 Oh, God, yeah. Oh, let me ask him. Brian, she's bad. Brian. I'm sorry. It's all fine. Is that for me? Come out of it. Come out of it. Come out of it. Come out of it. Come out of it. I had some. I had some. I had some. I had some. Could you hide in the corner? Mm-hmm. May I move a return to regular session? All right. Is there a motion for a second? It's accepted. It's done. Good question. What's going on? Mr. Reconvention. Aye. Mr. Medow. Yes. Mr. Brown. Aye. Mr. Davis. Aye. Mr. Mayor and Council, we will continue our budget workshop topics. Today's topic will be economic development. As you all requested, some specific time being dedicated to our economic development priorities as you laid out in your retreat planning and strategic planning. So we asked Ryan at least get the conversation started today. I'm interested in feedback from you all, in particular on a couple of the items so that if we need to come back with one more workshop. Absolutely. All right. Thank you, Ryan. Okay. Good afternoon, everyone. So just wanted to give you kind of a brief overview to start the conversation of what the Economic Development Department, some of our goals and objectives over the next year. So we'll start off with some discussion beginning around our partner organizations and ED funding and some of the goals and objectives that they help us out with discuss the incentive programs, which is another topic I think there was some interest in. And then we can kind of lay out some of the plans for the department as far as our strategies for the next 12 months and then some of the areas that we'll be trying to focus on business recruitment. So first of all, just to give kind of the general background, we've got seven partner agencies with the city of Columbia and they primarily support the department by assisting us with our core objectives, mostly around the recruitment of business retention and expansion, entrepreneurship, and then marketing activities. And again, our overall partner funding for this year is about $380,000. That has come down significantly since 2014. And we expect that number to continue to come down naturally on its own as some of the interest for the Mass General Project will roll off at the end of the year. A lot of the money that has been freed up for that has gone towards an allocation to start an incentive program for the office. And here's a breakout just of the partners that are in our budget and the overall funding amounts for the current year. Can you tell us what? Yes, sir. So the next slide, a breakout a little bit of the deliverables and actually I brought some of the copies of the scopes of work for each of the current contracts and I'll pass those out real quick. The original goal around the business improvement district was that properties that were on the tax rolls or not on the tax rolls of the non-profit or public sector owned entities would all pay in as if they were taxed. So it would pay a fee. Yes, sir. The H-tax allocation. This preceded the H-tax. This preceded the H-tax. This preceded the H-tax. $300,000. Yes, sir. It was a 10-year contractual arrangement with the city and city center partnership. And as the city owns property down in the bid, we essentially gave them an allocation to compensate for the tax increment they would have gotten off of the city property had it been private sector and producing revenue. The city, the hospital, no. We've seen that. We've seen that. They're getting $260 plus another $70. These partner deliverables, I think, are part of the group of discussion we need to have because I think we need to have a real discussion while we get our pressure to share from each one of these entities and whether they truly deliver to the city, especially even if you look back over the last five years, we've chased a lot of rabbits. I want to do some for their posterity, so she can catch everything. I think we've chased a lot of rabbits with these folks. And I think we need to understand where everything is. And it might be time to change some horses and look at some reinvestment and some different avenues to promote growth in our city. We've got a lot of corridors that are growing. So, let's go back. Central SC, they're primarily the regional marketing alliance, so they market the city as well as the eight county region. Pretty involved with working with the county's city department of commerce on recruitment activity. Ingenuity SC is our local area project management team. They're pretty involved with the insurance technology and services cluster, which has been a value add for the city of Columbia. But then, you know, a lot of the other initiatives. When you say that, Ryan, can you just back up and go to Central and just say, alright, Central has delivered for the city of Columbia what in the last 36 months? What business have they brought to this community in the last 36 months? Well, they support some of what we're doing, as far as what they have brought specifically. I mean, they've supported some other projects that we've done and are helping out with the lead generation firm. As what they're bringing in, I mean, that's kind of an ongoing question that's not just being asked here, but I think a lot of other members of the community are having as well. Central SC? Yes, sir. Central SC? Yeah. We did reduce them last year. So, same question with Ingenuity SC. It says the SIS project management of the insurance tax knowledge. What does that really mean? I guess I'm trying to understand because, you know, at one time it was hydrogen, and at one time it was small reactor, nuclear reactors, and then it was, you know, whatever the wind was blowing at the time, and, you know, we funded these organizations for a long time, and I think the benefit that we're getting is not helping us grow. And I'm trying to understand what we're getting for our investment, because if you look at it over a five-year or 10-year period, I'm not sure what we got. Yeah, sure. And obviously I've always had a different view about the roles these respective organizations play in the entire regional ecosystem. I've been probably the biggest advocate on behalf of the Alliance, Central SC Alliance, for the last several years, pushing for them to have more funding and then supporting the