City Council - workshop

Here. Here. Here. Here. Here.

Here.

Is that it? Yes, sir. All right, if you'll stand for the Pledge of Allegiance.

Pledge of Allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

You want to do the invocation?

Yes, thank you. Heavenly Father, thank you for this wonderful group of people tonight who really care about our city. Thank you for the opportunity to come together on a very hot but sunny day where we can make smart decisions and have a wonderful dialogue and brainstorm together for the citizens and the city and please protect our first responders every single day. And please protect our children and our families and let us do good work for the city. In your name we ask, amen.

yeah um what was your name again nicole core she's here representing um our she's our attorney from the she's partnered with the uh what was sarah yeah so she'll be here tonight and representing the city um before we get started just talking to the mics and um plan on getting this meeting done briskly within an hour I mean there's no reason we can't stay on topic just don't venture off topic and get to your points and we'll work through it so first item is discussing mdd's legal resident representation i would just have a question of um my question would be what what is your opposition of using the city attorney you want to speak the problem would be that one is expense it's an unnecessary expense for the mdd how she represents

She represents the city, and she's free to be at the NDD meetings because they have the city planner here, you have the city administrator here, and I understand you may be hiring an economic development manager, and he would be representing the city. And so she's free to be here at our meetings, but we don't have an ILA with her, and we don't intend to at this point in time. Now it's true as an MDD we cannot have general counsel, and we never intended to have general counsel representing the MDD. However, we are allowed to have an attorney for any project the MDD may be working on. It would be on an hourly basis. They would not be attending any meetings. They would not be attending any executive sessions. It would be purely phone calls and emails looking at contractual matters, things of that sort, if we come up with an issue we wish to bring them in on. Some other issues. There we go. Some other issues would be project approval of citywide policy priorities. We also have a budget allocation disputes, and we might have to have them involved in. Contract negotiation differences, substantial interest conflicts involve board members. Council members' dual role tensions would be a problem. Competential information concerns, developer or vendor relationships may be involved. litigation or enforcement between the entities, open meetings of public records, exposure, and appearance of impropriety in public trust. We think it would just be cleaner that she represent the city. And again, welcome to our meetings. Like I said, there would be several city employees who'd be involved with us that she could represent the city's interest. We have no objection to that. We just don't think she'd be in our dime. That's what it comes down to.

So anything that y'all would do, though, so your attorney would have to talk to the city's attorney, so therefore adds extra cost to attorneys.

I don't see that issue unless these conflicts I just read out to you. We can only involve them unless it's involved in a project. Can I just speak real quickly?

So that's actually not true.

So the MDD can hire their own general counsel under 377.071. They can actually hire personnel.

which includes city attorneys. So we represent several cities in the area, including MDDs. I'm actually a city attorney for Palmer as well as the MDD's attorney. For example, so they had Messer Fort. One of the attorneys at Messer Fort was their MDD counsel. They're also the city attorney. It's very common that the city attorney is also the MDD's attorney. So it doesn't have to be related to a specific project. That's not actually how the statute reads.

There is how to set degrees. We don't need the city of California.

I also have an opinion from the Comptroller's office.

Yeah, Jake Stagner, you know, I've talked to each other about three or four times, and he says, right, we can't hire general counsel. We're not intending to hire general counsel.

That's not what he told me here.

I just get the impression that... there's there's y'all are not working with staff at all you're not everything everything that's recommended is you don't want to do it I get the impression right now you're supposed to be you're supposed they're three hours long I mean they're too long for one city councilman last was four hours long yeah we got tons of items y'all are y'all I think you are way ahead of where you should be

How is that?

Because you want to allocate funds, you should be reserving those funds for growth that will come for the future developers.

Well, we haven't spent a dime at this point in time.

Well, obviously because you don't have a budget yet, but the budgets that you've been proposing. and then all the recommendations from staff who just you i mean there's recommendations specifically i mean we got a long list of them i mean every meeting for one there's a reason that we have another representative here from their attorney's office because you insulted our attorney how do i insult her in a meeting how do i do that Your demeanor and the way you talk to her and tell her that she doesn't know what she's doing, basically?

I didn't tell her that at all.

You just told her that.

I told her that she was wrong in her interpretation as to what we need for a project. I'm not saying... That's exactly what you're doing. I cannot say that we don't have to have general counsel. I agree we can't.

