Economic Development Board - Regular Meeting

Coming. Did you ever get my email? Or Fine. Okay. Good. I was wondering. I didn't didn't see anything. Okay. Good. I'm

good. Responded to you.

You did not get my response? Didn't get an email from you. You didn't? Not get it from

Yeah. From Melanie? Yeah. So what happened to mine?

I know. I unblocked you a while ago. I appreciate that.

I responded on Saturday. Told you I was in Stillwater. Kaylee.

Okay. Something's funky. You responded on Saturday.

At 02:11PM.

Well, obviously, I haven't unblocked you.

Fair enough. It goes both ways, doesn't it? Yeah.

I can see how that works. There is nothing there. Okay. Well, we'll check into that later. Take care. Alright. First order of business is to approve the meeting minutes from Monday, September 15. Is there any questions, comments, corrections? If not, then entertain a motion to approve them as presented.

I second.

Motion. Motion to set. We'll do it either word. I don't care. You know, you can second it, and then we'll move for it, and then we'll do it. Alright. All in favor, aye. Aye. Any opposed? Nope. Alright. So we accepted the minutes. Tonight, we've got a couple of things, and I noticed that we just put everything under the the structure. But we have a request from city council for the economic development board. As you know, we ran kind of a pilot program on the open rewards. Did everybody sign up for open rewards? No? They'll sign up,

but I'm aware of the program. Okay.

It's alright. You missed out on your $4.32

I would have hit that limit whenever it was, but I didn't do it.

We had a fairly modest response to it. We discussed at length some of the reasons behind that and for that and arrived at an agreement that we probably didn't give it a long enough term for it to for word-of-mouth to spread, for people to talk about it. We also felt like we didn't do a a sufficient enough job of engaging the businesses to have them promoted because it it cost them nothing to get somebody to, you know, at least purchase or and maybe even purchase a little more. And so we decided that we're going to reopen it, but that we want economic development boards direct involvement with the businesses in our city. And our focus we're gonna open it up to all businesses is the plan.

I'm gonna ask for your feedback on that, but open it up to all businesses in Keller for the the rewards so that it it really doesn't matter where you go to shop. You can scan in your receipt. But our focus as the economic development board will be to and Melanie and Anna have done a good job of dividing up the city into some areas or districts with about the same number of local, you know, retail and dining, entertainment kind of businesses here in Keller. And they've asked for the economic development board to take on a district, we're calling it, and personally call on the businesses in that district. Make sure they're, one, aware of the program, which may or may not be the case.

Two, understand that this is being funded by, you know, our hot tax, and so it doesn't take anything off of their margin, doesn't take anything out of their pocket to motivate people to shop in Keller and keep it in Keller. And and then get provide them some materials to help promote it with, you know, shoppers in in in the area. And so that's what we've been asked to do. I was excited about having the the direct involvement of our board to to meet with businesses because I think it's also a great opportunity just to get feedback from them. And, and I'm hoping we come back, together with, some conversations with business owners or managers, here in our community about, first of all, how they feel about the open rewards program.

Do they like it? Do they think it'll help and and enhance, shopping in Keller? And and then, secondly, you know, general comments on our, business environment and and what what they would like to see happen in Keller, what they wish wouldn't happen in Keller. I'll take any kind of feedback, positive, negative, whatever. I think it's all constructive because our objective is obviously to to help promote our business here and promote promote the economic development.

So wanted to get your feedback on Open Rewards, those that used it. What what were your thoughts on it? Do you have any input, critiques, compliments on the program? Anything you liked about it, didn't like about it, etcetera. How was it measured?

As far as As the as the time frame that ran, how many people were engaged in. Okay.

Do you

have do you

have those numbers, Kelly, by any chance?

We had 461 users, and then we distributed a $17.39 dollars in rewards out of the 50 k.

So I guess my question is, from the business point of view, how do we measure their success from it? I mean, did there did we drive incremental revenue into their business each week, each month? I mean, I guess that's what I'm looking for. If we're gonna do open rewards again, how do we as you go talk to them, how do we make them want to be more part be a part of it even though it costs them nothing? How do we get their engagement more involved in it? And I guess that's what I'm asking is did did we see businesses increase their revenue because of what we did? Or was it people just going to the same place they always go and scan their receipts? Well, that's That's what

it was. I mean, it was yeah. It's going to be I mean, probably, that's still good. The first round. I mean, we're not getting numbers from businesses to know, hey. We saw you know, during this time period, we saw this this increase. So we wouldn't be able to provide that information. But I mean, I definitely can share that feedback with

But you see the receipts that you got from the different businesses?

