California Identification Remote Access Network - Regular Meeting

we will call to uh three oh three we'll call needing to order uh the strategic economic enhancement development committee on thursday 18 uh july uh roll call here vice chair yeah number heinz and number newton Okay. Adoption of the agenda and approval of the consent calendar.

Move to... Are there any changes to the agenda? I don't believe so. I move that we adopt the agenda and approve the consent calendar.

I second it. Well, in favor? Aye. Aye. Moving right along at a brisk pace. Open forum. Okay.

Now taking public comment on open forums, public comment on the first particular proposed participating in the group. So I'll entirely state your name for the record.

Do we have anybody online? We do not have anybody online. Okay.

Do we have an update on the Farm Bureau around potentially? I'm sorry, there is one first off. I'll take an open comment around those online. Please feel free to comment if you would like to speak.

Dina? Okay, moving on. We are now moving to agenda 261079, discussion on progress of update to the Board of Supervisors. Karen.

Yeah, so again, it's in September. The committee is to present just sort of almost like an annual update to the Board on activities, accomplishments, what you're doing for the year ahead. And I we have something that I brought back when we had before of just generally there was a template and one page of the PowerPoint which is the purpose objective of the committee board commission membership that's pretty straightforward.

Oh, you're going to mention what the committee does. We're on the PowerPoint one. They got it.

All right. So this is just the overview to reorient everybody.

Yeah.

Get them updated. Okay.

So in, I believe it was Bryce and you, Carl, that were going to be drafting something up to the committee and Bryce had to go and leave.

I guess that falls to me.

Yeah, somebody else that wants to help out. But I think that maybe the goal is just to come up with that, you know, more specific outline. It doesn't have to follow this exactly. It can turn it back to the next meeting and then fill in anything that's missing and maybe there's Photos are things we want to add to make the presentation more interesting. We could work on getting those so that by September, something a long ways away, but it'll come out fast and we'll have to probably get it to, you know, uploaded and done actually late August for the September.

Okay. Thoughts or comments from anybody?

All right. So there's update items that we can certainly add. And then, um, any activities, but we also want to highlight.

Yeah, I don't have pride of authorship here. So anybody who wants to jump in and add to this, I would be happy to take your input. And then I will work on it. I'll take a crack at this and have something back for the next meeting. You know, let's talk about the philosophy of this document.

Yeah.

You know, what is it we're trying to do here? I'm assuming the supervisors get a variety of these, Karen, from different departments?

Yeah, every committee and eventually there's twice a year now where they'll have a group of committees come up.

So what's the narrative we want to talk about? dollar document or the way we present our document.

Are we going to be presenting this a PowerPoint and updates or are we going to present the annual plan?

It's really open. I mean, I think in this case, I mean, the about the later item of the work plan, still needs to be formally adopted by the board. So that's a separate item. And I anticipate that'll come before this annual update. But you know, the annual update is certainly a way to talk about that effort again, and what the purpose is and, you know, specifically how we have the work plan. Obviously, sort of like here's what we're doing the first year as we're doing the second year. And that's exactly, I think, what the board wants to hear. Hearing it twice, even if we go right before then to get the item actually approved, I don't think it's a bad thing.

You know, one of the things that I don't see that maybe we ought to include is what's the context that we're working in? We've got a marketplace that is an economic, I deal in concepts called forces of change. What are the forces of change that are shaping the environment we're working in? And I'm wondering if we don't have a little of that context because it really does dovetail into the county's budget and the kind of the where we are now scenario.

Yeah, last year you did like short-term Yeah. Maybe like this year we just focus on short term or something.

Well, and I think we can do that, but this update needs to have a, you know, I think we're smart to put a context to it. Here's where we're at.

Yeah.

We've got a challenging economy.

Yeah.

We've got a basically flat to negative budget. you know, at the county level, you know, here's where we're at, you know, and at least have that acknowledged in the deck at the presentation. And then we can have, you know, here's all the things we're doing, here's... yada, yada, yada, yada. I like to have a narrative, a story to things, you know, and that puts these, all these things in context. Here's our purpose. Here's who's on our committee. Here's what we're doing. And by the way, here's our implementation plan. It looks, you know, so that's my only thought on this.

So if you want to outline the forces that changed you, Want to do like the wine industry statewide and then the wine industry locally?

Well, I don't even know how deep we need to get into it because I could write a book on the forces of change right now. But I think what we want to do is focus on the key, key issues that there's challenges, you know, and, you know, there's challenges in the wine industry. There's issues related to tourism. There's issues related to whatever these issues are, and I don't know them all. But if we can collectively identify, you know, here's the big issues that are facing us. We're having a flood. Declining property tax, Karis?

The primary tax goes up, it's just not going up at the rate it was.

Those are the things. Those are the forces that we're dealing with that set the context for what we're doing that I think we need to make supervisors and other interested parties aware of. Here's the world as we see it from an economic seed development lens. So, yeah, that's the kind of thing, Christine, we want to put in there. And I don't know all of them right now, but I'm just saying, as a boss, you should. I know. I've got to put that out here.

Just my two cents. I think a message that you've all talked about before that seems to resonate well is that concept of focusing on our existing assets and I'll say exploiting because that sounds like a bad word, but maximizing them, Rather than, we're not trying, economic development-wise, we're not trying to go get the next big, great thing that the county's never had before. We're trying to use the tools, use the assets that we have and grow within those.

That's a good point. You know, that is sort of the centerpiece of what we've been trying to do.

Yes, that's basically.

I think that lends itself into the T-Bin and all the rest of the stuff we're trying to.

Making money off of what we already have existing, happening.

Yeah.

And they're open to that.

And there's an element that I've gotten fascinated with lately, Up in Tahoe, now I don't know, I'm sure it plays well or not plays well, has an impact out here. And that is the creative economy. You know, how many creative people live here and are making a living based on whether they're photographers or chefs in the culinary or music or whatever. It's a recognition of that community centric culture.

approach you know so that might be something we can weave in here you know so my two cents yes give us is this i mean the world i live in and when i as i look around various even government agencies i see that it is so very very easy to lose track And confuse whatever the objective is.

Yeah.

Okay. So it's just, it's relatively common to me. I'd like you, you know, if you want to make this report to the board of supervisors, I think even the comments, well, this is, this is where we're at. This what's going on is where we're at is a complete diversion from trying to get them to do something constructive. My, my personal opinion. is you spearhead the topics, the items that we need to press where they can start working on generating revenue and stuff. You don't give them anything to think out the side door. Nothing. It's all good and well. We want to say, yeah, we've studied this. We understand. This is the situation we're in that you guys need to look at it. I think all that just gives them a diversion psychologically, and you need to just go, in my opinion, you need to focus on the parts of the things that we want to see you board supervisors do.

That's a great point. And I think what we have, if you look on the goals and work plan, what we do is we pull out those key actions or those key items we want them to focus on.

What I'm saying, Carl, and what I'm trying to say is that I have just been in various meetings and delegations and stuff like that. I just find out that if you don't just focus on the very specific elements that you want people to put their attention on, tell them why and for and how and all that, give them a diversion. It's like, this is what we have to do.

I think we can make that plain as day. Well, that's good input. And I think one of the things that we've talked about is urgency.

I've been dealing with the little thing here. This is just kind of a little sidebar, but it has alerted me to some of the reality of government employment. So we've been looking at a grant possibility from the Department of Transportation to help. I've been looking at just revitalizing the rail, somewhat doing that. And so there's a big grant opportunity that has broad reaching possibilities to make use. And it's big. So this little project that we have here, I think is maybe it's maybe 10 to 20 million to do the piece of work that we looked at. And the agencies have already put a lot of work, a lot of engineering work on it so far. So the bottom of this grant, the bottom is $5 million. So they're not going to look at anything and say it's going to be less than that. And it's $680 million or something that they have to apply to a bunch of things. So I tried to make a proposal through one of the supervisors to get this down and from a gal who's on the JPOA or whatever to try to say, look, you know, we should look at this grant. Okay. Put the documents out to the, who is the agency in the county that would be the good to take lead. And we decided, you know, maybe parks would. But it goes out to management parks. They look at the initial document and say, Oh, no, no, we don't have this and we aren't here and we can't do that, so there's no good. And so what, you know, I'm in the private sector, so what I see is the employee going, I don't want to do that frigging ramp work. I got a salary. It says right here, we can't do it. So that's what they find. And that's the kind of stuff I see happening all over the place, state government, federal government, everywhere. The same thing. I got my job. I don't necessarily want to have to do this extra work.

