 Development Committee to order, and for those of you all who don't know, this is a new committee that has been formulated specifically to address community development issues, and this particular topic that we're going to be covering today actually started out in the Economic and Community Development Committee and now has moved to the Community Development Committee, and we have two new, I'm a new person, new chair, and we have Mr. Howard DeVall, and we have Mr. Will Brennan. So I look forward to working with you guys. Erica, will you note that we are all duly present? I am going to turn it over to, unless there's something else we need to cover, because we don't have any minutes to read or anything. First meeting. This is a project that has really been dear to me because I have dealt with the food and security issues for several, several years. For those of y'all that remember my city days, but City Council did allocate $300,000 of our ARPA funds towards food and security, and our Food Policy Council has been working since how many years have y'all been working? Yeah. But we started in 2017, summer of 2017. So the start of 2017, I know that this concept came up in about 2018, and that was 2023, and I think that, I think that we are as close as we've ever done, and I want to thank the Food Policy Committee for all of your hard work, and I'm going to turn it over to Ms. Aisha Driggers, the Director of the Office of Business Opportunities, to go over the RFP that we'll be putting out, and I hope that's the right, that's the right, yeah, just to go over that so that we can make sure we are all clear on what it is that we're looking for and see if you all have any input. Yes, so thank you, Councilwoman Herbert. We have been working diligently with procurement and Ashley's group with the Food Policy Committee to come up with the best procurement method for this project. We decided the request for proposal was the route that we would pursue, and the idea is to identify an organization whose mission is to provide healthy, affordable food directly in neighborhoods with limited food access. That was really important, and some of the possible solutions include a mobile food market, but we also wanted to offer alternative solutions as an option. So we included food stores or other business solutions as long as their intent is to provide fresh produce, canned goods, baked goods, and meat or any combination thereof. Thank you, and I just wanted to add food stores, that is compliments of our dear friend, Joe, and I remember, Will, do you remember I argued and said there is no such thing as a food store, and then I looked it up in Wikipedia and it had food store. So that was another time that I said, Mr. Teller, you're right, but we want to make sure we honor that and some of his great ideas, too. And so our target area primarily for this first initiative is the 29203 and 29204 area code. Again, the market will provide fresh produce, processed goods, and some shelf-stable items for sale to local customers. Ideally, the products will be provided by local farmers and be brought to a centralized location where it will be sorted and packed based on custom orders if that's what the proposal lists. Other business solutions are encouraged, as we said, in addition to the mobile food market, but they must all meet the goal of providing healthy, affordable foods to the targeted communities. We did include some exclusions on this RFP. No alcohol or tobacco products can be sold in the business. We have to make sure we list that. And then this project is for new initiatives. So any existing business that responds to this RFP must provide plans for expansion of their additional services. So if they're an existing business, the idea that this is a new initiative for them to offer an additional service than what they currently provide. And so just for my clarity, that means that if you already, you think you have a unique grocery store or food store right now, if you apply for these funds, you must intend to do something totally different or additional, but not for your ordinary expenses that are ongoing now. Correct. For example, if they decide they wanted to do a mobile market as an extension of their existing food store or grocery store, then that would be eligible. I've listed the selection process for this RFP. This is our typical procurement process. We evaluate the technical responses. We do interviews, if necessary. Then the highest rank responsive and responsible proposal is then selected. And then we go into the negotiation phase of this process. I have listed a tentative timeline. We might have a few adjustments just because I think initially we're going to try to get it out maybe last week, but we wanted to make sure we had this meeting first. But for the most part, the proposal is ready to go out. So we do anticipate getting that out within the next few days. So I've listed the advertisement of the RFP and the pre-proposal meeting this month. And then next month we'll have the RFP responses due. Just a quick question. So how much time will they have between the advertisement and the responses being due? I believe we're going to do 30 days for that. Now typically, when we have a pre-proposal meeting, some additional questions may come out of that meeting, and we may have to extend that deadline based on the responses that we get, but currently it's going to be 30 days. Then we'll have the evaluation committee meet. And then as I said before, if we need to do interviews, we'll interview. If there's any additional