 Economic Development Committee. I think this is probably the last time that we'll be meeting as jointly the Economic and Community Development. The mayor put out a notice yesterday, which I think is very appropriate that we're going to take economic development and separate it and have a separate Community Development Committee that'll be chaired by Ms. Herbert. And he's created another committee called Help Me Out Here. It was something in public health. Health, Social and Environmental Affairs. Health, Social and Environmental Affairs that will be chaired by Dr. Bussell with Mr. Duvall and Mr. McDowell, and that will be responsible for homeless programs and public health programs in this city, so. General quality of life. Yeah, we've, I think, very appropriately elevated homelessness and the services that were provided into a place where it's gonna be, have a committee that really, really works with it on its governance. And I think that's, again, a very appropriate thing to do in light of the investment that the city's made this year at addressing the chronic homelessness on the street issues more than anything else. Any comments before we get started, Ms. Herbert? Mr. Blackson, I'll let you go first. How about that? Good afternoon. Thank y'all very much for having us today on behalf of Susan and Henry and myself in the chamber. We appreciate very much all support of our military program that we've been having at the chamber for a long time and the city's been a huge partner for that. So I wanted to just give you a quick update of where we are and how things are going as it relates to our military affairs. And Council Member Taylor, I know you were out there recently for a night infiltration course. Hope you learned a little bit. Took young John Taylor with me where he could learn if he didn't behave. Good. Better grades where he might end up. It is, it's a great place for show and tell and to learn what maybe not to do, but things are great out. In fact, I don't know of a better time that we are, that we've had at least in my time at the chamber in eight years of our relationship with Fort Jackson. And really the military as a whole. I mean, if you look at it, just in your packets there, you've got some fact sheets, but also we've included the military-based task force which is under the Department of Veterans Affairs did a fiscal impact study of the military throughout the state and we're fortunate here that we have over $6 billion impact from our military just in the Midlands of South Carolina. That includes not only Jackson which has about a $4.2 billion impact, but our National Guard, our VA hospital. So all told, $6.6 billion impact which is a significant amount of revenue that flows through the city and the county and the region for that matter. But most importantly, we got a lot of people. We were fortunate over the last couple of years we've seen a spike in new hires out at Fort Jackson. Pre-pandemic, they were somewhere around 7,000 employees. Now they're 8,200 employees with the success of their soldier prep program that they started back in July of this year which is for layman's terms, just like a junior college for soldiers that are thinking about coming who may need some help to get to where they need so the Army has not met their numbers for a number of years as it relates to bringing in new soldiers. So their recruitment numbers have been down and so they had to get creative and they were able to start a program where folks can come on post and up to 90 days and get the training they need to qualify to meet the Army's standards. Significant program. We're the only place in the country that's doing that. We're the only branch of the military that's actually doing it. And so DOD has sent a bunch of big wigs down from the Pentagon to look at this program to see the success. They don't wanna release all the numbers yet but if you ask the general they're very pleased with the outcomes and so that's gonna help further our calls and make Columbia a better place and more soldiers coming through here which is a great opportunity for us. But with that comes new numbers and hopefully they're gonna bring in another 85 people to this market to help that soldier prep program. They're all told 8,200 current employees right now that's a combination of both active duty as well as civilian folks that live off post. And so we're still about 70% of the folks that live or work on Fort Jackson live off post which is again, our neighbors, our friends, folks we go to church with and so the economic impact is significant. And through our work we do hire a consultant up in DC and we were able to this year get about $55 million worth of construction dollars that flows back to Fort Jackson. We've seen in the last 20 years almost $900 million worth of direct congressional spend for Jackson and there's a lot of other dollars that flow through other pots of money but that's just through the milcon. The military construction is about 898 million over the last 15, 20 years. So we've been very pleased. They added a new reception barracks but as you know costs over the last few years have gone up and so they've had some costs overruns but we've been able to secure some dollars through Senator Graham, Congressman Clyburn to help offset those deficits but all in all we had a really good year at Jackson last year with 55 million coming for those new training barracks but we're thrilled with General Jason Kelly. He's been a great addition to Fort Jackson since August 31st when he took over but we've been pleased with him. He loves it here and is so excited. If y'all have met him and had a chance to, he's got more energy than I've ever seen in somebody but through his leadership and General McHales. One of the things where I was up in DC back in October one of the things that General McHales really pressed upon us before he departed was looking at Jackson and figuring out ways we can use that for different missions and it does not have to be an Army mission. It needs to be another branch of defense work. It could be another