 So I'll convene our committee meeting. Okay, I'm going to start us up. So I got you. So you need to call the roller. Can we just visually do the roll? Okay, everybody's here. So I tell you what, if there's not an issue, or just some of the easy stuff, we'll just take it a little bit out of order. And that's not a problem, is it? Because Ms. Sumter was traveling. We have deferred that until September. What was the general conversation in that committee? She wanted to talk about a couple of programs that she does. Employment, what's it called? Job retention tax credits. And she had some thoughts that she wanted to share with us on how we might involve more minority businesses in city business. Like I say, from time to time, I think it's fine for us to hear from the folks. The 2221 Divine Street. I mean, that's just simply what I was going to just say, assign me to be the council liaison with the city staff on coming up with a plan for what we're going to do with that building. You found with that Mr. Herbert and Mr. Brennan? Yes. On 1401, I would ask Mr. Brennan to be the liaison with city staff on how we might or how we're going to address and do that building. You find with that? Yeah, let's talk process. I think this is a good jumping off point, this committee. Yeah, I just, I think Grevin having a committee of seven on each one of these things that works out better. And I would offer you the opportunity and maybe me the same way to make the call whether it should go straight to council or whether it should come back through the committee. I don't want to see this go too far down a path that. Well, we understand that, number one, the committee doesn't have any authority to take any particular action. So it's going to have to go through council regardless. This is a good sounding board, this committee. That's right. Yeah. OK, so let's take it. On the Grease Trap program, I just wanted to get that back out in front of us and I would like to get, unless somebody wants to talk about it, what I'd really like is to get a legal opinion that we can't do the rebate program or get an ordinance that allows us to do the rebate program because I really don't want to get out of the forgivable loan business. I mean, loan just has bad connotations. People have to put that on their financial statement. It technically could have a negative fiscal impact even though it's not a big one. If somebody gets a loan, they don't pay it back. If we rebate from hospitality taxes, if something doesn't happen, the money in it lets us, frankly, boost the rebate from a $5,000 loan to a $10,000 rebate. Mr. Chairman, did we leave this that we were going to look at what West Columbia's structure was? Well, that's what I was saying. There's really just hasn't been much movement only at all. And as we look at the things that we announced at our business friendly press conference, this and the parking lot landscaping are the last two that remain open into it. I'm just trying to bring that matter to a conclusion. You got any questions? Good afternoon. Just in terms of following up on what the modifications we made to the current program that we have now, which is a forgivable loan program, we've opened that up to any food service establishment within the city limits, whether it's new or a redevelopment or reopening. So that has happened. And I know we've had a few conversations with West Columbia about what they're doing and would have to defer to TK about the legalities of the H tax rebate. But we've modified the program. It's still the $5,000 cap. Or half. So we've made those changes and are implementing those. But we haven't moved to the rebate versus the forgivable loan. And I think that's what you're getting at. That's right. And again, like I say, if you're starting the business up and it's a loan, it doesn't matter whether it's forgivable or not. You've got to put it on your financial statement. You've got to just close it to your bank. And frankly, again, I would rather and it creates risk for the taxpayers. And again, I'd rather see it made bigger than five, go to 10. And it do a rebate program where there is no risk to the taxpayers. So it really has no fiscal, negative fiscal impact. And it doesn't require our small businesses in particular to put it down as a loan when they may need operating line or even a credit card for operate. So now what I would say to that is that that's pretty much a new program. I mean, that would be restructuring the program altogether. And I think the question would be, do we want to restructure? Or do you want someone to come back with, if we restructure, this is what it would look like. We just need some specifics. And if it's doable, I guess it's still the legal issue. Because I don't know if I necessarily have made the decision that we need a different type, but I do think we need to see what it looks like so we can compare them. That's what I asked for. I think the framework of the program in terms of how it's administered, come in applications and getting the word out, can be similar. It's working with our compliance staff on the water side and making sure that everything is the proper grease trap. And then giving them the applications and that sort of thing. It's how the funding piece works and is it a rebate versus a forgivable loan program and then the amount, the threshold amount. I think right now it's half of the construction value up to $5,000. The ceiling potentially raised to $10,000. Some of the bones are there for a program. If we rework it, it's really a funding source issue. Can you just go, oh, wait a minute. It's not a funding source issue. I mean, today you're taking money out of your budget to loan it to somebody. This, frankly, you would either do a rebate or allow them to fill out the credit on it. I mean, again, I mean, I've never done a future loan issue. Maybe he was saying funding source. It's more of a funding source issue. We wouldn't have money coming out of water and sewer it be there. That's what I hate about. The source. As I understand it, then, so the rebate will come from the elections that they have after they've opened and then we will rebate those funds back. So I will work with business license on how we track that. I've been working with Theresa Knox and Legal to make sure that we can utilize hospitality tax in this way, which we believe based upon outside legal that we can do this. So I'll work with Kelly and business license. We'll put together what we're talking about here, how that plan would look like. We'll have to put somewhere as is because it has to show that it's public use and it's an appropriate use for hospitality tax. So I'll work with Theresa Knox on that side of it and then I'll coordinate that with Clint so we should be able to have that back. If we're going to have a meeting in September, we can have it back before then. And for the record, I'm glad you brought that up. Some discussions with Ms. Harvard, Mr. Brennan, and Erica, we will have a standing economic development and community development meeting the second Tuesday of each month that if there's nothing to come before us, we'll cancel. So you can go ahead and put that on your calendars. Like I say, if there's nothing to come before us. So Jeff, if you could have something for us to look at on that UNTK for the next September meeting, I think that would be good. Yes, sir, we'll do. And just for my clarification, so is this how West Columbia is doing it? Well, maybe when you all bring that back, because I just want to see, since it was referenced, what West Columbia is