Council Economic Development Committee - Regular Meeting

Alright. We are starting the council economic development committee for today, May 4, 5PM, City Hall, and we're gonna start with the roll call vote. A roll call vote.

Council member, yeah, present. Council member,

Present.

And mayor Salinas, absent at the moment.

Next, we're gonna go to public comment. This section provides an opportunity to address the accounts of economic development committee on items not listed on the agenda. Are any public comments online? No.

None

in the room? Alright. Next, we'll have the approval of minutes.

I so move.

I second. Items moved. Action items. Approval of the fiscal year twenty twenty seven CEDC regular meeting schedule. Are there any questions, comments?

No. I so move.

Good. Okay. Second. Well, that item. Next is the Hayward amplified program overview.

Awesome. Thank you, meeting committee members. Super excited to introduce this program. This is all still the thunder from specialist now here who's who's been doing a fantastic job kind of iterating and and developing the application materials, doing some outreach. But this is probably I I know I said to group last, probably one of the most innovative economic development programs in the state right now.

No one is doing it this way. It is, it is our solution to experiential retail and and commercial storefront activation. It ties together what you heard from us during COVID or post COVID with our recovery program, Hayward Live, where we're doing small scale activations with music, DJs, and performances, and artists downtown, particularly during COVID in the public right away. This one expands upon that and puts the onus on business owners, but but provides wraparound technical services and and some grant funds to provide the infrastructures they need to get organized, have an event, and then develop the experience they need to do events without Citi support. So without further ado, I'll turn it over to Daniel to do the presentation.

Thank you, Daniel. Sure. Thank you

for that introduction. Good evening, committee members. So as we said today, we're gonna be going over the Here With Emply program. I'll try to go relatively quickly because I know we have a hard cut off. But this program is designed to address several challenges that we've seen and heard not only from our community members, but also from you all.

We're In And particular.

In particular. But, also, we're trying to capitalize on a few things that are going to the Bay Area, specifically the World Cup. We just had the the Super Bowl. So we're really trying to provide the infrastructure for our businesses to understand how this could be really beneficial not to their not just to their business, but their their neighboring business and the the city as a whole. So why Amplify and why now?

Specifically, businesses, I know we've talked about this a lot in our previous brands and programs, but businesses have really been experiencing a lot of reduced foot traffic. And that can be a number of things, whether it's competition from ecommerce delivery services and things like that. But what we've also seen is that there's a trend that consumers prefer experiential retail. They really are looking for unique activations, reasons to go out and really connect, not just with the businesses and the community, but also with each other. So this is hopefully gonna address one of those things.

And what we've learned from our previous programs, specifically, Hayward, hashtag Hayward, is that these programs can really create a social multiplier effect. What that means is it can create content, earned media. The customers will come in and create content. So specifically in hashtag Hayward, we were focusing on doing things like Instagram of walls, like moments, things that people take pictures of. But we're expanding on that because we know that dwell time connects directly to people spending more money.

So having activations in advance, having reasons for people to spend more time there, connect with other people, the business will lead to increased sales tax generation. And as I mentioned, we are seeing major global events happening in the Bay Area, not just music events, but FIFA World Cup is coming here. So we're really trying to find a way where we can leverage those things, but also provide the tools for our businesses and community to really harness the potential for those. And we're doing that by creating third places, a place where people can spend their time, spend their money, and really support their local businesses. So overall, the innovation in this program is that we're creating this program to support events, but by giving the tools to business and the funding to host them themselves.

So we're providing this grant funding, and we have enough funding from existing funds to, support a small cohort of approximately over five businesses. And it is a competitive application process where we're gonna be reviewing the concept, the feasibility, the economic impact, specifically how it's gonna help the corridor and the neighboring businesses, and we're looking at geographic distribution. We're really hoping to spread these grants out throughout the entire city so we can really see a larger impact. And like I said, we are focusing specifically on the experiential retail. Keeping it very open in on what type of businesses we're supporting.

So we've received applications from everything from, supermarkets, to the traditional retailers, restaurants. It's really been interesting the type of business that that have been applying and the concepts that they've been up with. And this is part of a program that we are hoping to potentially step up. So although this grant is specifically tailored for supporting one specific business, One of the things that we're looking at is how it's actually gonna have cascading effects in the neighboring businesses. So that's some of the information we're gonna be collecting.

So the things that this program focus, we're giving it very open ended, but we have tried to provide guidance to the businesses. So we've given them some ideas such as live music, DJ nights, watch parties, not just related to the World Cup, but also trending TV shows because we've seen that's been very effective in other cities.

Love either.

Food and retail, we've seen has been very effective here in Hayward, especially. We're keeping it very open ended. We want to see what type of ideas businesses come up with. So one of the ways we're supporting these businesses is we're providing our technical expertise, giving them examples, but also, acting as their sounding board and giving them ideas on what will be really effective and what community is looking forward. The way this model works is we are providing the funding, the technical assistance.

It starts at five.

I was upstairs. I thought I thought it was

my presentation. Sorry.

I'm at

05:30.

He is in the

You missed I was in my group. You missed the most day. But the business, like I said, it is business led. So they are coming up with the activation concept, giving them guidance on it. They will be hosting the events, doing their own promotion as well as coming up with the documentation, metrics, tracking, things like that, and boarding with us so that we can help support them with the coordination.

And what we're hoping for the outcomes is that we will see increased foot traffic, increased mobile time, commercial quarter activity, more organic social media visibility, supporting our local businesses, and potentially being able to flip from this model and increase local spending, potential revenue generation, and build long term capacity. And that's a really big one because one of the primary uses for these funds is for them to buy the equipment necessary so that can be, you from projectors, TVs, sound systems so that they can see how this model is really beneficial for them, and they will want to continue hosting activations and events moving forward. So right now, applications are already open. We've already sent out the press release. We've pushed out social medias.