questions we may have based off the proposal, we can schedule interviews and then do the vendor selection negotiation all in February. Like I said, that might extend maybe into the first week of March depending on, you know, if everything flows smoothly and we keep the deadlines as they are. And then we anticipate council approval in April just because you know it is a process. We do have to make sure the agreements are approved by legal and all of that before we can go to council for approval for the project. I have listed a budget, just a kind of an estimate of what we anticipate things may cost if we go the mobile market way. Pricing has definitely increased from when the Food Policy Committee initially identified the vehicle cost. So with the purchase and the wrapping that may be around 80,000, then the point of sale system, which is how they sell the products, about $5,000 for a year to purchase it, and then the monthly fee for that, then storage facility and equipment to sort the products and things like that, about around $35,000 and initial operating expenses at $150,000 for a total of about $270,000. Again, that is an estimate, you know, pricing changes. I mean, right now we're going through a lot of price increases right now, but that is a current estimate of what we anticipate. Excuse me, would this go to if it's a private person or business that wants to get into this business, would we provide them with the vehicle and all of that? They would purchase the vehicle with the funding from this proposal. So they would use the 300,000 that's our money to purchase that and then they would own the vehicle? Yes, yes. We have some issues with that now. We would go and join the They're not who owns the vehicle. Right, well currently the way we have it is they would purchase the vehicle, but we could, I guess we could put in an agreement that this is pending successful completion of intent. Oh, yeah, I would think we'd need a clawback of some sort on that $300,000. Keep somebody from going in and out of business quickly. Yeah, and especially even if it's just on the vehicle portion. I know that back in our long days, we were very reluctant to do loans on vehicles because they could actually do that financing through a finance company, but also because it's very hard to find the vehicles. The other question I had was do they have the opportunity, let's say they have a partnership with a particular organization that has a storage facility. We're not preventing them from partnering with someone in saving funds or no, absolutely not. And they can include that in their proposal on ways that they have been able to kind of stretch the funding because they have this partnership that allows them to not have to spend, you know, the leasing fee over a year. That would definitely be encouraged. Yeah, the only thing I see is I'm with the gentleman about purchasing the vehicle, all right, because someone could literally purchase the vehicle and we not see them six months later. Trying to find some ways to maybe put more onus or that they lease directly or purchase directly. That brings up a great point. You know, what are the metrics for us to gauge if this is successful? Who's going to look at the operation one year or two years down the line, get community feedback that yes, this is meeting the food desert that are out there. So I know our committee has a research and evaluation subcommittee. So I know it was proposed that that group look at coming up with an evaluation framework to measure success. So if that sounds all right with you, I know that group meets next week. We certainly can take that back to that group and try to come up with an evaluation framework. I know the RFP, we're looking at the next few days, but maybe try to have something before that RFP selection process is finalized so we can provide that back to applicants on, you know, some measurable outcomes. Well, and let them know that there are expectations. Yeah, I think that's a great addition. Yeah. And we would want like to ensure consistency of service, not someone who's operating one month and then, you know, next month. So we do have to, and I'm hoping that the food policy council with the level of expertise that you all have can help and also help the business, you know, in implementing, but to make sure that that we're hands on in doing whatever we can do knowledge wise or support services wise to be successful. Yes, Mr. Devall. Does the RFP set any minimum experience necessary in order to make a proposal? Yes, I think we did a minimum of one year experience in there currently and we asked for examples of success in the past five years. I believe it's what's in our three or five years, three to five years. And that would be in the food service industry. Right. Providing healthy food options to the community. Okay. And maybe this is a question for the food policy committee champion down there. What about like prep prepared foods? I mean, that's a big barrier. A lot of times is great. We get wonderful fresh food. But then the preparation of that, is that something that if somebody wants to get creative on a response to this, to have a prepared food, healthy food offering, is that up for debate in these responses? Like a veggie food truck? Right. So, I mean, getting the foods one thing, but you know, yeah. I don't think there's anything that would exclude that at a minimum. They have to provide the produce and those types of things. But in addition to that, I don't think there's anything. Now, the only thing with there may be some additional