It doesn't appear that the MDD is working with the city.

How's that?

what in your body language right now body language yes sir i'm sitting here comfortably just reading to you well i'm i'm going to be honest i'm not going to drag this meeting out forever and let's not accomplish nothing so i don't intend to drag it i'm just responding and all your responses are opposed to what This is supposed to be a working together group, not you on your own representing the city on your own. That's not how the MDD works.

We're not representing the city.

That's what you want to do, setting up all your own, your own attorney.

How do we want to represent ourselves on our own?

Everything that you're wanting to do shows that. Everything you've presented in your budget, wanting everything to be separate from the city, I mean, I have a list, but I'm not going to go through it. And just because I'm not at the meetings don't mean I haven't watched the meetings. They are on the Internet. I have watched them.

Oh, yeah, we appreciate that very much.

We have a response to it, too. Thank you.

Just so it's on the record, it was a memo I sent to MDD. I was not able to be at the last meeting, but I did send a memo with some of my concerns on it.

So outside of all this, my understanding, truthfully, from the attorney was that she told us, and it is recorded, that she would not represent us in the city.

that it was a conflict of interest so that's where i'm confused as an individual because you're completely saying something different we need an agreement to do that correct what she's saying is you need to have a separate engagement letter not that she can't represent both okay because you're a separate entity she would recommend a separate engagement letter that's what she was saying that's not how she worded it so that's how i interpreted it okay and that that's the explanation okay um so it's not necessarily a conflict now So, for example, EDCs. Sometimes, you know, we'll represent both, and sometimes an EDC will want a separate attorney because sometimes an EDC is an independent corporation, may have a conflict with the city. That happened recently in Princeton. So Princeton has gone out for their own attorney, separate and apart from the city attorney. But with an MDD, because you're a political subdivision of the city, it's much more common that the city attorney serves as both.

And I'm okay with having dual like that, right? Like it makes it easier. But it would be nice to have like a fee of service and understand like what we're paying for. And that would be in the engagement letter.

It would all be split out. Again, we can work with that. So one of the things that I do is I offer flat fees for meetings. It's just easier. It's, you know, because you never know how long you're going to stay here. I do that for both city councils and for MDDs as well and EDCs. The other thing we can always offer because you've hired, the city actually has hired a firm instead of a solo practitioner, we have a bench of talent. And so we do have a partner who actually specializes in economic development, MDDs, EDCs. and so if you know you guys chose to engage with our firm that would be my recommendation is to maybe have drew serve as the mdd attorney that gives you a little bit of separation gives you some comfort there but because he's within our firm that also gives you some continuity okay um and then lastly i think when it comes to us expending and paying for these services

i believe that where my concern rises if we don't we don't need an attorney there but the city wants an attorney there then at that point would it be us covering that cost or you guys covering that cost like which funds would that come out of that's more like a city council because if we don't need an attorney at the meeting but you guys feel comfortable having one i mean if you're going to have a meeting that's got very little or anything that needs attorney representation then there's no purpose in having an attorney there Because that's what was happening is we didn't have a say whether the attorney was there or not. She was just there because they felt better or my interpretation was it was better.

Well, we're trying to get it going. So we're still in the beginning processes of setting, you know, policies and all those things up. So you need legal representation because, you know, there's cases out there where mdds have gotten cities in trouble by not following protocols so i think in the beginning it it needs to make sure that it's it's going in the right direction the right process but if you get a year in or eight months in and you have very little to nothing on the agenda then yeah it doesn't make any sense to pay the attorney yeah no that was those were my concerns it wasn't so much do we need attorney do we not we use the same one

Like I'm completely open to all those things. It was just that we're going to have an attorney here. And then there were examples of this is how much you're going to pay for this attorney. And it's like at whose will? At our will because we asked for them to be there or because you guys wanted them there and then we're expected to pay for that said attorney to be there.

Yeah.

If that makes sense.

No, it makes sense. And that's the whole purpose is we want to spend the money wisely. That's what we're after as a council as well. Yeah.

Yeah, so for Palmer's MDD, it's $500 a meeting.

That's for the attorney only and not paralegal unless there are things related to a project.

correct so that would be meeting attendance only and the only person who would attend a meeting would be an attorney everything else the work that we would do for you all like reviewing agendas drafting your agreements you know consulting or advising on certain agreements or aspects of agreements or different projects that would be an hourly basis thank you

I think you need a mic. Somebody loan her a mic.