We have a dashboard. Let Let me see.

I guess I can answer it though. Just based on the amount of rewards we gave out, we didn't have a major impact on anybody.

And that and that's why I'm asking Including the city. Well, I'm asking that because some of the things that I do with the companies that work for and the business that we open is that driving the traffic inside to is it working? Do we see a return on investment? And I guess my question my part to the question is how do we really advertise it? And are we advertising to the normal people? Or are we trying to reach a younger crowd to get them involved too? Because they have discretionary money as well.

I mean, well, the goal is for Keller and surrounding cities. Definitely, instead of going to, you know, Southlake or neighboring cities, you know, we want them to stay in Keller instead of going, you know, to the polls. Sure. Yeah. So I we do have a plan in place. We're still working on some marketing materials but we do have a plan in place as far as, you know, social media and physical items to distribute businesses as well.

What what are the dates you're looking at?

We're looking at early to mid November.

Okay. Because our loyal to local starts mid November.

We'll get it to the the

Loyal to

the The chamber's loyal to local program. So we start mid November.

What is that, Moe?

Yeah.

That one actually businesses, members and nonmembers can participate. It's $50 for members, a 100 for nonmembers. And then we did punch cards, basically. And so people could for every punch card, basically, it's $100 that they spend with local businesses. And then they turn them in and they go into a drawing. We have gift cards. We collected last year was our first year we did it. We had collected over $21,000 in cards.

Yeah. Wow. So this sounds like quite a conceptual overlap. Maybe.

Well, not really because the equate anything that we can drive business, you know, local, that's it's not conceptual because for us, they're just going into an opportunity to support local and opportunity to get a gift certificate. For that, I'm actually getting dollars back. I go eat at DeVivo's, I'm getting dollars back. So it almost kinda builds on itself in the sense that you're already starting to get people thinking local. I just don't think that your program would work very well over Christmas because everyone's gonna be shopping and then you'll be out about 50 k pretty quick. I mean, guess just to figure out. Are you just gonna do two weeks? I thought it was too short of a time

this time.

Yeah. And that was we're gonna run it longer this time. And instead of just capping it, I believe we're just gonna run it until the money we're we're still working on official end dates, but essentially until the money runs out. But I think it's a few months. I don't we haven't set an actual stock date, but we're we're gonna run it for several months instead of that kind of it was more of like a six six week time period, we're gonna run it longer, though.

It's a

pretty flexible program. I remember it being kinda low risk for us, whatever happened. Right? Yeah.

Feedback we got from the other cities that have done this is they recognize the the initial couple of weeks were slow, and then they left it open, and then they saw it kinda go get a little bit busier. So they they recommended to that, that we're gonna revisit this, that we let it be open for a longer time, let people get used to it. The hope is eventually, you'll change the habits over to your shopping in Keller where you're supposed to be. Right. You get that reward that takes a while for the takes two weeks to break a

habit. Right.

So NRH ran it for four months, and then Southlake ran it for three to four months. They also had a 100 k for for theirs as well.

What was their participate

participation? We don't have those specific numbers. But this is what we were able

to get. I guess it goes back to my original questions. How we advertise them to not go through normal channels to expand it. To draw the younger crowd, the people that have discretionary money because that's one the things we've tapped into to be able to do is to get that 18, the 16 to 25 year old because they all have their jobs, now have money they want to spend. So how do we get them to spend it at our end? He's rather than go down the down the road at some other place.

Difficulty though in that age bracket, a lot of them are not here. I have a child in that age bracket. And, I mean, most of his friends are not in town. They're all in college. So I think it's, like, summertime. That would make more sense. But I think in that age bracket, it's gonna be much harder unless it's, like, around time that they're back home.

Yeah. But it's not just the 18 plus. It's the 16 to 18 also. Mhmm. It's all it's all the juniors and seniors in the high schools that have money, that mom and dad get money or they have their part time job just to go out and do things. So I guess my question is how do we expand it to get more than four sixty one users? What's our what's our incentive to not incentive, but what's our our plan to expand what we what we did before to get more?