reduction in funding, primarily because of the focus that we want to have on city-center, vertical knowledge economy jobs, and also the other, again, more city-focused efforts. I do believe that we play a role, however, with Central SC in the entire regional emphasis of the university as a partner, financial partner, the county is, the various counties surrounding us. We deserve, I think it requires that we have a seat at the table financially in supporting the overall regional efforts across the counties that they serve. Obviously the deliverables that we ought to require from them need to be clear, and they need to be able to respond to those affirmatively. And that's been obviously a subject of discussion. I think ingenuity does fantastic work. You're right, Daniel, we've spent some time on fuel cells and SMRs and obviously the competitiveness report and the work they've been doing with NBLG. I think it's been actually very important and cohesive in getting the business community focused on the role that they ought to be playing individually, but also in the aggregate. I mean, I support their work. Tamika is also very involved. They are leadership too. I still think that the business improvement district is one of the best things the city ever did. And us playing a role there financially as other cities do with their business improvement districts by paying a fee in lieu of property taxes is a proper role. Now looking at that through the same lens, or through the lens of, since this partnership was established, they've also received H-tax. I think it's a proper way to look at it in the totality. But clean and safe is one of the best things we've ever done. So we've got it. But we do have to look at it in its totality. I think you have to understand that you have that discussion. It's where it was, we've made that commitment. Oh, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. You're spending, you know, clean and safety is managed by a third party. It's not managed by... Yeah, a lot by block. But we help pay it. So, you know, then you've got the sevens. This is where I'm concerned because we have too many empty spaces in our corridors. Well, the idea that... Yeah, we've spent money for the last, you know, five years ago, for a long long time, we asked SC Central to help with the quality of building. That's why we did it one more month. To find a tenant. Well, that tenant found itself. We played a role in that. We played a role in that. I'm not sure. They did. Yeah, on point. But that's where, you know, these things aren't supposed to be forever. It's the same with the needs tax. We've got to wean people out so that we can refocus. Our landscape has changed. Our needs have changed. And I think we've got to look at all these and really decide all of these are the same things. And whether or not the emphasis of our corridor focus needs to be on North Maine or Devine or Millwood or what have you. I think that's a healthy discussion to have. And the last one, we need a new incubator, y'all. If it's an incubator or accelerator. Piggyback a little bit on some of the Central SC work, but the work that they did last week and Ryan and the firm that he hired through the city on lead generation, we had a fantastic trip up north last week. Some great leads, great contacts saw some really awesome work being done in an incubators, but more so an accelerator program up there. Our incubator needs a new life. USC's decision not to go forward with their incubator down in Olympia. I think it really just presents a real opportunity for us to try and make something happen that's much more meaningful and significant than our current space there. But I think there's some private sector folks that people want to trade Judy and other folks who do fits into this program. We saw some very smart partnerships. Making sure Ryan has the resources through us to help guide them. I think it's a really significant opportunity for us to try and make sure that this program could be pretty significant. I would say last week we spent time in Wallingford, Shelton, New Haven, Norwalk, New York City, town of Connecticut, but also of course New York City. I think that's what I would say and I would interrupt, but to the question of what are the partners doing, I think they can do more, but if the response that Ryan and the mayor got when they were there was like, wow, Columbia, we didn't know that we were going to do that. We didn't know that Columbia, we didn't know then that tells me that the direction has to be very specific to these partners if they're not going to take it upon themselves to get out there and hustle for us, because that's what my takeaway was from when he came back and told me the wonderful response. We internally put that together along with the legionaries. I think regionally and as a state we're still sold as very much being manufacturing based. That's the responses we got from most everybody we talked with up there. You're from South Carolina, we just thought you did manufacturing and we're like, no, we're a city, we actually have more than that. We have insurance technology, fintech, knowledge economy jobs, we have entrepreneurs, we have places to do this stuff, but I get to some degree that the regionals and the state and the counties sell that because that's where their bread and butter is, that's their capacity. I think the mayor's absolutely right. We got out and got a chance through hiring 310 to go out and target these specific type of companies that are the ones that we want to bring here that will occupy office space, that will pay well-paying jobs, that will hire graduates out of the university and we told that narrative on our own terms and I just think there's a lot of people out there that were either unaware or didn't have a good perception of what Columbia does from a business standpoint. Just one point. You just made it. It's a whole case of this discussion. You just made it in that single day. There's a rock. Let me just say it. I agree with the mayor in terms of us, maybe probably taking another look at the liver roles that we put on the table for the month, for the dollar. But I still think that we, hopefully what you're doing now and what you said y'all just did, that's to me the way it