Council Economic Development Committee - Regular Meeting

Alright. We are here for the Council Economic Development Committee, Monday, March 2, 5PM at City Hall. And first item is roll call.

Mayor Silliness? Absolutely. Council member Andrews?

Yes.

Council member Livonia? Present.

Alright. Next, we will have public comment. Public comment is here to provide an opportunity to address the council economic development committee on items not listed on the agenda. Are there any public comments?

No one has their hands up.

All the way. Perfect.

We did receive just a for the work, we did receive an email, written public comment, distributed council, committed by members, earlier this afternoon.

K. Thank you. Alright. And next, a few more minutes.

I move.

Second.

Item is mute. Second. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Next is for action items. The first item is the visitor promotion campaign.

Okay.

Thank you. Good afternoon. Turn it over to Tiffany or community. Sir, to provide an update on the Hayward visitor promotion campaign that is. Council members,

recall in December when we we brought the TOT increase to the council. And as we're doing that as a, you know, as a team in the manager's office, we wanted to think about how we could support our hotel industry too. And with the Super Bowl coming up and the World Cup coming up at Levi's, we wanted to find a way that we could do in house where we could put together a promotion campaign to support our hospitality industry to highlight the the city's centrality and connectedness to the region, in particular, to get to Levi's Stadium for visitors to the area who might be looking for a place to book. In in doing this, we wanted to find a style where we could start with that focus, but then perhaps expand it to in other ways. In in interesting in some ways that the writer, the commenter, was talking about there's just

a

lot of up there's a lot of opportunity for people who travel to the region, you know, for instance, graduations to Stanford, Berkeley, even visiting wine country, things like that. Then there's also the opportunity to sort of turn the campaign inward on Hayward and focus some attracts some attractions here. So that was the that was the ask. That was the assignment, and then I turned it over to miss Aaron Deer Garcia and mister Bolthor Garcia. Bolthor is our our chief videographer, and Aaron Deer is our social media pro and digital marketing pro. And so they put together this campaign. I'll take it from here.

Yeah. So obviously, we wanted to kind of highlight how close we were to the Levi's, but also just how easy it is to take part also to the other kind of auxiliary events that were happening in SM. We were gonna talk about Oakland, but those tickets were sold out very early. But yeah. So just as we see, like, different cities getting activated for the World Cup kind of show, like, how easy it is to get to those places from the airport while staying in

the airport. So

currently, we have three videos for the actual transportation to the Levi's. So BART on car and through Amstrack. And for the Super Bowl, the auxiliary event, the main events were happening at the Moscone Center, so we had to get to the Moscone Center on.

Can you

show the the next video? It'll play the I I don't know if you'll

The Levi's Stadium is going to be booked and busy hosting the Super Bowl and the World Cup this year. Follow me to see one of the easiest ways to travel from the heart of the bank to the Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara. First, we'll head over to the Hayward Amtrak station, which is only a few minutes from Downtown Hayward. See the train schedules and be sure you purchase your tickets ahead of time at amtrak.com or on their mobile app. Travel in comfort and style while taking in some of the best views of the bay. Thirty quick minutes later, you'll see the stadium right before you arrive at the Santa Clara Great America stop. A few stairs and a short walk later, and you'll be at the main entrance of the stadium. And that's it. It's super easy. Have fun and enjoy the big games.

Used to hear the sound of my Yeah.

I'm like, oh, I sound like that.

Sound fantastic.

Thank you. So those are all the videos. They're all really short, about forty five seconds because we don't no one has attention span. So longer than that anyway, they're all pretty instructive. And if you go to the next slide.

So they all did really, really well, like, the campaign overall. In just those posts alone, we've gotten almost 24,000 impressions, which is close to the number of followers we have across the platforms we use, which were Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn. There were a total of 20 posts that we've posted a couple times, and this is across all the channels. Almost 20,000 video views and 800 engagements, which is pretty good. You know, comments and likes are a little bit trickier on video sometimes, so they did really, really well.

This is over the span of two weeks. We've had restaurant month, which Havi's gonna talk about in a little bit, so that kinda ate into some of our kind of build up time, and then they didn't choose the the winners until, like, two weeks before the actual Super Bowl. So it's kinda hard to, like, figure out who's gonna come visit. But yeah. So I it actually did really, really well.

Go to the next slide. In the future, for looking ahead to the World Cup, we want to update the transportation videos to make them more World Cup focused because you're all obviously very Super Bowl. Like, we're waiting for all stickers to go up at the Levi's, that will say World Cup. We're gonna do some research into the auxiliary events that are happening and where, kind of highlighting those. And we also wanna create a video that promotes our Hayward hotel stays specifically, just showing drone footage, maybe internal footage of some of the newer hotels, our diverse scene, which we have plenty of footage of from restaurant month.

And, you know, naturalist nation people love bird that, you know, isn't just a place to stay to to leave, but, you know, place to stay and, like,

actually

enjoy and, just kind of talk up those pros. I'll give you one more. Yeah. So for other investment options, if we wanted to, kind of add monetary spend to this, one of the probably stronger strategies would be posting content with local influencers or euphoria, their account with 400,000 followers. They actually reached out.

We caught their attention, and they, you know, were interested in collaborating. So that that's an option for us there. Daniel was telling me about the hashtag hair and stuff like that. But it could be a stronger because they already have

Was that a tourism account?

