City Council - workshop

okay all right we got 11 45 let's go ahead and get this party started uh we're gonna commence july 13th city council workshop uh first on the agenda is lodging tax allocation and i'll hand it over to you uh

Hello, Mayor and Council. I don't have my name on this presentation. I know I'm up here speaking, but this actually affects a lot of the departments here at the city. So I just want to let you know as we go through this, I may not be answering any of the questions. I'm going to leave that possibly to some of my colleagues over here. So we're gonna go through quite a bit of background on this because there is a quite a bit of history and again I'm gonna try and be diligent with my time management and move through it as fast as possible and then a potential call to action at the end. The relationship to the council goals is all five of them because it does potentially touch a lot of areas in the city. So again, going through a lot of background, the Oregon Revised Statute, ORS 320.300, the definition of a tourism means economic activity resulting from tourists. And again, for expediency's sake, I'm not gonna read all these slides, but I am gonna point out that tourism promotion means any of the following activities, and we typically do A, which is the advertising, publicizing, or distributing information for the purposes of attracting and welcoming tourists. And then C is another large PORTION OF THAT BUDGET, WHICH IS OPERATING TOURISM PROMOTION AGENCIES, AND I'LL GET TO THAT LATER, WHICH IS THE DMO OR VISIT GRANTS PASS. Some more definitions. Tourism-related facility means a conference center, a convention center, or a visitor information center, or in our case, we call ours a welcome center. And then B, other improved real property that has a useful life of 10 years or more and has a substantial purpose for supporting tourism or accommodating tourist activities. And so we relate that back to our two large parks and the capital infrastructure within those. Tourists, I'm not gonna read this whole thing, but the main thing to keep in mind here is it is a person who requires the person to travel more than 50 miles from the community of residence or includes an overnight stay at a lodging facility. Some more background, ORS 320.350, the tax moratorium. This is a little jumbled and out of order, but I think it's easier to kind of present it this way. At a certain point, there was a 70%, 30% split, and I'm gonna go into these a little bit later, but they basically said after a certain date, and I'm gonna come to that here in a little bit, which is July 2nd of 2003, that you had to put 70% into tourism promotion and lodging tax facilities. And then the other 30% could be used by city services. Sub point five, I just want to point out here that this, the thing I just basically said in the last slide, which is funds tourism promotion, tourism related facilities, the city or county services, there is one area that we don't utilize. It is finance or refinance the debt of tourism related facilities. We just haven't necessarily issued a capital project that has issued that debt and has qualified. And then here is the moratorium date further in that subsection. So anything previous to July 1, 2003, the city was grandfathered its actual allocation. And then any rate after July 2, 2003, you had to go with that 70-30% split. So following that, again, I'm not gonna read all this, but we do have municipal code 4.05.240, disposition and use of lodging tax fund. So over our history, we've increased the lodging tax rate. And so there is a call out for a 7%, and then a 2%, and then a final 3% to get us to a total of 12%. And those are called out specifically due to those dates and those tax moratoriums. And what that looks like percentage-wise is here is the Muni code in numbers. And so you can see that first 7% is split up between 30% tourism promotion, and then 25% to public safety, 25% to parks, 10% to economic development, and 10% to downtown development. And then the next 2% was split 30% to tourism promotion and then 70% to tourism related facilities. And then the final 30% or the final 3% is 70% to tourism promotion and 30% public safety. And what that looks like in the fiscal year 27 budget, the budget we are currently under, are these percentages. So there really is a breakdown of every dollar, 40% goes to tourism promotion, 11.67% goes to tourism-related facilities, 22% goes to public safety, a little bit over 14% goes to parks, 5.83% to economic development and downtown development, for a total of $2.6 million. So what are the programs that this allocation supports? So tourism promotion is contracted in cooperative programs that include the Destination Marketing Organization, or Visit Grants Pass, the Chamber of Commerce for the North End Visitor Center, and then Travel Southern Oregon, which doesn't have a budget impact, but there is a travel guide and marketing program embedded there. The tourism promotion grant is also in this program. There is .47 FTE, which they handle the advertising, publicizing, or distributing information for the purposes of attracting and welcoming tourists. They conduct strategic planning and research necessary to stimulate future tourism development, operating tourism promotion agencies, and marketing special events and festivals designed to attract tourists. And so almost 100% of lodging tax funded for a small portion of interest on reserves and what that looks like financially in the budget, and I've kind of outlined this on the slide. As you can see, really the revenues that go towards this program is almost 100% lodging tax funded. The next is the background for the tourism related facilities. I want to point out that most of this is parks, but there are other facilities that are in there that potentially qualify for these tourism related facilities. Our welcome centers, the pedestrian bridge and Dollar Mountain, we've kind of deemed as eligible too because they have a tourist aspect to their operation. So the main funding utilization right now for these tourism-related facilities is LB 6431, the large parks play structure replacement, and LB 6440, the large park improvements and repairs. So in fiscal year 27, there's the lighting and LED project to upgrade the sports courts and fields as a priority due to changes in state law. And then we only plan on having about $135,000 of potential lodging tax dollars after this project is completed. And then we've talked about a future project utilization. So the example would be the future pump track. So we were potentially going to utilize lodging tax dollars to help fund that project. And so another thing to keep in mind, Parks doesn't get an annual capital contribution from the general fund. the predominantly funded by parks SEC's These tourism dollars and potentially some grant funding when they arrive and I do want to point out to that do they do have a long list of deferred maintenance and So I don't necessarily have that in numerics on the screen. I do have a handout on the dais that are the LB pages of each one of the four parks projects for maintenance. And I just want to point out there's just not a lot of money sitting in there. And so these are really utilized by the Parks Department to help maintain our parks. Another department is public safety or fire. So for fire rescue operations, we have 38 FTE. They have a full range of services, including fire suppression, emergency medical services, hazardous materials response, technical rescues, swift water rescue, motor vehicle accident response, and public assistance. And they operate with prevention and preparedness through inspections, code enforcement, and community outreach. And so they do get some lodging tax, but they do require a large general support for their level of service. And financially, this is what this looked like. And I highlighted the box in green, the lodging tax revenues, which is a pretty small amount as far as direct funding. I wanted to point out the $3.5 million in general fund money that the fire department needs to run their 2027 budget. The next would be police. So again, this is just the police division operations. It does not include dispatch records, sobering center, and the women crisis support, which requires additional resources. But they have 72.02 FTE. They enforce local, state, and federal law providing a safe environment while addressing livability for the community. They are an integral part of the Rogue Area Drug Enforcement Team, and they practice code enforcement, including abandoned vehicles, trains and camps, trash and garbage complaints, as well as violations of the city development code. I just want to reiterate, I'm doing a high level of what these programs are. There's probably a lot more than they do than just what's on this screen. This is for all the departments that I'm going over today. And they do require general support for their level of service, and on the next slide, Again, the box in green are their revenues from lodging tax, which you can see is a small dollar amount in the grand scheme of their $21 million budget for fiscal year 27, and they too require a little over $4 million of general fund support. The next is economic development. So this is for our economic development operations. This is 1.76 FTE. They take a proactive approach to community growth and plays an important role in business attraction and expansion, job creation, productive property, and housing development. So they collaborate through partnerships, strategic investments, diverse funding, and creative incentives to stimulate economic growth. Activities and services include business recruitment, retention and expansion, and support for industrial and commercial property development. They also oversee the urban renewal agency, and they too require general support for a level of service. Some of those partnerships include, but not limited to, business retention and expansion committee, chamber greeters, chamber government affairs, so ready, Main Street, Grants Pass, Direct Meetings with Businesses, SBDC, Advisory Committee, Rogue Workforce Partnership, Oregon Economic Development Association, Southern Oregon Innovation Hub Support, or One Million Cups, Business Oregon, Industrial Lands Group, the Tourism Committee, and the Public Art Committee. And this is what that looks like financially. The predominant funding source is transit and lodging tax, and you could see that this program still requires some general fund support to continue the level of service. I'm trying to be efficient, Mayor, sorry. You're working. Next is downtown development. The funding utilization is obviously for downtown development operations. There is 1.0 FTE. We maintain public infrastructure, which includes the parking lots, alleyways, public restrooms, bike racks, benches, and public art. They are responsible for the annual flower basket program. THE ALLEY ACTIVATION AND BEAUTIFICATION, THE DOWNTOWN WELCOME CENTER, THE CITY IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE BUILDING OPERATIONS AND THE MAINTENANCE NOW WITH THE NEW CONTRACT WITH THE DMO, AND IT STILL REQUIRES GENERAL SUPPORT FOR ITS LEVEL OF SERVICE. AND WHAT THAT LOOKS LIKE FINANCIALLY, AS YOU CAN SEE, THE PREDOMINANT FUNDING SOURCE IS THE LODGING TAX THAT IS DEDICATED. but it needs quite a bit more general support to run this program at almost $500,000 for fiscal year 27. So why we're here today, HB 4148, which is amending or S320.350. And I'm just gonna read kind of the, I'm not gonna read the whole thing, I'm just gonna read the bolded changes that are on the slide. So not just fund tourism promotion or tourism related facilities, they added resiliency grants for small businesses in the restaurant and lodging industry. And then under the fund city or county services, whether emergency or non-emergency services provided directly by the city or county or by a special district in lieu of the city or county. So what that would mean is let's say our fire department wasn't necessarily within the city, they were a district that surrounded the city, we could potentially contribute to a district that provides a city service. The next edit, they removed the 70-30 split to be a 50-50 split. And then I'm not going to read all of this, but the main point I want to make on the next amendment that they're doing here is C, which is underlined. So a unit of local government may, in accordance with this subsection of this section, decrease the percentage of total local transient lodging tax revenues that are actually expended to fund tourism promotion OR TOURISM RELATED FACILITIES REGARDLESS OF WHEN THE PERCENTAGE WENT INTO EFFECT. SO THEY ARE GETTING RID OF THAT MORATORIUM DATE WHICH WAS JULY 2, 2003. HB 4148 GOES INTO EFFECT AS OF JANUARY 1, 2027. And then I didn't present all the sections, but I do have a handout here also on the diets that is the full 4148 and it's pretty short. But there are other sections in there about compliance and reporting that goes back to the state for lodging tax utilization. Financially, what does this mean? So this means you can potentially shift $43,900 between the top tourism section of the budget to the city operations. And so you'd be changing potentially about $1.356 million to $1.313 million if that's the edit you want to make. as well as I wanna point out too, I have the resiliency grants here on the right that you could add an allocation for. You could also add city services in here to be included as well. So allocation change implication. So we already have a resource scarcity issue. So each of the areas that I kind of pointed out today could use more funding in some capacity. And then talking about level of service. So if we do change the resource allocation, this could result in a level of service change. So if we're gonna take dollars potentially from tourism promotion, there may be an impact that we would need to come back with you as a recommendation of how we would accomplish those. So staff recommendation, because we really haven't been told to change level of service, would be just to keep the current level of service for all programs receiving the lodging tax allocation. And with that, the call to action is at your discretion. You can retain the current lodging tax or we can change the lodging tax allocation. By changing the lodging tax allocation, we will have to update muni code, which we can put that in place for the actual January 1st, 2027 timeline that the state will be changing those rules. And with that, I will take any questions. Thank you.

Bring it back to council for questions. Andrew, do you have questions?

I do. On page 26, HB 4148, it says, I'm sure you meant became operative on January 1, 2027. So that doesn't make sense to me.

Yeah, so this, all these edits, no, it's not starting until January 1, 2027.

Oh, so it will become.

Correct.

Thank you. Thank you. That's all I have. Oh, that long list of, you read a long list. I'm sorry. I have to find it. I'll come back. Let's move on. I'll come back.

Rick, do you have any questions? No. Seth, do you have any questions? No. Victoria, do you have any questions?

Yes. We have a little bit of time. Well, the staff recommendation is to make no changes at this point. And we do have, we could change it if it looks like in a year from now. If we thought, oh, well, maybe this will need to be done, that needs to be done, we could come back and revisit it if, and I don't know if people are choosing, will want to choose to change it now or not, If we chose not to, we could come back and revisit this next year before it took, okay, thank you.

Kathleen, do you have any questions? Eric, do you have any questions? No. Rob, do you have any questions? No. We got Joel online. Joel, do you have any questions?

Yes, I do. Can you hear me?

We can. Go ahead, Joel. Thank you.

Okay. Good presentation. I appreciate it. So if I understand this correctly, then we could increase the allocation of tourism dollars to public safety, and then there would be a corresponding decrease in some incentives for increasing tourism in Grants Pass. Is that correct?

That is an option, so let me see if I can visually put this on the screen. So yes, you can move $43,900 from tourism promotion and tourism related facilities into the city operations or specifically public safety if you so choose.

Okay, that sounds pretty attractive. Okay, thank you.

Thank you, Joel. Any further questions, Indra?

Yes, on the background, economic development, page 19, funding utilization, economic development operations, you read a long, I'm sorry, you went so fast, it was a little difficult for me to track some of the things you said, but you read a long list of, I guess, places where the monies are spent, specifically on that page.

I wouldn't say they're specifically spent. I would say that's part of the organizations I run off are the active partners that we as city staff interact with.

Okay, thank you. Can I get a list, or can council get a list of those? They're not on the presentation. That's fine.

I didn't necessarily want it to be the focal point of what economic does as far as the institutions that they interact with every day, because that list probably that I read off was just examples and not 100% complete.

Can I get, I would like a list. Yep. Thank you.

Dana's got it down here.

Perfect.

Any further questions? All right, seeing none, I don't think we have any other questions. I'll bring it back to council for further discussion and or some action. Victoria?

It seems to me like we would need more time to kind of digest what this would be. It's not a great deal of money to move, so I would just put forth the idea that we retain the current lodging tax allocation.

Further discussion? I'm going to pause one sec. I'm sorry, Victoria, I was misunderstanding. Was that just a statement?

No, that was a statement. That was a motion.

Okay, thank you. You've got to proceed that with motion first.

Apologies.

No, that's okay. That's why I was confusing, but we stopped and asked. Okay, so we do have a motion on the table to restate your motion, please. Sorry.

To retain the current lodging tax allocation.

Okay. Where's the motion on the table to retain the current lodging tax allocation? Is there a second? With a second from Kathleen, and we'll go into further discussion. Indra, and then I got Joel online, Indra?

Yes, this came up prior to the budget setting and I was surprised, we talked about moving that money at that time because our priority is public safety and it is just, I mean it's not a lot of money but I think every little bit helps as we dig into our reserve funds as we're doing and lowering those, I think any amount of money we can shift over is, and so I would be for discussing moving that money now and not waiting.

Any further discussion? I got Joel online. Joel?

Yeah, I would support what Indra says, and I wouldn't propose to make that change now. I think we probably need a presentation on what part of the tourism advertising or... partnerships to decrease but I agree with our reserves being dropped low it would be irresponsible I think to keep it the same.

Okay thank you Joel currently you have a motion on the table to keep the lodging tax allocations the same with a second so if you guys go into a vote on that and it doesn't pass we can have further discussion and somebody could make another motion but is there any further discussion at this moment I'm Eric and then Rob Eric so if if we decide that law enforcement or public safety need more allocations then we can do that at a later date correct Yeah, I believe that statement was said earlier. Correct.

Yeah. Sorry, just reiterating that because I don't know if everybody on the council understands that. So, thank you.

Thank you. Rob? I'm not sure if everyone on council understands. I know that I don't understand this part. So, maybe Aaron or Stephanie could clarify. So, if we make a motion now to maintain the current funding and we pass that motion, does that mean that we're locked in for six months before we can bring it back? That's typically, I guess, how things are done, right?

I kind of understand. I'm not going to interrupt you, but I understand the motion is basically to not proceed forward with changing things. I don't know if it puts a timeline. No, exactly.

But when you do it, when we do pass something, you can't just bring it back the next meeting and typically reverse it. You can't necessarily bring it right back. She's thinking. Yeah, it's not a simple question. Hopefully everyone understands what we're doing.

Yeah, we just need to check real quick on policy. It may pertain to ordinance and resolutions, and we'll need to see if it pertains to general motions also.

So with that, we'll have a small pause. Yeah, we could actually table this and move on to the next agenda item. Thanks for that recommendation, Rob. I actually like them better.

Well, I think kind of point of order, there was a motion that was made and a second.

There is, and we're getting clarification on the motion, so we're not stopping the debate, but we were going to actually give our legal counsel time to research it.

We're not gonna we're not stopping it we're basically gonna say hey let's pause let's go to the next item then when we get an answer we'll get get back to is that okay I would just like to point out that the motion was exactly what was presented on the on the screen here so it's not something that's coming out of left field

No, no, and I don't think that's what the question is. The question from council before they vote was to see when was the time limited of them to bring this back up as a discussion topic. With that, are you ready to go into tourism grant program review? Yep, if you want to start your presentation, the floor is yours.

Good afternoon, Council. Dana Pearce here with Economic Development, and we're going to take a look at the Tourism Promotion Grant Program. I'm going to provide a little bit of background on the program, where it started and all that, and also maybe make a few recommendations for updates. There's also an opportunity for more questions at the end. It does relate to the Council goals of economic growth. So the beginning of this program started back in October of 2022. At that time, the tourism advisory committee, they made a recommendation to take surplus lodging tax dollars and use that to fund a grant program that would help support tourism promotion. Economic development staff at that time researched other cities and drafted a program that was then adopted by the city council by resolution 237329 back in April of 23. And then each year since, $35,000 has been budgeted for the program. This is just a little bit more detail about the program criteria. The program is used to assist eligible businesses and non-profits. with $2,500 to $5,000 each to promote events and services that attract tourists. Some of the other criteria are that they have to be registered with the city as a business, they need to be located in the urban growth boundary, and then the expenses have to be lodging tax eligible, which the criteria we use for that are to attract people from 50 plus miles away or lead to overnight stays. The process that we use each year to evaluate this program, we have two different cycles, one in the fall and the spring. The staff verifies the eligibility of each applicant and then a review committee scores and makes recommendations. The council then approves those recommendations. I did provide on the dais a copy of the score sheet if you want to look at what that is. As we get further into this, some of the recommendations for modifications are to the scoring. So the review committee is made up of two tourism advisory committee members, one representative from our destination marketing organization, and then three staff members. And one other piece of criteria for this grant is that the applicant must, or the awardee must report what happened after the event. They just have to have one statistical metric that illustrates the impact of the tourism. Here we have just a chart of the various awards that have been made over the years. So in 2024, you can see we had nine applicants and nine awardees. And then you can see how it's increased over time. This last fiscal year we had 17 applicants, still nine awardees. It kind of has just happened to work out that way that each year nine awards have gone out. But each time we've awarded the full $35,000. You can also see that in 2024, not all of the funds were used. Sometimes applicants will spend the majority, but they don't have enough receipts to show that they've spent the full amount, so that money just doesn't get spent. And then you can see the same thing in 2025, just slightly more was not spent. But that $35,000 still went out. The fiscal year 2026, we haven't received any receipts yet. That's why that says zero. We know that these events are happening and people are actively spending. They just haven't made their request for reimbursement yet. So that's why we see zero in 2026. And this is an actual breakdown of every award that was given, the amount that was awarded, and the amount that was used for each applicant. I don't know that we need to read through all of it, but that just is for your reference. And then, I think it was either April or May, the Tourism Advisory Committee made a motion change some, or make some updates to the program. And these are the recommendations they made. These were recommendations that came from the Grant Review Committee to Tourism Advisory. They reviewed some of them and they brought forth the ones that they felt we should bring to the council. So the first one would be changes to the scoring in application and some of the examples of things that they would like to change would be putting more weight on off-season tourism. putting weight even on receipt of previous awards. So if someone's already received it, consider putting weight on that in the scoring. An inverted scale for previous awards not used. So if somebody underutilized an award, perhaps do a negative score for that. Adding a metric for multi-day or multi-events per year. And then correcting some of the redundancies in the application. That's just kind of a basic housekeeping thing. And then the second piece would be to look at expanding the location criteria. Right now, you must be located in the urban growth boundary. But we do have a lot of people interested that maybe have an event within the city, but their business or their organization is located outside of that. And because of that, it ends up restricting whether or not they can apply. So that's one of the reasons why we brought this forth. Would the council want to consider expanding the location criteria for the grant? As far as cost implications, this is surplus lodging tax funds, and it's $35,000 budgeted annually. And the policy questions are here. Does the council support the Tourism Advisory Committee recommended changes to the current program application and scoring? And I can go back to that slide so you can see. And then the second question is related to expanding the location criteria. So I'm open for questions. I'll go ahead and put it back here so you can see each item that they're looking at updating.

Thank you. I'll bring it back to council for any questions. Rob, you got any questions?

Yeah, Dana, when you mentioned the policy decision coming to council, there was something that I think that maybe was left out. This seems to be the only, we'll say, ongoing committee that I can think of that is not chosen by council and has no council liaison. So I'm just not clear with, we're talking about policy decisions, how was the policy made that three city staff people would be on this committee There'd be no council liaison and the council would not choose who's on the committee. How did that even happen?

It was actually part of the original grant when we wrote it. We said there would be a review committee and it was made up of this makeup. And that's what the council agreed to at the time.

So that would have been in 22 or 23?

Yeah, back when the grant was first. Yeah, so I guess when the resolution went through in 23, that's when it would have been established.

Thank you.

Eric, do you have any questions?

Yes, thank you for the presentation. On slide eight there, the one that you have up right now, can you explain what an inverted scale is a little more in detail? Exactly what that is showing?

You know, and this is something I think that would be probably researched in a little more depth, specifically what it would be, but we're thinking probably like a negative scoring of some kind or something. If you didn't use your previous award, we know you've been awarded previously, you might get a negative one on that piece of criteria. I don't know if we would do... you know, based on the amount you didn't spend. I mean, you could go negative one, negative two, or, you know, we could decide that scale, but the inverted piece would be that you would be docked points for having not spent funding that was rewarded to you.

Okay. Thank you. That makes sense.

Kathleen, do you have any questions?

Hi, Dina. Hi. I was wondering, who are the three city staff that are on this committee?

Right now, it's me, Heather Smith, who's my employee, and then Mike Sacchino. He works in admin.

Then I was wondering, the unused funds, where does that hang out? Where does that go?

It doesn't go anywhere. It doesn't get used, basically. So it's used in the next year? It's not specifically rolled into the program or anything. No, it's just unused. So that might be a JC question as far as how money is rolled over.

Yeah, it just goes back into the program in total as part of the beginning balance that starts off the reserve for next year.

Reserve as in economic developments reserve?

Yeah, so we keep, by the latest policy revision that we did, we recommended to keep 25% as a contingency. I think it's probably important to note, like after COVID, tourism promotion really took a hard hit in the last go around. And so keeping at least three months worth of operation Yeah, I'm familiar with the contingency fund. So it gets rolled back into the contingency fund. It gets rolled back, and then, again, they can reevaluate what other options that they present when they bring their budget forward next year.

So it's not a use it or lose it?

No, it's dedicated by Municode to stay in this program.

Okay. Yeah, and as far as county people bringing activities to the city, does the county not have anything for their people? I mean, how does that work? We're having negotiations right now with city counties, so maybe we could address that in one of those meetings, that they contribute somehow.

Yeah, I'm not aware of any grants that they're providing for the specific thing for tourism promotion. I know they do not have lodging tax in the county, so.

Victoria, you have any questions?

Yeah. Hi, Dana. Thank you. For off-season tourism, was there any study or looking into how would off-season tourism promotion equate back into higher dollar amounts for overall tourism in the city, for instance? this is what I'm thinking, a huge event like Boatnik is going to bring in ostensibly more and more money every year. And then an off-season event, it might grow over time. Was that the thinking behind this? Or was it just to sustain tourism throughout the year or all of the above?

Yeah, it is more about extending the tourism season, because we know that if we can do that, we can generate more revenue and keep it more steady throughout the year instead of seeing the large ups and downs that you get with the tourist season. That's, I think, primarily it. But I think this program in itself does do that. It continues to support growth for events. So an off-season event that's maybe new has that opportunity to get bigger and grow and actually help create that steady flow throughout the year.

Are there any metrics that you use to inform that? Any data behind that being a successful strategy?

I would say there is a lot of research around it, I guess. Specifically with this program itself, when we get reports back from folks, we can look at that and see if they've seen increases in Spending for their event or increased visitation that is stuff.

We would continue to evaluate throughout the program Okay, thank you, and then putting weight on receipt of previous awards Could you explain that to me again does that mean? You would have more of a chance to get it the next time or less I

think that would honestly be a question to put back to the council of how they would like to evaluate that I know on this last round when the council made decisions about the awards that they did like that and that's not something we have weighed on right now so that's something that can be decided oh so it could be either yeah okay and the the inverted scale if you didn't use the award

Do you think it could be made into something like you can't apply the next year if you didn't use it and then you start over the next year rather than, you know, having a weighted... Yeah, we could do that based on council's recommendations.

We could just write that into the criteria of the application itself and say if you've received a previous award, you have to wait a year to apply again. And then...

As far as people having events in the city but living outside of the city, did you just mean Josephine County residents or could it be from anywhere?

Again, I think that's something the council could decide. I think this is, it's an interesting thing that has come about since we started the program. We originally set this criteria that you have to be within the city. Well, we do have a lot of folks that their organization might be established outside of the city but have a large event that might have an impact. So that's where this kind of came about. But we have also just questions and thought about what if a major event, let's say an organization outside of Bend wanted to have a major event at the Dollar Mountain. That's going to be a significant impact to Grants Pass. Would we support someone that isn't here to promote that event because they are coming here? Right, right. That's kind of why we're asking this question.

Right, right. And it's a great question. Do you have any examples of people who are in Josephine County or outside of the area who want to apply for the grant?

Oh, shoot. Yeah, we definitely have. I might have to go back and look at the list, if that's okay, and answer you.

Oh, that's fine. Okay, those are the questions I have. Thanks.

Seth, do you have any questions? No. Rick, do you have any questions? No. Andrea, do you have any questions?

I do. So you mentioned, what was the reasoning besides council members seem to like previous events? What was the reasoning behind putting more weight on prior events that received awards?

I think it depends. There's a lot of different scenarios, right? So in a scenario, let's use... The horse races, for example, they've done a really great job when they receive these funds and spending them and then showing how they've increased over time. So that is a positive thing for us to see that growth. So we have examples of that actually playing out really well in this program. And then another example is just what councils desire to support those organizations they feel are doing well for our community.

And how do you go about getting feedback after the events or analyzing whether those events did bring more tourists to our city?

