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HomeMy WebLinkAbout04.15.21 EDA MinutesMINUTES ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT AUTHORITY Special Meeting April 15, 2021 1. CALL TO ORDER The meeting was called to order by Chair Butterfield at 6:00 p.m. Members Present: Butterfield, Bernhjelm, Hoyt, Hudlemeyer, Kaufman, Simmons Members Absent: Carpentier Also Present: Adam Kienberger, Community Development Director; Kalley Swift, Community Development Specialist 2. PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE 3. ROLL CALL 4. APPROVE AGENDA MOTION by Hoyt, second by Bernhjelm to approve the Agenda. APIF, MOTION CARRIED. 5. CITIZEN COMMENTS/PRESENTATIONS 6. CONSENT AGENDA MOTION by Simmons, second by Bernhjelm to approve the Consent Agenda as follows: a) Approved Meeting Minutes (March 25, 2021, Regular Meeting) APIF, MOTION CARRIED. 7. PUBLIC HEARINGS 8. DISCUSSION ITEMS a) City Council Priorities – EDA Work Plan Councilmember Bernhjelm thanked Community Development Director Adam Kienberger for his work as he is leaving Farmington and this will be his last meeting. The new City Council wanted to start fresh with a new priority plan and set priorities for this year and next year. One thing was to re-establish the roles and responsibilities of the EDA. The three City Council priorities for this year and next year are: - Business Growth - Community Engagement - Infrastructure Support EDA Minutes (Regular) April 15, 2021 Page 2 The City Council realizes the EDA is under-funded and as a result the responsibilities need to match the funding given. The role of this group is to support the City Council priorities. Business growth – Have a touchpoint with all current businesses in 2021 through the BR&E survey. It was paused during Covid and staff should get that up and running again. Meeting with all major landowners – These meetings will be at the council level and they will provide updates. Organize a Farmington Business CEO Council – This is not quite defined yet, but the EDA should have a discussion of what this looks like and how it would support the business function of the community. Community Engagement – Attending ribbon cuttings and community events. All boards and commissions are ambassadors of the city. You are getting updates from Council and staff on a regular basis. We need to change the narrative on social media and in conversations. Remind people of programs we have going on. Encourage businesses to participate in organizations we do have such as the chamber. We have talked about a communication plan and how do we tell our story. Staff will give an update at a later meeting. Infrastructure Support – continue the implementation of programs we do have such as the grant programs. Continue the process of the EDA reviewing funding for the budget. We had general fund dollars to put towards city projects and there are a couple Council wanted to give to the EDA and those are the new signage, downtown banners and holiday décor. These can be funded through the $100,000 set aside for the RRC or try to fundraise. In total we took $40,000 from the Council budget and gave it to the EDA. So the EDA priorities / goals for the next two years are: 1. Implement the BR&E Survey 2. Provide input on the CEO Council 3. Be an ambassador 4. Execute existing EDA programs Councilmember Bernhjelm prepared a monthly calendar for EDA topics. Consistent things will be to review program applications, director updates and city council updates. In March the EDA received the financial update. At the meeting next week, we will dive into the grant programs and discuss what we want to do for this year and start fresh for 2022. Also next week, we will talk about the BR&E program next steps. May – budget recommendations for 2022 June – communication plan update with Lauren. We want staff to update the EDA on how to promote businesses coming to the city, how to promote grant programs, etc. Also look at Q3 plan for the BR&E plan survey. EDA Minutes (Regular) April 15, 2021 Page 3 July – joint meeting with planning commission August – CEO Council discussions September – Q4 plan BR&E October - nothing specific November – have program plans in place for 2022 based on budget so going into January we know what we have. If the council approves any new funding we can finalize that. December – joint meeting with boards and commissions Mayor Hoyt commended Councilmember Bernhjelm for the significant amount of time put into this plan. The EDA has been a mile wide and an inch deep. There is a lot we wanted, but the action plans were light. How do we get to an inch wide and a mile deep. Pick specific items we know the EDA can support and then promote them. Councilmember Bernhjelm stated as a council we are trying to scale down and be very intentional with our resources. The EDA discussed business growth. BR&E is business retention and expansion. The idea is to have intentional conversations with every business in the community. What does it look like for you? Is business slowing down? Take that information and see if there are themes the EDA or council needs to focus on? Member Kaufman stated business retention has been a big thing for him. All we hear is what we don’t have versus what we do have. Those business owners in Farmington need to know they are valued. When we say implement and execute the survey, what is the strategy for executing the survey? Is it going to be hands off or are we going to have a human element? Councilmember Bernhjelm stated he may have to have a separate conversation with Specialist Swift. She can get you the tools for what the survey looks like and how we will implement it and dive into the details with you. Member Simmons stated this was a 3-member sub- committee of the EDA who was given the autonomy to design the strategies and come up with ideas to provide this to the EDA so they can meet more frequently than the EDA. We did implement the survey and we do have data. For next week member Simmons would like to discuss how that is informing our 2021 work. We do have some