Because this is a work session and no formal vote decisions are going to be made, it seems like there is a recommendation to use the same firm. There is a possibility to use a different attorney in the firm. Without a vote, how does the table feel about that?

You have a lot of conflicts of interest within your power when you're trying to be president. Oh, sorry. Go ahead. You'll have to run a conflict of interest. Again, though, we don't really need the services. You're welcome to be there because the city is here. You've got the city planner, the city administrator, and you may have an EDM here eventually.

I'm going to speak just for a minute, and I apologize for interrupting you if I am. I'm fine if at some point we're cruising along and things are going well without having a city attorney at the meeting, but every single meeting we've had a disagreement on what's legal and what's not legal. So once we get determined that what is legal and we're all on the same track and Miguel is comfortable and I'm comfortable, right now I'm not comfortable without an attorney at your meetings.

we're not saying they shouldn't be there i've said repeatedly they can be here absolutely but it's on the city's dime you're talking about saving money why should we pay for it if the city wants her here that's fine i don't think that's the way that works yeah that's not how it works you're going to need legal representation yeah we don't need it at the meeting so it regardless it's all taxpayer money so your attorney goes back and then has to talk to our attorney so that's acquiring fees in both ways instead of time we're considering using an attorney separate from the city would be on a project that's the only time we can use an attorney we can't hire a general attorney i beg to differ with you We are working with the city. We don't have to use every single employee.

It sure doesn't feel that way since the last meeting. It really feels like I'm hearing a lot of things of conflicting interests. It seems like it's coming from a position or your position of being not willing to really work. And you say that, but you're, let me finish, but your body language, your decorum completely says and suggests otherwise.

No, I don't. It's pretty subjective. I'm asking for a check.

It's not subjective. I mean, everybody has pretty much said the same thing, or has echoed the same thing.

And every single time one of our attorneys says something, you say, that's not true. That's not true. That's not that way.

We can hire an outside attorney for projects. And that's all I've talked about.

But is hiring an outside attorney, is that what's beneficial for the ADD in the city? The MDD is supposed to be working with the city so that we can grow all of our commercial stuff.

I'm only talking about an attorney when the projects are working on. I'm saying we have to hire an attorney to work with the city.

But they already stated that until you get all the policies put in, you need legal representation to get those policies in effect to make sure that they're actually legal. You can't just make up rules and maybe they're legal, maybe they're not.

What specifically are you speaking about? I'm not sure of anything we put forward requires legal representation at this time.

You're the only one that spoke. She asked a question. The other members here. Do you all want to speak?

And I think that we need, like you've said, we need to work with you, not against you. I understand obviously with your background that you have expertise in certain things, but I think that the compromise is we have legal representation for the next year, and then we're gonna be able to see after the last year meeting month to month and then meeting quarterly, where we can pull back. But I think the compromise needs to be for the next budget year, we just have it. And if it's used, it's used. If it's not, it's not. But then at least we have some bandwidth in that way.

would say that in my in my opinion that's a reasonable compromise we're not voting tonight I like the flat fee idea very much and there are going to be times where we're going to need less there are still going to be times that we need more and that could be coming up soon based on item 2.3 so I'm sorry everybody's gotten off the wrong foot today. I would love to have us collaborate, de-escalate, and share some really cool stuff that's coming up. And I look forward to that at this meeting and moving forward. And I think that was a pretty strong first question for our meeting. Can we move on if that's a compromise? Yeah.

Yeah, I'm ready to go on to the next item.

OK. All right, cool.

which is the possibility of an interlocal agreement between the City of Josephine and the MDD for sharing administrative services, staff support, and the cost. Are you all opposed to that, or what am I assuming?

And so I guess I will ask the attorney, would it be an interlocal agreement and a letter of agreement, two separate things, or would it only be one?

When you say letter of agreement, are you talking about with the attorneys? Yeah, I thought that was your wording. So it's two separate things. So the ILA is with the city to share resources. The engagement letter would be separate and apart with our firm. Thank you for the clarification.

I have no objection with the ILA, so long as we have a breakdown of the hours, how it's been defined as to the amount per.

When you said about 30%.

Right.

So when you say ILA, are you talking about the ILA with the city, or are you talking about the engagement letter with this attorney?