branch of government quite frankly but there is a lot of land that's in the city of Columbia that is out there. We have 50,000 acres but all around I call it the downtown the old Fort Jackson proper where there's some barracks but offices there's a lot of space for future economic development activity and the key is to find the right mission, find the right partner that needs to be behind protected lines. I mean you basically have to go through a checkpoint to get in so it's a secure facility but I think we've got our congressional folks looking out for us. We've got our consultants looking out as well to try to find a partner. It could be Justice Department, it could be Homeland Security. There are a lot of folks that are looking to grow and there's plenty of space out there that could be used for future uses and so one of the big missions that we've been talking with Jackson about what can we see. We're also looking for additional missions as it relates to the Army. Now our livelihood has been about training and I think that's what we need to stick with. I don't think anybody wants a bunch of helicopters and bombs blowing up things but I do think that there's a right civilian need and a back office support mechanism that we can put out there that could benefit all of us and bring in more employees which is what we want. So we're trying to use your dollars that y'all give to our group as wisely as possible but I think our numbers are pretty good. The growth that we've seen out there is significant and I think with this Army Prep program and if we can continue to grow and look at other missions I think we'll be in good shape. I don't want to belabor it because y'all've got other business to do but feel free to if you see anything that you have questions about. Susan myself will be happy to answer any questions but we're delighted with our partnership with Fort Jackson and our military at McIntyre. I think that McIntyre has done extremely well this year. I thought their movement to have the F-16s fly out of CAE's been great for the public to see what they do. Now that'll come to an end first part of the next year but they'll go back to McIntyre once the pavement is done, the repaving work at McIntyre but we're looking to partner with them trying to keep as many of their active duty folks here in the Midlands. So current job fairs and opportunities for, right now there about 32 folks that retire every month out of Fort Jackson and our hope is that we can keep some of them here. We did pass this year the General Assembly a bill that allows 100% of the retiree pay from our military friends to be tax exempt from state taxes which is a huge incentive because there are 34 other states that have already passed that so we were the 35th. So it was more of a competitive issue but I think we're gonna have a good opportunity to have a future workforce retire here in Columbia which is good for all of us. So with that, thank y'all for your support. I'm happy to answer any questions. Carl, thank you for y'all's work that you do with our fantastic military and all the workforce initiatives you have in place. You know we had all great intentions of having a city council delegation committee that interacted with Fort Jackson and our military presence here to expand the quality of life. And exactly as you pointed out, how do we keep those wonderful residents that come through the fort? How do we get them to retire here, enjoy a quality of life here, grow a family here? What suggestions, what can we do? How can we team up to be more effective in the role that the city plays in promoting the quality of life, the attractions, the reason to stick around and be a part of Columbia in its future as a city? Well, two things. It starts when they first come to Columbia and Susan, I'll give props to Susan. They started an orientation program for all new officers that come through and they began in the summer. So in August of July, August of every year, we host all the new officers and their spouses. And we have a half day program for them to talk about all the things in Columbia, in the Midlands, and they're probably 75 people that are there. But the point is there is orient them on not just Jackson, but the region as a whole. We're going to do the same type of program this spring. About a meeting with the Deputy Commanding Officer on Friday, what we want to do is those that are thinking about retiring or are in the pipeline to retire, catch them early, which is three or four months before they are actually departure and let them meet with businesses here in the Midlands to say, here's mainly in the HR. Some of the problem that we've seen is people that have worked in the Army for 25, 30 years, they don't know anything else but the Army. They don't really know how to transition their skills to the private sector. And so we're going to have workshops set up with businesses and HR folks to go and meet with them to say, these are your skill sets. These are what we can help with. Not in Army terms, but in the private sector terms, which is the biggest disconnect, quite frankly. But for us to sit with them and bring our employers out and say, your skill sets match up here, here and here. And this is what opportunities within our industry. But we want multiple industries represented. So I'd love to partner with y'all to put this on. But that came as a request of the DCO that we look at an opportunity and so this is, we're gonna flash it out. Is that something OBO, or it's a department that the city could look into? Possibly. We'll connect with the program. And do we have a liaison that works with you in general, with your various boards and your monthly meetings? Is the city represented? Well, Ryan is actively engaged with us in his part of economic development. We keep him apprised of everything that we're doing. Oh, good, good. Well, if there's any more of a formal role that the city of Columbia can do to play, to tell that story of the city of Columbia and the great things about it. Well, we'd love to have you, if you've not been out on posts