I think it comes down to the marketing. I mean, at the end of the day, it comes down to marketing. A lot of times where they are in that age bracket, I mean, they're gonna be on platforms not necessarily where the city of Keller is. I think if anything, Instagram is probably your closest bet. You're speaking my language with social media, so I can I can attest at least on, like, the Facebook and Instagram front? I know that city the city of Keller has a presence there. And really, like, we're not on TikTok. We're not on Snapchat and the other platform that's like TikTok.

That's what we've had the most success in.

We're not going on. But the difficulty is there's not a social media manager that, like, within the city of Keller. It's it's a hard thing to kind of just be like, oh, we should just jump on TikTok as a city. But

don't wanna what's illegal for

us to be?

It's a

state law. It's law. A

Oh, Larry. But with that with that said, can I make a suggestion? Think just being a business owner in the community, I personally didn't see a whole lot about it. Okay. And I'm very active on social media. And so I think a lot of small business owners honestly probably didn't know about Okay.

And I

think one plan of action would be I love the district aspect of it and then being able to kinda tackle to kinda get the word out. Mhmm. A quick little note that I made and maybe I don't I don't know if you guys have the capacity of having someone that understands like Canva. But you can make like a templated Canva with a link and then have this like standard, like almost like a package that gets sent out an email that gets sent out to to the business owner to say, hey, this is what we have coming. This is the time frame.

And like, click this link and use these templates and brand it, you know, with your own branding. But then you have now an army of all the businesses that are on social media now also putting it on their social medias, which have their own audiences. And so really the incentive to me as a business owner, I don't have retail, but I would think, like, even though any type of incentive to get people to walk in your doors, I think every small business owner is looking for. And so it's no harm for them. It's just a social media post for them to put it out, but it incentivizes the customer to come and keep it in Keller because they are getting rewarded and it is a benefit to the business because now they're bringing in a person into their space.

So it's like this initiative, I think, that could bring the business community together to all work together and, like, maybe throw a hashtag to it.

I

put my creative brain I'm burnt out at the end of my day, but I can, you know, help you guys with that too where it's like we all, as business owners, all have this one hashtag that's specifically for this. And so when we all tag it, we can all kind of, like, reshare or the city can reshare, which is also another incentive. So if they're using that hashtag and the city sees that on the hashtag, maybe reshare it to keep it in Keller. And go check out this place while you're while you're using your Open Riverways program and just make it like an ecosystem.

Yeah. While the city, you know, has our hands tied in certain circumstances and and then are also not able to create as much momentum on social media, the different platforms. One of the positives of us contacting the business is there's nothing that prevents them from promoting it on TikTok or them promoting it on Snapchat or Instagram or any of the the the social media that they find. I in in my conversations, because I've I was concerned about this in our early results from it that we're we're just not getting the word out. But that's true of everything.

I mean, everything that we have, you know, looked to promote in the city, I've asked the same questions. How do I ask the questions of everybody I talk to is, how do you find out about things? Because they'll say, well, I didn't know. I just had it happen this weekend. Didn't know their street was gonna be torn up. That's not a positive thing, but that information's all there. It's all out there. They're just not paying attention to where it is. And so I'm asking where where do you get your information? And for this kind of thing because I asked, how do you find out about new restaurants?

How do you find out about this stuff? The the one thing that was common in the people I talked to, and I don't know the right term for this, but they they follow certain groups or influencers, I guess. And and I shouldn't say influencer because it's it's like little different groups. And I don't know if that's just by hashtag, but they know that this group, frequents a lot of places. And so if there's something new or something that's going on, they'll find out about it because they're following them.

And in their thread, they're there. So that makes it difficult because we can't go out and engage these people that are running these groups and or that are influencers or that are, you know, starting different group chats about certain topics. But the the the businesses that we're trying to help, if they're proactive, are gonna know some places. And that's what we're wanting to do is ask them, will you put this out through all of your social media that, hey, from November till January or whatever we end up deciding, you can get 10% back on anything that you spend in our store. They don't have to promote it to everybody else.

They don't have to promote the program. They can just say it's through open rewards and, you know, more power to the business that decides to take off with it and and get people to come in their door because they promote it. And if you couple it, and I don't know if there's any synergy with the loyal to local, but that's just another point of contact of getting people into a business. And if we can do a good job of of motivating and help, coaching these businesses to all you have to do is say, hey. Are you a member of Open Rewards?