Just showing all of California, like, destinations, hidden gems, stuff like that. We don't have necessary It's, like, clicks to the website or something. We can't really say, like, more people came to stay as a result of these ads. Can't really say, like, we you know? So I think that might be an okay way to to go, but we wouldn't spend much, if any, there. We could also explore partnerships with Bart and Amtrak. I know they have their own campaigns, so I think exploring that could be potentially helpful as well. Yeah.

And then, you know, in other cities that have hotel taxes and have wanna support efforts like this, there will be actually a share of the like, a hotel tax that will go to a convention and visitors here. That's the case of San Francisco. You know? Because ideally, a program like this would be run by an entity like that Yeah. Rather than in house of the city.

Because, you know, we get into the business of showing one hotel. I mean, if if the, you know, if the Garcia and Garcia team go and shoot one of these hotels promoting it, you know, the next one's gonna expect it. So, you know, my vision for something like this would be we would have a you know, we would have some kind of association or something like that. They wanted to take the lead on something like that. But we wanted to show you our creative chops we could get done in house. So that's it.

Yeah. Huge props to both of our. He's online. Oh. Putting together video and editing and all that. Yeah.

That whole style of shooting is is both ours. He's really kind of raised the level of our of

our

Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. It was a great collaboration with, Airandira. And, yeah, we had a lot of fun making those videos, and we're glad that it had

such a great support from everybody in the city. So, yeah, thank you, everybody.

Great. Alright. And do you wanna start? Or I

saw those when they were posted, and I thought that they were so great, and they were very creative. I love the idea of, you know, partnering with Bart and, you know, Amtrak and other, you know, transportation agencies because they have a good social media following, you would think. And then I also like the idea of influencers, you know, like, we can find a way to do that without having to spend too much money, think that's also great. And then the other thing is maybe there's also a way of creating, like, us as influencers. Like, you know, not just the council, but, like, you know, maybe even any supervisor or other reluctance or just other people in the community who are influencers who we could ask, you know, can you like and share this?

You know? I mean, I don't really have a social media following, but I know council member Andrew's desk. So it's like and then if those things, you know, maybe they can start to create their own, you know, spend. But I just love this, I think it's so creative, and thank you so much for doing it and so timely. And I thought you were so fantastic in doing

So I can't

wait to see your next, you know, skit. Fantastic job.

Yeah. Thank you. I was so happy to see your videos. And I think actually you and them has really helped it be more warm and friendly and for the residents to connect with it. And if they start seeing your face over and over and over again, they're gonna start looking forward to when miss Garcia is coming out with a new video about Hayward and transportation and all that. So I think you should still consider being an influencer of social media star. Star Garcia, Garcia company.

We talked

about it. So, yes, I I I do like the flavor of what you all are doing. It's definitely more on trends, and I think even the graphics I I don't know what you guys done with the graphics recently, but they've been really good just for just in general, not just for events. So I just wanted to give you guys kudos on that too. But It Yeah.

That's been Aaron Deer.

And Okay.

For Oh, yeah. Some thought to just our our our branding and just, you know, raising it up a little bit.

Yeah. That's great. And then I don't know. I like what the public library is doing as well. I don't know if maybe you can partner with them more on on videos too. And I think they're more like TikTok stuff as well. Yeah. I don't know if that's the name of it, but I think, yeah, if you can partner with them, that'd be good. And I I I agree. I don't know if I want all of your time capitalized by making videos because I know it's a lot work to just cut cut even forty five seconds.

Mhmm. But I am interested in more events. So I like what Bart does when there's, like, a huge concert that's coming to Oracle. They they do a video. And I'm not saying to every concert that comes to the Bay Area, but there's there's there's a certain you that really take over the whole Bay Area.

So, like, whether it's Taylor Swift, Beyonce, K pop, maybe you can start thinking about a few of those schedules that come along because then it kinda it kinda gets the restaurant scene ready for those events as well. Well and then what's been your engagement with Downtown Hayward Improvement Association on this? Because they also have a media team, and just wondering if they're partnering with you guys

on this. We haven't reached out to them about this. We this was literally just all kinda an in house experiment. That might be a good idea.

I do talk with Sarah

Okay.

Staff to Okay. Staff to that. So I am I do have a connection with that. The with our publicity team. Okay. Yes.

Because I know you have a really strong connection with the local news outlets, but they're if you need to have some relief in house, maybe they can help support you all on some of your efforts where it's not such a burden on your budget. And what's your engagement with the chamber on videos like this?

We haven't really talked to the well, I have not talked to the person. Don't know if Chad reached out or they reached out to

okay.

I think

What's what's your understanding of how connected they are to how active they are? Yeah. Are they active on social?

Not not so much in the video content. So they have you styling posts.

Okay. Because I'm I'm really taking in what you're saying, mister Finney, on terms of, you know, we don't we're not the city of Haver is not the social media team in that sense. It's, like, to get the information out on city business, but not necessarily necessarily for every event, for every hotel and all that. So maybe we can start thinking about, like, a transition plan for the HIA and the chamber to kinda get together. Now you take this on because

And maybe we you know, I don't know what the membership in the chamber is with the hotels and the like. But, I mean, I think that there's a great opportunity for synergy around that. You know? You know, share resources with, you know, with some coaching from Garcia and Garcia. Mhmm. Probably get them lifted up and off to the races probably.

