 temporarily chairing it for the notice with that madam clerk can you read the role here present here mr. Palin podium is your sir we got to make sure that that beautiful camera right there can get your smile and face to broadcast it across to 139,237 citizens who are interested in what we're doing today fantastic I want them all to hear it yeah so thank you mayor thank you council people I appreciate being here today and for you to hear from me as many of you know the Columbia World Affairs Council is steward of our our city's sister city relationships as well as providing education and relationships internationally for our city and our partners abroad so I just wanted to give you a quick update on what we've been doing and some plans that we have ahead most recently Fred Monk our chairman emeritus made an advance trip to our sister city of Kaiser Slavin and the city of Lucerne Switzerland where we have key contacts from Columbia at Lucerne's major law firm Kyman Rudy the goal here was to reignite the network city strategy that we've been working on began in 2019 interrupted by three years of COVID that strategy strategy by the council focuses on key partnership cities the partner cities for economic development education the primary focus is to attract accelerating technology or innovation talent-based companies in Europe to establish their first office in the United States specifically in Columbia and to build their business and technical support system as a result of this trip we're looking to develop a mission led by the mayor to Kaiser Slavin and Lucerne around this landing pad concept of bringing companies here to our city we already have one significant technology company from Kaiser Slavin that has been to Columbia twice already it's now at a point of looking to put down roots here in the US the company does artificial intelligence document management with a primary focus on insurance industry this is a direct result of the council sister city work in Kaiser Slavin we're also looking forward to continuing the artist exchange that's been going on now for 22 years and it's been led by the late Wim roofs of formerly of art gallery which has resulted in several pieces of public artworks around our city currently as a result of a final project left on the table we were working with Wim the artists are installing the latest piece of public artwork at stormwater studios and Lewis and Clark studios there in the vista this work was partially funded by the consulate general of Germany and Atlanta we have to have an unveiling in the next couple of weeks I'll give you updates on that going back to Lucerne Switzerland Fred met with five accelerating companies and and notice initiatives that range from hydrogen fuel cell technology the women's brain health and an AI company on information effectiveness all have potential to land here in Columbia Lucerne economic development executives were very receptive to connect with Columbia on the landing pad concept and would be eager to work with Columbia companies looking to expand in Europe our goal is to build a relationship through the World Affairs Council and our Lucerne partners in addition to our two Columbia expats in Lucerne and Basel Switzerland they are very much interested very much involved with the University of South Carolina's MIBS program MIBS alumni in Europe and hope to help us build connections there we have a potential to do a MIBS alumni gathering during this possible mission in Lucerne the World Affairs Council has maintained communications with our sister cities and other international partners during the pandemic one of the most successful results of our 20-plus year relationship with Kaiserslautern Germany is the development through SC commerce over the last five years with the Fraunhofer Institute for experimental software engineering based in Kaiserslautern through the Columbia Kaiserslautern partnership South Carolina Fraunhofer USA Alliance for innovation and applied research has been established that initiative that initiative currently includes a 50% matching grant for a company to enact a qualified digital transformation initiative for their company and I hope that we can work together and you can help recommend Columbia companies that can get involved in this it's a great program with a lot of potential the council be happy to work with Ryan Coleman to set up an information session with Columbia companies and SC Fraunhofer which also operates underneath the South Carolina Council on competitiveness we all know that South Carolina has a long-standing reputation as a business friendly state what you may not know is that according to Suzanne Dickerson who's the director of the SC Fraunhofer USA Alliance at SC competes South Carolina is the only state in the US with a unique South Carolina Fraunhofer USA Alliance model so this alliance which is a collaborative effort between the South Carolina Council of competitiveness and the South Carolina Department of Commerce and the Fraunhofer USA Network is designed to support the global competitive position of our state business businesses the alliance was formally established in 2019 to advance applied research across the state of South Carolina with the Fraunhofer USA Network and South Carolina research institutions examples of digital research areas include artificial intelligence industry 4.0 machine learning wearables and cybersecurity in this short period of time more than 20 plus projects have been conducted as Suzanne likes to likes to stay the establishment of this unique model is her favorite 20-year overnight success story and her peripheral role as honorary council to the federal Republic of Germany she often speaks to audiences who have members in sister city activities she says she tells them don't over underestimate the power of the work you're doing within those sister city networks as Suzanne summarizes it it was the friendship and trusted relationship built and supported by the World Affairs Council between the city of Kaiser-Slautern and Columbia which ultimately resulted in the establishment of the South Carolina Fraunhofer USA Alliance we also had a wonderful visit last year by the city of Acura which we hosted the recently elected new mayor Saki of Acura Ghana and a delegation to Columbia the visit was a great success in that it re-established mayor-to-mayor relationships exchanges with municipal economic development offices our fire departments and future collaborations and exchanges the delegation also connected with Benedict College's Business Development Center to possibly partner on an accelerator