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HomeMy WebLinkAbout06-13-13 Economic Development Council minutes, draft/ City of Bozeman Economic Development Council (EDC) Meeting Minutes June 13, 2013 10:30 – 12 pm City Commission room, City Hall, 121 N. Rouse Members Attending: Stuart Leidner (Prospera Business Network), Teresa McKnight, (Montana State University Innovation Campus), Anders Lewendal (Contractor), Erik Garberg (Civil Engineer), Cheryl Ridgely (Bozeman Deaconess Hospital), Deputy Mayor Jeff Krauss (liaison) Members Absent: Daryl Schliem (Bozeman Chamber of Commerce), Tracy Menuez (Human Resource Development Council) Staff Present: Brit Fontenot (City Director of Economic Development and Community Relations), Aimee Brunckhorst (Deputy City Clerk) Guests / Public Present: Kera Geweke (Economic Development Intern), Jason Bacaj (Bozeman Daily Chronicle) NOTE: These minutes are not word for word and should be considered in addition to the audio recording of the meeting. Call to Order Vice-Chair Stuart Leidner called the meeting to order at 10:37 a.m. Public Comment Mr. Leidner opened public comment. Seeing no public comment, he closed public comment. Minutes – May 2, 2013 Motion and Vote to approve the minutes of May 2, 2013. It was moved by Anders Lewendal, seconded by Erik Garberg to approve the minutes of May 2, 2013. Motion passed unanimously. D. Action Items 1. FY 2014 Economic Development Budget Discussion (Schliem) Brit Fontenot explained that a work session regarding the General Fund Budget occurred during the June 10, 2013 City Commission meeting. During discussion the Commission did not ask many questions about the economic development budget requests. The main discussion points surrounded the full time employee (FTE) requests, mainly from the Fire Department. A few quick comments were made about the Administration department FTE requests. The final budget is set to be approved during the July 1st meeting. Stuart Leidner said the commissioners questioned whether there would be overlap between the two Administration positions requested. Staff explanations were that there was not overlap. Teresa McKnight asked whether the economic development employee position was supported. Brit Fontenot said he does feel there is support; however there were questions regarding whether there was overlap between the economic development specialist and the administration support staff request from the City Manager. Mr. Fontenot does not feel there is any overlap in these two positions as the economic position is for an economic specialist not merely an office support employee. Mr. Fontenot went into some detail regarding what the new specialist would be hired to accomplish. He also explained the process of hiring for this position if included in the final budget, saying writing a job description is next, then a position vacancy announcement. He has a good foundation for this already and asked whether EDC members would like to take a look at that when completed. Cheryl Ridgley said the EDC members do not need to see the details of the job description but would like to see the goals and responsibilities will be. Brit Fontenot reported what the further budget requests for economic development were. Teresa McKnight asked why Gallatin College falls within the economic development budget. Deputy Mayor Krauss explained that economic development is the main justification for supporting funding for Gallatin College. When asked for his gauge regarding whether he felt the economic development budget has support from the Commissioners as proposed, he said he did not know. He did speak about the increase in taxes that the proposed budget would entail and that the Commissioners will be looking hard at the entire proposed budget with that in mind. 2. Set the EDC’s Summer Meeting Schedule (Schliem) The Council discussed the summer meeting schedule and decided to cancel the July meeting and meet again August 1st. Sub-committees will continue to meet as needed. Anders Lewendal asked about public noticing requirements for members who meet in groups of two and three. Brit Fontenot explained that nothing prohibits the group from getting together, but if there is a quorum of members that needs to be noticed, if action is to be taken, that also needs noticed. It is not considered a meeting if two or three members would like to get together as citizens. E. FYI/Discussion 1. North Park RFQ subcommittee report Brit Fontenot said the Request for Qualifications for realty services for the sale of the North Park Properties with the closing date of July 15th. Concurrently the city and the Department of Natural Resources are collaborating to work on a preliminary engineering report with CTA Engineering. This was funded with a grant through Prospera, who in turn received the grant from the Big Sky Trust Funds. This is the last piece of our due diligence puzzle for the property in anticipation of a sale, hopefully by the end of the year. 2. Marketing sub-committee report (Ridgely) Cheryl Ridgley said the sub-committee is working to determine what resources they already have. They will then