I'm talking about the ILA with the city for the city employees. I have no objection to that. I just want broken out the records, how it was figured out. And I need to know how they're going to keep the records.

I'm sure you can answer that.

so um i may need melissa for this one but i think it would just be a percentage and i think we would err on the side of it being a fairly small percentage but i don't think we had planned to break it down miguel was there three hours we're going to charge three hours i think it was more you know we estimate it's going to be five percent of his time or something to that effect

For the budget purpose, I did put a small amount of funds in there, and that was for the budget purpose. That is not for the purpose of the ILA. The ILA would break it apart on exactly what you expect. But for purposes of the budget, alls I put in there, 5% finance, 20% economic development manager. That doesn't include Lisa's time. That doesn't include Patty's, Jerica's, or Miguel's time. So this is a deal.

she's not in yeah okay thank you for joining and i have no objection for the city attorney

My if it ever becomes a point where we're paying a percentage I would prefer and this is just a recommendation of what I feel like it should happen again up for discussion Is that it is almost no different than like a vendor? relationship where we are paying a flat fee for something rather than a percentage because we have no control on what you guys do like hiring firing and raises, things like that. So for us to budget properly to have some kind of contract, and it can be subject to change. Like this time next year, if Miguel makes more money,

then obviously that rate would change right you know so like we want to be fair but from a budget well that's where we have the good the relationship between the council and the board and everybody's on the same page and yeah and we do something similar with the the funds that come in from say the water in the sewer we transfer over a percentage of that to cover public works employees salary so it kind of would work the same way but on a much smaller scale

yeah it's no different i mean like you got so much allocated and so you have to do maintenance and you have streets employees doing something in water then they reallocate funds out of their budget a percentage to cover this and an ILA would be very descriptive and you can put in there i agree to an administrative cost not to exceed x amount of dollars but this would retain a cap correct correct

But for budget purposes, especially with this being the first year budget, you have to put something.

Yeah, I'm not trying to make anybody's job harder.

And just because it's in the budget, if y'all's meetings don't go as long, that doesn't mean all the funds have to be drained.

Right.

You know, if you're having meetings and they end up being shorter or whatever, your costs are going to be less. So it's not like that's going to roll over into the city's general fund.

Would this be the appropriate time to ask questions for the new potential staff member you guys want to hire on? Would it be a part of this agenda item? I don't want to get off track.

Yeah, we can do it there. Are we, are we, is there any more on that? Are we good on that item? so next item 2.3 is discussed establishing MDD work plan priorities and receive feedback from the MDD members Lisa I'm gonna let you kind of go on this one a little bit if you want

okay um so the very very first meeting i had the city attorney present and i had justin our economic development consultant and of course staff one of the things that was recommended by justin was that we kind of keep things we do activities that are don't cost anything or cost very little just for the first couple of years so we can just get that reserve built up so we thought you would work on things and i think justin mentioned them in his presentation But things like the logo and the slogan, what do you want Josephine to be known for, kind of an identity, marketing kinds of things. And those conversations don't cost anything. Now, if Miguel works for the university, there may be a small cost if we end up doing some work on the logo or something like that that you'd be We'd bring you that information before you would agree to it. Gateway features, welcome features to the city, and otherwise kind of just getting prepared for that commercial. Miguel is, when we hired him, he was already behind schedule. So we haven't had a chance to really work on our commercial regulations very much, and we really need to get those in place before we go out and start knocking on doors very hard. And if somebody comes to us, we're certainly going to talk to them But as far as having you go out and heavily recruit before we're ready to recruit may cause us more harm than good at the moment. So we thought you would work on smaller things that really don't cost anything while we were building up a fund. So you've got about $250,000 in that fund. A couple more years, you'll really have something more substantial to work with as far as incentives. You can work on your policies. What kind of incentives are you willing to offer when you do have the money? What would those look like? Would it be a cash incentive? Would it be a sales tax rebate over a period of time? Thank you. Sorry. So that's where that was. And most of those ideas kind of came from Justin's presentation, that very, very first meeting. And I think that very first meeting is where we just went off the rails there. OK.

So this is 2.3. So thank you, Lisa, for sharing the framework.

And if you have more ideas on the work plan, that's great. I'm an energizer bunny.