Got it. So now you make a good point. I think we can fashion that.

I mean, it's key points up front. If the points, I think we've fashioned what we're trying to accomplish and, you know, press those items. Yeah. And don't give them anything to say, well, I can go on holiday. Got it.

That's great input. I think we can shape that. Okay, anything else on this item? What I'd like to do is if you've got some specifics, if you can get them to me in the next week or two and I'll corral it all and work with Karen putting it into some sort of specifics for this. Yeah, send them to me and then I'll work them out. By next Thursday? Yeah, next Thursday would be good because then we're getting into 4th of July and all that stuff.

I got your email, Carl. I got your phone.

Yeah, can I get your phone? 530-957-5299. And Michael's got his hand up. I'll take him up to there.

I just wanted to comment on the presentation before. It's good that they've created a template. At least it gives you all baseline expectation of what they would like or want to hear, having seen quite a few of them. It seems like a guideline on a requirement because each committee has slightly different focuses and purposes. I would think that you would somehow want to include some of the county's recommended budget indicators, their indicators of revenues, regulation and like that, not created differently, their indicators because Now, obviously, that's what they're operating to from a budgetary standpoint. You want to show alignment with this committee with those key indicators. But ultimately, I think what you're trying to position for is a value proposition for the government's portion of an investment, investment of time, investment of resources to do the things that are on our horizon. Right. So somehow, some part of this, I think, needs to be part of your value proposition. And in so, in keeping with my remarks at our last month's meeting, ask for their help. Once you've identified what you think the economic main things are, ask for their help in keeping the main thing the main thing.

Good point.

And I think it can be done in a way that is discourages distractions along the path that are going to be so enticing. It certainly is beneficial to staff when there's consistency in what this group's plan is with the goals of the Board of Supervisors and not deviate too far from that at any point in the process.

I think that's good input. We talked about that last meeting. I don't want to mouth off about it a little bit. I think that the issue really is the issue of how do you keep everything on track so you can move it forward. The same thing that I may have indicated here. I mean, there's got to be some, we talked about maybe some mechanisms that we can put in place to follow back up, but these things fall off the table. And when it comes to the TOT or that stuff, it needs to be done, right? And, you know, if it falls off the table and there's another six months goes by and another six months goes by, it's done, right? You've lost the revenue and the inertia is out of the picture. I think that Carl and we spoke about this, trying to find a mechanism that would help us track these requests, track the efforts that are going on so they don't go sideways. I don't know how or what the best thing is.

I'll hold this part of the conversation until later in the agenda. In the plan, we have lots of metrics to measure this stuff. Let's hold that. I know what you're saying and I don't disagree with you. In the haze of running a county government, there's 9 million things pressing down on these people. And it's our job to kind of remind and whatever, hey, here's the things we think are critical to the economic development side. And I think we can do that. So I don't want to, that hasn't escaped me. Let's hold that discussion for a little later in the agenda. Okay, but I got it. Okay, anything else? What do we need? Do we need a decision? It's just discussion.

I'm online as well, bro.

What's that? Yeah, I'm sorry.

I'll take a comment from those online. Anyone who's sufficient to speak, please raise your hand and voluntarily

Okay, well, I'm gonna close this off with good discussion. No decision on this from us. But again, if you guys can get me input in the next week or so, we'll fashion it into this deck. You'll see the deck before it's finalized. So you'll be able to put more input in the process. And then Perry, hold on to your comment. We'll get to that a little bit later in the agenda. And with that, we'll move to the next agenda item, which is a burning topic. 2601080, Discussion of Progress, Inviting Business Community into TBID Conversation. And I know there's been all kinds of like buzzing around this county because I hear some of it coming back. I don't know. And this maybe we probably need to have this discussion. How do we formalize this? You know, I know we've got an invitation to speak to the Ag Committee. They're meeting in July. Are there other groups we need to target? Or does that come in the realm of a contract with Civitas, which is up on our agenda here in a minute? But how do we want to control the buzz here? Or how do we want to take advantage of the buzz?

Or how do we want to... Yeah, I don't think it's something we can control. I think it's something we want to promote. Yeah, exactly. How do we promote the buzz?

And I think if you're talking to the businesses, which essentially we'll vote this in, it has to be pretty clear and cut. Like kind of what you were saying, Perry, with the government, like what I've learned in working with Apple Hill and with the wineries is you come to them with like, this is what we're thinking. and go from there versus like letting them navigate how the BID would work or the TBID would work. Like kind of being like, this is what has worked at other places. This is kind of what we're thinking. And then they come back cause they're, they're very, um, it's not their realm. Like they, they have to be educated, um, at a very like high level. And then they're more open to it versus like, Hey, we're thinking about doing a BID. Like, They're going to be like, well, where's the money going? How much will the associations get? And then it just spirals as it has here into like not productive.

So here's my thought.

Yeah.

We need to get to Maya's proposal.

Yeah.

Civitas proposal. But I think what we need to do is identify the groups.

Yeah.

That we need to. We'll talk to focus on whether it's Apple Hill, the winery, the lodging folks. Well, and I don't know what are, what are those groups?

Yeah. When you want to bring this into play, Carl, but I, I know we've also buzzed about this, but I a hundred percent agree. Like this has to be kind of in lieu of re like vamping the tourism.

world here like one we've talked about the halo and like apple hill yeah and all the different sectors i think each sector that's going to be under that is who we meet with okay yeah and and the way i'm seeing it and you guys tell me what you think i see lodging yes i see uh ag yeah i see wine i see outdoor recreation i do not see restaurants in the t-bit arts and culture we talked about arts and culture yeah Because life's too short to get restaurants in the teabed.

I think if Apple Hill's going to play, they're going to want their own sector separate than the other farming community. So it could be like Farm Bureau or Farm Trails or whatever. It's kind of like one sector. world, and then Apple Hill, and then wine.

That's fine. Okay. So that's good input to know. And the way we thought about this, and we have to wait till Civitas actually runs up the numbers, because we begin to see what's the total budget look like, and then what part would flow back to these individual groups that they could then, within the realm of the ordinance, spend money on. You know, some might want to put it into transit, some might want to put it into their own little marketing gig, some might want to put it into signage, whatever, whatever it is, you know.

Yeah, we have talked about like, you know, recreating the visitor's authority.

Yeah, exactly. That's all how I envision, like there's a halo.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So here's the question I have to Maya. Is that a piece you design or do we design that and give that to you or do we design that? How do we do that? Because I have an idea how to do this, obviously, but I'm happy to take the design of this. And then feed it into your presentation or is it a separate presentation or what do you think works?

So the proposal we put together is essentially a phased approach. And so for the first four months, it's going to consist of that kind of base level planning. What does this actually start to look like? And in order to really get some informed decision making behind what are the bones of the district? We need access to the data because that's really going to drive the conversation of, okay, which groups are really worthwhile to bring into this? And if it is that we want to go for all of these, then where does the, but how much do each of these sectors bring in? Because that's going to be directly translatable to the proportional benefit that they're receiving back into what they're paying in. And so then that's how we can start to Think about, okay, how much does Apple Hill bring in? What's the proportional benefit? Then how can we then take that proportional benefit and craft services that are in line with what we would imagine they would want to sign on to? And so that's like the process that we would do In more of an internal group, we would create what's called that steering committee of three to five persons. Could be very well the people in this room to really put thought into. We might want to make it a separate committee so we can circumvent Brown Act stuff. But to that end, we would rely on that committee to help inform us once we have our hands on the data and get a really clear picture of what our players are working with. then we would lean on them to say, okay, if we were to start tiering the assessment, if we were to start putting maybe it's, you know, benefit based on geography or based on level of service, what kind of services do these sectors want? Is there, you know, an appetite to have one kind of solidified marketing plan that would speak to all the industries, but then maybe one sector only wants transportation, things like that, or we would rely on your community insight and institutional knowledge to help inform our drafting process. So if you tell us what you want based on what we're working with, then it's our job to craft the language in a way that gives you guys the authority to have that mechanism work that way. And then once we feel like, okay, we've got a good enough plan, we've got the budget, we've got the numbers behind this, let's start then circulating this plan to that employees. And at that point, we're all in the back.

That is so bad. And I'm even to the point of, I don't, we need to rebrand this thing. Totally. It's not the El Dorado visitor authority or it's maybe even it's visit El Dorado County. Yeah. Totally. We've got to, we've got to come up with new.

Yes.

It's got to be positioned. Yeah.

You know, yeah.

I don't want to get the wings. Yeah. And we can design the board.

Yeah.

Committees.

Yeah.

I can do all that.

