economics improve. Promote this growth. So where do we go from here? Now what? Fontenot: Survey will go out to attendees by the end of the week. Fontenot: The following are large projects Mr. Fontenot has been working on: Business license issue, Workforce assessment, Gallatin resource network, Report card Westlake: Of what we learned, how does that affect where we go now? Discussion occurred among members that the summit was valuable. Engaged. Commitment. Positive. Ridgely: Categorize notes into themes. Suggested action items: Ex: addressing fees, address book. What are the key action items? New things not on current action list. Overall themes – what can we focus on. Evolving, evaluating the EDC plan. Ridgely: Stick with commitment. Integrate these ideas in to dynamic frame work. Guest - Mrs. Delaney: Focus on community that exists now. Cultivate current garden. Fontenot: Three current projects already being worked on hit on these themes. Ridgely: Diverse economy. Breadth and depth. Balanced approach. Understanding in our particular circumstances – careful to balance between local businesses versus incoming. Westlake: Don’t want to make concessions to incoming businesses at the expense of those already here. Fontenot: Branding videos Westlake: Value of incubation as intensive care unit. Integrate Score more. Chris Mehl joined the meeting. Westlake: Important to identify action items. Mehl: Appreciation of what city was doing so far. Educators at the table- what can city do to help educators. Mehl: Desire for metrics. How are you measuring? Guest - Mr. Delaney: Weak link is construction workers. Biggest potential to boom. Westlake: If we don’t have businesses to put into the empty buildings – Mr. Delaney: Encourage new development. Eliminate all fees for five years. Westlake: Catalyze the whole system. Guest - Mr. Delaney: Paradigm shift of what we think is beautiful – beautiful as shoppers at Wal-Mart, Target. Feels we need a long term paradigm shift of what is beautiful instead of esoteric beauty Graf: Esoteric beauty needed to sell buildings. Ridgely: Balance between the two. Challenges of the boards – role of government. Schliem: Business side – set a policy to guide. Many boards to go through. Ridgely: Knowledge, education, awareness. Schliem: Process taking 18 months and cost lots because they’ve gone through different iterations with every board re-designing the master plan over and over. Mehl: Flexibility vs. consistency Schliem: Designs falling within the clear cut policy guidelines. Schliem - Biggest concern is funding. Ridgely: Responsibility to listen to the input received from the business owners. Task of EDC to incorporate these ideas into the existing plan. Schliem: – Importance of funding for EDC in parallel with other tasks. For example: Make a recommendation to the City Commission to waive impact fees. Pro-active. Schliem: – TIF Districts in danger at state level. Multi-task. Ridgely: – Pro-active into the future. EDC committee as a long range investment / Plan. Leidner: – Each organization/resource taking the lead on different things. Leidner: Cost benefit analysis would need to be done before EDC can recommend waiving all the fees or just dropping the fees. Need all the info. Ridgely: Upcoming agenda item: facts and info. about dropping fees. Are we an appropriate group to recommend this? Leidner: Impact Committee? Planning board? Mehl: Many things that can be done – joint meetings? EDC as overlapping board. Leidner: Planning board guessing a 20 year inventory of property. What is the true, current inventory? Schliem: Comptroller – bottom line – What do we have to offer? Why should we remain here? What would the response be? How does the philosophy add dollars to our bottom line? Schliem: Pro-active versus re-active Schliem: Chamber of Commerce has lost huge amounts of money from membership in the last two months. Ridgely: Could work on incentive package – but all co. would want a different package. Tools in place. Westlake: Sampling from summit probably not representative for those that want incentives Westlake: Is there a sub-committee that can focus on funding Westlake: Importance of supporting local businesses, catalyze what we can. Guest – Mrs. Delaney: Uniform message regarding the city making this a positive experience Schliem: How do I answer a business owner who questions, “What are you going to do to help us stay here?” The Council discussed the issues with incentivizing at length. F. FYI/Discussion (Westlake ~ 10 minutes) 1. Next steps/agenda items for the April 7, 2011 EDC meeting (Westlake) What is the role of the council regarding funding? Measurement – what does success look like regarding the Council? What is reasonable for a committee of seven to do – versus catalyzing 2. FYI – Projects being advanced per Mr. Fontenot Gallatin Business Resource Network Update (Fontenot) - Moving forward Workforce assessment task force Working on business license reform Met with the County and Belgrade – other partners outside of the community Helena – testifying Tuesday against the attack on the TIF’s 3. Park County looking to join the BearTooth Economic Development District Mr. Leidner reported this is because there is not enough conversation going on with Gallatin County. A letter has already been sent out on this to ask for approval from the Department of Commerce and the EDA. 4. Proposal to add two “at-large” seats to the Economic Development Council (Fontenot) Fill Eugen Graf’s post Think about should we expand council? G. Adjournment Chris Westlake adjourned the meeting at 12:20 p.m. *NOTE – Full audio of all EDC meetings is available at: ____________________________________ Chris Westlake, Chair PREPARED BY: ____________________________________ Aimee Kissel, Deputy City Clerk Approved on: Economic Development Council meetings are open to all members of the public. If you have a disability that requires assistance, please contact our ADA Coordinator James Goehrung, at 582-3232 (TDD 582-2301).