actually doing. Like I said, this is just all about making it a little more business friendly and not make them disclose it as alone. Is this for new restaurants? Yes. So there's no way, unless in the current restaurant, we want to even approach this. I would say, too, it's for the conversions that we want to retail those restaurants. Anybody that's open in a new restaurant? Or I would say, and again, this would be staff's make the call, if I'm expanding my restaurant and adding a grease, I think what Clint would share with you is 15 years ago, there was no mandate for grease capture. This is a new cost and probably an appropriate cost environmentally that we put on hospitality businesses. And one of the things I think that's happening in this two-fold is new restaurants, small businesses in particular. I got an email from somebody this morning wanting clarification on what we were talking about, because the grease trap was going to cost $25,000 bucks for an existing, it was actually an existing church that was adding a kitchen to it. Here again, if they're not collecting H-tax, there would never be a rebate. You know what I'm saying? But I mean, my point is, it's way more expensive than I think people. I think this is the one thing that catches a lot of small businesses by surprise. This is scary for that point, isn't it? Well, and then here's another example would be like the Palmetto Club down here on Sumter Street. When they renovated and added on the next deal, they had to put two grease traps in, $75,000 apiece. I mean, this is not that big a deal for that, but that small business person, it makes a huge difference. And I just, again, the pluses of a loan program or you get the money up front, but I just, again, if it's a forgivable loan, I just like the idea of a rebate. And again, I'm not married to the 10. Again, if it's a rebate and you're getting 50%, say 50% of your deal back to capital 10, I just think it will be a nice restaurant program, especially in some of our areas that where small businesses tend to struggle on these upfront costs. Yeah, and I can say that I can agree back in my OBO days, we had so many people who would buy properties thinking they were gonna make or have a restaurant with the kitchen stuff that was there. And then when they realized they needed a grease trap, they had already spent all of their money and they literally had to change the purpose of their building and just start catering. So it is a common problem and we also have to educate folks before they're purchasing on what they need. All right, any other questions on that? Real quick, Clint, what is, can you describe the staff? Is this a staff process for the current loan program? What's the process and how intensive is it on staff? So from a Columbia Water Stand point, it's the initial contact and the sizing of the grease and approval of the grease trap. New grease trap. New or any renovation to existing. And then, because we've got folks that are grandfathered and we're trying to get them to upgrade if it's not up to standard and that sort of thing, we work with OBO on the commercial side of it. They're essentially the banker and handle of the loan process. So you've got OBO staff involved once we've reviewed the application. All the loan applications are processed by OBO. Yes, sir, that's correct. Yes, we do loans. Now I was gonna say because we do, we do the free, we do the loan. And audits and everything are continued by OBO, the upkeep of that loan to make sure payments are made and it's forgiven, it's proper notice. Is it drafted out of water invoices? Right now, there was an original funding source set aside of $100,000, I think about two years ago, whenever the program was established and we'd been drawing down off of that for the payments and still have a decent balance in that as well, but it was initially funded with over in sooner dollars. So if we convert to a rebate, we would let you recapture that funding back into the water and sewer. I think last time I checked, it's been about a month, there was around 60 to $65,000 left balance in that. So we haven't had that many folks use it so far. That was gonna be my other question. How many years have we had it? I wanna say about two years, Councilman Herbert, I can get the exact date of when it was established, but we've had some challenges over that period as well that have slowed things down. So about seven or eight, maybe businesses. And then originally it was established just for renovations and repurposing that new restaurants coming in were not, new food services established were not eligible and they are now under the existing program and I think would be able to rebate. All right, so you'll bring it back to the September committee. All right, Jeff, I'm gonna turn it over to you now. Sure, do we wanna go to three first and then we'll finish with Mr. Coleman? Just quickly, I think everybody knows that Melissa Lindler who is director of Office of Business Opportunities resigned a few weeks ago to take advantage of some other opportunities and we currently have put Aisha Dregger, she's been here eight years, she was the deputy of the department. She is interim and we will leave her as interim for a period of time until we decide otherwise. Any questions? Are you, as part of this process, will we take a look at maybe creating a procurement group that includes OBO and all procurement so it doesn't move from one department to another? I know that's being discussed. We're in the very final stages of disparity study and wanna get the results back from the disparity study before we take any action of how to make changes to the organizational structure. For instance, if disparity study comes back and we can have a recommended requirement of our businesses, it will be much simpler to do away with some of the analysis. It'll be a, did you meet or did you not meet instead of analyzing the effort. So at that time, it may be appropriate. Well, all I'm saying is we're gonna take a look at that then before we make a permit. Absolutely, yeah. Our final item is item two, Columbia Economic Development Department Action Plan. Earlier, I guess at the end of last week, staff sent out a org chart and a development plan that we put together. We've had a lot of feedback from that just since then. So I have printed those out. Ryan, do you have copies or you wanna hand them out to them? It has some of the feedback redlined on it. So if y'all would like, Mr. Coleman can walk through the plan and we certainly welcome feedback on y'all's thoughts on what we have in this because a lot of our priorities are gonna be established from what we have as discussions here with y'all each month. So let me just clarify. So you wanna make, you wanna go through this today and then what would be your take comments today? Do you go back and take from our comments today and comments of other things and then tweak this up and it goes straight to council after that or do you wanna come back through here next in September? It can, we can bring it back here in September. Is that what you like to do? You know, because by the time we have some conversations today, you know, certain things may change a little bit between now and September or someone has some new thoughts, then we can bring it back to y'all in September, kind of finalize it and then take it back to council. Okay, and then just for general information, so we've posted the advertisement for the business recruiter, isn't that correct? So going through this will not have any effect on, I'll make sure it doesn't affect