Okay, so Lisa, I appreciate the time you took to put together the sheet dated July 20th that included work plan, vision, existing plans, benchmarking, community identity, implementation, coordination, reasonable resources, et cetera. And therefore, you're going to have to forgive me because my printer ran out of ink. But I have multiple copies to touch on tonight and then to digest over time. So I have a basic PowerPoint that is totally aligned page by page with the budget one that the city put together. And then I took the opportunity to answer your proposals and requests. And I also got from the Dallas EDC Josephine specific statistics because for some reason we haven't really had them yet. And the Dallas EDC analyst is extremely helpful. So I'm going to ask a little bit of sharing and a little bit of individual handouts here. So just give me one second.

So I have eight copies. If we could share every other person for the big one.

So the little one, I have enough for everybody.

OK, I have three more.

I have two more because of who's the most favorite person to read. So every single item has been addressed because we can. So I took the slides from the budget meeting

And on the bottom is the MDD mission attached to the Josephine City mission. On the top of fiscal stability infrastructure, on the bottom is MDD, fiscal stability and infrastructure. On the page about budget overview, taking the wonderful information that finance has provided, I took a stab. Again, this is a draft. Of course, this is a work session to try to show the alignment in red, white, and blue, and green. The budget summary on the left with the city and what was supplied nicely by finance on the right-hand side. and more detail on the following page. And then I added more details because at a previous meeting there was a request for more details, brochure design, printing, business cards, social media, newspapers, events, et cetera, to add up to the figure that finance provided. I've also got a timeline, a proposed, this is a draft, this is a work session, a proposed timeline of months of things that we Hope, if everybody agrees, we can get done. And summary page to say that yes, we are and do want to be aligned. This one, And again, I'm glad our attorney is here. It's got a table of contents in the front. Summarizes chapter 377. One of the comments was overarching. Well, that was just a lead in, like a forward. So talking about business, climate, workforce, innovation, and infrastructure, that we really get that and that we need to focus on a lot. The Josephine MDD mission, vision, and priorities, we've talked about those in two meetings, so they're there. And then goals that were requested in your communication. Goals are there. Again, this is a draft for discussion and also for legal review. of course, and then asking us for benchmarks, asking for incentive programs, asking, so we have federal, state level, and local ideas, because this is a work session, for policies and for programs. Then, so we have two projects, local government code 505152, and 158, and so there are policy statements, objectives, measurables, the SMART principle, where it's timely and measurable over time. There's also, and my understanding, and I'd love your feedback on this, that 377 requires a resolution for projects, and I read that closely in 377, and so we created a draft, for each one of those categories and then a policy to go with it if it's deemed appropriate by this group. And so there is a resolution for each one in here based on what was in this communication from Lisa as things that need to be done. Also, as far as measurables and projects and goals, There are multiple ideas, for example, a business development grant, you can name it, we can all decide to name it Kumbaya, if we want to, to have overview, objective, scope, what would be covered, and so you can take a look at like, painting, windows, fire suppression, sprinklers, of course fire suppression takes an extra set of criteria, ADA compliance for ramps and things like that, and what's not covered to make sure we stay out of trouble, guidelines, funding, and even an application for your review and consideration. Then the next one, for economic development criteria based on this communication is the affectionately named a performance agreement because those are more flexible and individualized and highly individualized and certainly can add business and personal value. Also looking at evaluation factors, and these have been benchmarked with other MDDs and other EDCs. and then we even added in a new construction because some people are going to start with the ground up for timing inspections so for example for the business development grant one idea and again this is a work session nothing official there would be a payment after the business development is complete for new construction there are milestones like 25 percent 25 percent 50 percent when they get a certificate of occupancy thought that might be reasonable and also because you very very appropriately mentioned using the comp plan there are three or four pages on chapter six for the economic development how we would be aligned with that because the work's done and we paid for that and also then um The land is going to continue to be live changing over time. But just for the purpose of discussion, there's current properties for sale and where they are. We don't have a comprehensive list except off of realtor.com. Regarding business and community engagement, we mentioned a little bit about this with the TEDC follow-up. There's some ideas here. Again, this is a work session, nothing definite. Developing materials, identifying the scope, identifying the goal of the meeting, and also regarding community outreach. Here's a list of businesses that have been searched that are in Josephine or near Josephine, and it's quite a comprehensive list, and a lot of these I've talked to personally and look forward to feedback of where you want to throw the dart and start. And also from electric companies to flower companies to realty to all kinds of fun stuff. And then also, appropriately in your document, talking with select landowners and developers. So yes, we have D.R. Horton, Robbie Hale, Hillwood, KDC, Hunt Realty, Jay, Rye, Coe, and many others to be determined. And of course, we can't leave out Randy Potts. For marketing and community identity, this is the part you just mentioned about slogans. And because I'm not sure all of city council is aware, there has been, we have some artists capabilities in this group, and they're with a little help of the AI. And so the goal would be, is anybody interested in any of these? And the business card adaptation little logo is also, I made a mock up just for fun. of what that would look like on a business card. It doesn't mean we have to select them, but they're out there. So the last page, again, the Dallas EDC analyst, her name is Wanwan and she's wonderful. And she provided specific Josephine City statistics and this and many more would go on the website buried in a tab or click that you would do. we're passionate we want to align with the city i hope that this one is clear on that and how some of the wording and alignment is there and this is an effort to align with lisa's comments and i rest i'll just say that's way more than i'm going to digest in these packets tonight we need to start somewhere and we have legal here

