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Started right. | 00:00:04 | |
We are operating on a limited timeline today. This is a special meeting of the Economic Development Commission. Thank you all for | 00:00:07 | |
coming. | 00:00:11 | |
And joining. | 00:00:15 | |
I'll go ahead and call the meeting to order and ask. | 00:00:17 | |
We can take a quick roll call. | 00:00:21 | |
Commissioner. | 00:00:26 | |
Here Commissioner Markowitz. Commissioner Richmond here. | 00:00:28 | |
Chamber McMurdo here. Chair Upman President Vice Chair Jacobs here. | 00:00:34 | |
And Commissioner Vanut. | 00:00:41 | |
So we have a oh, I'm sorry. | 00:00:44 | |
And Commissioner Gibbs, I am. | 00:00:49 | |
Almost all here. OK. Thank you. Everyone's here. | 00:00:52 | |
Excellent. Thank you so much. | 00:00:56 | |
OK, we'll start off by submitting the agenda, the agenda and supporting documents in the packet we're circulating in advance of | 00:00:58 | |
today's meeting. They're available for download on the EDC page at pacificgrove.org. Are there any members of the public that | 00:01:03 | |
would like to make a comment on tonight's agenda? | 00:01:08 | |
Seeing none any online Laurel. | 00:01:15 | |
We're not doing online. Oh, we're done with the online. OK, well, we're done. Here we are. Thank you. | 00:01:19 | |
So is there a motion to approve the agenda report as presented? | 00:01:26 | |
Given. | 00:01:35 | |
Agenda Item number 9, the QR code project. The subcommittee has met, but we have not been able to talk with city staff about what | 00:01:37 | |
we need to talk with them about. So it's not really any progress to report at the moment. So we could just pull that item. The | 00:01:43 | |
grants, that would be fine. So a motion to strike item number 9 from the agenda. Is there a motion to approve the agenda with the | 00:01:49 | |
removal of item number 9? So moved. Thank you. Take a second. Second. Excellent. | 00:01:54 | |
OK. Any further discussion seeing none. | 00:02:01 | |
Let's go. | 00:02:04 | |
Do a quick roll call. Vote on that, please. OK. Commissioner Mark Woods, Vice Chair, Jacobs. | 00:02:06 | |
Aye, Commissioner Vanuti. Aye chair upman. | 00:02:11 | |
Commissioner Richmond. | 00:02:16 | |
Hi. | 00:02:17 | |
Commissioner G. | 00:02:19 | |
And Commissioner Mark. | 00:02:21 | |
I agree. | 00:02:24 | |
All right. OK. The motion passes 7 to 0 to approve the agenda with item nine straight. | 00:02:26 | |
Excellent. That takes us to Commission and staff announcements. Are there any announcements from the commissioners present or the | 00:02:32 | |
city staff before we move on? | 00:02:36 | |
I was going to introduce our interim director, but he just walked out, so he's here. | 00:02:40 | |
Lou Bowman, Commissioner Gibbs. | 00:02:47 | |
Yeah, I just want to, in terms of announcements on Wednesday, next Wednesday, the City Council will meet. | 00:02:49 | |
And I think it's going to be on the agenda. I haven't confirmed the suspension of. | 00:02:56 | |
Remote comment, remote public comment I believe will be on the agenda and it is suspended for not only City Council but for all. | 00:03:02 | |
Boards and commissions. | 00:03:09 | |
I personally. | 00:03:12 | |
The comments. | 00:03:14 | |
City Council, for example, meets maybe 24 times a year. | 00:03:17 | |
There might be 10 on average. | 00:03:20 | |
Per year. So 250 to 300 comments. And some of them are evil, wicked, mean, bad, nasty. There's no doubt about that. They're rotten | 00:03:23 | |
comments. But the question is, do we silence the many? | 00:03:29 | |
Take out a few of the comments that we don't like. So all I'm saying is that if you have a thought about this, beat the City | 00:03:36 | |
Council meeting on Wednesday night and let your voice be heard one way or the other. I think that's how democracy works. Thank | 00:03:41 | |
you. Thank you. | 00:03:45 | |
Commissioner Murdoch. Yeah, I just had a couple of announcements of things that are coming up in the city. This Saturday is a | 00:03:51 | |
veteran's day ceremony out at Point Pinot's Lighthouse at 11 AM. So that's 1111 at 11. Easy to remember. We also have a new | 00:03:58 | |
business in town named Sharp Corners Cards and Collectibles. He's already open, but he is having his grand opening and ribbon | 00:04:05 | |
cutting on December. Oh shoot. | 00:04:12 | |
2nd, 1st December 1st at 3:30, yes, First Friday at 3:30. So prior to first Friday is starting. So we would love, since this is a | 00:04:19 | |
business Commission, everybody and the public is welcome to come to that. And then there are a lot of holiday activities, but go | 00:04:25 | |
to the chamber website to find those, there's so many. | 00:04:31 | |
Wonder. | 00:04:38 | |
Comments seeing? None. OK, that brings us to the Council liaison announcements. | 00:04:40 | |
Yes. I just wanted to make sure that the EDC knew that the council has moved forward with the zoning and licensing ordinances for | 00:04:47 | |
the cannabis dispensary in town. So that got past the last council meeting. And so we're on track. Thank you. Thank you. | 00:04:55 | |
And on to general public comment. Are there any members of the public that would like to make a comment at this time? | 00:05:04 | |
Welcome. | 00:05:10 | |
Oh, good evening everyone. Hi, my name is Vince Tumonello, local PG resident. As I've said before, I've been coming to EDC | 00:05:22 | |
meetings on and off for the last 30 years. | 00:05:27 | |
Back then, Mr. Omar was head of the chamber and he pretty much supervised or many people thought ran the meetings. I'm glad to see | 00:05:33 | |
you have independent thought now. | 00:05:38 | |
And I'm up here to comment on a change in procedure, which we already heard from the chair. | 00:05:43 | |
That there is no zoom public comment tonight is that. | 00:05:51 | |
OK, well, I I know the mayor, who's a very good mayor and personally knows me, and I know him. | 00:05:56 | |
Publicly as well as as his being in office that he's a fair shooting guy. But when the I guess it was the state or maybe the | 00:06:03 | |
federal government financed all others equipment that wasn't here four years ago. All because of communist China's spreading of | 00:06:11 | |
COVID around the world. And we know how bad that situation was and this zoom idea really turned out to be a good idea. | 00:06:18 | |
I personally think people should come. | 00:06:26 | |
Just like would you rather listen to a CD or go to a live concert? It's the same thing if you want to come to a live presentation. | 00:06:29 | |
Make your voice known, the people in the eye and so forth, and let them know who you are. | 00:06:35 | |
And the reason is look what. | 00:06:41 | |
A few weeks ago, with the City Council meeting disparaging. | 00:06:44 | |
From a room. | 00:06:49 | |
Lunatics who called many other city councils and many other city meetings with obnoxious, distasteful and disdainful words and | 00:06:51 | |
comments about people's gender, nationality, race, and so forth, among other objectionable things. So naturally, the mayor in | 00:06:59 | |
shock. I watched it all. We watched it all on Zoom on YouTube. | 00:07:06 | |
And I see that, you know, something had to be done. Unfortunately, I hope we have enough money to put in a 7 second delay. | 00:07:14 | |
To have an opportunity to voice their opinion. | 00:08:00 | |
Just banning it is not a good idea, so I support what Mr. Gibbs said. We're on the same page. What a coincidence. | 00:08:02 | |
So anyway, thank you for letting me speak, and I hope something more appropriate can be done about that to allow all of the | 00:08:09 | |
community the right to free speech. Thank you very much. | 00:08:13 | |
Thank you. | 00:08:18 | |
OK. Next up is approval of the minutes, the minutes from our October 5th, 2023 EDC meeting. We're distributed in advance. Are | 00:08:25 | |
there any questions on the minutes from the committee? | 00:08:30 | |
See. | 00:08:36 | |
OK, Can we have a motion to approve the Minutes? I move? We approve the Minutes. Commissioner Markowitz, do we have a second? | 00:08:39 | |
Thank you, Commissioner Hoops. | 00:08:43 | |
We do a quick roll call. | 00:08:48 | |
A. | 00:08:54 | |
Um. | 00:08:56 | |
Commission Chair Upman, Vice Chair Jacobs, aye. Commissioner Venuti, aye. And Commissioner Gibbs, Yes. Motion passes. | 00:08:57 | |
Thank you everyone. That takes us to our regular agenda and I'm excited. | 00:09:06 | |
Kick off with the first item on our agenda, the grant awardees for the business, businesses serving minority and women. | 00:09:11 | |
Program. | 00:09:19 | |
This evening we have our two recipients in the room. | 00:09:22 | |
And we're going to kind of wing it as we go through this because I don't know that there's a real format for how we go about it, | 00:09:25 | |
but just before. | 00:09:29 | |
We we get into it. | 00:09:33 | |
The first step is officially offering public comment. So is there any public comment before we get into the presentation? | 00:09:36 | |
Two in a row. Hi. Anyway, I think it's a wonderful program that you're offering funds or offering them as awards to members, | 00:09:49 | |
business, members of the community. | 00:09:54 | |
And I hope you continue this type of program. My only criticism would be it should be opened up right from the beginning to all | 00:10:00 | |
business. | 00:10:05 | |
Owners all businesses in the community not being specific as to sex, race, nationality, religion or anything else. It should be | 00:10:11 | |
open to everyone in the community. | 00:10:17 | |
Right from the start and there should be promoted. | 00:10:23 | |
Aggressively that we have this program and we're looking for participants in the selection process. I know this was your first | 00:10:26 | |
time and you had good intentions. You know, we have a woman of color who's Vice President of the United States. | 00:10:32 | |
We also had two women senators for a long time. We have a lot of powerful and successful women in business as well as working for | 00:10:39 | |
the city. | 00:10:43 | |
A lot of successful women working for the city, so I don't think it's necessary to specify women, minority, whatever. Let's give a | 00:10:47 | |
ward out. | 00:10:51 | |
And publicize it to any business person in the community. In the future. These two people deserve to win. | 00:10:55 | |
They followed the rules, they did it fairly and they run great businesses, so nothing against them. I'm all in favor of them being | 00:11:01 | |
winners and they might have won anyway, even if it was just open to the community right from the start. But next time you do this, | 00:11:07 | |
and I hope you do this once a year at least, maybe twice a year. | 00:11:13 | |
Let's start off on the. | 00:11:19 | |
Open to any business operator in the community in the city. | 00:11:22 | |
OK. That's all I have to say. Thank you very much. Thank you. | 00:11:26 | |
So I just wanted to open with oh, please join us. Sorry. | 00:11:31 | |
Oh. | 00:11:37 | |
So first of all my name is. | 00:11:38 | |
And I'm part of them and we're very thankful for you guys taking the time and opportunity to grant to our smaller businesses in | 00:11:41 | |
the. | 00:11:46 | |
Any kind of assistance and we are very happy to be here in PG and helping people stay well so they can enjoy the beautiful, | 00:11:51 | |
beautiful beaches and just everything about it is just beautiful. And we're happy to be part of this community and we're very | 00:11:58 | |
thankful that you took the time and in the best of your abilities we're able to put something together that would benefit and | 00:12:05 | |
we're here to help everybody who wants to be. | 00:12:13 | |
In better shape and be healthier. And Jolene, we've met before when we just came here after convert, she was the first person that | 00:12:21 | |
opened her business and we went there to. | 00:12:27 | |
Get an ice cream and we immediately became friends. And so we love her shop and we don't know many people that have a very nice | 00:12:33 | |
business, but she was one of them and she has all the surfboards and we're surfers and we know. And today as I was going to surf | 00:12:40 | |
in the cinema, it was huge and I saw her business and we need to go get ice cream there and then I walked in here and where she | 00:12:48 | |
is. So thank you guys very much for the opportunity and anything we can do to help, we're here to be of service. Thank you. | 00:12:55 | |
Thank. | 00:13:03 | |
To show support for the EPC appreciation for your diligence and continuing this project forward. It really shows the city's | 00:13:12 | |
partnership with our wonderful local businesses. And just wanted to say a big thank you to all of the members of DC for your hard | 00:13:20 | |
work on this and and very a huge thank you to our local businesses for all you do for our community. Thank you. Thank you so much. | 00:13:28 | |
Any further comments from the public? | 00:13:38 | |
OK, seeing none, So I just want to take a moment to kind of set this up before we get on with the presentation. | 00:13:41 | |
This is a really exciting moment for me personally, but also for the Economic Development Commission. It's been 2 years since we | 00:13:48 | |
started this initiative and I'm so thankful to see that we have some members past members of the DC in the in the room with us | 00:13:52 | |
today. | 00:13:57 | |
We had the the privilege of presenting. | 00:14:02 | |
The Business grant today to businesses serving minority and women. | 00:14:06 | |
Umm. | 00:14:10 | |
And we have our two businesses here in the room with us. So we'll get to that in just a second. I'd like to commend. | 00:14:11 | |
The. | 00:14:16 | |
Economic Development Commission for unanimously approving our recommendation. Thank you for all the support. Thank you to the City | 00:14:17 | |
staff particularly. | 00:14:22 | |
Laurel thank you so much and your patience and guiding us through this process and chops thank you Mr. Mayor. Thank you. We also | 00:14:28 | |
had. | 00:14:32 | |
As I'd mentioned, the the past EDC members who I'm so thankful have been able to join us here in the room with Nicholas Moreland. | 00:14:38 | |
He was the former EDC chair who was part of this initiative when we began. | 00:14:43 | |
We have former secretary Ariel Zena, who's joined us as well. Thank you. At the time when we began this journey, the council of | 00:14:48 | |
the years on which Jenny McAdams and of course our former City manager Ben Harvey was a part. And we're so thankful for all their | 00:14:54 | |
support and guidance through this process. | 00:15:00 | |
You know, there's many incredible businesses in Pacific Grove is what is the heart of our town and that's why we're all here. | 00:15:08 | |
It's the reason why. | 00:15:15 | |
You know, we are able to come together as a community and rally around events and all the wonderful memories that we're able to | 00:15:17 | |
make. It's just it is the heart of who we are as a as a town. | 00:15:23 | |
So it wasn't easy to select the winners in this in this process, but I I hope you both know that we're incredibly impressed with | 00:15:31 | |
the submissions that you that you provided, the amount of information that you shared with us, thank you for trusting us and | 00:15:37 | |
reviewing. | 00:15:42 | |
The applications. | 00:15:49 | |
And it's an honor to present these two grants to both of your businesses to Lucy's on Lighthouse and MA Wellness. | 00:15:50 | |
So we have a couple of checks for you. I think we'd love to take a couple of pictures. We're going to just break protocol and just | 00:15:58 | |
