 Order, would you please call the roll? You, Board Member Corsi. I'm here. Board Member Gonzales. Here. Board Member Dutty. Here. Board Member Ravitt. Board Member Rodger. Here. I chair Petrols. Absolutely. And chair Fleming. I'm sorry. I chair Petrols. Here. Chair Fleming, if that's it. Let the record reflect that all Board members are present with the exception of Board Member Ravitt and Chair Fleming. Great. Let's move on to the approval of the minutes. Are there any changes to the minutes? Are there any public comments on the minutes? None needed. None needed? No. Okay. So the minutes are adopted as presented. Item three is public comments on non-agenda matters. There are some members of the public, I think, that are connected. If so, if you wish to make a comment, I'm sorry, Secretary Nugget. Except comment, yes, Zoom. Policy. Policy change. Desirable policy change. Okay. So there are no members of the public here. So there's no public comment. Let's go on then to item 4.1. Policy discussion. Gabe Osburn. Good afternoon, Vice Chair and members of the Board. Gabe Osburn, Director of Planning and Economic Development. Bear with me for a moment while I pull out the presentation. Okay. Well, thank you for joining us today. We will touch on three main points within this one agenda item. And as we've performed in similar Board meetings, Vice Chair would be happy to facilitate this as an open conversation. If questions come up as we go through this, feel free to bring those up. I will pause in certain areas in the presentation as we move forward into different topics. Our goal today really is to provide a summary of what we have been working on as staff since our last meeting. We'll do that in the first slide. We'll also talk quite a bit about the project list. And we went over that in depth in the last meeting. Some of what I discussed will be a bit duplicative to that conversation as a reminder. But we'll also talk about another strategy that can focus on large project development downtown and how that could potentially be incorporated in the IFP. Then we'll also talk about timeline and what it means as far as future meetings go and go over some of the major steps that we have discussed in other meetings, but just give a really good idea of where we need to be by what day, what tax base year. So our first slide, we'll talk a bit about what we have been working on. There's been a lot of conversation internally with the city and with the city and the county on coming to an agreement or finding out a way to come to an agreement on the main components of the IFP. And that really is the project list and the commitment on tax percentage. So we held meetings in December 8th of 2023, February 8th of this year and February 26th of this year. We also received a request from the county to participate in a board of supervisors meeting on April 30th, which we'll focus on this topic. During that time, we've also been working on the IFP. As we mentioned in previous meetings, the two main moving parts, the project list and the tax percentage are fairly critical to getting to where we can present a draft IFP to the public. And then that kick starts the formal process of getting us through the adoption. So to put placeholders in that document, we have started with a few different cash flow model theories at 50% for both the city and the county, also 75. Once again, these are placeholders just to develop some numbers to get the document closer to the finish line. We've also addressed some project based on what we discussed in the last meeting. We have some draft project lists that I'll talk a little bit about that are a good starting point for that conversation. Some of the feedback that we received through our communication with the county was how do we deal with the redevelopment agency parcels that are currently in the EIFD boundary and there was some feedback provided to our consultant team. And I'll hand it over to Lenny here in a minute to talk through that. And really what we wanted to develop is get to where we have a really solid initial draft of the IFP won't go public until the other pieces are addressed but we're reducing the amount of time once those decisions are made to where we can get that going down the formal process. And so with that, I will actually hand it over to Lenny from DTA and Lenny will describe some of the steps that she has been going through over the last few months. Thank you. Lenny, can you please give your firm's name backward in DTA? Sure, David Tossigan Associates. We are a DBA of David Tossigan Associates and we've shortened our name and we market it as DTA. So we are the fiscal and the EIFD number crunchers if you will. So as we have been going through the process of identifying what needs to be done, we've prepared a draft or a shell of the IFP that basically outlines what we're going to be discussing in the IFP, but it doesn't have numbers yet. And those numbers are contingent upon the percentages that both the city and the county will be allocating to this district. So for our last meeting and I apologize, I wanted to have it prepared for today but I have a problem and an error in my computer and I'm trying to figure it out. Otherwise I wanted to present the numbers again. The numbers will not change the RDA, pulling the RDA out and the non-RDA parcels. The dollar amounts the cumulative bond proceeds and pay-as-you-go will be the same, but it will be displayed in a different manner so that you could see what is specifically against the RDA property and what is against the non-RDA property. And with that, I will get a completion before the end of the week and be able to provide the city with some of that information which they can determine that it's appropriate to forward onto the PFA. Once that the numbers are chosen and we elect the applicable percentages for each of the agencies, we will finalize those numbers and then those numbers are used to put into the IFP. Prior to the IFP being in a final draft form, we will review with Chris Lynch and Bob Gable, Gamble, excuse me, to just make sure that all of the parameters of everything that we wanted to cover in the IFP will be covered. So that's about where we are right now. I expect, like I said, to have numbers before the end of the week because I'm in the crux of trying to figure out my model and why there's an error and we'll be providing that to the city shortly. Okay, and that's a very brief overview of the IFP and I think we can pause. Is there any specific questions about that document, the steps that we need to go through moving forward or anything that we've done today? Any