data that should be informing part of the decisions we are making for this year. Councilmember Bernhjelm asked if she was referring to the survey we did around Covid? Member Simmons stated no, it was a previous survey. Chair Butterfield stated questions were focused around will you be investing in 2021 – 2022 and will you be hiring. Mayor Hoyt stated we are going to review the survey and anything that has been done since then to overlay with what the proposal for action was. Councilmember Bernhjelm stated it will be what business will we approach first and getting the meetings set up and more of an update. We aren’t going to edit anything around the process. Chair Butterfield stated we are going to re-launch it with a decision point of either a three-person pilot or a larger swath. Chair Butterfield had a question on the business growth as to where we slot in the programming. We want to aim it at a growing business. With the business growth metrics, there are some metrics on taxable income growth and what is a success for the city. Do we have the right programs in place EDA Minutes (Regular) April 15, 2021 Page 4 at the right time? Is it a good swath to support what the council wants? Councilmember Bernhjelm stated yes and no. Yes in the scope of what we can provide funding for. When you look at city-wide growth, those are deeper and broader than what the EDA can get into. The piece regarding major land owners is when they intend to sell, what resources can we provide them so council can get a better grasp. There isn’t anything the EDA can do as far as that development growth. You will see a big investment in downtown. The council has approved redoing the sidewalks. Director Kienberger stated engineering and public works is coordinating that with an information campaign for the downtown. Chair Butterfield asked if we should put something on the calendar to revisit the signage. Councilmember Bernhjelm stated that will be part of the funding discussion in May. Staff is aware the EDA wants to implement signage. Mayor Hoyt stated if you look at the strategic plan core strategies, community outreach takes care of one of them. The others are policy or programming. Is the EDA going to be out there advocating for businesses to come in? Maybe not today. But the retention piece is a huge component of the outreach and BR&E. Next week as we get into the programs, what are the programs, what is adequate funding, what do we need based on recent demands? That will get put into the budget for greater action next year. Councilmember Bernhjelm noted there is more CARES funding coming to businesses so they are taken care of. We need to focus on our programs. Community Engagement – Member Simmons appreciated the work put into this and the calendar. It was good to see the council agreed to use our unused funds to make a difference now. The infrastructure around a CEO Council could help us reach our goals. Member Simmons noted one priority discussed was filling our empty buildings. The other item is the Highway 3 plan which identified a few easy wins. She wanted to know where council saw those fitting in. Councilmember Bernhjelm stated regarding the storefronts, the EDA can continue to promote Open to Business and grant programs. Otherwise, the scope is beyond the EDA. Mayor Hoyt stated if a property owner has multiple buildings and one is empty, we would ask how can we help you. That was his point with the Dakota Motors building. There is a portion of that building that is empty for a reason. How much do we want to be involved that we can reasonably change this? Councilmember Bernhjelm stated regarding Highway 3, we are moving the liquor store to the Farmington Mall. There will be a huge project this summer and help drive business to that area. There is a roundabout schedule for 2022 at CR66 and Highway 3. There is also an apartment building planned there. There is nothing further the EDA needs to do with that plan. There has been a conversation about a frontage road near the Holiday station. Member Simmons recalled when we discussed the wayfinding signage we did include Highway 3. Councilmember Bernhjelm stated as a group we will need to decide where we want to start because we won’t be able to fund it all at once. Chair Butterfield stated it is good to hear the council’s thought process on where their focus is, which is clearly Highway 3 and improvements in downtown. The EDA Minutes (Regular) April 15, 2021 Page 5 RRC Plaza is put off to the side so we have allocated dollars there that we can discuss in the coming month. The ice arena was on the council priority which sounds like it has been shelved. Councilmember Bernhjelm stated the council invested $200,000 into the arena improvements last year. She and Mayor Hoyt are also on a committee to put a referendum on the ballot in 2022 to ask the community to fund a recreational project. The Park and Rec Commission will take the lead in this project. The school board has a survey going out and a question will be added as to whether the resident would support this in 2022 if it went out to a vote. If that is a positive response, we will continue to work on that. It would be a $20 – 25 million project of Jim Bell Park. We have good ground work from 2016 and some of that will be brought back. Chair Butterfield stated with the priorities we have that loosely can fall under community engagement so why isn’t that listed as a priority? Councilmember Bernhjelm stated it hasn’t been given the green light to move forward and that is the purpose of the survey. We are not sure it will be on the ballot at this point. Mayor Hoyt stated we have two parallels - and one is engagement with our business owners. At the same time the Park and Rec Commission / City Council develop a survey and go in depth. As we engage our business owners and this gets traction, one thing might be to ask for donations. It isn’t something to chase at the EDA level. Right now, it is a very small group working on this. Councilmember Bernhjelm stated we have to change the narrative of what this brings to the