program the visit culminated in a celebration of our close sister city relations and acknowledgement of women leaders in both cities I'd also like to point out the work that we do with the US State Department and US Congress through the international leadership visitor programs here in Columbia in partnership with the Columbia Council of Internationals the number of visitors and programs were limited a lot through 2022 but but we still had several real in-person visits we received over 137 international visitors with you know a number of them through US Congress and through the State Department we did have three virtual programs and a number of people from the United Kingdom we had over 57 different countries represented visiting our city we have six statements of interest for future programs coming up in the next few months as of 2022 these programs have an estimated annual in economic impact of close to three hundred and sixty five thousand dollars annually and that's that's my report any questions please Dixon one of the things that you all have a lot going on very limited how are we going to move forward in this relationship of growing those sister cities because we have all these relationships and over the years they kind of we want to expand that but also understand the limited resources and I mean you're you're working on I think at least six programs that I could count in that in that so do we need to consider moving sister cities into a separate program how do we do that because it's not it's just not enough human capital to do all the things in there for our oven Institute relationship is is very important to our future when you really talk about what we're doing now here with growing our tech businesses especially with the insurance side the AI coming that deals with that documents fits a unique role here based on what we've already grown but the investments that we're having in the incubator and others so you know I'm curious your thoughts because I think that's something for us we've talked about a lot of trying to to rebuild that but also you know add some more sisters cities because there's some real opportunities to make some stronger connections right right well what what the council again has done over the years is to like we have you know a certain number of sister cities I don't recommend growing the number of sister cities and what we've done is create a network of cities beyond our official sister city relationships they'll allow us who unofficially move forward in economic development initiatives and also educational collaborations with universities in Switzerland we call those bilateral agreements bilateral agreements there you go so yeah so we have a lot of those and I think that we can move forward successfully with the partnerships that we have throughout the city through the university and with city council and various other partners well I think you know I think where I'm getting at is there's so much information but we're very limited on getting a lot of that information and understanding and how we can play a stronger role okay in making those connections but also making sure that we're there that folks know that we have an interest you know it's been a great deal of time with Mayor Saki for multiple reasons or connection personal connections to a craw and other things but realizing that you know we are not the direct link so a lot of the follow-ups and so forth we don't know where that is and how that is and so as we start to grow these relationships how are we gonna handle that and I think that's what I want to make sure that we're addressing agreed yeah I would like to work with the council and maybe allocating more man power or human resources towards keeping the city engaged more directly and up to date and thank you for the wonderful information and what so so when when you're out saying great things about Columbia so what what kind of presentation marketing package do you use and is that something we need to to work together to button up as we change the vision focus of the story we want to tell for economic development and realizing what we are good at and what role we play here for for growing small business the incubators and you know the focus on tech healthcare innovation how do we how do we streamline that conversation to really promote Columbia as a place to as a destination for these small businesses right good point and I do and I will share with you the work that the documents and presentations that I have on on what we do to present but I would love to collaborate more on building and fine tuning our presentations and our and our image towards you know this network of cities and our sister cities and make sure that it's completely in line and up to date and presents our best image going forward but you know I always tell our visitors and and our partners abroad that you know Columbia is an incredibly diverse and innovative city that's really under looked I think in the in the southeast and across the US entirely as far as our international connections through business and education and culture so I think that we have a we have a lot to showcase we have a lot to show of how incredible the city is and be very happy to work with you on yeah please keep in touch with with Ryan and his team as we bring this branding forward to be included in what you're you're taking on the road absolutely thanks man questions thank you thank you all Ryan's also gonna work with them to get a list of the various partners I can't remember the list as well happy to provide that for you and work with Ryan to get something comprehensive there and with some details on each thank you item number two today is economic development partner update from the central self-care alliance mr. Nelson Lindsay president and CEO thank you mr. mayor members of the committee it's a pleasure to be before you today to give you a real brief update I know you've got actual action items today so I don't want to take up too much your time but want to talk a little bit about the services that we currently provide the city and the economic development office and would really look forward to if not today then at some point discussion on if these services are are not as relevant as they may have been in the past what else can we be doing to help support the city so again that can be a future conversation Ryan and I always talk about that but from a policy standpoint and a direction great to hear those have those discussions so for those may not be as familiar central SC is a eight county regional alliance we represent the city of