collect estimates to determine how much it would cost to come up with a joint plan. Once that is determined, they can talk about how much the individual agencies would be willing to contribute financially for this group effort. Stuart Leidner asked whether coordination was happening with the Governor’s Office of Economic Development because they are working on a vision / restructuring of Innovate Montana website. They are looking at redoing some video content, looking at clusters. They may be a content resource. John Rogers would be a good place to start to check on that. 3. Incentives subcommittee report (Garberg) Erik Garberg spoke about having the subcommittee meet in July to reinvigorate that effort. Aimee Brunckhorst reported that she was approached by Mr. Fontenot to put together an incentives page on the EDC portion of the city website. This would include incentives that already exist through the state and incentives that are not necessarily labeled as such. She asked whether the incentive sub-committee could help with developing a page or two about what the state incentives, etc. are. Ms. Brunckhorst said that utilizing a webpage that Mr. Leidner had forwarded regarding incentives, some information was already pieced together which she could forward to the sub-committee for review and additions. Erik Garberg said that would be good. Cheryl Ridgely thanked Ms. Brunckhorst for the work she did on that and said that one of the goals the Committee had identified was education regarding existing incentives. 4. Review Team to Review RFQ responses for North Park Brit Fontenot said he put together a team to review the RFQ’s for North Park. These include Wendy Thomas, Daryl Schliem, Anders Lewendal and Stuart Leidner. 5. Strategic Plan Community Wide Ms. McKnight asked whether there has been an overall community plan developed by the community business leaders. Brit Fontenot explained we have been relying on the city’s Economic Development Plan. There was also a plan recently put together by the Rocky Mountain Economic Development District put together a Comprehensive Development Strategy that covers two counties. In addition we rely heavily on Prospera’s annual report. Stuart Leidner said the Economic Development Plan was put together with input from a broad cross section of the entire community. The plan was developed in 2009 and was a five year plan and we are still in the midst of the current plan. This body was established by that plan and we have been implementing that plan since that time. Cheryl Ridgely asked whether yearly benchmark reports have been published and whether we are meeting those marks. Stuart Leidner said this body has been hitting those marks. He spoke regarding the matrix table in the plan that we have accomplished. Cheryl Ridgely said from the community perspective it would be nice to see a report showing the progress made. Stuart Leidner said we have been producing documents and reports out of this Committee, but did not want to have Mr. Fontenot spend too much time on reports that he could be using on actually accomplishing the tasks. Brit Fontenot mentioned that effectively tracking and benchmarking has been a deficiency. Antidotally he feels they are surpassing expectations. Reporting return on investment will likely increase with the assistance of another economic development specialist (if approved). Aimee Brunckhorst mentioned the many memorandums regarding progress that were provided to the Commission and are available to the public. Ms. Brunckhorst said they could be placed more prominently on the EDC page, as they may not be easy to find. Anders Lewendal said economic development is not very prominent or easy to find on the city website and asked if we have considered having a separate website for economic development. Brit Fontenot spoke to the tension between the city website and maintaining the content and that it is time consuming. Ms. Brunckhorst has placed everything on the page that is up. We do need a more comprehensive plan for the website. Teresa McKnight said that the EDC should evaluate what has been accomplished and what we would like to do in the following several months. A one page document could then be generated and posted. The Committee could do a self-evaluation so as not to take staff time on this. Cheryl Ridgely said that possibly the marketing committee could consider a micro-website. A website is never a finished product and constantly takes resources. Right now, it is important to put the content online even if it needs to be polished up later. Brit Fontenot mentioned that in his recent budget presentation before the Commission he provided a slide regarding what has been accomplished in 2013 and what is planned in 2014. Teresa McKnight asked that the one page PowerPoint slide be published on the website. F. Adjournment Stuart Leidner adjourned the meeting at 11:18 p.m. * NOTE – Full audio of this EDC meeting is available at www.bozeman.net. ____________________________________ Stuart Leidner, Vice-Chair PREPARED BY: __________________________________ __ Aimee Brunckhorst, Deputy City Clerk Approved on: