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All right. It is 4:00. So I'm going to go ahead and call this meeting at the Pacific Grove Economic Development Committee to 00:00:02
order. 00:00:06
And. 00:00:11
A reminder to everyone to state your name for the record if you make a motion. 00:00:13
Umm. 00:00:17
So that we can keep up with who's. 00:00:18
Making comments. 00:00:21
If we can, please take role. 00:00:23
See why don't I take role Jenny and then that way you can just track. 00:00:28
President I think we're all present that can. Aaron Campbell, Associate Planner, I'll go ahead and do that for you. Alright. 00:00:32
Thanks. 00:00:35
Chair upman. 00:00:39
Present Vice Chair Jacobs. 00:00:40
Commissioner Venuti. 00:00:43
Commissioner Gibbs. 00:00:45
Commissioner McMurdo McMurdo apologize, President. 00:00:46
Commissioner Markowitz. 00:00:51
Commissioner Hoops here, Commissioner Richmond, we have 8 present, 0 absent. 00:00:53
You have a quorum. Thank you very much. OK, we'll move on to approval of the agenda that was submitted. 00:00:58
Along with the packets and circulating, an Advanced Potatoes meeting and is available for download on the Economic Development 00:01:05
page at pacificgrove.org. 00:01:09
Are there any members of the public that like to make a comment on the agenda today? 00:01:14
I do not see any answers. All right. Is there a motion to approve the agenda report as presented? Ohh, do you have any? 00:01:23
Comments. 00:01:30
So. 00:01:34
Thank you. Yeah. Unfortunately at my place of work someone suffered a terrible injury and cannot be in. I'm gonna have. We have an 00:01:35
event and I have to leave early. So I noticed that I'm flagged for one of the last points for 9:00 and. 00:01:44
88. 00:01:54
No. 00:01:56
Well, no, I think. 00:01:57
Ohh yeah 9 #2. 00:02:02
I think. 00:02:05
98. 00:02:06
Ohh yeah that's it. 00:02:08
Definitely, yeah and and I. 00:02:11
Actually was trying to find out why this was put on this agenda this week. I wasn't able to connect with Anastasia, so we actually 00:02:16
did this last week. 00:02:20
So I am not going to be here and BI don't think it needs to be on the agenda. 00:02:26
Is that you can you can move to or ask to have it pulled. That's fine. 00:02:30
So great. So we'll have that pulled and I do apologize in advance that I will have to leave. 00:02:35
A little bit early. Thank you. 00:02:39
OK. 00:02:41
So with that change. 00:02:42
Is there a motion to approve the agenda as presented? 00:02:45
We also sorry. 00:02:48
Could we also want to move the concert? 00:02:50
Agenda item. 00:02:53
Since we haven't had opportunity to meet and postpone it till next time when we can report something. 00:02:54
We certainly can or you can make that statement when we. 00:03:01
Get to it and. 00:03:04
Your preference move on that's that's fine why don't we we'll just. 00:03:05
Check off on Are you guys in agreement to that? 00:03:09
What do you think? 00:03:11
OK. 00:03:12
Yeah, let's pull it, please. 00:03:13
OK. 00:03:16
OK, with those two changes then? 00:03:21
Anything else? 00:03:24
Great. 00:03:26
So is there a motion to approve the agenda as revised? Commissioner Hoops motions to approve the revised agenda. 00:03:27
Beautiful. 00:03:34
And I will second. 00:03:34
Thank you both. 00:03:36
Excellence. OK. Moving on to Commission and staff announcements. 00:03:37
Ohh, pardon me, sorry. 00:03:41
Trying to move things along here too fast. 00:03:42
Can we do a roll call though then? Yes. 00:03:47
Commissioner Hoops. 00:03:49
Aye, Commissioner Markowitz. 00:03:51
Commissioner Richmond. 00:03:54
Aye, Commissioner McMurdo. 00:03:56
Sorry, I'm non voting. 00:03:58
Chair upman. 00:04:00
Vice Chair Jacobs. 00:04:03
Aye. 00:04:05
Commissioner Venuti, Commissioner Gibbs, yes. 00:04:07
Ask a quick one. You're a non voting member, so I just thank you very much. Thank you. 00:04:13
So that brings us to Commission and staff announcements. 00:04:23
Outside of the agenda items that are outlined today, are there any announcements, announcements from the staff? 00:04:26
Yes, I have been told that due to staffing issues we are losing our. 00:04:34
Planning Director and they we're going to have to cancel next month's meeting. 00:04:43
Until we have. 00:04:50
Everybody we need to. 00:04:52
To. 00:04:54
To staff the the meeting. So we're doing a little bit of a reorganization, so we apologize for that, but we'll. 00:04:55
We'll need to. 00:05:00
Get things squared away. 00:05:02
This question about that you're you're saying to cancel the? 00:05:05
Of the November EDC meeting, I want to be clear, is that correct? That is correct, yes. 00:05:09
I was told staffing issues, I'm I'm a messenger of this one so we'll try to. 00:05:14
Clarify the best we can moving forward. I believe Dan Go is going to be the Interim CDC Director. 00:05:20
Until we find someone. 00:05:28
And so we're gonna have to just figure out how. 00:05:30
By by hope you can be patient with us, because we are. 00:05:33
Dreadfully understaffed. We just lost also. 00:05:37
Annie, who was a wonderful addition, was a wonderful addition to our tourist staff and she's moving up north, so. 00:05:40
We're one more down South. 00:05:47
Can I just? 00:05:51
I mean, I believe the point, but just. 00:05:52
You know, we're just starting a important process. 00:05:55
So the staff. 00:05:59
So we're canceling the meeting because of the lack of staff. 00:06:01
Because somebody can't be here or. 00:06:03
Because preparing the agenda or what is actually the hang up? 00:06:06
I can't answer that for you. I was again just. 00:06:11
Told to pass on the message. OK. 00:06:14
And who I'm just trying to get back. So who is That was from Anastasia and I don't know if she had received director or direction 00:06:16
from. 00:06:20
And she's resigned, though, Is that correct? That is correct, OK, But her last day is. 00:06:25
Today. 00:06:30
Or tomorrow. Sorry, she's one more day in. 00:06:31
So she's still. 00:06:33
She's still the director until the end of the day tomorrow. 00:06:35
Thank you. 00:06:38
We'll we'll come up next to. 00:06:40
Council liaison announcements. We might be able to address that with good sources. Thank you. Attending here. 00:06:43
Any Commission announcements? 00:06:48
Actually, chaps did raise his hand. I don't know if. 00:06:51
Sure. 00:06:54
We can do that now. 00:06:55
Chapter, you have the floor. 00:06:59
Yes, Sir. Thank you. I I think we'll take a look into what is going on with the with generally staffing. 00:07:02
Short and I think in a lot of aspects aspects. 00:07:10
So we'll take a look, but I think in in. 00:07:15
Right now, as it stands, as the meeting is cancelled between now and and next month, if there's any change I'll I'll. 00:07:18
Commission now. 00:07:24
Excellent. Thank you very much. 00:07:27
OK. 00:07:30
Any Commission announcements? 00:07:34
Mr. Murder. 00:07:37
I brought in the Flyers because they were just printed for the Downtown Pacific Grove Trick or Treating that is put on by the 00:07:40
Downtown Business Improvement District. That is going to be on Saturday, October 28th from 1:50 PM and more information on our 00:07:47
website, but it's a great way for you to come out and have a good time on Halloween with the kiddos. 00:07:54
And what is your website? 00:08:02
Pacificgrove.org. 00:08:04
Yeah. 00:08:06
Always a fun time. 00:08:10
OK. 00:08:12
Councilman Pedro, do you have any other? 00:08:14
Announcements that you'd like to add before we move on. 00:08:16
Are you able to hear me? 00:08:21
Yes. 00:08:26
Umm. 00:08:27
The so yes I I do have a couple of announcements as you may have known like the Kimpton hotels and restaurants the for it's for 00:08:28
the benefit of the Commission, the Kimpton hotels and restaurants. 00:08:33
Has a breaking ground for a new boutique hotel. 00:08:37
And so when it. 00:08:41
Opens up in 2025. 00:08:42
It'll be a A-100 and room hotel. 00:08:45
It'll be the 10th, 10th in Hotel and and California. 00:08:48
The other thing I wanted to mention is around cannabis. Yesterday council looked into. 00:08:52
The the comments provided by the Planning Commission, the Police Department, the community, as well as council recommendations. 00:08:58
And we're planning to bring back the first draft of. 00:09:05
The cannabis zoning and the licensing ordinances back to council. 00:09:09
That's expected to to come in November. 00:09:13
And then finally, yesterday we did appoint a new assistant. 00:09:16
City Attorney. 00:09:20
So she Her name is Erica Vega, but she'll be providing legal services. 00:09:22
As an assistant city attorney for the city moving forward. 00:09:27
Thank you. 00:09:30
Thank you. 00:09:32
OK, that brings us to general public comment. 00:09:34
I do have a couple of comments too. 00:09:38
Sure. 00:09:40
Yeah, sorry, I was wasn't sure where we were with that. So just a couple things the. 00:09:41
After our meeting today right here at 6:30, the Planning Commission will be meeting on the housing element. 00:09:46
There's quite a bit of interest if you've been paying attention online, so it might be pretty interesting session. 00:09:51
I think we'll be more than one meeting with the Planning Commission on this one will be kind of looking at the history of the 00:09:57
housing element and how we got here. We are behind schedule. 00:10:01
We're in danger of missing our deadline with the state, which has. 00:10:05
You know, kind of some punitive consequences. So anyway, that's here at 6:30. 00:10:10
A couple of the things that was announced at the. 00:10:14
The amount of airport got about $750,000 grant. Do you know about this I'm sure, Eric? 00:10:17
To to supply service between Chicago and here on American Airlines. It's not a done deal, but. 00:10:22
American Airlines wrote a letter in support of that. 00:10:28
The there is a tomorrow night from 6 to 8. 00:10:30
There's a wildfire seminar at the at the Wave Building at 74774 Wave St. in Monterey. 00:10:35
Hell fire will be here. The monitor our our. 00:10:45
Fire Chief will be there and it should be an interesting session to talk about the possibilities of wire wildfire on the Monterey 00:10:48
Peninsula. 00:10:52
The Monterey Peninsula. 00:10:56
Chapter that the Chamber of Commerce is having a breakfast. 00:10:59
At 7:30 on October the 11th at the Monterey. 00:11:03
Marriott. 00:11:06
And everybody's invited if you have an interest in what's going on. 00:11:07
In the Monterey Peninsula chamber. 00:11:10
Jenny, you're. 00:11:13
You were that. Are you going to be there for that? I will be there. Good. Thank you. It's a it's a Marriott downtown. 00:11:14
And the only other thing is that the City Council will meet on October the 18th. 00:11:20
To look at any recommendations that the Planning Commission I think comes up with on the housing element and that will be more of 00:11:26
an open public forum and you can submit your questions online on city website about that. 00:11:32
That's all I had. 00:11:37
OK, that brings us back to. 00:11:41
Pardon me. Yes, Yeah, I've got a question here. And you were talking about future things. 00:11:42
And I'm just curious about all these meetings and the staff changes and everything. 00:11:46
We had a subcommittee. We got together, we put some housing recommendation. 00:11:51
Where did it go? And City Council talked about it and City Council talked about. 00:11:55
Really anything that this Commission has recommended? 00:12:00
I'm I'm looking. I'm trying to figure it out. 00:12:04
Because we've come up. 00:12:06
Jenny and I came up with stuff last year and it just faded away. 00:12:07
And it's like. 00:12:11
Are we? Sometimes it feels like we are operating in a vacuum. We do a lot of work and people have done a lot of works bringing 00:12:13
stuff together and we'll sit here and talk about it and we'll make a recommendation. 00:12:18
And where does it go? 00:12:23
Really, Really. Where does it go we've spent? 00:12:25
On this housing thing, the you know who the minority LED stuff. We had subcommittee meetings. 00:12:28
And what happened to it? 00:12:34
I'm the problem. Staffing is a huge problem. 00:12:36
And that. 00:12:40
Along with City Council is the biggest problem in the City of Pacific Grove you had, you mentioned the Planning Commission, all 00:12:41
sorts of interesting stuff. 00:12:44
How is that going to solve any problems here if this city can't, doesn't have the staff that can support the volunteers who are 00:12:49
here trying to do good things for the city? It's incredibly frustrating. I don't know if anybody else shares my frustration, but I 00:12:54
just wanted to bring that out. Thank you. 00:13:00
Can I just say something regarding that I do. I did. I was following some of our feedback that was supposed to go to council and I 00:13:07
believe it was pushed. 00:13:12
Through several meetings, I don't think that it was heard. 00:13:18
That's what. 00:13:21
Yeah. 00:13:22
Of course. 00:13:25
Thank you. 00:13:32
Yeah, that takes us to general public comment there. Any members of the public that would like make a comment at this time? 00:13:35
Seeing none. 00:13:42