We've we've already connected with our community partners and started promoting this event. We've already started accepting applications. We have preliminarily reviewed a few, but we wanted to hear back from this body before we approve anything. And if you can't help us promote, we have the website live, and the website will be updated as the application keep moving forward. So for the next steps, the applications will be open until May 29 or until the funds are fully funded.

We like I said, we're we're doing the applications on a rolling basis. And as they are approved, we will update the website with the events on the calendar. And in October, we will come back to this body to give you an update on the outcomes and the lessons learned from the program. So for this meeting, we have a few questions. Are there specific corridors or areas you would like us to prioritize? Are there particular types of activations or community experience you would like to see emphasized? And are there specific outcomes or metrics we would like to see prioritized as we evaluate this pilot?

Okay. I apologize for I was upstairs just waiting for me. But, anyways, alright. Let's go first.

I'll go first. Thank you for doing this. You shouldn't have to buy from the street that you did. I wanna know what can we do to transition this type of work to the small business development center, Downtown Hayward Fever Station, and the chamber and any other business association. So staff doesn't have to use in the future. Like, I'm I'm interested in expanding it, but, really, those entities should be doing this work.

Well, I'll say it's kind of it's a real novel innovative program. No one's done this before. Okay. We've seen, so we're hoping to you know, this is the proof of concept. Okay. Right? And so once we do this, we get it off the ground. We collect the metrics. We can show that this program does work and has has an ROI, a return on investment. And then, hopefully, we can take that model, know, become one of our best. But most of the, like, the COVID recovery programs that Hayward did, those are best practices in the industry. Like, you know, you saw the awards we won. Cities across the country are copying Hayward for those programs, and we think this is one of those that once we get it out there, once we collect the metrics, probably get some hard you know, some awards in the future that people will see as a best practice. This is a replicable program. Mhmm.

I can't speak for the grant committee partners on it, but I can tell you the the SBDC, Small Business Development Center, they wouldn't they wouldn't take this Okay.

Is it more mentoring businesses?

Yeah. They can provide some tech they do provide technical assistance and, like, mentorship. This is they'll they do the mystery diner, mystery chopper things. Okay. And retail experts will come and evaluate your store. Okay. Those services have been offered to anyone businesses. There hasn't been any uptake in my experience, which is not uncommon, to be frank. And a number of years ago when I did this and had the there are a couple of businesses downtown. I won't call them out that that we brought mystery diners and mystery, you know, consultants to come in and, like, do evaluations and say, hey. Maybe your store shouldn't, you know, be an antique store. Maybe it should be this kind of store. And those the the challenges that the small businesses feel like, they know what they're doing and they don't need outside people telling them what they're doing wrong. Okay. So it's a delicate balance to provide that feedback.

So the SPDC can provide it, but they don't unless the businesses are, like, asking for you to And so that that there is a challenge to build that work with the businesses. And, actually, we'll get to that in the next presentation, on our business engagement program. He would post that we're hoping to launch, this coming, this fall as well. But, to get your question, the SBDC wouldn't do it. That's not what they do. They're more technical assistance, like how to plan your business, how to get financing. Know, staff can engage the chamber of commerce and the DHIA. The DHIA, as you know, you heard from them recently, their mission is very different. They're more disparate focused and or have shied away traditionally from events other than the taste of keyword event.

Is that in their MOU to only focus on one event?

It it isn't. As as I understand it. They have, you know, they're governed by a board of a board, and they take ideas, and they take funding requests for events. But in general, they don't they don't do events. They I mean, they're funding historically, their funding cycle, Daniel, you could jump in here. They do get requests from event organizers. And historically, say, last five years, they haven't really gotten to that gate. They do nominal contributions to events, but they don't actively participate and they don't provide technical assistance. But they're happy to market

Okay.

What businesses are doing.

So what can we do to get actual fund like Civic Joy Fund? The I I I don't know what the Oakland Fund is Sure. In particular, but it seems like in San Francisco, they have these funds where people are act using activations from that fund. Yeah.

Most notably, like, the San Francisco partnership or the downtown it's called the downtown SF downtown partnership. Those, you know, the funding sources for those kind of things are are two or in my in my limited research are two are twofold. One, they are private large private companies like OAI,

you

know, X, formerly known as Twitter, big big banks. Those are the, you know, Chase Bank, JPMorgan, Wells Fargo. Those are the big backers of the SF Downtown Partnership. Okay. The city itself isn't really taking all that much money in as as the market shows. It's mostly privately funded into a five zero three c, you know, nonprofit, and then they do the programming. The city's provide some support funding on the level of assisting with permitting and things like that for, like, large scale public events that they're doing. So private funding is option a. Option b, several cities have the visitors. We've seen this traditional tourism boards or visitors boards that do receive funding, in part from, transaction, hotel tax.

So a lot of cities like, my former city when I worked in Fairfield, they had a Fairfield, tourism bureau that was funded in part. I can't remember the amount of percent of the day. Took the took the t o took in the TOT revenue and then provided a chunk of that revenue to the division working within a merchant tasked with programming.

Okay.

Programming events, promoting hotels, tourism related things like that.

So city manager with our budget situation, we don't anticipate using TOT for that right now?