I think by you guys, then we could go to the groups and like, you know, obviously, um, My brother's the new EDWA president. So then we'll go to these groups and then we could do the pitching to them. Exactly. That's best. And they will never okay anything that is not like your friend.

And you can't answer any questions. You're like, I don't know how much money this is going to get. Exactly. We do find that peer-to-peer is going to be the best. They know your guys' faces. They don't know who we are, but we would be more than happy to Join those conversations to help you. There's a technical question. But at least it's like we're working with a small internal group. You have your running homework assignments. We send you out to go do that outreach to get people on the line. And then once it's time to have that conversation, you lead it with us being in the room so that we can, again, be there to answer any technical nuance. But having that peer-to-peer is really what's going to go a long way for that.

So what I'm hearing is... The core groups include outdoor rec.

Yes.

Lodging.

Yes.

Non-Apple Hill Ag.

Yeah, like would it be under Farm Bureau? Probably not.

Or Farm Trails. I'm thinking if there's still an organized winery association. Yeah, there is.

Or there's Eldorado Wine. But that doesn't include like

Beach growers.

Yeah, exactly. I think we need to figure out how to bundle those. It could be farm trails.

Okay, for the moment, farm trails.

Lodging, outdoor rec. Okay, this is what I would do.

Farm trails, Apple Hill, and wine. Yeah, those are the core groups for the moment. And you did arts and culture. And arts and culture. Now, arts and culture... They don't have money to give, but what I'd like is for them to have a board seat, totally. Because we need to have a little bit of diversity on that board so that you get a community perspective. Okay, because I've seen it where it's one-dimensional. And it works for a moment, but over time, it's not the best setup. And then underneath that, we'll set up a committee structure for more community input. We'll have a marketing and special events committee. We'll have a whatever committee. We'll figure all those committees out. And now you've taken this new organization, this Visit El Dorado County organization, and you've expanded it. the community participation geometrically from what we had when it was just a slice of the chamber. And that should hopefully build a constituency over time, assuming everybody does good work, which I'm sure they will, but that's sort of the big picture. And I can develop that on some slides for you guys to see it and comment, and we can put it where it needs to be in the process.

Yeah, and it's perfect because depending on how much money each sector brings in and how that all plays out. I know Brian has specifically said he wants like Apple Hill to have a traffic like sector of their like, you know, so that can all be decided after we do your research.

Yeah. And I can speak to this better than I, but I've seen DMOs Some people put it into signage. Yeah. Some people put it into advertising. Some people put it into whatever. Yeah. You know, and it's interesting that how that all happens. But that's up to these groups, as long as it meets the legal definition of what these guys needed to meet during showing benefits. You guys can sort that out yourselves, but we still have the main money for Visit El Dorado County, of which you get a board seat. You get to help shape the plan, the marketing plan, the direction, the valuation, the monitoring, the budgeting, all that stuff. So this should work. That's what I'm saying.

And then like you said, the businesses, because they're going to want Like it's supposed to affect the businesses. So like, based on how much money everyone comes in, like, obviously just going off of my intuition, Apple hill. association will get a huge chunk of this because they're bringing in the most money yes but that's all decided together or but that's what the goal of these is right these associations aren't volunteer based anymore and like you're saying because you can't go because now you have like paid because that's what it's funding right right because that's how i'm going to pitch it yeah everyone yeah um any other comments on this christine can i got a question yeah okay so i

And you're probably best to know this. So after you've made the presentation, you've started the plan. What would be the gracious way, if there is one, to set it up so that you would come back into this group at an earlier time to check how's their status, how they're reading things, what are they doing? Just as a mechanism to press them to continue to pay attention and move it forward.

Oh, the board or who? The growers?

The members, yeah. The people you're presenting it to. The ones that you have to get on board.

Yeah.

Well, we'll vote, right? You're going to have the Visit El Dorado County organization.

Yeah.

And that budget is going to be X. Yeah. And to your point, Perry, how do you know that that money is being spent in the way of

My point is, how do we continue to be able to prod them by able to get in in a quiet way to try to make sure that they keep attention? Because oftentimes, you know, people hear this stuff and they go, that's a great idea. We're going to do it. And then they don't think about it until. And so a way that you can get graciously get back in in front of them on a little more of a regular basis, and maybe just for the first extended period of time until it's finally in place and they're moving.

Every board member is a liaison back to the group they came from. So when they sit on the board of Visit El Dorado County, let's say I'm the Apple Hill rep, I'm going to come back every month to Apple Hill and say, hey, this is what we're doing. And I'm going to have the executive director show up and give a presentation on, hey, here's the newest thing we're doing. So you're going to have constant flow back and forth. I think Perry's talking about starting now.

How do we make sure the growers, yeah. So I guess the way that we keep this moving, and correct me if I'm wrong, is because the county is fronting the money. Well, the home. is that the county is funding money the farmers aren't going to so let's say the county funds money so we have to get an okay on that and then when we I think seed would make a lot of logical sense maybe with a couple added people would be the little committee that starts working with you guys do our four month process go pitch it to the groups and I'll know like right there and then probably a very good idea if they're going to pass it or not yeah like i'll have questions yeah that will be like they might obviously i've already started planting the seed like you know i've already been like hey guys like we're a huge brand we can't work off volunteer base i'm not gonna do this much longer we need to bring in money i'm thinking of bid so it's it's been talked about for years you know like But I'll know once we take the legitimate, which you'll probably be there. Right, exactly. And I'll be part of the Apple Hill Farm Filth and Wine Grape Garden. I won't be part of Arts and Culture Outdoor Rec or Lodging. Right. But that's how I plan to do it.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it's not that long of a time period once, you know, the four months of the steering committee is ready to go to when we would be in front of the board asking for their blessing on the formation. But even during that interim time, so that's, like you said, like eight to 12 months, if I remember correctly, I would see one of the roles of this committee as being that liaison. Let's invite representatives from each of those groups to these meetings to get updates. That's a standing item on the agenda. Here's what we did in the last 30 days related to forming the TBID. That way they're kept informed.

And as the TBID is going through the process, you're building the organization. You're having a first meeting. Because what you want to do is when the the county formally adopts it and you collect your first dollar is four to five or six months so you got you got plenty to do yeah building in order building capacity what's an office look like do we have bylaws yada yada yada there's plenty of work to do that is going to engage everybody to get this thing you know off the ground day one and

Just, I remember you talked about this last time, but will each sector we have have a different like voting, like will Lodging vote their, you know, one in, and then Apple Hill will vote their one, and they'll all be separate, these seven. They'll vote at their own representative, you mean? No, I mean like voting, like the businesses have to vote it in, right? So how does that work?

Yeah, so the businesses, so I think to tie back to your question, of course, we're going to go to these groups with, I think at the very beginning, we say, hey, this is the first meeting of multiple meetings. Whatever discussion we have today, we're taking back to the internal group to revise documentation, and then we'd love to present you with any revisions that came up.

And then you come back.

And we just come back for however many meetings it takes between that four-month kind of process, that feasibility portion.

So then you typically... Let those individuals or companies know when you're going to come back. Oh, yeah. Set that precedent right then.

Exactly.

Yeah, that's good.

And then in regards to the vote, so it would be a vote of all the businesses that we're proposing to be a set, but we're proposing to be included in the district. And then depending on how we craft each assessment methodology, you know, it could be, maybe it's one flat rate for every business sector. I don't think that's going to be the way it pans out because they're so nuanced. So maybe there's different, raise different tiers. So it can be separated out because they're going to want that for sure. And understanding that whatever, which way we craft that assessment methodology to each sector, we then use that formula to calculate how much, each of their vote weighs for the petition because it's weighted based on how much they're hereditary.

But there is a fixed amount of money that has to go to visit El Dorado County. Of course.

No, I'm going to pitch that part. I'm just saying I know Apple Hill. I know. they're going to say, we better get the most.

Right.

Like 100%. So I'm just saying, can it be separated? And I'm going to fight for Vizelda because I believe in that 100%, but I just know they're going to want it separated out based on the businesses in each district.

Right. But it is not going to be A teabag where all the money flows to Apple Hill.

I know, and I don't want that. I just know they're going to say it.

I'm going to see it. It's like for every $100 you collect. Yes, they want a fair distribution. You collect $100. Right off the top, you're going to say 25 of that is going to the Visitors Authority and Countywide.

Yes, yes.

And then we're going to split the remainder, and Apple Hill, they've contributed... You know, they're a third of that. Okay. They get a third of that rate. The wine growers get 10%. The recreation gets 15%.