OK. 00:13:46
Takes us to approval of the Minutes. 00:13:47
Minutes from the previous meeting were distributing in advance along with the agenda packets. Are there any questions on the 00:13:50
minutes from the committee members? 00:13:54
Seeing none. 00:14:01
OK. 00:14:03
We have a motion to approve the Minutes. 00:14:06
So moved. 00:14:08
Seconded. 00:14:11
Right. 00:14:12
To be formally need to do a roll call vote or can we just do a show of hands? 00:14:14
We formally have to do a roll call vote for. 00:14:18
Sorry, all right, just checking for you. 00:14:21
Mission Markowitz. 00:14:25
Commissioner, Whoops, aye, Commissioner, Richmond chair, Upman. Vice chair, Jacobs. Commissioner. 00:14:27
Commissioner Venuti. 00:14:36
Commissioner Gibbs, yes, motion passes. 00:14:38
Thank you. 00:14:41
OK, so that takes us to the regular agenda. 00:14:42
First up on the regular agenda, item number six, the QR code proposal project. Commissioner Hoops, you have the floor, Sir. Yeah, 00:14:47
so the agenda said receive report, I mean. 00:14:52
My original proposal was to bring forward this project and ask for some funding for it. 00:14:58
There was some issues, budgetary issues, not unclear, so we kind of wanted to gauge interest from the Commission to see if. 00:15:05
It seemed like people were. 00:15:13
Into it. So I think we're still right at the point where we just need to figure out funding for this. So there's really no. 00:15:14
Forward progress without. 00:15:22
Money. 00:15:23
So I mean my. 00:15:25
My suspicion is that we're going to need to find funding outside of. 00:15:28
The Commission's budget. 00:15:32
And but I'm not, Do we have estimates or proposal from? 00:15:33
The group that you were hoping to partner with on what the expenses would be and how this might be divided, yeah, so the the, the 00:15:37
estimate expense. 00:15:41
I mean it's all anybody that does production works on day, right. So it's like. 00:15:46
It's how many you can bundle together in a day realistically from there. 00:15:50
From their input, it was. 00:15:55
Four to five businesses a day that they could package together to do a full day's work of. 00:15:56
Shooting and editing and blah blah blah. So you know they estimated it probably between 2 grand and $2500. 00:16:02
Cost to produce a finished product per business. 00:16:10
Then that leaves the question of. 00:16:15
How much? 00:16:18
Responsibilities as this Commission want to. 00:16:19
Subsidized, you know, so if we're saying OK, if it's $2000. 00:16:22
1500 from the business or 500 from the Commission or what have you. That can be a sliding scale, but. 00:16:26
I think like. 00:16:32
The several things are happening less. Less of an issue is how much per business is going to cost and more is. 00:16:33
What sort of the like? 00:16:42
Escape velocity here of like how many businesses do we need to get on board to make this a viable project? Because you can't do 00:16:43
it. You can't do two of these. You know you gotta, you gotta do. 00:16:48
20 or 30 and then hope or at least in like a pilot batch of maybe 10 or 15 and then hope that. 00:16:53
You know. 00:17:00
This is ongoing, but I think at the timeline we're at now by the time this gets. 00:17:00
Funded, organized, shot, edited and implemented. Will probably be into a new budget in the next June, July 1. 00:17:05
July 1, 2024. 00:17:14
So I think that like. 00:17:16
Maybe we the the issue for our internally here on the Commission is to discuss. 00:17:18
What we think a good carrying capacity is for like maybe a like if you want to call it a pilot program for the number of 00:17:23
businesses we want to get. 00:17:26
Into this. 00:17:30
Figure out the funding for that and then get it done. 00:17:31
We also need to decide if we're going to ask. 00:17:35
Council for money. 00:17:38
Chamber of Commerce for money, Bid for money. All of the above. 00:17:39
These are like where we're at right now with the project, so it's I think. 00:17:43
It's a little premature to be saying. 00:17:46
How much is it going to cost from a production company? I think we need to decide. 00:17:48
What we actually want to do with this first and then go out to. 00:17:53
Commercial partner. 00:17:59
That's where we're at. 00:18:02
I don't know if there we need more than that or if we open the floor to any questions. Sure, see if we have any public comment. 00:18:04
Yeah, of course public comment first. 00:18:07
Any public comment on the QR code proposal project? 00:18:11
Seeing none. 00:18:17
OK. 00:18:18
Welcome to FLOOR here. 00:18:19
You're gonna be. 00:18:20
Sorry. 00:18:23
Sorry, I feel like I'm in the dark. What is this project all about? 00:18:25
So the project was presented at the last meeting, the idea being that as we have provided from Jenny here, these little QR codes. 00:18:28
So the idea was that. 00:18:32
Quickly, because this was we have a video of this. 00:18:38
To create some kind of internal business information. 00:18:41
Resource. 00:18:45
Through our Pick PG website and hosted on the thing, but essentially it would manifest in that we would. 00:18:47
Produce or so. 00:18:53
Have a small amount of funding go towards. 00:18:57
Helping businesses fund. 00:18:59
Some commercial production for like a short bio video for whatever their business is. 00:19:02
Umm. 00:19:06
Free use to them. We also would host it in a city thing and then a fixed to the facade of whatever business would be. 00:19:07
A QR code you know. 00:19:15
Less than the size of a sheet of paper, but you know some something that's noticeable walk from the sidewalk and as people are 00:19:16
walking through town they can find a. 00:19:21
Bookstore or restaurant or an art gallery and get more information kind of instantly about that. 00:19:25
Business. 00:19:30
And then once our they're on our Pick PG website, there's other places they can find information about or whatever and it's. 00:19:31
You know this is not about. 00:19:39
The debt like, it's not about Lighthouse, it's not about restaurants, It's about every business and PG and it can work for 00:19:41
anywhere there's foot traffic, which is great or points of interest that are nonprofit or anything like that. So that's. 00:19:46
That's the outline of the the elevator pitch on the on the project. 00:19:52
Thank you. OK, So wanted to just ask, is it worth? 00:20:02
Having a. 00:20:07
Doing a a written kind of report just outlining some of that stuff and then it would be much easier to report was submitted with 00:20:09
the last agenda, I mean. 00:20:14
More fine grained, more with you know with. 00:20:21
Answers to some of these questions, like should be in the report. 00:20:24
As far as, you know, rough estimate of day rate, why it's, you know, kind of this thing. Yeah, no, I just meant like more more of 00:20:29
like a concrete proposal with like you know, let us start with 10 businesses and that. I mean just wondering like you know 00:20:33
something which is. 00:20:38
Concrete and and and I'm happy to to, you know, get. 00:20:43
To do the next iteration of that and that and that like. 00:20:49
But I think that there needs to be input from the Commission of like. 00:20:53
What do we think the viability factor is here for? I mean, if we do 5 like? 00:20:56
Is it? 00:21:01
Gonna be useful if we do 10 like what? 00:21:02
Like. 00:21:05
If we put five of these up around town and they're not all right together, no one's going to notice right, if there's five on. 00:21:06
Victorian Corner Wild Fish Rudolph. Who's the quill you know? 00:21:12
Suzuki Zoo, That whole line. People will notice, right? But that's not probably the way it's going to work. 00:21:17
So I think that there is a line of like. 00:21:23
Drawing attention. I don't know what that is, and I'm certainly open to input. 00:21:26
And maybe that's a better question for our friends at the Chamber, but I think that like. 00:21:31
There needs to be a line, but then that of course goes back to. 00:21:37
The you know, if we say ohh well 30 seems right. 00:21:41
Then that's there's a cost associated with that to the Commission, right, so. 00:21:45
I think. 00:21:49
We need to first look at budgetary issue. 00:21:50
And then marry that with. 00:21:53
Well, do we have and like if we think 30 is the line, do we have enough budget to finance that? 00:21:55
And if we don't? 00:22:01
Where do we seek outside funding? 00:22:03
Or like. 00:22:05
Can we get away with however many we can produce on the funding we have? So. 00:22:06
There's sort of a lot of things that kind of have to happen at once, I feel like just to to get the ball rolling, but I don't know 00:22:11
like. 00:22:15
Without the funding piece, I think that's the biggest issue is the budgetary aspect currently. 00:22:19
Right. The way I see it possibly working is by saying like let's take 30, you know a pilot study with 30 is going to cost X, you 00:22:25
know we the EDC will fund, I don't know 20,000 or whatever it is contingent on. 00:22:33
The remainder being funded by someone else like that kind of a deal and and this is going to be funded. 00:22:41
Little bit per joiner per, per partner, right. So it's it's like you know it's it's kind of like the facade improvement like we're 00:22:48
going to allocate X amount of resources. 00:22:52
If five people sign up. 00:22:56
OK, here's your thing. We don't have to spend the money, but it's not going to be like. 00:22:58
We're gonna throw 30 thousand $20,000 at something and only get two businesses out of it. It's going to be per expense and 00:23:02
probably a build back program program probably makes the most sense for the business. So the business would need to front the 00:23:08
money, whatever the cost is, and then we'll reimburse up to $500.00 for their cost or whatever, whatever number. 00:23:14
Works out, but I think that's probably the best way to approach it. But there needs to be the allocation of resources first. So I 00:23:20
don't know what that number is. I thought we had a fresh budget. I think that that's incorrect. 00:23:26
Chair. 00:23:32
We were waiting on city staff but. 00:23:33
So. 00:23:36
Yeah, we, we have some commitment at the moment, yeah. 00:23:38
So I'm absolutely willing to sit down with you and maybe put together this. I think you can do both, I think. I don't think you 00:23:43
have to know how much the EDC might give. 00:23:48
I think if it the program is. 00:23:53
Exciting and enticing, and it will be good for visitors and for locals alike. We should move forward and create a proposal so that 00:23:56
we can come to the DC to say we'd love for you to contribute to it however much you can. And that will work for any entity that 00:24:02
you're looking for funding from. So I'm willing to work on that. If you create a subcommittee, I would be willing to be on that 00:24:08
one. 00:24:14
Griffin. 00:24:21
Umm, I just want to mention as a business owner. 00:24:22
I think I worry. 00:24:26
That like last meeting I was super about this idea and I was like, I still think it's a great idea, but hearing this meeting 00:24:28
talking about how much? 00:24:32
Might be on the business to pay for it, I don't think personally I it would make sense. 00:24:36
For me, just because everything is the $1,000,000 right now and it's like every penny we can save, I would rather save it and 00:24:41
currently with how downtown is. 00:24:45
There's not. 00:24:50
A ton of. 00:24:51
New, young businesses, there's a lot of older demographics, so it's like. 00:24:52
Whoever is part of this. 00:24:56
Program like would those customers looking at those ones even are they the same customers for me, So it's like. 00:24:59
I might not see a benefit for it. So why would I want to pay into it if it especially if it's like all up front, if I'm like let's 00:25:07
say it's 2500, it's like I wouldn't foresee paying that and seeing like. 00:25:13
Something out of it early on, maybe down the line it would make sense, but. 00:25:19
I think I worry with the cost up front. 00:25:24
It might not be as enticing. 00:25:27
Sure. And I mean it, this is not meant to be a silver bullet or A1 size fits all. I mean every business is has their choice to 00:25:29
partake or not. So if it doesn't if for your specific business like you don't see the return on that. 00:25:35
That's fine, but I mean I think like for some of the restaurants that are dinner only, that may miss customers that are here from. 00:25:42
You know, 2:50 PM. 00:25:49
And then go back to their hotel to freshen up and then look for a dinner plan if we can capture those people that are here during 00:25:52
the day to like be at the museum or whatever it is. 00:25:57
And then get them to come back for dinner like and they can get some information about. 00:26:02
The businesses here, I think that's like the real return on it. 00:26:08
Or whatever it is, you know? I mean, it's like. 00:26:12
OK, I you know. 00:26:14
They're here for this thing. They make a dinner plan and then they also are on the website and find out about some other 00:26:16
attraction that they wanna check out in town the next day or you know, that morning or whatever. So. 00:26:22