No. I don't but Paul and I chatted a little bit about whether or not in the future we might look at some of the programming contractors. It's not like San Francisco or Bryant Park in New York are using to use programming, whether or not there might be something we could do in the future with the budget we do have. Mhmm. Do additional programming similar, but we wouldn't be able with city funding to fund what the level of what you're seeing in San Francisco or New York. Okay. Was made without saying. We are looking at trying to increase some kind of larger scale programming in downtown. Probably not for this fiscal year, but we're trying to see maybe for next fiscal year. Okay. And that's the

beauty of this program. I think and it can be understated. What we're trying to do is build local capacity at small businesses so the city, this team, aren't the people throwing events at businesses. We're trying to walk them through this process now. The infrastructure, TVs, the projectors, lights, some real world experience throwing an event that we will support. Literally, you know, we will staff, help them get upfront, help them do the promotion. We do the reels. We do the graphics. You know, we tutor them in marketing, and we were hoping to build that that expertise locally. So then after this program, we could say, hey. Now we have the light kits. You have these projectors. You have TVs. You have a sound system. You have one event under your belt.

What do you what's you know, what do you you know, we have the data that showed that you increased your, the the revenue that when you held these events. And so, hopefully, all those elements would say, you know, the business would be like, wow. This was a good thing. I now have the tools, the the technical capability, the physical tools, infrastructure to do this myself. Okay. And that it getting us away, and I've been working, as you know, getting away from economic development, getting away from events. Yeah. That's like the people for years. And then this is my way of, like, our our team's way of giving people the tools, hopefully, they could take it and and and continue just do it for us. So it doesn't take city resources.

Okay. Alright. Well, for for me, do you wanna take questions or both?

We can do both.

Okay. So for me, it would be Mission, just all of the down Mission, Tennyson, and then we did our tour, the Tennyson Tour. That was a request from the business owners there was to do more events there. And I don't know if Hesperian actually needs it in a particular area. It doesn't see it seems like it's pretty activated already.

And then downtown, just because of the activity the type of activity you're seeing downtown, I like to bring people to kinda disperse some of that activity. And then activations, and I think you already outlined a lot of the activations. Just, you know, DJs, World Cup stuff. And then I don't I don't know if this is something that's on your radar for this, but a lot of coffee shops do cup sleeve events. So if anyone's interested in doing that, it's probably doesn't cost as much as what you all are giving.

But I think at some point, you should have either a champ or someone train cafes on how to do cup sleep events because they're missing out on a lot of dollars with those. I don't know if if you are familiar with them, but it's it's basically they whenever there's an event or an album that comes out, they have special edition cuff sleeves. So people come in and buy the boba, buy the coffee just for the cuff sleeve. Because I'm in a lot of boba places and cafes, they there's so many of them. So they're trying to figure out a way how to stand out.

Yeah.

And then outcomes just because it's also about public safety. Release the crime to see if there's a drop in crime that day or something. I would be interested in seeing that as well in addition to what you already identified. Thanks.

Thank you. So just a couple of questions. How is this being funded? Because we got some like, an email, at least one that was asking about funding related to this.

It's it's existing this fiscal year, f y

And then is it, you know, I guess, maybe as the metric or just as a going in assumption with this program? Is it that the investment that we're gonna make in this program will generate enough tax revenue or some sort of return to cover its cost? Yeah. I don't

don't think we won't see a dollar for dollar cost recovery factor associated with project. I mean, that's certainly something we always our team dissipate, and it's not a goal or objective to, like, one one for one return on investment. I think this is a more of a long term investment And over time, we'll see that. We'll see the ROI.

Got it.

Like, the only thing would add is that what we've seen in our previous programs is that we have, like, a casting effect. Right? Especially with where when we were able to show that a few businesses were able to capitalize on using influencers and they were able to get, like, a a jump in their sales revenue, more businesses started doing it well. So the hope is that if we can even have this mock award of five businesses that host really successful events that show that it's effective and actually increases their sales, helps their cohort. Other businesses will also start investing in their own capacity building without our systems.

So Can I just wanna add anything? There's also just a kinda almost intangible where because you see San Francisco or New York, all these places doing more programming like this, and there's just Then they come and they experience it, they're like, oh, now they think of it as a place as a destination. Right? So if you can get people down there, they see it safe. They see there's new restaurants opening. So it's kind of hard to measure, but it's I think it I think generally most downtown districts recognize that having programming really helps attract people back to the commercial district.

There's opportunities to sort of create revolving loan programs to do or grant programs so that the you know, it's kinda become self sustaining. Because if these businesses do have successful launches and stuff, then maybe there's an opportunity for them to give back so that other businesses have them. And then how are the participants gonna be selected? I guess, is it gonna go through this criteria? Like, oh, what quarter are they in? What kind of event are they doing? And then that will start to create the guidelines that you guys will use to So we already have

a scoring rubric. So when the application come in, we put them through the scoring rubric, and then we grade them. And it is computer process. So not only do they meet a certain level of scoring, but we also have to weigh them against each other as well.

Got it. So is it I guess, is it any business eligible for this, or is it small you know, providing an equity lens and making sure that we're looking after some of our most, you know, vulnerable businesses that might need this uplifting versus some of maybe our more profitable businesses who might have the resources to do this on their own.

I mean, all of our businesses, we do approach it with an equity lens. We typically only fund small businesses.

Yeah. We've never given oh, my time here, I've never.

Well, it's it's one of the things that I guess, one of the criteria

Well, and you keep pointing. I'm trying to say that making sure the businesses aren't the same businesses are getting grants over and over again. That is one of our criteria, and that's one of our standard statements like, hey. You just got a grant last year. It's great. You're you're not eligible. We're trying to geographically distribute the the funds. You know? And you've seen this team actively try to push funds to, you know, under resourced areas on Tennyson. It's very, you know, outside the downtown floor. I think we will see activations downtown. It's natural to see these type of events happen in downtown, but it's not the emphasis. And so the emphasis is not to not to fund businesses consistently get funds and also make sure that these events occur outside of downtown work. That's great to hear. That's great to hear.

And we do a lot of direct recruitment as well because there's a lot of businesses that, as you're aware, they don't typically follow any government social media or get letters, you know, that. So we go in person and make sure that they understand that these pro programs are available to them, and we'd like to see them a lot.