Yeah. That'd be great. Like, if maybe it's a rollout plan where, okay, we do the certain number of videos, and then moving forward, you guys can take this on. And maybe with the assistance of DHI's publicity team, then they can do that forward. And Yeah.

It's a good idea.

Alright. Well, I don't have any questions or comments. There was nothing from public comment?

Okay. Great.

Jen, anything?

No? I think she said she's good.

No. I'm good. I loved it when I saw I had

the same reaction. When I saw it, I

I thought it was great. And I love the idea of having Arindira be the face of our campaign.

And so now I thought they were really wonderful. So Thank you. And I like I know that super supervisor Marquez also has a

big following. Somebody is seeing if she might repost some

of them also. And, yeah, I think it's great. And the radio stations Mhmm. If you invite them, they'll come out and do videos on their own Yeah. Where they you may not have to pay anything. Okay.

That's good to know. Yeah? K.

Cool. Thank you. Great. Thank

you. Thanks, Chuck. Alright. The next item is Hayward Restaurant on 2026.

Great. Thank you, council member Andrews. Before I turn it over to Javier Castro here who led the this year's third annual promotion, just to set the stage, when we finished the second year of last year, our team met and we laid out a goal to grow this year's program to have bigger impact. And so I'll say, not still Javier Thunder, but I think we did that in spades and turned over to him to talk about a little bit about the program and then how we measured our impact. Javier?

Thank you, Paul. Like what Paul said, today, I'm gonna be talking about the third annual Haywood Restaurant Month, which took place in January 2026. And now this program is designed to support our local restaurants during which is historically one of the slowest months of the year following the holiday season. The goal is simple, to increase customer visits, increase sales, and generate visibility for Hayward's, diverse dining scene. So for 2026, staff conducted, you know, proactive outreach, including door to door engagement again along the major corridors to encourage participate participation.

A total of 24 restaurants participated this year. They offered a array of, you know, special menu items, prefixed menus, discounts, free items, or complimentary items. To support them, staff created customized flyers and graphics to ensure consistent marketing and branding make it easier for the restaurants to plug in. Like, you know, like what Paul says, each year, we continue to refine the program to make participation simple and impactful for the businesses. This year, the city continued, there's a partnership with Yelp to develop and promote an interactive restaurant map.

This online map showcase all participating restaurants in one place, making it easy for customers to browse, explore, and visit. The listing was accessible both online through video and their mobile app and our web page, increasing visibility beyond city platforms. This partnership helped extend our reach to audience, which already, you know, seeking for dining options in the area. In addition to additional promotion, we incorporated in person engagement through two ribbon cutting events with restaurant month. One event celebrated the grand opening of a storybook, the other marked the opening of Pinata Sushi Kitchen to new rooftop patio.

Staff coordinated coordinated these activation events to align with restaurant month campaign and encouraged featured many offerings during the celebration. At each event, we raffle for $100 Together for Hayward gift cards to attendees. These gift cards were, you know, funded through unredeemable balances from previous years such as funds. Please don't you worry. These events help generate excitement, draw community members out to dine locally, and reinforce the month long campaign.

Staff developed cohesive branding again, like I said before restaurant month, including digital graphics, mini posters, and large format posters as well. Posters were displayed in participating restaurants, in the downtown kiosk, and in city hall entrances if you did not see that to increase visibility among visitors and staff. The goal was to create a recognizable and professional campaign so everyone knows what's going on. And one of the biggest expansion in the 2026 was the video content. Economic Development collaborated with community and media relations for Garcia Garcia productions to introduce 15 custom Instagram reels and participating in restaurants.

And right now, you see just the screen capture of all 15 just running in, just having fun with my phone. You know, these short form videos were posted on Citi's social media accounts and shared with restaurants so they can repost on their own channels as well. Businesses were also provided with all the raw footage so they can use it for the future marketing, whatever whatever they wanna do with it. Across all platforms, the campaign generated over 19,000 impressions and more than 14,000 video views with additional 2,100 views from YouTube. The campaign generated around 639 engagements resulting in, like, a 3.3% engagement rate, and the most viewed reel exceeded over 3,000 views.

The big restaurant.

Okay.

Forgot which restaurant it was. They haven't. Oh, Gong Cha Dreams. Gong Cha?

Yes. Congratulations on your dreams. Okay.

In addition to the additional social media efforts, restaurant month twenty twenty six are promoted through the two highly visible digital billboards located along major freeways. Another billboard was placed or is on Interstate 880 along Whipple from Europe Road, which carry bridge which approximately a 104,000 vehicles ride that per day as well.

The fun stuff.

Restaurant month also received, strongly show we have coverage throughout this year. This promotion, you know, we were featured on Dela Luno 48 where your lovely caviar Castro was bubbly trying to do his best. KTVU Fox two. These types of our media expands our reach beyond what we can do on our city platforms as KTVU was brought into the Bay Area, and several restaurants were featured that were featured in the city produced reels were later highlighted in these live segments. So now the nitty gritty stuff.

So following the promotions, staff conducted a post event survey to assess the impact. We We conducted multiple rounds of outreach, including email and direct communications. And so we had eight out of 24 in sales compared to a typical January. Five report increase sales increase of at least 5% in sales. Seven report increased foot traffic.