kind of have some fun for a few seconds and then we'll get back to business. Is that all right? | 00:16:02 | |
OK. | 00:16:07 | |
You have to go to a really big bank. | 00:16:17 | |
18. | 00:16:20 | |
And since everyone else's. | 00:16:25 | |
Sleep. | 00:16:42 | |
Chair. Get in the center. | 00:16:55 | |
Right all. | 00:17:00 | |
Better center under the under the logo. | 00:17:02 | |
Awesome. Congratulations. | 00:17:26 | |
Yeah. | 00:17:37 | |
Future. | 00:17:48 | |
I. | 00:18:08 | |
And. | 00:18:10 | |
Somebody in the city. | 00:18:15 | |
Ice cream for everybody. | 00:18:55 | |
And now it's now it's official. There you go. | 00:19:02 | |
Don't take the other ones to the bank, it won't work. | 00:19:04 | |
And I don't mean to put you on the spot, but Jolene, did you want to say any words? OK, it's totally fine. | 00:19:11 | |
I'm so glad. | 00:19:22 | |
And. | 00:19:24 | |
It's hot. | 00:19:28 | |
Just listening to. | 00:19:31 | |
The history of this like, warms my heart. | 00:19:33 | |
I didn't realize this was. | 00:19:36 | |
Deep project. | 00:19:39 | |
I started it back in November when I got. | 00:19:42 | |
The e-mail and have been eagerly hoping I was. | 00:19:44 | |
Resonate with you and I'm extremely honored. I love what I do. I feel like I have so much to share with this community and I | 00:19:53 | |
couldn't do it without my amazing family. My My kids work with me too, and my husband works with me. They built the studio with me | 00:20:00 | |
plank by plank. So this is. | 00:20:07 | |
This is really going to help us out a lot, so I don't mean to make you cry. | 00:20:15 | |
So, yeah, thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. And we're going to do great things. | 00:20:21 | |
So can't wait to share. | 00:20:27 | |
Let's go. | 00:20:38 | |
So much gratitude. I appreciate it so much. We opened the right smack dab in the middle of COVID in July of 2020 and it's been an | 00:20:41 | |
uphill battle back and forth trying to make it and. | 00:20:47 | |
Hi. | 00:20:55 | |
And. | 00:20:59 | |
I'm very appreciative. This will help with a lot of things that we want to do. We love Pacific Grove so much. I raised my kids | 00:20:59 | |
here, my mom went to school here. We've been here a long time and having a business in this city means a lot to me. So thank you | 00:21:04 | |
guys. | 00:21:08 | |
I just like to also just say that. | 00:21:20 | |
You, you both have created thriving businesses and I want to congratulate you both for that. This is a little bit of, I'll I'll | 00:21:24 | |
say, a little bit of fertilizer on the plant to give you a boost and we hope that you'll come back and share your growth with us. | 00:21:31 | |
And we'd love to as part of this also here. | 00:21:38 | |
You know your feedback and how we can help to serve you and the business community, so we we would like to of course welcome you | 00:21:42 | |
back again in the near future. | 00:21:47 | |
Any any further comments from? | 00:21:55 | |
The Commission, before we move on to the next agenda item. | 00:21:58 | |
Sure, OK, try not to cry. I'm a very emotional Just seeing happy things just makes me so happy. And I understand the struggles, | 00:22:01 | |
like these last few years have been so tough, so. | 00:22:07 | |
And. | 00:22:16 | |
With Captain and Stoker, with my own business, like our whole thing is we just want to like help people, especially those that | 00:22:17 | |
might not get help otherwise. So when I got to be on this Commission, that was like the thing I wanted to do most, so like. | 00:22:22 | |
I'm a year and a few months into this and we finally got to do something. So it's just like it feels so good to actually see the | 00:22:28 | |
final product. So thank you guys. | 00:22:32 | |
Any additional? | 00:22:54 | |
I just want to say, I know it's been a long journey, you know, probably started before June of 2022. And so you know, tenacity and | 00:22:58 | |
persistence is obviously one of the hallmarks of being a great business person. | 00:23:04 | |
And I just want to say congratulations, we need more businesses with the verve and enthusiasm that you all bring to the town and | 00:23:10 | |
and brought tonight. It's good to see And Margaret Thatcher one time said I think it was her that the pessimist sees problems in | 00:23:16 | |
every opportunity. | 00:23:22 | |
The optim. | 00:23:29 | |
The opportunity in every problem and I think we need more people who see what you see for the for Pacific Row. We love Pacific | 00:23:31 | |
Grove, we do too and would like to see more of the same in the future and you bring that. | 00:23:37 | |
That personality of the entrepreneurship. | 00:23:44 | |
Profile to Pacific Grove and we need more. | 00:23:48 | |
Of this exact same thing, so thank you for hanging in. | 00:23:50 | |
With that, we'll move on to the next item on the agenda. | 00:23:57 | |
Back to business, so you guys are? | 00:24:01 | |
Thank you. | 00:24:09 | |
Yeah. | 00:24:17 | |
Well, that takes us to item number seven on the agenda, which is our Small business Recovery action plan. We had a request to | 00:24:38 | |
revisit that action plan and see what we can make of it. There's some recommendations that were shared with our. | 00:24:45 | |
Advisors at. | 00:24:53 | |
And. | 00:24:55 | |
Want to bring? | 00:24:57 | |
The table for further conversation so with that. | 00:24:58 | |
I will hand it over to Mr. Foster. | 00:25:02 | |
Can walk us through and we can discuss a bit more if there's some items that we can identify as potential. | 00:25:05 | |
Thank you. I'm happy to come back and and revisit this. I hope you had a chance to go back and look through the the action plan | 00:25:15 | |
and we started this a couple years ago and brought it forward to the Economic Development Commission a first time and then we | 00:25:20 | |
brought it on to the and that you have some thoughts and ideas. | 00:25:26 | |
And then we brought it forward to the City Council. | 00:25:32 | |
About a year ago and. | 00:25:36 | |
And then we and they and I think overall they like. | 00:25:39 | |
And they wanted. | 00:25:42 | |
Get some direction in terms of. | 00:25:45 | |
And also budget resources for it. And so then we came, we came back to the Economic Development Commission. | 00:25:48 | |
And provided an implementation plan. | 00:25:55 | |
And then? | 00:25:58 | |
Went back to the City Council. I think it was scheduled at least two or three times for consideration by the City Council in June | 00:26:00 | |
and then in July and. | 00:26:05 | |
Just because of some timing issues never happened. And so I think I'd like to go through that or Laurel if you can bring up that | 00:26:11 | |
PowerPoint with the implementation. | 00:26:16 | |
Plan they'll they'll give you some of the highlights in terms of the program. | 00:26:21 | |
Barry, would it be possible for you to share your screen? I think we may be having a bit of technical difficulties on our end. | 00:26:31 | |
Yeah, I don't have it up in mind. I'm sorry. | 00:26:34 | |
Are you able to pull it up or? | 00:26:40 | |
Laurel's working on it here, so just. | 00:26:45 | |
Yeah. | 00:26:48 | |
OK. I'll. | 00:26:53 | |
You want me just to walk through? | 00:26:59 | |
It's it's posted as part of the agenda packet online. So I apologize, apologies to everybody in the room but for this going online | 00:27:01 | |
it is available. Yeah I'll I'll go ahead and walk through the. | 00:27:07 | |
So there's there's 16 different items. | 00:27:13 | |
And some of these just because of the timing of when we started. | 00:27:16 | |
Have actually the city staff chose to go ahead and. | 00:27:20 | |
And implement some of those things. And so number one is establish one day a week economic development coordinator position and | 00:27:24 | |
that's been accomplished with Laurel doing that. | 00:27:30 | |
And then? | 00:27:37 | |
Is. | 00:27:40 | |
To do a monthly business spotlight at Economic Development Commission meetings, that is also happening. | 00:27:41 | |
And then #3 was to launch um. | 00:27:47 | |
And Economic development web page. | 00:27:50 | |
P. | 00:27:55 | |
And that also is ongoing and has been implemented and I think that it turned out very, very nicely it's it's a very useful. | 00:27:56 | |
Website and I think it once you've got people there, it really kind of drives home. | 00:28:05 | |
Why so? How much you consider? | 00:28:10 | |
And then #4 is to move the EDC costs into one city department. | 00:28:13 | |
Budget and that's economic development that's also been accomplished. | 00:28:18 | |
And then #5. | 00:28:22 | |
Also started and it needs to continue on, is to hold quarterly broker luncheons. We've had a couple of those already. | 00:28:25 | |
And so I think those are really successful in terms and I know we had a number of EDC members that were also participating in in | 00:28:33 | |
those. And so I think that that's something that. | 00:28:37 | |
Needs to continue on to and then number six is is to do quarterly economic development. | 00:28:43 | |
Reports to City Council. | 00:28:49 | |
#7 is to initiate a business visitation. | 00:28:52 | |
Oh, there it is. | 00:28:57 | |
Why don't you go through the page? | 00:28:59 | |
You. | 00:29:04 | |
Can you go up one more? | 00:29:13 | |
The. | 00:29:18 | |
Keep going. | 00:29:22 | |
1. | 00:29:25 | |
There you go. And then. | 00:29:29 | |
Is it initiated business visitation program and I've I've I've found these in a lot of communities as being something that that | 00:29:32 | |
really is useful is that have an ongoing business visitation program so city staff can go out and and meet with businesses. | 00:29:40 | |
Just to share information about, sometimes there's things. | 00:29:49 | |
That city or business is kind of struggling with or. | 00:29:52 | |
A challenge or a problem, oftentimes getting together with with city people. | 00:29:58 | |
Regular basis of having that dialogue, you can you can solve or adjust some things to make those things. | 00:30:03 | |
Better. It's always better. | 00:30:10 | |
To know about an issue before it's too late where business decided that they're going to close or relocate or something else. And | 00:30:11 | |
so I think those visitation programs are really, really important. They can be monthly or they can be bimonthly. | 00:30:18 | |
Can you? | 00:30:25 | |
Next page. | 00:30:27 | |
So #8 is to create a restaurant event series. | 00:30:29 | |
And so I. | 00:30:34 | |
That that is something that. | 00:30:35 | |
Previously it was done with one event in the city. I think doing those kinds of things on kind of an ongoing basis would be really | 00:30:38 | |
important. You've got a lot of great, great restaurants. | 00:30:44 | |
In Pacific rose, I think. | 00:30:51 | |
Highlighting though isn't that all the diversity and quality of the restaurants with with an ongoing restaurant event series is | 00:30:53 | |
something that would prove very, very useful. For Pacific Grove #9 is to launch a Shop Local digital gift card program. | 00:31:01 | |
We've done a number of these programs in cities, but they really, they really have proven to be quite successful in terms of | 00:31:09 | |
helping the small independent businesses. | 00:31:14 | |
It's something. | 00:31:20 | |
We've kind of gotten past Kovid, but. | 00:31:22 | |
There's still some work to be done and so I think keeping those dollars local and. | 00:31:26 | |
Having that shop local presence is really, really. | 00:31:31 | |
And then number. | 00:31:35 | |
Is to continue the Parkland. | 00:31:38 | |
That was something that was done. | 00:31:42 | |
Back when when COVID hit, and that was the way a lot of best businesses and restaurants stayed open. And so I think having those | 00:31:44 | |
improvements and having them where they're a little bit more long term is important. So I know the city's been working on | 00:31:51 | |
standards for those parklets. Program #11 is to. | 00:31:58 | |
Continue the pretty successful storefront and park the facade improvement. | 00:32:06 | |
That that Laurel's been working with for a number of years now and I think that continuing that forward is another major part of | 00:32:11 | |
the action plan. | 00:32:17 | |
#12 is they're creating music series event. | 00:32:22 | |
Program and again it kind of like with the restaurant event program, special events are are are important ways for a community, | 00:32:26 | |
especially downtown. | 00:32:31 | |
To have. | 00:32:36 | |
To have those kinds of things where people can come down and and and get together as a community, all different types of ages, | 00:32:38 | |
families, all those kinds of things. I think having that a music series, event program is another way that you can really. | 00:32:45 | |
Umm, help your small business community? Just have people gathering coming down into your downtown at #13. | 00:32:53 | |
Is the explorer a program you can help with? Something that they can store fronts. | 00:33:02 | |
We started that we we have a a company that had some interest that kind of went away. | 00:33:07 | |
That would have would have managed that program, but there's a possibility now that they may come back and so I think. | 00:33:13 | |
Having a program where you can take some of those. | 00:33:21 | |
Some of those taken spaces and and using them on a short term basis with a with a number of kind of entrepreneurial small | 00:33:25 | |
businesses that can't afford to go out and get their own space could be a way to. | 00:33:31 | |
To utilize those vacant. | 00:33:37 | |
But also help some of the small businesses that really kind of need to get going before they can take their own space. | 00:33:40 | |
#14 | 00:33:46 | |
His design. | 00:33:48 | |
A shop, Pacific Grove, St. Pole. | 00:33:51 | |
You know this has worked in a lot of communities and so I think that again it's how you brand your businesses and in your in your | 00:33:54 | |
shop local program is another way just to to create that. | 00:34:00 | |
Number. | 00:34:06 | |
Next one more. | 00:34:08 | |
Is to look at the Monterey Trolley bringing it to downtown Pacific Grove and I know that the previous city manager in Laurel had | 00:34:10 | |
kind of worked on that and so I think that's another thing that that little longer term but. | 00:34:17 | |
I think it could bring more people into Pacific. | 00:34:24 | |
And then #16. | 00:34:28 | |
Is is really just to kind of look? | 00:34:30 | |
Especially the downtown area, you know capital improvement projects and and look at possibilities to to really help with the | 00:34:33 | |
infrastructure. | 00:34:37 | |
Needed improvements, sidewalks, tree wells and all those kinds of things just to try to really improve the environment and the | 00:34:42 | |
look of it and and make it so people want to come there again and again and again. | 00:34:48 | |
So these are the. | 00:34:55 | |
The 16 major components, a number of these have been started already, but I think they bring the basis of. | 00:34:58 | |
Of the action plan and and. | 00:35:05 | |
They're not going to be all done at once, They're going to build down overtime. | 00:35:08 | |
So with that, I'm happy to answer any questions. | 00:35:11 | |
Before I open it to the Commissioners. | 00:35:16 | |
We have had a dramatic decrease in the number of people here in the audience, but I just want to make sure I check the box. So is | 00:35:19 | |
there any comments from the public before we move forward? | 00:35:24 | |
Discussion seeing. | 00:35:29 | |
OK. I'll go ahead and open the floor then for feedback questions. | 00:35:31 | |
Thoughts from commissioners? | 00:35:35 | |
Commissioner. | 00:35:39 | |