Yeah, I mean it's definitely not mandatory is the thing. So I mean that's every business owners, you know, prerogative to see 00:26:28
whether they. 00:26:32
See the value in it or not And it also is like. 00:26:37
Maybe it's not the right time. 00:26:40
Like to use your business as an example, Maybe it's not the right time for you guys now. 00:26:42
But. 00:26:46
Two years from now when this program has 75 participants like and there is a lot more traction and value from it maybe than it is 00:26:47
your time to do it. So it's not. This isn't A1 shot. I see this as like we need to have. 00:26:53
A rollout, a package of rollout that makes it a viable program, but I see this being an ongoing, you know, we add. 00:27:00
1510 or 15, every time we offer it or every year or whatever it is, we can renew funding for it and it's like and I don't. 00:27:07
That's the other side of it is this is this is a Commission with a relatively small budget. It should. 00:27:15
I think it's. 00:27:21
Easier to front load a program like this. 00:27:22
And. 00:27:24
Spend the money now and then it becomes a $5000 ongoing project every fiscal year instead of a $20,000 project so. 00:27:25
That's kind of the nature of it, but. 00:27:35
You know for our for internally city, social media website, all this stuff, there's real value there which is why we're. 00:27:38
Would would subsidize? 00:27:46
So. 00:27:48
Yeah, can I make a Of course. A suggestion? 00:27:49
It sounds as though I I. 00:27:52
I appreciate the idea and the energy behind this. I'd love to see potentially A subcommittee to discuss it further. 00:27:54
And then bring bring back. 00:28:00
Recommendation with a little bit of research is to, you know, buy in how you might work with. 00:28:02
Jenny and the Chamber. 00:28:07
And. 00:28:10
Kind of work through some of the details that we're discussing here. I don't think we're gonna necessarily solve it. 00:28:11
Yeah, this meeting. 00:28:16
But I'd love to keep this moving along, so maybe it's a subcommittee that. 00:28:17
Sure. 00:28:22
Establish. 00:28:23
Commissioner Rich. 00:28:25
And I had some final thoughts actually that I forgot to say, but very important and I think it just goes all back to all of. 00:28:26
These issues we're having where everything we say seems like it doesn't go anywhere, it's like, what is? 00:28:34
The point like it's this is really like pessimistic, but what is the point of us working so hard on these things and then no one's 00:28:39
on board with us? It's like if we were more connected with. 00:28:44
All the other commissions and the councils and blah, blah, blah. It's like, yeah, we could actually get some cool stuff done for 00:28:49
the businesses and for the community and for the tourists and. 00:28:53
Everybody involved and that I would feel confident being part of something like this. It's like. 00:28:58
Right now I don't feel confident because I can see how much miscommunication there is, or just lack of communication altogether. 00:29:03
And just lack of action as well. So it's like. 00:29:09
If I felt like. 00:29:12
Everyone was on board and they were like, ohh, that's a great idea from the EDC. We should move on it. It's like that would feel 00:29:13
so good and I I would be pumped to be part of that. And then it also goes back to all of our empty storefronts. It's like. 00:29:19
How long are we going to talk about empty storefronts? And nothing ever changes. So it's like. 00:29:25
I don't know, I just, I worry all these miscommunications or lack of, it's just like how do we actually move forward And I know 00:29:31
that's a such a bigger conversation and that's not your agenda item, but it's like. 00:29:36
So part of it and it's so frustrating, it certainly is part of it and I I really appreciate your comments and that and that is 00:29:42
that is absolutely. 00:29:46
In my mind. 00:29:51
It's like. 00:29:53
I want something that can come out of the EDC's budget so we can do it ourselves. 00:29:54
And just do the project, which was the idea behind it, right? But then it's like everything. It's all snowball. So it's like the 00:30:00
more that there's this school project going and that there's success behind it, the more people want to open businesses here, the 00:30:04
more those less open storefronts, you know, XY and Z, this is not. 00:30:09
Next week. This is like five years down the road, but it's like you have to do something and I wanted to have a project that is 00:30:15
like largely digital. 00:30:19
So that it the cost is lower because so that this Commission can just. 00:30:23
Write a check for it and we don't have to go outside of it. You know, we got into some budgetary issues for. 00:30:28
Reasons out of our control but like here we are, but if we can get. 00:30:33
The chamber or whoever on board and then the and then it's like. 00:30:37
We can just decide, as this Commission, to move forward. 00:30:40
Progress happens, so we don't have to be lost. If I can just add one thing to the subcommittee conversation, because I I'd love 00:30:44
to. 00:30:48
It's on. It's just I'm leaning back. 00:30:53
So in addition to doing a bit more research into the buy in and how we might roll something like this out, I think probably the 00:30:56
key. 00:31:00
To your point, Commissioner Richmond. 00:31:04
The key element that we need to establish here is who has ownership of this, because when we say the royal we. 00:31:06
We are not. 00:31:12
A working. 00:31:14
Commission that is literally doing the work right. So we need city staff support, we need support from the chamber and that needs 00:31:15
to be established up front so that it's clear who takes the reins after we say go do this. 00:31:22
And that's still. 00:31:29
At the moment unclear, yeah. So I would I would appreciate having some guidance from the subcommittee on that as well. So is that 00:31:30
something that? 00:31:34
No, I think that's a great idea. 00:31:38
OK. 00:31:41
Yeah. To Kelsey's point about the upfront charges, I just seem to be having conversations every day with local businesses. Most 00:31:42
people are saying they're running at 50% of what they were running at last year. The the downturn has been so dramatic and. 00:31:50
Umm. 00:31:59
I. 00:32:00
Think it's a great idea? We need to know like just a general idea about buying, you know if, if when you go around to businesses. 00:32:02
It would be useful to have a Plan B where. 00:32:10
A grant is that is. 00:32:14
Saw it or where where we have some other revenue apart from our smallish budget to be able to subsidize more I think what the 00:32:16
businesses have to pay, I think that would ensure a lot of success and. 00:32:22
Um, you know, for the city to be offering something to support businesses, I think that is a really awesome thing to support. So I 00:32:29
I would have thought it's a good you're in a good position there, but I I do feel there might need to just. 00:32:35
Because of the economic climate right now, I feel like that's that's really important. I totally understand. And I think I think 00:32:42
you're absolutely right. And I think like, again, like we're not asking people to spend. 00:32:47
A bunch of money in December when it's very slow, right. Like I think it's like by the time this gets off the ground, it'll 00:32:52
probably be April or May. So I mean that's that's probably what you know there's probably gonna be, might be a little bit better. 00:32:58
But I think you're absolutely right and I think again goes back to the question about viability if if we say. 00:33:04
This Commission is willing to spend. 00:33:10
You know 15,000 but we think the viability line of this project is 10 to 15 businesses then we can subsidize a lot more in the 00:33:12
first go round, right. So it's like make it easier on. 00:33:17
Early, early supporters, I guess You know so. 00:33:22
Umm. 00:33:26
I think that's a question for subcommittee, and I think subcommittee is a great idea. 00:33:27
Commissioner. 00:33:30
So I know I didn't. OK, So what is the existing budget? What's left in our budget this year? 00:33:39
I don't have that in front of me. The. 00:33:44
The line item that needs to be. 00:33:47
Established is whether or not we're funding the grant program through our EDC budget or with that that's coming from city it's. 00:33:50
Been advised by. 00:33:59
Council that we are able to use the DC budget to do so. 00:34:00
So we're waiting on city staff. 00:34:05
For guidance. 00:34:06
The next steps. 00:34:07
So how do they do? 00:34:08
Do we know? 00:34:10
Can we find out what's left in our budget? 00:34:11
And yes, that would be a city staff question, but yes, OK, at the moment it should be. 00:34:14
Into the end. 00:34:19
Which is why. 00:34:20
I don't have it in front of me. Yeah, 38,000. 00:34:22
So the so July 1, the budget. 00:34:27
Resets and it was 38,000. The problem is that the. 00:34:29
Minority Business grant is a large chunk of that so. 00:34:34
The proposal that I put forward, when I put forward, I was asking for a large part of the $38,000 budget which was in the initial 00:34:38
report. 00:34:41
I was asking to allocate $25,000. 00:34:46
But we don't have $25,000 now because 20,000 of it is going to the the minority business grant. 00:34:48
So we're left with 18. 00:34:53
Which may be enough. 00:34:57
Or it might not, but then it doesn't leave us any money for any projects until July 1 again, so which is not? 00:34:59
The position I wanted to put the Commission in because as much as I like this, I like all of my fellow Commissioners as well, so. 00:35:05
The other question I had was in terms of communication with the Council. 00:35:12
What do we do about it? 00:35:19
I mean, do we go to their meetings and do a public comment? Do we ask? 00:35:21
Councilman perjury to address it today. What do we do about it? 00:35:25
I mean it's we talk about it every meeting and nothing is done about it. 00:35:29
So what do we do about it? 00:35:34
I don't have a question, but Commissioner Markowitz or an answer, yeah, it it seems that we're running around it. You just, Robin, 00:35:38
you just brought up something great. 00:35:42
How much money do we have? 00:35:46
What do we have to do? We're coming up with all these projects that are requiring money. Might it be the time for us just to go to 00:35:47
City Council and say, hey guys, we want to do this, we're perfectly willing to do this, give us the budget to do some of these 00:35:52
things that work on the city. 00:35:56
I mean, they're handing money. Ohh, you're planning this, this this is economic development. 38,000 spill. Half of you got 18,000 00:36:02
left. You can develop the economy and tell us exactly what we need to do. That's ridiculous. 00:36:07
I wonder is there a way that we can go to City Council and say, hey guys? 00:36:14
You want this stuff done? Give us the budget to do it and we'll be more than happy to run with it. 00:36:18
Like Aaron's project, if we had the money to do it. 00:36:24
In a snap, we'd be out there doing this. 00:36:27
The, you know, minority businesses, if that money was there, would just spend a whole bunch of money. But now there are there. Now 00:36:29
we're talking about a concert series. Where's the money gonna come from? 00:36:33
There's got to be a lot of money and there was a personnel. I don't bring this up. There was a personnel decision made about a 00:36:38
month ago that cost this city a half $1,000,000. 00:36:42
And everybody knows what I'm talking about and we're sitting here talking about $8000 and why we can't move things. 00:36:46
And that is incredibly frustrating. This is my third year on this Commission. 00:36:52
And it's gone downhill. 00:36:56
And it really has the money that we've been able to spend and the things we have meetings and we talk about. Let's do this. 00:36:58
Where's the money? And we can't. We don't know what our fiscal situation is to be able to do any of these projects we want. 00:37:04
I was looking at the agenda. There's this thing that. 00:37:11
That I guess that. 00:37:13
Commissioner Gibbs put together on this the thing that taking a look at the projects, top ranking locations and all this stuff and 00:37:15
how we can follow up. 00:37:19
This is going to cost money. 00:37:23
And we're going to have to come up with some money and it's really frustrating. Well, let's go to City Council next week and see 00:37:24
if they can give us a buck 280 for a cup of coffee. 00:37:28
Thank you. 00:37:33
OK. 00:37:35
Mr. James. 00:37:36
Yeah, so the. 00:37:38
Minority grants. 00:37:40
Was 20,000. We had it in the budget last year. We were poised to. 00:37:41
Distribute the money and then it it disappeared, it just went back to council. 00:37:47
So I think that there is an argument to go to council and say, well, that money. 00:37:53
We were delayed. 00:37:58
It's going back to council. Could council pay it? 00:38:00
And then we can use our budget for this, the budget for this year. 00:38:03
For things that we're going to do this year. 00:38:07
So again. 00:38:09
I I'm not sure, it seems a little. 00:38:11
I had four. 00:38:14