should work. And I also confess that there's some things we ought to be doing still locally, especially when we look at area development and the attraction. But I still kind of go back to some of these office parks that we have in the northern part of town that don't seem to be promoted, one and two. I think that's, those are areas where we can get a big hit for the dollars in terms of the number of jobs it would bring to the area. Most of them aren't going to look to go downtown city center in terms of dozens and dozens of jobs. So I still think we collectively ought to take a look at how we can put together the bait to attract in those areas. And I'm willing to do whatever I can. But I still think there's some things as we discussed about a day or two ago we need to do locally to make sure that we're doing our part to be a part of the magnet rather than always paying somebody else to do it. I think we have the capacity maybe one or two areas we may be a little slack but we can correct that. You know what I'm talking about. Yeah, and we haven't divorced ourselves from that strategy. I mean I think some of the things we'll do later on in the year, in the few months would win themselves well out towards the I-20 area and the enterprise campus as well. So I think we're just kind of trying to touch on something get a little activity, spin it up there and then kind of move on to some other things. And there would be some good opportunities for things around life science type businesses that could win themselves well to be and out towards Milllands Tech or in a more industrial type area. And those do provide good paying jobs. So we're not we're still keeping an eye on that as well. The importance of us being part of a regional opportunity and promotion. But I think that just reading what you have there Ryan I do agree. I think at least for Central FC those deliverables to me they seem very vague and I'm not sure we actually get some really good data back on the marketing materials and what does this mean so I think you need to tighten that up. That's the major concern that I have at Central FC is I know they're doing things and I think being part of a regional effort is fine but if we know that we've got some very specific needs and that Columbia's needs are different from Lexington they're different from Newberry we need to be a lot more focused on what they're doing regionally impacts us whether it's our water customers or anything else. And so I'd like to see that revised to be very specific with what their deliverables are so we can actually measure them. Yeah and the scope of work stay handed out. It will have some more specifics in those packets that you've got but we're certainly open to coming up with some additional things to add into that. I mean I'm always glad to do that and work with y'all if y'all would like to provide some input. And then I guess can I add because I was wondering so as far as Mr. Mayor or Ryan since USC has made that decision what is the plan moving forward and we don't have a definite plan I actually have some ideas on how we can capitalize on having an incubator that might be a little bit more focused. Steve. On the incubator I think it's worth talking about because they let the EDA grant go where you've got a couple of ideas to space on maybe things we had last week. But probably got to do a little more due diligence on but stick deep in it. I don't have a problem with engineering. I think I've done a good job and also reaching out to the young people in high schools in terms of their technology and training. But the rest of them we could honestly consider the level we need a bit more. Absolutely. And then finally Columbia World Affairs Council actually met with Fred Son, Dixon Monk this morning they've done a really good job of they assist sometimes when we happen to be on an overseas trip they do a really good job of bringing in folks internationally to the city of Columbia and just kind of not just raising economic awareness but also the cultural and the educational awareness. They've had some really good connections that they've helped facilitate with the University of South Carolina and the Fraunhofer Institute out of Kaiserslautern in Germany. I look through the scope of work this morning with them. I'd say they've accomplished most of the things that they committed to doing for this year. Iteology we used to fund them a little bit more that's kind of diminished over the years and I think Iteology's really kind of pushed into K through 12 education and maybe job skills training as well. So we've continued to support them but that might be a one that's kind of gotten a little more on the fringe of what we're doing as an office when it relates directly to recruitment or retention expansion. Masha? And Brian and I had this conversation maybe specifically but when you talk about talent retention and building a pipeline if you can get kids specifically girls interested in IT related things at an early age then they will be the ones that will fill those fintech jobs and insurance technology. So just my thought I think we need to think of it broader since and I'm not necessarily advocating for more money but I would hate to see us be short-sighted on saying it's K through 12 and say they're not listed they're not under mission and then we lose sight of that that we're not cultivating our young people into the jobs that we know will be here. I mean they do they do that but we all know that there's a very limited time that schools have and so when you're talking about actually getting someone particularly again young girls interested in STEM fields you know schools don't do that kind of specificity and so ITology has some some programs that Howard and I went over there and we're very impressed with what they're doing. I think when we reduced them two years ago that $10,000 was going to be because they were working on one of the conventions or competitions. It was a common. Yeah they were they're still doing what's the conference? It started off with what was originally POSCON and that spun out of ITology I think after Todd Lewis left IT. But we brought back an open source conference this year and it's something we've worked on internally with our office and Todd to bring