Got it. And then what kind of businesses would be ideal for something like this? Because when I was kind of you know, before I heard council member Andrews talking, I was thinking about, like, just community activation and events that I was thinking about. I've I was kind of misthinking about it because I was thinking, like, maybe, like, you know, big outdoor spaces and, like, you know, night markets. Like but then I I know it's kinda like, no. It's more like businesses. Right? So then I'm thinking, you kinda have to have a pretty big space or some kind I mean, I guess, what would be an ideal business? Or can you just maybe explain, like, what an event like this would actually look like besides because, I mean, I can see it in the downtown area. Right?

But if you're gonna take it to, like, the Tennyson area, because those businesses are already so kinda small and compressed, like, what would this look like? You know, like, Cecil's or something like that, you know, or just something. So one of

the requirements for the application is that whatever activation they're proposing, they have the space to be able to hold it. So we've seen like I said, I mean, I don't want to because we haven't approved any yet, but we've got an application for a supermarket that they're planning to do, like, multiple vendors, use their parking lot, things like that. But we've also seen other activations that are using smaller spaces. So it it just has to align with the activation for the next

The activation is different things. Right? DJ nights at the supermarkets are Yeah. DJ night night dance parties at supermarkets are huge. So they range the scale ranges significantly. So if you're talking about a small downtown cafe or a small cafe called a boba shop, their activation will be very different. They they could bring in DJ. They could bring in cup sleep partners. They can bring in artist. So it need and that's we don't wanna be too prescriptive because at the end of the day, we were very sensitive to telling businesses what to do. Businesses know their customer. They know they know their market, and they know what their competitors are doing. And we are also researching that. To give them examples, your competitors are in this city are doing this. So, you know, we don't the the universe of possibilities is evolving, so we're not trying to be prescriptive.

And it could be small scale where it's a DJ, what you saw. I don't I don't remember if you attended the Tram Korean coffee, great opening, but they had a DJ on the patio. That was huge. People love the DJ. So it could be as simple as just having a DJ at night with a light kit. It could be something more significant where multiple businesses in a plaza are partnering under a same theme Nice. Together together. A small independent market can bring in, you know, the their their supplier vendors and have, like, kind of, like, a Costco sample day kind of thing. Anything that activates and then meet drives meaningful customer engagement and ultimately shopping, right, for

the revenue. Also, can plan multiple events. So the activation doesn't have to be one single event. So if you're thinking about funds versus event costs, we can ask them to do four or five events. For smaller costs, maybe have less turnout, but it activates their space.

Sure. Totally. Okay. Makes makes a lot of sense. So, I mean, I would I would also love to see this along Mission and Tennyson in particular. I think, you know, there's a lot of opportunity there. But then I also just think about Mission too because some of these, I don't know if I would fall under this category, but some of these spaces are sort of naturally being activated. Because you know that old food source parking lot? Mhmm. Basically, they do car shows there sometimes. You know? So I'm just like, hey. The community's activating the space. Bring it in the vent. You know?

So I would just love to see, you know, and down Mission. Mhmm. And then also, you know, obviously, anything up and down Tennyson would would be great. And then I was also thinking, like, maybe, like, the Southland area, you know, if there's an opportunity, especially as you guys were saying, like, you know, like Southland Ball, like that parking lot, if those people were to come out and try to do something with it there, because that seems like it would be a good space or item. But I think it would just be good to kinda activate those areas. And what I would like to see is kind of everything you guys said. I think you guys have great ideas. You know, like, this DJ stuff and, you know, pulling people together and activating the space. And then this would be different than, like, having, like, a Super Bowl watch party. Right?

It can entail that. So one of the things we want to make sure that we're providing that infrastructure, a lot of these businesses don't have, like, a TV or a projector or a sound system. And if the Super Bowl, these global events are coming, this this is the element of infrastructure. We can give you the funding to be able to prevent that infrastructure. So say you do a Super Bowl watch party, you know, when the Super Bowl comes, but then when the World Cup comes, but then the Super Bowl is every year. You can do a Super Bowl watch party. Great. They do. Now now they can have the TV and the light in the sound system. So it gives it it gets us away from a one off event Yeah. And a more of capacity building.

Totally. And I love that capacity building and kind of the way that you were explaining it by pulling together businesses. And maybe, you know, this is like you were saying, like, their seed funding to get them to do this once, and now they have this toolkit to keep replicating Exactly. Time to make it bigger and better. Okay. Thank you. I love this program. I can't wait to see it. I'm actually lifted. Thank you. So

so this weekend, I was at the Singla Mayo Festival. And everybody, like, when I talked to was like, this is great. You know, a lot of people, this is fantastic. Hayward needs to keep doing this. We let up when Hayward does this. You know? And of course, that conversation parlayed into the street parties. You can't wait till street parties. And, you know, and then and so, you know, people like big events in the city. And just to kinda go with to address events.

I know you guys don't do events. But we clearly know events work. We clearly know people like them. And, you know, I don't I mean, we haven't really done a scientific, you know, quantitative data collection analysis of how many and how many people like it and what's, you know, what's the impact and, you know, all and so it would be interesting to see what the receipts are in downtown on Saturday, you know, from from 05:00 on because it ended at 05:00. You know?

And what is the receipts for Bon Appetito, you know, Aquafarina, Buffalo Bills, you know, and and the coffee shops? You know? I know Pete's was closed, you know, but but, you know, I think that data could put I don't know if have access to that data, but it'd be interesting to see because there were a lot of people out there. I don't know what the number was.

Mhmm.