Six indicated customers mentioned or showed excitement Several businesses specifically know that city providing marketing tools and play the reels, graphics, posters, and billboards supported supported their promotional efforts. Businesses that reposted city content or created their own social media content reported strong While the survey represents feedback from the respondents in that whole, we would like to say that it was successful year this year, with the sales growth for the majority of the respondents and a strong communication participation. Program didn't use any city funds, so it was a lot of staff time and or previously allotted funds like the card program. And for January 2027, because it's not too late or too early to plan, staff intend to continue and expand the restaurant month program. You know, we're talking to the CMR team, specifically the Garcia and Garcia group.

We wanna start recruiting businesses and restaurants earlier so we can have time to prove but produce better and more reels and content for the restaurants. And staff was also on this side, we're also talking about potential microbrands to use for, like, social media's tie in hashtag keyword as well. I will be looking into that and seeing what we can do in the next fiscal year. And with that

That's an important point that you make about planning in advance because when you're when you communicate video, which is the way we need to communicate nowadays Yeah. We need to do it well. It used to be eye catching. Both are has been pointing and said that we really we really do need to look at your ahead of time. We have programs like this so we can have time to to do the content, get it in the right.

Yeah. That planning is key since we're really have one Vidyar for those staff. Yeah.

It's a good boy. Echo that too. And then to give the business themselves, as Javier said, the the the businesses that succeeded the most from our promotion were those that used our content and posted themselves. So not to undercount, you know, we stay with Javier said. We spend a tremendous amount of time developing customized graphics beyond the reels.

They have static JPEGs in social media formats that we gave them, mini posters that we gave them, but actually I was using the b roll or the the extra raw video that the CMR team produced. Those are the businesses that that did the best and get along with what Chuck is saying. And if we were able to launch this a little earlier, we could provide more technical assistance to keep pushing them to repost. Because a lot of what they did is, like, we provide the videos. We sent the link to the Instagram and asked, you know, x y z restaurant, like, you guys should repost it to get to your existing followers to bring it back to your existing customer base.

Many did not. And that's and the data shows that the handful that did the ones that have told people or had the best feedback from the advancement program.

Alright. Well, are there any questions online before we Any questions, John? No. Okay. We'll go. Sure.

Thank you. This this was great too. I just, like, love to see how we're activating our restaurants and, you know, how we're highlighting the diversity of restaurants that we have in all these local dining options. And I also like to see kind of the partnership between the departments in the city to get this done, so that's great. And then I know that a lot of, you know, stuff is focused on social media these days, but I also appreciate sort of how the campaign to get the word out kind of hit so many different, you know, channels.

We you know, social media, but also, like, you know, live TV. I thought that was great. It was so good to see those restaurants highlighted there, and I'm sure that they appreciated it. But, yeah, I mean, if there's an opportunity to, like, you know, kind of continue to work with the chamber on this or, you know, I'm sure that's what councilmember Andrews would talk about. But I just think that it was really well done, and whatever we can do to continue to expand this through partnerships and through other opportunities, I think, would be great. But really love to see our restaurants highlighted like this in big.

Yes. And, yes, I am gonna say that. But not just the the economic development team's staff time spent on this because it is a lot of work for the restaurants to get this kind of exposure. But I I like you all focus on way bigger initiative and and I I support them by the restaurants, but I know we need to be bringing in a lot more businesses in the industrial sector and trying to figure out how do we, transform different sections of our city versus spending a lot of effort on on restaurants. And I know restaurants, they they help tell the story of Hayward in terms of our culture and and providing amenities.

But you have done that year over year. And I think we need to start thinking about how do we train them to to do this themselves now. And I know that you all over the years that I've been on the economic development team, it's I'm starting to see people kind of think of, oh, yeah. I do need to, you know, use social media. I've been showing you for ten years.

But I think now I think now we have to figure out, okay, how do we get them to understand that, like you said, videos. Now every restaurant person needs to know how to use social media because there's so much competition, not just in Hayward, but throughout the region. So I was wondering, have you all I know we've know we have open office hours for when people would like to have a permit, or just depends on how to understand paperwork and taxes. Have we done anything related to how to do social media? Like like, how do I if I'm a restaurant owner, is there an event that I could go to or an office hour I can go to to learn how to do a reel or TikTok video?

We staff hasn't done that. Okay.

In terms of, like, providing a direct training to them, I think that's a great idea. We would probably work the the best partner with that would be the small business development center Okay. SBDC hosted at. They have a bevy of technical advisers, and we hope that they try to create a workshop series. I think there there are training modules online because it it's a SBA is, like, federally funded. Okay. There are training models that are modules that are free and available. So if you're, you know, Angela's Burgers, you can go online and, you know, go to the SPDC's website and watch that training right away. But we could work we could potentially engage them this year and ask if they wanna host, like, an in person workshop to provide more hands on training. And I think that that'd be great.

That's an evolution of what we try to do. Right. Here's the raw material. Right. Raw raw pictures and raw video that the CMR team that the city is giving you, now we could probably take it at another level. Like, here's we gave you the raw video, but here's how to put in on your phone. And here's are the tips and tricks on how to do an IG real deadheads.