dehead requirements for prepared food that we need to consider if we if we allow them to do that labeling and things like that. But that is a good idea. Where they have the prepaid, prep, preprepared salads. And I'll just like to go back. If there's any outcome measures or any specific evaluation measures you all want to see, please, please let Aisha or myself know so that we can provide that information over to that research and evaluation committee. I know we looked at the low country treat grocery before the COVID. And we're impressed with that. Can you have a description of how that operates? I don't have all of those details, but I can get that. I just kind of wanted to provide you kind of a visual. Sometimes it's hard for people to visualize. How are you going to a bit of bus to provide a mobile market? But here's a good example of it. But we can definitely get some additional information on that. And I don't know if they've opened back to their regular schedule since COVID. They shut down at some point during COVID. Yeah, probably. Facility wise, through Parks and Rack or any other facility, do we have a DHEC certified kitchen that the city owns that could possibly be a part of the access to prepared foods? I'm thinking maybe one of our larger park facilities. Well, I think with the conversation of the new farmers market on Bluff Road in the kitchen there, that's something to consider access. Definitely. Along those questions, are we still working towards a commercial kitchen? There are no funds allocated for a commercial kitchen right now. That's still a concept that staff would love to see happen. We've certainly talked about it at the Bellfield Center. There's really dual conversations. One's a teaching kitchen to bring community members in to teach, and then the other is a commercial kitchen where you would let small business have a site they could rent that perhaps their product for sale. So those are really two different options. And I think the Joneses are looking at opening a commercial kitchen on North Lane Street, but it's not there just yet. And I know DER kitchen I believe is still operational on North Lane, which is a commercial kitchen option. That's all I have now for the food and security solutions initiative. We'll definitely incorporate the evaluation in there and the rest of the feedback. Ms. Sandra, did you have anything that you wanted to add? And since Ms. Sandra wasn't in the mic, she says that she's just happy to see this project going forward after several years. Gentlemen, y'all have anything? So moving forward, is this on the agenda? This is we need to be on that. Do we have a list of people that have expressed interest in this since we've been working on it for five years? We have several individuals have informed us that they would like to apply. I have been getting texts and calls from people since January when Ashley Witt is the RFP going to be released soon. So we do think that we will have a good bit of interest in this. So this may be the start of maybe future opportunities to help additional food and security solutions come in. Well, can we talk about that for a minute? I mean, what are some future opportunities? You know, there's brick and mortar in every neighborhood that maybe don't have the offerings that meet these healthy food and prepared foods. We always talked about a tax discount, but some sort of revenue stream to them for them to carve out some square footage in their establishment for these healthy food offerings. I mean, what's in the some future offerings that the policy committees come up with? I know one of the things we did want to come to you all with, we know soon y'all will have budget discussions. And so we did want to come with you all. We're working on a kind of a one pager now to come up with some priority solutions that when we we did those food gatherings back in 2019, 2020, we redid those last summer. So we had a kind of a shift in some of those policy priorities, especially with the onset of COVID. So we heard a lot of entrepreneurship and merging that with food access. So we did talk about something maybe, you know, this is one time $300,000. Maybe we can, you know, secure funding for this on an annual basis. Also, Councilman Brenner, we did talk about, you know, maybe it's a tax incentive, maybe it's something else to help entrepreneurs. That is something we've been hearing that, you know, maybe it's something some kind of new, you know, opportunity. I know in some locations they do a tax incentive. I know in Greenville this past year, they they removed, I think it's some business expense that if you are like a food business or certain types of businesses in certain areas, some of the lower affluent areas across the city, they reduce some of those business fees. So there are some things, you know, we can look at creatively to do. I know also, you know, looking at kind of the agriculture side, how can we get kind of more of that urban ag into the city is something that has popped up within the committee as well. So those are kind of some things we've had discussion. Actually at our meeting just this past week, kind of some policy recommendations we hope to kind of bring to you all to kind of look at can we move on or those this year going into next year. And we had discussed the Greenville rebate program. Staff is looking into that to see pros and cons. Did that come to this committee or the other committee that was spun off? You you're the one that brought it up council. Yes, sir. And that is what we were just discussing where