Columbia in the eight surrounding counties and every time we talk to a company that's exactly how we describe ourselves we represent the Columbia because we consider our tagline is the heart of South Carolina and the heart of the region is the city of Columbia so without you we really don't have as much to sell and again the idea for regionalism is that we're better as a larger community selling assets both domestically across the country I'm sorry across the world because you know it's hard to be noticed especially if you're talking to international companies you know each one little community is maybe harder to grab attention but when you talk about a million people within 60 60 minutes of the downtown Columbia that can be noticed a lot lot better and the idea again is from especially from a marketing standpoint the more resources you have the greater impact you can have when you're out there marketing to the region so four distinct areas that we provide services to the city marketing research the generation and business development and I'll quickly go through these I'm not gonna go through everything that we do for the city but just give you a flavor of it from a marketing standpoint as you imagine we're marketing the city and the eight counties both domestically and around the world most of ours is digitally right so if you think about how you receive information most of it is online first with our website if you don't have a website and you're in trouble so website promotion we obviously keep as much information on that as we possibly can and for each community that we have we have a separate page touting the benefits of doing business there we also have a robust available buildings and properties search tool so if a company across the world or across the state wants you find available buildings in our region then they can go online and search for that for the most part a lot of those are on the county level are industrial parks and sites but for the city it's office buildings we do have two industrial parks in the city but most of your inventory is office and targeted towards those in addition to that we send monthly what we call property e-blast each month we rotate a community and send in coordination with the local economic developer what piece of property do you want us to send out to our distribution list and that includes prospective companies leads that we've been working as well as site selection consultants so it highlights a piece of property whether it's a park or a building that our member wants to want to specialize in we also do recently this second year we've done is a photo and video library think quality of life type images we're trying to build up a our photo library so that y'all can use it we can use it so when we're doing marketing materials that you have access to all of that and we try to keep it current because things change and so we want to keep that fresh so that we're out there selling we have images that are useful and relevant and then social media I mean there's that's the size of the website that's exactly where people get their information these days LinkedIn or all the other social media outlets that we have again that's primarily what is going on right so if you have something unique that's happening we will post it share it and get it out there and again that's not on a rotating basis that's as it occurs and that's how we would provide that we can do custom branding and marketing assistance as the ED office requires and one thing we started back in October of 21 is pretty unique and I think is different than a lot of the communities the new battle of the old battleground used to be sites right that's how you want projects having the available sites and which is still important but now the battleground is talent that is the most critical part part of a company search is making sure that they have a number of people and skills associated with what they need in the area so part of it as we've come out of the pandemic is how do you show that you have the workforce for that company one way that we're doing that is a website that we call Start Central and it is it does a couple things one is a jobs portal if you go on there you can search for existing companies in our region that post on and open positions that have been posted on indeed and you'll pop up and can search and find jobs that are available here if you don't post on indeed we can manually do it so that's not a restriction but it automatically feeds from indeed so it's a jobs portal trying to our existing companies trying to find workers right that's a big challenge it also has resources for people to find ways to upgrade their skill levels you have a lot of under-employment right now in which people have the ability to move up they just made an additional skill and this has resources in which to find and then finally it's a quality life attraction piece if we provide information on what it's like to live in this area so if you're in New York you can search online and do a cost of living comparison between New York and the city of Columbia and obviously we're gonna look good in that comparison so you can do that anywhere in the country but we also showcase the amenities and assets that people might want to consider when looking at a new location because nowadays workers are looking at locations maybe even before jobs moving maybe they're moving for weather maybe they're moving for schools safety whatever may be but that whole website is geared towards attracting new people to the area and the retaining people coming out of our colleges and universities so part of that jobs portal also includes an internship portal so if you want to if you're a college student you can go in there and hopefully find an internship within your within your area of study so that's something new that we're marketing right now we're doing a camp digital campaign just have wrapped up phase one of that and we're actually getting good results so far in terms of the hits and looks and impressions that that we are seeing the other major thing that we do for you is research and this is one of the things that all of our communities really utilize from us so when a company comes looking and talking to us as a region of state whatever they've got a list of questions that need answered whether it's demographics workforce taxes whatever and we have in-house research capabilities we have a researcher and we subscribe to several pretty expensive databases that if you did it on your own you'd be paying that yourself and so we are able to provide that or if our assistance to