I just know them. And I know if it wasn't, they'd be like, no, we're not doing it. And so I think if we pitch it like that, they'll be like, okay. Because they're going to think in their mind, we're giving numbers we don't want to be giving.

But like, it's just going to be like. And then to Carl's point about the way that we craft the governance, obviously there's going to be one board under this to be formed visit Eldorado County that would be representative of each of the industries and then perhaps each industry itself has a subcommittee but then decides how do we want to spend the portion that we get back for this that's not the county-wide market that's kind of getting taken over. It's a no-brainer.

I am looking for a total amount for Visit El Dorado County that makes a meaningful impact.

Exactly. We're talking big time.

We're talking big money.

Yeah, exactly. No, because we want to grow bigger than at all. Yeah, trust me. I have a winery and an apple hill.

I want it to be. Time to hire a professional. Yes, that's what I'm going to say. You're going to have to hire a CEO.

You're going to have to be the president of the winery and me. All right.

We got the input. We're good. I like the vibrancy.

That's a good point, is if they create a district, it relieves them of a lot of administration that doesn't actually drive business to your business or any other business. You want a professional driving business for everybody. And it's healthier. And it penetrates. Life isn't back.

We'll have a real budget to hire professionals, you know?

That will be their job.

It's a good thing. All right, moving on. Item number 260-1081, discussion of TBID proposals received from CIMITAS. Karen or Maya on this one?

Yeah. I don't know that I have one.

Okay.

I reached out last minute. I know we're just going to have to give her something.

Maybe we can put it up on the screen. That's probably good. Yeah, I'll just do it that way.

Good.

See, maybe we'll get to the next one now or past.

we had a hotel group and i'll do that every time and the cd anyway so thank you all right then we get a meeting it'd be a little bit of an argument and they'd realize well it's driving more business for everybody we win anyway yeah it's just

I think they will be happy. I just want to stabilize the association monetarily. That's like, we don't, we're a non-profit group. We don't want to make a ton of money. I just want to hire, like, three employees a day around the association. And pass through and pass. And, you know, because I don't know if I can make you guys more of a year-round business.

They'll get it. They're just very, like, how does this benefit move?

And that's part of that mindset is going to have to be adjusted. Oh, it will. You have to think of a whole. Or else I'll probably not be competitive.

To a few big players. So I think we can. By the way, I think that's a really good point to present to the board is what things to do is get everybody on the same page. Yes, exactly.

Through community, which is always good.

I, again, go back to my ski industry example where seven ruthless competitor ski resorts sitting at a table, all working together to compete against Colorado and Utah. These are a lot better than competing against each other. Well, they would trade their mother for a point of market share.

Yeah.

I mean, that's how ruthlessly competitive they are. Yeah. But that's where this group, and that's going to happen with the board.

Yeah.

They're going to need some training to begin to think in a bigger picture. A bigger strategic picture. Yeah. Of how you compete at a higher pie level than just what's good for me. Because you have to grow the pie.

Yeah.

Whether it's grow the pie in slow seasons or wherever it is, that group could figure it out. And it's time. Yeah, it's time. It's well overdue.

I had Carl come talk to us when I moved down home in 2017. He even talked to us. That's when I started being the marketing chair. And I literally, and he said this then, raise your prices, have a traffic. And no, everyone was like, I just want to sell more pie.

That is true. There's an old adage in the consulting world. You either make change or change is made for you.

And I think they're getting that now. And honestly, when the company comes down on a lot of them, I think it almost helps. It's not a good old boys club anymore. You've got to get with the program. But they still are putting up their playgrounds and that.

Last month, there was a discussion of a communication plan. Of course, the communication plan would have to be in certain layers with certain ones coming first. Those communications that would help the organizational leaders communicating the message. I think that that needs to come pretty soon because because Christine's already down that path, but others are not.

Well, it's going to come when we get this piece done. We've got nothing to show anybody yet. All we've got is an idea of us.

I'm just thinking the high-level talking points for the community leaders to be able to help their boards without getting into a whole lot of Because there will always be more questions well ahead of that when there will be answers.

We'll work that out. Good point. This requires a ton of communication. Okay, Maya, go ahead.

And it's both talking points that are shaped. How do you talk to the county? How do you talk to the private sector? Holy lark. It's so different. Yeah, very different. Okay. Yeah. So this is our proposal to assist you guys with a phased approach. So for the first four months, it's going to focus on that feasibility, which would include kind of developing that data work in order to understand what each sector is bringing in. Again, obtaining feedback from the business owners, providing education while we're doing that outreach process as well, and then developing that draft service plan that would then evolve into your required management district plan, which would come in the formation phase. But at the end of this, you would have that draft service plan of what the bones of the district look like informed by the outreach process. And then we'd actually deliver a final feasibility report that would include both that service plan and then really our own kind of expert analysis of what each stakeholder group's response was, what the support levels are looking like at this point in time, and whether or not we would advise on continuing into formation, or perhaps you might need to pause to do more outreach or engagement. And honestly, we might even find that once we get into this, there might be some groups that we just think, okay, we're never going to get them. And so we unfortunately cut them out and craft it in a different way. So that's all phase one. And then in phase two, of course, contingent upon it being a favorable feasibility outcome. we would then guide that formation process to bring you through that local vote, the petition, and then bringing it into the County Board of Supervisors hearing process as well and making sure that we are drafting all those documents required for the formation. So we can go to the next page if you can please, Ben, thank you. This is the opportunity just kind of lays out everything that we've been talking about pretty much up to this point, how there are significant tourism assets within the county across multiple different sectors. And there really is no, at least at this point, organized tourism promotion plan. There was that visitor's authority that has since been dissolved. So really the opportunity here is looking to unite each sector under a common tourism promotion plan. It includes kind of that, at least the lodging assessment estimates that we included last time in the presentation. You can see it's bringing in almost half a million, and that was just looking at lodging. Just lodging? Yeah, and so obviously that's just kind of a basis point. The data will reveal a much clearer picture, but really that's, I think, the way that we can strategically present this to the county, kind of how Perry was talking about, you know, focusing on the why, what's the opportunity, what do we want them to focus on, and what are we asking them for? Okay, we can go to the next slide. This goes over Each of the steps for each phase, phase one, that feasibility is going to consist of developing, again, those project parameters. It's going to be us meeting with the county stakeholders, identifying that core group, just as we were talking about today, that steering committee. Establishing what all of our roles are in the process and, of course, we kind of were talking a little bit about it today where we're assigning you kind of your homework to go out to each of the sectors, once we have a pretty solidified plan and we're aligned on messaging. And this would be, you know, holding zoom meetings to establish those objectives and parameters and then, of course, of course, having those kind of one on one interviews when the time comes. So that's really what happens at the onset and step one, step two. And these are really kind of all happening simultaneously here in step one and step two, we would work with the County directly to get our hands on that data for lodging. It's obviously going to be the transient occupancy data for the, you know, any, you know, like a probably farm and Apple Hill are likely paying sales tax. So we want to get our hands on the sales tax data. There is a pretty, you know, nuanced process for us, the consultants, to handle that sales tax data, which we would work with the county to give us access to. There's some steps in the law that we would have to take in signing an ND and things like that. But we'll work with the county. It's great that the county is leading this because that makes it easy in terms of that streamlined communication.

Maya, from a county perspective, what's really important is you're outlining the feasibility of the steps. which is of value to the county to understand. Like the sales tax. Like the lodging. Which we've never passed. Never happened. And it was so valuable. Which is what we had focused on in other counties. Naturally. Because we've been doing it so long. It's just kind of a second thought.

Absolutely.

Here we're starting from scratch.

Exactly. And part of the process is for those that are paying sales tax, identifying their business licenses and then sifting through the data to try and identify, okay, which ones that fall under certain codes that we want to then group. And so we have experience of being able to read data and try and start, you know, aggregating that is representative of each sector. So, um, we can definitely work with the county to today, like the word you use asset mapping. That's exactly right.

You have to hire D well, they have a contract with DHL, but you have to ask DHL to do that and you have to pay them to do it. And, um, you'd be surprised what's not asked for. So you bring somebody like Maya and for her, it's like, oh yeah, certainly we would ask for this, this, this, and this. It's just part of the process.