Yeah. Or the CMR team. Does that mean you guys go yeah. CMR can go to speak at

the

chamber, and maybe even DHIA, all their members can come and get together, and CMMR team trains them how to do it. And I I, yeah, I just want them to start doing this stuff because I you all are hired for the city of Hayward. You're not hired to be everyone's, you know, restaurant social media team. So was interested in that. And then I know DHA has a connection with NBC Bay Area in Kron, so I don't know if you all have a connection more with Fox. Right? So

Well, mean All of them? All of them. Yeah. It's just that they're some of them are very selective on when they will publish stuff. Send them, but I talk to them all the time. I send them

Okay. Great.

All the content. Yeah.

Okay. Great. Great. Great. And I've definitely liked the idea of microgrants. And then this probably is a topic for you. Since I'm an old lady, I don't know TikTok. Like, I have it. I have, like, one thing on there. I don't understand it. But are you seeing more people on TikTok versus Instagram versus Facebook

to this kind It's it's just demographics. Like, the older generations tend to be on Facebook. Kind of millennials, like, X tend to be on Instagram. The Gen Zers tend to be kind of on both. I'll end up seeing TikToks on Reels at some point anyway. There's a lot of, like, cross posting. It's just really a demographic difference. Okay. The city doesn't have a TikTok because it well, for a lot of reasons, it didn't have TikTok, but it's also just a lot

of work. TikTok is a lot

more work. Yeah. It's pretty it's pretty exclusive to they they do have photo carousels, but it's not the same. Instagram, it's a lot easier for us to especially when we did need to transfer them out quickly. Okay. Kind of a graphic that's, like, clean and nice and just easy to put out versus the TikTok. Like, I know the library has TikTok. They have fun or reels, kinda more content y like that. Kinda green almost. Okay.

So that that's kind of the difference on channels there is. Yeah. Okay. And you were saying that videos are kind of now the standard. Mhmm. Has that impacted your your work in terms of, like, just in general, like, having to do more videos and you only have one videographer? How does that impact your

work? It's definitely a constraint. And we we like to play all the instruments. I mean, we're still doing news releases and we're the e newsletter. It's still very in terms of the issue within the city. If you were to get out public information, it's extraordinarily successful. I'd say it's probably pound for pound population size, the most effective

Okay.

Newsletter region. So our social is really strong too. But, you know, on socially, really, the we can use graphics. It really has has a lot to do with what your target audience is and what story you're telling about what the what the correct medium and form of doing it is. So, yeah, having just one is is a, you know, is a constraint, but, you know, maybe, you know, you know, if we could keep both fully busy, but maybe we can't afford to bring another one on.

Maybe there's a, you know, a relationship we could we could find with a with a contract or something like that where it wouldn't defend, you know, labor labor partners where you're not, you know, outsourcing work that could be done in house. But, you know, there's opportunity for that. We just gotta find you know, right now, Yeah. It is I guess it is a bit of a constraint.

Okay. And then, I guess, when you

do connect with DHA, I don't see a ton of videos on their Instagram, but I see a lot of images. Maybe that's something you can actually tell them because, hey. You you because we're the biggest customer there. They're doing images, but maybe we should maybe we should tell them to do more videos and resharing of CMR's team's videos. But see if they have a videographer on their team, and maybe you can kinda share the load of maybe all the downtown businesses go through DHAA and Voltaren can focus on other stuff that you all need to work on. So okay.

Alright. Yeah. We're happy to we're happy to share our, you know, knowledge and how we do stuff with, you know, with these partners. And so Be Okay. Hard for them to replicate exactly what Garcia and Garcia do, but they could have their own swings with it. Gonna

trademark this. Yeah. Thank

you. Thank you. I like the idea of where the the center the. Yeah. I think that's that makes sense to me because, you know, there's probably people who wanna be doing this work at the point school there. Yeah. Or have done the new. So

I and they because they're all doing this. Can't stay Yeah. That's that's

how we did the hey. We don't move to business Yeah. Video series. We did, like, 15 videos resilience and and adaptation out of COVID. We partnered with the SBDC who then used Cal State Space students to do some of that story and video capturing it. So the SBDC expert did the editing of the videos.

I would say for the office hours, Cal State East Bay is a hill to get up to, and just people are overwhelmed. When I hear a college campus, they're on they automatically check out because I I I try to tell them this. Let's go to the small business. Where is it? Because they expect oh, that's okay. So is there any way we can talk to them about coming down the hill and setting up shop? Like

Yeah. It's honor honor to talk about with them. They Okay. Are doing that in other cities, but I just think they're sensitive. Like, we're already here. We are doesn't appear to pay rent. So Mhmm. Maybe Something certainly something we talked about. Maybe a limited even just for the training for this for a quarter. They they have to stagger it. Yeah. Focus on video content training for for small business. We could approach that with

them. Yep. I mean, I know they probably can't afford to sell a office to be in the same city that they're in, but they're not gonna I mean, they will get more visitors if they were closer to people and closer to public transit.

And a lot of the modules, honestly, are online. Online. They don't generate their own specialized content. It's all, like, national.

But I think people I I don't know. Can attest to this. When they hear, oh, I gotta click on a module online, it's, like, already it it's lost a word there. You you already lost them. They like to go in and talk to someone. Yeah.

That's understandable.

Especially if they're, like, limited computer skills already. Yeah. So, yeah, that'd be something for us to think about. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Sounds good. So the next item is future meeting topics. Are there any comments online?