Foster, can you explain to me in more detail what a restaurant event series is? | 00:35:42 | |
Yeah, it's it's going to be, it's going to be eating structured in a lot of different ways, but it is to look at maybe having. | 00:35:48 | |
Kind of ongoing restaurant series that could be in downtown. It could be other shopping areas too, but it would be. | 00:35:55 | |
You know, maybe one every quarter or set kind of. | 00:36:03 | |
A time frame where you're having these kinds of things, but they really have worked, especially in downtown areas. So you're | 00:36:08 | |
you're bringing together. | 00:36:12 | |
A number of restaurants to participate in that program. You could have some music be part of it too. You're creating kind of a | 00:36:16 | |
festival. | 00:36:20 | |
Type environment and and getting people to come down and and. | 00:36:24 | |
And and taste the all the different cuisine and diversity you have into restaurants. But it's also another way just to kind of | 00:36:28 | |
promote the downtown or wherever that whatever that shopping center you're having the event at. | 00:36:33 | |
So are you suggesting that restaurants provide samples? I'm confused why people would come and why this would be different than | 00:36:39 | |
first Fridays when there's music and in some restaurants there's music every Friday and Saturday. Yeah, So they they could do, | 00:36:44 | |
they could do a way where they have samples, they could do it a way where they're just, they could maybe even sell things You can | 00:36:49 | |
structure in a number of different ways. | 00:36:54 | |
Just to answer your question, I've been a few of these in few different states now that I've lived quite often it's. | 00:37:04 | |
Sometimes it's like a locked off area and you have to buy a ticket, and with that ticket you get a certain amount of like little | 00:37:12 | |
tastings and stuff. Yeah. So there's there's a bunch of different ways to do it, but I like that way a little more because then, | 00:37:17 | |
you know, you know, you're paying for something good. Whereas sometimes, I don't know, it's like if it's free, I feel kind of bad | 00:37:22 | |
taking food from people. I was like I'd rather pay for it a little bit, 'cause then, you know, it's a little curated too. So yeah, | 00:37:27 | |
I just wanted to say. | 00:37:32 | |
That I've been to them and they have been great, yeah. And having those tickets, you know that's it's again, you're just you're | 00:37:37 | |
getting a sampling. It's not a full course meal or anything like that. It's it's you can go around and sample four or five of | 00:37:41 | |
them. | 00:37:45 | |
OK. | 00:37:51 | |
I've seen some. | 00:37:53 | |
Ways of doing it too, which are kind of fun where you could have different themes for. I mean if it was quarterly it seems like a | 00:37:57 | |
lot, but I mean you anyway. You could highlight local food producers and you know restaurants could feature farmers and you could | 00:38:03 | |
you know do events with meet the fishermen or meet the. | 00:38:09 | |
Cattle rancher or something like that. And that's a way of just extending community and having fun events and and there's some the | 00:38:17 | |
most common way of doing a Restaurant Week is to say it's 10% off. | 00:38:23 | |
Come along and try out a restaurant you've been wanting to try and things like that, so there's lots of different ways of doing it | 00:38:30 | |
and. | 00:38:33 | |
It. | 00:38:38 | |
I noticed that there was like no budget for that one. I think was it is that the one? Just a second, Yeah, I I would hope there | 00:38:40 | |
would be some budget because marketing and is is probably the key to you know, creating excitement for an event and. | 00:38:48 | |
That would be that would be great. I guess another question that I have very is just I noticed that in my. | 00:38:57 | |
Previous version of this, the budget was different. It's been cut quite a lot, it's I just was wondering why that is. | 00:39:06 | |
I'm not sure if I'll go back and look at it. We've had a couple of different rounds of this, but and some of these programs is, is | 00:39:13 | |
I think. | 00:39:17 | |
Is once once we have some direction from the City Council, then you have to go back and establish the budget. | 00:39:21 | |
OK well this the shop local thing. I've got previous version AT60K and. | 00:39:29 | |
Sorry, is so now it's 30 K on this. | 00:39:35 | |
In this presentation and the storefront was 50 and now it's 25 S it was cut in half. I just thought maybe it was a because the | 00:39:40 | |
time frame was different or something. I don't know. Yeah, I think the, I think the The Shop local program that was reduced. | 00:39:47 | |
When Mr. Harvey was there and then I think it was just to try to start with something a little bit, a little bit more modest and | 00:39:56 | |
that would fit into a funding source and. | 00:40:00 | |
So that was the reason why that was actually reduced and that was that was after we brought it for you last time. | 00:40:06 | |
Commissioner Murdoch. All right, thank you, Chair. I just have a general question because we. | 00:40:15 | |
Entered down the path of doing a strategic plan. I I had thought that was more the direction we were going to go. | 00:40:22 | |
And kind of understand what it is that we need before we did something like this. But I mean, there are parts of this that can | 00:40:30 | |
happen simultaneously. I'm just. | 00:40:34 | |
Trying to understand where we are in this process versus a strategic plan. | 00:40:38 | |
I'll I'll give my answer and then I'll give Vice Chair Jake moment as well because I know that she has some comments I I believe | 00:40:46 | |
the the. | 00:40:50 | |
The intent here is that this is an immediate whereas the strategic plan, while I I truly believe that, I think it's a great | 00:40:55 | |
direction to go and will take time. | 00:40:59 | |
And so the hope here is to have a more immediate opportunity to address some of the needs that are currently present in the. | 00:41:04 | |
Commissioner Jacobs Yeah, I'm. I'm really excited about this, and I was so sorry when. | 00:41:10 | |
You know, we it kind of bit the dust, you know it. | 00:41:18 | |
The council and didn't get hurt and I understand there were a lot of things competing and but I feel this is important because you | 00:41:22 | |
know one of the things that makes our town unique is the village kind of atmosphere that we have in downtown and the the kind of | 00:41:29 | |
really special independent businesses and I would say I don't know every. | 00:41:36 | |
World. But in the restaurant world, I do know a lot of other restaurant owners and from you know. | 00:41:43 | |
Friends that I know that our managers at Pebble Beach, they say that they've been down 50% in our business, probably close to 50%. | 00:41:52 | |
It's just it's been a very like everyone I speak to they're down significantly from past years. So it I feel that it's it's really | 00:41:59 | |
important to address this and I'm so glad that you've put the work into proposing something and you know we looked at it before | 00:42:06 | |
and I think everything was approved except the gift card thing. | 00:42:13 | |
Because we wanted to give the the city time to do something like a homegrown version, which we've not been able to do. So I'm. | 00:42:21 | |
Still enthusiastic about the gift card feature as well. And you know I think a lot of businesses loaded up with debt during the | 00:42:29 | |
pandemic because the government offered loans and then we had a big economic downturn and although wages increased a lot. So | 00:42:37 | |
you're you're seeing pressure from three different areas on businesses and I know everyone is you know. | 00:42:44 | |
Finding it difficult. So I feel like now more than ever it's it's really great to to do this So yeah if I can comment just on SO I | 00:42:52 | |
think when we do things like this like this is an action plan this is for as. | 00:43:00 | |
As the VICE chair talked about, it's more kind of. | 00:43:08 | |
It's more of a short term plan and and so this is really meant to be something that can be accomplished in a couple of years. | 00:43:11 | |
The the when you're doing a strategy. | 00:43:19 | |
It's more long term, it's more comprehensive. It's just it's just for a longer period of time. Action plans are really meant to be | 00:43:21 | |
shorter periods of time and where you've really emphasized the word action. | 00:43:26 | |
And where strategies are more a little more grandiose and longer term things and just to comment too about the vice chair talked | 00:43:32 | |
about. | 00:43:36 | |
Just businesses in general, we're still, you know, we do work all over the state and so while sales tax has rebounded and our | 00:43:41 | |
company does sales tax for probably 400 cities in California. | 00:43:46 | |
Small businesses. | 00:43:54 | |
They're not back to pre pandemic in terms of achieving margins and cash flowing all those kinds of things. They've had all these | 00:43:57 | |
other challenges with increased labor costs and and and the whole supply chain thing and and more costs have dramatically | 00:44:04 | |
increased. And so while sales may be up, you know they're not able to pass on everything that they really need to for to their to | 00:44:11 | |
their clients and their customers. And so those margins are still not back to pre Pandemic and so. | 00:44:18 | |
Having a having an action plan like this, it has a number of different things in ways that the city can help the small business | 00:44:25 | |
community really recover it. It's it's really important now and and it's going to be more important here in the next couple of | 00:44:29 | |
years. | 00:44:33 | |
So, you know, I pretty much agree with it. Everything people, I said. | 00:44:45 | |
Vice Chair Jacobs commented on the difficulty businesses are having, particularly small business. It's. | 00:44:50 | |
It is ruthless out there. It's really, really difficult to survive one day to the next. I don't see a lot on here. | 00:44:57 | |
That would focus short term on helping a small business get through some of the very specific bottom line issues. A couple of | 00:45:04 | |
these things perhaps, but right now if you've taken out loans and you've got to pay them back at higher interest rates are turning | 00:45:09 | |
up. | 00:45:14 | |
What are we doing to help with that? There are programs where you can renegotiate. | 00:45:20 | |
But you need somebody to come in and help you do that, right? Get the small business owners, get a group of five or six of them | 00:45:24 | |
who would interested. Let's run a program based by the EDC. Maybe we can add it to this list and have them come in here and just | 00:45:30 | |
talk about what's going on. We bring in some experts to alleviate some of that. | 00:45:36 | |
Usury interest that they're having to pay and the debt that they're having to pay off, I'd like to see something like that on | 00:45:43 | |
here. | 00:45:46 | |
You know, we we had these entrepreneurs here. You know, I've been looking at some of the as part of the strategic plan, what other | 00:45:50 | |
small towns have done. | 00:45:55 | |
And there's sort of a common element and one is let's get new businesses in, let's support them. And the entrepreneurship feel | 00:46:00 | |
like we saw here tonight is critical to establishing a very positive vibe in the city. Whatever we can do to support new | 00:46:07 | |
businesses, particularly small entrepreneurs. | 00:46:13 | |
And so I would ask Mr. Foster, and I don't see it in here, but. | 00:46:20 | |
More than a year ago, my business partner and I filled out an application sent. | 00:46:25 | |
For I don't know what it was called a makers. | 00:46:31 | |
Something like that. I believe that Mister Foster, you were here with somebody from San Jose looking at actually space. | 00:46:34 | |
That could be turned into an Event Center or makerspace type of. | 00:46:41 | |
Right. And I don't see it on the it's #13. | 00:46:46 | |
It doesn't, it doesn't specifically say makers face, but that that would fall into that category and and we did and we did have a | 00:46:50 | |
business or a group out of San Jose that was very interested. | 00:46:56 | |
They kind of got into some other things and some other communities and. | 00:47:03 | |
But I think there's, I think there's a possibility that they they they have some renewed interest but that that would be a part of | 00:47:08 | |
that. | 00:47:11 | |
OK. So you're telling me that the vacant storefront activation program? | 00:47:15 | |
Is the same thing as. | 00:47:20 | |
RFI that we. | 00:47:25 | |
That we put out that you responded to was part. | 00:47:26 | |
OK. | 00:47:31 | |
And so there's been no progress, what you're saying? | 00:47:32 | |
On this, since then that that group that was originally interested started looking at other opportunities in other cities and kind | 00:47:35 | |
of lost interest, but within the last month or so we've had some dialogue with them where they might be interested again. | 00:47:43 | |
Is there some way to scale that down and start it on a smaller scale? | 00:47:51 | |
Let's get it out there. Maybe we're not talking about two or 3000 square feet. Maybe we're talking about something a little bit | 00:47:55 | |
less than that. But common workspaces, some kind of administrative support, you know, fast Internet, that kind of thing. I think | 00:48:01 | |
the key thing there, Commissioner, gives is that. | 00:48:06 | |
That group was going to take on the role of managing that program. I'm not sure the city staff is in a position to manage this | 00:48:12 | |
program. So we're hoping, we're still hopeful that we could find a group or entity that would be willing to take that on and and | 00:48:17 | |
manage that process. | 00:48:21 | |
So I think my question for you is, understanding the limitations that we have with city staff, what is your recommendation that? | 00:48:30 | |
We as a. | 00:48:40 | |
Take to to begin to move some of these items forward, understanding that we're an advisory Commission, what would you advise us? | 00:48:43 | |
I think, I think we if if the Commission is in agreement. | 00:48:52 | |
We need to update this time frame because we've lost some time now, but is to go back to the City Council with an updated time | 00:48:57 | |
frame here. | 00:49:02 | |
And so you know, some of these are shorter term than others and some of it's going to take. | 00:49:08 | |
Some time to do but I think all these are kind of valuable tools. But but then. | 00:49:13 | |
Make sure that the City Council agrees with all these and these aren't. They all saw these before. No, I think question any of | 00:49:19 | |
these these programs the first time you brought it forward. They just wanted to better understand some of the timing issues, what | 00:49:24 | |
would come first, what would come later and and then some budget numbers. | 00:49:30 | |
Would it be helpful then for us to designate a subcommittee to work directly with HDL to begin moving this forward? What would | 00:49:38 | |
you? | 00:49:43 | |
What would you recommend that we do in terms of the actions that we have, the ability? | 00:49:48 | |
To take I think, I think, I think that would be a good move. | 00:49:53 | |
Chair I think the we get a couple people that could work with our group with Laurel. | 00:49:58 | |
With the new interim community development directors, that is to kind of understand. | 00:50:05 | |
Make sure these budget numbers are correct and timing is correct. And and. | 00:50:10 | |
And try to come forward with with a with an updated recommendation. | 00:50:15 | |