And it's cold, and and there's still a lot of people out there. So we know it works. The other thing is we also know that, you know, ethnic and cultural events work. Without a doubt, we know that. Mhmm. You know, I I'm still over I was still overwhelmed by the Hawaiian festival, which, you know, I mean, it was it was I think it was one of the largest events we ever had in downtown. I mean, it's huge. And and so and they had moved that event from the fairgrounds to downtown, and it exploded. So which was great. So, you know, so I just wanted to make that point.

We know what works, and I know this isn't a discussion about funding events, but, you know, it goes without saying we know that works. You know, corridors, you know, I agree with it. You know, everyone you know, whatever one says. But at the same time, if we know what works, let's just keep you know, like, tenants in corridor. People have been asking us about Tennyson Corridor, you know, for a long time.

And, people have asked, why can't we do, why can't we do what we do in downtown, the street parties on Tennyson Corridor? And, you know, I think that's not a bad idea. And, you know, and I think if somebody were to, you know, take a grant and use that as seed money for, you know, for something, You know, we know that these big events work. We know people like these big events, and so, you know, maybe that could be something. But I understand a lot of the stuff, you know, you guys wanna, you know as soon as you said Cecil's burgers, I was thinking, you know, turning that whole parking lot into some kind of an event.

And but but yeah. So the corridors, yes. You know, a mission, I don't know what we would do on mission. I'm sure that there'd be I'd be really interested to see what creative something someone comes up with. I was thinking a big party at at La Victoria. I don't know what they would do in there. Yeah. In Riverside, you know what they would do in the Inland Empire down in Southern California? This was really big throughout LA and stuff in the early two thousands. They had this thing called taco shop poets, and poets would go from all these taquerias.

They would jump from taqueria to taqueria, and they would do they would do spoken word, poetry, and this thing blew up. I mean, every I mean, people were following, you know, these taco shop poets all over the place. And imagine if, you know, a small taqueria spawns you know, started got all the taquerias together and say, hey. Let's start a a taco shop poet cycle. You know? I know we had lit hop. Right? You get all the folks lit hop from going from taco shop to taco shop. You know? But, anyways, so those are the corridors.

The the the kind of activities, it sounds like we're we're interested in all kinds of activities, actually. Yeah. So, I mean, I don't wanna stifle creativity. You know? And it also sounds like we kinda have a a menu of things already existing. So, I mean, know, you it'd be interesting to see what they do. You know, metrics. You know? I mean, you know, that what are the metrics? I mean, I know that I mean, you talked about crime, but, you know, I I be interested to see how much money are they making.

You know? What are the receipts? Yep. I mean, you know, the other the other one too, you know, not to go back to the, you know, well, yeah, the the street parties is, you know, looking at, has there I don't know if, we've collected, like, qualitative data. You know? Do a simple survey, you know, about experience. And, you know, take a small sample, you know, collect a 100 a 100 people. I don't know. But, you know, do a a pre and post do a pre and post count of input and do a pre receipts. Do a Saturday without a street party and do a Saturday with a street party.

I mean, you

know, I don't know that but and then when we do when we do these, it'd be let's say there was a little, you know, DJ at a grocery store. You know? I mean, the dude are people going in the golf station to see what are they buying? Well you know? But so, anyways, let's see.

Personally, I like music. I think the DJ above the the sushi restaurant up there, I mean, when they had it that one night, it looked good. I mean, the vibe was there. People were happy. I saw different people in I saw different people there that I typically don't see in downtown, and you saw families. That was the other thing. And and so, you know and I would also just add this last piece is that while while we prioritize corridors is, if at all possible, prioritize, like, family engagement, you know, just but, you know, because

Intense.

Yeah. Sound friendly. Yeah. Okay. That's all I got.

Yeah. I have a question. Sure. And this is actually probably for work for the mayor. How do how do we get a fund together with a private entity? Because acts are really expensive. To get just one act that has name recognition is 25 to $50,000, So that can blow a lot of event planner's budget. And so that's why you don't see a lot of events happening in Hayward or you seeing them in the bigger cities because that's what these artists demand. But I think it's something for HLAG to review. I think I think Hart, they have a really cool stage that travels.

That's pretty impressive. They have the infrastructure, and I think we need to engage the rotary chamber and say we need a civic joy fund. We need something in order to pay for these events because the city the city can't continue to pay for events at this scale because everything is just getting so expensive. Even just the the infrastructure of a street party is getting so expensive. So I don't know what we have to do privately in order to get this done, but I do think if we want more events, we're gonna have to lean on our community partners to do it.

Because I see a lot of different types of events, but if we can come together and and just pull our money together, we can get something that can really be impactful that that changes the narrative of Hayward, I think.

Yeah. There's a guy you you know, and and you might know this too. There's a guy out in Industrial Hayward that does a barbecue he does a barbecue fest every summer. For Gibbix Science? I for no. He owns a he owns a a a, like, a, like, a electrical company. I think he's, an electrical contractor. And the the chamber knows him. But the guy does this on his own. He had you know, once in the summertime, and he has, you know I don't know.

There's always, like, 15 or 20 barbecues out there. They do barbecue brisket. I mean, they just you know, it's a full blown event. I have not been able to go over the in the in the past years. There's always I've always been out of town for some reason or another. But so so, you know, people have already sort of been doing it. For the connection I was gonna make about what you just said.

Yeah. Well, it's just like if I kept Oh,

like having this macro fund. Yeah. The the this this joint fund. The other thing too is, you know, I know we're in a deficit right now. I get it. And, you know, but, you know, we might you know, in a couple of years, you know, we might set that up and and and where we use that for leverage so we can go to a Zoox. We can go to Aviv, or we can go to one of these biotech companies and say, hey. Listen. We got we got 20. Can you come up with another 20 and help us? I mean, you

know what? And we should ask we should set up the infrastructure to collect because when we're going to these businesses in industrial area, and I won't say the company name, but they make a lot of money in Hayward. And for, like, one event, they wanted to offer a $100. And, I mean, that's nothing compared to what they're making here. So I do think if we could figure out what that fund looks like and who are the partners in that fund, then it can be enticing for sure. But, also, I was wondering if Bart could apply for the activation sites or it's only small business because they're doing more activities at the stations, but they're also having funding challenges.