questions? Sorry, yeah. Just I have a question on the RDA and that somebody could sort of refresh my memory on doesn't the revenue and existing RDA flow to the Successive Agency? And then, so how, if I understood what she was just saying is saying pulling the RDA parcels out doesn't affect the base and I'm not sure I understood that correctly. Nani, would you like to provide a response to that question? Sure, and I'll invite Bob to chime in as well. What we know is that the RDA current property is being met, their obligation is currently being paid. Therefore anything above and beyond that is available to go towards the EIFD. To secure the debt, we would not sell senior lien bonds which are at a higher level than junior lien bonds to protect the RDA's property, but we still are utilizing the same numbers in order to calculate what a junior or senior lien bond would look like. Okay, do you have any other questions? No, I was actually going to make the observation that we'd been previously told that the existing tax income was fully servicing the RDA debt and therefore would not affect tax increment in the future. But it does affect the bonding priority, yeah. That's correct. Okay, so the next component that we'll talk about is the one many people want to talk about because it's the end goal of what we're trying to do is build out these projects. And what we discussed in the last meeting were a few different categories and I'll go over those briefly. And we were looking for projects that focused on beautification, activation of public space, but the big linchpin or catalyst project that would make a difference downtown, specifically with connectivity between Railroad Square and Courtauld Square. And that connectivity really focused on two components. The first was working with existing configurations. Mainly we have Simon Mall, Simon is not at the table, is not part of this process. So having the EIFD invest in something that may not materialize ever potentially is something that we would need to build and just plan around and we'll talk about that in future slides. So we looked at some things that we could do within the existing configurations. That's really working with the underpass. So we had talked about lighting projects murals, making it a more desirable location to be air purification, wayfinding, raise walkways to beautify that corridor in some way, shape, or form. And a really rough price estimate that we put to that was eight to 10 million to facilitate that type of project. And this was just a brief example provided of some of the underpass lighting that prides that aesthetic benefit. The other component with these third street alignment fell into a redevelopment bucket. So in the event that third street is reimagined through private development that occurs on Simon Mall, how could we invest in a better corridor through that area? So the concept of raising that to grade, building out that roadway, increasing bike and pedestrian connectivity through that corridor, still providing some of the beautification elements through landscaping and wayfinding art are all a possibility, but it likely requires the overhang piece to be removed, which requires that they're just outside. The other areas that we looked at are some of our unused public space in the downtown core. There was a discussion about Comstock Mall, which is very close to this building and what can we do to activate that space? We discussed this as being either something that is initiated through the city, the city controls that space and can initiate a project in that area or something that is coordinated with adjacent private development. We discussed lighting, landscaping, public art. There was topics discussed about recreational options that we can do there as well. So it was reprogramming that space and that had a preliminary cost of five to 10 million. Then we had a variety of different additional options that once again, focus on areas that the city can control. That's the existing public right of way or land that the city owns. So that gets into general landscaping and lighting improvements. We talked about public parklets and generally the cost is 40 to 50 per. We also talked about public art and we talked about sidewalk bulb outs that would potentially provide more public space that could be activated. And at the last meeting, there was also a discussion about including a concept to be able to provide support for housing in that district. So now if we look at that, what that does is it puts a project list together that has very general dollar amounts to it in very general categories that cover all of those elements. And these numbers can move around. They can shift as far as the distribution of that total dollar amount. But what it's attempting to achieve is the total revenue of 45 million in that district for that period of time. And as you can see that we have the check boxes there for the different categories. So three of these fall on city property as we discussed the connectivity may actually require some private investment. And then if you look at affordable housing since that requires a private developer to build this would be a contribution to that in some way, shape or form that becomes a private element as well because you need that public private partnership to make that work. So now what we've been discussing for the last few months and I think many of you are aware that there have been conversations downtown about the possibility of larger conference or entertainment centers. Sonoma County Tourism is working on a feasibility study that's looking at the placement of that type of use in the downtown area. And if we look at how the FD could potentially fund something like that was the strategy that we've been working out for the last two months. So really what would that that would look like is that it would be likely if we put a conference center downtown to occur on private property. Specifically if it's a focus on the mall but if other private properties are looked at it could just follow that same model somewhere else. Also in this particular case the total construction cost is a bit unknown that feasibility study will have to look at the next phase and understand what it would take to build something like that. But if we factor this into our project list what we can do is go with a bit of a priority model. And what that would look like it would basically create a priority one project which is the large development on private property center that we think provides the best benefit for downtown. It can throw the full dollar amount to it and it would be in a wait and see mode until that project