All of the organizations are required to report back I know the requirements are only one metric, but oftentimes people provide a lot more detail about how they feel like their event impacted the city and tourism, people being attracted. So we use that grant reporting as a tool. We also recently have Placer AI as a tool within our division. So we have been already engaging that to look at events and how they're impacting the numbers of people coming in and spending and such.

So the organizers of the events self-report how they felt it went? Does the city have any kind of data backing that up?

Yeah, some of the data that they provide, it just depends on the applicant and what they've said that they would report on. But some of those folks do provide actual data. And then, like I just mentioned, Placer AI is a tool that we're using to check that.

And is that part of the scoring guide?

That's something that comes after the fact. So I guess we could include it in the scoring if it's somebody that's applying again.

Thank you.

All right. Joel, do you have any questions? Yeah, I have two questions. Again, good presentation, and thank you very much. First question was for JC. JC, in the budget process, we already budget the 25 percent carryover, correct?

Correct.

And so, anything that's not spent is in addition to that 25 percent that gets carried over, is that correct?

Correct.

So that would be over and above what would be necessary. Okay, the second question I had was, it's been my experience that models on scoring are always subject to the reasoning test. And so like last year, if I remember correctly, the committee did their scoring and it came to the council and the council did different than the recommendation and the scoring based upon their knowledge of what was happening and what they thought was best for the community. And I assume that regardless of the scoring coming to us next year, that we wouldn't have a model dictate to us and make the decision of the allocation, but the council would make the decision considering the model and then adding their own knowledge to it. Is that correct?

Yes.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you. Further questions? I got Rick and Kathleen. Rick?

Thank you, Dana. So on the inverted scale, the slide up there, number C, you indicated that if somebody got a specific amount and didn't spend the amount and came back the next year, they could be actually have a lower score than, is that true?

Yeah, that's what this would do.

So what bothers me about that, I want to say you force those people to spend money and maybe they don't need to spend it. If they found out the item they were going for, it's available or is less expensive, then it seems like it's counterproductive.

I think that... maybe should be more specific on this one too. We had certain cases where people spent under the minimum amount. And I think the reason why it was established originally to have a minimum of $2,500 was because of the impact. We wanted to see that they spent enough to have a significant impact. But when people are spending significantly less, it's harder to see the impact of that advertising.

And if I could just tack on to that, Mayor, yeah, this program is very different than, if I understand, Council, where you're going, where a lot of other programs, we actually would desire savings. We don't want savings on this program. We actually want the money to flow out to advertise. And so that's why the Council set a $2,500 minimum. And we have had an experience, several experiences, where people haven't even spent $2,500, even though they've gotten $5,000. So it just seems to be a, you know, it's just one of the topics up here on the screen for you to consider, but that's kind of the little different motivation, if we will, in terms of the funding for this project. The whole point is to incentivize and encourage people to draw tourists. And so if that money doesn't get spent, that potentially means somebody else didn't get as much as they could have to do more.

Okay, thank you for that clarification. Further questions? I've got Kathleen.

So, Dana, we have three boxes here with 24, 25, and 26. Is this 26 box of grant awards for fall?

Is that a suggestion for fall?

Is that what, are you looking at this? No, the next one.

yes these have already been awarded so these were in FY 26 these were the awards that were given what's interesting about this is that it always rolls over they have all year to spend that money and so we often won't see the actual expenses until later okay I don't remember voting for some of those The first three were awarded in the fall of last year, so that would have been, I think, in September of 25. And then the next six were the ones that you saw this spring that you awarded.

All right, thank you.

All right, any further questions? Indra.

How long do they have to submit receipts for reimbursement?

They have one year to spend and then 30 days to submit their reimbursement and grant reporting.

After the spending period ends? Yeah. So even if their event was six months before they have that six months?

still they do yeah it's just the way that's written so that they have a full year to spend one of the reasons why it does work is we don't know because we have two cycles we don't know when someone's event is going to hit in the year and so by having that full year to spend they're likely to be it's no matter where you get awarded you're likely to be able to spend in that time okay and then JC so the money not spent goes into contingency which obviously will would build and build but

When is, you offer that money at certain times for other projects that we wanna do and you say we could take it out of contingency? Is that how that works or does it go, does the surplus go somewhere specific?

No, per mini code, the tourism promotion dollars stay with tourism promotion dollars. And so this program utilizes that. The money unspent rolls over. I want to remind you that I understand we've probably got to the 25%. But TLT revenues have been relatively flat, actually declining the last few years. And so it's become harder and harder to maintain reserves. And so one of the things potentially in the first conversation, if you're talking about changing the allocation for tourism promotion, it potentially has an impact on this grant program.

Thank you. Any further questions? Joel, you got any more questions? No. Thank you, sir. Thank you. All right. So what were we asking for today?

So the question is, does the council support the Tourism Advisory Council's recommended changes to the current program application and scoring? And you, I guess, can be specific on those if there's things that you don't agree with. And then does the council also support expanding the location criteria to include events and activities located in Josephine County?

Thank you, Dana. All right, I'll bring it back to council for further discussion or some action. Do you have a question?

So those are two separate voting items. We're not going to lump it all together as one vote. Right, you can just give me feedback on each of these. Yes. All right, thank you.

Okay, further discussion? I got Indra and Victoria.

Indra? So I know the committee is bringing this forth so that council and committee is more on the same page because it's, when they make recommendations, of course we do listen, but we decide for ourselves, representing our constituents on where to go. But we do need to kind of be in line so they know kind of what our thought is. With that said, I wouldn't be for, Where did I write it? I wouldn't be for weighting, putting weight on receipt of previous awards because I just think that something new might come up that's awesome and it might not get a score enough because it wasn't weighted, it wasn't previous. So I would maybe vote for that. as opposed to just depending on what it was. So I wouldn't be for that. And then I wouldn't also, I get why they wanna put more weight on off-season tourism. We do wanna do that, but I think, again, that would be in our purview to decide whether this off-season offsets some of the summer season ones that bring in a lot. So I would like to not see that weighted as well.

right further comments or discuss for discussion Victoria thank you so I I think it it's an interesting idea that you put forth about expanding location criteria because there may be some big venues that would like to come in that would be helped to do that and that would be good for the city But I also am a little bit afraid, because if you look at the list, these are some really tried and true Grants Pass homegrown, very good year after year successful events. So I wouldn't be for totally expanding location criteria, maybe. as even a pilot program doing something like an 80-20 or something like that where 80% would still be from the City of Grants Pass and maybe allocate for a little while seeing 20% from out of the area just to see how that goes. I don't like putting more weight on out of season tourism just because Well, one thing that I remembered while we were having this discussion was the Grants Pass Band Boosters. They came back to us and told us what this grant meant to them. And it just was an amazing success for them. And it was such a great thing to hear back from them. And all of the other events and organizations on this list, I would say the same thing for, so I don't think, I just don't like the idea of waiting for off-season tourism, although I do understand the idea behind it. And I don't like the idea of either waiting, giving more weight to people who have had it before, or less. I don't like that idea at all, because I'll use the, Boatnik for an example, you know, that it just increases year after year. And to give them, they're such a big established, I mean, they should just have as much ability and no less, but no more than any of the other organizations that might be a little bit smaller. I'll just, for like the GP band boosters, for example, but it could be any of them. I'm not just trying to point them out specifically. And then I was also thinking that if they don't use the funds we really want them to be used Don't wait it. Just don't let them apply next year It's like you use you lose out next year because we wanted you to use this money So maybe that would be better than just waiting and Just generally, I like the proven events because that's what makes our town our town. They've grown over, you know, decades. So, and that the city has an opportunity to help them, I think is great. But I was also thinking that one thing we might improve on this is just to develop a better feedback, not to make it harder on any of these organizations, but to really think about the metrics of what we're looking for and have them report back, and I don't know exactly what that would be, but if we get better feedback from people, then we're going to just be able to put, you know, well, just to say we did a great job. We supported this organization and it increased this much and that would be great for the community to know. But I think I would like to have more examples of organizations who are out of the area who want to come in before I would commit to making this something that was outside of the city. So those are just some, so overall I don't know if I'm really for changing too much of it right now. I would just need to see more information really. But those were just some things, some great ideas for changes. But those were some of the ideas I had.

Further discussion? Rick and then Indra, Rick?

So I'm in favor of the inverted scale because you're not casting those people out that don't spend their money because maybe they just had an off year and weren't able to pull it off. but I think also there may be some merit to checking in with them to see if they're not spending the money so there could be possibly reconsidered somebody else. And I would like to see possibly up to three examples of out of the area businesses just to get an idea of what it would look like. That would be my take, thank you.

Further discussion, Indra?

Yes, the award amounts are kind of arbitrary. And so someone might spend $1,000 and have great outreach and have a great event. So I don't think we should... dock them for having a great event because they didn't spend it all and maybe they're more frugal and do more with their dollars and that's good for the city because then it comes back to our contingency fund. So I'm wondering, I mean, 2,500 and 5,000, maybe someone only needs 1,000 and I don't know if there's a way or in the past that we've given less to some and more to others, but I don't think if you get 2,500 or 5,000 and then you spend 4,000 because you did all you need to do and you got great outreach and had a great event, that that should be against you for the next year. So I think we should really look at the award amounts and how that's done and if people can possibly ask for less. So if I did an event, and I spent 1,500 and that was great and I wanted to come back and spend 1,500 again. Could I apply for just 1,500? And then someone else gets the extra 1,000. So maybe we need to be a little more flexible in what we give. Thank you.

Further discussion? Seth, Eric, Seth?

Yeah, I think the only one that I would be okay with removing is putting weight on receipt of previous awards. I mean, I think ultimately it would be up to the committee themselves each year to identify who they want or make a recommendation. Think the inverted scale makes sense. Although I would like to see maybe like a you know 80 80 20 rule or something like that You know, they have to spend at least 80% of it because you know marketing sometimes things come in at odd dollar amounts So that could be a thing but if they're spending, you know, only 50% of it, I mean they should be coming into this with a budget in mind and I If you've been in marketing, you know that every dollar matters and you can always spend more money to reach more people. So I do agree with that, but I do think, you know, we should set at least, like I said, 80 to 90% has to be spent, leave a little room for buffer there. I think, you know, increasing it to Josephine County for now makes sense instead of just the City of Grants Pass. We could go beyond that, but I'm okay with Josephine County for right now. Yeah, that's kind of my thoughts.

Further discussion, I got Eric and then Joel. Eric?

Yeah, thank you. So I think a lot what Rick was saying and some others here on the dais, as far as the I mean, I think that would be a great idea. I don't know if there's time to do it or not, but if an individual organization is having problems spending it, perhaps we have to reach out as a city and ask if they're gonna use it all or if they've already used what they can the best way they can. And again, I don't know if there's enough time to do that or how that all works, but I think if they don't use it all,

Let us know and we can give it to somebody else that will be able to use it Thank you further discussion Joel I Had just two two items first off, you know It kind of goes back to the previous question for funding public safety if it wasn't all spent in this area Maybe it's a little better investment to actually attract people to Josephine County and have it be a little safer and I think that's something yet to be determined. The second thing was, the criteria that's most important in my mind is the council's interpretation, just like last year. Who's going to attract the most people and do the most economic good for the county? And that's not part of their criteria. Their criteria, it's a model and that's all it is. It doesn't give us the answer. And so council, regardless of what their criteria is, as long as the criteria doesn't eliminate proposals unnecessarily, like the location criteria. We don't want to have that eliminate a proposal by just locating it within the city. And then the council can look at what the model says and what the committee says and then make their own independent decision on what's What's the best economically for the city? And that's going to have to happen regardless of the criteria. So I'm okay with expanding the location criteria. The other thing, as long as they're really well known and we get the committee's opinion on that is fine, but we'll need to understand and ask ourselves the question just like we did last year, and we don't have to agree with what the recommendations are.

Seth?

I just want to make a statement that I think we should take more weight on what the committee says, because otherwise there's no point in having a committee. We should just be the committee. I thought the last cycle, I mean, we spent, what was it, an hour? I don't even know how long it was going through this and combing it and trying to pick our own when The committee went through, did the interviews, read the applications, did all that work. So again, there's a lot of redundancy there if we have a committee, but then we go through and completely just throw everything out the door. So I do think the council should put more weight on what the committee is saying moving forward.

Before I ask for further discussion, I'm getting a sentiment that there is not a counselor that's willing to go forward with this, and there is multiple questions. I just want to make, that's my read on the current conversation, but it is up to you guys to do what you need to do. Further discussion, Indra?

I just wanted to touch on the makeup of the committee. So I believe, I don't know too why we would have three staff on there, maybe one staff. as a representation, but why don't we have a couple citizens at large on the committee that attend events and pay attention to that? I don't think you have to be in the tourism industry to have a good common sense say and make good recommendations. So I don't know if that's possible, but that's what I would recommend.

Further discussion?