back. They're from Makers Fair this year with Adventure and I know that's one of the things that they've been talking about how they can incorporate the city but again I'm not advocating for certain level funding I'm just thinking generally we just need to not lose sight on what our partners are doing that might help us with building our talent pool. And I guess the way I'm thinking it would be good to get some entrepreneurs involved in the ITology and OBO since the city is heavily funded and invested in entrepreneurs or small businesses. I wonder if they have a role into teaching the new entrepreneurs how to handle technology right now and how to do sales on the internet and e-commerce that's a good idea. I think that's something that they can be a big part of if there is a way that they can develop a program to help the entrepreneurs and working with the OBO to make that happen for the new businesses coming up. Yeah we've talked with Melissa a little bit about that already and so we're discussing that and then I'm meeting with ITology for kind of their mid-year review by the end of this week so that's something I can certainly bring up with Tammy during that discussion. I think it would be worth it and again we got a lot of different information last week and I would say in almost every other respect and I can say this is more in the public record I feel pretty good about who we are in relations with Hartford, Connecticut and actually the entire economic ecosystem of Connecticut however when it comes to insurance that is the center of the western hemisphere it is still even with some of the more recent challenges and defections that they've had they got more actuaries probably than any place else in the world still here they're doing some things right and maybe looking at Howard and Tameka just said maybe looking at the ways they mentioned a few things last week the way they're trying to continue to develop the ecosystem their talent pipeline for kids it might be worth taking a look at and seeing how we compare and maybe how ITology fits into that if it does at all it may not but obviously we need to keep eyes focused on still making sure we're giving young people the opportunity to thrive in these fields whether this is the model or not it probably requires a little more diligence okay I think it's also important to note that big retail box stores are closing up and going away from the reality of living every day life so I would love to start brainstorming into what you can do to fill in those empty retail space because that's gonna create jobs as greater higher income level throughout the city there's a lot of things out there that I think we can go ahead and jump start on it and if we can and start and maybe partner with some of these organizations that we fund to give you a direct deliverable in some of those ideas I mean I can discuss with you a little bit later what I heard and what I read in the paper that you can maybe reach out and start developing a plan to fill in those empty spaces in the next year okay and then Mass General still some funding in our budget related to that and that should roll out by the end of the year and then the Columbia Chamber of Commerce while not technically in our budget like the other partners are per se there's still some funding for what used to be BRAC now military support and friendliness initiatives because it's something we managed in the past we continue to manage that but it's not directly in our office budget to consider any of these folks to stay in our budget there has to be some hardcore deliverables with the realization is that you can't recruit X amount of jobs businesses because if you read what the memorandums and what these folks are doing it's all horse pulling out it's just generalizations it doesn't have any kind of delivery or anything and you know it's just it's frustrating to me because this has been going on as long as I've been here and the deliverables we're just not getting it we're just continuing to feed these folks I think we need to reevaluate every one of these and if we decide that it's saying there needs to be some very hard-nosed deliverables with the understanding is 100% of your deliverable you're out period it is time to hold folks accountable and not keep feeding us oh we're helping with your recruiting just because you joined six other people that recruited that you didn't deliver that to us we need to look quit praising all this stuff and actually critique it so that we get a better result people are taking advantage of the city and it's it's time to change that alright alright alright with regards to incentives as recently as last year we introduced two programs under the department that focused on A commercial recruitment type projects and B growth for smaller but high impact local businesses and the current annual funding amount for those programs is $200,000 those funds are all tied to hard expenses for business so the company would have to spend some type of up-fit cost in redoing their space as well as furniture fixtures and equipment we'll add to that again once Mass General comes off and other that if there are some other adjustments that are made with regards to partner funding and then we've got a concept for retail and restaurant recruitment that we're working on currently another let me see another initiative I thought of something the county does with their capital funding and I know we've talked about it with regards to affordable housing but they take a percentage of the fee stream that comes out of any project that goes into the county industrial park that goes into a capital allocation account and then the county has the ability to use that for things such as land acquisition infrastructure product development for some of the industrial parks that they work on so that would be another option of something that we consider if the city had interest in doing that I don't think we could do anything with our existing projects but as we bring new things into the city that are economic development related that fall into that MCIP program we could look at taking a portion of that fee stream and using that for economic development purposes as well does the county take that fee stream off before they allocate