impact negatively the hiring of that staff person. It will not. The budget that y'all approved this year had the funding for different roles in there, so we're good that this will not affect that. Thank you, Jim Daniel. I checked the agenda this morning. This is whatever y'all are discussing has not been posted on the city website. It's been no public review of this document as far as I can tell. Is that the way y'all are gonna be operating now? You have a keynote item, which I'm assuming you're on 7764, but there's no dropdown to see what y'all even talking about. Mr. Daniels, this is a committee meeting. There is no quorum of city council here. I understand that, but if you guys that don't have a discussion and possibly refer it to city council, it needs to have some public debate before you ram this through. It's draft plans, sir. I don't care, but it's still a draft plan. It should be available for review so they can be public comment. Well, y'all motors operandi so far is to get something approved in this plan, submit it to city council, and have a general handle on it. Mr. Daniels, you're welcome to sit in here and hear the staff's proposal. This is a staff proposal. I understand that. Of what they're recommending that our city council plan to be. I don't think we're required to post a draft plan out. And again, and this meeting is being, like I say, this is a draft plan. Why not? And there'll be no vote on it today at all. We don't vote on these matters in committee. Okay, well, and when it gets to city council for consideration, it will be posted as exactly like it. It'll be public notice in the whole shooting match. The public notice so far on your recommendations have been very limited, Mr. Taylor. Mr. Daniels, if you, never mind. Mr. Palin, Mr. Coleman, y'all go ahead. Good afternoon, everyone. We have been working to put together a plan for the upcoming year for economic development. What we wanted to do was sit down and take a fresh look at our economic development efforts and try and capture some of the priorities of city council. I know what we have here. A lot of this is based pretty heavily on what came out of the city council retreat from earlier this year. So there was a whole dedicated section around economic growth. And so what we've tried to do is take a lot of the feedback and comments around that, some anecdotal things that we have heard from y'all over the past few months and support that with some additional elements out of our economic development plan and work and create something a little more comprehensive. We really wanted to take time and get your feedback on this and make sure that we're tracking in the right direction and that as we work on these initiatives going forward that we're keyed in on your priorities. So as you'll see, the goal that city council set forth is right there at the top for economic growth, verbatim. Moving down into that, business friendly improvements is the first section that we wanted to focus on. Item number one involves creating a structure for business feedback on improvement initiatives. We had previously as a staff done some round table meetings where we brought in developers, commercial brokers, and business association groups, but wanted to look at an alternative structure where we just had a singular business advisory group as well. So we've got a model that we've used before this, but we've heard a recommendation about creating an advisory council and maybe having more of a mix of that, of people that would come in and meet with us every other month or quarterly and help us really provide some of that tactical feedback from on the ground. What's happening out there in the business environment right now and where does city council need to be focusing priorities on the next wave of changes, be it next grease trap improvements or parking adjustments, whatever that business friendly 2.0 may be. So do we give input or actually? Sure, this is an open discussion. So I agree with that, but I also want us to consider the several other groups that we have meeting. So we have the mayor's minority business advisory council. We have some of the ones MPP advisory council which are specifically people, some of them are specifically businesses that do business with the city, but I do see this one as a different one dealing with development. Well, truthfully, this is more of a ex-officio, not an official committee of the city. It's just, it's kind of, I think the concept there was to, and again, like say for example, the chairman of the minority advisory board that you just mentioned would be a person that's part of this group. It's just, again, and I don't think we're even thinking about appointing these things. It would be more like the economic development office assembling a group of business folks that would kind of be their kitchen cabinet advisory group that they would sit down and hear what are the issues you're facing in the city of Columbia right now? Or what are you seeing in other places? It may be very well where you're getting input on what kind of businesses that are hot out there in the market right now that we ought to be going and recruiting. It's just really a dialogue more than anything else. So, Ryan, would this be similar to the old business and retention program? No, ma'am, this would be more of a committee structure. Business retention work will still be done, but that's kind of individual one-on-one meetings with local businesses. This doesn't replace anything that exists. This is more or less Ryan's development group, business group that gives him input on just, almost like a coffee club more than anything else. Yeah, our developers group met about three weeks ago to kind of give us the feedback on the business-friendly improvements that we've done, good feedback and things that they keyed in on was continuing to focus on the parking and they liked the idea of expanding the grease trap program because those costs are escalating for businesses. And I would add it doesn't really replace any of the other groups that you brought up. Ryan and staff will still attend those meetings because those are very good meetings for us to obtain additional information bringing it out. And I think what Councilman mentioned bringing in some of those as members of this type of advisory board will be with us as well. Yeah, I think so. So we will shift to looking at an advisory board type program. And then one more question. How will the folks be chosen? How will the people be chosen? I think we'd like a good mix, well-rounded. So obviously we want some developers, some presence from commercial real estate. I think we do want existing business owners of different types and natures. So small, medium, large. And even from different neighborhoods. I would suggest that you would basically pick your group. Neighborhoods, Mr. Taylor, I would hope y'all would involve neighborhood residents as well because of the possible effects of what the businesses changes may do on the neighborhoods. So far everything that's come out of this committee has been basically void of any neighborhood participation. Thank you. Thank you. For that goes now. I have it written right here to make comment. Please include somebody from the Columbia Council of Neighborhoods possibly with this group to give feedback. That is a strong council that I think could get stronger and given them this added voice would be a good thing. Got it. Next is staff working to increase support for expedited permitting repuvels for reducing the turnaround times and coordinating more with developers and the planning staff to continue to focus on areas where we can simplify and speed up our process from a planning perspective. And setting some goals and how we can reduce the speeds on these permitting times. We'd like to work with Krista and her staff a little bit more just to dig in and see where the efficiencies are. And this is where having some of that developer input comes in. There's Myrtle Beach or City of Charleston have a model something that we could do and replicate here that would be helpful in our situation. And just for the record we remove the A and the B just because it should be all permits everybody's and we're trying to make it shorter and a little bit simpler of a definition. And then just for my clarity but ultimately this is something that has to be done through Krista's department. I don't just wanna make sure we're not given economic development the responsibility of making sure it happens. But I guess giving feedback, giving them the appropriate feedback so that that department gets it done. Are we, is Krista's department staffed up appropriately for plan reviewers everything to help us meet these milestones? Well that's part of the process. I know we had some retirements. If we're not then that would be one of the recommendations that comes back that we need to fill those spots. Again this is just like I say how do we create more predictability on the timing and permitting of projects? Yeah I understand what you're saying. This is a general snapshot digging into the actual process, tightening up the timeline. Is a work in progress? That's right. That's all it is. I was gonna say too but I would note that the validity of that question is because if they aren't staffed up we're gonna have a hard time trying to hit these. Well that's where you come back with a recommendation that in order to do this we need to add, it may be one of the things that you need to add staff and then we can make the decision whether or not the budget allows forward or doesn't allow forward or what we wanna do. That's right. And I think when we have, right now we have our project manager that works on a lot of new ones coming through so when he sees these things we also, he talks to me, to Missy Gentry, to Ryan Coleman, to others so as we recognize these, I think we're, I don't want anyone to think we're doing this in a silo so if that is staffing is an issue we'll know that and that's some of the things that we can have that discussion and actually see the effects. So we're kind of putting the effects if there is a shortage of staff. So I think, I don't want anyone to think Ryan and Greg and others just doing it in a silo we'll be working with other staff to fully understand what's going on. So it would be kind of useless for us just to make kind of a blind statement to y'all and then find out there was something different that we could have approved before we even brought Bobby to bring it to you. And maybe we'll come back. Like I said, the key word there is goals. I mean, we could come back and the bottom line could be if somebody wants to build a 20-story building you can't get a permit. It may take six months. Let's kind of set some goals and see what we can do. And it does. I would also add that goals I have already seen it in action through procurement and others when we put timelines and things like that on there. It makes people very aware. So if we do have some areas that bog down it's easier for us to identify when it happened what caused it and how we can correct it. So it doesn't happen in the future. So quick question. Do we already know the permitting approval times for a small, medium, and large? Or how did we come up with these goals? Those are just recommendations at this point. We kind of arbitrarily pick some time frames for a small, medium, and large. I think we do need to sit down and see where we're at now and what our aspirations need to be from a timing perspective. There's one thing I would add there. It would be really cool at some point in time if we had a permit desk where if it's a small business that has a non-structural, non-mechanical permit need that you could walk in and walk out with a permit. So just kind of keep that in the back of your mind. It's really just to study our permitting process more than anything else with some goals of how we can bring a little bit more clarity than when you can expect to be permitted in things like that. And so we do know for a fact that right now we aren't hitting these goals. What now? We do know right now for a fact that we aren't hitting these goals. I would say on some we are, most we aren't. And then the last thing I'll add, are we also considering technology to help us be more efficient? That's gotta be part of the recommendation. Absolutely. All right. All I know to say is make sure we're considering technology. Okay, Ryan. Next, relocation of the economic development staff to City Hall. This will also be something that will help speed up the decision-making. We do see lags when we need input from key decision-makers and it'll be a lot easier to expedite those conversations when we're crossing paths more often. So looking forward to that. And then finally the... I'm sorry, give me an example of... I mean, give me an example. I'm just curious of where it's been difficult to get to decision-makers. Well, it's just a time lag. I've got a letter of intent right now that we're working on for the former hydrogen fueling station. There's a local company that would like to repurpose that. We've talked with the mayor about it. He's verbally in agreement. We've got the LOI that just have not been able to connect with him to get that signed at this point. And were we up here and seeing him on a day-to-day basis? We probably could have kinda handed the paper off a little bit. And let me add to that. I mean, it saves us money, number one. But if the mayor, if there's a question that needs to be answered by the city manager of the mayor, I think it's really cool to be able to take the prospect straight to the mayor's office or the city manager's office. I don't think we gain anything by being in, but we used to be called the AT&T building still. Thanks. Thank you, Ryan. Yes, sir. All right, Ryan, recruitment. Business liaison position created in 2021. Recruitment, we're probably just saying you've been a fantastic job so far. I mean, I know that when I've had folks who've had questions about, and most of our existing businesses, by the way, not necessarily new businesses that needed somebody to hold their hand and walk through the process, you've been a real hero. And I think incorporating you into the economic development side will be one really good thing. And hopefully, hopefully in short order, we need two of you. So, wake up and get to work. I think it channels through different places, depending on if it's something that needs Jeff's attention or my attention, Missy Gentry. Yeah, we could capture that. And that's something we're working to do more from here on out. Let's make sure that we're getting that anecdotal feedback. Taking the time after we resolve an issue and understand what was the economic impact. That's what I'm gonna do. And I had made one note on the under-business family improvements and I had written down to be an advocate for business and keeping the city manager and staff appraised of issues that are affecting business and things in Columbia. I mean, I just, I think, whether we wanna put this in the plan or not, I do think that it will be the responsibility of the ED manager to make sure we're aware of issues that are popping up and stuff like that. Definitely reoccurring problems, like something, if you see something as a trend and we realize we need to make a change. That's right. For example, would be like something that I think we've remedied with Clint's assistance, but like if that original water and sewer expansion failure was stopping things down in five points. You got, we gotta have somebody in the field that comes and basically make sure that we're aware. Guys, this is something that's keeping business from open. You may wanna take a look at our ordinances related to that. That's just, again, it's just kind of a duty of the manager. So, if you might just add that in as a number five. And I will say, that's a good point, Joe. Councilman Taylor. Joe's fine. Well, no, because so when I was an OBO, we would honestly, we would get tons of complaints about different offices and I would say you have to talk to that department head. And I think a lot of times they considered our office, they wanted our office to be like their advocate with another department. I don't think we did a good job at that. So in that, I'm saying make sure you include OBO too, because they get tons of complaints. Oh, absolutely, absolutely. Not complaints, but you know, just to make sure you're hearing all the issues, but if we can find a better way to work together to address things, I think that would be positive. Yeah, and I think a lot of people are just looking for information or an update. I think a good degree of what we see is, sometimes there's a critical statement, but a lot of it's just, hey, I've reached out, where am I at in my process? Sure. Okay, moving on to recruitment. So prioritizing the importance of our urban development targets and new capital, and we created a list and have kind of refined the verbiage on that list to be reflective of, you know, restaurant, retail, hotels, urban residential opportunities, and corporate back office. Let me just make just a quick comment on that, just for the fun. So, I haven't been to Secretary of Commerce way back when. One of the things that we see a lot of times in the state of South Carolina is we are buffalo recruiters we used to call them. That's big deals. Everybody wants to go get the big deals. And I would tell you, for the most part, when we talk about economic development across the state, we talk in terms of manufacturing and distribution, you know, things that you really aren't gonna find in downtown, you know, in downtown Main Street or in our suburban areas. And frankly, you know, the county is really kind of leading the charge on the manufacturing side and the regional alliances. But I don't think anybody really in the state has paid much attention to recruiting what I consider to be urban types of operations, shopping centers, retails, grocery stores, doctor's offices, hotels, retail, urban residential units, building the population of our city center. And so that's, and I would just kind of as an aside say, that the best thing the city of Columbia can do to encourage, you know, buffalo projects in and around our city is to create a vibrant city life. You know, a city that's clean, that's beautiful, that's exciting, has things to do. So that's why what we're trying to do here a little bit is make it intentional that we're going to look for things that you put in a city, not necessarily airplane, manufacturer and plans. I'd also like to add, because it's a constant conversational piece in the issue that we need to address, grocery stores as a specific item. We can add that. What I tried to do when I was looking over this was make them more general, like retail. I only say that because it's such, you know. Well, and let me say this, I totally agree with that. I'm happy to put grocery stores on here, but they all go together. I was, you know, I don't know if you were able to watch it, but remember I sent around that thing from the Cleveland Fed. I did watch it. Would you remember what Mr. Randall said? I mean, he was very, very telling. He said, again, part of what you have to do, if you want to overcome food desert, you got to recruit housing. And that's why I wanted to make sure we put urban residential in there because that was directly tied to attracting grocery stores. Absolutely. And so I'm with you. So if you want to, well, you just want to add food stores, because some may be big, some may be little. You know what, is that okay with you or you want to call it grocery stores? I don't really make it. What is a food store? Some place that sells food. For example, it may be Mr. Jones opens up a food store. Like Uncle Willie's. Yeah, that would be our concept. I don't consider that to be a big, that matter. Let's don't, let's put grocery store down. We can make up our own things, food stores. Any other, anything you say you want to just like. I just want to echo, you know, knowing what we're good at, what we are a fit for, to your point, about manufacturing is not going to happen. Offices, office towers, we have very affordable lease rates in the urban core. So just go market into our strengths and I think that's a good direction. Well, I want to add there too, Will. This is something people don't think of. They used to really, they used to bug me a lot when I was a commerce. Everybody wants to talk about going and attracting these high paying engineering jobs, which are important, but last time I checked an engineer could get a job just about anywhere. And one of the things we don't think about that I think is important for us as a city is how about some of those hard to employ folks? You know, whether it's a hotel and restaurants that they can ride to, we got a heck of a bus system here. And you know, we don't need a car. You can get on the bus and ride to work and ride home. And that's why I think it's really important for us to not singularly think about high-end corporate stuff, but to think about the things that, because everybody deserves, it might be everybody deserves to have the ability to get up, go to work, feel like they're making a contribution, you know, and go home and take care of their family. And it shouldn't be just for the high-end folks, it should be for everybody. And that's just, that's why we want to kind of make a focused contribution on some urban type stuff too. Now, I totally agree with you. A lot of folks who are working pretty hard, I really want them to be able, if they work in the city center to be able to live in the city and not have to travel 45 minutes, you know, to get to where they have to work, I think that's very critical, so. Okay, Ms. Moore, let the record show that Ms. Herbert totally agreed with me on it. All right, Ryan. Next up, fill the newly created business recruitment position and structure the offer to support, office to support that role on urban infill projects, startup recruitment, and I also included to, this is where we, an opportunity where we can create more of that engagement with the mayor and city manager, as you mentioned earlier. Building out that data set to sell the city, you know. I think that's gotta be our number one, number one deal is to, and you gotta come up with a plan on doing that, whether it's engaging the Darla Moore School or the USC Research Foundation, I mean, this needs to be a marketable set. And I have spoken to the chairman of the Board of Trustees at USC and they will work with us on that. So, and I would think Dr. Amaritas would have a real desire to. So that should be one of our top priorities. And as part of that too, we'll be like the pitch book for the city of Columbia. I think you need that before you can do a lot of these other things. That's right, that's exactly right. That's top priorities. All right. So targeting our development efforts on geography, focusing on building our strong core and the corridors where we have the opportunities that are most prevalent and kind of building out around that center and the arms. So that's really just taking everything that we're talking about and driving it into the commercial areas that already have the development opportunities. Well, I'm making sure, I wanna make sure we, you know, again, when I look at Broad River Road, North Main Street and those type of, I mean, they got great opportunities there that we concentrate, you know, in those areas as well as downtown. I know at one point, a prior council, they, because you can't focus on the entire city all the time, they had certain corridors for like two or three years that they really wanted to work on. That is something we can consider. I'm not saying we have to do that. But that's something that we can consider. I hear you. I happen to believe all business is good business as long as it lands in the city of Columbia. So, and again, the interesting thing is success in recruitment begets more success in recruitment. I mean, you know, I mean, the more business deals that we're able to bring in here, the more restaurant groups or whatever, the more we'll follow. And you'll see down below here where he talks, we'll get to the shows and stuff, you know, where are we gonna expose the city, I think, to some new things we haven't done before. Yeah, and we've certainly seen a lot of interest. I mean, the fact that we've had 35 plus businesses open is already creating a lot of new interest and opportunities. So, as you said, we need to continue to build upon that and capture that momentum and drive it. Absolutely. All right. Leveraging USC and our other local colleges for recruitment opportunities. So getting, you know, all six of our universities in the game, we've already had interest from companies that look here and want to engage with internship opportunities. It's a good stepping stone for them to get in the door. And so we wanna, you know, cultivate and grow and build off of those efforts. The talent's really what drives the equation these days for these projects and office locations. Well, Ryan, I'll tell you, I think that's when I think about selling Columbia. I think the fact that we have some 55,000 college students here is one of the assets that we have that other areas in South Carolina doesn't have. And selling whether I'm talking about all of our Columbia college, Allen Benedict, the technical college is USC. I mean, you know, I was shared with somebody earlier today. If you're having a recruit across the nation to fill your workforce, you come to Columbia, South Carolina, you can recruit it down the street. So I think that'll be a big part of our dataset that we sell. And I would tell you that one of the struggles that I've heard from the university over the years is finding intern opportunities for their students. And I think, I imagine Benedict and Allen and Columbia College are the same way. And I think at some point in time for us to serve as a liaison or as a depot, for lack of a better description, for matching Columbia businesses up with these intern programs, I think it's something that could be huge for us. We're doing it right now. We identified a company, auto owners, insurance off of Lake Murray Boulevard. They employ about 65 or 70 people. They have a good relationship with the Moore School. We've already connected them with Scott Adams at CIU and Tracy Dunn at the Benedict Business College. They are interested. All right. Moving down, number six, recruit new capital. Pretty self-explanatory there. Number seven, 2022. So these are just a couple of targeted conferences and trade shows that we listed that will run through the end of the year. So primarily associated around the urban residential. ULI's got a couple of meetings in here. Couple of retail conferences. The ICSC, their smaller regional conference that they do is here in Atlanta, because they won't have their big show till May of next year. Las Vegas is when? That is in May of 2023. Probably second or third week. We need to get that one. And the city manager is going to shoot me for saying this, but we're very fortunate. We have an attractive city manager and attractive mayor incorporating them into the tenants on these shows. I think shows very well for the city of Columbia. And I know they don't like to travel somewhat, but I'm just telling you, it, we go to Las Vegas. You take, you know, you've got your city manager or your mayor with you. It's a differential maker when you go down these lines. Again, while Senator Graham doesn't quite make the presence that our city manager or mayor does, it was a big impact for us to have him with us at air shows. It just makes a difference. And it shows that we're engaged as a city. So keep that in the back of your mind. I just wanted to ask too, do we have the materials that we need to go to these events and setups? No, that's part of that. That's why you were right a minute ago when you said, the data set is probably our top priority. Like I said, we can do some fun stuff. I mean, we can bring back the saying famously hot and Ryan can take hand fans with him to all these things. You laugh at the Department of Commerce at the air show, the coolest thing we ever did. You remember those balsa wood airplanes that you got when you were a kid and you stick the thing through the wing and you fly it around and had a little metal thing on the front. We had those done that said, building South Carolina and we must have gave 25,000 of them out at the Paris air show and you could walk into these booths and you might see in that display hall, 50 of them in the air flying around. I mean, that's what I was saying. We got ways, we can, I mean, if you have to take little small things of barbecue sauce with you, we can do it. All right. Next up, marketing item number one, I think dovetails into what we were just talking about the development of the new strategy and collateral and those data sets. So leveraging and continuing to promote the business-friendly improvements, whatever that next wave may be, restaurant recruitment program. We've currently got some collateral under development right now. We're working with the staff at Collier's and they're helping us put together that packet for the restaurant recruitment, should have that ready in a couple of weeks. And we've talked about doing some other things like bringing back ways to promote existing businesses, developer take series, just kind of looking at, I guess some fun things we can do in conjunction with RPR staff that will continue to highlight the great businesses that we have here already. Where, Ryan, where's the grassroots boots on the ground recruitment concept of going to Charlotte, going to Raleigh, Winston-Salem, Greensboro, Atlanta, Charleston, Greenville and actually getting face to face with these smaller restaurants maybe don't have national brokerage representation. Seems like a good investment. Is that being considered for the profile of any of the team members in your economic development? Yeah, that would be, it would be more helpful if we can get that restaurant piece in place, but I mean, even as of last week, Greg and I were making some calls up to people in Greenville. You know, people go visit those people, too. Look it up, you