We work with them all the time when it comes to, when we get hired by local governments. I'm glad that the county's already using them because we would be able to, they know exactly what we would be asking for. They've got a lot of experience working with us. So that'll definitely streamline the process here as well. And then naturally we would kind of roll into that stakeholder engagement and education process where we feel like we've got a good bare bones structure of what the data is revealing and what might be the proposition to the stakeholders and then having each of you go out to these groups. Leading the discussions we would be there in the room again obviously to answer those technical questions that come up. And just intake all of that feedback to then develop that funding plan, so we would go in and review and revise what we put together. And then, so, in addition of the parameters of the districts that begin to reveal itself and are further informed by this process. we would then kind of create our own analysis of, okay, here are the support levels lying into the groups. Here are some big yeses, big wins, maybe some small positions. Where would we, as the experts, you know, recommend in terms of next step? And again, it might be, you know, we might need to cut some groups or hopefully everything goes well and everyone's understanding of what the process is. And we say, we're just, steamroll ahead with with what we've got here but that would also be included as our expert analysis on next steps and then developing a timeline surrounding what that next step would look like and then rolling into kind of a final presentation to introduce our findings i'm imagining that'll probably be a presentation to the board of supervisors we would probably want to you know connect on that to ensure that whatever we're saying you guys know your board of supervisors better than we do so making sure that what we're saying is kind of in line with um what their language might be, but then just having that final presentation. And that would really cover the four months process ahead of a natural formation. So this is under the assumption that we do this feasibility work first, and then with the hopes of rolling into phase two, it's not, you're not committing to a phase two just by signing this initial work, but we did want to at least outline it for you so that you were You had a better idea and understanding.

We could hugely benefit from having the phase one work done. Yeah, absolutely. Better understand our assets and what we're working with, who the partners are.

Help us do our strategic work with that.

Exactly.

And then we can go to the second page. This goes, oh, it looks like it's cut off at the top, but this is, I can fix that. The phase two, this would be the formation scope and schedule. So this would be assuming that everything went well in the feasibility. We've got a nice path forward. We're recommending to continue on. And really, it would be kind of the same steps as the feasibility, but now with a more narrowed approach. And it would include also the local government hearing process and all the documentation required in that. So we would, again, meet with that core internal group take what we found in the feasibility portion of the study, start developing that larger document, that management district plan. And then again, circulate it amongst the group, check back in with the groups that we talked to before, say, hey, we got back, we loved your feedback, we're coming back to, you know, present to you the newly refined plan. And then again, give them another opportunity to weigh in on it to make sure that we're continuing to craft something that they are going to be supportive of. And at that point in time, we would also, I mean, we'd still want to make sure we plant these seeds early on the feasibility process, but then we're really honing in on, Hey, there's going to be a petition that gets mailed out to you. We're going to need your signature. This is how much your petition is going to weigh because of your particular business and what you're paying into that. So. That's kind of all in steps one and two. Steps three is us preparing all this documentation required by the law to push us through that petition process. And then once we mail out the notice and the petition and the finalized plan, that is also not only reviewed by their internal steering committee team, but likely would want to get reviewed by county council as well because the board of supervisors will have to ultimately approve the plan during the final hearing. So we want to make sure they see those documentations ahead of time. But then assuming that everything's good to go there, then we would take you through that local government process as well. So it requires three stops at board of supervisors and also would include a couple of consent hearings if we're looking to include those businesses and the other incorporated jurisdictions as well. And then for the investment page, you can scroll down and pick you. Oh, this is your team. It's all of us. There's more in the background, but here's the fees associated with it. So phase one, It's going to be a four-month process at $6,500 for each of those months. We would include two in-person trips to come up here to conduct meetings. We can do additional trips as needed. And that, again, would just capture, so you're looking at a $26,000 kind of full in for that first phase. And again, if we wanted to roll into phase two, signing this proposal doesn't mean that you're automatically on the hook for that phase two.

It's just- The phase two, the way you outlined it, that is the proof of concept. And that's where people start understanding this has value.

Absolutely. Well, I bet we'll get smarter by the time we get done with that.

This is pretty standards.

Yeah.

Pretty standard approach.

Just some, I guess, key things to note here. The costs that are fronted to both form and renew the district associated with that are completely reimbursable with the assessment revenue. So for whatever the county puts in, they can be reimbursed once those remit checks come in. So that's usually a pretty good selling point for whoever is fronting the cost there. And then we do give our clients the opportunity to pause and start at any time with just 10 days notice. And you're only committed to pay the work that has been done up to that point. So although there's the grand total there of $26,000 for the first part, you don't owe that right at the front. Just the startup cost, which is 10% of the $26,000. That's good.

We should be able to afford that. Do you need a... Karen, do you need a vote? Or do you have, is this your discretion?

So this is at a dollar amount that I can approve it out of my department budget. And we've got that, not only $2,600, but probably the $26,000 economic development budget. Okay, great. And then the remaining which the timing works out well. We've got our final countywide budget in September, so I can make that request as part of that and get that added to my budget.

Perfect. And we'll already have a basic one to show the homework we've done or that's been done on that.

Erin, you can just get it going, right?

I said no, but...

Nothing's that easy. I will tell you. I'm actually... So, you know, it's hard to do what they call a single source contract. I still have to have a contract. All of our standard stuff. And I may have to call another firm that provides the service and get a verbal abstinence from them so I can say at least I tried calling them.

There's another firm that provides it. That's who we used in Salinas. And in my opinion, they're not as good.

What was the name of that? I can call it. I know there's only one or two others besides Vivitas that do this.

Seven years ago, I don't remember their name.

You've got to find something, I guess, to back up. Just stay away from the sole source question, huh? Yeah.

Well, those that specialize in tourism, though, that arrows it down to versus a business improvement.

And we don't have to go with someone that thinks they can do it, but has never done it before. It's got to be someone who actually has done this.

And that's why we ran into bumps in the road with this firm.

I've been doing this for 25 years. I don't know anybody else. Yeah.

I mean, it truly is a whole source then, right? And we've done for California tourism districts for when we are hired by local governments, we've provided sole source letters, of course, that he wouldn't have to give you something.

That seems easy. Yeah, no, no.

You know, easy within this knowledge base, but you're going to need to have you need to be on solid ground for that. I'm thinking of it in terms of rehearsing.

Well, I think, look, I've been in the industry for 25 years doing this. We just need to get Karen whatever she needs to do it. There is nobody else that I know of in this state.

So just theoretically, if somebody showed up If somebody protested and showed up, we'd run them through the same kind of program, right? Absolutely. Evaluate them and kick them out.

Yeah, ultimately for this type of contract, it's not a lowest bidder type contract. It's who we feel will do the best job. But we have to make a good faith effort and say, hey, I did a Google search and I came up with nothing. Or I came up with this one person. I called them. They really don't, or they haven't done it for years or whatever. And I just have a document.

That's your job.

Yeah.

I say we move forward on it.

Yes.

Yep. Thanks. Any other comments on this? No, it looks perfect.

I guess I'll provide you with the source.

I think we're all in support of this as a path forward.

I say this idea is now in play. So what are you going to add commission with? Like this? It's like education.

Yeah, big picture stuff. Here's the process we're going through. Here's what we're doing. Here's the philosophy. Here's the steps. Big picture. And I want to paint the picture of the visitor's authority or visit Colorado County. Here's the way that can work. We've got a series of meetings coming, but we want to get you guys clued in and

It's an opportunity just to provide them the framework.

Yeah, that's a framework.

What their concerns are and their problems.

Well, and luckily they just got a couple new seats. So I think it's going to be a pretty easy time now. Timing is good.

Timing. I think if you do it and you get it moving, it will escalate. Oh, easy. Yeah, absolutely. So it's going to be... Synergy. It's going to be... We can attract hotel hotels.

I think this will serve as a slotting solution, potential solutions for a problem that they're already aware of. I think that would be successful.

I don't want to get too far in the weeds on this, but what you're really doing is you're changing the dynamics. Because you're creating a gravity center that we've never had for tourism, education, promotion, whatever. We've always had a small T, tourism. Not that they didn't do a good job with what little resources they had. But this is a different ballgame. This is a bigger ballgame. And if you look at what we've done in South Lake Tahoe, we are... You know, and it's a big deal. We're talking real money here and, you know, ability to reach out to the market. And I don't want everyone to get the impression that this is about jamming more people. No. It's about educating people. Right. It's about attracting, you know, target segments that fit our values. In El Dorado County, it's a lot more than just, you know, ram a jam or more. You know, it's... It's, it's, and then that'll happen through the formation of the, you know, of the organization, but this great visitor experience, quality issues. Oh my gosh. And then, you know, it's South shore. We've done a very good job of targeting people better and better about who fits our values. You know, and then I think that's all part of it. So again, but we are changing the gravity center and you'll see how impactful this organization can be over time.