it will land. And I guess based on this discussion, this would probably be the better place for it to be because it would be along with full policy council and some of their recommendations. So this Wilson, you are correct. And it should probably come to this committee. I believe that what they've done in Greenville is to target areas that within a certain area if you're a grocer, is that an edism? It's a grocery store in a certain area. They rebate the business license. They make them pay the business license and then rebate it. All right, I think that is all we had on the agenda today. We'll have something. Well, I mean, thank you for the presentation. Madam Chairwoman, can we just take a minute to talk about the goals of this new committee now that it's formed? Right. I would like to know as well. Because I'd like to talk about topics of town and gown I think I've mentioned to you. I think it would be a good fit for this committee to really study. For those who aren't familiar, explain town and gown. That is the ongoing relationships between municipality, county, local governments, and higher education and education institutions. So how does USC Benedict Allen, all of our wonderful universities, Midlands Tech, how can they fit into the fabric of our quality of life here in the city? The ultimate goal is to keep the talent that comes through our education outlets and have them want to stay. We want them to fall in love in Columbia and stay in Columbia. So that is the goal of town and gown and just how in sync we can get with our universities. I know that there is some serious commitments by many of the universities to be a part of that. And the great thing about our universities, they're all over our city. They're all over our county. So no community goes untouched by the footprint of our universities and colleges, which is wonderful. So just to start that topic in the future, I think this is a good home for that. I hope you agree. I agree. And one of the things that we have discussed as well is housing inventory. And the five year, we wanted to develop a five year plan, but it covers both properties that are commercial as well as residential, that maybe we can develop a plan on infill or something to help with our affordable housing crisis as well. I think we ought to assume all the power we have. We can into this committee control community development. It's a large organization. And then, of course, community development in that department as well. So Mr. DeVall, did you have anything in particular? You wanted to make sure? All the community development programs, though, this would be a good opportunity to have a council committee that could provide oversight for them. Maybe we could get some of the required reports to be given to this committee rather than that full council instead of a half hour at the full council. Use our time. And I agree with that, too. Because we discussed earlier, I think maybe at our retreat, but making sure that each of our departments are really working in line with the goals that we've set. Because sometimes there's a disconnect, not intentional, but just, you know, there's a disconnect. So I think that this is an opportunity to make sure that I think we've done a good job, for instance, with our homeless ARPA funds and allocating it to non congruent housing, because that was the need that we saw, you know, in council. So I would like for us to use this opportunity, too, to make sure that that we're working hand in hand and no spending the funds in the direction that that council would like for it to go. I think community development itself, the whole organization of community development is confusing for the elected officials because it is not run like a normal city department because it has federal requirements in it and part of the employees are federally funded and part of them are locally funded. And so for this committee to get a whole of an understanding of how that works, I might help the council as a whole understand the relationship between our community development programs. And there's several, there's many of them, with how they operate according to federal rules and tie that with the desire of the council to move a certain program in a certain direction. I agree. What is community development is the contact point for our neighborhood associations, correct? Yes. I think growing and engaging those neighborhood associations would be a fantastic path forward just to see our Columbia council neighborhoods grow, our local neighborhood associations grow, working with Ms. Leisha with messaging is something that we could look at. That's the interesting point. I won't go, well, because I remember the days back when we used to have, we have three community liaisons. And so I think that is worth, you know, just looking at making sure we're all understand the structure who's on first, the purpose of a lot of these positions. Because a lot, I think that's the thing too, sometimes people don't understand the purpose of some of the positions. So I think that'd be great. So maybe we'll start with that just getting an organizational overview at our next meeting. This one was time sensitive. So that's why we wanted to get this one done. And I appreciate you all meeting on a not regular meeting time just to make sure we got that done. And what is the regular meeting time? Yes. And that one shouldn't. My preference would be to post it ahead of that. Yeah, we don't, yeah, we wouldn't suggest holding it up for anything else for the good of the group. And we are adjourned.