I got Rob, Rick, and Victoria. Rob. Yeah, I would agree with what Andrew just said, and I would also like to add that for an ongoing committee, and it appears as if this committee is going to be ongoing for a while, there should be a council liaison. There's a council liaison for every other committee that we have, and that also very often helps with interpretation and helps keep things kind of on track. Sometimes there are questions from committee members or the chair of committee, and sometimes having a council person there can

aid in basically smoothing out the final result further discussion Rick well I would be in favor of item one which has the points ABC D&E and also further information and expanding the location criteria Victoria yeah I really thought that council

when they, I thought that was a really, I thought that was a successful day in council. Maybe I'm the only councilor who thought that. But as it turned out, we, and with the changes of awards and people came back to us and told us, was really good so we got really good feedback with the input that council gave to the committee so I do like the idea of having a counselor liaison on that committee I like that I do too I like what Joel said you know that Council still has the final say. And because I think we did a good job the last time. I mean, maybe it wasn't perfect. But as I said, we got some great feedback. So I think I would also, though, agree with the mayor. And I don't think we're ready to, or I know I'm not ready to support the changes at this time. But I think there's some great ideas about expanding it out of the area, but I would just need some more information to see what that looked like and like what Seth said, maybe just Josephine County to begin with and then possibly expand it from there if other people wanted it. But I don't feel like I'm ready to move on anything right now personally.

Indra? Yes, I'm okay with Josephine County and having events. I wouldn't want to award to someone outside of Josephine County I think we should definitely keep it local here and is there a reason why I mean if we really like this program the 35,000 a year is there a reason why if it's the money isn't used it can roll over specifically to this program and the next we have that extra money and maybe we could give more money or the same money to more organizations. Is there a reason why we couldn't specifically keep it in this program?

Yeah, so specifically it's the revenues aren't keeping up with the other inflationary costs potentially. And so any savings is just starting us back into getting us to the current level of service, so to speak. And so we haven't grown the program because there's not a lot of area to grow as of right now.

So if we need that extra money, does it make sense to reduce the program amount to $20,000? to reduce it. If we're counting on that money not being spent, seems like it would make more sense to reduce the amount for the program.

If council wants to make a policy decision to reduce the amount for the program, I think that is within your purview to change the level of service. Just right now, staff has just recommended to maintain that 35,000 because Yes, we allocate to spend $35,000, but it doesn't necessarily mean that's what we do end up spending. And so it just has been the established dollar amount that we've kind of just gone with. If there were ever a boom, I guess, in TLT revenues, we would potentially have that discussion back with council as to what you would like us to do with the funds that we have in excess.

Okay, so I'm not seeing any action in regards to council pushing this forward. So I'm going to give it back to council one last time. Does anybody want to make any, give Dana any direction in regards to these two questions asked? Meaning if you feel that you need more time, that you would ask for further questions or further information to be presented to you, and to proceed to answer these questions at a later date, or you agree and go forward. Rob.

Okay, thanks Clint. So to me this is, we all know that, it seems like we all agree that this is a program that is valuable, it seems to help the city. It's relatively low dollar, it's actually very low dollar total, and we spent a lot of time on it already. I don't think that, even though there is probably room for improvement, I'm sure there is, the program is working now, it's not broken, there's no major problems with it, so to put this off to the future is not really gonna do very much damage, if any damage at all, because I think the program basically works. I'd be in favor of, unless there's unless it's real clear where we're going with a couple of these changes, I'd be in favor of keeping it as it is for now because I don't think it's broken. I think people do benefit. I think the city benefits. So I'm willing to go forward with it just the way it is unless people have a real strong preference for one of these two items, and I haven't heard it.

Okay, so you have a motion on the table to not accept any of the TAC recommendations and keep the program in place as it is today. Is that correct, Rob? That's correct, thank you. And a second from Seth? No? No seconds? No second. Nobody wants to second that one. Okay. Will you second that? Okay, Indra seconds that. Thank you. Further discussion in regards to that? I had Kathleen, Seth, and Rick. So Kathleen first, please.

So, Rob, I was wondering if you'd like to make a friendly amendment to bring on a liaison to the TAC committee. That was something you were in favor of.

Sure. Thank you. Yeah, I would make that amendment. So a council liaison also. Thank you.

Okay, there's a friendly amendment to add a council liaison to this TA committee with a second from Rick. Further discussion, we have Seth, and then Rick. Seth?

I mean, I would like to see some of these changes made. These are recommendations coming from the Tourism Advisory Committee to council on things that they believe could improve it. We are not the ones on that committee. Again, I'd be okay with taking off the weight on recipients of previous awards, but keeping pretty much everything else. So again, I think we should take some action on this because they are making the recommendation and we've been discussing it for an hour.

Rick, further discussion?

I agree with Seth's comments that I think we should have recognition of the committee and the work they put into this. And I feel if there needs to be a course correction, let's do it instead of just keep putting it off to later. Thank you.

Rob?

So, Seth, I'm not sure if I understand. We talked about weight on previous awards. We've heard from counselors. Some counselors wanted to add more weight on previous awards. Some councilors wanted to take weight off previous awards. So what are you saying?

I'm saying we don't need it. I don't necessarily need it to be in there to put a weight on previous awards. So you're saying take it away? Yeah, take it away. Because it just opens it up each year for the committee to decide.

Further discussion? Victoria?

I maybe I was maybe I misunderstood but I didn't think that there was weight right now yeah but you don't want to add it in oh I don't I don't either okay just clarification thank you so such as to clarify again one hand you're saying that we should listen to the advice of the committee right but then you're saying to it to ignore that piece of their advice

Yeah, because we just sat here and debated it for the last hour, and people made some good points about that item. So I was, you know.

So reverse the committee's recommendation on that point. Sure, yeah.

Unless you want to just take it all away, I guess. We could just not vote on anything. That's fine.

I'll add that as a friendly amendment also. Thank you.

Okay, your original amendment was to not take any recommendations, right?

Not to take any, okay, so my original motion is to take this one recommendation. Actually, I'm sorry, I'm going to retract my original, and we'll start with a new one.

Yeah, I'm sorry, you're confusing me, so go ahead. Please, clarify. Okay, so the original motion with the friendly amendment will be retracted.

Yeah, thank you. Thank you. Okay, so now I'm recommending that we, the one recommendation that we take from the committee is to not add, let's see. Okay, that was, I'm sorry. Now I'm confused. So actually my original motion would have been to only add a council liaison and to continue on. And what Seth just said, basically, if we do that, then we're incorporating what Seth said, which is to pull the weight. So I don't necessarily need to change my original motion. My original motion was to continue forward and add a council liaison, and we would be doing what Seth wanted to see done. So that would be my motion, I guess. Same motion. Sorry. Thank you.

I thought your motion was to not make any of the changes.

It is. Correct. And the one thing you wanted to not do was one of those changes.

No, I meant make the changes minus that one.

Oh, okay. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Thank you for explaining that. And the liaison. Okay. Okay, I'm gonna keep my motion, and we'll just see where that one goes.

Okay, so the motion stands as, there's a motion on the dais to not take any TAC recommendations, keep the program as it is, with a friendly amendment to add a council liaison to said committee. With seconds on both, So basically, you will be voting to keep the program in place as is and not take any recommendations. If this motion fails, then there can be further discussion and further motions or further action. So what did you need, Rick?

Are there two votes there or just one vote?

Just one. Because Rob accepted as a friendly amendment, so it's one whole motion.

We can be in favor of one part of it, not in favor of the other, so we have to vote it down. Yep. Okay, thank you.

Yes, for clarification, there was a motion with a friendly amendment to that said motion, so that makes that motion whole. Both parts of the motion are within the vote. So if you agree with both parts of the motion, then you would vote yes. If you do not agree with either part of the motion, then you would vote no. If a no vote comes up, then this motion will fail, and we will go into further discussion and or action. Okay? Further discussion, Indra?

I seconded it, and I will accept that friendly amendment as well.

Perfect. Thank you very much. I'm going to go into a vote on the motion as stated. Rob? Yes. Eric?

No.

Kathleen? Yes. Victoria? Yes. Seth?

No.

Rick? No. Indra? Yes. Joel? Yes. OK, so I got five to three, right? OK, so motion passes. So the motion was to stay the course with the current procedures in place for the program, but add a council liaison, which we can discuss at a future date. Okay, thank you very much. We're going to come back to council workshop item number one, lodging tax allocation, because it looks like staff has got an answer to the original question. Can we restate the original question?

The original question was whether or not a motion to stay status quo would inhibit council to coming back and expressing reconsideration within a six-month period. The cleanest way, if you want to just move forward, is just to rescind the motion and just continue status quo. Although legal counsel stated that they didn't feel as though there was a major hindrance to reconsidering this in the future if you're making a motion just to stay status quo.

Because technically, I don't think it would be a reconsideration at a future date. It would be an actual decision being made since there would be no changes to anything. It's not really reconsidering anything if you're sticking with what's currently in place. But the cleanest motion is just to have heard the information and be done with the discussion for the day, not make a motion either way. Eric, question?

Yes, thank you. Is there a time limit of any kind? I think that was one of the things, the six-month thing that Rob brought up.

The language in the council rules says when reconsideration is necessary, not had, as provided herein, such matter or one substantially the same may again be considered by the council after six months has elapsed, or if the motion to reconsider is passed by the council by a two-thirds vote of those present. So taking an action is something that you would then reconsider at a later date. If you take no action, then there's nothing to reconsider. Also, if it's less than six months out, two-thirds or more of the council wants to talk about it, you're perfectly entitled to do that.

So my motion was to retain the current lodging tax allocation, and there was a second. And there is no issue with coming back in six months if people wanted to which is also something that i said so i don't see as though there's any uh... harm to vote on the motion or we're we're not saying there is any harm to the vote we're allowing we're we're answering the question and then there was a few discussion points but yeah we're not we're not we're not tabling or stopping your vote oh yeah we're gonna get to that i don't understand why then we were just told now the easiest way would just be to table the motion that's what i don't understand

Because then we don't have to have this discussion again in six months when we're talking about it and somebody questions whether or not we can do it. Or if in four months you decide to have the same discussion, we don't have to go through any processes and we don't have to talk about whether or not we can reconsider something. If you're maintaining status quo, you don't need a motion to do that. You can just leave it as is.

The motion is to maintain status quo.

But you don't even have to have a motion to do that. You can walk away from today without any motion being voted on and things stay the same. Rob?

Okay, so I think, so I understand that, you know, Joel had mentioned and maybe others had mentioned that if we decided to change our mind on these allocations, we'd want to be able to do that. And I guess, so the question is, so if we maintain status quo, we do nothing today, we could change our allocations next month if we so chose. If we were to make a motion today to maintain status quo, we could be locked in for six months before we could make a change. Is that accurate?

unless you have two thirds that want to discuss it.

Okay, thank you.

Okay, so Victoria's motion was to, was a full motion to retain the current lodging tax allocations. Any further discussion? There was a second with that. We did pause for a second to allow staff to answer questions in regards to revisiting this issue in the future and what the time limit was. Hopefully you all have been educated on what that is. Joel, do you have any comments or questions?

I just have a comment.

Go ahead, Joel.

I certainly respect the intent of the motion, However, I feel like, and it's already been stated by the city manager that after, for the next council, you're going to be looking at the budget and trying to either increase taxes or reduce the budget to have your reserves and the general fund be where they should be. And I would think right now you would want to make incremental changes, which would mean allocating the additional money to the public safety now because you know that's coming up. People will spend as much money as you give them and they'll do the best they can with the money they got. Bless their hearts and they'll do a good job. Whether it's that much money more or that much money less, they'll make do. If you have to make cuts after the first of the year for the general fund, That's very painful and unnecessary to some extent, given if we take action now on this item.

Thank you. Any further discussion? Indra?

Yes, I'd like to agree with Joel. And of course, we want tourism and the economic growth that that brings. But our number one job as a city is public safety and protecting our citizens. And so I

think we need to take action now to to roll that money over further discussion Rick so I like some clarification if there's a no vote on the motion can the subject come back within six months it's only if there's a positive

If there's a no vote on this motion, then I will bring it back to council for further discussion or action because the topic at hand would not be solved or would not be concluded.

Thank you. Appreciate that. Victoria?

If we go, well, one of the reasons for the motion was because there were many questions about how to change it. And the other question Our other path forward is, apparently, we have to change the municipal code. Is that correct? So definitely, I don't feel like we're ready to vote on changing the municipal code right now. And if we need to do it in six months, then I think that there would be 2 thirds of the council who would want to come back and do that. But there just wasn't enough information right now to know if that was going to be needed. I would love to hear from all the different departments about that first. So I think the best course of action is just to keep it the way that it is now, which was the motion given from staff. And I don't need the answer to this now, but if, I'm just curious as to why this particular motion would have the six-month two-thirds or if we've been doing it wrong all along on every other motion we've made so uh i'd like it doesn't need to be now but i'd like a little bit of clarification on that um soon so i would keep the motion but those i just want to clarify those are some of the reasons why and uh so thank you okay we have a current motion on the table and i'd like to get to a vote but further discussion

Yes, can staff, someone from staff, maybe clarify? This seems to be a kind of simple process, and when we're the, Councilor Marshall isn't sure where the money's going, where the money would specific, would go in general, just in general.

That's up to you to decide. So let me get back up on the screen and kind of show, I guess, numerically what that looks like.

While he's doing that, ultimately, if a motion like that does pass, then we would come back to you with level of service options to look at from the tourism aspect on how you'd like to maybe potentially look at reducing services in those areas that you want to draw the $43,000 from.

Okay, and then as far as when it rolls over to the, it would go to... specifically just the places where the money goes now, where the lodging tax dollars go now to the city.

That's correct.

And would you all determine where that goes, or would council have a say in that?

I don't think it matters, but... Well, if it's allocated to the public safety parks, economic development, downtown services, versus whether it's allocated to tourism promotion and facilities.

Right, okay. Can it all go to public safety, or it would go to all of those that you listed?