EDC members to just go to public comment to communicate with. 00:38:15
The council, I think, may be a more meaningful kind of, you know, you can't say much in 3 minutes, so maybe through Councilman 00:38:19
Poduri, we could try to. 00:38:24
What? 00:38:30
Councilman Materi, right. OK, awesome. That was all I wanted to say. 00:38:31
Councilman. 00:38:37
Thank you, and for some reason I'm actually on the public comment, but usually I'm a panelist. 00:38:40
Either way, that's that's besides the point. The the. 00:38:46
The. 00:38:50
I would say there's a couple of things in here. One is I I don't have the back history, the history behind why? 00:38:51
38,000 why that? 00:38:57
Magic number was allocated for the ADC. 00:38:59
So I think if if the intent for this Commission is to increase that amount in any fashion. 00:39:03
All of you have to come to terms to what that amount needs to be. 00:39:09
And if that's the intent, then I suggest having a a topic. 00:39:13
To discuss that particular. 00:39:18
Item. 00:39:20
And come together on a conclusion on what that number needs to be. 00:39:21
And propose that to Council for Council to make a decision. 00:39:25
That's. That's one. 00:39:29
The other thing is, right now you are budgeted with 38,000 out of which you have consumed some amount. So you only have so much 00:39:30
for the rest of the year. 00:39:34
So if if, the decision is to. 00:39:39
Allocate some amount for this current year, then that particular item needs to be surfaced to council this year. 00:39:42
Otherwise it has to be for the next year. 00:39:49
So you have to make two decisions and I can certainly work with. 00:39:52
The chair or or you as a group to to see where we need to come with that. 00:39:56
But council needs to make a decision. 00:40:01
On this matter, because you're. 00:40:03
Raising something. 00:40:05
That I've not seen before, and maybe it's it. It has been raised before, but I've not seen it. 00:40:06
But either way, it appears to me. 00:40:11
That 38,000 is not enough. 00:40:13
And and so therefore. 00:40:15
What does that amount? 00:40:17
I think you need to come to that conclusion. 00:40:19
Hopefully that helps. 00:40:21
I'm actually I just. I just. 00:40:28
Want to mention real quick? 00:40:31
I actually didn't even know that we like lost. 00:40:33
That money for the Women and minorities grant because it didn't make it before. 00:40:35
Aren't year was up. This isn't brand new to me. I had no idea. And to me, I look at that and I think. 00:40:41
Like. 00:40:49
City Council to me is kind of like. 00:40:50
The boss compared to us, you know and if the boss misses the deadline, who's responsible for that? Like that doesn't make any 00:40:52
sense. And. 00:40:56
They have to be paying attention to dates as well, in my minds, and they should be taking it seriously. And if that means it's now 00:41:00
coming out of this years, that means we might not get to do the grant program again, which means. 00:41:06
In some fashion. To me, that's stealing. They're stealing from our community. 00:41:13
Like. 00:41:17
Business owners, because now 22 businesses don't get the chance to do it if we're kind of screwed out on that money to give away 00:41:17
so. 00:41:21
That's I don't know. I'm. I'm blown away by that. And I think that's so irresponsible of the City Council to not take action on it 00:41:25
when they needed to and to be paying attention to those dates. 00:41:30
Yeah, it makes me upset and I hope those two businesses that are deserving of that grant speak up at the City Council meeting. 00:41:35
I I just like to comment as well that you know I think the collective. 00:41:43
Issue here that we also are facing which is evident is. 00:41:49
Just the fact that we don't have staff representation. 00:41:53
So a lot of these issues would be solved by having. 00:41:56
You know a. 00:42:00
Individual who's able to inform us on a lot of this and and right now we're flying blind. 00:42:02
So a lot of good questions being asked. I think that it's very clear that there's some frustration around a number of things. 00:42:07
But at the moment. 00:42:14
In order for us to operate effectively, we also need to have the. 00:42:16
You know the team to back us in. 00:42:20
What we're discussing and and how to execute the things. 00:42:23
We're proposing. 00:42:26
Need. 00:42:30
Next steps I would see then, for us to put together a proposal for a budget. 00:42:31
And presented to City Council. 00:42:36
Sent to City Council. 00:42:38
Is that? 00:42:40
What you think? Well, no, I I don't know that we're there yet. 00:42:40
Because we have a budget. 00:42:44
And we've gone through. 00:42:46
A budget? 00:42:48
Conversation. 00:42:49
In previous meetings, so a. 00:42:51
In fact, Commissioner Markowitz and. 00:42:54
Commissioner Jacobs are, pardon me, McMurdo. 00:42:56
Put together a proposal for. 00:42:59
Utilizing the budget. 00:43:02
Probably about six months ago at this point. 00:43:04
So we we have discussed that you know the at this point we I think need some gut staff guidance on how we're proceeding with the 00:43:09
spending over the grant program and sure, sure and if I may we we have strayed a bit from an agenda item. 00:43:16
Into a completely different topic, and I know it's a very important topic, but you may want to agendize this for another meeting. 00:43:24
So that you can make a decision on it and the public has an opportunity to to speak on it. 00:43:31
Fair. So two months from now? 00:43:36
So I think, I think to answer now, Chair, I think the thing we can do now is. 00:43:38
I think, I think the subcommittee was a good idea. I think we should maybe look for a motion to form a subcommittee and. 00:43:43
Find some members for it and have two months to talk about something. 00:43:49
I'll make that motion for a subcommittee to support. 00:43:52
The. 00:43:55
QR code project. 00:43:56
Seconded. 00:43:58
Well, but we, yeah, we received the report, but we're also. 00:44:02
OK. So, yeah, excellent. OK, so second. 00:44:05
To have a second. 00:44:09
I I'll let's just I'll make a motion that myself. 00:44:17
Commissioner McMurdo. 00:44:21
Does anybody else want to be? 00:44:23
Yeah, Liz can't. Liz is out of her bandwidth. 00:44:25
All right, Kelsey, the three of us will be on subcommittee. I'll I'll make that motion if someone wants to 2nd. 00:44:29
2nd. 00:44:37
By. 00:44:40
Commissioner Markowitz. 00:44:41
OK. 00:44:44
So. 00:44:45
Let's do a roll call. There you go. 00:44:47
Commissioner Hoops. 00:44:50
Aye. 00:44:51
Commissioner Markowitz, Commissioner Richmond. 00:44:52
Aye, Commissioner Gibbs. Yes, Commissioner Venuti. 00:44:55
Aye, Vice Chair Jacobs. Aye, chair Upman. 00:44:59
With seven eyes and 0 nays, the motion passes. 00:45:02
I see that Commissioner Colletti has his hand raised. We have. 00:45:10
Pardon me, Council member Coletti. 00:45:16
In terms of. 00:45:19
Order here. 00:45:21
Are we open to accepting public comment at this point, or have we moved? 00:45:22
Yeah, he's, I would presume, attending as a member of the public, correct. 00:45:30
I can go ahead and open it up. Leave that to the chair, I guess. 00:45:37
Councilman Kalati. 00:45:42
Ohh, thank you Chair. And you know, another interesting discussion here at the DC. 00:45:45
And. 00:45:51
You. I think there's just you. You hit the nail on the head. I think the EDC is flying blind in a few important understandings. 00:45:52
Of how items are agendized and how you move forward budget requests. 00:46:01
And who you do that through? 00:46:06
The chair of your committee can put on. 00:46:08
Your agenda at any time. 00:46:11
A request for an update on the current funding, the budget funding for your for your Commission. 00:46:14
And likewise, staff can bring forward an agenda item to Council so. 00:46:21
It's really the staff that you have to be working through to move these things forward and to get regular updates. 00:46:27
So hope that helps. 00:46:33
What's that? 00:46:36
Yeah. 00:46:37
OK. Thank you. 00:46:38
OK. Moving on to the next item on the agenda. 00:46:39
That brings us to a presentation from a customer, Commissioner Gibbs. We have the Tripadvisor's top ranking locations in Pacific 00:46:43
Grove and there's a presentation deck that goes along with that. 00:46:48
Thank you. 00:46:56
Open. 00:46:57
Patient to be upset, only introduce it. 00:47:01
The the subcommittee is talked a bit about. 00:47:04
You know strategic plan for Pacific Grove, the business areas we've talked about the last couple of months. 00:47:09
And. 00:47:14
You know, it was kind of interesting as part of my own research. 00:47:16
I went online. 00:47:19
And, you know, ask myself. 00:47:21
There's really a couple different groups. There's the residents. 00:47:23
That expect. 00:47:26
Businesses to me a certain way and then there's get visitors and guests and and they have a fairly different opinion, so. 00:47:28
I went and switched around a little bit. Travel Advisor is one of the bigger sites, have been around a long time. They have an 00:47:34
interesting algorithm. 00:47:37
They pledged a lot of data, so I typed in Pacific Grove. Where do people go when they come to Pacific Grove? 00:47:41
And so before we. 00:47:46
Can we pop the? 00:47:48
The PowerPoint up there. 00:47:50
Is that part of the It's not going to work without the president? Yeah, let me. 00:47:54
All right. Yeah. So the question to the commissioners is? 00:47:59
Most of us have been here for a while. If you think of your top one or two spots, your favorite places that you like to go. 00:48:03
In Pacific Grove and I'm not sure we can have a huge discussion, but I'm just kind of interested. 00:48:09
To get a just go around, you could pop up and tell me if the top two places, I mean, you got Lovers Point and that kind of stuff. 00:48:15
What would be your favorites from a as a resident? 00:48:19
I'm on the red trail every day. 00:48:25
OK. So the Rec trail, you're walking up and down. Are you biking or walking? Walking. OK. 00:48:27
Anybody else? 00:48:33
From lovers, yeah, point of order. It does need to be presentation. Then we do comments, so it does. 00:48:35
OK, you need to finish so let me just put post it this way. 00:48:40
Think about in your mind, since we're not having comments. 00:48:44
What it is that you know what your favorite places are and thank you for that. And then we're going to, I'm just going to show 00:48:48
some slides pretty quick. 00:48:51
And we'll go through it. And you might be surprised. Maybe not. So see if this matches up with what your favorite spots are in 00:48:55
Pacific Grove. 00:48:58
If we can. 00:49:02
This guy. 00:49:06
There you go. 00:49:11
Thank you. 00:49:13
You'll recognize the spots. I don't really have the if we go to the first. 00:49:15
Oops, real quick. Hold on. 00:49:19
There you go. 00:49:23
All right, so here's the list. If you could scroll up so we can see the bottom of the list. 00:49:34
See the whole list here. And they're not in any particular order, but these are the ones that pop up to people I was asking folks 00:49:38
in town. 00:49:41
Yeah, I won't, you know, go through all, but you know, obvious ones. Lighthouse Sanctuary, Lovers Point Golf Course History 00:49:44
Museum. You can see the list here. 00:49:48
So if you look at that, put in your mind what are your favorite spots? 00:49:52
Here can we Scroll down and go to the first spot and on. This is on TripAdvisor. 00:49:56
No, there was no argument here. Lovers Point is far and away number one. That's where people go. Hang out. They go for picnics. 00:50:01
The comments are, you know, outstanding, then no surprise there, let's go next. 00:50:08
#2 00:50:12
and by the way, these are pictures are not copyrighted because they're mine. This is me surfing out there. 00:50:13
No, it's not. No, No, it's not. 00:50:20
Well, and so it's a summer beach and it's mainly for, you know, hanging out, surfing, picking. 00:50:24
You know, lighting fires at night, #3 is on the list. Ocean View Blvd. So Rob and Commissioner Venuti walking back and forth. I 00:50:30
took this picture last week. That's number three. Number four. 00:50:36
Is obviously the Monarch sanctuary. This picture came from the monarchs. Last year they were in full force and they were already 00:50:42
out. This year I have in my front yard already. OK #5. 00:50:47
Is Lighthouse, which you can kind of see this is at. 00:50:53
A sunrise. I took this a few months ago. 00:50:57
You see Lighthouse there, Number six. 00:50:59
May be surprised. 00:51:01
I don't visit this. This is number six from the on the TripAdvisor. These are people that come from the outside. I can't tell you 00:51:03
I've ever been there. 00:51:07
But it is number six in the most popular sites by from our guests and visitors. 00:51:11
#7 00:51:15
Love this one is the motorcycle museum. Does anybody not know you can raise your hand? You don't have to make a comment. 00:51:17
Where the motorcycle museum it sits about one block up from here, on the left hand side, right. 00:51:23
So that's the seventh most popular so. 00:51:27
I guess we can't have a comment yet. My question is then. 00:51:31