I do like the water tower, though, and the one thing.

Yeah, we've been working on this since April. I've met with Miguel numerous times. The only thing I have not yet done is walk the properties and taking photographs of them so that if we have somebody approach us or we approach somebody that's interested, that once they put in a particular type of business,

we would have the idea of what lots would probably be more efficient form to use especially with working with miguel and working with his plans for the city so we're passionate and i just wanted to share that it's a starting point based on the comments that that lisa provided and this is an effort to align and communicate and collaborate and that is

do either one of y'all want to say anything or i'll open it up to anything

Yes, from a staff perspective, this is a very well put together work plan. I think there are additional enhancements that should be explored. Now, going back to the fiscal year timeline that was proposed in the slide show, I think, you know, speaking for staff, I think we feel comfortable with this. This is a very workable timeline. And as I had mentioned previously to both bodies, there is a project with the local area university to do a capstone marketing project. And as was discussed in the last month, there were, a desire to create a new unified economic development brand. And we may be able to get this done during the fall semester at no cost. The scope of work is actually something that aligns very well with this timeline, as well as the other scope of the project, which is to develop the basically the statistics that would be incorporated in the marketing materials to help recruit the targets and prospects. So I think this is a very positive step and I would like somewhat of a direction to let the university program know that we would be moving forward with the revised scope of work to focus more on the development of the logo and branding so that there is a unified economic development image for both the city and MDD, given that most prospects are likely to deal with both during their due diligence.

I agree with that. We need to align up to do that. We've been working on, like I said, since April to put this all together. I know you would have questions. We have been diligently working behind the scenes. It's not something we wanted to bring forward all at one time. until now, because we want to look you eye to eye and show you what we've been working on. It's our intent to work with the city, not against the city. Absolutely. It's just that you've got people on the MDD who are ready to go. And you need to know that you use us that way to sell the city. Because the more money we can bring in, the more benefits for the citizens.

Yeah, we just want to make sure we don't get ahead the carriage in front of the horse.

Right now, we haven't done anything other than present this to you. We're not talking to prospects or anything like that. So we're not ahead of the game in that respect whatsoever. But we're... There were certain things I was told back in April that they weren't going to change the website, weren't going to do this, you know, weren't going to be doing that. Well, the website's really important, quite obviously, because basically the MDD is the marketing arm for the city. We're trying to make it, you know, working with city planner, working with the EDM, with the city, you know, admin. We have to work together in terms of how we can present ourselves. And we've got to have a sharp logo. that captures the essence of the city. We want a really sharp motto, especially on the NDD side. The motto would be not for us, but for the prospective builder.

And then also, we're going to have to have, it's not going to happen overnight. You're going to have to have a reserve fund, so it's going to take a couple years to build up those funds.

True. But at the same time, we can start getting the basics down. That's what we're trying to work on behind the scenes is to do that.

Yeah, thank you, Jason. Based on our very first meeting and selecting the product categories from the local government code that are allowable, the whole MDD chose two. One, of course, meets the needs of all the citizens who have said we want a grocery store, we want retail. is something that we could spend teeny bits of money on, like enhancing a park in some way. So we clearly wanted to reserve 70% for the big bang, whatever that's going to be, whenever it comes. But for a whole year, we certainly don't want to twiddle our thumbs and be idle.

No, but we can't go out and, I mean, you can't go out and recruit Walmart and then come in and then staff's like, hey, we can't even support it infrastructurally, you know, or sewer, whatever it may be. That's where those are working together.