Oh, yeah. And it goes with our thoughts of what do we hold on to in this county when we had our first meetings in the tourism. So it goes with that whole, like, what are we going to hang our hat on?

This is a big one. Yeah. All right. I want to move on on the agenda. Thank you.

Is that meeting, do you want me to? I don't mean that.

I'd rather save your feeds for a bigger meeting. I think Dave and I can handle this one.

So this proposal, however, can you email me a copy of that? I'll get it to you. I want to save yours.

Whatever helps, even before I have anything in place.

I mean, we're in the practice of Let's talk to Bolster and see what he says.

You know, or of the Ag Commission that are 100% for this.

Should we invite Maya for this?

I don't think it's needed.

No, they're going to ask you an I question. Yeah, that's fine. I can handle it.

Can we steal your PowerPoint? Yeah, I mean, yeah, I can be monthly.

And if it looks like they're... Then we bring you back in August.

Yeah, 100%. Like if they have pushback. But yeah, like I said, I have...

I'm guessing that that won't be necessary.

I think they're going to be like... I'd rather save your horsepower for a bigger enchilada.

That's good.

Okay, moving on. Item 26-1082, review seed implementation plan and provide approval recommendations to the Board of Supervisors. That's this document. Okay. Yes. All right. Erin, give us some background on this.

Based on some feedback, there was a previous implementation plan that was done based on feedback, felt we could sort of tighten it up a little bit and better align it with the strategy. And so I had John Kruger actually You know, I've been talking to him, he kind of drafted that, and John and I went back and forth and came up with this document. So, again, I think it better aligns with the strategy that was done. Probably my biggest question is something to clarify, get clarification from this group, are really looking at the timelines that are laid out here.

What page are you looking at? Me timeline, Jeff.

So if you even define the second page or page three implementation basis, there's a timeline and the zero to 12 numbers on three years, three to five years. And I took that to mean, you know, that that's how long it's going to take. It doesn't necessarily say when we're going to start that particular item. So that's a little bit, you know, What we probably need to talk about is. What what are looking at these priorities let's get realistic about. when we're going to start these things, how long it's going to take, who's really going to be responsible. We're starting to go down the path of getting some more staff on board, but it'll take a little while to get up to speed. So unfortunately, I don't have unlimited resources to spend on this. So really, some of this is going to fall back on seat committee to be responsible for some.

Is this something you have to have done right away? the timeline to isolate that?

This is due September for us, September presentation. Is that when we do this?

Well, these are just all the activities that this committee has previously said we want to do, that we think is what is necessary to boost the county's enrollment.

Right. But you've got calendar times where you have the last time that you're looking at.

Yeah, I just don't want to set us up for failure, right? I don't want to say we're going to accomplish these 10 things in the next year and we barely get through one or two.

One or two, yeah. So can we think about, can we evaluate this for a little time?

I want to comment on item three, the implementation phase. I think we're actually doing well. And on phase two, that falls into one to two years. So we're starting our second year. and then that grow the property tax base. Once we get the TBIT further along and we have that data and it's strategic data, that's when we can start looking at sectors of what we're going to grow. And that is going to be year three, four, and five. So this holds very true to, I think, where we're at.

I have a question. Karen, where are we on the nightmare that I hear all the time of agricultural logic opportunities. Is that doable between now and whenever or where are you at?

We're set to return to the board on that in August.

Okay.

That's not the end-all, be-all, but it's sort of a check and say, hey, here's data we've collected, here's now the next steps. But I do see that as being something that is going to get implemented, if not this year, beginning of next year.

So you're comfortable with that in this time slot?

Did you see what the Board of Supervisors did last week in Sonoma? And it was presented by the Ag Commission. That was a giant step forward.

And we've had a separate meeting with the chair on an Ag agenda. to get a few things bigger and done. So I think that has been talked about as showing them, hey, this is what Sonoma did. These are the same things we're talking about, and how do we move that forward? But I prefer that ag take the lead on that. I would, too, on the ag items.

They approved the state.

What did Sonoma do?

They approved the state. They approved the state, and then they did permit streamlining. And they looked at fees, and they looked at capacity. And Sonoma is infamous about restricting wineries on how much water and how much wine they can produce. And you have to amend your permit to do it. And that pushed... half those wineries to move to Monterey and Paso Robles just because of that permit issue.

So you're saying there's counties that are worse than El Dorado?

You know, that's an interesting statement. You know, you want to hold, we always use good examples when we talk about counties. And when we do that, it seems like we're bashing the county that we're in and we're talking about. El Dorado County is, hasn't done bad because they don't know what excellent is. And they don't know where we're at and the good and the in-between. So all you hear is complaints. It's hard to see the improvement when all you hear is complaints. When we put it into 58 counties, 20 that have the assets, El Dorado County is poised to take advantage of a lot of things. They haven't chosen to take advantage of those things, but they're poised to take advantage of those things. We have not optimized.

No. But we have the assets. We just haven't optimized. And that, I think, is why you see a T-Bid. That's why you see these efforts. But back to this chart. So the vacation rental policy is doable, Karen? Yes.

Yes, and that's also, there's something coming to the board in the next.

Okay, so we're showing action on these items.

Yep, yep.

And then you stabilized the funding for the film commission and all that stuff, right?

For film commission, and then obviously TBID would be for visitors.

And then you've got the expanded agricultural lodging opportunity. We're good on that. So I'm feeling pretty good about phase one. Yep.

And I know these things seem amorphous sometimes. They do.

But we are chipping away at them and whatnot. So from that standpoint, I feel pretty good at where we're at. So if we look at phase two, you know, business vitality and sales tax projects. Phase five. These are on page seven. These are ones I'm a little less familiar with, but I think they probably fit in a phase two timeframe. Is there anything here that sticks out like a sore thumb for anybody?

Well, the outreach is started by egg and that's progressing forward. I think pretty well with the surveys and the one-on-one meetings, the capital access modernization. We just haven't put anything down on paper, but if you want capital access, I've got access to all the venture capital guys in Sacramento. We've got small business improvement districts, got SBA loans. We have access to capital. The question is, How do you get that information in front of the small business owner so they might want to say yes and expand? That's a different proposition. We have access to capital. Do we have willing business owners who want to access that capital?

What's the cost of that capital?

Some of it's not cheap, and some of it's reasonable. Let me ask Karen, where does Joe's for three plus 2.2% in his services? So I still have him on contract.

We'll continue to have him on contract. Because I think he has a better feel on some of this stuff than I definitely have. And so I'm going to defer.

Is this, you know, is this stuff we think we can get done in one to three? Now we may come back next year and in the next iteration of this plan, it gets bumped down or bumped up or whatever. But for the moment, I think we're okay with this phase two plan. Again, for the moment. And again, who knows what world we're living in in a year.

Yeah.

Right.

So the one to three years started 18 months ago, or is it start, when does that start?

A year ago. A year ago. And a year ago last Jan. Well, this is an update, right? This is an update. So Karen, when you say on phase one, zero to 12 months, Are we talking about from the moment you make this presentation?

Well, that's the part that was never really clear to me. I mean, I think generally I took that to mean whenever we say start, it's going to take us 12 months to do these things. For phase two, whenever, you know, it's starting after the first year, it's going to take two more years.

All right, I'm good with it. Yeah, from start to never start.

We want to start today. That's fun.

You know, I think I should start when you make the presentation. Yeah. And then phase three, this is big stuff. You know, this is, you know, you know, we're talking. Well, we talked about site inventory just to see what the heck we have. And I think we can finalize this or refine this. Yeah, we know what we have. I think I want to know where hotel site inventory is potential. Because to me, Hotel is the biggest missing link of tax generation. Yeah. John, you're supposed to come up with some of that. You're going to get occupancy tax.

Most of it's highway commercial zoning. And I've looked at those. So we've got 32 acres here. We're hoping for the town and country project on a hotel. They're finishing a hotel and town center. So there's three potential hotels right there. We need a hotel in Myers. Yes. we need information. So that adds that information to the sales tax. Then you can go to the property owner and you can recruit a hotel and say, here's our business plan. Here's what's going on in retail, how it's growing. Here's visitors, how it's growing. Here's the income levels that are coming in. We need you and we need 65 rooms or more. Yeah.

So I think that... Did town and country get pushed back through or I thought it got stopped?

It It was not approved by the board, but it was where they can return at any time with a revised project.

We want them to hook up to EID water and sewer.

One of the pieces we're missing is analytics. We need a supply and demand study for hotels. Is that something we want to put in this project?

I think we can build one after we reach, if we go forward with Maya and Civitas and they gather that information.