it to the county to school they get the gross I think it's 7% of the gross stream on the front end and then the rest is dispersed out however they're taking it off the top I think the incentive program is only going to work as if we're working with Krista and her team to cut some of the red tape and get people through the process and that's a growing trend nationally if you look at all the folks who are growing they have created an ease for people to get building permits getting through the process and that may be a staffing issue we may need to look at do we have enough people to do reviews and how are we handling all our regulations and truly tracking the time that it takes as we keep adding layers and layers I sent y'all all a copy of a thing from the national housing builders group that talks about reduction and I think we need to take it to heart it needs to be part of this budget session because it is effective in our growth so while Chris is here I just talked about this a little bit where I know y'all are trying to go but Krista I don't know if you can come to the podium just as a reminder of what council has done so it's really this whole idea of expedited review and you all did away with certain fees and all that I want you to kind of really have apples comparisons when we're making those with other places just real briefly and then I agree about the ability to continuously streamline but I just want to remind you all where we are we don't like certainly so with regard to the fees council eliminated plan review fees a number of years ago so commercial plan review fees we do not collect unless someone comes back for a third review with regard to expedited review express review by the time you follow the process that most communities go through to get an express review we will have conducted our first review already and so generally speaking when we've talked to people about it our reviews are quicker than you can generally get your express review in most communities because we have for building permit review now we've also got land disturbance there's stormwater all of those things but when you're looking at building permit review you know we've got a three week turnaround for that those first comments so when we've offered it people have said well your review is actually going to meet our needs for that because we do have the development center which is a one point of entry which a lot of communities are still trying to implement that we implemented in 2005 and we continue to try to improve upon that as well getting our permits online which we're very hopeful to have here within the next several months so we take to heart what you say as far as trying to continuously improve we did so with the implementation of Energov we had business groups come together to streamline our processes reduce our applications as had been asked and we're continuing to try to do that how do you get into the development center how do you make entry into that it's right there where you pay your water bill it's right inside the front door if I was a potential restaurant or something coming in how do you get in into that process well the development center is construction review so we're one point of entry for construction review not necessarily from soup to nuts which is you know I'm thinking about opening a business but the OBO has some terrific resources for that as starting a business I can't remember the publication name but it helps guide you through that process and they've incorporated our processes as well as business license and those kinds of things so but from the development center we do have an online presence we conduct pre-application meetings with with developers businesses who want to discuss among all of the disciplines what may be needed when they come to apply. That mentioned to me too as we've been talking to our budget review and of course I'm interested in this other areas of the city too but this idea of like the original county library has gone through with Melanie Huggins of what the customer experience is because I think we're doing a lot sometimes I feel like y'all are probably hearing things that could be tweaked or done better people just from literally when you walk in off the street and go through a process it would capture what Melanie's done I don't know if that wasn't through the Columbia budget. Well yeah it's based on human-centered design. The human-centered design so actually capturing what the process actually is that someone experiences when they go through plan review or whatever it might be is that something we're also looking at but if there's specific things that you still think I just didn't want you all to forget some revenue generating things that we have been doing that we don't do anymore there's a cost for that and that's okay but I think we need to know real specifically from you if there are things that you think we need to do otherwise. So Christa let's spend the feedback I guess since we I used to hear a lot more than I do now so I'm just wondering are we getting feedback that the changes have been positive and we're going in the right direction? From the Development Center absolutely and what I'm hopeful for when we come to you in a couple months and the eventuality of the zoning ordinance changes will bring with it a whole host of other improvements to help streamline and make more logical at least the zoning review process so yeah we don't hear as much as I think and I don't know that Ryan gets quite as many calls with the Development Center there are always going to be issues and we do love specific examples so we can kind of try to triage those and figure out what we're wrong and fix it and the folks that come from outside like Ben for instance he's gone away he's gone and done development outside of the city he comes back and says you know working with the city was much easier than it's been in other places so that's not to say we're perfect I understand and we can get some improvements but we hear good feedback we also change the process on subs requiring correct we don't charge for those any longer as well those are under the GC have we ever commissioned or just back to Dana's original point look at side by side other expected communities just on the