Redevelopment Commission - Regular Meeting

Let me go ahead and open up the, can you turn the thing on?

It's on.

It's on. Lisa is on your screen. Hi, Lisa. I'm opening up the meeting for the Redevelopment Commission of Hancock County for July 16th. I want it to be September so bad. For July, it's hot. For July 16th.

I like that.

And first item on the agenda is Gary Poole. And Lisa Lee.

So the reason we're having a meeting today, I'm going to turn this over to Lisa in one second, is we have an operator's agreement.

We have one person submit to operate the Amplify Hancock.

We have gone through there. Lisa, obviously we had some feedback we've sent to George Polinsky, but we're going to recommend these people to be the operator for Amplify Hancock. And Lisa will walk through exactly what we need to do here. Lisa, I'm going to turn it over to you.

We can't hear her.

She's talking, but I'm...

Hold on a second.

Can you get her through yours?

Well, you've got the meeting.

Can you get on the meeting? At least I can't hear you yet. Hold on.

Is she... Normally on those, they have to do their mic. She's not muted. Is it her mic?

Right, because you're plugged into that thing.

No. We've done this before. Hold on. I have an option B.

Sorry.

Flip it over. If that doesn't work, I'm calling her and putting her on speakerphone. Nothing yet, Lisa. Sorry. We're going to option B.

You act like she can hear you. She can't hear you. She can hear us, but we can't hear her.

So be careful. Be careful.

We should go ahead and mute and answer your phone. Okay.

Is that working?

Yes.

Okay. Apologies. Thank you, Gary, for that wonderful technology going back to our phones. Okay, so we are here today. This is a special meeting of the Redevelopment Commission. We did, through Cindy, provide the 48-hour open-door notice that is required, so we have a properly called meeting. The purpose of our meeting this morning is to receive the recommendation from the Evaluation Committee. uh for the response that we did receive from hancock county innovation and education center incorporated i'm hoping you have a one-page document in front of you that is our written recommendation and also a copy of the response to the rfp it's okay it's okay yeah We'll get it.

We have one right here. Go ahead.

Okay. All right. Well, basically, the response was opened on July 9th. The evaluation committee reviewed it and discussed it on July 14th, asked some questions of the treasurer, George Plosinski. He responded to those questions. And basically, I think the evaluation committee definitely confirmed that the response was responsive to the RFP, so that was number one. But kind of the key criteria that we were looking at were experience with these types of users, understanding the county workforce needs, budgeting and financial sustainability, Management fee proposals, staffing proposals, those types of things were some of the most important things that we were looking for. Their response was responsive to that. So the basis for our recommendation, I know Gary mentioned we only had one response, but the committee did determine, like I said, that it was responsive to the requests of the commission. And so that response demonstrated the knowledge of this governing body or the governing board of the workforce needs of the county. The governing board consists of some important industry and educational sectors and local government. So it is well represented of all the needs of the county on that board. They will have a collaborative approach with the users of the facility. They are a not-for-profit, which is very helpful on two fronts. One, it's helpful because we have outstanding tax-exempt bonds. If we had an operator proposing a management fee, there would be negotiations that would have to occur in order to stay within a safe harbor so that we don't impact the taxability of those bonds. But also, as a not-for-profit, they are not requesting a management fee, and they believe that the lease rentals user fees will be sufficient. They show that on, I think, page 23... their budget, they have a one-year budget that they do show, and it's, oh, shoot, I wrote that page number down. Apologies. I think it's page 21, excuse me. So page 21 of the response is, will show you in a chart their one-year budget expectations. It shows a breakdown of the individual professional services that are required pretty much by any facility. And they're not proposing any kind of management fee. So all of those things together have been helpful to the recommendation. One of the things that we asked of George, and I apologize, I'm hearing an echo. I hope you're not. No. One of the things we had asked of George was some reporting frequency. There's mention of a dashboard in the response on page 15. And so right now they're proposing to semi-annually report to the commission Based on a January 1 to June 30 six-month time frame and then again July 1 to December 31, they are open to quarterly reporting or more often should you desire. But they are proposing to set up a reporting dashboard. That presumably would be available for you to go on at any point in between the semiannual reporting requirements that might be built into the operating agreement. So that is one of the things that we wanted to know. How are they going to report to the county? And then secondly, in the event of an issue, someone approaches the county, there's an issue there, who do they call? Two people. First of all, they would be setting up a jointly monitored email address that would be monitored by Stan Wilkinson, who is the proposed executive director of the facility, and George Plasinski, the treasurer of the governing board. But also there would be, there's a direct line to Stan Wilkinson for any issues. So one point of contact basically for the county to call if there's an issue. They're backed up by the treasurer of the governing board. So these are some of the bases for the recommendation of the evaluation committee. We are not asking for any action today. You cannot take any action on this today. We would ask that you schedule a public hearing for August 6th at 8 a.m. uh to in order to hear from anyone from the public wanting to discuss the recommendation or the rfp itself at that point the commission would be able to take action on the recommendation certainly the commission could say This is not sufficient. We don't want to enter into an operating agreement at this time. The other option would be that you accept the recommendation and authorize execution of an operating agreement that would be forthcoming.

