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HomeMy WebLinkAbout01-05-12 Economic Development Council minutes/ City of Bozeman Economic Development Council (EDC) Meeting Minutes January 5, 2012 10:30 am – 12:00 pm Madison room, City Hall, 121 N. Rouse Members Attending: Tracy Menuez (Human Resource Development Council), Cheryl Ridgely (Bozeman Deaconess Hospital), Anders Lewendal (Contractor), Chris Mehl (City Commission), Stuart Leidner (Prospera Business Network), Chris Westlake (Midwest Welding and Machine) Members Absent: Daryl Schliem (Bozeman Chamber of Commerce), Wendy Bay Lewis (Career Coach/Corp. Trainer) Staff Present: Chris Kukulski (City Manager), Brit Fontenot (Director of Economic Development and Community Relations), Aimee Kissel (Deputy City Clerk – taking minutes) Guests / Public Present: Teresa McKnight, Montana State University Innovation Campus NOTE: These minutes are not word for word and should be considered in addition to the audio recording of the meeting. Call to Order – Chairperson Chris Westlake Chris Westlake called the meeting to order at 10:38 a.m. Mr. Westlake welcomed Teresa McKnight, the new Executive Director of Montana State University Innovation Campus. Ms. McKnight introduced herself and her experience and her reasoning for coming to Bozeman. She then explained the goal of the new Innovation Campus is to expand the current park into a 21st century research park with a focus on recruiting research and development companies in Bozeman as well as transferring technology out of the University into start up and spin out companies. They are quickly making a lot of progress. Mr. Kukulski explained that Ms. McKnight has been moving forward rapidly and has already met with staff numerous times. They had a wonderful meeting this morning with MSU President Waded Cruzado, Greg Gianfornte, Mr. Fontenot and several others. Mr. Fontenot pointed out that part of the priorities and recommendations is to develop these types of strategic relationships to support technology transfer and expansion. Cr. Mehl welcomed Ms. McKnight to the EDC meeting every month and then asked her what types of measurements the Innovation Campus will use to measure success. Ms. McKnight explained they use multiple ways to measure success. These include the numbers of companies recruited, number of spin off companies out of the University, the number of jobs created, types of jobs created and the salaries attached. They are looking at multiple phases of a research park. Right now they are focused on phase 2 but also looking forward 40 to 50 years out. They want to ensure the plan has the buy in to carry the plan over leadership changes and over the years. B. Minutes – December 10, 2011 Motion and Vote to approve the minutes of December 10, 2011. The motion passed unanimously. C. Public Comment Chris Westlake opened public comment. No person commented. D. Non-Action Items 1. Discussion of the 2012 Economic Development Council Chair vacancy (Westlake) Mr. Westlake said his two year seat is expiring and he is stepping down. There will be two vacancies the City Commission will be appointing at the 1-23-12 meeting. Mr. Fontenot said Daryl Schliem currently holds the vice-chair position and Mr. Leidner holds the secretary position. The Council decided they would elect officers the first meeting in February every year. Three people have currently applied to the EDC. These include Bryan Klein, Gary Gannon and Edward Sypinski. Mr. Kukulski announced he invited Teresa McKnight to apply for a position as well. Cr. Mehl voiced a thank you to all the members of the Council and his sincere appreciation of Mr. Chris Westlake for his leadership over the last several years. Council members gave him a loud round of applause. 2. 2012 Economic Development Work Plan and Priorities (Fontenot); Mr. Westlake has asked Mr. Fontenot to review what has been accomplished on the work plan in 2011 and what needs to be accomplished in 2012. Mr. Fontenot said the report he prepared currently being discussed compares what the Council were tasked with doing and came up with and the ongoing list of tasks and accomplishments. (See attachment.) Mr. Leidner spoke regarding the matrix document reviewed at the last meeting. Mr. Leidner asked about the process for this meeting. Mr. Fontenot explained many tasks have been accomplished and brought to a conclusion such as the Gallatin Business Resource Network (GBRN). Mr. Fontenot explained Mr. Leidner brought in a copy of a Memorandum of Understanding from Livingston. This will be combined with five other MOU’s for the site selector to be approved by the Commission on January 17th. Between these two projects, we (and our partners) have provided a way for businesses to receive timely, accurate, local data. Mr. Fontenot asked the Council what they see as the next big thing for 2012 we can push on harder. More on Mandeville? More on tech park with the Innovation Campus? Foreign trade zone? Ms. Ridgely said what comes off the plan needs to go onto a landing pad. We need to be sure we do not lose track of those things. She also spoke regarding the council priorities and recommendations as ongoing. She said it is important to continue the message of economic gardening principles and continue to promote and educate and tie things to those principles. Under the dashboard of local economic Indicators – one concept is we have a variety of things already being done through private companies and Prospera. Ms. Ridgely suggested creating a comparative table from year to year to show trends and progress. She also feels the economic Development Summit, forums and roundtable discussions are important to continue to illicit input from various industry sectors. Interaction between the EDC and the business community is important. The overall theme is ongoing marketing and communication including things like contacting the Chronicle about what is happening with economic development. Mr. Leidner spoke regarding the memorandum and the economic development summits and dialing down to go back to industry clusters that we felt had the highest potential for growth in the area that we were looking at supporting such as the high tech area, laser optics, biomedical, etc. The Council can look at those clusters more closely and identify how we can build an environment they can expand upon. Mr. Fontenot gave the example of planning for getting manufacturers’ together to discuss the foreign trade zone. They can always do more for cluster support and development. Also, as the Mandeville property gains momentum it will become more prominent. Mr. Leidner said we know Mandeville will continue as a priority since we now have a planning grant with DNRC. The Council will also participate in the Economic Development District Comprehensive Strategy for Gallatin and Park County. They have team metrics that some of the Council developed when they met at Headwaters. Mr. Leidner said he needed to follow up from that meeting and pull data for the dashboard. Mr. Leidner said there are streamlining processes within the economic development team and planning within the city that is continuing to progress. Mr. Kukulski said he appreciates that though we have made strides, we still have some work to do there. The city’s economic development team has been having very positive cultural and attitude shifts and will be rolling out physical changes within the next 90 days. This will include the interface between engineering, planning and building for customers coming in. If time is not committed to these things, it is easy for things to fall away. Mr. Fontenot provided the example of Bob Risk from the ED staff team attending the last EDC meeting. Mr. Kukulski spoke of the importance of Mr. Fontenot having time to continue to influence the internal shift so staff can be more responsive to and prepared for success. Mr. Leidner spoke to the positive attitudinal and cultural change within the city staff as seen by the business community. Mr. Westlake spoke regarding keeping an ongoing feedback loop regarding what is happening and how it is being received and how that has affected the community. The importance of communicating those results to the community itself and the value of having testimonials from successful businesses about the community, businesses and processes that outside businesses can look into. Mr. Kukulski said he asked Brian Springer from the airport to attend city staff’s February meeting with MSU President Waded Cruzado, Tom McCoy, Teresa McKnight and others to discuss the opportunities that exist at the airport to communicate these pieces and branding between the University and the city and using the airport as a canvas. Mr. Leidner said he has talked to Mr. Springer before about advertising at the airport. Mr. Westlake said the role of EDC could be to keep the communication component on top of the list whether that is testimonials and what the city is doing. Mr. Kukulski brought up differences between an advisory board and a working group. An opportunity on the working side both in the mid and short term is funneling information from the community to this group and into the organization. He spoke to the importance of the community seeing and hearing multiple voices and that we are open minded to what changes continue to take place. Ms. Ridgely explained NPR has the contract to manage the monitors at the airport. She then said as we go through the 2012-2013 update to the work plan, the Council should continue to support the ED team in the city and work on branding. A lot of it may be as simple as, whenever a manufacturing discussion takes place, ensuring that the community sees and hears that this is tied to the economic development initiatives of the city of Bozeman. Mr. Fontenot verified Ms. Ridgley’s points saying she would like more Council involvement in the messaging. He would like to suggest reporters sometimes call members of the EDC for an interview. Ms. Menuez spoke regarding the importance of updates to the Council and the concept that members can easily, quickly email each other, funneling through the good news. Mr. Lewendal spoke regarding Mr. Fontenot taking on a lot. He would like to see Mr. Fontenot to utilize members