all of our community we compile it we work with the counties in the city in order to respond with the question with the answers that they are looking for but it's not just that is we can do property mapping we can do cost of doing business comparisons so if the city is competing with another location in the country we can compare whether it's taxes or labor rates participation rates whatever it may be we can do labor profiles we can do business intelligence information if you're working with a company we have access to date databases to find out more information about what that company is like and then the third one is lead generation that we're trying to market the region globally we're trying to provide information to those companies that that are looking at us but we're also trying to find those companies as well and so we work closely with our partners at the Department of Commerce and our local economic development offices we have a lead generation firm that we employ that is targeting sectors that in general we have that we are going after whether it's automotive aerospace distribution office sector whatever we're currently asking them to do they will take their database find those should be expanding because their sector is growing and begin the conversations trying to get enough interest to for us to dial in to have a call virtual call these are now in teams now that's the first step the ultimate goal is to get them into the market see what they can on the ground because you can do a lot of it virtually upfront but ultimately you have to get them in the market to show what you have we also plan and execute mission trips both to different geographies and to trade shows both domestically and around the around the world we invite our community partners to participate in which the city has done so in the past and we help fund we do all the work on the front end but we also help pay those expenses for them to travel with us and then the last thing is business development or project management so if we're generating leads we're going to help the company through that process of making a decision and so that can include everything from planning a tour providing the information that they need while they're here taking on community tours working with our existing companies often times they want to talk to companies are already here to find out about what the labor force is like the community is like we you know we host lunches and dinners and all of those type of things if the city or county brings a lead to us then we're gonna play a support role we're gonna help them with whatever they need even if we're not the lead and that you know that that varies that one varies depending on the community how much they want our help someone else more than others and that's totally up to up to the community the last thing I would say that we provide is really a we consider ourselves an extension of your economic development office right we're able to provide all these services in a more cost-effective way because we have nine community partners paying into it versus you having to you know pay for all these data subscriptions and research personnel yourself so hopefully the power of regionalism that we're able to provide a service that would be you know expensive but we're also on a backup so if for some reason Ryan or staff was not available we can fill that role too we just recently did that in Orangeburg their local economic developer went to Florence and they they just announced he left in July just their replacement is coming in next week so we filled that gap as their local economic developer for six months not ideal but I mean we certainly can step right in without skipping a beat on what y'all are trying to do that is only if we need it if y'all need it not something that happens too often but it does happen and when it occurs you need someone to fill that spot so that's a quick update again we'd love to have conversations about what else is the city needing particularly is as you are looking at shifting priorities whatever they may be maybe their retail maybe their commercial not to say that we would take the lead on retail because that's not our strength but we can support you in those endeavors maybe it's providing research to help go after that if it's commercial developers maybe it's a it's a way of supporting bringing developers in and a familiarization tour to make them more familiar with the community and what it has to offer but I just say that this offer the ability to think differently about what we provide because when it comes down to it if we're not serving your needs we're not doing your service so we look forward to having that conversation but happy to answer any questions that y'all may have a couple of questions thank you for being here today I know that there are certainly some benefits to marketing a region but within that region looking at the list of counties you do represent there's a varying degree of diversity and potential in terms of the types of industries that can come in how do you balance you know the city of Columbia is not a place that we're going to be bringing in these large manufacturing firms we need density we need more people in town how have you balanced that can you speak a little bit more to what you've done specifically for the city of Columbia and then what would you say is your greatest success for the city for the city first of how do we balance and that's a very good question because we have obviously urban communities here in Columbia Richland-Eleccington we have suburban communities and some rural ones as well so it is a fine line with trying to keep everyone happy and balance the different needs so we do that by meeting fairly regularly as with our local developers to make sure what we are doing meets you know what their goals are in the case of the city I think where we can play a greater role or a differentiating role is specifically towards the office sector now the interesting thing about the office sector as you might imagine is changed dramatically in the last two years where we have you know what we used to target was whether a shared services center similar to say like a Verizon call center out in northeast small technology companies here as well but those have changed with remote and hybrid work and so we are working with commerce to try to figure out how do we go after those companies we're in the past we are trying to incentivize people to work in this community but a company small IT company they may have a presence here whether workers may be either remote or somewhere