started materializing over the life of the FD. Now the challenge that it creates is there has to be an avenue that if that never materializes how does the revenue get spent? So it develops a priority two project list and in the priority two project list you see that there are projects that predominantly can be done on city controlled land. So money can then be invested in those as we move forward. And as we flesh this out it's important to note you can do both. So there is the possibility of basically just waiting to see if the convention center or the entertainment center comes into play and then you can start if it doesn't to take some of that revenue and move it towards the other projects but still hold some of that revenue back for the bigger conference center. What it would look like when that pivot occurs is that likely would be both a county and a city decision to make that pivot. So the investment in the IFP really would be in the conference center and to the city and the county would have to make a determination that based on the fact that that was not moving over some course of time through the IFD the expenditure should then be redirected to a contingency list. It would not necessarily be changing that contingency list all these project types will be baked into the IFP. So the direction then to the PFA is that the PFA is then in power to start moving money towards that contingency list. Does there have to be an official commitment towards an amount of time or is that more flexible and can be done sort of behind the scenes as circumstances change? It can be done behind the scenes as circumstances change. So the language would likely be embedded in the IFP. We'll still have to work through that concept if this is the direction that can be supported about the city and the county level as far as the project list goes. But that would not necessarily have any time commitment to say 10 years you have to make a decision. At some point the funds do need to be spent but even at the back end of the life of the EIFD there's still the possibility of spending that total dollar amount through your priority to list. And I think that that's an important piece and that's really why the dollar amounts have to match. But I think what's also important about this is that affordable housing elevates up that can be included in the priority one list as well. Some of these elements can be pulled up and still be priority one projects. And then your contingency list are all of those that may still provide a benefit but not the same benefit that the conference center does or affordable housing or whatever is the ultimate decision of the board of supervisors in the city council for that project list. So I'll pause there. I think this is important piece because this really changes the direction of the IFP to some extent. And it is one of the critical elements that we are trying to address at this point is an agreement on this list. The dollar amounts can change as part of this process. As Lenny mentioned, these go into the model. So it's the tax percentage plus whatever the project list is are really two of the main components in the mathematical calculation behind the scenes. So that can fluctuate with time but just understanding the priority concept and then understanding really what is the project that we can rally around. And I know the PFA is critical to that but also the city and the county are even more critical to that because the reality is the way the process works before it ever goes to the PFA for adoption the city or the county have to bless the IFP. So, and I think with a conference center and entertainment center especially with a feasibility study going in the mix it's a little easier to understand because of the effort that's going into that feasibility study what the economic development is on back end. There's a formal study around those types of uses and you can see what the return on the investment is. Director Osborn, recognizing that Chair Rabbit has joined us and he came in about midway through this slide. Can you do a quick recap and lead in to this slide? Absolutely. And I apologize. Oh, it's a little earlier than I did on the memorial service. Oh, we do it here? Yeah. Yeah. You're in Sonoma. Oh, sorry. So Supervisor Rabbit I don't believe you were at the last meeting when we discussed the preliminary project list that we went over in the few slides but some of the projects that we have been focusing on are projects the city can implement in the existing public right of way that don't require a private benefit. And the reason for that is because there is a guaranteed way to spend that revenue through the EIFT. But we also went with a bit of a combo approach in that because we talked about if our main catalyst project is to create connectivity between Railroad Square and Courthouse Square that that could potentially take two forms. It could take beautifying the existing underpass in a variety of different ways but also if Simon was ever interested in developing that there may be a public private partnership availability to where we can raise the tertiary to grade we can improve that corridor sidewalks by connectivity beautification through art and landscaping. So that injected this process of the EIFT really can go after these bigger private development projects and wait until they've come into the mix and build up that revenue through that time or it can start investing in projects that as soon as that revenue is there can be completed because the full control exists. So the important point we wanted to make here is that because I think there is a desire to have it be a game changer downtown and this is potentially an avenue to do that that how do we rally around that bigger projects and the bigger project being either the connectivity issues between Railroad Square and Courthouse Square or a conference center or an entertainment center to have the EIFT tee that up and be ready to fund that and it potentially can fund a significant amount. And this could we're not talking about small gap funding in this particular case if you focus on a singular project. So our attempt was to really pivot it to that priority conversation to see if we can really get buy in on those priority projects. And then of course the priority too is also if we can't spend the money that really becomes then our contingency list that we would have to move to. And I can't recall if you walked in when we discussed how we would go through that list but just a quick reminder it would be the Board of Supervisors and the city council to make the decision to move away from priority one and start