Why not the Natural History Museum that's not in the top seven. Why not? 00:51:35
Right. And the question is. 00:51:39
Are we not advertising or we don't? Don't we have the resources? What's going on that people? It's a marvelous resource. Why 00:51:40
aren't people there? 00:51:44
Next the golf course. This is the 8th T or this is the 8th green at the golf course at sunset. 00:51:49
And it is one of the best public golf courses in. 00:51:55
The world. I don't think anybody here is a golfer. 00:51:59
I'm not very good by 11 golf. It is featured in golf magazines, but it's not featured as a place that people go. 00:52:02
This is the Noah building, which will be discussed pretty thoroughly tonight at the Planning Commission. 00:52:09
The picture that you see of the diver, that's Japanese female diver. 00:52:15
And they're diving for abalone. Ray Troll is the artist of this. 00:52:19
And he is a world renowned artist. This is a treasure that's not listed on the TripAdvisor Next. 00:52:23
Washington Park. This is an eagle or sorry, a hawk that we took in Washington Park. It's a great resource. It's 20 acres. 00:52:31
With three acres on the South end, which is. 00:52:39
You know, equipment and that kind of stuff. 00:52:42
And then the last thing is the library. 00:52:45
Pacific Grove has the only Carnegie library. 00:52:48
In Monterey County, the only one operating Carnegie Library in Monterey County, it's a big deal. There are 4000, used to be 4000 00:52:51
around the country. We reestablished this there. There are people that do nothing. 00:52:57
That do nothing but visit Carnegie libraries. 00:53:03
Right. 00:53:06
They're they're old folks and they get in the car and they drive around and they take pictures of the library and they share them 00:53:07
on Instagram. 00:53:10
Why not here? Oh, the last one is. 00:53:13
Downtown's not even on the list. 00:53:15
So if you look at downtown, right across from here and up on block is the PG History Center that happens, the PG Art Center, 00:53:18
that's that's probably my top favorite place to go. 00:53:22
You know, first Fridays to go up there for exhibits. Local artists and authors are present. They're not on the list. We don't 00:53:27
advertise it. I don't know why. Maybe Liz understands why that's not on the list. OK. 00:53:33
That's the end of the presentation. 00:53:40
So I'm just curious if there's any comments as we look forward to the strategic plan and thinking about not only what's best for 00:53:42
the residents? 00:53:45
What's best for the visitors and guests? 00:53:49
Some of these things are obvious and some of the things are not. Obviously we want people to come to the restaurants, the bar 00:53:52
code. 00:53:55
But if they're here, visiting these assets or these natural wonders? 00:53:58
You know they're here for a couple hours. Wait, what do we go eat? And the and the barcode could be at. 00:54:02
Some of these more frequently visited sites could it not. 00:54:08
OK. So I'm done with my presentation. I'm just kind of curious what everybody on the on the Commission thinks about that. 00:54:11
Any comments from the public before we move on? 00:54:25
Hello Nadia Mark on resident. 00:54:31
Umm. 00:54:34
I'm I'm not quite clear what the purpose of this is, considering the one data point being TripAdvisor and it's a consumer. 00:54:36
Website so. 00:54:46
I guess, I guess your hope is to reach out more publicly in terms of advertising too. 00:54:50
To promote economic development. 00:54:57
I think it's it's a shame that you didn't consider the African American. 00:55:00
Angle in terms of the tourism. 00:55:07
Tourism aspects there, I've been making up the number but it's it's quite a high figure in terms of the dollars, tourism dollars 00:55:11
from the. 00:55:16
The African American community. 00:55:22
Another thing is Yelp Yelp has been around for. 00:55:25
Over 2 decades now and being a OG elite yelper. 00:55:31
They have a quite a quite a lot of consumer power. 00:55:38
So that's something. 00:55:41
To look at, we have a pretty robust Yelp community. 00:55:43
So where to add that? 00:55:48
Thank you. 00:55:50
Any further comment from the? 00:55:53
Seeing none. 00:55:57
OK, let's go ahead and. 00:55:57
Open it up for any commissioner comments. 00:56:00
Thoughts. Discussion. 00:56:02
Yeah. 00:56:08
First thought is just that, see Monterey is our marketing muscle locally and we spend a lot of money with them. So I think the 00:56:10
first thing would they've got fabulous staff over there, they are like. 00:56:17
Very staffed up in contrast to what we, you know, our situation here so. 00:56:24
I I honestly believe that if we wrote some content or if we requested them to write some content, they would. 00:56:31
Really put together something nice and they would. They have a huge number of. 00:56:38
You know, hits. 00:56:44
On the on the Internet there are top tier website and not only that they are embedded with a visit California which is an even, 00:56:46
you know, more massive. 00:56:51
Marketing arms, So I. 00:56:56
Don't know the answer, but I think that might be a good direction. 00:57:00
So I don't know if it's like another subcommittee idea and put something together and go in that direction or how one would go 00:57:04
about doing that, but I feel to to use the resources that we're paying for already would be a good place to start. 00:57:11
Yeah. 00:57:17
So I just the comment that's a great comment and in the next agenda item. 00:57:18
You know the question really is who are the stakeholders or strategic partners for Pacific, but obviously see Monterey is one of 00:57:23
them. So if there's if there was a subcommittee looking at stakeholders or partners that obviously would be one of the first 00:57:27
places to go get feedback what is featured. 00:57:32
Why are not some of these things feature? What is the screen or what are the criteria for featuring something? I've been there. I 00:57:36
haven't been there recently. 00:57:39
Last time I went some of the. 00:57:43
Better restaurants in town Where? 00:57:45
Listed, right. So I don't know what the criteria is, but that's a really good point. Thank you. 00:57:47
Yeah. 00:57:54
Thank you. So I was also a little confused as to what we were talking about in this. I did my own searches as well on multiple 00:57:55
different days at different times of the day and I'll tell you they rotate. So these. 00:58:03
They they look at your own data on your own computer or your own phone and throw you things that will be appealing to you. I also 00:58:12
was wondering what list you were looking at cause they have multiple lists they have like top restaurants, they have top parks, 00:58:18
they have top things to do. So I was wondering which list you actually pulled? 00:58:24
To find these because. 00:58:31
I found all of the ones that you have listed the why nots on lists and sometimes they were in the top 10. 00:58:33
So I think it depends on when you're looking whose computer you're using. There's so many different algorithms, algorithms that 00:58:41
I'm sure our marketing expert would understand a little bit more than even I do. But that is part of this formula that you're 00:58:48
getting as your top seven. I didn't see top ranking locations in Pacific Grove as a. 00:58:56
As a category, so I wasn't sure where it came from. 00:59:04
So I had a hard time responding to it, but I do have a lot of comments about it there. We have all of these other locations that 00:59:08
are popping up as well. 00:59:12
Umm. 00:59:16
TripAdvisor is just one of many different consumer platforms, as Miss Mark said as well. So is the question, are we not? 00:59:17
Playing to our strengths in our marketing, if that's the question, then yes, I believe a subcommittee to talk about that. The 00:59:26
chamber is also part of it. The HID, the BID, the EDC, the. 00:59:32
MCB sorry, C Monterey, there's so many different entities that are doing this kind of work, But my question was, what is the 00:59:38
question we're being asked tonight? 00:59:42
Thanks. 00:59:47
No, it was. 00:59:53
It was, I think, to just get people thinking right because the next. 00:59:54
The next question is Will, what are the assets? Who do we go talk to? What are the readings? 00:59:58
How come there are different if you go to one place and they're not consistent with TripAdvisor or Yelp? 01:00:03
I think. 01:00:08
If if there is a subcommittee and again we don't want to get ahead of our agenda item, I think that's just something to be aware 01:00:09
of. I I put it out here because I thought it was interesting. These are sites that everybody goes to. 01:00:14
We don't necessarily all agree in terms of you know, these are our favorite or not. So I'm just. 01:00:20
Is a psychologist. I'm just throwing it out there and getting people's brain wrapped around, you know, where are the kind of 01:00:25
favorite places that we like to go? And then we may end up with a sub Kitty committee and this will be one of the things that 01:00:30
they're actually going to look at. I don't like the word assets, but I like treasures. 01:00:35
So, so the question to Commissioner McMurdo was I just typed in the TripAdvisor most frequently. I don't remember saying my 01:00:41
question was visited sites in Pacific Grove, something like that. It was a Google search. 01:00:47
And then I lose your TripAdvisor. So that's how it came up and it's not scientific by any way, means reform if you the algorithm 01:00:53
may identify. I did it about four times the same. 01:00:59
Top seven popped up. 01:01:04
So for example, lovers point popped up in three different places for example. 01:01:06
And each one was 300 to 500 hits, so I simply combined them to get #1 so. 01:01:10
I did a little statistical analysis and and how I came up with it, John Denver was not nearly, I mean there's maybe 30 or 40 01:01:15
compared to hundreds of lovers point. 01:01:20
But it still was in the top ten. The question is why? 01:01:24
What's driving the algorithm? Are we, Are we? 01:01:27
Advertising the right things? Are we using the right wording? And Sea Monterey, are we using the kind of words that are targeted? 01:01:29
You know, people come out on on on Instagram, you see them all the time. They take pictures of the. 01:01:35
The butterflies, they take picture of some of the murals and then they post them. I don't know what they post them under. 01:01:39
Right. So we don't know what that is and I think that would be good. 01:01:44
The younger population uses Instagram. That and and and and Pinterest. That's where stuff gets posted all the time. 01:01:47
So I was just simply looking at, you know, what other people thought and. 01:01:53
I agree with with Miss Markets. You know, we should be looking at developing this subcommittee. May want to go look at other. 01:01:58
Algorithms and other sites. Thank you. 01:02:04
Further comment. 01:02:08
Tradition. 01:02:10
Just ask someone that. 01:02:12
Has been trying to figure out algorithms on Instagram for five years. You can't beat an algorithm, you can't win. It's just an 01:02:13
ever evolving thing that. 01:02:18
It will. It will. 01:02:23
Evolve. By the time you figure it out, it already evolved to something else. So it's nothing that we can necessarily do to change 01:02:24
what's popping up because. 01:02:28
Like like Miss McMurdo said, it's like it's different for every single person. Everyone can Google that in this room and it's 01:02:32
going to come up something different, so. 01:02:36
It's not something under our control and and probably the more you try to control it, the less you're going to win just because. 01:02:39
Like you said, like people come here, take pictures and post it on the Internet. 01:02:46
It doesn't even have to be tagged for the Internet to know what it is, so it's like. 01:02:50
Million people are going to be visiting Lovers Point because it's just such a beautiful place and. 01:02:55
Nature is probably always going to win that one too, so. 01:03:00
And we can't control what everyone likes to even like, you know, worldwide people are going to. 01:03:04
Umm. 01:03:09
Do what they do and post what they post. And we can't figure out what's coming next because we don't know every what's going on in 01:03:09
everyone's brains and on their computers. So I just want to. 01:03:14
Say. 01:03:19
Unfortunately, it's a losing battle on this one because that's just how the algorithms work. But. 01:03:20
It it's a good conversation piece, but yeah, I don't think there's anything to. 01:03:24
Move forward with except for like our strategic planning stuff that we want to do moving forward with the DC, it's definitely 01:03:28
going to be part of the conversation so. 01:03:32
Commissioner Hoops. 01:03:37
Yeah, I I appreciate. 01:03:39
The sentiment uh, Commissioner Gibbs, I think it's really good to just be always have this kind of in front of mind. I think that 01:03:40
it's like. 01:03:44
What we're talking about here is sort of like concentric circles, right? So like. 01:03:49
To Commissioner Jacob's point, it's sort of like. 01:03:53