Yeah. They under our program, they wouldn't be eligible Okay. Because it's more we're we're always, like, hyper business focused. Okay. And so the ROI from the ADT's perspective is, like, we are trying to plan these stores with people, the people that spend money, and then then they spend money to pay tax, and then that tax comes to us. Okay. Okay.

Jasmine, I like the logo.

Yeah. What's the logo look like again? It looks elegant.

You're like the next one too, though.

It's very thin.

Like, that is nice.

It's clean.

Okay. Cool. Is that it? Yeah. With you? Yes. Okay. Awesome. Thank you. Okay. Next is calendar. Great. The the regular meeting schedule. Here.

Here. Here. Here. Here. Here.

K. We did some of those.

Yeah. They're both.

Thank you. Complete. This one is also presented in my day as a as a background. As you know, the economic development team, one of our core functions haven't really spent a lot of staff resources in because we've so busy with the economic recovery program, all these new innovative programs. But one of the one of the core functions of every economic development team out there is business retention.

Right? It's always easier to retain the business that you have than to be able to attract the big fish because you need the bevy of local businesses that are doing well, are economically healthy, that are noted, that has some notoriety to stay here to be able to attract the big businesses. And so in the past, me personally, I had operated our our business engagement program, which is sending the team out to meet businesses at their place of business, talk about them, make them feel valued, understand what they need, identify any pain points they have with the city, things like that. That has been on pause, pretty severely given our staffing, resource challenges and funding and time, availability. But now with the reduced funding, you know, budget, we're and, you know, this team, I think it's this is now a great time to kind of reset what business engagement programs look like for the city.

And so I tasked Danielle to work with the team to brainstorm a new program. It's kind rebranding it. It has a lot of the old elements, but that we're gonna evolve it like everything we do to make these programs, more meaningful. So with that, I'll turn it over to Daniel to talk about pay repulse.

Sure. And I know we are a little short on time. So with that background information, I think I can actually kinda speed through a few these slides so we can get right to the meat meat of

it. Mhmm.

I was gonna give a background on the customer's program, but you guys are a little bit familiar with it. It is our marquee program that is our main tool for attracting businesses right now because we offer, you know, the best expense possible for any business that's trying to locate here in Hayward. And it's primarily very labor intensive on our end, but it is our marquee program. And, chief Moe and already talked a little bit about our engagement, purposes right now. So a little bit more expanding on why we're doing Hayward Pulse right now.

Primarily, we're doing business engagement before. It was mostly, like, ad hoc and relationship based. So we're really trying to find a way to make it more consistent, formalize a few things, and add a few elements that I think will be beneficial not only to the business community, but also allow senior leadership, like you all as well as some of our team members, an opportunity to really directly engage with, some of these businesses that we are, kind of highlighting as, high impact target businesses. So this is basically how it works. We, as staff, will identify the target list using data referrals.

This is first to build, this list of businesses that we think are we require a little bit more direct engagement. We will do outreach. Our goal is to conduct at least two to five business meetings a week. And then after we conduct our engagement, which we will also develop a little bit more of a structured, survey process so we can start collecting data and report that back to our council members as well as other, senior leadership. And then when necessary, we will elevate it to what we're calling executive engagement, which includes ET members as well as council members.

And then that's kind of new element we're incorporating into this piece, and we're looking for some feedback from you all on as far as the cadence of how often we're doing that and, what you guys want that to look like exactly. So I'm kinda speeding through this a little bit. But, so the target businesses we have, we put them in two buckets, strategic employers, which we're, identifying as catalyst projects, major revenue generators, large employers, industrial and advanced manufacturing, which you all are very familiar with a lot these already. And then our community anchors, which are include our legacy high impact small businesses, a corridor defining retail and restaurants, and businesses with strong community presence. And these are the questions we're really looking for as from you all, which does biweekly bimonthly meetings every two months seem appropriate and feasible?

Are there specific industry risk corridors or business types that you would like us to prioritize? And are there any other priorities you want us to incorporate while we implement this? Yes. Yes. No. Yeah. Yeah. Go ahead.

On the schedule. Also, like your logo, by the way. Not not a good logo. Can we prioritize Southland Mall and the brokers or the property owners of Sears just to let them know that we are keeping an eye on it, and we would like to see more activity there, get an update of interested parties, but also hear what are some of the challenges of development there. I think we also know the impacts of the airport, but what are some other things they could be doing for the mall that we could support them?

And then whatever our top revenue generators in the the city, I would like to see how they could feel more supported by us, especially after November. I would be interested to see how how we can support them more. And then any corridors that seem to be if you're seeing parts of a corridor that's struggling, I'm just seeing how they can feel supported as well. And then any that are impacted by bike lanes, I think that is gonna be something that comes up based off of our infrastructure committee that some of the corridors will be impacted, and we just wanna be proactive in how we approach them when they when they when we try to make safety improvements, show how we wanna see how this can also benefit them as well by having more traffic coming through, but but we should also look at their landscaping as well. I know it's a little bit more detailed than what you're asking, but I'm just a little little nervous about some of the infrastructure put in certain locations.

So and then I like that you're adding the executive committee because sometimes things get escalated to me, like, very early on, and I think they just look at whoever's on the committee and call all of us. I don't know if you guys are getting those phone calls, but it'd be great if to have this message out that there is a formal process, and you can talk to city leadership once you're in these committee meetings. Well, it should be agenda items that just keep emailing us over and over again until you get a response. So I I I like how you're corralling that into one phase. Yeah.