I want a professional HBS. I want HBS or somebody like that doing a supply and demand analysis for lodging in this county. We need a bulletproof, not that Maya wouldn't be, but Maya's data would flow into that. Okay, but we need that level of expertise to look at a countywide, here's the sites, here's the market potential, here's the market analysis of what we need and what the revenue potential is for the county and the tax potential is for the county coming off that market analysis study.

I think if you were to get the property locations, it could be interesting enough to just run AI analysis. or for that for those particular locations.

See what they will do all that. I'm just saying we need a firm.

And then let's get a great firm to do that analysis.

And so we know what the opportunity cost is by not having anything. And that is a number that I think the county would find very informative.

And when you say lodging, I take that to mean not just hotels, but it could be campgrounds, Airbnbs, ad lodging.

Whatever is open, and I think that's the way the RFP should be written. If we change the policy on this campgrounds, or we change the policy on vacation rentals, or Whatever. What is the market feasibility of all these different sectors for lodging? I think if we just put it into phase two, that works for me. And it is a piece of information we desperately need. Agreed. Okay, I'm good with that. The worry... Not that I worry, but I ask a question about, you know, we've got these sectors identified. Healthcare, agritourism, outdoor rec, clean tech. I'm good with that. Where do we come in or, you know, we talked about our philosophy, our strategy is resident-centric or community-centric approaches. I mean, are we still trying to get a Costco or how do we feel those calls when they come in? Or do they even come in? You know, where are we? How do we handle those? Yeah. Because that's not in what we've talked about. But I know these guys must be knocking on doors to put a data center in.

Well, they tried to. Obviously, with very little knowledge on this. Yeah. Like having areas of the county where like we're like kind of like a plan. I think the residents would be more open to being like, these are the areas we eat. can expand in those ways, because it does bring money to the county. And a lot of it is educational-based, but some type of a study on that, I think, would go really well. You've talked about these areas are where we could expand. It would have no issues. It would cause no...

It streamlines the process.

Is that part of the strategic site inventory program? Karen? I would say. Is that something we can wrap into that?

Yeah. Okay.

You have to include the

places and spaces that are available.

So we know those, we know those sites, you know, number two strategic site inventory. We already know, right. We know, but we're not attracting them. We don't have a membership with, you know, GSAC, but we're focused on other efforts of working on, better permitting, maybe faster permitting. So it's a natural incentive instead of having to create an incentive, and it's less staff work to do it that way. If you want to do studies and chuck this out, it's going to eat up too much time and too much resources for what we're doing. Targeting these high value? Yeah, we know who they are. Are we actively going out to international council shopping centers and recruiting them? No. Are we going to MBDA at Anaheim and recruiting medical devices? No. Do we need to? No, not right now. No. We need to focus. No. Focus on. We need to tee bit.

Right. That's what we need to focus on. Yeah, we're like three to five.

I think we're at a. I'm okay with where all this stuff is. Yeah. Because I think the world is going to change.

And we may look at this and say, no. The housing staff is doing it, the site analysis. We can pull that from LoopNet and CoStar, and we've got it done. Yeah, I'm okay with it. I'm okay with phase three. But do we want to educate the Board of Supervisors about these things? Yeah. This is two elections down the road, man.

Well, that goes back to my comment.

This is two elections down the road here. Timing is, but again, what we're trying to do is provide a sequence strategic view of economic development. But we also know the marketplace is going to change as we go along. And some of these pieces will fall out and we'll add some new ones in. But for the moment, this is how we see the world. through the economic development lens. That's what we're proposing, is that. And again, part of that is change marketplace, change political dynamics, change state, whatever. All those things will change, but at least at the moment, this is our view. We are trying to take a longer-term view than just what chamber needs money this year. Yeah, so like... So that's where I'm at.

And we put a structure that way. If you notice this phase three, we don't have really any specifics on timelines like we did with the first two because there's no point in this now trying to project five years from now what's going to happen. I think that's sort of the way to go about it.

And they're not immediate revenue sources.

Let's talk about business retention and expansion because this is the heart of community-centric economic development. This is really, in my mind, the heart of it. How do we...

Okay. Thank you. Thanks, Maya. Nice work, Maya. See you guys very soon.

So this, to me, is the heart of community-centered. When we talk about business retention, That to me is tricky because people either leave for one of a couple of reasons. One, somebody moved their house and they're moving their business to wherever, or they don't like the policies here and they're moving somewhere or somebody's going out of business. That to me is your two options on retention, right? Or your options on retention. Now, how do we play a role in retention? I mean, what is it we can realistically do with retention as a county, from a county lens?

A county would need more staff, and it's actually good for a county to go out and talk to the businesses, but it's also good for volunteers to go out and talk to the businesses, because sometimes they're more open than a government employee talking to them. And it is surveying, but it's one-on-one surveying, much like what EGG is doing. But EGG is looking at issues. Business retention is looking at, what are the needs of the business? Do you need financing? Do you need employees? Do you need training? Do you need more space? What can we do to make you more profitable here?

So that, to me, is a study, a study of existing businesses to see what businesses are thinking of leaving and why, what businesses are thinking of expanding and what's not enabling them to expand. That's the way I see this. This is a study of the existing business climate here. Again, I own a business in El Dorado County. I have owned a business for 30-something years. You own a business. You own a business. I was like, what? No, but it's getting that baseline data to figure out what should be the strategy for retention and expansion. Does that make sense to you guys?

I think it's a survey issue.

And I'm

From my point of view, I mean, you can walk into a thriving business and get the CEO or COO or whatever and ask them, what's your guys' plans? What's the future here? They already have something in place and a perspective of what they're going to do. and when they're going to do it, some kind of idea of what they have to accomplish to do those things. Are we just going to stay here in this one space? We're going to add 24 more machines and 50 more employees, and we're going to work it in here. We're going to leave it there, and we're not ever going to change. No, we're going to get two more machines, and two years from now, we're building a new building down here on this piece of property. They all have their own story, and they all have their own plan. And accumulating that data, which wouldn't be really hard, I wouldn't imagine. You know, you do some different survey mechanisms, but that would give you an idea of what you have to do for retention. If you go through, you know, 20 businesses and 10 of them say, I'm tired of El Dorado County. planning guys coming back and knocking on my door. I mean, then you know you got an issue. And so I don't know what it is. I think it's very varied, particularly if you look into areas like the business park. There's a very good cross-section of different types of businesses at different levels of their growth there. And there's some that can go out and become public organizations in some years. So there's all kinds of growth levels that are going on here in the county. And there's people like, you know, myself, I'd like to see some growth up the hills and, you know, some, you know, forest residue waste activities going on, you know.

So what if we were to change systematic business visitation program to a broader research piece? And that's one element of it. that we want to do a survey of existing businesses throughout the county to get all the information that Perry's talking about. In addition, there is a systematic visitation program, and that can be focus groups or that can be individual businesses, but we broaden that to a research piece, and that's one element.

Yeah, and just my perspective from economic development, because I have done it for a lot of years, is I think where the research would be handy as well is matching it up then with the industries or trying to attract what they bring to the table. Because I'll give you an example. And I hear this all the time. Oh, we need to help the mom and pop businesses on Main Street stay in business. And that may be true. They provide a value. Obviously, Placerville would be Placerville without those businesses. But if their issue is... I can't, you know, there's not enough people to hire or PG&E is too high. There's not a whole lot we can do about that. And maybe I could spend a lot of time trying to lobby the state to do something with PG&E, but then I also have to look at the return on investment. And if, you know, the return on investment, if I spent all this time and energy in helping but my return on investment is pretty low, then I don't think that's a wise investment. So you kind of have to balance all those things. And I'm not saying you ignore the small person or you ignore anybody, but you have to be realistic in what you're saying you can do to help any given business.

I think that's the right ticket, is what's doable within the span of control of the county with policy.

And if we have to know what the available resources are for companies that may come in, and I mean like in the form of personnel, in the form of land, we have to have some kind of idea about that to help support stabilization of business.

Well, and you talk about it all the time. It's like having everything in like sectors to like in, it's not Reno, but somewhere like that, they're putting big, you know, industrial buildings and that's the right spot, right? There might be parts of Villarreal County that that's right. Then you do keep your downtown, you know, you're going to obviously do it with intention and thought. And I think having like, like some analytics on the current businesses can allow us to grow in like with like intention and in the right areas and everything.

Even more specific example is, you know, we've talked about Alderaan Hills Business Park and the zoning maybe is antiquated and doesn't work very well. That's within our control to change that zoning. We just need to get the feedback and understand what's going to be best for that business park. If we do that study, do that analysis, have that information, then I can go to the board and say, hey, here's a very thoughtful approach to how we think that should be zoned.