We let see Monterey and the and the larger organizations that have more muscle kind of handle. 01:03:56
Getting people here, this Commission is sort of like, what do we do with them? 01:04:00
When they're here and like, how do we kind of? 01:04:05
Increase some revenue for our local businesses and things like this and like. 01:04:07
I I don't know that there's much that we can do to. 01:04:11
Attract more visitors. I think that's sort of an. 01:04:14
The wider circle, we're sort of the smallest circle on the bullseye, right? So it's kind of like we need to make sure that there's 01:04:18
something that. 01:04:21
Keeps people here that that they enjoy it and come back that our local businesses are strong things like this, but I don't know 01:04:25
that we can really. 01:04:29
Fight the algorithm Or or, you know, make people. 01:04:34
Come to downtown versus the John Denver Memorial. I don't, I don't know how we would steer that ship. 01:04:39
I think that the, the issue here is what we talk about all the time is, is strategic planning, what do we do, how do we increase 01:04:44
revenue and things like that. So I think it's great sentiment to have as like an overarching plan, but I don't know that there's 01:04:49
much that we can do to affect trip advisors results. 01:04:54
Marquis. 01:05:01
Yeah, I'm gonna agree with the Commission. Now they're in on that. 01:05:02
You know as as a long time resident here I'm trying to take a look we all these pictures and we see them TripAdvisor bringing 01:05:07
people in and again I'm going with as a resident and. 01:05:12
I have kind of a different view. I have a lot of favorite things around here and. 01:05:17
On the bottom line, when you think about it, that's really unimportant. 01:05:22
It's really unimportant. 01:05:25
That these are here and how many people like them. 01:05:27
It's like. 01:05:30
We're trying to figure out what we can do to improve the economy here. 01:05:31
We already have these beautiful and pretty points. We already have these pretty places to go. 01:05:36
I'd really like to see us the strategic plan to go on to that. 01:05:41
The pretty pictures are nice. 01:05:45
Aaron's idea? This is the sort of stuff we want to move forward with. 01:05:46
And. 01:05:50
And there's one other thing I have to mention, and I don't know if you know it. 01:05:52
1903. 01:05:56
You know what happened in 1903? 01:05:58
The first Carnegie Library opened in California. It was in Pacific Grove and, you know, cut the ribbon. 01:06:00
Andrew Carnegie. 01:06:07
I wrote a story on this for Coast Weekly about 20 years ago and I did a lot of research on it and I thank you for mentioning me 01:06:09
that. 01:06:13
Because that is a true treasure here. 01:06:17
Nobody knows about. 01:06:20
So. 01:06:21
Thank you. 01:06:22
For your. 01:06:28
You know, I think in terms of marketing to visitors, Commissioner Gibbs, we already have a great group that does that for us and 01:06:31
I'm not going to second guess what they're doing. 01:06:35
In terms of Sea Monterey, we're paying them money. 01:06:40
You're right, we need to know what the stakeholder who the stakeholders are. But. 01:06:43
I'm not going to go there and talk about marketing to visitors and even in the strategic plan, I just don't think that's. 01:06:47
Time well spent when we have specialists who have been doing this professionally for a long time. 01:06:54
I'm not that person. 01:06:58
Thank you. 01:07:07
Yeah, I think it was a good discussion. Thank you. I, you know obviously most of the panel here knows more about the technology 01:07:08
and the algorithms that I could possibly even know. So for me it was a valuable information to have and. 01:07:14
I think I I confess what I'd like to do. Just. 01:07:20
Kind of get some ideas out there and and have a place to start. Thank you. Yeah, absolutely. And it's a great way to tee up the 01:07:22
next. 01:07:25
Agenda item as well, and I know that that was your intention. 01:07:29
It it brings us back to. 01:07:33
The conversation that we've had over. 01:07:37
Putting together. 01:07:39
A larger strategic plan? 01:07:40
And update from the subcommittee, that being. 01:07:43
Vice Chair Jacobs, Commissioner Gibbs, and myself. 01:07:48
Over next steps on how we approach this and so I believe. 01:07:52
Commissioner Jacobs had had walked through in the last. 01:07:57
EDC meeting. 01:08:02
A brief update. 01:08:03
Of next steps and where we're at. And there was some discussion I I was not present for that. 01:08:04
But I wanted to bring that back. 01:08:09
To the group. 01:08:11
And discuss the. 01:08:12
Opportunity to move forward with. 01:08:14
A subcommittee. 01:08:17
To take the first steps in piercing together. 01:08:19
Parts of the strategic plan. 01:08:23
Umm. 01:08:25
So just a a brief overview again of what we're talking about starting off with the plan itself we've done. 01:08:26
Sorry, point of order. Didn't we pull this item 9A? 01:08:35
No. 01:08:38
We pulled 9A, but not now. 01:08:39
So staffing is a. 01:08:43
Eight or nine and. 01:08:45
OK. 01:08:47
Sorry you didn't know. Good question. That's odd. 01:08:48
Yeah, I'm not sure why it's a. It should be 10. 01:08:51
So just just to provide an overview for everyone, we. 01:08:58
Previously formed a subcommittee, the subcommittee met to discuss a variety of different approaches to putting together a 01:09:02
strategic plan. 01:09:05
And to discuss whether not that was something that would be viable for members of the EDC to put together. 01:09:09
And how we might approach doing it? 01:09:16
That subcommittee looked at a number of different believe it or not, there are frameworks out there that have been created. 01:09:19
That literally have a road map to how to create a strategic plan line by line. 01:09:26
And we'll actually walk a. 01:09:31
An organization through that process. 01:09:33
So we did review a collection of different options, and where we landed was in fact the. 01:09:36
Framework that Vice Chair Jacobs had proposed initially, which was? 01:09:42
The framework by. 01:09:47
The. 01:09:49
The City of of British Columbia and. 01:09:53
A plan that they had put together and the framework that they used specifically for economic development. 01:09:56
And how best to build a strategic plan around that we then sat down with. 01:10:02
City staff and chatted more about how we might go about doing this in a way where we can include as many. 01:10:08
EC Members as possible within the limitations of these subcommittees and the number of. 01:10:15
Of Commissioners that can be present at any one meeting. 01:10:20
And we also had a meeting with. 01:10:23
A few members of council. 01:10:25
In order to just discuss how that would be received. 01:10:28
In terms of. 01:10:31
If we do this, will you? 01:10:33
Find it interesting and considerate and so we got some good feedback from council members that. 01:10:36
It could be something that. 01:10:43
Would be. 01:10:45
Useful and that would be well received in terms of direction and guidance. 01:10:46
So we determined that this is something that we would recommend as a substantially moving forward with. 01:10:51
In order to do so, we will need to. 01:10:58
Select. 01:11:01
Umm. 01:11:03
Individuals from the EDC. 01:11:04
For each part of. 01:11:07
The. 01:11:08
Deliverables that are compartmentalized in. 01:11:10
The binder that you all have, I believe you all have a copy of the binder that Commissioner Jacobs had printed. 01:11:14
And the steps that are outlined there. 01:11:20
The 1st 2 steps. 01:11:23
In the framework. 01:11:26
Are defined as the gathering of information. 01:11:28
Basic statistics. 01:11:32
And a assessment of inventory. 01:11:34
And in fact, actually I I think that that's. 01:11:38
Where Commissioner Gibbs was intending on informing us of a few of the items of inventory that we might consider for the city of 01:11:42
Pacific growth. 01:11:45
But what we need to do next is determine. 01:11:50
Who might be interested in taking up the 1st 2 deliverables and? 01:11:54
Creating a subcommittee then to go through the steps of gathering some of this information. 01:12:00
We've also included as part of this. 01:12:06
An attachment that is a report. 01:12:08
That. 01:12:11
Councilman. 01:12:14
Coletti provided us with It's the LEAP report that has a. 01:12:16
Outline of information from 2016. 01:12:21
That includes an assessment of potential strategies. 01:12:29
For. 01:12:33
Economic development. 01:12:35
So there's a lot of good information in here. 01:12:37
There's also a collection of good information in a. 01:12:39
Variety of other documents that have already been gathered. 01:12:43
So that would be a subcommittee. 01:12:46
Responsibility to go through and and sort through some of that. 01:12:48
Data that's already. 01:12:52
Available. 01:12:54
And then bring that back. 01:12:55
To present. 01:12:57
As. 01:12:59
The first stage. 01:13:00
As we start to piece together this, this strategic plan. 01:13:01
So that's really that's kind of the overview of of what we would. 01:13:06
Would ask of all of you to participate. I I hope that this is something that you're interested in in doing. 01:13:09
It's not a small task. We estimate that this is something that will likely take. 01:13:16
A number of months, potentially even a year to do. 01:13:21
I hope that we're able to have a member of city staff that is assigned to this as well so that we can. 01:13:25
Work directly with the city as we go through this process. 01:13:32
But it's. 01:13:36
Something that we feel is important enough that we'd like to. 01:13:38
Move forward with at least the first step of this. 01:13:41
So with that. 01:13:47
At first I'll start with opening it up for public comment, but then I'd like to come back and see if. 01:13:48
I can hear any thoughts. 01:13:54
And. 01:13:56
If we can put together that first subcommittee to put these pieces together. 01:13:58
So it's in any public comment on? 01:14:02
The strategic plan. 01:14:05
Seeing none. 01:14:11
Fantastic. So let's go ahead and Ohh, we actually just said. 01:14:12
Angela Rensen Dahmer. 01:14:15
OK. And do you have the floor? 01:14:17
I'm sorry, it's just that I couldn't hear half of what chair Upman was saying. Either he wasn't close enough to the microphone or 01:14:20
non directional so. 01:14:25
It was very difficult to hear. Thank you. 01:14:32
My apologies. I'll try to speak into the microphone. I apologize. 01:14:35
OK. So with that, we will open up the discussion for commissioners and any initial questions on what was discussed at the last 01:14:42
meeting on this strategic plan and how we would move forward in assigning A subcommittee to. 01:14:49
Deliver on the first two items that are components outlined in. 01:14:57
The framework that's been provided, Commissioner. 01:15:03
Markowitz. 01:15:06
Yeah. Thank you very much. 01:15:07
Commissioner, apply for. 01:15:10
Bringing this back. 01:15:11
I was looking through it before, It's very very interesting. 01:15:13
My issue with this. 01:15:16
We're not going to have another CDC meeting till December. 01:15:18
And already we have what 3 subcommittees assigned to we've just we've. 01:15:21
We've become a Commission of subcommittees. 01:15:26
And you say yeah, it might take you. 01:15:29
I have no idea. 01:15:32
Going through here. 01:15:33
You know, I know we want to form a subcommittee. 01:15:35
But I have no idea what a subcommittee is going to do on this. And the other thing that you mentioned about this was, yeah, 01:15:37
working with STEP. We have no staff. 01:15:41
How? How can we? This is something. How can we move forward? We can talk Simon, ourselves and all these subcommittee meetings all 01:15:46
we want to. 01:15:50
And this is what we should do, But where is it going to go? 01:15:54
I mean already no, no more meetings till December because there's no staff to assist us and we keep assigning subcommittees to do 01:15:58
this. 01:16:01
I don't know the solution but I'm just bringing it up that. 01:16:06
I certainly would be very happy to serve in one of these things. 01:16:09
But once again, have no idea what we're doing. 01:16:13
And this is something that's got to come from staff. We can read through all this, we can make assessments and then we're going to 01:16:16
need to go to city staff to talk about, but there's no city staff to help us. 01:16:21
We're flailing. 01:16:27
And I I'm just starting to say that's just my opinion. Thank you. 01:16:28
For me, I was reading that 2016 Leap report and I noticed it's all the exact same things we're having problems with now. 01:16:33
Or something. They just like they suggested, like parklets, they're great they're talking about. 01:16:41
The. 01:16:47
Concert series, They're great. We should do them. And then they're talking about how the problem is. 01:16:49
There's no nightlife and it's dead downtown. Same. And then they're talking about how the the lack of staff is the problem. 01:16:54
And it's like that was almost eight years ago. Like, what is the point of us even trying to do anything when there's? 01:17:03