know, and I think what we want to do is we want to identify about four or five of them in advance so we can kind of structure just a trip up there and hit them face to face to face. Yeah, I think that's a wonderful investment. I think we should start with Tupelo Honey Cafe. Where's that? Tupelo Honey Cafe, they have one in Rainbow. Rainbow, and it's one in... Asheville. Yeah, one in Myrtle Beach. There you go, personal trip for you to see. Well, and we just see part of that is having a pitch book and part of that will be part of your pitch book that's gonna be having a data set of spaces. You know, when you go sit down with somebody like Tupelo Honey, what you got is you need to show them it could be Main Street, it could be Five Points, it could be Divine Street. You gotta say, here's 10 locations we think would work for you. Here's the programs that we've been put in place. You know, you've done your homework. I mean, one of the things you're gonna probably add at some point in time, and maybe a year or so from now, it would be a research person that helps you put that pitch book together for that particular company where you've looked at their website, you know what their clientele is. So when you walk in, you're loaded for bear. And so that, like I said, those are the kind of folks that are having to find us now that we're getting ready to go find them. Well, and I'm sure, Chairman, that you leave a card behind for all the restaurants that you visit on your travels to say, come to Columbia. Actually was in there with one day last week. I found out, I thought that we're in the city though. We're delicious. Yeah. Got a good position. This is really good, by the way. But no, no. And one of the things we're gonna do when the mayor travels, or if the city manager travels, is they're gonna take your, they're gonna have a travel card that doesn't have their cell phone number on it. And they're gonna hand write their cell phone number on that card when they give it to somebody. So that prospect feels special. All right. All right, and leveraging the relationships with colleges and then implementation of new email automation services. It's something that we've talked about. But, you know, being efficient with technology in a way where we can send out an e-blast, you know, to 1,000 different restaurants and having a system that verifies who opens it, who read the email, who clicked on it. That's right. And running them through an automated email chain, you know. So the people that aren't interested in don't open anything up, kind of get cold. And the folks that are engaged, you know, that system tells us, hey, you need to reach out to this person, they've been very engaged with your emails, and it's time for a face-to-face conversation. All right, moving on to entrepreneurship, technology, talent, and innovation. We want to continue the strong work and relationship that we've built with GroCo. So working with them on the Boyd Community Innovation Center and their new Builders Tobaccoers program, which is the accelerator program that they're getting ready to roll out here. Yeah, well, why don't you do me one favor? Go back up to number three. Just above that and read that underline. Oh, I'm sorry. I want Mr. Daniels to hear this. I'm sorry, I didn't see it under the strike-through. Look for creative ways to promote inner-city neighborhoods and help promote the small businesses in those neighborhoods so that we make those areas fun. Thank you. And walkable. Yep. Well, absolutely. Walkable. Sorry about that, Ryan. Step for the months of June, July, and August. Nothing's really walkable. Okay. Entrepreneurship, talking about GroCo, continuing to work with Hively, Joe Queenen, expanding that out. They will be bringing that Builders and Backers program here via support that the city's provided. Working with the, you know, being involved in the growth summit, which is the conference that's coming up later this year that's very focused on the founders group here in Columbia. They've now expanded that to a two-day conference and it's bringing a lot of folks in from outside of the city now. So it, this could be one of our marquee events for the city going forward. It's really well done. I wouldn't, anybody needs tickets, let me know. Matt Valdi is, what's his pronounce, Matt? Vady? Vady. He originated that, I think he's taken a more recessed role. It's a committee group that works on it. He's running all this year, huh? Yep, Greg Hilton, the rest of those guys. The, something we talked about was a, with them, concept of a pitch pilot. So, you know, this could be an opportunity for the city and major employers to come together and we present, you know, our urgent unsolved problems in a way that, and get some of these innovative groups to come in and come up with solutions. Could be an opportunity for us to, you know, outsource different technology or strategies that may help us out with some of their issues. Just a concept idea. But along those lines too, and I'm supposed to have a meeting with the mayor, but I can bring it here. There's a HBCU pitch competition and they want the city to give them one of our biggest problems and it goes to a tons of students to work on, so. grocery store in Northman. Sounds like a plan. So those are pretty popular, pretty cool. That's a good idea. Good way to identify a local company that, you know, can solve your issue and then you financially support them and everybody wins. Well, it takes those kids and turns them into advocates for the city. I mean, that's, which is huge. You know, they feel like they're making a difference. They stay here and grow here. Okay. More small business capacity building. I think this was something that came out of the council discussion and I don't know if y'all wanted to kind of elaborate on any thoughts or ideas I included in here, but we definitely wanted to welcome feedback to expand on some of these things. I think that's one of those, Ryan, that as you engage more people and call on more people around, we'll find out, you know, again, what the issues are, you know, that may be key to them. I think I believe that we hopefully have addressed some of them with our business improvement additions that we've done in the last couple of months. And I think that's just an ongoing thing that you'll let us know, you know, what you're hearing out there. And then last one, finding ways to promote more of the founder success story. So this has kind of been another marketing play, but it really is oriented towards the entrepreneur who's started a business and built it from the ground up here. Moving down to business retention and expansion, our focusing, our outreach strategies, you know, I think we have a goal where we wanna meet with so many existing businesses, you know, throughout the course of the year, at least 100 businesses we wanna sit down and have some strong dialogue with them about what are you doing? What problems are you facing? Are you growing? Are you declining? Really identifying some of those issues and looking for opportunities. We can either help them out individually or, you know, identify these macro level issues. I know another thing that we talked about was, you know, do we want to look at, you know, incorporating more small women minority business focus in our efforts and making sure that we're, you know, as opposed to just taking a broad approach that we're being a little more dedicated in who we're reaching out to, so. I think this is where I sent the note. I was thinking about the old business and retention where y'all