expenditures in priority two. Great, thank you. Appreciate that. Are there questions for Gabe or for anyone else here from the city? Some of these questions, a couple of these questions that I have are probably more important for the April 30th workshop than they are right now but I'll ask them now and we'll just hand them over to that. When we discussed this at the Board of Supervisors the last time we did discuss this I think that there was a question and kind of a void of information about the nexus between some of the projects that we talked about like Cobb-Stockball, Third Street and how that is creating spurring the tax increment that we're looking at. So I think a brief explanation of that at the workshop would be very important. Also, you mentioned the looking at 50% and 75% both the city and the county side of the increment go in toward these projects, total numbers and how that looks. And I think we looked at that as we did at the Reds, I imagine you were to last year maybe even the year before it's been a while but going through some of that with the Board of Supervisors would be helpful as well. I wanted to ask about the $3 million for affordable housing out of a total of 45 that's relatively low number. Where is that 5% or 6% something like that and how that was arrived at and if we ought to look at more of a range with a bigger number and I can answer that question. So what we had looked at initially with affordable housing and we can go either way with this. So that number can increase, I think is the important point on this but what we were looking at are certain things initially with that project list that once again we control. So we were looking at affordable housing building downtown and what would the public infrastructure cost be of affordable housing and how do you support that through public infrastructure which that usually is not the most significant cost of affordable housing. The EIFD is not restricted to basically just providing affordable housing. So I think as we go through this some of the feedback that we're really looking for to form up this list is exactly that. So if we wanted to say and I think hopefully what we can do by the 30th which we'll get close to this without finalizing the IFP because we can't go to that next step but just understanding the mathematics of if you're trying to target a certain dollar amount call it 45 million where does your tax percentage need to be to do that? And then with these categories if we generally agree that these are the categories moving dollars amounts around becomes much easier and we can figure out what the appropriate percentage is but that's all the feedback that we're really looking for at this point is that if this project list is generally good what do we like about it? What do we not? How can we improve it? That's all really great feedback but to specifically answer your question supervisor it was because it was focusing on public infrastructure which generates a lower cost. Remind me game redevelopment was that 20% dedicated to affordable housing? Ooh, I think it was. Yeah, yeah, we can verify. Okay. That's what was in my head when I said that was a small. This is Chris Lynch from John's Hall. It was a 20% affordable housing requirement. Thank you. Chris. So one of the questions that I have around this first or conference center or entertainment center I know at least one of the potential sites that's been thrown around for a decade is out of the EIFD zone. And so at what point do you think we would have any type of clarity of when the feasibility study comes back what our potential opportunities are? What's that timeline look like? Well, what we're hoping to work out now is that I think a good topic for the PFA would be to hear directly from Sonoma County Tourism on the feasibility study. If this is the direction that it's moving to understand what that looks like to hear some of the discussions about not necessarily the feasibility but what's the game plan for construction? One of our goals is to create an agenda item. And we'll talk a little bit about that when we get into our timelines for the board to hear exactly from Sonoma County Tourism, okay? And then you mentioned right at the outset that Simon's not at the table for these discussions but much of the project lists if it doesn't involve Simon could be directly impacted by Simon. And what Simon ends up doing with the mall could potentially change the need to change Third Street. So should Simon be at the table? And the discussions with Simon are happening in a variety of different separate conversations. So yes, I think is a good answer to that. As we go through and we look at the feasibility of these projects and we understand these other projects that we're looking to fund and there does have to be a discussion with those private property owners that potentially would control this and to understand what that means to them. So, and especially if it's bringing cash into potentially a reimbursement on a project does that change the model that they're looking forward to in the future? So as far as the formal process because of how this works being very heavy on the city and the county side and the PFA as a body, no. But then as far as the direction and understanding the logistics of what that would look like, I think definitely yes because it helps us frame what implementation looks like long-term. I think that's an important conversation to have. If you're just asking me, 3rd Street is an okay connector between the Square and Railroad Square if you can't get something that's between 4th and 7th which seems to be the much more optimal for pedestrian and bicycle access. And so for investing big dollars in trying to make the area friendlier but then there's a potential partnership with Simon that might allow it to be in a more optimal place. I'd rather know that sooner rather than later. Absolutely. And I think one of the purposes of keeping the list general, we focus on 3rd Street because we can control if the keeping it general allows connectivity to occur anywhere. Yeah. I have a question and an observation but before coming to the chair, does anyone else have any questions first? I've also got one. Carol. Thank you. Just the board meeting in February the county board meeting in February approved to sort of broad policy objectives and I'm just struggling a little bit with how the projects that are listed other than affordable housing align with some of the policy objectives that the board adopted and how you kind of resolve that. I mean, obviously the workshop will hopefully help to address some of those things and ongoing conversations