more through delegation. Mr. Westlake continued the discussion about the role of the membership on this council and whether the role is to come together monthly to oversee and guide and provide steering or whether there are things that can happen in between meetings. For example; utilizing sub-committees for the summit and dashboard. He asked whether Council members want to provide that additional investment. This is a decision that needs to be made by the group and things the Commission may want to be mindful of when evaluating when people are appointed. Ms. Menuez is an advocate of the short term task force which is flexible with people’s careers and allows them to contribute when they have knowledge and time. Mr. Leidner said to the extent that Prospera, the Chamber, MSU, etc. have been requested to help execute an item, they have. They have been going after everything that has been outlined for Mr. Fontenot and more. Going forward, we will be in the same situation. Prospera’s staff is never afraid to ask someone from the business community to help with something. As we identify where pieces need to be done, we need to identify those organizations that can help. Ms. Ridgely spoke in favor of the short term task force model. The EDC is the sounding board, and the conduit from the broader business community, synthesizing and make recommendations to City Commission. The role of members would be to find people that have interest in investment either personally or through the organizations they represent for the long term liability of the community for economic development. There are other advisory groups for the City Commission focusing on other things. The EDC is a catalyst to ensure Economic development stays at the forefront. Members can be tapped as needed in a short term task force or committee with long term tasks handled by Mr. Fontenot. Mr. Fontenot said there are very few short term economic development projects. Mr. Westlake said one thing members could do is commit to being out in the community once a month to go visit the businesses. Other than constituencies, we are not working on pressing into community. This would be beneficial for communication out and feedback in regarding needs of the business community. Mr. Westlake suggested members commit to communicating with seven people once a month. Ms. Ridgely said the summits were a model that was used successfully and should be repeated. It is concise, fast and the EDC has control over the process. Mr. Kukulski continued discussion on the summits saying the EDC now has things to report back to the business community in a summit. We can now say thank you for sharing, we followed up on that, and this is what we did. Mr. Fontenot said a subgroup of the summits was gathered for the Entrepreneurs Roundtable several weeks ago and he and Maria with Prospera are now working on an upcoming larger summit. Ms. Ridgely spoke regarding the importance of a keynote speaker at summits to develop consistency and get people in the seats. Mr. Leidner went back to the matrix. The one stop shop has been completed. How is that moving forward? Mr. Fontenot said the city, chamber and MSU have GBRN up and running and functioning. A plateau has been reached regarding the resources we have. We are at a crossroads asking do we continue to keep it here and try to fund it at a highly functional level, or do we turn it over to another organization to provide the service we intended. Mr. Leidner provided background saying Mr. Fontenot has talked about private and nonprofit organizations taking it on. It is important for the budget as it will cost money for the time and effort to update it and grow it. He has concerns that a private organization may co-opt the site selector to some degree. If it stays as a standalone piece as a community resource tool it must be funded that way. Prefer that stays as a piece connected to the city. Mr. Leidner feels GBRN should be maintained as a business resource without the possibility of getting co-opted down the road. Prospera, Chamber and MSU do not have the resources without a major sponsorship. He is supportive of budgeting something there whether inside the city or contracting with someone to maintain it and grow it. Mr. Kukulski spoke regarding resources to expand it. There is an interesting potential in the private side in the newspaper. He asked members to consider what the downside would be to having parameters regarding how a private company could market and co-opt this. There should not be more ads than story to avoid huge budget expense. A solution may be to have a clear understanding of the expectations and a specific trial time frame determined. Mr. Westlake spoke regarding maintaining the purpose of the one stop shop. Mr. Kukulski spoke regarding the advertising dollars in the newspaper since Kohl’s has come into town. He has some level of optimism, that there may be an opportunity for the Chronicle to do the site well instead of something we would all think of as an advertisement. Mr. Fontenot explained the city has a proposal from the Chronicle regarding this relationship. The