OK. | 00:50:21 | |
All right. | 00:50:21 | |
Any further questions or comments Commission, maybe it's a question for the staff, you know the HDL there was a budget for HDL is | 00:50:23 | |
there, Where are we on the budget for this with this consulting? | 00:50:28 | |
We we renewed the contract in. | 00:50:36 | |
And so we're. | 00:50:39 | |
A little over four months into. | 00:50:41 | |
We didn't have a specific number in terms of this program. It's it's a number of different services that we provide for the city. | 00:50:45 | |
So I think, I think we still have, I think the budget was for. | 00:50:53 | |
Umm. | 00:50:58 | |
$39,000 for the year and I think to the first quarter. | 00:50:59 | |
I think it was like 5 or $6000. | 00:51:06 | |
No, there's still money in the budget. | 00:51:09 | |
Just. | 00:51:13 | |
So how does this work? Do we need permission? | 00:51:16 | |
That's not our budget. | 00:51:19 | |
Correct. So do we need permission from the city to use them for our purposes? | 00:51:21 | |
Are they paying for it? Who's? Who's paying Part of the current agreement that we have? So they are. We are. | 00:51:27 | |
Part of it and correct me if I'm wrong, Mr. Foster, but we are part of the overall scope that they have. Yeah. Yeah, we, we, we | 00:51:32 | |
work typically we previously reported. | 00:51:38 | |
Mr. Harvey we worked with. | 00:51:44 | |
And then but you know the EDC can can also they've asked overtime to to help with certain things and if if. | 00:51:48 | |
If staff feels it's appropriate, we can go ahead and do that. | 00:51:55 | |
It's it's part of our. | 00:51:59 | |
I'm sure, Mr. Jacobs. Yeah. So we had a meeting recently where we looked at. | 00:52:03 | |
Expanding. | 00:52:10 | |
City staff to work on economic development and kind of looking around at other municipalities. | 00:52:13 | |
I don't know. Santa Cruz has eight full time people and we've got one part-time one day a week and I know there are four times | 00:52:19 | |
bigger than us, but even if you divide that by 4, you know two full time people would be awesome. But I think we were looking at | 00:52:24 | |
expanding laurels. | 00:52:29 | |
Review just two more days a week, if possible, one full-time person or. | 00:52:36 | |
You know she actually she only works four days a week, so it would be almost full time. So just wanted to say that we had had | 00:52:43 | |
further discussions on one of those points in your plan. | 00:52:47 | |
So it seems to me sorry I just in the interest of. | 00:52:53 | |
We have. | 00:52:58 | |
It seems to me that the next step here is for us to decide whether or not we want to create a subcommittee. | 00:52:58 | |
To for this conversation potentially offline, I move that we form a subcommittee to prioritize these and, you know, and ask for a | 00:53:04 | |
budget. The thing about this is that, you know, the mayors here, Councilman Dory, are here. If I'm sitting in their spot, they're | 00:53:10 | |
not going to do this. They're looking at us to say, make a recommendation for a budget or vote it up or down. But if we sit here | 00:53:16 | |
and don't give them something to act on, it's on us, not on them. | 00:53:23 | |
So I'm make a motion that we do that. | 00:53:29 | |
Yeah. | 00:53:33 | |
We have any volunteers for the subcommittee, Commissioner Rich. | 00:53:35 | |
Oh, sorry, First round we'll take a vote on. | 00:53:38 | |
The creation of a subcommittee, Then we'll. | 00:53:42 | |
And. | 00:53:45 | |
OK. | 00:53:47 | |
Commissioner. | 00:53:48 | |
Commissioner Van Nudie, Yes. Vice Chair Jacobs. Yes, Chair upman. | 00:53:51 | |
Commissioner Richmond aye, Commissioner Markowitz AYE and Commissioner. | 00:53:56 | |
Aye. | 00:54:02 | |
Motion passes. | 00:54:03 | |
Alright. | 00:54:07 | |
Commissioner Richmond. | 00:54:08 | |
Yes, I would love being on this. | 00:54:09 | |
I have a business in the town similar to somebody else on maybe maybe more than one of us, but I just think. | 00:54:13 | |
I have so many ideas and I just want to share them, so I think I could be a really good asset to it. | 00:54:20 | |
Yeah. | 00:54:25 | |
We have two other interested parties. I'm not interested, 'cause I don't have a business downtown, but I think it's important that | 00:54:26 | |
people on this subcommittee have a business in town somewhere. | 00:54:30 | |
Yeah. | 00:54:37 | |
Did you not hear me? Are you? | 00:54:40 | |
Yes, I think it's important that people on this subcommittee have a business that they have a vested interest in this plan. | 00:54:42 | |
And their stick. | 00:54:49 | |
I. | 00:54:53 | |
That's my opinion. | 00:54:55 | |
That's my opinion, that's all. I'm just I'm. | 00:54:57 | |
That's my. | 00:55:01 | |
I'm interested in volunteering by the way. I would, I would volunteer also. Everybody else go first, but if you need an extra | 00:55:03 | |
member. | 00:55:07 | |
I'm. | 00:55:12 | |
Willing and able to jump in. Thank. | 00:55:13 | |
So I will go ahead and move things along. I'll make a motion for a subcommittee comprised of Commissioner Richmond. | 00:55:16 | |
Commissioner Gibbs. | 00:55:24 | |
And vice chair. | 00:55:26 | |
Do we? | 00:55:28 | |
OK. Can we take A roll call? | 00:55:32 | |
Commissioner. | 00:55:36 | |
Aye, Commissioner Markowitz, Commissioner Richmond. | 00:55:38 | |
Chair Upman, Vice Chair Jacobs, aye. Commissioner Van Nudie aye. And Commissioner Gibbs. Yes. Motion passes for the new | 00:55:42 | |
subcommittee comprising of Commissioner Richmond, Vice Chair Jacobs and Commissioner Gibbs. Thank you. | 00:55:49 | |
Mr. Foster, thank you for your time tonight and joining us. We'll have the subcommittee coordinate and reach out through city | 00:56:00 | |
staff and look forward to moving this forward. | 00:56:05 | |
Thank you. Have a good night. | 00:56:11 | |
You. | 00:56:13 | |
All right. Unfortunately, we're going to be tight for time here, but I did want to make sure that we have an opportunity to speak | 00:56:16 | |
to the item on the agenda that is speaking to one of the recommendations that we have as part of the previous conversation, so | 00:56:21 | |
with that #8 concert Series subcommittee update. | 00:56:26 | |
Commissioner Rich. | 00:56:32 | |
You present when they get to comment. Well, luckily with our 4 minutes, that's that's more than I need. We don't have a whole lot | 00:56:37 | |
on the music series, but not because we didn't do anything on the three of us on the subcommittee all kind of took a portion of | 00:56:43 | |
what needs to get done and kind of researched a bit. So we met right before our meeting today to kind of go over those things and | 00:56:49 | |
what next steps we need to do. | 00:56:56 | |
So. | 00:57:02 | |
We're going to do a few different things. We're looking at different locations. I know Chautauqua Hall has been in the works a | 00:57:03 | |
little bit as far as talking about it. It turns out there are no. | 00:57:08 | |
Issues with Chautauqua Hall like ADA wise that that's what we were told, I think in the beginning and apparently there's no issue | 00:57:13 | |
on my business. | 00:57:17 | |
Instagram actually Captain Stoker, I put a poll out there for all of our followers because I wanted to know like inside or outside | 00:57:22 | |
kind of event and I had almost in the poll for that. I had about 500 something people vote and I specifically said locals, I | 00:57:28 | |
didn't want everybody so. | 00:57:34 | |
Yeah, about 370% voted for outside. So that's interesting. So we're going to look, we're going to look around. We have, we've had | 00:57:40 | |
a few ideas, but we do want to talk to Jenny a little bit, maybe we can. We're still trying to figure out if she can be part of | 00:57:48 | |
the conversation or if that throws off the three person rule thing. So but. | 00:57:55 | |
Yeah, yeah. So either way though, I'm sure we can just get the information emailed or something. So we'll figure that out. We do | 00:58:03 | |
plan to do some walkthroughs of some locations as well and we're going to talk, hopefully meet with Katie Clark, is that her last | 00:58:09 | |
name? Katie Clark, who's actually, she's working in the youth center across from us so she can help us out with the event planning | 00:58:14 | |
kind of stuff. She's got lots. | 00:58:20 | |
Lots of smarts there, so we're going to figure that one out. There are some hold ups, but we'll figure that out too. I'm not too | 00:58:27 | |
worried about that. And then also with the. | 00:58:33 | |
The. | 00:58:40 | |
Whatever it's called, what do we just look at? Business develop. Yeah, the improvement plan, the restaurant series, you know, | 00:58:42 | |
that's interesting. And maybe this is a combined effort. I don't know, maybe we can do a more than one thing to get more than one | 00:58:47 | |
kind of person there. So maybe we can combine some things. So yeah, we'll come back to the next meeting and hopefully have way | 00:58:52 | |
more detail, but. | 00:58:57 | |
We're. | 00:59:03 | |
Of course. | 00:59:07 | |
Yeah, I just wanted to follow up with what Kelsey had. | 00:59:10 | |
This is a really good plan and what we're going to be doing is I want to set up a meeting with Katie Clark, special events | 00:59:15 | |
coordinator for the city, and we're trying to find out. We got Jenny involved because she's been very experienced with this. | 00:59:21 | |
You know, this is let's have music. | 00:59:27 | |
We'd like to. This has to go through the City Council eventually and for. | 00:59:30 | |
Need 150 days advance time. There are applicants here that we figured out problem is. | 00:59:35 | |
The questions on the application, we got to sit down and figure out who, what, where, when and why and what we're going to do. We | 00:59:40 | |
had Jewel Park. | 00:59:44 | |
We thought of doing something along the terms of Lighthouse Ave. like we do it good old days, shut the street off and have bands | 00:59:49 | |
play, and all the businesses in the lighthouse are going to benefit from people coming down. That's one thing. | 00:59:55 | |
There are associated costs with all of this. We're talking about police traffic. If we do it outside, can the sponsorship be the | 01:00:01 | |
city? Can we wait, get the weight fees waived to be doing this since it is a city project? | 01:00:07 | |
Do we do it in conjunction with First Friday? We already have people out there. | 01:00:14 | |
Chautauqua is a possibility. We got to look at that. We need to get that. We have to get that. And if we're going to serve food, | 01:00:19 | |
alcohol, take tickets, what are we going to do with donations? There's a lot of these little details. | 01:00:24 | |
We have to figure out before we even put this we're talking about. | 01:00:30 | |
Basically 2024. | 01:00:34 | |
Really. Because it's that much lead time. I have a list here if anybody wants to do this. Like I got this. | 01:00:37 | |
I think Jenny Do says the special events already. | 01:00:44 | |
24th It's already through May. They're already taking a look at applications through the end of the summer for the deadlines for | 01:00:48 | |
special events here. So I want to try to get it together with Jenny and Kate and our subcommittee can get together and hammer out | 01:00:55 | |
this. And when we come back next month to say this is what we need to do, can we do this? Or are we talking about having a staff | 01:01:02 | |
of somebody? There are concerts that take place all over the way and a subcommittee can't put the concert on. | 01:01:09 | |
That's the thing that we have to really consider. | 01:01:16 | |
Who it Can city staff do this? Can the chamber do this? It's a really good plan, and it's a great idea because it's going to | 01:01:19 | |
benefit a lot of people and it's going to be a lot of work and it's going to take a lot of time. And our subcommittee is working | 01:01:25 | |
on it. We'll be willing to continue to work and do whatever we have to do to make it possible. But just want to put that out there | 01:01:30 | |
so everybody realizes this is not something that we can do next week. This is a long process. So I just wanted to add that. And | 01:01:35 | |
thanks, Kelsey. | 01:01:41 | |
Just an order of following process. Do we have any comments from the public on this before we open it up for conversation? | 01:01:48 | |
Seeing none, OK. Any further questions, comments, thoughts from the commissioners? | 01:01:55 | |
Mr. Jacobs Yeah, I love the fact that you're open to the idea of maybe having this be regenerative so that instead of just a one | 01:02:01 | |
off putting all this time and work into it, if it's something that really is beneficial to the city, it would be nice to have some | 01:02:08 | |
kind of formula or plan that it would. You could do it in, you know, in different ways in different times and. | 01:02:15 | |
You know, a series or a whatever. Anyway, I just, I just hope that. | 01:02:22 | |
It could be more than just a one off. | 01:02:27 | |
More. | 01:02:31 | |
Well, thank you all. That brings us to Good of the order. | 01:02:35 | |
Is there any final recommendations for future agenda items that we'd like to cover off on? | 01:02:39 | |
I know that we will likely have an opportunity to revisit the QR code project, Commissioner Hoops. | 01:02:44 | |
Yeah. | 01:02:49 | |
OK. And we'll also be chatting more about the strategic plan when we have time to regroup on that and bring back a report. So | 01:02:52 | |
those two items for sure, anything further? | 01:02:56 | |
So I heard you say you're going to bring the we have an asset and a stakeholder subcommittee. I think it's combined as one. | 01:03:02 | |
They'll be bringing a report. | 01:03:06 | |
Soon. | 01:03:10 | |
OK. And you know, there was an original sub. | 01:03:11 | |
Chairman Upman, Vice Chair Jacobson, I think myself and I think you're on one of the subcommittee. So my question is procedural. | 01:03:16 | |
Does that mean that the original subcommittee was? | 01:03:21 | |
Still. | 01:03:26 | |
If. | 01:03:27 | |
We're figuring it out as we go, but the intent was to always hand off at least one member for the prior committee so that there's | 01:03:30 | |
the consistency in that thread between the entire process. | 01:03:35 | |
If there's a need for the original group to facilitate. | 01:03:41 | |
We can certainly do that. Well I just I have a thought and and talking to some of the the building owners because that came up | 01:03:45 | |
before and. | 01:03:49 | |
For the next agenda, if we meet in December, I'd like to have a report on, and I'm willing to do it on three major building | 01:03:55 | |
owners, property owners, on Light. | 01:04:00 | |
About what their thoughts are, because I know that. | 01:04:06 | |
Several people have mentioned empty buildings and. | 01:04:11 | |
You know, people that were owners, not necessarily here, and gotten a couple of opinions. I'm not sure it's a report. Might be | 01:04:14 | |
interesting to hear what they have to say. | 01:04:18 | |
Wendy Giles and a few other people who own major properties downtown. So if you allocate 910 minutes, I can put something | 01:04:23 | |
together. | 01:04:26 | |
We can talk about that, certainly. | 01:04:30 | |
Very good. | 01:04:33 | |
OK. I see others in the room that are ready for the next meeting. So thank you all again. This has been a fantastic opportunity to | 01:04:34 | |
celebrate the business community today. | 01:04:38 | |
And it looks like our next EDC meeting will be at regular time. So we're looking at, please correct me if I'm wrong, December 7th. | 01:04:43 | |
At 4:00 PM. | 01:04:52 | |
OK. | 01:04:54 | |
Thank you. Meeting is adjourned. | 01:04:56 |