city. It will take all the boards and commissions and city council to promote the narrative. Member Simmons noted other communities with these amenities are getting our dollars and felt this is a positive thing. Member Simmons asked if we need to elect new members for a sub-committee for the continued BR&E work? Councilmember Bernhjelm stated at this point it is Kalley setting up the meetings and which person from the EDA will be going. Mayor Hoyt stated it probably is a monthly update as to which businesses we will be visiting and an update from the last visits. As we talk about touchpoints that we ask each business owner, one would be their familiarity with the programs that exist today. If they say no, how can we better do that? Because the truth is $500,000 was allocated for small businesses and $243,000 was used. We were able to use it for other things. Do they know about all programs, what is the point of contact, so as new things come up, they don’t miss out on funding. Councilmember Bernhjelm stated some businesses were flourishing in 2020 and they didn’t need to take advantage of the programs. Member Simmons asked within the calendar where do you see this fitting which would be our annual re-assessment. Is it with budget planning in May or end of year? Councilmember Bernhjelm stated that would be in November. On next week’s agenda, we will discuss are those programs going to be more defined and have an enrollment period. That will define the calendar for next year. Member Kaufman stated the strategic plan goes through this year so what does that look like? Director Kienberger stated you would start exploring the new three-year plan in early fall. Councilmember Bernhjelm stated we can have that as a EDA Minutes (Regular) April 15, 2021 Page 6 conversation with Adam’s replacement. They might have knowledge from another city. Let’s stick with the plan we have for the near future. We are looking at June at the earliest for a replacement. Director Kienberger stated the strategic plan is used internally. He would recommend this discussion with the replacement as it will be good timing. These EDA priorities work in step with the Council and will work very well. Member Kaufman appreciated the council saying we should focus on these things. It is important we also close the loop on tasks we have going this year so it isn’t part of next year’s plan. Regarding the survey data, what do we do with the data afterwards and what is the systematic way of working through that data and completing that. Once we close that circle, then we can move on to something else. That will be important this year that we don’t just look at the execution we look at the return and make it a continuous cycle so next year we can look at something else. Councilmember Bernhjelm asked we make the BR&E timeline part of the next meeting and maybe this gets shifted to the November meeting to recap the whole BR&E program. Member Hudlemeyer stated when we reviewed the first round data in October a lot was time relevant and we got some good data. We did find where businesses had success stories. In our communication plan we need to share those so businesses outside our community see that. Mayor Hoyt stated ownership groups are talking about best practices. With the CEO Council and the BR&E there is some overlap so maybe it’s not the touchpoint of the business, but having that touchpoint with another business owner is how are you handling this? Councilmember Bernhjelm stated we don’t always need to reinvent the wheel. We do have a Farmington Business Association and part of it is getting businesses to be a part of that group. So do we need a CEO Council? Member Hudlemeyer saw promoting a group we have is more valuable than starting a new group. Member Simmons stated the sub-committee had identified there is a benefit to incentivize the businesses to participate in the survey, such as following up with a thank you, giving them a highlight on our social media, something to recognize their elevated engagement with the city. Member Simmons suggested for next week to discuss some sort of maybe not a documented procedure, but we hear a business is moving out, we need to inform someone to reach out. As a board we need to reach out and have a process. Councilmember Bernhjelm stated that is a conversation we can have with the city administrator as to staff working on that. Director Kienberger stated the next agenda will be the BR&E update and the program discussion as we have had other people inquire about it. Councilmember Bernhjelm stated her preference would be don’t tell us what is out there so we can have a clean discussion of what we want this program to look like so we can come out of it with clear direction; if we will open more money this year or if we decide the program is closed for 2021 and to re-apply in 2022. Director Kienberger stated we do get inquiries and we want to provide a clear message to those that are reaching out to us now. Chair Butterfield stated on the calendar is to discuss the program and a subset is to review the façade program and redevelopment program EDA Minutes (Regular) April 15, 2021 Page 7 guidelines. Administrative Assistant Muller will be at the next meeting to facilitate that discussion. Member Simmons asked for the calendar if we could look back at some of the good presenters we had like Open to Business and Urban Land Institute and fit those into the calendar. Member Simmons asked if we could talk about social networking at the next meeting. Mayor Hoyt stated the FBA is figuring out their structure right now and whether they want to exist or have a Farmington Chamber of Commerce. Councilmember Bernhjelm stated the most active group is the Dakota County Regional Chamber which she joined last week. Their lobbying group is much greater than anything we could do here. Chair Butterfield thanked Director Kienberger for his work. 10. ADJOURN MOTION by Kaufman, second by Bernhjelm to adjourn at 7:12 p.m. APIF, MOTION CARRIED. Respectfully submitted, Cynthia Muller Cynthia Muller Administrative Assistant