I could take this over. Thanks. So on the left of the screen here, where the laser pointer is, tourism promotion, this is our current allocation based on our 12%, and they get 40%, and I will remind you, 28% of the total goes to the DMO, and that's predominantly what's in this number right here. So there's not a lot of wiggle room, so to speak, except maybe the grant program. So then the tourism related facilities gets this allocation. What you're talking about doing is moving 43,900 from this top portion to whichever area you want to put in this bottom section. All of this bottom section is general fund. And so all of these programs need general fund support. So you're basically just potentially minimally reducing the Net position of where the general fund ends So it doesn't you can tell us today too that you want a hundred percent of these dollars to go to public safety if you wanted to But that doesn't have to change the level of service for each of these departments And I don't I don't think we need to decide that today, but I think

you know, taxpayer dollars from our city go into that bottom bucket and helping reduce that burden and or building our contingency to me is very important as opposed to the up above where our taxpaying citizens aren't paying into that. Those are coming in the lodging tax dollars. So to me, we're lessening the burden on our city and our residents by moving just that little bit over. Thank you.

So I'm just going to say this back another way in a devil's advocate. The tourism dollars are already adding to the general fund. If you potentially reduce the promotion dollars, you're potentially reducing the overall pot of money and would lessen the amount back to the general fund.

Potential being the key word. As we get economic growth, it should all go up. That's what we're hoping for.

Correct, but his statement was to say that if you take away your advertising dollars, then as the economy does raise, you're putting less advertising into tourism, so that would potentially, could result in a less draw of tourism to the area.

I get that.

I think that was just a point he was trying to get.

Right, when I talk to constituents, their number one is public safety, not tourism dollars or advertising, just saying.

we have a motion on the table currently with a second um further discussion victoria yeah there was it was a great presentation when you went through all of the different departments that would have a potential reduction in level of service and i would love to be able to hear more about how that would affect them before And like I said when I made the motion, it's not a great deal of money. And if eventually it does end up being needed to go to fire and police, then that's good. But to take it away from other programs that promote business might not be so good. So it would be great to just get some more information about from each of the affected, the tourism promotion, the facilities, just to hear back from those people. What would this do to you with the loss of money? And from the other side, what would this do to you for the increase of money? And that's why I think it's such an important thing, just to keep things the way that they are now. Thanks.

It's a comment that Erin and I had before we were putting this presentation together. And so that's why it was put as six stars, because that exact question of you're potentially changing the level of service. And so then my question back to you is, if you're changing the level of service, which service would you like us to potentially reduce? And then we will make the corrective action to meet the appropriate policy direction.

Oh yeah, so I think I agree with everything you're saying. I just personally would love to hear more from the different departments to get feedback from them as to what that would mean to them before I would be able to make a really great decision on that.

Yes, if council was wanting to entertain the concept of allocating the $43,000 into general fund operations that would require a, without the use of contingency, that would require a reduction in level of service in tourism, promotion, tourism related facilities. We would come back to you with where and how that $43,000 would potentially come from and provide you with recommendations on those and ultimately it's a level of service decision for council. we would not really have a discussion on how that $43,000 is gonna increase level of service, because it's not gonna be increasing level of service from a public safety perspective. It would just go to help offset some general fund subsidy that's already existing.

So I'm just gonna say this back, hopefully in a different way, until hopefully it resonates. A reduction in these two programs has a bigger impact than increasing this by $43,900.

Rick, and then Seth, and then Indra. Rick?

So, JC, I haven't got my calculator out. On that 43,000, what percentage would that be in relation to the total amount?

That's 1.67% right here.

So then 1.67% taken away from the top half would have substantial impact is what you're saying.

Right, and so going back... It's a 4% decrease.

4%?

Yeah.

So financially speaking...

If you took it all out of the top one.

So financially speaking, transient lodging tax is really the only revenue in this program. And so if you're reducing it, you're changing what this program potentially looks like by $43,000 or up to $43,000. And then with the tourism related facilities, that's pretty much one of the main funding sources as well. And so you're doing the same thing. If we're reducing that by the $43,900, then you're changing potentially the capital projects that parks could potentially invest in. So there's an impact there if you're gonna reduce the top section because of how the current funding actually gets applied in operations.

So currently do those programs have a surplus at the end of the year or are they struggling?

I mean, you could probably talk to any department. They could always use more money.

Thank you.

Seth? Yeah, I just want to make a note that we did vote on a contract renewal for Visit Grants Pass, I don't know, a month or so ago. And part of that was them taking over the Welcome Center downtown, which by doing that basically freed up about $40,000 from the City of Grants Pass because Visit Grants Pass took over the salaries or the wages for the Welcome Center. So I did want to point that out. So it's, in a way, kind of a wash, if you want to look at it that way.

And another note, and you guys did require them to put more hours for the visiting center as well, so that's more money out of their pocket. Indra?

I just wanna note that the lodging tax dollars are fluctuating anyway, so they could go up greatly or down greatly. I mean, and so saying we're taking money away is not, I'm trying to figure out why staff is so on board with not moving the money, because I really haven't heard a great reason for it, but obviously the staff too are for not moving the money. But I bet public safety and the ones below would be for moving the money. I just don't see a big difference with that and how it would really negatively affect the above, the tourism part. And they're getting a lot of money already. And I mean, either we're supporting public safety as best we can or we're not.

I want to be clear. Staff is not promoting not making a change or making a change. We're more than happy to make the change if you so desire. We're just trying to make sure through this discussion that you have a full understanding of what that change may be. It will require some additional movement. Staff is not pushing for one item. This is a council decision.

Right, just everything that's stated is negative, like not one positive to move. That's why I say that. No judgment, thank you.

Further discussion, or can we go on to this vote? Okay, you have a motion.

Yeah, go ahead, Joel. Sorry to interrupt you.

No, you're fine.

So on that slide you were just on, JC.

Where were we at?

And making cuts, government always hates to make cuts. On the other hand, if you make a cut, they'll make it work. And if you had to cut, this is a very small amount of money going to public safety, but it's certainly a positive statement. And at the program level, you would probably do it in proportion to the amount that's already funded between tourism promotion and tourism-related facilities so that... 80% of the $43,900 would come out of tourism promotion and 20% of that would come out of tourism related facilities. Call it good and have staff make it work. That's what we're talking about and it's not a big deal and it's a very positive thing.

Any further discussion or can we go to the vote? You have discussion? Victoria?

Yeah, I just had to make a comment. Maybe in response to that, Joel, is that we also heard that the loss of this money for one program could be very detrimental to it while it would not have an amazing benefit for the other. And also, we're not voting to put it into public safety. I mean, there are many other. That's a totally different discussion. So that's not something we're discussing right now. We're just voting to keep it the same for now. And for my estimation is so we can get back some more information from all of these different departments as to what it would mean to them. Another way of saying it, Joel, is that it could hurt one department a lot, and it would not necessarily benefit the other very much at all. So I think the possible... uh... detriment is higher than than the possible benefit here and and we can come back to this after we have more information and better information about what the impact would be so that hopefully that kind of fleshes out a little bit more of why i believe anyway made the motion that we should keep things the same uh... at the way that they are right now okay i'm refusing to take any more discussion

I just had one thought. Clinton, I'll be quiet.

Yeah, go ahead, Joel. I was joking, actually. I can't do that.

Oh, no, you're absolutely right on. So the cuts actually are less than the carryover unspent money. And those who take care of a lot of smaller amounts of money will be entrusted with larger amounts. We need to be responsible. And MY MOTION WOULD BE, IF THIS MOTION FAILS, IS THAT WE WOULD GO AHEAD AND MAKE THE CHANGE AND ALLOCATE THE 43,900 TO PUBLIC SAFETY AND THEN REDUCE TOURISM PROMOTION AND TOURISM RELATED FACILITIES BY A PROPORTIONATE AMOUNT OF THAT 43,000 AND MAKE IT WORK. AND IT WILL GO EITHER WAY. I THINK IT'S JUST A POSITIVE STATEMENT FOR THE COMMUNITY AND FOR OUR PRIORITIES. especially when you're going to have to look at increased taxes next year. You've already got this taken care of in terms of the general fund.

Thank you, Joel. All right, we're going to go into a roll call vote. Just a last clarification. The motion on the table is to retain the current lodging tax allocation as is with no changes. And if this motion fails, I will bring it back to council for further discussion and or action. Victoria, how do you vote? Yes. Seth?

Yes.

Rick? No. Indra? No. Rob? No. Eric? Yes. Kathleen? Yes. Joel? No! I love every one of you. I do, to the deepest, deepest of my heart. Okay, so council is split down the middle in regards to this decision in reference to the motion to keep the lodging tax allocations the same. which leaves it upon the mayor to break the tie on this. The mayor's going to say exactly what he says about everything. I am pro-business, I am pro-development, I am pro-getting money into this city to make sure that it is well-oiled and it Progresses forward and is prosperous. I believe that tourism is a huge economic driver within our economic Base within this town and will be for a long period of time So I am going to vote no on this and break the tie and no because oh Sorry, I want to vote. Yes. See I'm all confused I personally want to keep the tax allocation the same because I believe that we should be fostering as much tourism as possible and And I apologize for, see, we've been drawn out so long, I got myself confused. So if I'm to break the tie, then we will keep the lodging tax allocation as is and move on. Thank you. Okay, next on the workshop agenda is the Owl Plaza discussion. And it looks like Dana will lead us in the presentation.

Okay, we're back here looking at the Owl Plaza and food truck use policies. This presentation is really just a continued council discussion around the new Owl Plaza and the use policies and application process. And then there will also be opportunity at the end for discussion for potential new food truck policy. This all relates to the council goals of economic growth. So on May 18th of this year at a council workshop, the staff presented draft use policies for the newly constructed Owl Plaza. We reviewed the application process and the use restrictions for special events in the adopted Muni code. We also recommended developing supplemental restrictions that would apply to the Owl Plaza events. On June 23rd, there was a council memo that was sent out to the mayor and council summarizing that our plaza pilot project that was discussed at that workshop. This is just backing up and a review of what we went over then. Public plaza use policies were referenced from other cities. Some of the key factors that we took into account were to protect the public assets and investment, like the hardscaping, pavers and landscaping, and safely managing pedestrian flows for the new plaza. And again, the purpose of the plaza is a hybrid off-street parking and outdoor gathering space in the heart of downtown that supports community and economic vitality. We also discussed how adding a new improved public space could be also adding a level of service an increase in that level of service. So that was part of the discussion, and the council can choose to limit and expand those new services in accordance with the associated expenses and revenues. Here's a list of the draft process and restrictions that were discussed at that workshop for the Owl Plaza pilot project. that would run for six months, so if we did get this up and rolling, we're saying around August 14th it would begin, and it would end on February 14th next year. An applicant would need to demonstrate the adequate security, safe first aid, sanitation, and waste disposal facilities are obtained for any event that happens in the Owl Plaza. Providing evidence of sufficient insurance is important. If alcoholic beverages are made available, applicant must obtain the appropriate permits for that, separate from this permit. Applicants must provide 45-day notice to neighboring land owners and businesses via text, mail, email, and in-person communications. The right-of-way must be cleaned and returned to pre-event conditions within 12 hours and must haul away event-generated trash. There would be a requirement for minimal setup times where reasonable, and then sound limits for amplified sound would just follow the current code of 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. These were the two proposed footprints for Owl Plaza. We have the first tier, which is just the parking lot area itself being shut down. And then tier two would be the Owl Lot plus Fifth Street and the alleyway. So you can see it's an extended footprint there for tier two. Continuing the process and restrictions on tier one events. It was discussed that there would be limited six in the six-month pilot project, and then for two events, another limit of six of those size events for the six-month pilot project. The surface protection standards would be agreed upon, like no staking, grease mats for cooking in surface areas, and only no residue adhesives. And then if the council supports the basic range of fees here, a resolution is drafted for the August 5th agenda to adopt a revised fee schedule. So these were the fees that were discussed at that time. So the policy question and level of service questions here are do the draft policies meet council's desired outcome of the pilot project? What specific data and information would the council elect staff to track during this pilot project? And then also, is the council willing to review fee waiver requests during the pilot project? So those are the questions. We're looking for a call of action at the council's discretion to direct staff to either proceed with this six-month pilot project as proposed, to proceed with changes, or to not proceed. And in that case, it would default to the existing special events rules.

Thank you very much. I'll bring it back to council for questions. Indra, do you have any questions?

I do. On the 45-day notice to neighboring, we might have talked about this. Is... Is the organization holding the event responsible for that or the city? And if the organization is, is the city providing them a list of who the neighboring landowners and businesses are and how far out does that extend?

Typically, it is the responsibility of the applicant to do their own noticing for their events. I think we did discuss that we could put together a list of contacts that we could potentially provide. That's not something we do now, but we could. And then what was the last question I answered?

The range of what's considered neighboring.

Yeah, that's a good question. Usually, noticing right now, it just requires people that are in an immediate vicinity. So if you wanted that to be extended, I guess we would need to know that.

immediate vicinity, meaning those directly lined up on 5th and directly lined up around Owl Plaza? Yes.

Yeah, well, we haven't, you know, we don't have a current policy on this, so we really don't have a, you know, a precedence to give to you. Certainly open to wherever you want to take this today. I mean, I think the conversations up to this point have sort of those that are art along the rogue facing. So Fifth, H, and probably, but you could go across the street. I mean, we could look at the radius that we did for the Alplaza project itself, which was much larger. We went north of G. So there's some other different ways we can do it. But there really isn't a precedence.