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Started right. | 00:00:04 | |
We are operating on a limited timeline today. This is a special meeting of the Economic Development Commission. Thank you all for | 00:00:07 | |
coming. | 00:00:11 | |
And joining. | 00:00:15 | |
I'll go ahead and call the meeting to order and ask. | 00:00:17 | |
We can take a quick roll call. | 00:00:21 | |
Commissioner. | 00:00:26 | |
Here Commissioner Markowitz. Commissioner Richmond here. | 00:00:28 | |
Chamber McMurdo here. Chair Upman President Vice Chair Jacobs here. | 00:00:34 | |
And Commissioner Vanut. | 00:00:41 | |
So we have a oh, I'm sorry. | 00:00:44 | |
And Commissioner Gibbs, I am. | 00:00:49 | |
Almost all here. OK. Thank you. Everyone's here. | 00:00:52 | |
Excellent. Thank you so much. | 00:00:56 | |
OK, we'll start off by submitting the agenda, the agenda and supporting documents in the packet we're circulating in advance of | 00:00:58 | |
today's meeting. They're available for download on the EDC page at pacificgrove.org. Are there any members of the public that | 00:01:03 | |
would like to make a comment on tonight's agenda? | 00:01:08 | |
Seeing none any online Laurel. | 00:01:15 | |
We're not doing online. Oh, we're done with the online. OK, well, we're done. Here we are. Thank you. | 00:01:19 | |
So is there a motion to approve the agenda report as presented? | 00:01:26 | |
Given. | 00:01:35 | |
Agenda Item number 9, the QR code project. The subcommittee has met, but we have not been able to talk with city staff about what | 00:01:37 | |
we need to talk with them about. So it's not really any progress to report at the moment. So we could just pull that item. The | 00:01:43 | |
grants, that would be fine. So a motion to strike item number 9 from the agenda. Is there a motion to approve the agenda with the | 00:01:49 | |
removal of item number 9? So moved. Thank you. Take a second. Second. Excellent. | 00:01:54 | |
OK. Any further discussion seeing none. | 00:02:01 | |
Let's go. | 00:02:04 | |
Do a quick roll call. Vote on that, please. OK. Commissioner Mark Woods, Vice Chair, Jacobs. | 00:02:06 | |
Aye, Commissioner Vanuti. Aye chair upman. | 00:02:11 | |
Commissioner Richmond. | 00:02:16 | |
Hi. | 00:02:17 | |
Commissioner G. | 00:02:19 | |
And Commissioner Mark. | 00:02:21 | |
I agree. | 00:02:24 | |
All right. OK. The motion passes 7 to 0 to approve the agenda with item nine straight. | 00:02:26 | |
Excellent. That takes us to Commission and staff announcements. Are there any announcements from the commissioners present or the | 00:02:32 | |
city staff before we move on? | 00:02:36 | |
I was going to introduce our interim director, but he just walked out, so he's here. | 00:02:40 | |
Lou Bowman, Commissioner Gibbs. | 00:02:47 | |
Yeah, I just want to, in terms of announcements on Wednesday, next Wednesday, the City Council will meet. | 00:02:49 | |
And I think it's going to be on the agenda. I haven't confirmed the suspension of. | 00:02:56 | |
Remote comment, remote public comment I believe will be on the agenda and it is suspended for not only City Council but for all. | 00:03:02 | |
Boards and commissions. | 00:03:09 | |
I personally. | 00:03:12 | |
The comments. | 00:03:14 | |
City Council, for example, meets maybe 24 times a year. | 00:03:17 | |
There might be 10 on average. | 00:03:20 | |
Per year. So 250 to 300 comments. And some of them are evil, wicked, mean, bad, nasty. There's no doubt about that. They're rotten | 00:03:23 | |
comments. But the question is, do we silence the many? | 00:03:29 | |
Take out a few of the comments that we don't like. So all I'm saying is that if you have a thought about this, beat the City | 00:03:36 | |
Council meeting on Wednesday night and let your voice be heard one way or the other. I think that's how democracy works. Thank | 00:03:41 | |
you. Thank you. | 00:03:45 | |
Commissioner Murdoch. Yeah, I just had a couple of announcements of things that are coming up in the city. This Saturday is a | 00:03:51 | |
veteran's day ceremony out at Point Pinot's Lighthouse at 11 AM. So that's 1111 at 11. Easy to remember. We also have a new | 00:03:58 | |
business in town named Sharp Corners Cards and Collectibles. He's already open, but he is having his grand opening and ribbon | 00:04:05 | |
cutting on December. Oh shoot. | 00:04:12 | |
2nd, 1st December 1st at 3:30, yes, First Friday at 3:30. So prior to first Friday is starting. So we would love, since this is a | 00:04:19 | |
business Commission, everybody and the public is welcome to come to that. And then there are a lot of holiday activities, but go | 00:04:25 | |
to the chamber website to find those, there's so many. | 00:04:31 | |
Wonder. | 00:04:38 | |
Comments seeing? None. OK, that brings us to the Council liaison announcements. | 00:04:40 | |
Yes. I just wanted to make sure that the EDC knew that the council has moved forward with the zoning and licensing ordinances for | 00:04:47 | |
the cannabis dispensary in town. So that got past the last council meeting. And so we're on track. Thank you. Thank you. | 00:04:55 | |
And on to general public comment. Are there any members of the public that would like to make a comment at this time? | 00:05:04 | |
Welcome. | 00:05:10 | |
Oh, good evening everyone. Hi, my name is Vince Tumonello, local PG resident. As I've said before, I've been coming to EDC | 00:05:22 | |
meetings on and off for the last 30 years. | 00:05:27 | |
Back then, Mr. Omar was head of the chamber and he pretty much supervised or many people thought ran the meetings. I'm glad to see | 00:05:33 | |
you have independent thought now. | 00:05:38 | |
And I'm up here to comment on a change in procedure, which we already heard from the chair. | 00:05:43 | |
That there is no zoom public comment tonight is that. | 00:05:51 | |
OK, well, I I know the mayor, who's a very good mayor and personally knows me, and I know him. | 00:05:56 | |
Publicly as well as as his being in office that he's a fair shooting guy. But when the I guess it was the state or maybe the | 00:06:03 | |
federal government financed all others equipment that wasn't here four years ago. All because of communist China's spreading of | 00:06:11 | |
COVID around the world. And we know how bad that situation was and this zoom idea really turned out to be a good idea. | 00:06:18 | |
I personally think people should come. | 00:06:26 | |
Just like would you rather listen to a CD or go to a live concert? It's the same thing if you want to come to a live presentation. | 00:06:29 | |
Make your voice known, the people in the eye and so forth, and let them know who you are. | 00:06:35 | |
And the reason is look what. | 00:06:41 | |
A few weeks ago, with the City Council meeting disparaging. | 00:06:44 | |
From a room. | 00:06:49 | |
Lunatics who called many other city councils and many other city meetings with obnoxious, distasteful and disdainful words and | 00:06:51 | |
comments about people's gender, nationality, race, and so forth, among other objectionable things. So naturally, the mayor in | 00:06:59 | |
shock. I watched it all. We watched it all on Zoom on YouTube. | 00:07:06 | |
And I see that, you know, something had to be done. Unfortunately, I hope we have enough money to put in a 7 second delay. | 00:07:14 | |
To have an opportunity to voice their opinion. | 00:08:00 | |
Just banning it is not a good idea, so I support what Mr. Gibbs said. We're on the same page. What a coincidence. | 00:08:02 | |
So anyway, thank you for letting me speak, and I hope something more appropriate can be done about that to allow all of the | 00:08:09 | |
community the right to free speech. Thank you very much. | 00:08:13 | |
Thank you. | 00:08:18 | |
OK. Next up is approval of the minutes, the minutes from our October 5th, 2023 EDC meeting. We're distributed in advance. Are | 00:08:25 | |
there any questions on the minutes from the committee? | 00:08:30 | |
See. | 00:08:36 | |
OK, Can we have a motion to approve the Minutes? I move? We approve the Minutes. Commissioner Markowitz, do we have a second? | 00:08:39 | |
Thank you, Commissioner Hoops. | 00:08:43 | |
We do a quick roll call. | 00:08:48 | |
A. | 00:08:54 | |
Um. | 00:08:56 | |
Commission Chair Upman, Vice Chair Jacobs, aye. Commissioner Venuti, aye. And Commissioner Gibbs, Yes. Motion passes. | 00:08:57 | |
Thank you everyone. That takes us to our regular agenda and I'm excited. | 00:09:06 | |
Kick off with the first item on our agenda, the grant awardees for the business, businesses serving minority and women. | 00:09:11 | |
Program. | 00:09:19 | |
This evening we have our two recipients in the room. | 00:09:22 | |
And we're going to kind of wing it as we go through this because I don't know that there's a real format for how we go about it, | 00:09:25 | |
but just before. | 00:09:29 | |
We we get into it. | 00:09:33 | |
The first step is officially offering public comment. So is there any public comment before we get into the presentation? | 00:09:36 | |
Two in a row. Hi. Anyway, I think it's a wonderful program that you're offering funds or offering them as awards to members, | 00:09:49 | |
business, members of the community. | 00:09:54 | |
And I hope you continue this type of program. My only criticism would be it should be opened up right from the beginning to all | 00:10:00 | |
business. | 00:10:05 | |
Owners all businesses in the community not being specific as to sex, race, nationality, religion or anything else. It should be | 00:10:11 | |
open to everyone in the community. | 00:10:17 | |
Right from the start and there should be promoted. | 00:10:23 | |
Aggressively that we have this program and we're looking for participants in the selection process. I know this was your first | 00:10:26 | |
time and you had good intentions. You know, we have a woman of color who's Vice President of the United States. | 00:10:32 | |
We also had two women senators for a long time. We have a lot of powerful and successful women in business as well as working for | 00:10:39 | |
the city. | 00:10:43 | |
A lot of successful women working for the city, so I don't think it's necessary to specify women, minority, whatever. Let's give a | 00:10:47 | |
ward out. | 00:10:51 | |
And publicize it to any business person in the community. In the future. These two people deserve to win. | 00:10:55 | |
They followed the rules, they did it fairly and they run great businesses, so nothing against them. I'm all in favor of them being | 00:11:01 | |
winners and they might have won anyway, even if it was just open to the community right from the start. But next time you do this, | 00:11:07 | |
and I hope you do this once a year at least, maybe twice a year. | 00:11:13 | |
Let's start off on the. | 00:11:19 | |
Open to any business operator in the community in the city. | 00:11:22 | |
OK. That's all I have to say. Thank you very much. Thank you. | 00:11:26 | |
So I just wanted to open with oh, please join us. Sorry. | 00:11:31 | |
Oh. | 00:11:37 | |
So first of all my name is. | 00:11:38 | |
And I'm part of them and we're very thankful for you guys taking the time and opportunity to grant to our smaller businesses in | 00:11:41 | |
the. | 00:11:46 | |
Any kind of assistance and we are very happy to be here in PG and helping people stay well so they can enjoy the beautiful, | 00:11:51 | |
beautiful beaches and just everything about it is just beautiful. And we're happy to be part of this community and we're very | 00:11:58 | |
thankful that you took the time and in the best of your abilities we're able to put something together that would benefit and | 00:12:05 | |
we're here to help everybody who wants to be. | 00:12:13 | |
In better shape and be healthier. And Jolene, we've met before when we just came here after convert, she was the first person that | 00:12:21 | |
opened her business and we went there to. | 00:12:27 | |
Get an ice cream and we immediately became friends. And so we love her shop and we don't know many people that have a very nice | 00:12:33 | |
business, but she was one of them and she has all the surfboards and we're surfers and we know. And today as I was going to surf | 00:12:40 | |
in the cinema, it was huge and I saw her business and we need to go get ice cream there and then I walked in here and where she | 00:12:48 | |
is. So thank you guys very much for the opportunity and anything we can do to help, we're here to be of service. Thank you. | 00:12:55 | |
Thank. | 00:13:03 | |
To show support for the EPC appreciation for your diligence and continuing this project forward. It really shows the city's | 00:13:12 | |
partnership with our wonderful local businesses. And just wanted to say a big thank you to all of the members of DC for your hard | 00:13:20 | |
work on this and and very a huge thank you to our local businesses for all you do for our community. Thank you. Thank you so much. | 00:13:28 | |
Any further comments from the public? | 00:13:38 | |
OK, seeing none, So I just want to take a moment to kind of set this up before we get on with the presentation. | 00:13:41 | |
This is a really exciting moment for me personally, but also for the Economic Development Commission. It's been 2 years since we | 00:13:48 | |
started this initiative and I'm so thankful to see that we have some members past members of the DC in the in the room with us | 00:13:52 | |
today. | 00:13:57 | |
We had the the privilege of presenting. | 00:14:02 | |
The Business grant today to businesses serving minority and women. | 00:14:06 | |
Umm. | 00:14:10 | |
And we have our two businesses here in the room with us. So we'll get to that in just a second. I'd like to commend. | 00:14:11 | |
The. | 00:14:16 | |
Economic Development Commission for unanimously approving our recommendation. Thank you for all the support. Thank you to the City | 00:14:17 | |
staff particularly. | 00:14:22 | |
Laurel thank you so much and your patience and guiding us through this process and chops thank you Mr. Mayor. Thank you. We also | 00:14:28 | |
had. | 00:14:32 | |
As I'd mentioned, the the past EDC members who I'm so thankful have been able to join us here in the room with Nicholas Moreland. | 00:14:38 | |
He was the former EDC chair who was part of this initiative when we began. | 00:14:43 | |
We have former secretary Ariel Zena, who's joined us as well. Thank you. At the time when we began this journey, the council of | 00:14:48 | |
the years on which Jenny McAdams and of course our former City manager Ben Harvey was a part. And we're so thankful for all their | 00:14:54 | |
support and guidance through this process. | 00:15:00 | |
You know, there's many incredible businesses in Pacific Grove is what is the heart of our town and that's why we're all here. | 00:15:08 | |
It's the reason why. | 00:15:15 | |
You know, we are able to come together as a community and rally around events and all the wonderful memories that we're able to | 00:15:17 | |
make. It's just it is the heart of who we are as a as a town. | 00:15:23 | |
So it wasn't easy to select the winners in this in this process, but I I hope you both know that we're incredibly impressed with | 00:15:31 | |
the submissions that you that you provided, the amount of information that you shared with us, thank you for trusting us and | 00:15:37 | |
reviewing. | 00:15:42 | |
The applications. | 00:15:49 | |
And it's an honor to present these two grants to both of your businesses to Lucy's on Lighthouse and MA Wellness. | 00:15:50 | |
So we have a couple of checks for you. I think we'd love to take a couple of pictures. We're going to just break protocol and just | 00:15:58 | |