timing issue from start to finish that probably would just be good for us looking at processes because that would have made strides but as you go through all the different processes it would just be interesting how we stack up side by side I don't know how you do that I'd like to add to that when's the last time we went out as a city and went to people who've been through the process gone sat down with real estate agents and different developers and engage them hey what what are we missing because I think right now if I ask all of our staff and this is not I'm not I'm trying to improve us so being critical is part of that because you don't improve if all you do is get it praise right so I think it'd be very interesting to see what that response would be if you went and you sat with pick pick a couple of the big boys pick pick some smaller guys like a frank casing or somebody who's going to be honest who has challenges and who may agree or not agree ask them about how does it affect when they go through and they're trying to get the water meter in the process and everything else I mean I think it's it's upon us to engage to improve not wait around because a lot of people aren't going to come see you because they're worried you know I mean some people have that perception which I'm like call Christy anytime she'll pick up the phone and talk to you she doesn't bite I think that was that that concept of the customer experience I was just mentioning and I think that's exactly what they did at the library for example and I think we need to do something similar you know I think it'd be great for Ryan's group to go out and you know hey guys you know what can we do to help you bring more tenants into us if it's on the north main quarter I still think is one of our fastest growing in best areas you know what can we do with 5 points what can we do in these other areas that need to grow how can we be helping you because those are direct impacts that help benefit our community and it doesn't take two years to chase an elephant to bring them here in the promise of the world somebody just wants to get into business and get over it so I would encourage us to take advantage of the folks that are here and improve ourselves don't wait around on them Mr. Davis I admit I think you guys I say that you know the complaints of the process is less that's true and I think you know from my experience I've been trying to sometimes be drawn into it and sometimes it's just a situation the process of getting folks to understand it's a small business that seems to have the most challenges that they don't understand so if I would be educated if I can do the A to Z go to that A to Z process so that because I've been able to kind of caution folks the position they're taking versus what the realities are even starting to permitting and all that I think we can benefit from I do see the changes I'm not giving that any complaints I'd give up small businesses that hasn't just kind of given up the ground and may not have had some of the preliminary training or understanding that some of the more difficult tasks I think our system where it was headed down can really benefit the first time that somebody just woke up last night and had that dream that's important to them too first steps versus mid steps how do I get to the finish line or whether they believe some of what's been told to them or whether they may not have the full story Mr. Bedore well I'm going to share my experience with you guys when I first built my restaurant I didn't have any problem with the city and this was before I was elected and most of us being elected so I think the staff is doing what they can when it comes to plan review and everything else now my only concern and I think I've discussed this a couple of things I think it's important to make businesses open fast or cut the red tape it's the parking variance application that they have to fill out to those understand and my concern is in the hospitality districts and I've made that little discussion I think with you Krista and a couple other council members maybe is to wave that variance application wait 45 days or 60 days until it's scheduled to go in front of the committee but I haven't heard like declining a request of parking variance in a hospitality district so I feel like it would be beneficial for small businesses or any businesses that especially in the hospitality district that if they're going to get the approval we just wave it if we can and maybe do a requirement at the staff level and I think it's important to make sure that we're able to get the proposal and waiting for a hearing that might take 45 to 60 days that's something that I would love to whether we introduce an ordinance whether we do a resolution whether we do city policy that's something that I really want to get done or if we find ways to have it done if we can we're actually proposing in this larger central business district not just Maine and Sumter as we currently have eliminating parking requirements altogether now that isn't all of the hospitality districts but it's a good chunk of the downtown so that will go a long way and I appreciate that and I know we have a public hearing about that next month next week we can look at the others as well that I hear all about that's all I hear and there are other hospitality districts going to pop up sooner or later that we need to look at and see if we can be helpful to those businesses who are trying to open up in a short amount of time rather than waiting 45 to 60 days so I think if we can do that happen I don't know if that's in the new code to Divine Street and Rosewood hospitality district or not we need to bring in or maybe adopt the plan if we can next week's come thank you and I just add stay or not stay it seems like an eternity ago Ryan you guys were working on the business retention expansion program you and Makula how many years ago was that I mean it's been a while we did that through four years probably up through in 2013-14 but the focus understanding that small businesses do create most of the jobs here and trying to find ways at least to just kind of go through that process I thought it was a very effective program you got a chance to really get the pulse of the business