Okay, I just want to take one pause, one second here. I don't know if Dana actually brought it up, but we are separating out the food truck policy to be discussed after this. So if you keep pleasing your discussion and questions, remind yourself that that will be a discussion point after we get through this first portion. Okay, Rob, you have a question?

So, well, a comment on Andrew's question. So the reason that got changed to 45 days is that the local merchants who met John Connor's group was concerned that especially if let's say they feel their business is going to be positively impacted and they're going to need a lot more manpower in a given day to actually schedule that additional manpower, you know, could take a while. So that was the concern was that especially with restaurants having enough employees on events where they, you know, might anticipate that the event is going to help business So in that sense, you would want probably the, I would imagine, the neighboring restaurants within about a one block area to, and it would be all the businesses obviously, but the restaurants seem to be the most labor intensive of the businesses, and they're the ones that were concerned about having the extra notice. And I would say that you could call it a block in all directions, I think would probably cover what the concern of the businesses was. on that issue.

Thank you. Questions? Seth, do you have any questions?

Not really questions, no.

Okay. Victoria, do you have any questions in regards to this?

No, not right now.

Okay. Kathleen, any questions? Okay, thank you. Eric, any questions?

No.

Thank you. Rob, do you have any specific questions?

A comment, but no questions.

Joel, do you have any specific questions? No, sir. All right, thank you. All right. Thank you very much. I will bring it back to council for further discussion and or action. And just reminding you that we are not going to be talking about food truck policy at this moment in time. That will be another topic shortly after this. So any discussion? Indra?

Well, I had a question, but is there gonna be on the city website a specific calendar for the Owl Plaza that people can go to and see the events scheduled there, like separate from the events calendar?

So like an availability calendar?

Right, and that people can just go on and businesses and see what's scheduled.

We don't have that specifically in our thought process to have something specific just for the AL Plaza, but it would be part of the events calendar that we promote, et cetera, and if someone wanted to look at availability, they can give us a call at any time and we'll provide them with availability of those opportunities.

Thank you. All right, further discussion? Rob.

Yeah, also I think, Andrew, I think that's a great idea because I think the public, first of all, can see what's going on down there and then businesses could at a glance see and they may make accommodations knowing that something's coming up. So we discussed this and we changed it for the better already, but I think after discussing it with other downtown merchants, I think we can make another improvement very easily. So on the page, slide number six, it's a small point, but third from the bottom, where it says right away must be cleaned and returned to pre-event conditions within 12 hours, must have event generated, must remove, I guess, haul event generated trash. That had originally been 24 hours, we changed it to 12, but a better way to write that, that would be more effective, like let's say an event ends at four o'clock on a Sunday afternoon, they'd have to have it brought back to normal by 4 a.m., you know, which is, it's pointless because there's nobody down there at 4 a.m., but to say by the next morning at 9 o'clock, it gives event people two or three hours in the morning to finish cleaning up, and it really doesn't do, it doesn't do any harm, and I talked to several merchants about that, and they agreed that 9 o'clock the following morning would be a, it's more fair, and it'd be more practical, You know, that way too, you know, if an event ends at 10 o'clock on Sunday night, they still gotta get it cleaned up by nine in the morning. If it ends at four o'clock on a Sunday afternoon, they have until nine o'clock to clean it up, because basically you want it clear for business the next day, and that means parking and everything else clear. So I'd like that changed, the three dots changed to 9 a.m. the next day, if council agrees.

OK. Duly noted. And further discussion, I got Kathleen.

I got more.

Yeah. OK. Thank you, Dana. Some specific information that might be interesting to me to keep track of would be how much benefit is two-tier over tier one, as far as adding that extra space and how it was utilized.

I mean, tier one, tier two, I guess it's depending on the activity, and if they see a benefit in it, we're just there to provide an opportunity for individuals to either utilize tier one or tier two space.

Okay, so maybe more specifically how it was used. It seems I don't know how an alley would be used. That just, I don't, so it would just be interesting to me to track that information.

It's not an alley. Is that something that you would want to, well, I think what you would do is basically add that to an amendment for a motion or if you go one motion.

Well, one of the questions here is what specific data would you like to have tracked? Okay. During the pilot project.

Okay. Further questions or comments, discussion, sorry. I got Victoria and then Seth and then Rob.

Oh, no, I didn't have my hand up.

Oh, sorry. Then Seth.

Yeah, a couple quick things. On the 45-day notice, I mean, this is where it kind of gets a little challenging because it seems like I get it for larger events like things like are along the road that are going to estimatedly draw, you know, thousands of people. I don't know if there's a way to maybe we switch the tiers up to where it's not. Location based where you know, it's just the parking lot and the parking lot in the street. I don't know It seems like there could be another tier that's for much smaller events, you know Because I think I mentioned it last time, you know, even like first Friday, right? maybe we have an activation down there and you know, I Don't know we were within the 30 day or 45 days and we think of something but we're only gonna take up the parking lot for a few hours that evening a 45 day notice might be a little extreme on something like that. I understand it for larger events. So that's one thought. Right below that bullet, the... Actually, no, sorry, same bullet. Are they supposed to text, mail, email, and in-person communicate with everyone? Are they supposed to do all of those? Are they only supposed to... because it seems like, you know, how are you going to know what their cell phone number is? So, I don't know. There could be more parameters around that, I guess. Those are it for now.

All right. Rob?

Yeah, I would agree with Seth on the, like, a Tier 1 half-day. Probably doesn't require the 45-day notice because people probably would not require additional scheduling. That would make sense to me, for sure. But again, this came from, this just came from other merchants who, on the events that might be more successful, they want to make sure that they're adequately staffed and they've got to do it two to four weeks out. But I would agree that on the half day, tier one, that probably could be way less than 45 days. As far as data goes, you know, I mean, obviously, to me, some sort of search and merchant survey with questions about impacts, positive and negative. There could be, I would think, one survey would be more on the H and Fifth Street businesses, the abutting neighbors, and then maybe another one for a block further out. Things like what were the effects of the set up, the clean up time, the parking restrictions, effects of increased or decreased foot traffic, bathroom requests or things of that nature. But certainly a merchant survey to find out. And then of course, did the merchant feel that it helped their business? Those are the questions that I've asked when I've gone around after Art Along the Road. But again, things like what were the effects of parking restrictions, effects of what was the cleanup like, all those kinds of things. And let the merchants answer. I know that the... the Chamber of Commerce sent us a letter and they wanted to, one of their main points was to protect nearby brick and mortars while allowing vibrancy but they also said preserve parking during big core business hours. So I've got a question about that. So if somebody, and this has happened in the past, where somebody wants to use that lot for First Friday, at what point late Friday afternoon is parking restricted in that lot? So if somebody wants to do that Friday night in that lot, At what point is parking suspended? And I would keep in mind the Chamber's letter, preserve parking during core business hours. The main concern I have there is that some of these, we'll call it events, or even just smaller, we'll call it sub-events, that could happen in that lot on a Friday night, may not really do much to draw more foot traffic, but eliminating parking for most of Friday could. So to me, preserving parking during core business hours means people should be able to park in that lot until at least four or five o'clock if there's something in that lot for first Friday. So let's see. And on the question of data also, data generation, data gathering, I'd like to ask, I guess, Dana or Aaron, last year the city talked about they came up with a figure of 11,000 people at last year's Art Along the Road event. And I'm curious as to where did that figure come from? How was that data gathered?

We do have the information from Place Your AI.

From what?

Place Your AI. It's a tool that we use for data collection or data reporting.

So, I'm sorry, could you explain what that does?

It's a tool that our division now uses, and there's other tools that we've used also in partnership with VisitGrants Pass over time because they also use Datify. It's another data tool, but it's a cell phone tracking tool where they can see, where people come and go from. It's aggregated data, so we don't know who the individuals are. That's not part of the deal. But it's used by a lot of cities and a lot of even private organizations to better understand visitor traffic and be able to analyze and make decisions about the best way to support people coming and going from their location.

Wow. Thank you.

providing additional comments Rob mentioned clean up by 9 a.m.

I'd be supportive of that I think there's a lot of merit to that thank you further discussion Victoria and then Indra we hadn't discussed the fee waiver I don't think unless I missed it apologies if I did but I don't think I would be in favor of fee waiver during the pilot program.

Andrea? Yes. This isn't just for restricted to Friday and Saturday nights. Do we talk about that? Could someone reserve a weeknight or day? Right? Okay. That's correct. Okay. And then, so I'm good with the, I think a website specifically for Owl Out would be awesome. I'm good with the 9 a.m. because most businesses open at 10, so it would be cleaned up by them. But then my concern is, so for the half days, Are we going to allow like two half day events in the same day? Or we're not? What if an event's in the morning and ends at 2 PM? Are they going to have till 9 AM to clean up? Or do we want to make that a separate cleanup time? How do the half days work?

Well, I would just. chime in here from a parking standpoint would actually probably be better because you know you've already notified people that they're going to have to vacate the parking lot and they will not be able to park there say from nine to one and then if you had a second half of the day that is another event that is just basically it's a full day of not parking there rather than you know that's honestly going to be one of the more challenging parts of administration of this is is is the enforcement of the parking and potentially towing people out of there and things like that. But I think to your point, I don't think we have envisioned any kind of limitation on that. So if somebody came and said, we're proposing a half-day event on this date, and somebody says we propose a half-day event, then that's going to be part of just the administration of the calendar from City Hall.

Right, but the first event's going to have to have a pretty quick cleanup time. I mean, we're not going to say you have 12 hours or 9 a.m., right? So that's going to have to be adjusted for in this process and restrictions. Okay, that's all for me.

All right, any further discussion or action? Rob?

It's hard to imagine that people are going to want to have two different half-day events. But as far as one blaming the other for whose trash it was that was left behind, could be an issue if we ever ended up there. But just something else to consider. It's hard to imagine, to me, that there'd be two half-day events scheduled, but I guess there could be. The other thing that the, you know, when the Chamber advised also to create a low barrier process for small scale community activation. I agree with that, but this is where the merchant survey would come back. If you have a very low, very small scale activation that does potentially, actually if it was a tier two and it closed vehicular traffic on Fifth Street, if you had small scale activation, the merchants need to basically give feedback to say that was that actually valuable from the merchant's perspective, did it create more foot traffic in the area or did it just block traffic or just block parking? So yeah, it's great to have low barrier for small scale activation, but small scale activation could also have more major impacts that outweigh the benefits, but a merchant's survey would help suss that out. Kathleen?

I'd like to make a motion to direct staff to proceed with the six-month pilot project as proposed.

As amended. With amendments as discussed? Or as proposed? You're making a motion.

Yeah. So, basically, we're talking about more information, the parking situation.

Do you see the 30 to 45 to 30 days?

Oh, the amendment to 30 days from the 45, okay. For the smaller events. For tier one events.

Okay, so tier one events would equal 30-day notice. What was your other recommendation?

That the parking be considered as amended.

What was the amendment for the parking? I don't remember, I apologize.

Well, there was discussion about how, whether to add, when the parking would be closed off or when it would be...

Okay, what was the recommendation? That was from you, wasn't it?

I'm saying 5 o'clock, yeah.

Okay, so recommendation of parking availability until 5 o'clock the previous?

No, that day for a Friday night event.

Okay, Friday night event, no parking after 5 p.m. Okay, any other...

The 9 a.m. one, Kathleen?

Yeah, the 9 a.m. That is clean up until 9 a.m. the following morning. Clean up by 9 a.m.

Proceeding day. Okay, so Tier 1 down to a 30-day notification for... Application, no parking after 5 p.m. on the Friday event. Any nighttime event. Any nighttime event. Parking stopped by 5 p.m. And clean up by no later than 9 a.m. the preceding day. Following day. Following day. Okay, so there's a motion to go forward with the six-month pilot program with recommended amendments as listed previously. Any further discussion? Who wants to second this? Anybody seconding it? Second it from Rick. Seth, do you have further discussion?

I just have a quick question. Are we talking about the data we're trying to collect afterwards? Will that be another conversation to fully flesh that out?

um it that was a question that was within this portion so you can add it to this motion if if kathleen desires because it's her motion so what data did you know like are we oh right now are we going to identify exactly what we're asking what we're looking for are we going to i don't know i just i mean that's a huge part of it so i just want to make sure that you know

And I guess we can vote on this if we can maybe get a copy of what you're thinking, make suggestions. I don't know. I just want to make sure.

There was also a suggestion of no fee waivers during the six-month pilot program. Is that something that you wanted to add into your motion, Kathleen?

Yeah, let's do that.

OK. And then for collecting data within this six month period, do you guys want to make a list of data or not? I'm looking back here.

I think Dana wrote some things down as we were suggesting it.

Do you have an understanding of what type of data was discussed here? Because I didn't follow it 100%. I apologize.

A merchant survey was requested for that. And then I guess if there are other data collection you'd like to add, it would be a good time to share.

Rob, I mean, Seth.

Yeah, I'm just curious because, you know, we're talking about food truck policy next. I think that should be included in the data collection. I also think we should consider, you know, trying to collect some data from people that are actually attending the event as well, you know, However that looks, I think we should hear both sides of the story.

So a merchant survey and maybe an event survey?

Yeah. So I don't know if we discussed that today. We could vote on this and discuss it. I don't know. I just want to bring that up.

I guess just to clarify, because these events are going to be run by lots of different folks, so would we make it a requirement if they're going to use the space that they complete a survey, or is that what you're suggesting maybe?