kind of have some fun for a few seconds and then we'll get back to business. Is that all right? | 00:16:02 | |
OK. | 00:16:07 | |
You have to go to a really big bank. | 00:16:17 | |
18. | 00:16:20 | |
And since everyone else's. | 00:16:25 | |
Sleep. | 00:16:42 | |
Chair. Get in the center. | 00:16:55 | |
Right all. | 00:17:00 | |
Better center under the under the logo. | 00:17:02 | |
Awesome. Congratulations. | 00:17:26 | |
Yeah. | 00:17:37 | |
Future. | 00:17:48 | |
I. | 00:18:08 | |
And. | 00:18:10 | |
Somebody in the city. | 00:18:15 | |
Ice cream for everybody. | 00:18:55 | |
And now it's now it's official. There you go. | 00:19:02 | |
Don't take the other ones to the bank, it won't work. | 00:19:04 | |
And I don't mean to put you on the spot, but Jolene, did you want to say any words? OK, it's totally fine. | 00:19:11 | |
I'm so glad. | 00:19:22 | |
And. | 00:19:24 | |
It's hot. | 00:19:28 | |
Just listening to. | 00:19:31 | |
The history of this like, warms my heart. | 00:19:33 | |
I didn't realize this was. | 00:19:36 | |
Deep project. | 00:19:39 | |
I started it back in November when I got. | 00:19:42 | |
The e-mail and have been eagerly hoping I was. | 00:19:44 | |
Resonate with you and I'm extremely honored. I love what I do. I feel like I have so much to share with this community and I | 00:19:53 | |
couldn't do it without my amazing family. My My kids work with me too, and my husband works with me. They built the studio with me | 00:20:00 | |
plank by plank. So this is. | 00:20:07 | |
This is really going to help us out a lot, so I don't mean to make you cry. | 00:20:15 | |
So, yeah, thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. And we're going to do great things. | 00:20:21 | |
So can't wait to share. | 00:20:27 | |
Let's go. | 00:20:38 | |
So much gratitude. I appreciate it so much. We opened the right smack dab in the middle of COVID in July of 2020 and it's been an | 00:20:41 | |
uphill battle back and forth trying to make it and. | 00:20:47 | |
Hi. | 00:20:55 | |
And. | 00:20:59 | |
I'm very appreciative. This will help with a lot of things that we want to do. We love Pacific Grove so much. I raised my kids | 00:20:59 | |
here, my mom went to school here. We've been here a long time and having a business in this city means a lot to me. So thank you | 00:21:04 | |
guys. | 00:21:08 | |
I just like to also just say that. | 00:21:20 | |
You, you both have created thriving businesses and I want to congratulate you both for that. This is a little bit of, I'll I'll | 00:21:24 | |
say, a little bit of fertilizer on the plant to give you a boost and we hope that you'll come back and share your growth with us. | 00:21:31 | |
And we'd love to as part of this also here. | 00:21:38 | |
You know your feedback and how we can help to serve you and the business community, so we we would like to of course welcome you | 00:21:42 | |
back again in the near future. | 00:21:47 | |
Any any further comments from? | 00:21:55 | |
The Commission, before we move on to the next agenda item. | 00:21:58 | |
Sure, OK, try not to cry. I'm a very emotional Just seeing happy things just makes me so happy. And I understand the struggles, | 00:22:01 | |
like these last few years have been so tough, so. | 00:22:07 | |
And. | 00:22:16 | |
With Captain and Stoker, with my own business, like our whole thing is we just want to like help people, especially those that | 00:22:17 | |
might not get help otherwise. So when I got to be on this Commission, that was like the thing I wanted to do most, so like. | 00:22:22 | |
I'm a year and a few months into this and we finally got to do something. So it's just like it feels so good to actually see the | 00:22:28 | |
final product. So thank you guys. | 00:22:32 | |
Any additional? | 00:22:54 | |
I just want to say, I know it's been a long journey, you know, probably started before June of 2022. And so you know, tenacity and | 00:22:58 | |
persistence is obviously one of the hallmarks of being a great business person. | 00:23:04 | |
And I just want to say congratulations, we need more businesses with the verve and enthusiasm that you all bring to the town and | 00:23:10 | |
and brought tonight. It's good to see And Margaret Thatcher one time said I think it was her that the pessimist sees problems in | 00:23:16 | |
every opportunity. | 00:23:22 | |
The optim. | 00:23:29 | |
The opportunity in every problem and I think we need more people who see what you see for the for Pacific Row. We love Pacific | 00:23:31 | |
Grove, we do too and would like to see more of the same in the future and you bring that. | 00:23:37 | |
That personality of the entrepreneurship. | 00:23:44 | |
Profile to Pacific Grove and we need more. | 00:23:48 | |
Of this exact same thing, so thank you for hanging in. | 00:23:50 | |
With that, we'll move on to the next item on the agenda. | 00:23:57 | |
Back to business, so you guys are? | 00:24:01 | |
Thank you. | 00:24:09 | |
Yeah. | 00:24:17 | |
Well, that takes us to item number seven on the agenda, which is our Small business Recovery action plan. We had a request to | 00:24:38 | |
revisit that action plan and see what we can make of it. There's some recommendations that were shared with our. | 00:24:45 | |
Advisors at. | 00:24:53 | |
And. | 00:24:55 | |
Want to bring? | 00:24:57 | |
The table for further conversation so with that. | 00:24:58 | |
I will hand it over to Mr. Foster. | 00:25:02 | |
Can walk us through and we can discuss a bit more if there's some items that we can identify as potential. | 00:25:05 | |
Thank you. I'm happy to come back and and revisit this. I hope you had a chance to go back and look through the the action plan | 00:25:15 | |
and we started this a couple years ago and brought it forward to the Economic Development Commission a first time and then we | 00:25:20 | |
brought it on to the and that you have some thoughts and ideas. | 00:25:26 | |
And then we brought it forward to the City Council. | 00:25:32 | |
About a year ago and. | 00:25:36 | |
And then we and they and I think overall they like. | 00:25:39 | |
And they wanted. | 00:25:42 | |
Get some direction in terms of. | 00:25:45 | |
And also budget resources for it. And so then we came, we came back to the Economic Development Commission. | 00:25:48 | |
And provided an implementation plan. | 00:25:55 | |
And then? | 00:25:58 | |
Went back to the City Council. I think it was scheduled at least two or three times for consideration by the City Council in June | 00:26:00 | |
and then in July and. | 00:26:05 | |
Just because of some timing issues never happened. And so I think I'd like to go through that or Laurel if you can bring up that | 00:26:11 | |
PowerPoint with the implementation. | 00:26:16 | |
Plan they'll they'll give you some of the highlights in terms of the program. | 00:26:21 | |
Barry, would it be possible for you to share your screen? I think we may be having a bit of technical difficulties on our end. | 00:26:31 | |
Yeah, I don't have it up in mind. I'm sorry. | 00:26:34 | |
Are you able to pull it up or? | 00:26:40 | |
Laurel's working on it here, so just. | 00:26:45 | |
Yeah. | 00:26:48 | |
OK. I'll. | 00:26:53 | |
You want me just to walk through? | 00:26:59 | |
It's it's posted as part of the agenda packet online. So I apologize, apologies to everybody in the room but for this going online | 00:27:01 | |
it is available. Yeah I'll I'll go ahead and walk through the. | 00:27:07 | |
So there's there's 16 different items. | 00:27:13 | |
And some of these just because of the timing of when we started. | 00:27:16 | |
Have actually the city staff chose to go ahead and. | 00:27:20 | |
And implement some of those things. And so number one is establish one day a week economic development coordinator position and | 00:27:24 | |
that's been accomplished with Laurel doing that. | 00:27:30 | |
And then? | 00:27:37 | |
Is. | 00:27:40 | |
To do a monthly business spotlight at Economic Development Commission meetings, that is also happening. | 00:27:41 | |
And then #3 was to launch um. | 00:27:47 | |
And Economic development web page. | 00:27:50 | |
P. | 00:27:55 | |
And that also is ongoing and has been implemented and I think that it turned out very, very nicely it's it's a very useful. | 00:27:56 | |
Website and I think it once you've got people there, it really kind of drives home. | 00:28:05 | |
Why so? How much you consider? | 00:28:10 | |
And then #4 is to move the EDC costs into one city department. | 00:28:13 | |
Budget and that's economic development that's also been accomplished. | 00:28:18 | |
And then #5. | 00:28:22 | |
Also started and it needs to continue on, is to hold quarterly broker luncheons. We've had a couple of those already. | 00:28:25 | |
And so I think those are really successful in terms and I know we had a number of EDC members that were also participating in in | 00:28:33 | |
those. And so I think that that's something that. | 00:28:37 | |
Needs to continue on to and then number six is is to do quarterly economic development. | 00:28:43 | |
Reports to City Council. | 00:28:49 | |
#7 is to initiate a business visitation. | 00:28:52 | |
Oh, there it is. | 00:28:57 | |
Why don't you go through the page? | 00:28:59 | |
You. | 00:29:04 | |
Can you go up one more? | 00:29:13 | |
The. | 00:29:18 | |
Keep going. | 00:29:22 | |
1. | 00:29:25 | |
There you go. And then. | 00:29:29 | |
Is it initiated business visitation program and I've I've I've found these in a lot of communities as being something that that | 00:29:32 | |
really is useful is that have an ongoing business visitation program so city staff can go out and and meet with businesses. | 00:29:40 | |
Just to share information about, sometimes there's things. | 00:29:49 | |
That city or business is kind of struggling with or. | 00:29:52 | |
A challenge or a problem, oftentimes getting together with with city people. | 00:29:58 | |
Regular basis of having that dialogue, you can you can solve or adjust some things to make those things. | 00:30:03 | |
Better. It's always better. | 00:30:10 | |
To know about an issue before it's too late where business decided that they're going to close or relocate or something else. And | 00:30:11 | |
so I think those visitation programs are really, really important. They can be monthly or they can be bimonthly. | 00:30:18 | |
Can you? | 00:30:25 | |
Next page. | 00:30:27 | |
So #8 is to create a restaurant event series. | 00:30:29 | |
And so I. | 00:30:34 | |
That that is something that. | 00:30:35 | |
Previously it was done with one event in the city. I think doing those kinds of things on kind of an ongoing basis would be really | 00:30:38 | |
important. You've got a lot of great, great restaurants. | 00:30:44 | |
In Pacific rose, I think. | 00:30:51 | |
Highlighting though isn't that all the diversity and quality of the restaurants with with an ongoing restaurant event series is | 00:30:53 | |
something that would prove very, very useful. For Pacific Grove #9 is to launch a Shop Local digital gift card program. | 00:31:01 | |
We've done a number of these programs in cities, but they really, they really have proven to be quite successful in terms of | 00:31:09 | |
helping the small independent businesses. | 00:31:14 | |
It's something. | 00:31:20 | |
We've kind of gotten past Kovid, but. | 00:31:22 | |
There's still some work to be done and so I think keeping those dollars local and. | 00:31:26 | |
Having that shop local presence is really, really. | 00:31:31 | |
And then number. | 00:31:35 | |
Is to continue the Parkland. | 00:31:38 | |
That was something that was done. | 00:31:42 | |
Back when when COVID hit, and that was the way a lot of best businesses and restaurants stayed open. And so I think having those | 00:31:44 | |
improvements and having them where they're a little bit more long term is important. So I know the city's been working on | 00:31:51 | |
standards for those parklets. Program #11 is to. | 00:31:58 | |
Continue the pretty successful storefront and park the facade improvement. | 00:32:06 | |
That that Laurel's been working with for a number of years now and I think that continuing that forward is another major part of | 00:32:11 | |
the action plan. | 00:32:17 | |
#12 is they're creating music series event. | 00:32:22 | |
Program and again it kind of like with the restaurant event program, special events are are are important ways for a community, | 00:32:26 | |
especially downtown. | 00:32:31 | |
To have. | 00:32:36 | |
To have those kinds of things where people can come down and and and get together as a community, all different types of ages, | 00:32:38 | |
families, all those kinds of things. I think having that a music series, event program is another way that you can really. | 00:32:45 | |
Umm, help your small business community? Just have people gathering coming down into your downtown at #13. | 00:32:53 | |
Is the explorer a program you can help with? Something that they can store fronts. | 00:33:02 | |
We started that we we have a a company that had some interest that kind of went away. | 00:33:07 | |
That would have would have managed that program, but there's a possibility now that they may come back and so I think. | 00:33:13 | |
Having a program where you can take some of those. | 00:33:21 | |
Some of those taken spaces and and using them on a short term basis with a with a number of kind of entrepreneurial small | 00:33:25 | |
businesses that can't afford to go out and get their own space could be a way to. | 00:33:31 | |
To utilize those vacant. | 00:33:37 | |
But also help some of the small businesses that really kind of need to get going before they can take their own space. | 00:33:40 | |
#14 | 00:33:46 | |
His design. | 00:33:48 | |
A shop, Pacific Grove, St. Pole. | 00:33:51 | |
You know this has worked in a lot of communities and so I think that again it's how you brand your businesses and in your in your | 00:33:54 | |
shop local program is another way just to to create that. | 00:34:00 | |
Number. | 00:34:06 | |
Next one more. | 00:34:08 | |
Is to look at the Monterey Trolley bringing it to downtown Pacific Grove and I know that the previous city manager in Laurel had | 00:34:10 | |
kind of worked on that and so I think that's another thing that that little longer term but. | 00:34:17 | |
I think it could bring more people into Pacific. | 00:34:24 | |
And then #16. | 00:34:28 | |
Is is really just to kind of look? | 00:34:30 | |
Especially the downtown area, you know capital improvement projects and and look at possibilities to to really help with the | 00:34:33 | |
infrastructure. | 00:34:37 | |
Needed improvements, sidewalks, tree wells and all those kinds of things just to try to really improve the environment and the | 00:34:42 | |
look of it and and make it so people want to come there again and again and again. | 00:34:48 | |
So these are the. | 00:34:55 | |
The 16 major components, a number of these have been started already, but I think they bring the basis of. | 00:34:58 | |
Of the action plan and and. | 00:35:05 | |
They're not going to be all done at once, They're going to build down overtime. | 00:35:08 | |
So with that, I'm happy to answer any questions. | 00:35:11 | |
Before I open it to the Commissioners. | 00:35:16 | |
We have had a dramatic decrease in the number of people here in the audience, but I just want to make sure I check the box. So is | 00:35:19 | |
there any comments from the public before we move forward? | 00:35:24 | |
Discussion seeing. | 00:35:29 | |
OK. I'll go ahead and open the floor then for feedback questions. | 00:35:31 | |
Thoughts from commissioners? | 00:35:35 | |
Commissioner. | 00:35:39 | |