The same problems we're having eight years ago, of course we're not going to get anything done. 01:17:08
So maybe. 01:17:12
Part our first strategy for our plan is to make. 01:17:14
The city have staff. I don't know what that is, how that looks, but that should be before we can even get to this entire toolkit 01:17:18
we need to. 01:17:23
Have staff and. 01:17:27
Because there's no point. I feel like we're just gonna be so. 01:17:29
Exhausted from just having these same conversations about not having staff that maybe that's our entire conversation right now. 01:17:32
Like not in this agenda item, but I mean, just. 01:17:36
Like for the strategic planning, we can't start it until we have confidence that anyone's going to. 01:17:40
Listen to us and have answers and blah blah blah so. 01:17:47
That's my point. 01:17:51
So. 01:17:53
I I have one comment on that because I share a similar concern but perhaps a bit different, which is that one one concern that I 01:17:53
voiced to. 01:17:59
Or council members, but also to, you know, the subcommittee was that as we pieced this. 01:18:05
Strategic plan to together we are on the cusp of having a new. 01:18:11
City manager appointed. 01:18:15
And I think that it's important to understand. 01:18:17
If we're going to put the effort into putting something like this together. 01:18:21
How that will be received by the new city manager and to also include them in that conversation because it is a lot of work. 01:18:25
And. 01:18:32
You know, I'd hate to. 01:18:33
Bring forward a strategic plan that is. 01:18:35
Not well received by whoever is appointed. 01:18:38
So there are definitely some valid concerns there. 01:18:41
I do also see value in having. 01:18:45
A plan that we're able to bring forward to council because. 01:18:48
You know the, the. 01:18:53
Initial beat. The reason for doing this was the fact that. 01:18:55
You know, the the Council's goals that have been outlined do not specifically. 01:19:00
Call for. 01:19:06
Any movement with economic development that economic development within the City of Pacific Grove has been established as. 01:19:08
You know, moving forward and so they didn't identify it as being a a specific goal. 01:19:14
Of theirs. 01:19:20
So. 01:19:22
That is, that is challenging. 01:19:23
Commissioner Gibbs. 01:19:26
Sorry, did you have your hand raised? I thought you did. Yeah. I was just seeing if anybody else had to come. 01:19:29
I know there's a lot of frustration. 01:19:34
The city is going through a lot of change. 01:19:37
And to be frank with you. 01:19:39
I don't think we've even seen scratch the surface on some of the disruption that's going to be going on. 01:19:41
In the next few months. 01:19:46
For me, you can all decide and decide what your pleasure is, but I'm on this Commission. 01:19:48
I'm going to work. 01:19:54
I'm going to volunteer. 01:19:55
And for me, it's not a good reason to stop. Because you know what? 01:19:57
Six months from now, there'll be another disruption, right? 01:20:00
So if you look at the LEAP report. 01:20:03
And. 01:20:06
Commissioner pointed this out, and there isn't too much different by the way. 01:20:07
Commissioner Hoops is listed on the page as being one of the people. That's who Ray interviewed in this. 01:20:11
Right. And but the thing of it is, is that. 01:20:17
Some of the work has been done. 01:20:21
There were some things that were really interesting that were never implemented. My question would be having worked in businesses 01:20:23
in large organizations. 01:20:26
I can tell you they're bureaucratic. 01:20:30
And you know, and I was on the same darn committee over the past 10 years, exactly the same thing. But we always looked at it and 01:20:32
said let's start with where we are. 01:20:36
And go where we need to. You know where we need to be. 01:20:40
And so this LEAP report was actually assisted by an outside organization. It's a state. 01:20:43
Volunteer organization? They didn't. 01:20:49
They didn't pay much. They, I think they put them up in a hotel and you know they they did this over three or four days basically 01:20:51
maybe a week or two. 01:20:54
I visited a couple of other cities that have done similar things in In the Middle of Disruption. 01:20:59
And the American Planning Association is another outside organization. 01:21:04
And sometimes it's hard to get. 01:21:08
But they'll give you a grant and they'll come in and help you do the same thing. So absent staff. 01:21:10
Right, Which we're always going to be absent. 01:21:16
My feeling is for the next. 01:21:18
12 to 18 months. 01:21:20
The question is, could we find other resources? And again, that's something I'd be willing to work on to bring back to the. 01:21:21
The EDC. 01:21:28
And say, you know, here's two or three organizations and maybe we invite them in or have a zoom call with them and. 01:21:29
And see if they can help us out. I'm not willing to Chuck this and put it in the garage for another. 01:21:35
Year, I think. 01:21:40
As. 01:21:41
Vice Chair Jacob said this is a tough year if you're in business. 01:21:43
You walk around town, we're not. We're maybe doing 7050 to 70%. 01:21:47
As a business owner that you were doing last year. 01:21:51
They're looking to us right if we just sit here and say ohh. 01:21:53
You know, we don't have staff. 01:21:57
Right. If I own a business in town, that doesn't fly. 01:21:59
I don't. You know I don't. 01:22:02
That's great, but then what are you guys doing? 01:22:03
So I I would be, you know, willing to come back or maybe the subcommittee is finding an outside resource. 01:22:06
And and I think at least once. 01:22:11
You know, Chair Upman, I think at least once subcommittee. 01:22:14
You have a good start on the statistics you you know where to go, and maybe the first one is just basic information. Where are we? 01:22:17
What has changed? What is different? 01:22:21
And we come back with a report on that. 01:22:25
And you can roll in item number three, which is summary of key facts you could do, you know, sort of one and three. 01:22:28
And and bring back some data. My gosh, we got two. Apparently we're going to have two months to figure this out. 01:22:34
We ought to be able to come back with something. 01:22:39
And I'm pretty sure there are people in town. 01:22:41
That I know that you may know that would be willing to volunteer. We maintain the trails. We maintain the lighthouse. 01:22:44
Why couldn't we have a group of people who are Economic Development committee Commission advisors? 01:22:51
Who would sign on? We have in the city. 01:22:56
A Hoover Fellow. 01:22:59
He was on one of the presidential economic. 01:23:00
A commissions for years, smart guy. 01:23:03
It's hard to get, but I know maybe we could get him, you know, to help us out a little bit. 01:23:06
So you all know some of the same people. 01:23:10
Umm. 01:23:12
I'm just making a personal statement. What's your pleasure? But I'm not. 01:23:13
I'm not willing to give up on this thing right now. 01:23:17
Thank you. 01:23:20
OK, I'm not. I'm not. 01:23:26
In any way saying that we should give up on this government. 01:23:28
But Mike, you're suggesting, yeah, we can we continue to work for the next two months, but. 01:23:31
You're talking about there's a lot of economic people who would be willing to help us. 01:23:36
Right now, there are seven of us. 01:23:40
Seven people. The openings to this Commission to work on. 01:23:43
Economic development in this city. 01:23:46
I don't see huge lines of people volunteering to come and sit on this. Let's just do this. 01:23:49
No. When I applied, there were vacancies on this and they were advertised. I was asked by a former City Councilman if I'd be 01:23:54
willing to volunteer because they couldn't find anybody to fill this. 01:23:59
So the hope that we can go out and just find all these people who are going to jump up and down and say, yeah, we want to help 01:24:04
with the economic. 01:24:08
You're looking at the people who are working on this. That's us. 01:24:12
We are working on it. As far as I can see, City Council isn't because the money's not there. 01:24:16
I mean, we're saying it's the same old budget thing. And the only thing that I'm suggesting, right, it's it's yeah, we can perform 01:24:21
all the city subcommittees we want to and we can get all the findings and we want need more information. We're not going to have 01:24:27
it. And as you said, it's going to get worse in the next 12 to 18 months. I don't want to see us. 01:24:32
Spinning in place, I mean, we have. 01:24:38
Minority grants that haven't been acted on. We have plans for concerts that haven't been acted on. And now it's like, come on, 01:24:42
there's more that's getting dumped, more subcommittees, more stuff. 01:24:47
And it's just. 01:24:52
I'm sorry, I apologize to everybody, but I'm really frustrated because I take a look here and I listen to the comments we're all 01:24:54
making and they're all valid. Every person here has had really valid comments. 01:24:59
But I don't see a whole bunch of people out there who are interested in economic development marching in here and saying we have 01:25:04
ideas. 01:25:08
Because we're the ones who have the ideas. 01:25:11
And we can bring in all the experts we want to and they'll tell us, well, this is how we did it in our town. 01:25:14
Well, here we are the same. 01:25:19
Six or seven of us sitting up here. 01:25:21
Forming subcommittees and doing planning that go nowhere. 01:25:23
So that's it. Thank you. 01:25:27
We. 01:25:33
Just reminded that we do have a hard stop because meeting coming up at 6:30, so we we need to look at 6:00 is a hard stop here, 01:25:33
but I think we're coming to the end. 01:25:37
Other further comments, Commissioner. 01:25:43
Yeah. 01:25:45
I think that like I would like to remind my. 01:25:47
Fellow commissioners, that the subcommittee idea for this specific idea is that then? 01:25:50
So that it's not just beating. 01:25:55
Three people into the ground for the next year on all the work that we do here and also more importantly is that. 01:25:57
You break out these things into smaller pieces. Subcommittee goes and doesn't brings back a report, then the report is not public 01:26:04
record. 01:26:07
So that other people can take it with them so as. 01:26:11
Seats change, staff changes, whatever. There's continuity in public record for work that can be done. Even if we're all hit by a 01:26:13
bus tomorrow, someone can pick up the thing and go forward with it. Which is. 01:26:19
The idea of progress. 01:26:25
Umm. 01:26:27
I also like. 01:26:28
I. 01:26:30
The one caveat I would add is that I think that like. 01:26:31
Maybe it would be a good idea not to begin without staff support. So maybe two months from now our next meeting is when we elect 01:26:34
the the. 01:26:39
The subcommittee to start on the first couple items, that's my opinion. I don't you know. 01:26:44
I don't run the bingo, but I would also like to remind my Commissioners that it's a pleasure to serve with all of you, but this is 01:26:49
an at will Commission. 01:26:53
And if you want to quit doing things because it is hard. 01:26:57
I think that that's wrong. We're here because this is hard. We're here because this needs help. You can't just quit because it's 01:27:01
hard to figure it out. 01:27:05
And that's not I mean. 01:27:10
We realize we're drowning. Describing the water doesn't do anything for anybody. So, like, let's do some work. 01:27:14
And go forward with this project. Thank you. 01:27:20
Richmond. 01:27:23
Feel like I'm the one that started everyone thinking that I'm throwing it in the trash. I'm not. That's definitely not where I 01:27:26
went, where I meant to. 01:27:29
Say. 01:27:34
I think what I'm coming up with here, it's like with the staffing issues and all this, it's like we tried to meet. 01:27:36
Commissioner Venuti and Marquez, we tried to meet for our subcommittee this past month. And because Laurel's only working once a 01:27:43
month, we couldn't even get enough emails back and forth to figure out a time just because our first one didn't work out and then 01:27:48
there weren't enough emails to get it in before this meeting. So if we have multiple subcommittees and only one person barely able 01:27:54
to like. 01:27:59
Respond and now we have. 01:28:05
Seven people's different schedules and four different subcommittees. It's like, how can we even get to all these items without the 01:28:08
proper staffing to be able to schedule it? Because we're not. Our subcommittees aren't able to just talk to ourselves to get us 01:28:13
scheduled. We can't. We need Laurel to help us with that, so. 01:28:19
It's a great idea. So yeah, we can start it. But if no one's listening and no one's responding, how can we actually get things 01:28:25
done? That's more what my issue is, is we need people to actually say, yeah, for sure, I will help you get your subcommittee 01:28:32
actually scheduled. And don't you worry, it'll be on the next agenda item because you will have met. 01:28:38
But I don't feel. And it's not Laurel's fault by any means. It's like this is just the. 01:28:45