community and trying to figure out what we're doing well what we still have challenges in but by engaging them we might just want to think about breathing a new life into that again your office working closely with Melissa Lindo's office and just making sure it says cohesive but that just might be the business retention expansion I guess it might be business in motion we eventually called it but it was a good way to do a census good state of affairs of existing businesses and not always the big guy we are planning to revive that actually probably would answer a whole lot of different questions and continue to get a sense of the body I thought it really well last time and I think even as recently as within the past three months I know we've sat in on some meetings where like with Dana and the city utilities folks met with a group of the home builders association and some of those folks to talk about kind of how that process goes with getting through utilities and the challenges you have you know when that comes with easements and sometimes the real estate transfers they go along it's probably something that's kind of been done in a bit of a siloed piecemeal fashion so I think to Councilman Rickonman's point to kind of really look at that process front to back and then engage those stakeholders not only the direct people but you know your folks like your commercial real estate brokers as well the retail groups the business associations who we've been meeting with would give us a more 360 degree view of what's out there and what we can do to get to know Amy Beth Amy Beth and the 5 points and the VISTA I think she's already gone I knew that I knew that no I'm saying Mary just sent us an email like two days ago about clean safety she's going into 2019 priorities tight but aggressive list here continuing to flesh out this recruitment program that we've started and I'll discuss the results of our first trip from last week here shortly but I think we outside of you know normal trade and industry conferences that we would go to we want to do at least two more city-led trips throughout the course of the year we need to overhaul and update some of our website collateral we realize that 310 has kind of engaged us about that and so we'll work on kind of getting the departmental information a little more lined up with where it needs to be to sell the city to formalize retention and expansion program business in motion to bring that back and then I think doing some things that are promotional target towards site selectors and commercial real estate brokers that was fast man I didn't realize you were going to do it that fast Erica just threw it in there on the fly so it's been at the back of my mind for a while so it's just been kind of a function of time but you know your best advocates and your stakeholders are your existing business community and we realize we need to be out there on the ground or more we've already met with all six of the local merchants associations and gotten their feedback as far as what a retail recruitment program how that might look and how it might serve them both collectively and individually and so we've promised all of them that they can continue to see us regularly at their ongoing meetings so we're going to stay active and engage with them as well let's see the opportunity zone program that's still very active and we'll be going to a conference on that in the next few weeks assisting with the comparative community analysis and I know that that's something that council has discussed a lot as well with the prospect of working with the urban three group and then of course part of the reason we're here today to get some bearing and coordinate with y'all as city council to understand where you want to see our efforts most targeted and how we can be effective and what y'all want us to do so we have started the process of scheduling individual meetings we've spoke with Sam already and councilman DeVall and so I will probably try to get the rest of y'all in the next month month and a half just to meet with you a little bit one on one and talk about some of the key points that y'all are interested in us focusing on have we started that compared to community analysis yet I thought we were going to hire somebody to do that it has not started at this point I'm not sure what the status was on that other than we were having some some conversations with with folks about what the study might even look like to begin with upcoming trips that we've got planned we just completed the spring recruiting mission to the northeast and that was very much focused kind of on insurance technology services IT in and around the Hartford and New York area the ICSC Carolina's conference will be coming up in Charlotte next week staff member will be attending that as well and looking at some retail opportunities here locally there's also a there was one conference we talked about a couple weeks ago and we talked about the need to coordinate efforts so is that the conference or no ma'am I don't believe that is the one shared services and outsourcing week another conference that's coming up next week actually be traveling there with Richland County and we've already got six meetings individual meetings booked while we're there as well so back office processing type jobs accounting financial services things of that nature payroll HR things like that yes sir yes sir so that would that would be back office type jobs retail, Recon's the big retail conference each year in May so we'll plan to be there as well and then a bio conference which will be in Philadelphia this year and that will be very much focused on life sciences and bio type jobs something we're also in discussion and coordinating with Midlands Tech on as well so there may be some joint opportunities and then a to be determined fall mission just based on the results from our trip this past week and then whatever may come up with working with some of the life science companies we'll kind of see which area we think will be the most productive and look at retail as well and then figure out what makes sense for a fall recruiting trip for the city that's it any other questions alright I do just one personal privilege with the trip last week it was really good it was