would go out and talk to folks. One-on-one and get inputs and do surveys. Are we still, I don't know, it used to be under OBO. I don't, OBO definitely doesn't do it. I don't know if we're still doing it or if there's still a need to do it. Yeah, we did and we're still doing it. It was a responsibility of the deputy director and so, you know, some of our capacities diminish, you know, due to some staff turnover, but we've still had probably about six or seven existing business visits up to date. I've got at least two more scheduled this week and we're. So, some of the, for existing business and just reaching out. Some of the things that we've been, that Ms. Wilson and I have been talking about is even senior staff periodically. It might just be one business a week, but we did, if I go and visit one business a week, that's 52 businesses a year. And it serves multiple purposes. First off, those of us that are helping y'all make decisions are more involved in with our community out there and understanding what's going on. But also, if there really is a real issue that I bump into, if me or Ms. C and we're gonna send Teresa Knox out too. So, if we determine some of the things. But seriously, those are the type of things I think that as we hear it as well, those are things we can help with. But I also think it's good for our community to see us not just sitting here in City Hall, but also out in interacting with our local communities. I regret, in my years here, I have not spent more time out on the ballot. I feel like sometimes I'm being more the fireman to do things, but I've gotta make a concerted effort to get out here. Yeah, I think that's a spectacular deal. I think when the senior staff went and visited Osana and Edens, I mean, it made those businesses feel appreciated. And it was, I think, really a learning process for us. So, Ryan, that's, I think that's fantastic. And I was gonna say, as a new council person, you can add me to the list to see a couple a month. And I understand that, Jeff, because when I got to the city and community development, Mr. Taylor, I thought I was gonna be out in the community. Well, you do know what the- But I was behind my desk. You know what the 10 most feared words to hear from a business are, don't you? I'm from the government and I'm here to help you. Yes, sir, please include. That's a great idea. Let's make that happen. I mean, and it doesn't have to be overwhelming, Jeff, one a week might be a little bit much. But I think, yeah, I think one, if you've got 10 senior city staffers and each one visits makes at least one visit a quarter, that's 40 businesses, big and small. But I think that's one of the cooler ideas I've heard in a while, so I'll just pursue that. And we'll be able to incorporate that with some of our normal workflow anyhow. Someone like Clint Shealy is often meeting with people for various other reasons anyhow, so. Okay. And I'm sure- I hadn't had lunch yet. Next item, the support for the council and the process of finding solutions. That was really captured out of the overall plan and a lot of those items are underway via the Tax Modernization Committee, so we kind of struck that portion out. And then finally, moving down to measures of success, so how are we gauging the impact that this is having through the year? So we're looking at our growth in business licenses. I thought that would be a good way to attract small business success. Mm-hmm. Yep, the number of announcements, new jobs, capital investment. We should definitely be putting that out there and that's a great marketing promotional tool along with the 35 businesses that have opened up that speaks volume. City-centered population growth year over year. I know that's a particular interest to us given we've got a bit of a multifamily deficit in Columbia versus some of our peer cities and we want to cultivate that urban residential. But it's not just multifamily, though. It can be middle market things and stuff like that. It's just, you know, I'm still stunned by the information you shared with us at our last meeting where Charleston has 9,000 city-centered residents, Greenville has 9,000 and we just have 3,000. And again, to build these businesses up, having more people live here, and again, and I would echo Ms. Herbert's comments about it, especially if it's walkable, just helps us really build a vibrant city. Yes, sir. And then finally, increased city revenue streams, property taxes, accommodations tax, a lot of this information we've already tracked on annually so we just need to start looking at year over year and making sure that the growth is there. That's right, that's right and we just want to make sure that we're growing our tax base and growing our revenue streams. And the more we do that, the less it costs other people. And so thank you. I think that's very, very well done. Thank you. Ms. Herbert, do you look like you have another question? Yeah, one question I did have. I did have just gone back to the question of growing the tax base is annexation. And I'm trying to, I'm just wondering, so who can help with that? Ms. I would yield to Ms. Wilson. I would suspect that's a zoning, a zoning issue more than it is really an economic. It's a true economic development issue, but I think that's really the way we're handling it. That was zoning would be the proper place to. Well, that's what I was about to say because I don't want to add anything to this year, but next year, I think right now we wait for people to come to us and say, I want to be annexed. But I think that if we could set some goals for properties that we want to get annexed or particular areas that we want to annex. And I mean, council members can also help with that too, but I think we have to go from, in order to grow that tax base, go from just waiting for folks to come and start pulling folks into the city. Well, I think to your point where, I think over the next 18 months, we're going to see a good case study organically of this. We've annexed a lot of acreage out there. It would be that triggers folks looking on the fence, neighborhoods with anti-anestation, now's the time. Yeah. On the city council agenda. Well, I think, was it coming back here for referral out? No, we didn't really make any changes to it at all, but that's what it was about. You don't want to look at it again or would you be fine with her sending you the cleaned up version? You see that you have comments or Ms. Herbert has a comment? I'm fine with it. I'd like to see it come back in public, just circulation. This is something that I think, you know, we've talked about for a long time knowing what we're good at and when it comes to business recruitment. I think that's a good path forward. Cleaned up version, circulated around and I would suggest that we circulate around to all council members at those times. Absolutely. And then we'll review it one last time, the 2nd of Feb, September, and you have only agenda, there's nothing first-shattering. But that I would. In the public and advertised. But I don't want that to slow down our recruiting efforts for the business liaison positions. I think we might be able to. Good meeting. Good meeting, Councilman Taylor. All right, because you're, I don't know what's on the back, okay. Yeah, I'm sorry, I did prematurely. We want to make the motions. The services of the clergy, the location of the community, or other services, the area served by the public body pursuers, you know, that's for that 7085, a well, Fargo project, the project framework, application statement, and the decisions. I can't.