So priority is definitely making sure our revenue biggest revenue generators are happy and, yeah, see how we can increase.

Who's the who's the leadership team for these site visits again? I forgot who you who you just said.

So it's a dual mayor council as well as the EP members.

Got it. So so is it in addition to the quarterly CETC meetings we're gonna have? We're also gonna schedule bimonthly site visits?

Potentially. So Daniel in his flow chart showed, we we are the four team. We will do all the recon, the reconnaissance, initial engagement. Most businesses will connect with us. We will look we will use the the rubric Daniel identified, like, different targeted industries. And then when we will go out there and talk to businesses, understand, learn about them, and if they have issues or they have expressed wanting to engage with, you know, city management or electeds, then we will escalate that and then program that into these bimonthly site visits.

Okay.

Because not every business will visit will you don't want, you know, an entire contingent of city staff and and Yeah. And electives to go. They can be elected.

I mean, it's so many if you have the time. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. We used to do this council member, but, yeah, we used to do this. Yeah. Yeah. Eight years ago when I was a specialist. We used to do regular visits, and then that kind of fell off. And then we start this team brought back the corridor reality tours. Right? We all load up. And so given that feedback, but this one would be more conscientious or or more strategic in a sense. You know, identifying revenue revenue per people with pain points that we really wanna show that they're supported and and and give you an opportunity to engage with them to understand what they're going through first.

More businesses that we think might we might have intelligence that they might be looking to expand or something like that. So we wanna get to them and try to really be proactive about trying to retain them.

Yep. That that makes sense. I, you know, I would obviously just be considerate. I know you guys will be on how much executive engagement you guys are into this. Because, you know, like, I mean, I can I I can see every business wanting to benefit from having the council and the executive team of the staff here, what their problems are, come up with recommendations to help their business drive more revenue, increase this, solve problems, or do whatever? Right? And I can just see that taking a lot of time. So I just anyways. And then all the follow-up that's gonna come from these rates. So, I mean, if if if if bimonthly is what feels comfortable to you guys, then that's fine.

If quarterly feels more comfortable, then I'm fine with that as well just to kind of, you know, see how this works in the beginning. And then I would wanna prioritize, you know, kind of the on on both ends. One being businesses that we know have the biggest pain points that need this kind of support and attention so they can continue to thrive. And then perhaps the other the other one is, you know, the businesses that do have some sort of economic, you know, generating future opportunity. Right?

And then maybe for the ones that are stable, we, you know, just see if they're interested in something. But, you know, I I would really wanna prioritize this to make sure that if we're leaning in this strongly, that we're helping uplift some of those businesses that are really critical to, you know, the fabric of our community that might be struggling.

Can also be kinda tied to the FFI discussion, the questions coming from the the committee about a joy fund or something. Developing a joy fund Yes. And those type of funds is is predicated on having good relationships with the business. Right? And so getting the electives to our larger business, some of diseases, the businesses that kind of for it. Developing that relationship over the long term will make it much easier to ask they ask when it comes. Yeah.

So And trying to get to them when they're is it a problem? You know, so you're, like, asking them, how can we support you when they're not complaining about the name? If you're you know, and so it shows that we care about them even when they're not you know?

I mean, it would it would be good to get to some of our data center operator discussions. Right? Because, like, even as we think about what we're talk what we're gonna require from the in community benefits and now that all of that is gonna come up to the council as a major con you know, condition of approval, we can start to push some of this Mhmm. Step two to your point and council member Andrew's point around this fund because I think that that's really an idea as well.

Might be a good source for it.

Yeah.

Mhmm.

The the only the only comment I wanna I just wanna raise is that, you know, as we you know, I'm looking at this this year and next year as sort of a a year where we sort of, for pause and take stock in in in what we're doing, collect data. Right? This is the I mean, that's the low hanging fruit. Right? We have the capacity to do it.

We have you know, we got the the the infrastructure to do it. And, you know, let's let's go out and collect all the data we can, you know, qualitative, quantitative. Let's let's let, you know, let's see you know, where are we at today? I don't know in recent memory, I don't know if we've had this if we've done this lately, right, where we can actually sit down and, you know, the most current and up to date data, both quantitative and qualitative. And this kinda even goes back to, like you said, to the earlier issue around the activation stuff.

Just take this opportunity to collect as much data as And, you know, I always like to think of ourselves as sort of, you know, besides Cal State and Chabot, but we should be the premier data collectors of some of the of of this kind of stuff. We should be the holders of this data. And so, anyways, whatever you can do to collect that kind of data and so that so that in two years, when we're out of this, I think we should be ready, poised, ready to go. And and, you know, then we have a the the the third program will be ready to go. That was a joke. I mean,

it probably will be probably.

I'm sorry. No. But I get but that's ready to go. I mean, let's do this. You know? And we'll know we'll know what the issues are. We'll know, you know, we'll know what the appetite is to to invest in a joy fund. We'll know who who are the who are the people, how much they're willing to give, and, you know, and any other of the other stuff here. So one, yes. Two, you know, what areas should we focus on?

We'd like to focus on, you know, job job creators, but I'm sort of I think both areas are nice, you know, or good. You know? So I'm kinda agnostic about that. You know? But but in terms of priorities, additional priorities, you know, my only thing would be just let's collect some really good data. Let's listen let's inform ourselves, and let's get smart, you know, to proceed. Cool. Is that it?

Super loud. Thank you, Darren.

Great. Committee member and staff announcements. Yeah.