Hand, she was dealt with the position and. 01:28:51
But like the city itself, we need to figure out how to make it so we can actually function how we want to, because our discussion 01:28:53
is. 01:28:57
Something that's not even in our control at the moment. And if, if. 01:29:00
We knew that we had someone. 01:29:04
Doing the work that. 01:29:06
It should be like just. 01:29:08
Assumed to be happening, you know. 01:29:10
But we wouldn't even have this conversation right now. We would know we can get these subcommittees going so. 01:29:12
I think that's. I just want to backtrack to the point I'm not throwing in the trash. It's just like I just. 01:29:17
I foresee. 01:29:22
Maybe I'm playing devil's advocate. I'm just. I'm just worried. 01:29:23
That it won't actually happen like how we want it to. 01:29:26
So. 01:29:37
In order to keep this moving forward. 01:29:38
The. 01:29:41
Motion that I'd like to make is to create a subcommittee. 01:29:43
The first question will be. 01:29:49
Do we have and we have a limited number of members that can participate, Just a reminder. 01:29:50
That we're limited to three. 01:29:56
But do we have 3 individuals that might be interested in taking on? 01:29:58
The first. 01:30:03
Portion of this I also think that it would be wise and Commissioner Gibbs, I don't have an opinion one way on this. 01:30:04
Or the other. 01:30:10
But that. 01:30:11
One of the previous subcommittee members. 01:30:12
Be present to help provide guidance. 01:30:16
On this so be it myself. 01:30:19
Commissioner. 01:30:21
Jacobs, are you? 01:30:22
On. 01:30:23
Walking through this, so there can always be a handoff. 01:30:24
To whichever group. 01:30:27
Is. 01:30:28
Taking on the next step until we're all kind of. 01:30:29
Familiar and comfortable with this process. The framework that is included here. 01:30:32
Is incredibly. 01:30:36
Helpful and descriptive. So it is literally filling in the blanks. 01:30:38
It's not rocket science, but. 01:30:43
I want to make sure that we're all feeling like. 01:30:45
We're not leaving everyone out. 01:30:48
To dry. 01:30:49
So do we. I saw Commissioner Richmond, you had your hand up as potentially interested. 01:30:52
Are you talking about? 01:30:58
Basic statistics and information. That specific first one. Our recommendation is that we have 3 deliverables. 01:30:59
For the first subcommittee and those, the deliverables would include the basic statistics. They would include and. 01:31:07
Inventory of assets. 01:31:16
And lastly. 01:31:18
Going through and speaking with stakeholders and partners. 01:31:21
To identify them so. 01:31:26
I don't think those would. 01:31:28
Honestly, like use me to my strength so. 01:31:30
I wouldn't necessarily. 01:31:33
Want to be on that subcommittee because I think I could be stronger somewhere else and that that is fine. I think that was our 01:31:35
intention was that there will be some segments of this that would fit better for some than others. So that's completely fine. 01:31:42
Commissioner, I I'd be willing to work on the base. 01:31:50
Basic statistics and information. 01:31:52
OK. 01:31:55
And Commissioner Gibbs, remind me, I believe the intention was to have this group together with all three and one semi committee 01:31:56
correct. That was how we were proposing this. 01:32:00
Well, I think that's open to, I mean, Commissioner Richmond looked at the list and some things maybe. 01:32:04
Of interest in some things not we could split it up. You know, subcommittee doesn't have to be 3. I think you can have some 01:32:09
committee of two. Yeah, I would just say if there's an interest of a couple of people. 01:32:14
In one of those first three or even 4. 01:32:19
We picked those off. I I don't think they are necessarily on a critical path onto each other. You could look at stakeholders at 01:32:22
the same time you're looking at business statistics and information. So I guess I would just see where the pleasure of the 01:32:27
Commission is and. 01:32:32
You know, if there's some people interested in a couple of those topics, even if it's one, let's let's get going and. 01:32:36
And get started, because I think it shows that we're doing something. 01:32:43
And and then, you know, if I'm sitting on just to be. 01:32:46
Honest with you if I'm on the City Council. 01:32:49
And I'm looking down at the CDC and we have a strategic plan, but nothing's happening. 01:32:51
I'm going to put my time and effort and attention someplace else so and I don't have a problem of going to them or Speaking of 01:32:57
public comment or or you know, having an agenda item where we go, hey guys, just giving an update, here's where we are and we need 01:33:01
some help. 01:33:05
I think we should ask for that. Thank you. 01:33:10
OK. 01:33:12
OK. 01:33:13
I just wanted to raise my hand and say I would be in for that first round as well as a subcommittee member. 01:33:14
OK. 01:33:21
Excellent. 01:33:22
So we have. 01:33:23
Correct. 01:33:26
Doing. 01:33:30
Great. 01:33:30
Correct. 01:33:31
Ideally. 01:33:33
So that we can knock everything out. 01:33:33
OK. 01:33:37
And and I just like you just said, I think that this group then could look at the three and say let's prioritize which one are we 01:33:38
going to do first? You pick it off and I wouldn't do all three at the same time if I was you. So, yeah, just I would ask. 01:33:44
I just wanted to say you had a motion on the floor. I don't know if you want to continue with that. 01:33:51
And I and I will, I was going to group in the OK, sorry. Thank you very much. That's you're absolutely right. But I have a 01:33:56
question for you before I get to that. 01:33:59
Because Commissioner McMurdo is not a voting member. 01:34:03
Is she able to participate in the subcommittee without? 01:34:06
Being counted. 01:34:11
So. 01:34:13
As as I believe, as a Member of the Commission, she can. 01:34:16
Be a subcommittee member if we're if we're limited typically to three. 01:34:21
Commissioners, for a subcommittee to be able to wondering if you add a fourth would that. 01:34:25
Be a Brown Act violation since they're not. 01:34:31
Voting. 01:34:34
I'd have to look into that. That's a legal question. I can OK. 01:34:35
So why don't we say maybe? 01:34:39
For Commissioner McMurdo and then. 01:34:42
All. 01:34:44
And. 01:34:46
Mr. Gibbs. 01:34:47
It's up to you. Would you like to? 01:34:48
Take the first round or would you like me to take the first round for? 01:34:50
The the path of the baton from the previous subcommittee. 01:34:54
You know, I just. 01:34:59
I'm available, you know, I'm, I'm a little bit sensitive to the makeup of the team, right? 01:35:01
And so I guess I would leave it up to everybody else to decide who's in that group. 01:35:07
And I'm going to just pull that in abeyance because. 01:35:12
I just feel like I have to. 01:35:17
Not vote on that, but I would, I'd be willing to do it, yes. 01:35:19
OK. All right. Well. 01:35:21
Just to keep things moving along and in the interest of time, why don't I just go ahead and say I will? 01:35:24
Insert myself. 01:35:28
We'll have Commissioner Venuti. 01:35:30
Commissioner Markowitz and hopefully Commissioner McMurdo. 01:35:33
To join us for that first subcommittee, can I suggest maybe I'm an alternate, depending on what the answer is that we get from. 01:35:37
OK, perfect. OK, so that is my motion. I'm making a motion to form a subcommittee on the strategic plan. 01:35:44
With those members previously stated. 01:35:52
Get a second then I'll comment. 01:35:56
Seconded. 01:35:59
OK. 01:36:00
Good comma. 01:36:02
And are we going to include members of the community? 01:36:04
In any of this process. 01:36:07
The process would include going to members of the community, absolutely. 01:36:08
So are we asking? 01:36:12
Members of the community to sit on these various subcommittees. 01:36:14
We're not. 01:36:18
We can't. 01:36:21
That would be a legal question. I'm not entirely sure we'll have to ask city staff on that one. 01:36:23
I think you can, you know, say we're having a subcommittee meeting and invite people. I mean, it technically would have to be. 01:36:28
The public anyway so ohh I see OK. 01:36:32
You know. 01:36:36
I see Council member Coletti raised his hand. 01:36:38
Let's go ahead and. 01:36:42
Close out this vote that's on the floor right now and then I'll address him. 01:36:44
We have a second. 01:36:48
So can we take a vote? 01:36:49
Yes. 01:36:51
Chairman. 01:36:53
Aye. 01:36:55
Commissioner Hoops. 01:36:56
Commissioner Richmond. 01:36:58
Aye. 01:36:59
Markowitz. 01:37:01
Commissioner Gibbs. 01:37:03
Yes. 01:37:05
Commissioner Venuti, yes. 01:37:06
We have six eyes. 01:37:08
0 nays and one absent the motion to create a subcommittee. 01:37:10
Passes. 01:37:14
Congratulations, we have another subcommittee. 01:37:15
OK. 01:37:17
Council member Coletti. 01:37:20
Thank you chair. This has come up a few times and other BCC's. 01:37:21
Only members of the given body can serve on the subcommittee. 01:37:27
And that by definition subcommittee means. 01:37:31
A subset of the actual committee or Commission. 01:37:35
So hope that helps. 01:37:38
Thank you and and sorry just as a follow up there as a point of clarity that is in regards to including members of the public. 01:37:40
Absolutely. Now the subcommittee can is free to contact and interview and get information from anyone they with, but. 01:37:46
The actual member. 01:37:56
Of the committee. 01:37:57
The subcommittee have to be members of the. 01:37:58
Thank you very much for that guidance. 01:38:03
Is Jenny County. 01:38:06
That's that's a secondary question. So we'll we'll have to follow up on that. 01:38:09
Yeah. Thank you. OK. 01:38:12
Alright, great. So that. 01:38:14
That takes us then. 01:38:16
To any ongoing business. 01:38:20
Or good of the order. This is our opportunity to bring up any other items that we'd like to suggest or recommend for future agenda 01:38:22
items. Does anyone present have any recommendations for future agenda items? 01:38:28
Communication with City Council. 01:38:35
OK, as an agenda item for discussion. 01:38:38
How do we address it? 01:38:40
OK. 01:38:42
Yeah. 01:38:44
OK. You know the, I I think I heard the discussion about the budget. 01:38:46
And I realize we're on a sort of in the middle of the budget cycle, however. 01:38:50
It's not too early to begin raising issues and coming up with the. 01:38:54
Items for next year so. 01:38:59
And that would need to go to City Council well before. 01:39:01
You know, we're ready to create the new. 01:39:04
Budget officially. So I would put that on the agenda. Some discussion on the budget. What items but big items? Music, you know? 01:39:06
This, that, and the other and just have a discussion about what that would be and and start making a list. 01:39:14
And and I wouldn't for me, as part of that agenda item, it's not like we're going to take it to the City Council and say, would 01:39:19
you please bless us? 01:39:23
To me is we keep them informed and get their input along the way. So maybe we make a couple of pitches to them. 01:39:27
As the DC and get their input on you know where they are with the budget and where are we not so and I also was not aware. 01:39:33
That the minority grants had not actually been allocated, I was not aware that that had. 01:39:40
That the money had gone away. It's currently sitting in the hands of city staff as to how it will be funded. 01:39:47
So. 01:39:53
Yeah. 01:39:55
That's that's with the handoff has been made. 01:39:56
OK. So that brings us to the next meeting, which? 01:39:59
Ohh, I'm so sorry, Commissioner Richmond. 01:40:03
Well, Speaking of what? 01:40:05
Commissioner Gates just brought up, can we have some sort of dialogue, like can we get some sort of response from the City Council 01:40:07
about specifically the grant? 01:40:11
And the money and like. 01:40:16
Is there a way to like just get something from them about what their plan is? Because right now it seems like there's zero plan 01:40:18
because they haven't looked at it. 01:40:22
So is there. 01:40:25
Some sort of dialogue we can get from them. 01:40:27
Let me follow up with our staff contacts and. 01:40:32
Ask for guidance on how they like to approach that. 01:40:36
OK. 01:40:38
OK. 01:40:39
So you're looking at the date, so your dates it looks like December 7th. 01:40:39
Is a Thursday. 01:40:44
First first, yeah. 01:40:46
1st Thursday in December will be our next EDC meetings. May I? Just sorry for interrupting, Commissioner. 01:40:47
I think I heard council member Panduri. 01:40:54
Suggest that maybe he would look into this. I would. I would put aside a provisional. 01:40:58
A time for November and just you know that that may or may not happen. I wouldn't want to not allocate it at this point. 01:41:03
And give him a chance or other people a chance to see if we can't work this out with staff. Agreed, OK. 01:41:10
Yeah so until further notice, the 7th is. 01:41:15
Almost a certainty, but we'll hope to have a November meeting as well. 01:41:20
OK. 01:41:24
Thank you very much. It is 541 and we are adjourn. 01:41:24