Lisa, shouldn't we have a motion, though, to introduce the operating agreement so we can have the public hearing on August 6th and then set the date of the public hearing? I mean, when we do tax abatements and stuff like that, we have an introductor. We have to introduce it first. We have a motion to introduce the and then we have the public hearing 30 days later or whatever.

yeah we're not i understand um the process that you're talking about um kent but there's not a requirement here to introduce an operating agreement what what will happen i suspect if we set the date for august 6th i will then get in touch with counsel to the entity To talk about an operating agreement, get a draft circulated so that by August 6th, I will have a resolution for the Redevelopment Commission to consider with a substantially final form of operating agreement attached. Okay. We will submit it to the commission in advance as much as possible for your review. But that resolution would accept the recommendation, name the Hancock County Innovation and Education Center Inc. as the operator, and authorize the president, you, Mr. Fisk, to enter into the operating agreement With any changes suggested or required based on council's advice.

Okay, so when we set the hearing, I'm just trying, I'm just procedurally, I'm just, so when we set the hearing, like when we set other hearings, we just do a thumbs up the agreement to advertise. So we have to advertise this hearing. And so is it, it's okay for us to do that? For us to just do thumbs up, that way it's not a motion, but it's an agreement by the members to advertise.

It can be either way. The public hearing is actually on the recommendation. It's not on the operating agreement.

Okay.

But as a part of that, if the commission accepts the recommendation.

Okay.

then we would want to move to the operating agreement as quickly as possible. So the hope is and the desire is to have a substantially final form of an operating agreement available by August 6th.

Okay.

So today I would – go ahead.

I just have a real quick comment on drafting the operating agreement. Will you do that just on a standard form or – I just have a recommendation on something that I want in there that I think will help with the operations. You had done an organization chart, if you remember. I think that would be really important to have in there. Oh, sure. Because as I'm looking at this proposal, I understand that this 501C operations board could potentially have new members as more partnerships come into the building or new workforce. As new workforce trainees would be more involved, more businesses in the county would be more involved in being participants. So they may not be here day one. So there's a lot of confusion on who holds the bonds, who owns the building. So how does this organizational chart work and how do you manage up and down from this operator? So if we could have that part of the agreement so it's in the file. Okay. Thank you.

Absolutely. Absolutely. So I would, however you normally authorize publication of a notice of public hearing is fine with me. Procedurally, whatever is your custom and practice is fine.

We just do a thumbs up to allow everybody, the advertising to start and everything for the public hearing. And so that's good. I'd like the record to show, though, it is a zero dollar management fee. So I just wanted, I know you said that in the in your auspices already, but I wanted to recognize that. So if there, does anybody have any additional questions?

My only other question is, so if in fact, Lisa, that we are approved on August 6, there will be an agreement to be signed, right?

My hope is that there will be a substantially final form of an operating agreement for that meeting. We will certainly authorize entering into an operating agreement. If it's not available, then we'll have to decide how the commission would want to see that approved. Prior to anyone executing it, or if you'd want to wait for another meeting, which I'm not sure that you want to do, but we, we won't, we'll know more as we get closer to August 6th. I'm going to reach out.

We can expect to see that operating agreement probably or versions of it start working on rough gaps prior to this meeting.

Yes, yes. I'm going to reach out today to counsel to this entity to talk about the operating agreement and try to get it.

It needs to be available for us to sign after the hearing if we do choose so.

That is absolutely 100% the goal, Kent. Okay. Okay.

I just want to make sure that the organization chart that's inside that agreement gives the operator the ability to manage and oversee the partnership agreements of the users in the building. So that would be my only overarching is that this operator needs to be able to manage and the cash flow of those user agreements. Therefore, the signature block on those user agreements should match the operator's agreement. Does that make sense, Lisa, that everything is tagged together? Yes. Because we are getting some questions on that, I should say. I think the operator's getting some questions on that. Let's put it that way. So we just need to make sure everything's buttoned up based off of that org chart that you had delivered because we're working from that.

Yeah, because the money from the user agreements, it's not in the county budget anywhere. It's not in the council. Nor should it be. Correct. No, it shouldn't be. And that was part of the original thing was that the county was not going to be paying for the expenses of the thing. It was supposed to be self-sustaining as well. Correct. And so, for operations. So, yeah, it's not in, the money's not budgeted anywhere else, so they have to have control of the operator.

Agreed. And if we go back to, and if you go back to page 21, that's the whole emphasis of this being able to work in the operator's proposal, right?

Absolutely, yes, correct.

Okay.

Okay. Makes sense. Very good. Okay.

So do we need to talk about, Lisa, is there any reason we can't, once we do this, then if we advertise it, go ahead and do our normal meeting?

Right.

You can do your normal meeting. You can do your normal meeting today and on August 6th you can do your normal meeting.

Yeah, we've already had a meeting this month. Right, exactly. During that, after the hearing, we'll do invoices and everything. We'll have our normal meeting August 6th, so we won't have to have another meeting in August, and we'll advertise all that same time. or all that for all that. Can you, Deb and Cindy, can you guys make sure that?

I will assist Cindy on making sure the notice of hearing is published and the open door notice is appropriately posted, which we did for this meeting as well.

Okay. Thank you, Lisa.

Thank you. We appreciate it. Thanks. Thank you.

Okay. Gary, you got anything else you'd like to talk to RDC about while we're in session and have a quorum?

Maybe afterwards I've got a few small things that are not really . Our projects are on schedule. We had an Amplify meeting Tuesday that I attended, and fundraising is still going very well and is in line way ahead of the schedule. Fiscal on schedule. Fiscal on schedule.

Everything is... I would like to say the... There is an open house for the public in the afternoon. Tuesday of the 28th. From like noon to...

I think it's before noon.

It's like ribbon cuttings at 11.

Open house is noon to 2. You can walk the building. There'll be tours.

Walk the building and there'll be tours. And we were out there. Everything is ready to go.

I motion that we close our meeting. I'll second.

All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed the same. And we're closed.