city plans to write up a draft proposal. Mr. Leidner said possibly Prospera or the Chamber should be the partnership contact for the Chronicle. Cr. Mehl asked whether advertisements affect trust. Is their gain between visibility of a site due to power of marketing and exposure? Ms. Ridgely said we should have the brand and banner of the city and/or the EDC on the site. The Chronicle has tried several things that have been seen as an advertising vehicle thus lowering the value. If the site comes out of the Chamber it may be perceived as a membership only site. The City of Bozeman is the neutral party here. Another business may provide the infrastructure but the city banner is important on this. Marketing needs to be done to drive traffic to a website using traditional methods. That is where budget comes in. Even guest editorials are important. The information and content drive should be from an entity that has institutional city background knowledge with a central message going forward. Mr. Kukulski said he feels the city is bad at marketing. The city does not have anyone in the organization that has the marketing branding side. It will require contracting with someone for that expertise or bringing someone in. the city does however recognize the value of marketing. Ms. McKnight spoke regarding students that started a social media startup company. Sometimes we do not realize how much social media affects business. FaceBook pages increase Google presence. The Council continued discussion of better communication of our website, FaceBook, marketing the GBRN, site selector, summit programs and roundtables. These pieces need added to the 2012 work plan and budget. Mr. Westlake asked about refreshing or adding to the community promotion videos. Ms. Kissel explained that members can submit an economic development article to Mr. Fontenot for publication on the city website and FaceBook page. Mr. Westlake asked members to consider keeping incubating services high on the list for the 2012 work plan. He spoke regarding second and third generation startups coming out of organizations such as Oracle and how the environment is rich for entrepreneurialism. Ms. McKnight said MSU’s innovation campus will have a 40-50,000 sq. ft innovations center building with an incubator within. Mr. Fontenot will update language on the work plan to make it more generic since Tech Ranch was specifically named in the last work plan. Mr. Fontenot asked members to email him updates or changes they would like to see on the work plan. Mr. Westlake spoke regarding area 4 - related to the communications infrastructure as a port. He is assuming that partners will help identify technological barriers to help us determine what the issues are. Ms. McKnight said she has already met many business people coming into Bozeman and they have relayed their need to have fast wireless and frustration in this matter. 3. City of Bozeman’s FY 13 Economic Development Budget (Fontenot). Mr. Fontenot explained he needs to begin putting the budget together and would like input from members. The time frame for the budget is mid January for the internal first draft. Mr. Kukulski spoke regarding upcoming changes to the city budget process. These changes will help wrap up the budget in June instead of August. A draft would reach the public and elected officials in April or early May. E. FYI/Discussion (Westlake) 2012 EDC Vacancies and Applications (2 terms expire on February 1, 2012); Please refer to non-action item 1 for discussion. Site Selector Update (Fontenot); Mr. Fontenot said the site selector is a web based tool with the genesis coming out of the Governor’s Office of Economic Development. It is a spatial way to look at the community to tell a business person whether they should or shouldn’t locate somewhere. It has a variety of local data including property vacancy information and provides a rich picture of demographic data, etc. Mr. Leidner helped put a partnership together to make this successful. Gallatin County, the city of Bozeman, Prospera, Park County, the city of Livingston and the commercial realtors in town have agreed to a Memorandum of Understanding to allow each to pay a proportion of the cost of the service with all benefitting from the local and accurate information about opening businesses in this area. Mr. Kukulski said as we think about updating the work plan, members should look at leaving capacity available for Mr. Fontenot to have time and resources to be responsive and deliver what folks need out in the field as things arise. NRMEDD Update (Kukulski); and Time did not allow for this item. Agenda for the February 2, 2012 EDC Meeting (Schliem). Time did not allow for this item. F. Adjournment Chris Westlake adjourned the meeting at 12:05 p.m. * NOTE – Full audio of this EDC meeting is available at: http://weblink.bozeman.net/WebLink8/0/doc/47089/Electronic.aspx ____________________________________ Chris Westlake, Chair PREPARED BY: ____________________________________ Aimee Kissel, Deputy City Clerk Approved on: February 2, 2012 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).