rigorous it was non-stop excellent job pulling all together guys really nimble but focused we saw some really incredibly talented companies doing some great things that right in here some who were ready to rock and roll looking at prospects some that were not there but needed to be introduced to the community and he did a great job pulling all together yeah and I had another slide that must have been an earlier version of the presentation last one update for this trip yes ma'am yes ma'am ten meetings over two and a half days yeah so I don't know well so we were up in the northeast for a period of three days we originally had 12 meetings scheduled we had two of them back out at the last minute one had already made a decision to do an expansion of the location that they have and then the second one were scheduling a follow-up conference call with them after the fact but most of them were kind of a a wide variety of projects insurance tech financial services related businesses we met with a venture capital firm up there who actually has another company that they provide funding to and we've already had a follow-up call with that business as well had that on Monday and one of the most impressive things and we touched on that earlier was the Hartford insure tech hub which is an accelerator program so it's a kind of a step up above what we do with our incubator their accelerator program which is primarily funded by the private sector so you've got your large insurance companies etna, signa, Hartford they put a lot of money into this and they do get some matching funding from the local government in the states and they have a person that they hire who goes around the world and recruits these high-tech companies to come and be in Hartford and so they give them about three months worth of grant funding they put them in this accelerator program where they work with them hands-on for three months their thinking was it's challenging to do business here we're trying to kind of upscale and add value to some of the work that our traditional legacy insurers are doing so they're bringing in technology companies they said out of the ten businesses that they did in the first round seven of them actually wound up staying in Hartford and I think that was kind of a unique approach because from our incubator's perspective we've normally just kind of tried to work with what we've got locally this was kind of a different spin on that where they're really reaching outside the community identifying businesses that they think have a huge amount of value and then bringing those in and those companies by and large the bulk of them will stay hard by some of the legacy carriers there as well but still that adds value to what those businesses are doing it was an interesting approach these companies were early states they were not brand new early stage literally from all across the globe two of them from Australia Australia, Europe here in the states but they brought them to Hartford with the promise of connecting them with business opportunities I'm helping accelerate them and again at the end of the day a lot of them stayed right there in Hartford they're only in their second year but it's a very impressive model actually London based company that actually the lead company is called Startup Boot Camp and they have these types of accelerator programs in 26 cities across the world even into South America some very engaging folks that we met with there and we're working on scheduling a follow-up call later on this month but I think they've even got interest in what's going on here in Columbia from an insurance perspective and want to have some discussion about possibly bringing something like this to the city we need to bring economic development discussion back or make recommendations regarding what you all said particularly with the partners I think you could present to some deliverables that you know aligns with Envision Columbia as well as the direction of departments I just want to cut everybody I can't cut everybody guys I think the deliverables need to align absolutely absolutely you might as well just hand them a blank check if we're not going to make them be accountable for it and I think that's the frustrating part is that these folks we're talking about have been partners for 10 plus years and every time we get an update it's oh we're partnering with this person that partner is partnering with that partner who's partnering with that partner and to give us a scope that doesn't bring a delivery I think at some point we ought to refocus maybe it's time now that's my opinion but if you read what these folks sent us this aren't acceptable there's nothing in here there's no accountability zero, there's no penalty I'm not going to say cut everybody all I know is over the years when I do you know what we're talking about what I hear about businesses they said they've helped all the responsible for coming to come over then I look at where those businesses are located a number of them have been across the board now on this side then I look at look at I-20 maybe a little bit of 26 coming into town a number of areas there we can daylight for some brand companies they will be bringing jobs office parks out there the enterprise campus I always thought that was going to be the crown jewel and that's what I'm comparing what I see where they have not been deliverable it's not happening I'm not saying it won't happen of course right now is the best time to see but I don't want to try to long get the conversation come back with some recommendations consistent with our plan we'll take it from there good work and I'm impressed last week that's definitely the type of stuff that we'd like to see yeah take some of us kind of what are we looking for what was the temperature it was cold it was like some boy from sleutas didn't bring coat but I'm not going to say anything about that I'm telling you it was crazy joy to boys growing up thank y'all this is 141 we've got 20 minutes to work thank you we can go eat again always compliment you we just want to get back to the food table it's a good food afternoon salad we've got two we have parfaits back there too one or two we don't even think we go through it now we can start push and start time time time