but particularly, I mean, can you kind of unpack how the conference center would potentially impact the strategic priorities either affordable housing, no, climate adaptation, resilience, transitory and development active transportation or racial and social equity. I'm just, I'm not seeing the intersection. So we're still reviewing the county's policy but our understanding is that the policy is more guidance. There was, the supervisors but there was an acknowledgement that obviously this process was already moving but I do believe that workforce development economic don't generally it's with this county's strategic priorities. So I do feel even though that wasn't expressed in that language in the minimum requirements policy it does reflect some level of county priority but I'm looking at the supervisors to speak on behalf of the county. I don't have any argument. Nor do I but so who would be the ultimate owner? And I've talked to Sonoma County tourism a few times and I look forward to continuing to see the business plan, the feasibility and whether this thing really makes sense. Who would be the owner of a development such as that? I mean, I'm thinking again, where's the property type? There's no property tax increment with that development. It has to be associated with the other development. For me, this is great but tell me what the next, the addendum would be of the property tax increments take place so that we would know how to make the financial decision at the county. Yeah, and I think those are all excellent questions. I think when we get in the initial phases of a project of this nature, I think many of us have the same questions about logistically, how is it going to build? How are we gonna fund it? Who's gonna maintain it longterm? And then really what is the economic driver behind it? So understanding, are we talking about more sales tax dollars? Are we talking about triggering more housing which generally a conference center wouldn't? How do you make that economic finding more longterm? Which I think is the critical piece to any time we're diving in initially to some of those larger projects. You know, I think if you look at housing and much of the studies that we have done is that when you look at development of housing in that downtown core that is increasing your tax increments driving the property taxes up. So what is the driver of people wanting to live downtown? Is one of the main pieces that we went through this before. So is it businesses? Is it you have more activation? Is it a park space? Is it you have like an entertainment center? How do you balance between those two? But I think that's, this is a critical piece. And I think to some extent a bit the cart becomes before the horse because you start understanding these conceptual ideas but they're not fully vetted. And then it's a challenge to make some of these decisions. But I think what's important as part of this is to get the structure that we may want to include this in there and we can agree to a certain project type that is that private development. And it could be affordable housing. There can be a variety of different things in that category. That just shifts the methodology to the IFP slightly. So I think that that is the important piece. But I think it would be really good to hear from Sonoma County Tourism to directly to understand what it looks like. That will be evolving probably on a regular basis. And then I think we'll be in a better situation to do mathematical calculations behind the scenes to see the financial benefit. And we hope to secure Sonoma County Tourism for the PFA meeting. And I, that was our hope. I'm sorry, just two more things on that. So just trying to understand, you know what's the net positive impact both to the county and to the city of course. And then just, I think I'll just, I'll leave it at that. Well, actually the second thing and maybe it's just helping me understand. So once the EFID is established and the list has been created even with these sorts of options, does the county board and the city have to annually review or vote? So my question really is by adding sort of a priority one and a priority two, are you injecting a political process in the delivery of the projects that wouldn't otherwise exist? And I think the answer is that yes, you are. And Chris, can you possibly give a little more insight on that? I know we've talked about that a few times over the last few weeks. Well, I think what we talked about was the possibility of moving from one priority one project list to a priority two project list. I do think we want to, if possible, avoid the annual supervision by the legislative bodies of the city and county once the priority list has been established. And so I would, usually the way I think this would work is your PFA describes, sorry, your IFP describes the specific facilities to be financed and then the IFP would move, the PFA would move forward based on that IFP. If you're shifting from priority one to priority two, I think it makes sense to tie that to legislative body approval. But once that's happened, I would think implementation would rest with the PFA. Anything else, Chris? Oh, it's up there. Okay, thank you. Chris, I'm just wondering, I didn't hear an answer to Supervisor Rabbit's question about the ownership of the conference center. I think the one of the challenges is we don't know at this point. As Sonoma County Tourism evolves, if it's built on the Simon site, that site is privately owned and controlled. Would it be a sale of that property? Who would it go to? So it's very initial stages of that. And I don't think that those details have been flushed out publicly yet. So private ownership is a potential? It is a potential. I would say conference centers generally aren't that because the conference center on its own is not a high revenue generator. And that's usually why you see it with hotels and other uses. It's added on to that and it drives the hotels. But it's possible, nonprofits, private, local jurisdictions sometimes control them. So there's a few different options. Yes. So if we're waiting for the feasibility study, would we wait until the conclusion of it before we got started, or did we let's say that something happens during the course of it and we're alerted? We're not locked in, right? We're not gonna make a decision until after that's done or the expectation is we're going to make a decision while things are still fluid and the study's being conducted. Well, what we can do, and I have a few slides in the future here that look at the timeline and we'll talk about how this potentially affects that because I