Foster, can you explain to me in more detail what a restaurant event series is? | 00:35:42 | |
Yeah, it's it's going to be, it's going to be eating structured in a lot of different ways, but it is to look at maybe having. | 00:35:48 | |
Kind of ongoing restaurant series that could be in downtown. It could be other shopping areas too, but it would be. | 00:35:55 | |
You know, maybe one every quarter or set kind of. | 00:36:03 | |
A time frame where you're having these kinds of things, but they really have worked, especially in downtown areas. So you're | 00:36:08 | |
you're bringing together. | 00:36:12 | |
A number of restaurants to participate in that program. You could have some music be part of it too. You're creating kind of a | 00:36:16 | |
festival. | 00:36:20 | |
Type environment and and getting people to come down and and. | 00:36:24 | |
And and taste the all the different cuisine and diversity you have into restaurants. But it's also another way just to kind of | 00:36:28 | |
promote the downtown or wherever that whatever that shopping center you're having the event at. | 00:36:33 | |
So are you suggesting that restaurants provide samples? I'm confused why people would come and why this would be different than | 00:36:39 | |
first Fridays when there's music and in some restaurants there's music every Friday and Saturday. Yeah, So they they could do, | 00:36:44 | |
they could do a way where they have samples, they could do it a way where they're just, they could maybe even sell things You can | 00:36:49 | |
structure in a number of different ways. | 00:36:54 | |
Just to answer your question, I've been a few of these in few different states now that I've lived quite often it's. | 00:37:04 | |
Sometimes it's like a locked off area and you have to buy a ticket, and with that ticket you get a certain amount of like little | 00:37:12 | |
tastings and stuff. Yeah. So there's there's a bunch of different ways to do it, but I like that way a little more because then, | 00:37:17 | |
you know, you know, you're paying for something good. Whereas sometimes, I don't know, it's like if it's free, I feel kind of bad | 00:37:22 | |
taking food from people. I was like I'd rather pay for it a little bit, 'cause then, you know, it's a little curated too. So yeah, | 00:37:27 | |
I just wanted to say. | 00:37:32 | |
That I've been to them and they have been great, yeah. And having those tickets, you know that's it's again, you're just you're | 00:37:37 | |
getting a sampling. It's not a full course meal or anything like that. It's it's you can go around and sample four or five of | 00:37:41 | |
them. | 00:37:45 | |
OK. | 00:37:51 | |
I've seen some. | 00:37:53 | |
Ways of doing it too, which are kind of fun where you could have different themes for. I mean if it was quarterly it seems like a | 00:37:57 | |
lot, but I mean you anyway. You could highlight local food producers and you know restaurants could feature farmers and you could | 00:38:03 | |
you know do events with meet the fishermen or meet the. | 00:38:09 | |
Cattle rancher or something like that. And that's a way of just extending community and having fun events and and there's some the | 00:38:17 | |
most common way of doing a Restaurant Week is to say it's 10% off. | 00:38:23 | |
Come along and try out a restaurant you've been wanting to try and things like that, so there's lots of different ways of doing it | 00:38:30 | |
and. | 00:38:33 | |
It. | 00:38:38 | |
I noticed that there was like no budget for that one. I think was it is that the one? Just a second, Yeah, I I would hope there | 00:38:40 | |
would be some budget because marketing and is is probably the key to you know, creating excitement for an event and. | 00:38:48 | |
That would be that would be great. I guess another question that I have very is just I noticed that in my. | 00:38:57 | |
Previous version of this, the budget was different. It's been cut quite a lot, it's I just was wondering why that is. | 00:39:06 | |
I'm not sure if I'll go back and look at it. We've had a couple of different rounds of this, but and some of these programs is, is | 00:39:13 | |
I think. | 00:39:17 | |
Is once once we have some direction from the City Council, then you have to go back and establish the budget. | 00:39:21 | |
OK well this the shop local thing. I've got previous version AT60K and. | 00:39:29 | |
Sorry, is so now it's 30 K on this. | 00:39:35 | |
In this presentation and the storefront was 50 and now it's 25 S it was cut in half. I just thought maybe it was a because the | 00:39:40 | |
time frame was different or something. I don't know. Yeah, I think the, I think the The Shop local program that was reduced. | 00:39:47 | |
When Mr. Harvey was there and then I think it was just to try to start with something a little bit, a little bit more modest and | 00:39:56 | |
that would fit into a funding source and. | 00:40:00 | |
So that was the reason why that was actually reduced and that was that was after we brought it for you last time. | 00:40:06 | |
Commissioner Murdoch. All right, thank you, Chair. I just have a general question because we. | 00:40:15 | |
Entered down the path of doing a strategic plan. I I had thought that was more the direction we were going to go. | 00:40:22 | |
And kind of understand what it is that we need before we did something like this. But I mean, there are parts of this that can | 00:40:30 | |
happen simultaneously. I'm just. | 00:40:34 | |
Trying to understand where we are in this process versus a strategic plan. | 00:40:38 | |
I'll I'll give my answer and then I'll give Vice Chair Jake moment as well because I know that she has some comments I I believe | 00:40:46 | |
the the. | 00:40:50 | |
The intent here is that this is an immediate whereas the strategic plan, while I I truly believe that, I think it's a great | 00:40:55 | |
direction to go and will take time. | 00:40:59 | |
And so the hope here is to have a more immediate opportunity to address some of the needs that are currently present in the. | 00:41:04 | |
Commissioner Jacobs Yeah, I'm. I'm really excited about this, and I was so sorry when. | 00:41:10 | |
You know, we it kind of bit the dust, you know it. | 00:41:18 | |
The council and didn't get hurt and I understand there were a lot of things competing and but I feel this is important because you | 00:41:22 | |
know one of the things that makes our town unique is the village kind of atmosphere that we have in downtown and the the kind of | 00:41:29 | |
really special independent businesses and I would say I don't know every. | 00:41:36 | |
World. But in the restaurant world, I do know a lot of other restaurant owners and from you know. | 00:41:43 | |
Friends that I know that our managers at Pebble Beach, they say that they've been down 50% in our business, probably close to 50%. | 00:41:52 | |
It's just it's been a very like everyone I speak to they're down significantly from past years. So it I feel that it's it's really | 00:41:59 | |
important to address this and I'm so glad that you've put the work into proposing something and you know we looked at it before | 00:42:06 | |
and I think everything was approved except the gift card thing. | 00:42:13 | |
Because we wanted to give the the city time to do something like a homegrown version, which we've not been able to do. So I'm. | 00:42:21 | |
Still enthusiastic about the gift card feature as well. And you know I think a lot of businesses loaded up with debt during the | 00:42:29 | |
pandemic because the government offered loans and then we had a big economic downturn and although wages increased a lot. So | 00:42:37 | |
you're you're seeing pressure from three different areas on businesses and I know everyone is you know. | 00:42:44 | |
Finding it difficult. So I feel like now more than ever it's it's really great to to do this So yeah if I can comment just on SO I | 00:42:52 | |
think when we do things like this like this is an action plan this is for as. | 00:43:00 | |
As the VICE chair talked about, it's more kind of. | 00:43:08 | |
It's more of a short term plan and and so this is really meant to be something that can be accomplished in a couple of years. | 00:43:11 | |
The the when you're doing a strategy. | 00:43:19 | |
It's more long term, it's more comprehensive. It's just it's just for a longer period of time. Action plans are really meant to be | 00:43:21 | |
shorter periods of time and where you've really emphasized the word action. | 00:43:26 | |
And where strategies are more a little more grandiose and longer term things and just to comment too about the vice chair talked | 00:43:32 | |
about. | 00:43:36 | |
Just businesses in general, we're still, you know, we do work all over the state and so while sales tax has rebounded and our | 00:43:41 | |
company does sales tax for probably 400 cities in California. | 00:43:46 | |
Small businesses. | 00:43:54 | |
They're not back to pre pandemic in terms of achieving margins and cash flowing all those kinds of things. They've had all these | 00:43:57 | |
other challenges with increased labor costs and and and the whole supply chain thing and and more costs have dramatically | 00:44:04 | |
increased. And so while sales may be up, you know they're not able to pass on everything that they really need to for to their to | 00:44:11 | |
their clients and their customers. And so those margins are still not back to pre Pandemic and so. | 00:44:18 | |
Having a having an action plan like this, it has a number of different things in ways that the city can help the small business | 00:44:25 | |
community really recover it. It's it's really important now and and it's going to be more important here in the next couple of | 00:44:29 | |
years. | 00:44:33 | |
So, you know, I pretty much agree with it. Everything people, I said. | 00:44:45 | |
Vice Chair Jacobs commented on the difficulty businesses are having, particularly small business. It's. | 00:44:50 | |
It is ruthless out there. It's really, really difficult to survive one day to the next. I don't see a lot on here. | 00:44:57 | |
That would focus short term on helping a small business get through some of the very specific bottom line issues. A couple of | 00:45:04 | |
these things perhaps, but right now if you've taken out loans and you've got to pay them back at higher interest rates are turning | 00:45:09 | |
up. | 00:45:14 | |
What are we doing to help with that? There are programs where you can renegotiate. | 00:45:20 | |
But you need somebody to come in and help you do that, right? Get the small business owners, get a group of five or six of them | 00:45:24 | |
who would interested. Let's run a program based by the EDC. Maybe we can add it to this list and have them come in here and just | 00:45:30 | |
talk about what's going on. We bring in some experts to alleviate some of that. | 00:45:36 | |
Usury interest that they're having to pay and the debt that they're having to pay off, I'd like to see something like that on | 00:45:43 | |
here. | 00:45:46 | |
You know, we we had these entrepreneurs here. You know, I've been looking at some of the as part of the strategic plan, what other | 00:45:50 | |
small towns have done. | 00:45:55 | |
And there's sort of a common element and one is let's get new businesses in, let's support them. And the entrepreneurship feel | 00:46:00 | |
like we saw here tonight is critical to establishing a very positive vibe in the city. Whatever we can do to support new | 00:46:07 | |
businesses, particularly small entrepreneurs. | 00:46:13 | |
And so I would ask Mr. Foster, and I don't see it in here, but. | 00:46:20 | |
More than a year ago, my business partner and I filled out an application sent. | 00:46:25 | |
For I don't know what it was called a makers. | 00:46:31 | |
Something like that. I believe that Mister Foster, you were here with somebody from San Jose looking at actually space. | 00:46:34 | |
That could be turned into an Event Center or makerspace type of. | 00:46:41 | |
Right. And I don't see it on the it's #13. | 00:46:46 | |
It doesn't, it doesn't specifically say makers face, but that that would fall into that category and and we did and we did have a | 00:46:50 | |
business or a group out of San Jose that was very interested. | 00:46:56 | |
They kind of got into some other things and some other communities and. | 00:47:03 | |
But I think there's, I think there's a possibility that they they they have some renewed interest but that that would be a part of | 00:47:08 | |
that. | 00:47:11 | |
OK. So you're telling me that the vacant storefront activation program? | 00:47:15 | |
Is the same thing as. | 00:47:20 | |
RFI that we. | 00:47:25 | |
That we put out that you responded to was part. | 00:47:26 | |
OK. | 00:47:31 | |
And so there's been no progress, what you're saying? | 00:47:32 | |
On this, since then that that group that was originally interested started looking at other opportunities in other cities and kind | 00:47:35 | |
of lost interest, but within the last month or so we've had some dialogue with them where they might be interested again. | 00:47:43 | |
Is there some way to scale that down and start it on a smaller scale? | 00:47:51 | |
Let's get it out there. Maybe we're not talking about two or 3000 square feet. Maybe we're talking about something a little bit | 00:47:55 | |
less than that. But common workspaces, some kind of administrative support, you know, fast Internet, that kind of thing. I think | 00:48:01 | |
the key thing there, Commissioner, gives is that. | 00:48:06 | |
That group was going to take on the role of managing that program. I'm not sure the city staff is in a position to manage this | 00:48:12 | |
program. So we're hoping, we're still hopeful that we could find a group or entity that would be willing to take that on and and | 00:48:17 | |
manage that process. | 00:48:21 | |
So I think my question for you is, understanding the limitations that we have with city staff, what is your recommendation that? | 00:48:30 | |
We as a. | 00:48:40 | |
Take to to begin to move some of these items forward, understanding that we're an advisory Commission, what would you advise us? | 00:48:43 | |
I think, I think we if if the Commission is in agreement. | 00:48:52 | |
We need to update this time frame because we've lost some time now, but is to go back to the City Council with an updated time | 00:48:57 | |
frame here. | 00:49:02 | |
And so you know, some of these are shorter term than others and some of it's going to take. | 00:49:08 | |
Some time to do but I think all these are kind of valuable tools. But but then. | 00:49:13 | |
Make sure that the City Council agrees with all these and these aren't. They all saw these before. No, I think question any of | 00:49:19 | |
these these programs the first time you brought it forward. They just wanted to better understand some of the timing issues, what | 00:49:24 | |
would come first, what would come later and and then some budget numbers. | 00:49:30 | |
Would it be helpful then for us to designate a subcommittee to work directly with HDL to begin moving this forward? What would | 00:49:38 | |
you? | 00:49:43 | |
What would you recommend that we do in terms of the actions that we have, the ability? | 00:49:48 | |
To take I think, I think, I think that would be a good move. | 00:49:53 | |
Chair I think the we get a couple people that could work with our group with Laurel. | 00:49:58 | |
With the new interim community development directors, that is to kind of understand. | 00:50:05 | |
Make sure these budget numbers are correct and timing is correct. And and. | 00:50:10 | |
And try to come forward with with a with an updated recommendation. | 00:50:15 | |