totally different so what value does that bring to the city and that is something that is I think still to be determined how do we approach that but that is is a sector that not only I know the city but the county wants to to go after as well and I'd say that's something that we all have to figure out yet I know commerce we're having conversations with them as how do we change our typical manufacturing incentives to go after these I value high paying maybe a smaller company with 25 employees so that is something that we that commerce hopefully will have to roll out in the general assembly this upcoming session our greatest success I would say for the city that's a good question I'm not gonna put Tracy on the spot because she's been here longer than me I don't know that I would say what the greatest success is I know we had a small role but certainly the state and Ryan took the and the county took the lead on that so I don't want to try to claim any success that is not ours but I think it's an example of how we work together to bring companies to the area and just to back up on manufacturing even though there's you know you're not going to get the large manufacturer right I mean that's just the reality of it but you very possibly could provide water and sewer to that company by fact we had a major company today that would you would be potentially serving if they were to come but the impact would be felt in the city of Columbia specifically if there's in Richland County so even though it may be just outside to see a limit the impact will be felt throughout I don't answer your question yeah Nelson you know with your background Richland County Department of Commerce and now with Central Midlands or Central Carolina excuse me just as this is a general question for you know what is your opinion on how we as a region are doing on workforce development there's a lot of silos I think working to create those careers the talent that comes out of our our educational systems what can we as a city what can we be doing better to help this big engine of what we hear about in workforce development that truly can set us apart you know as a region as a county and as a city well I mean that is that's a great question is frankly a difficult question because there's so many different groups in workforce development when you think about K through 12 the vocational schools technical schools the university and all the colleges here has a role and then you know ready I see which is the training program for the state so there's a lot of people in this arena and it's probably not as coordinated as it could be and should be so that's that's a difficult thing where I do think you have this region has an advantage is that university and the fact of how many colleges are here that is a great asset that we have I mean over 60,000 students in our in our region the trick is trying to keep them here and that's a that's a real problem I know just within my own family we've got friends and folks that move somewhere else right out of college we do very well when we bring them back you know when they started having families and want to move back but there's talent here we just need to keep them and I think that's where we can do a better job we can do a better job the city can do a better job working with USC to try to find a way to keep those things here perfect thanks Nelson thank you Nelson for that update I do think we need to have a further conversation you know to be quite frank I think things have have evolved and different we probably need to play a different partnership role with you guys obviously we we want to stay involved and important but maybe not at the same level that maybe some of the other counties that have different outlooks but I do think there is you know we I'm glad to hear you talk about the students because we've been engaged with the students for over a year we have representatives from every college and university here understanding how to keep them here and a lot of it is is they don't realize the opportunities are here because they hadn't been cross-pollinated or integrated into our community we're bringing them to the table I think it's a missed opportunity for us most of the college presidents all agree we still still have some greater opportunities you know we have a international business program that nobody's actually figured out where the graduates are and you know where are they in a C-suites and why aren't we marketing to them to bring us we need urban development we need density downtown in our core we need to be honest somewhere between 6 and 12,000 people to move downtown to make us where we need to be for future workforce and etc that includes housing options and other things so as we are marketing and chasing development but you know where are those back office opportunities where those cyber you know 2.7 million jobs available in cyber and what are we doing across the state it's worth about 89 billion dollars to us as a state but it could be five times that if we put in the effort our sister states Georgia and North Carolina investing heavily the legislature in Georgia put a hundred million behind the effort so you know I'm hoping that we can get our legislature to put some money behind the efforts but I do think there's a there's a role here for Central Carolina and we just got to figure out how to craft it that fits our needs because that you're right and I think what we've seen regionally here by pulling the mayors together and having discussions on a quarterly basis is that everybody's starting to realize that we need to support each other it doesn't matter if the major manufacturers are going to Kershaw or it's going to Blythewood if it's going to Casey we all benefit regionally because people live where they want to live they go where they want to go but we've got to support each other and I think collaboratively there's a lot of opportunity there so I think let's figure out how we we forward something forward that works for all parties so that we can all benefit together that sounds good we look forward to that great thank you so much for being here Tracy thanks for being here thank you mr. mayor I make a motion to enter executive session for discussion of matters relating to the proposed location expansion and provision of services encouraging location or expansion of industries and other businesses in the area served by the public body pursuant to 30-4-78 5 vista depot project steeple project sequoona project stratus and project canary should have should have realized that halfway through is there a second second yes yes