We did vote on one that includes recreation, entertainment, and possibly like park amenities. A little frisbee golf wouldn't cost much. But I'm not saying that. I'm not saying it. Hypothetical, hypothetical, hypothetical. But it's something little. There's some things we could do little or even work over in Riverfield if there's some missing funds.

So a little bit this year. And yes, if there's a big opportunity, yes. We're aligned on that.

I've met with Public Works and discussed infrastructure with them as well. Obviously, we can't have drainage. If they're interested in a particular lot to build something, we don't have proper drainage or we don't have proper plumbing available or electrical power. Obviously, we can't do anything with them or help them. They'll take the point of view that we're not very professional and want it on down the road. We don't want to trust them. Yes, I've already met with, like I said, many of the city officials and talk with them, what they're looking at, how they handle things. I've talked with the chief about police. I had an invitation to the fire chief to speak with him. I know that there are certain limitations that they have as a fire department, especially they couldn't have more than a three-story building because they don't have a lift that goes up any higher than that. We want to take that into consideration. So the only thing I've got to do is walk the, excuse me, walk the properties and start taking photographs to catalog so that when we do get up and running and when we do start actively recruiting, I can show them a catalog here. We've got this could fit here, that there. Of course, we have to work with zoning as well. One property might be zoned this way, and we want to bring in something that's not part of that zone. We may have to go to the zoning board, see if they might be willing to change that. There are a lot of chess pieces on the board, and we're certainly walking in here and bigfooting anything, not whatsoever.

we took a long time to work on this piece of paper in front of here yeah i can tell i agree it's a lot of information and yes it's good you say you had something to say nope no i think i'm done all right well thank you thank you i think staff likes the uh first impressions of it and it's more than i'm going to try to process tonight reads like a paperback novel So I think we can move on and we'll come back to that in the next meeting or work session or let staff review it and counsel. all right next item 2.4 this is the mbd's budget for the physical year october 1st 2026 september 30th through 2027. i think you had a couple options in here or something i believe you had already discussed some of these or have you all talked amongst yourselves on these

the first one was discussed and brought to council in july and um the second option was um directed from council that it should be one meeting per quarter and then i did throw a third option in here which is no project spending the first year it's just building up that fund balance that was a discussion okay which one was that that was number two option number five it's the last page and that was the one that was

Are we supposed to have three pages or five? Three. one two and three were presented to MDD a month ago or so and then four and five one is brought back and four and five are so is four and five um is different is based off of council and MDD's recommendation or what four was based off of council's recommendation uh to go to one meeting per quarter and putting

uh an amount back in there to subsidize city staff time and five was just me throwing an option out there of no project spending the first year and allowing that bank account balance to build up there is only 185 000 in there right now it's going to take time okay that's a different figure than we were told last month every month every month i do a reconciliation and it goes to the city council and it tells exactly what the bank balance is okay okay so the figure went up last month we haven't spent any money so where do you have a hundred thousand dollars no i've got the exact bank balance right now is a hundred yeah i'm missing something yeah you're missing yes you are i'm gonna say something yes you are give me one second

thank you thank you no you're right she's got the fun balance in the meantime i'd like to i'd like to throw out there that understand that there are different types of incentives that do not involve cash up front So that, you know, just want to put that out there that though there may be recommendations to not spend any money directly on projects or to change the percentages, you will still have the ability, both as a city and MDD, to do other types of incentive agreements that do not involve providing cash up front.

What does that look like? Is that possibly like no?

There's multiple ways to structure that. That could be either a way of an abatement or a rebate. We don't like recommending full waivers or full abatements.

I mean, others do fee waivers.

So as far as like taxes, the only thing that MDD can help with is... on the sales tax side, but they could partner with the city if they wanted a better incentive, and they could decide to rebate back a portion or something to that effect.

Yeah, absolutely. There are a lot of ways to do it. The missing horse in the room is we're talking about MDD recruiting, and obviously we won't get ahead of ourselves within structures and the monies behind. What are we going to do when A Bigfoot shows up and says, we'd like to build XYZ inside the city limits. Are we going to say, well, we're just not ready for that? Or do we want to try and put something together real quick, rather than lose them to another small town that we'd be glad to have and work with it? That's something we need to set a plan for. This place is booming, folks.