Okay. Council member Bonilla, anything you would like to see or adjust?

No. This looks fine to me.

For me, I would oh, someone's on the No.

It was just me. But after you.

Oh, okay. I was gonna say based off of Saturday's meeting, I was pretty vocal regarding committees. And I think this is an event. You guys are doing great work. Doing great work. But I don't think we need to be as much for this committee in general, and I would like your time spent out in the business community, and I think we should be less. Yep. I got a consensus here on that. Also, I want to talk about the business friendly industrial was it was it industrial regulations? Mhmm.

Is that what it is? Yes. So I I'm getting phone calls from our industrial partners, and I think we need to go back to the drawing board in terms of outreach to them. It seems like it's more permit planning driven. They're they're feeling like there's there's no lot already planned for them versus communicating with them. And so I just wanna make sure that the business economic development team is part of that conversation and, maybe kind of a lens having that economic development lens as we look at at those updates. I just wanted to see what the status is on that.

Yeah. And I can chime in or, Paul, if you do you want me to start?

Go ahead, Jane.

Yeah. And so I think I've had recent meetings with the development services department, and they're you know, it started out obviously as a business friendly ordinance, which there seems to be when it comes to the actual business friendly part of it, some good support. I think there are some staff in the interest of being efficient. We're trying to wrap in some cleanup in the industrial area related to data centers and then some definitions of truck terminals and other and last mile facilities and other things that they were kind of making some judgment calls as to how to move forward with different projects as they came in, and they just thought it might make sense to just, as part of this effort, clean those definitions up. So from what I understand now, I've gotten some of those same calls and had some meetings, is that on the data centers based on the feedback that council gave, that issue, is if we keep it as a conditional use in both the IP and the IG area areas that that you know, based on the latest community meeting that a lot of businesses showed up to that there was kinda general consensus.

My understanding from staff is that that that was okay, and that was fine as long as it wasn't kind of a prohibited use. The issue with truck terminals and last mile, I think, is another issue that they're trying to sort through. I think what my understanding is staff's plan is to try to have one more community meeting to see if they can kinda resolve that with all these different folks that are calling in. And if not, then I think what we're gonna do is move forward with the business friendly and the data center piece, and we'll just continue to do what we're doing now and make our current judgments based on the ways that we've been doing it, which everyone seemed to be okay with. So that may be how we were I think staff was just trying to clean up some of this ambiguity, but it sounds like everyone likes the way we're doing it now.

So we may just end up punting on that. And so that's my understanding is it's this truck terminal change and definitional thing that we think we have you know, we're not gonna bring it forward to you if we don't if we can't resolve it with everybody. But there are future meetings that are happening, and we'll continue to outreach to the to the, business community, the industrial business community.

Yep. I did get phone calls on the last mile as well with our building folks and labor folks. So

Yes. We may just punt on that and just do what we're doing now, which is how we're interpreting things, and everyone seems okay with how we're doing it now. So that might be the easiest path. We'll have one more community meeting, and then I'll work with staff to make a judgment call about whether or we wanna change that now or we just move because we really wanna move forward with the business friendly changes. And the data center stuff, it seems like that got resolved when the council directed us to include that as a CUP in, both areas. So, anyway, I just so I think give us a little more time, but I think we'll probably end up hunting we may end up punting if we can't get more consensus around the definitions.

K. And

then just wanted to could I also just because I was gonna say the same thing you were, council member Andrews, was about the schedule and just Paul and I chatted a little bit this morning. And so I think you know, Paul, I don't know if you wanna talk a little bit about that, but maybe having a meeting in we definitely wanna do the ones in April because we really wanna start to raise awareness in the community about our real estate strategy because we're getting a lot of questions about that. So I think and the development activity. But then I think Paul, do you wanna talk a little bit about what we were talking about this morning and your plan for kind of how you might wanna phase in the going quarterly?

Yes. Thank you, Jen. So I I did speak to this morning. I just finished watching the Saturday work session and, you know, heard the feedback from council looking to reduce the number of meetings, particularly for the CDC to go to quarterly. I was gonna talk to Jen in more detail about the the phase in, but I'll take the opportunity now.

I think what we will do is continue the schedule as is. So April is going to be a pretty meeting meeting with the development services activity update from director Bowser and also an update from, Tracy Irwin on city owned property, which I think is very timely given the the current discussions going on. Then we'll hold our normal meeting, in May, and then just finish the calendar as is currently scheduled. And then when we bring in we normally adopt a new CD schedule in June, and that schedule will be reflected with the new, quarterly schedule. Okay. So I'll work with staff to who are we're picking calendar dates, but that is our intent.

Okay. And then if there's a development project that we wanna see, I'm I'm more than happy to try to find Yeah.

We're absolutely happy to schedule special meetings if should there be a concept review either on a new development or a concept review and feedback staff needs for the promulgation of any new rule making and rule changes, just to make sure this body has ample time to give an economic development lens to to those policy.

Okay. And

then I know that manager, I I know you were talking about in general how we are seeing a slowdown in real estate activity. And then I know we're talking about the city owned properties, but are we thinking about just different strategies of how to attract more businesses here in terms of specific sectors? I know our industrial sector is pretty strong. Right? So we we don't need a lot of activity there. Residential's probably slowing down, but a lot of those bigger projects are already are finishing up. Right? A lot of them. So what is the focus now in terms of trying to drive more?