lately, and if you've not been to a graduation, if you've not been to a night infiltration, you hear about things and you know it for Jackson there, but seeing is believing and recognizing, just having that experience is pretty awesome. So we'd love to coordinate something with you if you have an interest going out. Thank you. And I would just add as you're looking at the different industries to include the city of Columbia as a place, I would love to have some retired military folks at the city, I think that that would be good. I think that would be good. Well, there are so many folks that are leaving that actually now we have a competitive footing. They come to Columbia, they love what they offer. And you talk to General Johnson, you talk to General Beegs, and you talk to Michaelis and Kelly. And the consistency is we offer something different than most posts and throughout their travels, it's pretty consistent where we have done a really good job of welcoming them and making them feel like this is a place where they can retire, which is important. And because the more retired officers that we have, that means we're doing something right and they wanna be here, they wanna be included. So hopefully we'll keep on doing this work. Thank you, Carl. I just would mention just a couple of things going back to General Clotier. The Army is really bringing a different kind of general here today than they did when I was a kid. Used to come here to retire, now the Army's put a whole new level of importance on recruiting. I remember Roger used to say was, this is the most important thing we do in the Army. If we don't get it right here, we're wanting General Kelly has been just an absolute gem for us. I was tickled to see him be there. I think he was the grand marshal in the Christmas party. He was. And then I would just add, I don't know if anybody saw it, but Boyer Construction Company during Thanksgiving did a series of all the veterans that they have working in their company. And I think that will be a nice thing to feature going forward. And their latest General Maz is a great addition, I can't pronounce his last name, I just call him Maz, but if Brian and his team recruited a bunch of veterans that served in high levels. We appreciate everything you and Susan are doing at the Chamber of Commerce. Thank you, let's keep, I think that membership role is growing, isn't it? It is growing. I think, didn't I hear something about how many days in a row, how many years in a row, months in a row it's going up? We're about 25, 26 months in a row we're on. That's pretty strong, congratulations. Thanks for the city. Well, you had asked about this and I just wanted to elaborate on what Coral was saying. On a monthly basis, I go out to the fort and I welcome in all of our new senior officers and they might be drill sergeants, first lieutenants, the ones that are actually doing the training of the work. And in the last eight years, we have welcomed personally over 10,000 new officers to here. The first thing I do is I tell them, welcome on behalf of the city and Coral. And then I say, our goal is for you to serve here, serve your country, come back and retire here. So that message we share loud and clear. We also work with job fairs, with out at Fort Jackson, with the city of the county, all of our local employers and law enforcement is a big one that they're working on right now. And then we do work with contracts so that if people here in the city, small businesses have an idea and wanna pitch it out at Fort Jackson, we help them make those connections so that they can go be successful. And I am gonna brag just a minute, we recently had the Midlands Minority Business Accelerator Program, we had our first class graduate. Interesting how it's such a small world. We work on contracts up in Washington, they're doing work bringing the dollars to Fort Jackson. One of our local small businesses, Pat Kahn Masonry, actually won a contract at Fort Jackson and they're doing some of the work on the barracks. So it goes full circle and comes back and benefits us in numerous ways. And so that's just a great small business thing. And then we do a lot of work to try and make sure that we help the general and the city and all everybody meet the common goals of growing together. So just wanted to add that a little bit, thank you. I just wanted to thank Ryan, he's gonna be talking about a Greenville Economic Development Stimulus Program that they have that caught our eyes. And I asked him to do a little bit of research and kind of share that with us so that we can look at whether or not this is something that we may wanna do. And I don't know if I share it with you all the article, the article that I read specifically dealt with grocery stores, but I think we're gonna learn today from Ryan that they use it in various ways. Is that a good introduction? Oh, and what I'll add is this would be another effort with the mobile food market and things that we're trying to do to address food scarcity. Good afternoon, everyone. So what I've put in front of you today is just kind of general overview of Greenville's business license and permit fee rebate program. This is something that they've introduced very recently. I think it came out in October of 2021 based on the information that I've seen. And so what they are doing is in an effort to support some of their existing businesses which are in a desired business classification, i.e., a retailer, an artist. Grocery stores are targeted as a part of this as well. And then identifying certain geographies that are a priority for them. So kind of looking at a case where you might see in Columbia where we've had artists in the downtown Vista area that might get priced out of that. Greenville put together this rebate program where essentially an artist in the West End or their downtown area would apply for this type of incentive. And for a period of five years, it would allow them to get a rebate for 100% of their business license and their permit fee cost as well. The existing businesses are also allowed to take