think one of the challenges is we have these moving parts and we need to see these evolve to make this decision on the benefit because we're specifically calling out a conference center in the EIFD, which would naturally tie it to the timelines for the conference center. And we'd have to make a decision at some point through that. But I'll talk through that in the next few slides so we can see what that actually means and how impactful that potentially is to the process. So I have a question and some information as a whole for the PFA and also an observation. The question is, when we look at three activation beautification and existing right of way, I may have missed it, Gabe, but are we making reference here to the key fourth street, Mendocino Avenue and related existing corridors? Yes. Okay, because that came up in discussion last time. Well, I wanted to be sure of that. Now, informationally, in terms of the potential conference center, just some additional information. A working group that includes a metro chamber and a snow mechanic tourism, which I'm involved in and of course the city's involved in as well is also evaluating an alternative site, which the PFA should be aware of. Not as good probably as the Sears site, but there are issues about the Sears site, which I can describe because I have fairly intimate knowledge of where that stands and where SCT is because I'm part of the working group that SCT is involved in. That alternative site is the vacant cinema site and the vacant bank America site, just a block from here. And they do diligence studies being financed in order to evaluate that and that's well along. Whether that is feasible or not remains to be seen, but it has a timeline probably much somewhat quicker than SCT's on the Sears site. Again, SCT is involved in these other discussions. There's not two competing approaches here. There's just the first one and then an alternative because a conference center in the downtown core obviously has benefits. In terms of the informational aspect, it is extremely unusual for private ownership of a conference center in part because public ownership avoids property tax as part of the operating costs. And in other states, you sometimes have a possessor interest on the part of private leaseholders who come in, but in California, the value of that interest is county folks are well aware, it's taxed on the property tax side. And so that mitigates or reduces the value of a property tax reduction. So that is the common thing that typically happens. And most and often municipalities, but also joint powers organizations, city, county and special districts are the ones that may own that and that's very difficult. In terms of what SCT is up to, yes, indeed they have been in conversations with Simon properties for some time. Simon has asked them to do so-called fit studies to determine if what SCT has in mind can actually fit on the site. And those fit studies are well along the way SCT has engaged an architectural firm to do that work. SCT also engaged HVS, the large national hospitality and development advisors to do a feasibility study of which an initial first phase draft was released a couple of months ago. That study determined that there was, in fact, demand for a large scale conference and convention center within Sonoma County. It determined that the best location was on the CIRA site or potentially elsewhere in downtown. And it laid out various programmatic objectives which included a 60,000 square foot center and ballroom and a hotel associated hotel which is very common. Because conference centers need hotel rooms and additional hotel rooms need conference centers. Basically, so there's a synergistic relationship that's important. And of course, a hotel component would always pay property tax. Simon is an active negotiation with a national corporate housing developer on the CIRA site. They are deep down the road and in fact they have shown Simon has on their website what something like that might look like. That agreement is not signed. No one knows for sure if it will ever be signed but all indications are it's likely to be signed. So there are concerns and SCT shares them that the CIRA site may prove not available to this effort. And that needs to be, I think, understood. If it does become available because of the massive amount of parking at the mall it is a highly favorable location for a convention center. Whether the alternative site which can take another 60, a similar size facility just two blocks away can meet the parking needs is an open question that hasn't been determined yet. So that's all by way of background in this really important effort. In the next month or six weeks a second phase study by HVS which will include a fiscal analysis of what the cost might be and what some of the conventional sources for paying for that facility may be. And by the way Gabe, none of this is to preempt at all SCT coming at the next meeting. I'm just giving a forecast of where they stand right now. A month from now probably a lot more would be known. So I'll stop there and move on to, I guess what I would say are observations or concerns. You can ask you just to follow up real quick. Of course. The fit studies, does that include setting the side land for the hotel and the caddy site? Yes, there's really two sites on Sears. One is the Sears site and then the Sears auto site which is basically adjoins. And I'm just curious because I've heard different numbers. What size hotel are we talking about affiliated with the, you know how many rooms? I think 250. I'm not quite sure though, but I think. Thank you. Just one other question. Councilor Rogers mentioned a site outside of the, yeah, I have the boundaries. Is that the fairgrounds? Yeah. Just want to make sure we're all on the same page. Yeah. The fairgrounds was evaluated by the study and was not as highly rated as a downtown site in large measure because of the walkability connections to a downtown versus a fairgrounds location. In terms of what you're really laying in front of us, Gabe, I have to say that my initial response is great concern about this priority structure for several reasons. One is conference centers are often financed through other sources of which versions of additional hotel taxes are most often the most typical means. Monterey, for example, financed $68 million expansion of the Monterey Conference Center largely through a special hotel assessment district in which the closer the hotels were to the center, the more they paid. And that generated enough money as long-term stream of income to provide the basis for bond financing for that center. Whether