That's a good point. Well, I mean, it seems like we should have this survey done, at least in the six months, because that was the whole point of doing a six-month trial, is having the data. So I don't know if that's... I'm assuming they would have to collect it, I guess. I don't want to put undue burden on it.

Well, but you're thinking about this. I mean, when an event coordinator comes to the city and wants to perform an event during the six-month pilot program, the city's going to announce that this is a six-month pilot program. So this is one of the criteria as is, right?

True. Yeah.

So I don't think it's undue burden as long as it's announced to them ahead of time.

So we're asking them to provide data But then we might also collect our own as far as like, how is the process?

Yeah, and I mean, I'm thinking more data. I mean, overall Venn data makes sense. But if we're talking about, and I'm specifically talking about the food truck conversation, because I know that's a hot topic. So that would, I feel like, have to be something that maybe comes from the city if we're asking restaurant owners downtown, okay, what was, you know, how did your business look during this event? I don't know what that looks like yet, but.

Yeah, well, we'll talk about that in the next segment here.

Yeah, okay.

And then we can, yeah, because we don't want to tie any, I don't want to tie any food truck information discussion to this one because we are using it as a whole separate topic, right?

I guess just bottom line, will we be able to see kind of like what the expected data collection is going to look like?

That'd be good.

Well, we can give you a general idea of what we come up with based on Discussion that you've had today on dais Okay, that's fine.

And then we could we make recommendations later.

Yeah Yeah, you don't have to set in stone or adopt exactly what you want to have there it's really when it comes to we're trying to get guidance on on responsibilities of the city and responsibilities of the person who's Utilizing the space and I think the data the collection can come later in more detail.

Yep Joel has a question

Joel, do you have a comment, discussion, question, whatever? Joel?

Can you hear me now?

Yep, right now I can hear you, thank you.

Okay, sorry about that. You know, with every project you need to do monitoring, and so what I would do is just have a qualitative assessment by staff that would report back. on the success of the project in terms of attracting people, increasing business downtown, and have it be a qualitative thing by staff, because they'll know Art Along the Road certainly is on a five, on a one to five scale. Me sweeping the sidewalks is zero. But that monitoring, it should be a part of our implementation. The survey, I don't know if the questions that we need to answer is, is it increasing business? Are there problems that we didn't anticipate that we need to do different next time? Those type of questions. And I think the qualitative part of that, that staff could provide that and just have it be a white paper. you know, on a quarterly basis, or after every event, or what they think would be reasonable. Because Stena's going to be down there and monitoring it.

Okay, thank you, Joel. Indra?

Yes. So the pilot program, what did we decide on the number of events? I didn't see that in here. Six total or half day, full day or six total?

The way that we have it right now is six for each size. So it's a total of 12 actually for the six month.

Six per tier? Is that what you mean? Yeah. Okay. Okay. And then is it on a first come, first serve basis? So what if someone comes and wants to reserve all six for the next? Well, it could happen. How are we handling that? I haven't thought of that. I don't know.

I hear where you're going with that, counselor. I think for the pilot project, it seems to make sense to just say one per entity.

Okay, I'm good with that.

Okay, Seth.

So does that account for First Friday? One First Friday? Six months? I'm just curious.

Yeah, it would, unless you provided some kind of exemption, and that would be something to consider if First Friday is wanting to do something on First Friday, then you may want to take a look at the limitation of having six and consider something different.

Yeah, that's what I'm thinking. I mean, I I could see First Friday winning that, but I'm assuming there's not going to be a bunch of other people running and booking six in a row. But First Friday is the one event we have that's every month. So I'm just curious. Victoria?

I think it's a great idea to limit it to one event per entity. However, if nobody else applies, the same person should be able to come back. I want to make sure everybody is able to use it if they want to, but if nobody wants to, people shouldn't be penalized just because they had it once.

Well, the number is something to consider. It's truly a pilot, then are you actually getting a full, let's say it's super popular, are you getting a full pilot feel for the community on how it could be utilized if you're limiting to six? But you also have to look at the impact that it might have in your neighboring surrounding area downtown.

First Friday is a huge deal for downtown. I'd be willing to exempt first Friday from the event from the six per event.

I would look to Kathleen who made the motion.

Yeah we can amend it that to exempt first Friday.

OK. Any further discussion.

Mayor, I just had one thought. Sure. Go ahead, Joel. What's the total cost of the OWL project, Aaron or Brad?

It's approximately $1.6 million.

$1.6 million. And so if you're looking at a positive benefit to cost ratio over a five-year period or whatever, you would have to bring in additional $300,000, $400,000 a year. And I don't know how to get that, but in your qualitative report, if we can see in terms of, was this a good business decision or is this just a nice to do thing? So that our monetary maybe would answer that question.

Well, Councilor, one of the things, this is a public project, and many times there's just, you're doing it for the public gain. I don't think we entered into this as...

Absolutely, absolutely. And a lot of public projects have a benefit-cost ratio associated with them, and if it's negative, that's okay. It's a public project. But we need to know where.

Well, if Council would like to have that, then I'd like to get Council direction on us doing that figure. Also on...

I don't think you can get that figure. I just like the qualitative... monitoring to be cognizant of that fact and address it if they can with whatever data they got.

I would be more than happy to have a discussion with you more offline on the qualitative aspect and what would that entail.

Sure.

And then the other part of the second motion that Kathleen mentioned on the first Friday maybe be more specific that it's Main Street. Main Street is the First Friday because if it's First Friday, anyone could, and I don't know if you want to limit it to anyone that may be associated with First Friday or if actually the First Friday sponsor, main sponsor. Probably makes sense for Main Street since we're taking it over. So, yeah.

So you would specify that...

It would be Main Street that you're providing the exemption for, not just First Friday. Yeah, yeah.

And it doesn't mean we'd do it... Main Street's First Friday event. Okay.

All right. Any further discussion before we get into a vote? Or are we going to talk this one to death again? Go ahead.

No, I'm not going to talk to depth. I get where Joel's coming from, and it's more for looking for future. So when the city spends a lot of money on projects, the people sometimes... you know say why did you spend that much money on this thing so i think it is a good good uh review to see the cost effectiveness of it to help us make decisions on doing huge projects like that going forward so i get where he's coming from all right any further discussion before i go into a vote

All right, seeing none, I'm gonna go into a roll call vote. Kathleen's motion was to approve the six month pilot program with a number of amendments and some precursor data collection with an exemption for Main Street for First Fridays. Do I need to go back through these? Okay. Kathleen. Yes. OK. And Victoria?

Yes.

Seth?

Yes.

Rick? Yes. Indra? Yes. Rob? Yes. Eric? Yes. Joel? Yes. All right. You unanimously passed this. Perfect. Thank you. Now we're going to go into the second portion of this, which would be food truck policy background. Rob?

Okay, I'm going to recuse myself for a potential conflict of interest. Thank you.

Thank you, Rob. And it is past 2 o'clock, so my clock has expended, and I do have to leave the building. So I have to pass this to our Vice President, Rick, and Rick will lead us in the discussion in regards to the food truck policy background. You have lots of staff here to support you, so I apologize, but this is going to have to happen. Okay? Okay. And then with that, I will let the presentation continue with Dana, and then Rick can call for questions afterwards.

I would like to express a potential conflict of interest because I do own a food truck. It's not going to interfere in anything here. I do not have to recuse myself.

Okay. Dana proceed, please.

Thank you Okay, so here we're gonna look at the food current food truck policy Under the existing municipal code that's title 408 And the special event policy food trucks are allowed to operate under certain conditions and with certain permits this includes within the owl Plaza there is a distinction in the code of between individual food trucks operating on private property, individual food trucks operating within designated public rights of way, groups of food trucks, and then food trucks operating under a special event. So there are distinctions there. This is just some background. This was reviewed at the previous workshop, but the H Street restaurants did provide some feedback to staff. Staff responded to an email in March. and in partnership with John Connor from the hall, convened that H Street food and beverage businesses meeting. That was in April, and the purpose was to discuss Art Along the Rogue and El Plaza. At that time, staff did provide those merchants information about how they intended to move forward with food trucks on Art Along the Rogue, reducing the number from the previous year, and that was, was well received at the time. Also, Main Street provided a support letter to council and mayor in May. That was also part of the previous discussion, but here's just a reminder about it that they had talked with these same H Street merchants and was sharing that they were recommending having advanced notice for them, parameters on operating hours and event frequency, modest number of outside food vendors, collecting merchant feedback, and then the setup and cleanup expectations. And additionally, we've talked about this too, the Chamber of Commerce's feedback, and these are just notes from that feedback that they provided in their letter. Preserve the parking during business hours. Create lower barrier process for small-scale community activation. Encourage regular activity for first Fridays and weekends. Protect the nearby brick and mortar businesses while on vibrancy. Do not over-regulate the space before it. This is, again, talking a bit about El Plaza, so I guess I can move on. But that was just feedback from the chamber. And then, so the question really does come back to council. Council discussion on that May 18th workshop heavily centered on whether food trucks should be allowed in the Owl Plaza. In council's discussion, food trucks were prohibited in the plaza during that six month pilot project. But does the council wish to continue to exclude food trucks during the pilot project? Also, I'm curious, does the council wish to include food trucks for Art Along the Road Festival even if they're located outside of that footprint for the Owl Plaza. Right now, the intention is to put them near the intersection of H and 4th Street. And does council want to discuss a broader food truck policy separate from the Owl Plaza pilot project? So hopefully that gives you enough background to consider, but I'm available for questions.

Does council have any questions? Victoria?

Yeah, besides Art Along the Rogue, are there any other large events that are scheduled during the pilot? We're just talking about the pilot program and food trucks right now, is that correct? I guess that's the first question. So it's not like in perpetuity. Okay, so are there other... large events besides Art Along the Road that are generally in this six month time frame? In that six month period?

Not that I can think of. No, and even, we've done the tree lighting, but we don't typically have food trucks there.

Within the six months, maybe not. But there's been things like the 420 event that's expanded and has food trucks and other kind of vendors associated with them.

So there potentially could be more than that along the road. Yes, I agree.

There's that potential.

Thank you.

Indra?

No questions.

Seth? No questions.

Joel?

Yeah, I just had a question. It came from the community. One of the local business owners suggested just having food trucks during the larger events, and there's only one larger event, I guess, that we know of at this point in time. What is the first Friday? Do we know what they're... Policy would be in terms of bringing in food trucks to compete with the local businesses on first Friday night or or Really, what are we looking at here for the for those smaller events and competition?

Well from a standpoint of I think we'd have to have further further definitions with regards to what's a smaller and larger event and the intents that the question on first Friday and and Main Street and what their intent is, I guess maybe a better question for us to approach them with and ask them what their intent is and how they'd like to utilize that space. But unless Councilor Penham has additional information, I don't have that information right now because it was just determined that this is something that we could do. So they may not have that answer either.

Yeah, I don't. I can respond real fast. Sorry, Joel. I don't have a direct answer to that. I think it was more just a discussion of now that the plaza's there, you know, if we start brainstorming and we can come up with some bigger activations. I won't really discuss anything related to food trucks to this point, so that hasn't been in at least my discussions about it. So, yeah, I don't know if that answers, at least right now.

So I was just, my question would be, and I don't know if anybody has an answer to it, Our objectives in this is to develop a sense of community, which is a non-economic objective, and also to increase economic activity downtown, including food service, including food trucks. With these small events, how do they, what is going to be their impact on that objective? from the standpoint of the small business owner and from the standpoint of the food truck industry? I don't know the answer to that.

I don't think there's enough specifics to answer that at this time, Councilor.

Yeah, it's because if our objective is to increase the vitality of downtown, and we hurt the downtown businesses, but we increase the business and it goes to a different sector, we produce a change in the economy, That may be, I mean, there's winners and there's losers. And what the net benefit is, I don't know.

Dana, I do have a question. A lot of the brick and mortar do have food trucks themselves. So if a brick and mortar were in the downtown, just because this is a test period, they would not be allowed to have their food truck as well?

I guess if you decided that you didn't want to have food trucks, then yes, they would be excluded.

Okay, thank you. Are there additional questions?

Yeah, Rick, I know that Rob has a conflict of interest, but I also know Rob has talked to a lot of the small town or the people that are existing down there, and perhaps somebody has talked to the owners of the food trucks. I don't know. But, Rob, even though you have a conflict of interest, if you can answer from your bias what that question is.

Counselor King, Counselor Pella has left the room.

Oh, okay. Okay. Good for him. Okay. Well, I'll just repeat what I got from one business owner, and I didn't solicit a lot of feedback from the downtown people. What they suggested was having food carts during what they considered a large event. What a large event is, I don't know if it's the same classification of what we base our fees on or not. But it's certainly something that we want to monitor, I think, in terms of winners and losers.

The easiest, I think, way to identify that is based on if I would consider a large event potentially in this Application would be someone utilizing both areas, the Owl Lot plus 5th Street would be considered a large event.

Okay. And then what his suggestion was, and I'm not sure if it's appropriate either, but it's certainly from his economic interest and what he thought is that food trucks would only be allowed on the larger events. So just a topic for discussion.

Yeah, that's for discussion, not question. I think that's for the next phase of this workshop.

So, Dana, at this point, you're looking at your response to the last three items on there?

Yes, please.

Eric? No?

I think we're done with questions.

Okay, we're done with questions at this point. I'd like to go for discussion.

Eric?