So I think the the focus for the ED team is the same. So Okay. City, you know, review the budget pie chart, you see where the revenue is coming. Property tax and sales tax, those are all businesses. The majority a large amount of that revenue, property tax, use tax, sales tax, fee, direct fee, most of that comes from their industrial district.

That's they know our sales tax and all the finance department can tell you the city of Hayward weathered the the last couple of recessions because of the diversity, economic diversity of our industrial base. That's why we've spent so much time Yeah. Cultivating a brand, a brand awareness, and also providing that enhanced customer service to the concierge program. So our our focus will continue to be industrial. That's where the biggest bang for our buck is if we were able to land big manufacturing who sells cars. Right? That's then you check all the boxes. You check the property tax box. They're investing millions of dollars to build the factory. You check the employment box, which creates economic mobility and job opportunities for any residents, which then hopefully spend local, and then that equals sales tax to the general fund conference.

And then so we were still working on that. That is still our major focus because that that is where we can move the needle. It is much more difficult in the traditional retail world to to land some of big box tenants. Right? If you look around the city, former, you know, Hayward retail center, aka Spronty, aka former Kmart, that is full up. There's only one twelve hundred square foot spot that's left in in the downtown. You see that the majority of the especially at Foothill that we talked about at the end of last year when we discussed the Foothill action plan, that we did a ninety day sprint to make Foothill more marketable. And It's working. It's working. All those all those slots are are filling up.

All the vacancy are filling up. Yeah. We'll be seeing the one of the last major vacancies, old Riot Nutrition, a k, Kratzky's. That's filling up with a a body studio that's opening up. Cool. Or has I think she already opened up this week.

Is this also a coffee shop?

Yeah. The the the model will will still suss it out. Yeah. They'll they'll have a little cafe component, but it's a pretty small if you remember Kratzky's, it was a very small tenant space. Okay. So a lot of it has worked. And so the emphasis on on industrial, I know we don't often talk about it because, you know, retail is sexy and customers and residents go into retail stores, they go into restaurants, so there's a lot of emphasis on that. But it is we see the biggest return on investment when we are landing the large industrial. Okay. So that's why it continues to be a focus.

Okay. I would say if we want to look at since Foothill action plan is working, see where what other streets we can apply that model because I feel like Mission has the retail center. It's great, but there's a lot of empty lots on Mission, especially those old car dealerships. And I know we're gonna talk about that with the development activity leading, but I would like to see that same energy. I know we don't have a lot of funding, but I like that the idea of that ninety day sprint doing it block by block. Yeah.

So that's kinda why we're my staff took the direction to the committee to go on those retail corridor tours so we can have some more vetting so you everybody could see eyes on what these blocks look like. Yep. We have the tour. We talked to the business owners about what was working for them for the city, what they need from the city. That should inform our decision making within the context of unlimited resources staffing and and and financial resources.

Yeah. And I I know people are we're talking about street vendors at Nagium because, you know, that's what's impacting our restaurants. But I think it's a symptom of people want more walkable retail, and they're creating it for themselves. So if we can apply what happened on Futio, if we can apply it further down the road, they might see a shift in that activity if we were able to support those vendors who go into a store or they move along because the store opens right in front of them. So I think we can start looking at that a little bit more.

And then it it gives another strategy instead of just doing the same of finding them. It's it's actually looking at it in a different way for a longer term vision of how to address it. So okay. Great. Anything else? Sorry. Thank you. Alright. I think that's all, on that one. Anything else we need to review? Any announcements?

Yes. We do have announcements. I'll turn it over to Daniel now who leads workforce development, Barteen, to talk about, the continuation of higher, hey, when intuition assistance.

Sure. So we've, continued our partnership with CSU, Espey, HBM, Jamo College, to support these career fairs that we've been hosting, every semester, spring and fall. This is our third one that we hosted, and it was this past Thursday. We had really good turnout. We continue to really, specifically recruit employers in the industrial district, as well as a lot of local large employers. So we've continued to have really good turnout at the Gibraltar location, but we're having conversations now to see if we can host it

at the locations including here downtown.

I have a question about that. Are you working with Hard? Are they coming to this career fair?

They've been to a few of them.

Yes. Okay. Great.

So they have a table and all Okay.

They weren't at this last one, but they were at last falls.

Okay. Great. And then Hayward Unified as well?

I think Hayward Union was actually his last one. Last one. Okay. Great.

How many people show up?

Typically between three and five hundred. And they're not just students. They are also community members that are familiar with the career fair, and they just come onto the property.

Right. So that one is also okay.

Yeah. And then this past Saturday, we also hosted cohosted a small business seminar with the Chamber of Commerce as well as the Alameda County Latina Chamber of Commerce and assembly member Liz Ortega's office, with my fellow speakers from, SBDC as well as Cal Osbo. We talked about, small business resources that are available here in Hayward as well as the region, to about we had, I wanna say, 70, small businesses as well as aspiring business owners came out to find out what type of resources we have available. It was very well received. And a lot of the businesses, we gave our our pitch and told them, like, hey.