OK. | 00:50:21 | |
All right. | 00:50:21 | |
Any further questions or comments Commission, maybe it's a question for the staff, you know the HDL there was a budget for HDL is | 00:50:23 | |
there, Where are we on the budget for this with this consulting? | 00:50:28 | |
We we renewed the contract in. | 00:50:36 | |
And so we're. | 00:50:39 | |
A little over four months into. | 00:50:41 | |
We didn't have a specific number in terms of this program. It's it's a number of different services that we provide for the city. | 00:50:45 | |
So I think, I think we still have, I think the budget was for. | 00:50:53 | |
Umm. | 00:50:58 | |
$39,000 for the year and I think to the first quarter. | 00:50:59 | |
I think it was like 5 or $6000. | 00:51:06 | |
No, there's still money in the budget. | 00:51:09 | |
Just. | 00:51:13 | |
So how does this work? Do we need permission? | 00:51:16 | |
That's not our budget. | 00:51:19 | |
Correct. So do we need permission from the city to use them for our purposes? | 00:51:21 | |
Are they paying for it? Who's? Who's paying Part of the current agreement that we have? So they are. We are. | 00:51:27 | |
Part of it and correct me if I'm wrong, Mr. Foster, but we are part of the overall scope that they have. Yeah. Yeah, we, we, we | 00:51:32 | |
work typically we previously reported. | 00:51:38 | |
Mr. Harvey we worked with. | 00:51:44 | |
And then but you know the EDC can can also they've asked overtime to to help with certain things and if if. | 00:51:48 | |
If staff feels it's appropriate, we can go ahead and do that. | 00:51:55 | |
It's it's part of our. | 00:51:59 | |
I'm sure, Mr. Jacobs. Yeah. So we had a meeting recently where we looked at. | 00:52:03 | |
Expanding. | 00:52:10 | |
City staff to work on economic development and kind of looking around at other municipalities. | 00:52:13 | |
I don't know. Santa Cruz has eight full time people and we've got one part-time one day a week and I know there are four times | 00:52:19 | |
bigger than us, but even if you divide that by 4, you know two full time people would be awesome. But I think we were looking at | 00:52:24 | |
expanding laurels. | 00:52:29 | |
Review just two more days a week, if possible, one full-time person or. | 00:52:36 | |
You know she actually she only works four days a week, so it would be almost full time. So just wanted to say that we had had | 00:52:43 | |
further discussions on one of those points in your plan. | 00:52:47 | |
So it seems to me sorry I just in the interest of. | 00:52:53 | |
We have. | 00:52:58 | |
It seems to me that the next step here is for us to decide whether or not we want to create a subcommittee. | 00:52:58 | |
To for this conversation potentially offline, I move that we form a subcommittee to prioritize these and, you know, and ask for a | 00:53:04 | |
budget. The thing about this is that, you know, the mayors here, Councilman Dory, are here. If I'm sitting in their spot, they're | 00:53:10 | |
not going to do this. They're looking at us to say, make a recommendation for a budget or vote it up or down. But if we sit here | 00:53:16 | |
and don't give them something to act on, it's on us, not on them. | 00:53:23 | |
So I'm make a motion that we do that. | 00:53:29 | |
Yeah. | 00:53:33 | |
We have any volunteers for the subcommittee, Commissioner Rich. | 00:53:35 | |
Oh, sorry, First round we'll take a vote on. | 00:53:38 | |
The creation of a subcommittee, Then we'll. | 00:53:42 | |
And. | 00:53:45 | |
OK. | 00:53:47 | |
Commissioner. | 00:53:48 | |
Commissioner Van Nudie, Yes. Vice Chair Jacobs. Yes, Chair upman. | 00:53:51 | |
Commissioner Richmond aye, Commissioner Markowitz AYE and Commissioner. | 00:53:56 | |
Aye. | 00:54:02 | |
Motion passes. | 00:54:03 | |
Alright. | 00:54:07 | |
Commissioner Richmond. | 00:54:08 | |
Yes, I would love being on this. | 00:54:09 | |
I have a business in the town similar to somebody else on maybe maybe more than one of us, but I just think. | 00:54:13 | |
I have so many ideas and I just want to share them, so I think I could be a really good asset to it. | 00:54:20 | |
Yeah. | 00:54:25 | |
We have two other interested parties. I'm not interested, 'cause I don't have a business downtown, but I think it's important that | 00:54:26 | |
people on this subcommittee have a business in town somewhere. | 00:54:30 | |
Yeah. | 00:54:37 | |
Did you not hear me? Are you? | 00:54:40 | |
Yes, I think it's important that people on this subcommittee have a business that they have a vested interest in this plan. | 00:54:42 | |
And their stick. | 00:54:49 | |
I. | 00:54:53 | |
That's my opinion. | 00:54:55 | |
That's my opinion, that's all. I'm just I'm. | 00:54:57 | |
That's my. | 00:55:01 | |
I'm interested in volunteering by the way. I would, I would volunteer also. Everybody else go first, but if you need an extra | 00:55:03 | |
member. | 00:55:07 | |
I'm. | 00:55:12 | |
Willing and able to jump in. Thank. | 00:55:13 | |
So I will go ahead and move things along. I'll make a motion for a subcommittee comprised of Commissioner Richmond. | 00:55:16 | |
Commissioner Gibbs. | 00:55:24 | |
And vice chair. | 00:55:26 | |
Do we? | 00:55:28 | |
OK. Can we take A roll call? | 00:55:32 | |
Commissioner. | 00:55:36 | |
Aye, Commissioner Markowitz, Commissioner Richmond. | 00:55:38 | |
Chair Upman, Vice Chair Jacobs, aye. Commissioner Van Nudie aye. And Commissioner Gibbs. Yes. Motion passes for the new | 00:55:42 | |
subcommittee comprising of Commissioner Richmond, Vice Chair Jacobs and Commissioner Gibbs. Thank you. | 00:55:49 | |
Mr. Foster, thank you for your time tonight and joining us. We'll have the subcommittee coordinate and reach out through city | 00:56:00 | |
staff and look forward to moving this forward. | 00:56:05 | |
Thank you. Have a good night. | 00:56:11 | |
You. | 00:56:13 | |
All right. Unfortunately, we're going to be tight for time here, but I did want to make sure that we have an opportunity to speak | 00:56:16 | |
to the item on the agenda that is speaking to one of the recommendations that we have as part of the previous conversation, so | 00:56:21 | |
with that #8 concert Series subcommittee update. | 00:56:26 | |
Commissioner Rich. | 00:56:32 | |
You present when they get to comment. Well, luckily with our 4 minutes, that's that's more than I need. We don't have a whole lot | 00:56:37 | |
on the music series, but not because we didn't do anything on the three of us on the subcommittee all kind of took a portion of | 00:56:43 | |
what needs to get done and kind of researched a bit. So we met right before our meeting today to kind of go over those things and | 00:56:49 | |
what next steps we need to do. | 00:56:56 | |
So. | 00:57:02 | |
We're going to do a few different things. We're looking at different locations. I know Chautauqua Hall has been in the works a | 00:57:03 | |
little bit as far as talking about it. It turns out there are no. | 00:57:08 | |
Issues with Chautauqua Hall like ADA wise that that's what we were told, I think in the beginning and apparently there's no issue | 00:57:13 | |
on my business. | 00:57:17 | |
Instagram actually Captain Stoker, I put a poll out there for all of our followers because I wanted to know like inside or outside | 00:57:22 | |
kind of event and I had almost in the poll for that. I had about 500 something people vote and I specifically said locals, I | 00:57:28 | |
didn't want everybody so. | 00:57:34 | |
Yeah, about 370% voted for outside. So that's interesting. So we're going to look, we're going to look around. We have, we've had | 00:57:40 | |
a few ideas, but we do want to talk to Jenny a little bit, maybe we can. We're still trying to figure out if she can be part of | 00:57:48 | |
the conversation or if that throws off the three person rule thing. So but. | 00:57:55 | |
Yeah, yeah. So either way though, I'm sure we can just get the information emailed or something. So we'll figure that out. We do | 00:58:03 | |
plan to do some walkthroughs of some locations as well and we're going to talk, hopefully meet with Katie Clark, is that her last | 00:58:09 | |
name? Katie Clark, who's actually, she's working in the youth center across from us so she can help us out with the event planning | 00:58:14 | |
kind of stuff. She's got lots. | 00:58:20 | |
Lots of smarts there, so we're going to figure that one out. There are some hold ups, but we'll figure that out too. I'm not too | 00:58:27 | |
worried about that. And then also with the. | 00:58:33 | |
The. | 00:58:40 | |
Whatever it's called, what do we just look at? Business develop. Yeah, the improvement plan, the restaurant series, you know, | 00:58:42 | |
that's interesting. And maybe this is a combined effort. I don't know, maybe we can do a more than one thing to get more than one | 00:58:47 | |
kind of person there. So maybe we can combine some things. So yeah, we'll come back to the next meeting and hopefully have way | 00:58:52 | |
more detail, but. | 00:58:57 | |
We're. | 00:59:03 | |
Of course. | 00:59:07 | |
Yeah, I just wanted to follow up with what Kelsey had. | 00:59:10 | |
This is a really good plan and what we're going to be doing is I want to set up a meeting with Katie Clark, special events | 00:59:15 | |
coordinator for the city, and we're trying to find out. We got Jenny involved because she's been very experienced with this. | 00:59:21 | |
You know, this is let's have music. | 00:59:27 | |
We'd like to. This has to go through the City Council eventually and for. | 00:59:30 | |
Need 150 days advance time. There are applicants here that we figured out problem is. | 00:59:35 | |
The questions on the application, we got to sit down and figure out who, what, where, when and why and what we're going to do. We | 00:59:40 | |
had Jewel Park. | 00:59:44 | |
We thought of doing something along the terms of Lighthouse Ave. like we do it good old days, shut the street off and have bands | 00:59:49 | |
play, and all the businesses in the lighthouse are going to benefit from people coming down. That's one thing. | 00:59:55 | |
There are associated costs with all of this. We're talking about police traffic. If we do it outside, can the sponsorship be the | 01:00:01 | |
city? Can we wait, get the weight fees waived to be doing this since it is a city project? | 01:00:07 | |
Do we do it in conjunction with First Friday? We already have people out there. | 01:00:14 | |
Chautauqua is a possibility. We got to look at that. We need to get that. We have to get that. And if we're going to serve food, | 01:00:19 | |
alcohol, take tickets, what are we going to do with donations? There's a lot of these little details. | 01:00:24 | |
We have to figure out before we even put this we're talking about. | 01:00:30 | |
Basically 2024. | 01:00:34 | |
Really. Because it's that much lead time. I have a list here if anybody wants to do this. Like I got this. | 01:00:37 | |
I think Jenny Do says the special events already. | 01:00:44 | |
24th It's already through May. They're already taking a look at applications through the end of the summer for the deadlines for | 01:00:48 | |
special events here. So I want to try to get it together with Jenny and Kate and our subcommittee can get together and hammer out | 01:00:55 | |
this. And when we come back next month to say this is what we need to do, can we do this? Or are we talking about having a staff | 01:01:02 | |
of somebody? There are concerts that take place all over the way and a subcommittee can't put the concert on. | 01:01:09 | |
That's the thing that we have to really consider. | 01:01:16 | |
Who it Can city staff do this? Can the chamber do this? It's a really good plan, and it's a great idea because it's going to | 01:01:19 | |
benefit a lot of people and it's going to be a lot of work and it's going to take a lot of time. And our subcommittee is working | 01:01:25 | |
on it. We'll be willing to continue to work and do whatever we have to do to make it possible. But just want to put that out there | 01:01:30 | |
so everybody realizes this is not something that we can do next week. This is a long process. So I just wanted to add that. And | 01:01:35 | |
thanks, Kelsey. | 01:01:41 | |
Just an order of following process. Do we have any comments from the public on this before we open it up for conversation? | 01:01:48 | |
Seeing none, OK. Any further questions, comments, thoughts from the commissioners? | 01:01:55 | |
Mr. Jacobs Yeah, I love the fact that you're open to the idea of maybe having this be regenerative so that instead of just a one | 01:02:01 | |
off putting all this time and work into it, if it's something that really is beneficial to the city, it would be nice to have some | 01:02:08 | |
kind of formula or plan that it would. You could do it in, you know, in different ways in different times and. | 01:02:15 | |
You know, a series or a whatever. Anyway, I just, I just hope that. | 01:02:22 | |
It could be more than just a one off. | 01:02:27 | |
More. | 01:02:31 | |
Well, thank you all. That brings us to Good of the order. | 01:02:35 | |
Is there any final recommendations for future agenda items that we'd like to cover off on? | 01:02:39 | |
I know that we will likely have an opportunity to revisit the QR code project, Commissioner Hoops. | 01:02:44 | |
Yeah. | 01:02:49 | |
OK. And we'll also be chatting more about the strategic plan when we have time to regroup on that and bring back a report. So | 01:02:52 | |
those two items for sure, anything further? | 01:02:56 | |
So I heard you say you're going to bring the we have an asset and a stakeholder subcommittee. I think it's combined as one. | 01:03:02 | |
They'll be bringing a report. | 01:03:06 | |
Soon. | 01:03:10 | |
OK. And you know, there was an original sub. | 01:03:11 | |
Chairman Upman, Vice Chair Jacobson, I think myself and I think you're on one of the subcommittee. So my question is procedural. | 01:03:16 | |
Does that mean that the original subcommittee was? | 01:03:21 | |
Still. | 01:03:26 | |
If. | 01:03:27 | |
We're figuring it out as we go, but the intent was to always hand off at least one member for the prior committee so that there's | 01:03:30 | |
the consistency in that thread between the entire process. | 01:03:35 | |
If there's a need for the original group to facilitate. | 01:03:41 | |
We can certainly do that. Well I just I have a thought and and talking to some of the the building owners because that came up | 01:03:45 | |
before and. | 01:03:49 | |
For the next agenda, if we meet in December, I'd like to have a report on, and I'm willing to do it on three major building | 01:03:55 | |
owners, property owners, on Light. | 01:04:00 | |
About what their thoughts are, because I know that. | 01:04:06 | |
Several people have mentioned empty buildings and. | 01:04:11 | |
You know, people that were owners, not necessarily here, and gotten a couple of opinions. I'm not sure it's a report. Might be | 01:04:14 | |
interesting to hear what they have to say. | 01:04:18 | |
Wendy Giles and a few other people who own major properties downtown. So if you allocate 910 minutes, I can put something | 01:04:23 | |
together. | 01:04:26 | |
We can talk about that, certainly. | 01:04:30 | |
Very good. | 01:04:33 | |
OK. I see others in the room that are ready for the next meeting. So thank you all again. This has been a fantastic opportunity to | 01:04:34 | |
celebrate the business community today. | 01:04:38 | |
And it looks like our next EDC meeting will be at regular time. So we're looking at, please correct me if I'm wrong, December 7th. | 01:04:43 | |
At 4:00 PM. | 01:04:52 | |
OK. | 01:04:54 | |
Thank you. Meeting is adjourned. | 01:04:56 |