So, I did a quick Google search on... if if there's data out there if food trucks take business from Birkin mortar and I came up with National data shows food trucks do not steal business from traditional restaurants in fact the opposite is true a report from the Institute from for justice analyzed 12 years of census data it found that an increase in food trucks correlates with growth in in the brick and mortar restaurant industry. Food trucks help local economies by bringing more people to the area and increasing overall foot traffic. When food trucks cluster near restaurants, they create active, lively dining districts. These hubs benefit nearby fixed restaurants. Food trucks also tend to serve quick, specialized menus that complement rather than replace. full-service dining. I don't see food trucks. I mean, this is a simple study right here. I don't see food trucks as a negative for the local brick-and-mortar restaurants just based off of this article. But, you know, I think I would be in favor of doing the big events with the food trucks. And that would bring, obviously, more business to the

the brick and mortar restaurants as well as the food trucks and bringing some good revenue kathleen so uh and one of the emails that we got from a local business was that there's not been full recovery from covid and it's like how many years are we past covid and how You know, what's the matter with the recovery time? That's what I'm questioning. Why isn't there recovery for that amount of years past COVID? That's just a question I have about that argument. And I think food trucks aren't always full-scale restaurant food. They're kind of like fast food. They're kind of like complimentary, maybe desserts and little type of food additions. So I'm kind of in favor of having the food trucks after the pilot project's over.

Victoria?

Oh, this is for during the pilot program. Yes or no?

Well, definitely we're needing further clarification on the pilot project, and if you'd like to have that. So, yes, it is for the...

So we're deciding now to add or not add food trucks during the pilot program. Okay, thank you. So... This is a hard discussion, but it does seem like food trucks are going to add people and they're going to lift all businesses down there, including restaurants, at least from what I've heard now, just some evidence that way. I would hate for us to be in a position where we take away from an event that's been having food trucks for a long time, like Art Along the Road. And that would be problematic as well. So I don't like just having a strict no food truck policy. But I also do not want to hurt area restaurants. So I want both things to happen. But I think the best way to figure out if it was going to be very detrimental to brick and mortar restaurants and businesses that are there, that are downtown, because we we love them, we don't want to hurt them, would be to have this happen during the pilot program. So I would be in favor of having food trucks or the possibility of having food trucks for the large events. I guess that would be a tier two project.

Seth? Yeah, I'm also in favor of food trucks. I do think, you know, it should be probably reserved for larger events. How we quantify that, I don't know. I mean, to me, it should be based off estimated attendees, which is hard. You know, obviously, I think Art Along the Road should have food trucks. I've been to Art Along the Road and I've waited at a local restaurant for a long time. And that's fine. Some people will do that. I will give a personal story that just happened to me a week and a half ago. And this directly relates to food trucks. We went to Jackson Hole, Wyoming for the 4th of July. And I think we don't take into consideration people with large families in these conversations, specifically around food trucks. There was seven kids with us. And so we went to the 4th of July event. They advertised that there's going to be food trucks. Oh, perfect. You know, we have seven kids. We're not going to find a restaurant to seat 14 of us in downtown Jackson, Wyoming. And there was no food trucks, surprisingly. And it really made for a huge mess of things with the kids. I think we need to take into consideration families. I go to restaurants downtown all the time, probably more often than the average person, probably at least four times a week. So I go there, I spend my money, but it changes when you have a huge group of people, a lot of kids that aren't going to sit in a restaurant for... Yeah, and so... For these large events, I think it's important to accommodate for a large crowd. And this is where, when it comes to data collection, I think asking the public what they think is well, because they are the ones that are going to the event. I'm a business owner. I understand that everyone wants a piece of the pie. I get that. I also understand, and have personally fallen victim to saying that, yeah, of course I can do that, even though I have no capacity to do that, right? In the restaurant, I was going to say the same thing because it's feast or famine. So it's a double-edged sword no matter what we look at it. But I think for large events with a lot of people, especially people with kids that are running around being crazy, we should take that into consideration and allow food trucks. At least if we're going to just maybe say only art along the road for the next six months, that's fine. Again, I don't... At least right now, I don't know of any events for Main Street for First Friday. We would want that. So at least our longer road.

Andrew?

Yes, since Art Along the Road is a pre-existing big event in our town for many years that have had food trucks, I'd be willing to grandfather them in for this pilot program. Otherwise, I would say to not have food trucks during the pilot program. It seems really antithetical to have want to promote our business food and beverage industry but then bring in outside food and beverage to serve people i know for a fact and i did some research too even when you have events with more than one food truck with the same type food oh i mean they compete against each other and so of course they're going to compete against our brick and mortar and that's why we did this million dollar project downtown was to bring people to have more business downtown. I get there might be some conveniences but business owners are entrepreneurs and I bet some restaurants and maybe more people would come downtown that could offer things to kids and families easily. I think business owners would adapt quickly to that kind of situation and provide what was needed. and food trucks can go anywhere. I mean, so they have the real advantage of really low overhead, zero overhead once you buy the truck, and can go anywhere, and they're all over town, and there's more and more, and we are losing food and beverage downtown. And so I really feel like we need to preserve that. And during this pilot program, we can test it out and see, was there a need for food trucks or not? And we can add that in after. But I think to start with it, we wouldn't even be able to really gauge the effect on the businesses. So I'd be okay with art along the road, grandfathering them in, And then none for this pilot period.

Joel, do you have any comments?

You talking to me, Rick?

Yes, you.

Oh, okay. I just agree. No, I agree. I just agree. I agree with the comments that are said for the large event. So let's have food trucks, and then we'll monitor it.

Thank you, Joel. Dana, are you getting the information you need to go forward? Sounds like the majority of the council is in favor of major events for food trucks, but only during the test period.

Yeah, ultimately, if we can get a motion from council on where you'd like to go with that so we just have that clarity, I think that would be good for staff.

Victoria?

Well, I'd like to make a motion to allow food trucks for the Tier 2 only events during the pilot program.

Do I have a second? Hi, Eric. Take a roll call, Eric.

Yes.

Can we have a discussion?

Sure.

Excuse us. Indra?

So this would be for all Tier 2, which means mostly food trucks will be coming in and to town. So it's not just for the parking lot. It's for Tier 2 when that street is closed. And so we can have food trucks anywhere in that neighborhood? That's what the motion was for all large events. So any Tier 2 events would have food trucks during the pilot program. That was the motion, right?

Yes, for the Owl parking lot. We're not for Tier 1 and Tier 2 for the Owl parking lot.

So there's a couple of things you could do to clarify. One, you could do, like Councilor Benham said, we could pick a number and say any anticipated events event participation would be considered a large event or you can do if they are needing both tier one and tier two the tier two would be considered a large event you could also put a cap on the on the the trailers also if you want to you can say no more than two three or four to help with the impact also there's just a couple things you can discuss also sure i would i i think that's a really great idea to cap it at two uh

two food carts for tier two during the pilot program.

So discussion, I guess, well, I'm not okay with any food trucks except for Art Along the Road, that one event period. But you're going to get into what food trucks, how many, who picks them, where they go. It just seems very complicated to start the pilot program.

Well, we wouldn't actually be doing the picking. It would be the applicant that would do the application, and they would state that they would have two food trucks that they would like to participate in. And I was getting that potentially that some of that might not apply to Art Along the Road, or it can, whatever you'd like. But I would like to have that clarity also.

Oh, yes, for Art Along the Road, they're a larger event all the way down. So, yeah, so the limit for two would not be for Art Along the Road because they're more than just the owl parking lot, correct? Yes. Seth?

What was I going to say? Oh, yeah, I mean, I think two, just because it's a Tier 2 event doesn't mean that they will have food trucks, right? you know, cruise the road is gonna be happening down that area. They're not having food trucks. So, I mean, you know, it's also one of those things. Not everyone's gonna bring in food trucks.

Dana, would you like to give any input on that on your, from economic development, what you perceive the motion?

I guess I don't have any specific input, I guess. Yeah, thanks.

Seth?

I mean, I really think it should be based on estimated attendance. Again, it's a hard number to pin down, especially if it's a first-year event. Because, I mean, you could reserve Tier 2 and you can only expect 500 people. So I would understand if it's that low, okay, we don't need food trucks on that street, right? We've got plenty of restaurants to make sure that everyone can get food. But if it's going to be 5,000 people... over in one day, especially. Okay, I can see how you can eat food trucks. Again, it's hard to nail it down. Like, you know, obviously art along the road, you've got estimates after doing it for so many years. So I would at least recommend adding a number to that, an estimation.

Also, a number two. So just for clarification, it was two for tier two. You're saying that it should be more for larger events. I wasn't quite...

No, I think the applicant should be required to try to estimate at least their best guess of how many people they think they will draw to the event. Again, it's not going to be perfect. There's no perfect way to do it. But you can get at least some, especially if you've done it for more than one year, you should have the data to at least estimate within a couple hundred or a thousand.

So just to get some clarity, it would potentially, if the motion was to be modified, change to where It wouldn't necessarily have to be a tier one or tier two, but it's just focused on the anticipated participation. And then council would just need to provide some direction or we can provide some suggestions on what that would be. Is it 500, is it 1,500, is it 3,000 that would allow for the application of food trucks?

I think that would be, that sounds all right to me, but maybe for some, Just to help with that number, generally for Art Along the Road, how many people do we see? Is it the 5,000?

Well, we had that number that was 11,000, I think, based on the tracker. And it's been growing and growing and growing. So that's a big number.

That's a big number. All right, so I would amend the motion to say tier doesn't matter. It's number of people who matter. But that's difficult as well, because are we saying, so let's, I'll just make this statement, and then you can maybe add on to it, Seth. So are we saying you have to have 500 people in order to justify two food trucks? Are we saying 1,000? Are we saying 5,000? Are we saying 11,000?

That's what we have to figure out. I don't know if Dana or Brad might have a suggestion on a number. I don't know if they would have anything based on their experience.

Sure, that would be great to hear from you guys.

Dana, I have a question. Does that place or software, are we able to use that for any event downtown to kind of estimate afterwards?

Yes, staff can do that if we have time.

Well, yeah, because, I mean, I'm just thinking, like, if there's an event that says, okay, we're estimating, you know, 2,500 people, okay, you can have two food trucks, whatever, hypothetically. And then after the event, is there a way we can try to – okay, right, if it only drew – oh, well, you only drew roughly 500. I mean, you could even say the next year, you know, you're not going to be able to add a food truck. You know, I don't want to get too deep into the weeds here, but I'm just saying I think –

We could review it throughout the project as vets happen and be able to look at it.

Yeah, because this idea only really works if we can get close to a number afterwards. Yeah.

So I wonder if Bradley had any input about the number to justify a food cart if we want to go that way. Or maybe I don't want to, and that might end up being too much into the weeds. I don't know.

It's a tough one. Remember that the tier two is the plaza and fifth from G to H. So it doesn't include what you're thinking of, or maybe, as the art along the road footprint, which is much larger. It adds all of H. I mean, I think you're fair if you just pick a number. 300 seems like maybe a middle ground. At this point, we're going to write up the pilot project. We're going to put it out there. People are going to use it. And if this is in the application, we can go with whatever number you want.

So I think I really appreciate what Seth was saying. And it might be a better way to go. But I think that I'm going to not change that. and just because it is a pilot program, but I will add one thing, that if you are a tier two event, and so you can have up to two food carts, that we would ask you to, as best you can, track the number so that we can see into the future what that would be after the pilot program. So that's one thing I will add is that the tracking, if you are having the food truck, if that made sense, Dana. Oh, I see you shaking your head, so thank you. All right.

Mayor, I had one comment, or Rick.

Go ahead, Joel.

Last year what? Victoria it seems like the two only two food trucks Last year art along the road. They had a lot more than two food trucks didn't they Dana?

Oh, yeah, we we already established that we are not limiting art along the road to two food trucks Okay, okay, okay Andrew

yeah i just had a question thinking so if you say two food trucks that are not a footprint in the owl plaza area off legally i guess maybe stephanie legally could someone just park a food truck and sell if they're permitted in that area How does that work?

We have certain food truck zones also within the city designated. They can't just park on H Street and start selling in a public parking spot. So you'd be looking at if someone was tier two, you'd be probably looking at having the food trucks in the footprint of tier one or two of part of their event.

So they would have to be in the footprint of it, not outside.

That's what would be anticipated unless they worked something else out.

Yeah, I wasn't thinking that you had to have it in the two part. You could be in the Tier 1 area or the Tier 2. It would just have to be an event where you reserved both areas.

So if they were outside that area, there's ordinances that would say you can be there, but you can't?

So we have rules in place in the municipal code that regulate individual food trucks and then groupings of food trucks and food trucks associated with special events. So there's kind of three different categories. So you're right, somebody could apply for a permit for a food truck outside the boundaries of Tier 1 or Tier 2. That is an application process. They would have to go through that. But you have fees and you have site plans. And it's almost like doing a regular planning process. It's not just going and get your food truck and go and park in the Napa parking lot. have been set up. You have to go through public works because there's requirements on how they handle their waste. There's a number of other things that need to be done. Now if they're part of a special event, then that is different because it's a very limited time frame. So they would presumably not be part of the special event that is being held in the Owl Plaza. To get to your point, They would be contacting another property owner and getting their permission to set up a food truck on a property that is not theirs. We do not currently allow food trucks in the right-of-way, except as the city manager said, in just a couple of already pre-designated spots in the city. But those are not in downtown.

Thank you, Brad.