I think that's a key qualifier in doing this survey research. What can the county control and impact? versus what are the 10 other things that somebody has an issue with that the county can't control. That it's, you know, whatever it is. County's not going to control parking in Placerville. It's not going to, you know. But there are these policies that the county, and that brings our focus much more in line to like, hey, county, this is an issue. I think that kind of research, along with some of these visitations, Because you could turn this into a big gripe session.

No, that's what I was going to say. It's all led by the gripers.

Yeah.

And that is how our county is ran. Like it's all led by just people complaining. And that doesn't even represent the actual. Right. businesses that are making this counting money. Because they're too busy. Yeah, they're too busy running their business.

What we're talking about is just getting the hard data complemented by individual conversations that help shape policies that can impact retention and expansion.

Yeah. They're starting to develop some campaign to go collect this data, to go collect some. comments from these business owners. You don't know until you walk in the door.

And the chambers, particularly in the business part, they do their annual business walk and talk to folks.

And, you know, we've participated, the county's participated in that opportunity to hear from them.

And they know that it's going to occur in advance, so they're not surprised. They have an opportunity to actually think about what is the barriers to their business that maybe the county could affect. Yeah, right. So, pick PG&E. Wow, yeah, there's limited that you could do there, but I'll move to SMUD. But I think that there might be data that already exists that could find themes that are

And I think that's part of the research process. Let's see what's already collected. Whoever we hire to do this, whatever firm we hire to do this, see what you got first. Here's all the data we got. Then based on that, what data do we need? How many visitations are we looking to do? But I want what moves decisions are comprehensive decisions. Studies that really point to the issues, point to the challenges, point to the possible upside to things. We've got to put, because what happens too often, and I see this in my town, is an opinion here, an opinion there, an opinion there, an opinion there. And finally, I've certainly seen it with TRPA over the years. Finally, those guys got smart. It's shown data. We got scientific data now. We got TRPAs. I have to give them credit. They moved way more into a data-driven, at least data-complemented discussion on some of these things. And so the control agency. Yeah, exactly. And they've made policies that have made positive changes. But that's what I want to... big we need at this county because we have too much opinions. And those are valuable. I don't want to diss them, but we do need quantifiable data to complement those hard, passionate opinions.

Well, I think on addition, Carl, we need to know if there's any pitfalls. Yeah. If there's some kind of barriers or something that's coming up, which we can't say. That's right.

Well, and it allows the county to have, you know, not pushback, obviously, but like, no, here's the data. This is why we're making these decisions versus just like, oh, the county is just doing what they want. If you have data to back it, it makes everyone's job just a lot easier.

So if you can add that on this top one here, Karen, or reshape that one a little bit, I think that'd be good. Any other... And I think that'll feed into business attraction, retention strategies. What we want is this research piece to be the bedrock or the foundation of retention strategies, of attraction strategies, and so forth. So that's got to fit into... one of the phases, whatever you're comfortable with. And I think other than that, this looks pretty good.

Oh, I love the maiden elder.

That's all good. I like it. Process question.

What's the possibility of on the day that you provide your update to the board that this plan could be either on the agenda for action, or maybe on consent, consent the following week. What's the possibility of getting an option on the plan?

Getting this in front of the board?

I'm thinking because if you keep it in close proximity to an update and a discussion, you might have Less variation and action towards it. There's a topic. I know where you're going.

I'm not following you, so I might just say what you're... Well, I'm saying you're going to schedule an update to the board.

And you're going to talk about what SEED's been doing and going to do. Why not have this on consent on that day for action? And so it's not just an update, it's an update with a step forward. Now, if that's not realistic, how about the following week with less fanfare? Because everybody can read this plan. This is really easy to read. And the adjustments that were recommended here made total sense. And I'm guessing if we reviewed this every week, we could probably continue to polish this. We all know it's going to evolve and change. I'm just saying there needs to be some action that I think will build confidence after five minutes about an assessment district. What's the best timing for this? Yeah, this is my opinion. What's the best timing?

That's up for discussion. I definitely want to get it, you know, soon. But, you know, even if I make these edits and you guys said, yeah, go ahead and make those edits, give it on the agenda. We're talking late July into August before I could even get it in front of the board.

So they don't align enough like I suggested, but you see that I'm, you know, I mean, you don't want to have this plan reviewed at a board meeting and a whole bunch of modifications made outside of the critical thought that went into this. Right.

Maybe like you're saying like,

I'm going to defer. Aaron, talk to the CAO. Get the right sequencing on this. Know that we're looking to tie these things as close as we can so they don't get separated apart.

It could be possible to have both a presentation as a separate item and the

the annual update or whatever we're going to call it, on the same agenda. What the board has done is they've said, hey, we're going to set aside this day for committee commission updates and presentations. But if it's not a full day and there's room on the agenda, we might be able to get that on there. If you wanted it to try and shoot for the same day. If not, it can be the following meeting.

I don't think we benefit by having it drift months down the road. I think the closer is better. You know, and if we've got a good synergy coming off the update, I think it makes sense to have this thing as close to that as possible. The same day might be preference for the next meeting, but we definitely don't want it to drift, you know, another two months down the road.

The other part of the remark was that it allows those folks who are interfacing with the agriculture community readers on the bid to say, yeah, we have a board approved plan. And a plan will change and evolve. But I just think it gives credibility to the effort and it provides some momentum.

Yeah, I think the county's on board is huge.

So what you guys are saying is to actually adopt it, because right now this is the draft.

We're adopting this today with the recommended changes that we've given care of.

And we just, and the board of supervisors has to adopt it. I'm thinking that's a wise thing, you know, to avoid variations later where their expectations might evolve into something different than this.

Well, you're worried that it's going to happen in the last time.

If it evolves, at least it'll evolve, if their thoughts evolve, if this committee's thoughts evolve, it evolves together.

Yes.

Totally.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I'm going to take a motion to approve this with the changes we've outlined to Karen. I'll make a motion to approve. Yeah, I can move it. We got a second. I second that. Any discussion?

What did he call it?

Did he call it on the line as well?

Yeah, before we vote.

All in favor say aye. Aye. Okay, Karen, you got it?

Got it.

Okay, so to recap today, we are going to work on this document, so I need to hear from you. Okay, by next week. I'm going to work on both documents. Okay, that's fine. Get it done by Thursday. That'd be great. We're going to move ahead with the TBID process and getting Civitas under contract. I think that's a good thing. It's a big, big step forward for us. Big step. Give everybody credit on that. I would like to put on the agenda for next is we need a couple more members here. And I don't know what the process is, but maybe you could put that on the agenda for the next meeting. I think that's a good topic.

Are there any specific industry representations you would like to see, Carl?

Well, let's put it on the agenda for a full discussion. What do we need? What's the rules? Because I know we went through a big thing a couple years ago with segments and Kyle was all over that stuff. We need to just bring it back here for discussion.

I agree because given what we just talked about, it may say, hey, we really need Even though we've got this big list of industry representatives, maybe what we really need is these particular industries.

So let's put that on the next agenda.

While you're considering your next agenda, is it appropriate or will that be an appropriate check-in point for how your staffing is moving forward? Because, you know, I think that when I read that plan,

That's the thing that concerned me the most was you have to have... We lost that. You lost continuity.

I'm worried about consistency and follow-through. I think you need to be really thoughtful.

I'm going to say we have not lost. Aaron's done a great job of carrying this ball forward.

Over the years within the economic staffing, we're talking about pretty significant lift, and she's going to need help. And she got authorization from the board. How many positions did you look in the hire?

Well, it was three for both economic development and housing efforts. Wow.

Restructuring of how you were organized. That's good.

I mean, you have a staff person on board by the next day.

And so knowing how that is going to be structured and what what's available, I think would be really helpful. That'd be great. And certainly would help perhaps in your recruiting of committee members. Giving them confidence that there's the matching pieces to this.

I think we're moving in a good direction. It does to me. It's taken a little while.

It kind of slumped.

You know what? Change is a very interesting bedfellow. It is. It is really tough. And, you know, different organizations do it differently. And there's nuances to everything. And we are making our way. Slowly but surely, we're making our way. So thanks to everybody. Motion to adjourn. Building takes time. Building takes time. Motion to adjourn. I make a motion to adjourn. Move.

We adjourn.

All in favor? Aye. Now, I have an announcement. If you've got nothing to do tonight, Parks and Culture El Dorado has a new exhibit on the Rubicon.