that would completely pay for this or not, I don't know. But personally, I hate to see the IFD dollars get so heavily centered in a project which has another typical and conventional financing source, particularly when the conference center will generate sales tax for sure. It'll generate TOT dollars for sure, but the amount of tax increment dollars it will generate will be really quite de minimis because as you pointed out, it really doesn't generate much in the way of housing demand. So that's part of the concern I have about it. The community as a whole, when they look at these dollars, will they really view a conference center as fundamental as opposed to a major infrastructure and beautification impact that radiates through downtown, triggers public investment and helps make centeros clearly the center of the community and indeed the county. Just speaking as a housing developer, if we want tax increment producing investment in the downtown core, the physical infrastructure throughout the downtown, in my opinion, should be the fundamental goal. And connectivity, for example, is interesting and potentially important, and maybe some money should go to it, but a huge connectivity project will absolutely also suck up the dollars from the EIFD completely. So I think we need to be cautious about the connectivity elements of this. And I do believe it's perfectly reasonable that the EIFD would have a role in a conference center development, but to basically allocate almost everything there into it, I think would be a serious error. Quite sure, for sure. To that point, I believe that the purpose and correct me if I'm wrong, Gabe, of this slide was simply to generate conversation and that the priority one list can change depending on how this conversation flows, depending on what the interests are. So what that possibly means is instead of allocating 45 million to a conference center, you adjust that number, maybe you pull affordable housing up to priority one as well, and you figure out what those allocations are. And so again, just for clarity, right? We are not suggesting that this is the final list and that you all absolutely will inform what this list ultimately looks like. What we're trying to get to though is we need to decide on what this list looks like to finalize the EIFD, at least in draft form. Well, I appreciate that clarification. So just speaking, just obviously, just one of the seven of us here is I'm most comfortable with a single priority list as opposed to one that elevates EIFD to a dominant position for the reasons I've described. That's just one opinion. Thank you. That's great. I wanna go back to talking about the April 30th workshop because no matter what the public thinks about this, if the majority of the Board of Supervisors doesn't have buy-in, the dollars are gonna be a whole different amount. And I think it's more important, I believe, to talk about how we're going to increase the tax base than what actually gets built with this money. And that's thinking about the audience of this Board of Supervisors. A whole different thing when you were talking about it to the general public. First of all, you gotta convince three out of five. Several years ago, Dave, we had, we were using a study from R3 or 3R or something. Urban 3. Urban 3, yeah, thank you. That had charts showing the value, tax value for acres, downtown, mall, all that type of thing. I think that I would like to see a presentation along those lines of how this increases the tax base, increases revenue for city and the county. And that's where I would start with this, instead of starting with projects. Okay, thank you for the feedback. Any other questions, observations, or input, really, which is what you're really looking for, I think at this stage. Correct. Yes. I understand how identifying specific projects helps focus us in. But I'm wondering if maybe sort of another approach is to look at categories. And so affordable housing, and then to think about in terms of percentages. So affordable housing, maybe it's bumped up to 20%. And what I'm doing sort of mentally is I'm going back to one of our first meetings, we talked about criteria. And I think you touched on it, but sort of the significance of projects, the ability to leverage the overall economic impact downtown, and then that we sort of said, no supplantation. That's my crib sheet mentally, I don't know how accurate it is. But so anyhow, just thinking about, maybe it's looking at percentages, affordable housing, maybe 20%, connectivity, 20%, beautification, slash climate related, 20%, and then like a major economic impact or infrastructure project picks up the 40. So looking at percentage approach that gives some flexibility within, I suppose, necessarily putting everything all into one bucket, one priority, or either or I share who's concerned about the split priorities, and particularly just from a political standpoint. Anyway, one thought. I'm just saying, I think that's an excellent point. We did present in the last meetings a variety of different IFP project lists. They go to very, very specific to very, very general. And they can program that way in general categories. And if we start with the types of projects that I think are the catalysts that increase that tax value and build them into more general lists, then you're really empowering the PFA to work that expenditure. There aren't any decisions when you're dealing with the singular list. But that is definitely an option under the IFP. So if there was any members of the public here at this stage, they could talk, but I don't see anybody. Anything else from your end on this game? We have a few more slides here to go through. Oh, please. So this is just a quick reminder of process. So where we are right now, once we finalize the IFP, that IFP must be posted 10 days prior to our formal IFP introduction meeting. So once we figure out the direction, and hopefully when we get that feedback on the 30th, and if it's moving forward, DTA will have a bit of work to finalize the documents. We'll post the documents 10 days prior to and we'll understand where that meeting date actually fits. And then once that occurs, the meetings start going on a 30 day frequency, but they can be more. So you have to have at least 30 days between the public hearing meetings. So depending on what the overall timeline looks like, and that'll be the last discussion here, those could change the meeting frequency as well. Obviously if we're not always 30 days, if we stick with the third Thursday of every week. So we'll work that through. The first meeting is really just to hear comments. The second