Where's the great place to locate? It sounded like we had lot of interest, and it's something that we're probably gonna try to partner more often to to see if we can continue to provide these resources to our local businesses. And one of the things that you all brought up earlier about the advisory services that SBDC provides actually came up a few times. So the workshops and one on one advising, they do provide it at SBDC for the social media content and marketing. So they do the workshops, but they also provide advisors that will actually

give them. Yeah.

And the benefit of these kind of events, you probably heard me talk about, is to try to attract new business. So with these technical assistance and services we provide to everybody, help existing businesses, finding entrepreneurs or residents, But these regional events are pulling entrepreneurs from outside of Hayward, and that's where we get that's to your point. How do we get new business, new investment to town? And so I'm I'm my role is doing the the larger businesses, the Fortune 100 companies, the industrial companies, and Daniel, who's been focusing on the small business and technical assistance side. So we're hitting both sides at the same time. So it isn't to say that we're solely focused on the large businesses, industrial businesses. We are hitting every segment as best we can.

Let's have the patience of a saint to be that be your focus because that's

It's fun. Well, doing a small business, I think, is I've been in government for a long time, and I think it's one of the most rewarding jobs that I've ever had. Yeah. A lot of these small business, really consider is what creates the fabric of a lot of ER communities. So having the opportunity to work with them

so closely is really important. Yes.

Can you also think about working with Oakland African American Chamber of Commerce? I know it's Oakland, but I know that there's been a lot of false starts, and I definitely try myself. But I've been hearing from black businesses that they don't feel supported the same way as, like, Latino businesses. And a lot of it is just it's just numbers and scale and and and all that, but I think the Oakland African American Chamber of Commerce would be something that we can connect with and so we don't have to start from scratch. So if you can That's why I like

all these events. They're I call them lead generators. So when we go, show up, we give our spiel about the how great it is to Logan Hayward, what services the staff can provide to and, yeah, encourage business to come here. It it's cash it's getting us in front of an audience that we don't have to cultivate those followers ourselves. So, yeah, I think those are great opportunities to for us to get out of the office, get out of the jurisdictional boundaries. Most of my peers and economic development teams across the country are out at major conferences. They're out in outside their market to bring a new investment. A lot of what we've been focusing on partly because of ARPA and the economic recovery have been, like, how do we shore up resiliency? How do we provide the tool? How do we make the businesses that are here thrive and give them the tools?

That's what restaurant month and all that labor is all about. How do we help the existing restaurants thrive or grow in a historically slow time of the year? And I think you raised a great point. We need to be out and about to get our brand, which is pretty solid within the confines of our jurisdiction, but there are there's much more investment opportunities if you can go out to the place in Oakland other communities where they don't necessarily feel supported or they're looking for an expansion market. Yeah. We we're that. Okay. And

then also connecting with the sports teams because we don't have the Oakland roots here anymore. If they can be part of this small business seminar, just showing how sports can actually drive business to your restaurant, or, if you're doing anything sports related, you should partner with them or something. I think the Bay Area host committees specifically for the bigger cities for sports, but there's a lot of there's a lot of sales that we're losing out of because we don't we don't advertise that with these teams. They're actually regional teams for us as well. So if you can talk to them to do that, can okay. We're good. Great. So

we'll go through in the interest side, we'll go through real quickly. Many of you know, it's old news now that Storybook has now opened on B Street in the former Pizza House location. So one, checking a box, filling a chronic vacancy in the downtown on the core, and then adding this amazing new full service restaurant in Meninie to the downtown. And they did get press coverage. They were covered. Got them in the Mercury. The food reporter came out and did an article on them, that was great. And so far, the reviews have been pretty good. Next slide, please. Teriyaki City Grill, which is, just over here in your city hall in the former Jamba Juice location, has been was vacant for probably better part of a year or two two years after a car went to the funds in Jamba pulled out.

They had their grand opening just last month. Huge turnout. It's one of the most crazy turnouts for a I've ever seen. They had two

openings. Yeah.

They had two, and then they had a, you know, cast you know, kind of what we did for hashtag keyword. They hired an influencer. I'm blanking on her name, but she was the Reina. Reina. She was the competitive eating version of a hot dog guy, Joey Chestnut. And we're producing a reel now, but they did, like, a food eating contest, a speed eating contest. The line was wrapped around the building. It was a massive amount of turnout for a very small space. So happy to fill that. Checking out the box, filling a quantity vacancy in the downtown. And the best part is they they came in. They didn't require a lot of work. They're they're a family owned business. There's another one in San San Leandro. So this is their second pretty close location, but they they seem pretty happy.

Next slide, please. And then last week, we have noticed that we're opening of a butter pecan bakeshop next to the Rooney Market over here, in the former Sohilia bakery space. Also open to great fanfare. They had a ribbon cutting, led by the chamber of commerce, and we are producing our team is actually producing another wheel for them, but that's the checks and other box, adding to more commercial amenities. And this is a great story too. Story is a African American owned business. This is their first franchise location.

Oh, okay.

In in their in their group. So I'm tremendously excited for this this company. Yes.

I had a friend who drove from Oakland to come to this, so it's definitely a big following. That's awesome.

One of my friends had their cookie at a tournament, like, a year ago. She said she had not stopped thinking about that cookie. It was really exciting. I'm like, come in.

That's that's that's all we got. Thank you.

Okay. Alright. Anything else? Too.

Thank you.