Bart activation. What can we do for BART activations? And I don't know if this is economic family committee or potentially public safety, but just making sure our parking lots are safe, and and I'm seeing what they're doing In other stations, they're having anime conventions, they're having prom, and we are not having those fun things. So the fact that we have two BART stations, I would like to know who could represent us in getting that kind of activation here. Is that something that should be here, or do you think it should be somewhere else sitting at your I

think why don't you let Paul and I chat? Okay. I mean, I think I think it's a great idea. The problem of of Rock Ridge is Yeah. You know, I think something like that here would probably be super something made of different type of Yeah. Event.

But Yeah. A natural prom. Yeah.

That prom on Bart and then was that Rock Ridge. Yeah.

Okay. So I think those are great ideas. And I think I think would come out big for something like that if we could Okay. Find the right thing. So Cool. I'll I'll chat with Paula to figure out how we get in touch with Bart.

Okay. And I know we recently did a tour of Southland, so I don't think we I'm not interested in another tour of Southland right now, but it'll be great to see if they could dial in just to introduce themselves to the economic development committee because they're new. That'll be great. And then here about their plans in the future. And then I would like to see if we could talk to Cal State East Bay and Chabot about being a town in Gao City and what are we doing?

Like, are we having a gladiator day or pioneer day? Something that's happening downtown. I know we can't do the student discount cards, and that's a lot of work to do that for all the different restaurants and all that. But I'm just trying to see how can we tie the students to be here for an education city because it seems like both locations are very insular. And I'm and when I look at other colleges, they they have during day in Downtown West or something like that. It'd be great if we could figure that out. And maybe it's a partnership with Heart where they can throw out games for back to school night for all the students that are coming back to campus. So, yeah, I would like to see that. That's all. Thank you.

Yep. Okay. I'll run through the

staff announcements if you Yep. Some grace. So just to report back, last CDC, we mentioned we the city partnered with the Albany County Workforce Development Board to hold and host a apprenticeship pathway event here in CA. Happy to work here some pictures of the event. Happy to report about over 50 people attended.

Some really good feedback to talk about, workforce development potential, but the city of California and the governor's office is really leaning in hard into apprenticeships. And so this is kind of the first foray to introduce our our business committee to the the concept of apprenticeships of what value can they have in these programs would be, to the businesses. So really good great turnout. Next slide, please. Also super excited to announce the grand opening of Contam Bros out to Hayward family owned restaurant, opening out of Eden Shores in the former Blue Ginger space.

It's slated to happen on June 6 at noon. They're gonna have a huge huge festive event. There will be lion dancers. One of first lion dancer ribbon cutting that that I've been here for ten years. I've never seen never seen lion dancers associated with any business in this town in ten years. Like, I know the library does it. You've never seen it downtown. I'm sure you've all been to Oakland Chinatown Yeah. Or San Francisco during during lunar year, and this it just it's very organic. We've never seen it here, so it's really cool that this is gonna do. They actually are the Hayward natives. They live Tennyson. They are they are graduates of Tennyson High. They live in the shore. They lived all over Hayward.

And so this is their second restaurant. They own a restaurant out in Newark, and so this is their their second venture here in Hayward. Still looking for our council member to come out, to do some of the speaking points. If you can

Am I not am I not gonna be here?

The request is out there. We haven't heard from anybody.

You're not

in the middle.

I'm not gonna go there.

You could put me down.

We will follow-up with the info for that. Thank you. So that's pretty exciting. May, June 6 at noon. Yep. Filling that vacancies. That's pretty cool. Then this is the star of World Cup. You've heard me talk about this before, and then council member Angie, you did the the opening remarks last year. So the Star of World Cup was coming back September 10. You'll see a lot more press out from small business development center in Calcidispe as well as Citi as a sponsor of this event. As you know, last year, we sponsored it. And the winner of the East Bay Regional, which is the regional, went on to the finals in San Francisco to win a million dollars. So it's a So they did win. They did win. Four Shell won a million dollars. She was really good. Yeah. Four Shell's out of San Leandro, but still represents the East Bay. A lot of people who work there and things like that.

So we're promoting this event, and then you'll see some more information coming out from our team to kind of encourage English startups to apply. You'll get $10,000 if you win, and then certainly a massive amount of experience and exposure to some venture capital folks.

Yeah. I learned the last one, I learned a lot. I think the biggest moment of the day I mean, it was a lot of great innovative stuff. But the guy who you know, the those reusable aluminum aluminum canned water? Mhmm. They have a big tall right there.

That is it that way?

I guess. I I

don't know. Pathway?

I forget

the name. Pathway?

But that that the inventor, the guy who came up with the idea is a Cal State. He's saying right to it. Yeah. And he started it in in the San Francisco Airport.

Mhmm.

And the way he did it was he would him and his buddies, him and his classmates would would because you know, because I asked him, how'd you get in the airport to, you know, to pitch it? So they would book flights. Would book a flight, get into the airport, and then cancel the flight, you know, then they would cancel, you

know I hope they want you to see that.

Yeah. They knew what he did. And we did you

now we've got a, you know, a major company that sells water. But that's It is

so cool.

That's right. That's That's right. Right. That's That's of a humanoid Android robot designed for consumer use. It's hitting CNN. It's all over the news right now.

They're in Hayward.

And they're in Hayward. They've they've already hired over 200 people. They expect to build 10,000 robots to start, and then over at full scale, a 100,000 robots a year.

And they're, like, $20,000. Yeah.

They're they're consumer grade robots. Their first priority will be to provide home assistance. So so, like, people robots that, like, do your laundry, wash your dishes, and things like that.

Oh, yeah? Yeah. For $20? And you'll

see the San business Not

a bad investment. Is how

our San Francisco business has published an article about it.

And you can pay monthly. Heard Oh,

really? You put it you pay it out monthly?

That's fine.

Thank you. Thank you. Alright. Me neither.