public hearing is to provide those comments back into the IFP process and amend, but then you go back to the board of supervisors and the council in that next step. So at that point, there's resolutions to either approve or deny the IFP through both bodies. And then it comes back to the PFA for that third public hearing. And that third public hearing is really the formation documents for the IFP. And based on when that third public meeting occurs, we'll set the base tax year. That's the critical component. We have to go to the board of equalization towards it's really a November 30th deadline at the back end of the year for the actual formation of the district. But where we are right now, we've been striving to meet the 23-24 base year. It's gonna be very challenging because of how the taxes work. So really the way this process works is it does go year to year. Obviously there's an interest on our end to move it forward, understanding that there are certain conversations that may need to commence on that project side, respecting the fact that the board of supervisors needs to make their final determination about this. We really could push this one all the way to December and you really could push it into calendar 20 year 2025 if we needed to. So just sketching this out if we went with a fairly, what I think would be an aggressive timeline but would create a bit of space. If feedback is provided and we can go into an introduction meeting, we can still hopefully have the meeting with Snowman County Tourism on April. But if we can go into an introduction meeting towards the end of May for the IFP where that puts us is a public hearing generally June or July, the second public hearing in August where we're going to the board of supervisors or the city council in September, October and then that gets us really to the final PFA really probably around that same time more October, November, some of these can run on a parallel track. The board of equalization would then be November 30th that would button it up in this calendar year. If it pushes into next, what still is happening is you're staying in the 24, 25 base year because of how a fiscal year works. So really it can run all the way up until essentially August of next year and still stay in the 24, 25 base year. Obviously that's a pretty significant investment in time and we want to be sensitive to resources. So our goal is to try to truncate that down a little bit but those are the legal parameters around it. So I just wanted to make sure that that was clear through the process and happy to answer any questions on the timeline. Gabe, when do you need a decision from the board of supervisors on the amount of the income? So that would be prior to us producing the draft IFP. So if the board of supervisors can make a determination we can work that in. And Lenny, I believe you're still on. So can you give us a rough timeline of if once we get the tax commitments how much time is on your end to finalize the IFP? Yes, so it would probably take us about three to four weeks after we can finalize the numbers. Since all of the data is in there again, the majority of that process will just be coordinating with Chris and Bob for their review and they are timely. So I anticipate it being a month from the time that we can get the numbers on. Did you translate that on the timeline into the, it preferred date and the last possible date in that timeline? Yeah, so what would be great is that if we had an answer by the 30th but I understand the format of the meeting by April 30th, yeah. I don't think that's set up for a decision point, is it? If we're calling it a workshop. It's not currently. Is it possible to do that? I think so, we'll just have to notice it that way. We have the chair of the board down there, so I don't want to be in the wrong place here. No, I appreciate that. Do we know if Eric shop has been shuffling through numbers to be able to provide content for us at that meeting? I don't know, I can find out but I don't have that answer right now. So hypothetically, the second supervisor meeting in May, I don't think significantly impacts the timeline that you just laid out. It really doesn't. So that would likely be that if we get a decision for the second meeting in May, we're likely producing and we may have to move that meeting to the back end of June. So we would basically do the intro meeting and then really what we're doing is sort of pushing probably past the calendar year and into January potentially. I want to make sure that there's enough space to coordinate all of the meetings between the public hearings. And I want to be respectful of the fact that not everybody's always able to meet on that 30 day regimented schedule. So what that really does is it still locks us into that base year, the board of the equalization process just kicks into the next year. So really as we move any of that out past April, we're really moving our end date the same amount of months. It's maybe the easiest way to look at it. Okay. And I want to be realistic about, second meeting in May, maybe two weeks after the workshop, that may not be enough time for staff to put together the agenda item and just saying. Anything else good? That concludes our presentation. Okay. Any final observations, comments, requests for information? If not. And item five discussion of next meeting agenda, which we kind of been doing, but go ahead, Gabe. So really, I think the sole focus if we can coordinate it is to have that discussion about the conference center. What we'll do, I think at this point, obviously as we go through the meeting on the 30th becomes critical as far as the conversation for supervisors that meeting in April will likely happen for. So I think that the sole focus of that next meeting on our end agenda wise would be if we can coordinate some accounting tourism to present their conference center proposal. Might I suggest that by that time, the alternative side, which some accounting tourism is involved in too, but particularly led by the Metro Chamber with the city's involvement might also be part of that presentation to give the full picture. Yes, Tom. Yeah. So just to clarify, is that meeting with the 18th or the 20th steps? Let me check the calendar. 18th. Correct, 18th. Just for the record, I will not be here. And we may, and as I mentioned, we'll try to work it out to the best of our ability with some kind of tourism. We can move that meeting around potentially to meet schedules, but that would be our next schedule. Any other comments about the next meeting agenda or requests for items? Not unless I'm mistaken or adjourned. Thanks, everybody.