advantage of this. They also have to apply for the rebate program, but they can get a benefit of up to 50%. And so basically what they've done is their council's sat down, they've identified where their target areas are. You can look in the packet that I've put together for you here, you can see where their grocery store incentive area is. They've got online interactive maps, so you can enter in your address and see if you're in a qualifying area. Same for retail and same for artists. And so that's the program that they've got. It's in place, it's for artists, retail, and grocery stores, and these all have to be in specific designated areas. Other businesses that they've included in the program allow for manufacturing, corporate headquarters, childcare was included as well, and commercial annexation, surprisingly. So I think it's something where they wanted to put together a particular benefit for businesses that they were bringing inside of the city limits that may have to bear the cost of some additional property taxes as well. Also included at the back of the packet, and I think Ms. Knox passed out copies of it. Is their ordinance, it's a pretty decent little read at about six or seven pages, but it's pretty thorough. I think they've done a really good job of kind of outlining specifically what type of businesses they're looking at and what their priority target areas are. Now, Ryan, I do have a question where it says incentives for job creation and capital investment. Are there some dollar amounts that they have to spend? Is that what this is about? So that is for a different type of investment. So the businesses that we talked about in the target areas that they've outlined, that right is allowed up front. They've put this additional program in place, essentially understanding that you might not be a business of a particular type that's coming in our target area, but we understand that if you're creating 10 jobs at or above the county median wage and you're investing a certain amount of money in the city, we also wanna provide you some level of benefit as well. And so if you look through those additional tables, you'll see that the benefit period is only for three years and not for five, as it is in the outright program. And additionally, you have to hit certain criteria to get additional permit fees rebated. So businesses only creating 10 new jobs and investing $500,000 would only get 25% of their permit fees rebated. Whereas a business with a higher qualifying amount would get a bigger rebate and a longer rebate term. They're covering a lot of bases here is kind of what they've outlined. Thank you. I will say, Mr. Taylor, the reason that I specifically, I hadn't read the statute, so I didn't know it was as expansive as it is. But I would like the committee to consider kind of drilling in on the opportunity to at the very least use this for grocery stores. But I can see other areas that we may wanna consider looking at. Question. Ryan, Jeff, can you, so I'm looking at new jobs, 50 plus, check the box for a grocery store, capital investment a million, business license rebate a hundred. Can you put into perspective what that number on the business license rebate would be if you calculated that out? Is it enough to really move the needle to put a potential grocery developer or a grocery operator in the position to truly go forward with a project that otherwise they wouldn't in the past bite off? It's tough to say. I don't have that information ready right now. I think at the very least, it's something nice that you can kind of put out there and sell a little bit. But the numbers on a business license. Well, let me add to that. I would tell you from a state perspective, you don't, it's actually not allowed in most of the state statutes, except for recently in the worst tier counties where the state to incentivize retail, because retail comes to the market. And if the market's not there, retail won't last. And too many times what we've seen is when you come up with beer, exactly. So we'll take a look at this. And again, I wanna make sure, I wanna make sure it's something that would benefit everybody. I think too many times when we look at special incentives and things like that, it's no benefit for our existing businesses. And frankly, I think for the city of Columbia to go and grow, unless you're a state of Texas today, I think it's difficult to recruit corporate headquarters to get them, you have to grow your own. And so sprouting, if this is something that helps sprout more small businesses that become medium-sized businesses, that become big businesses, I would be all for it. But we'll take a look and study at it and report out in the next committee. And then I would ask, I don't know if we have any information about the success rate that Greenville has had because it's still pretty new. I don't know if anyone's taken advantage of it. Just a year, I'm gonna reach out to their, I think he's their director of, I was gonna reach out to someone that is knowledgeable and I don't know his actual position is just to see how they've taken, how many of these applications they've taken and if there's been a focus in certain areas and certain groups. And we were thinking through Councilman Brennan's question as well just to, we will take a look to see kind of what that average is just on business license. So I do have a concern that it might not really move the need of the dual program, just focus on business license. But if there's going to be a focus for the need for grocery, it could be part of a program potentially that could be added in with something else. But we will bring, we can bring that type of information back at our next meeting. I've made notes. And I would say too, and I do understand not over incentivizing any particular project too. Well, and I would say, I think one of the things, I've never been a big fan of business licenses. I mean, they're already paying a 6% tax, which is 33% higher than residential's. But I think as part of this, we look at our whole business program. I'd love to see us for small businesses, not even charge of business license for the first year period. So we'll take a look at the whole thing. What are we thinking about? What are we considering small? Federal government says anybody under 500 small, but I think a little bit smaller than that. You do, the federal government class for small businesses, anything less than 500. Yeah, 500 people. That's what I was wondering. But I was thinking, you know. We use 50, I think. And that is something we could take a look at because I was kind of interested in their additional. I think that's on the second or third page where new investment, if it had the number of jobs in capital investment where they are rebating back a certain percentage. I think you asked the question, while I was talking about it on this page. Right, I didn't know that at the time. As a policy going forward, though, here's what I'd ask that we do as a committee. When we got these things, if we can get those when the agenda comes out, kind of like we do at the city council meeting, so I've got a chance to review the stuff and read it before it. I think it will be helpful. Yes, sir. Erica reminded me last week, so. Sorry for not bearing it quicker. And I will take full responsibility too because I mentioned it in the council meeting and I forgot to talk directly to Ryan. And so when we talked last week, I said bring us some information so that we can start having a discussion. So I'll take some of that responsibility as well. Nobody's blaming anybody. I just think it helps me anyway to have a better understanding. And I look forward to reading this to see. Any other questions about this program? I do think one other thing that we didn't mention that's worth kind of bringing up though, is there's certain reporting standards that go along with this too. So these businesses will have to certify at the end of the each year. I know this is done through an application process, so it's not outright granted to businesses. But kind of keeping in mind, if that's something, a mechanism you start to look at, you know, what the staff needs would be on the back end to kind of come through at the beginning of each year and have to recertify, you know, based on the number of businesses that could add some additional strain as well. Do you think the organizations themselves would have capacity issues? I don't know. The business? You know, more paperwork that the city is looking at. Well, I would clarify too that this is, this is would be basically just not charging the fee. You still have to apply for a lit for your license, that's. Yeah, you have to apply, you have to pay, and if you meet the criteria, I think within 30 days of your full payment of your business license or permit fee, then you get rebated on the back end. So it's. And I can tell you, it makes it very difficult to move the needle. So something, as you mentioned, that's kind of maybe an outright upfront would. Well, I just think it's part of what we're doing in the mayor's slogan about us being open. You know, that again, you know, I just think one of the things we may want to look at it. At some point in time, I'm not saying now, but at some point in time would be again, you know, the first year you're in business, there is no business license in the city. You apply for it, there's no charge, and then you get billed the second year. Just things like that. It's a pretty significant percentage of businesses that don't apply for the second year that don't make it first. From what I think, I saw a statistic on that. So yeah, any little bit helps, I guess. That's right. Yeah. Is he about to say something? Well, I was gonna say, I think Greenville probably took a look at this as doing this as a rebate. We have had discussions of this in the past about exempting it up in the front end, and there's been legal issues. You may recall, even 10, 12 years ago. Can't treat them differently. You and others that the focus has always been, we're gonna have to rebate it. So it does create a problem because then they still have to pay it upfront. And if they're already struggling in the front end, I won't say struggling, but if it's already, they're pulling everything they can, now they gotta still pay it and wait, whether that's 30 days or any quarter or whatever it is. That can, it seems to diminish a little bit of what the program is. You know, and I just kind of maybe closed with this guy. It was an interesting deal. I watched a webinar the other day on retail recruitment which include grocery stores and things like that. And the number one, this is interesting, the number one incentive for small businesses and retailers is the speed that you get them open. That's the number one deal. And you know what that costs us? And so I think that's part of what we need to work on. How quick can we get your building permit? How quick can we get you inspected? How quick if there's a zoning change? And I would argue that I'm not gonna call the name of the company, but they do make airplanes. That one of the reasons they're in South Carolina today is because we could get them a grading permit in 30 days and the other places they were looking at some said that would take up to three years. So it's just an interesting thing there. Thank you, Ms. Herbert and Ryan. Yes, sir. All right, having that, now we get to talk in the executive session about some folks that are talking about making big investments in Columbia and projects. So is there a motion that we go into executive session? Yeah, Mr. Chairman, I'd like to make a motion that we enter into executive session discussion of matters relating to the proposed location expansion, provision of services, encouraging location or expansions of industries or other businesses in the area served by the public body pursuant 30-4-70-85, Project Astral, Project Subtext, Project Tango, Capital City Stadium. Second. Eric, do you wanna call the roll? Aye. Yes. Aye. We are going to thank you for joining us today. And then, like I say, for the record, we try to do our meeting at one o'clock, the second Tuesday of,