That's it. And and hopefully, word starts to travel because if if you got 10% back, then you tell somebody you know about it, that word-of-mouth is more powerful and a lot cheaper than anything else we could do. So that's why I was excited about council wanting us to divide and conquer and go talk to these businesses, and say, hey. We're doing this to promote you. You know, it it you know, the the the long term benefit is that we strengthen our local economy.

But the short term effect is you might sell more during this Christmas season, especially if you can say, hey, you know, in addition to whatever sale or whatever, specials they have going on, here's 10%.

Well, to to Ashley's point, and we do this with the chamber. When we have ribbon cuttings or whatever, if you can have stuff ready and we can give them a link saying, here's a canvas so they don't have to go create anything and they can put their logo on it and then they can start sharing it on social media and printing it and posting it. I mean, that is is but and have it standardized and branded. Mhmm. So it makes it if you can create something and I have some interns that can help you with that. If you don't have I mean, that's what we're using our interns. But that that's what we do to help our businesses when we promote. So like our loyal to local, they'll get a packet of information and they'll get stuff that they can put their logo on, their name on. And when they tag us, we can share it. So that is a great way, you know, take a little bit of time.

So when we go out, we can say, here's an email if you wanna pack it to and then they it because as a shop owner or small business, they don't have time to sit down and create something. But if you give it to them and all they have to do is put their name and logo on it, and they can start sharing it on social media, that's how you'll start driving some of those some of those people that don't aren't in Keller Neighborly or aren't following, they'll see it because that's they follow, you know, this particular business because they love that particular business and all of a sudden they see, oh, open rewards. And that leads them to every other, oh, it's all businesses in Keller.

Well, an increased consistency as as to what people are sharing. Yeah. So like if you have that template, like, I'm very visual so I can already see how a template could work where you literally have like the city of color branding on it. Like I said, you can have this one particular hashtag if people wanna hashtag it when they go post it because people love to take selfies at places like I'm one of them. I do kick in it.

So I mean, that's literally the epitome of what we do. We're considered micro influencers. We go and kick it around town. And like, even for me, I mean, I would eat this up and put this out in the community. And so if there's a branded consistent template that all the businesses can share that has that like, you know, thing off of along the bottom, like, almost like a banner that has the information or the QR code to, you know, download the app.

That to me would be so much more consistent brand wise, but also, like, people will recognize it. Once you see people have to see things seven times before they even take action on social media. And so when you have a template like that and it's being shared in a bunch of different places, then you're gonna have that consistency where people are gonna start to recognize and go, oh, okay. What is this? But they have to see it seven times before they do. And so that's that's the whole thing with social media. And I think that there's a lot of power there. Even with keeping color. I mean, we we do have a social media platform for the city. So that's a great way to even get people to either participate or sign up like, hey.

We have this thing coming. I don't know if you guys are allowed to do this, but, like, if you did a Google form where if you're a business owner in town, we'd love to have you, like, sign up to get the packet or to get the information to partake. This will be a great benefit to your business. And that way you have that email list and then you can email the packet. I just know for me personally, it's more powerful and impactful for me to go on to social media and even out to these businesses as opposed to physically walk in and just say, hey, I went to City of Keller.

Although that's great. It's just for me time consuming. So I would just I mean, I would slide in their DMs or make a post and kick in it and and reach out to businesses that way personally. And I think if we had a link or some kind of packet that even we that was digital we could share, I think that would be it would go it would go further than us individually walking into spaces because that's gonna be the next question. Like, sure. Like, what do you have? Like, give it to me and I'll reshare. You know? Okay. I'm happy to have Dawn's here and help

if you guys don't have

a damn person.

I'll just I'll just start myself in on that

one. Gonna throw

out a lot your boards today. They do have certain material that they, you know, that they're gonna customize just to color that we can share on social media. But then, we're also collaborating with communications. And so, they'll tweak that material and also just create some original too for us as well.

Yeah. Yeah. If they're able to use it as a like a literate on Canva, you can make the template. And then when it says share, it'll say copy link. And you can literally just use that link, and then people will get access to those templates. And then they can customize them in their own Canvas. Yeah. So if they are using tools like Canva already to make any of the graph, I'm sure if I mean, unless they're graphic designers, they're probably doing something a little bit more technical. But if they're able to leverage Canva in that way, easy drag and drop, and then you just copy that link and then what or at least we can be armed with, like, a little bit more something to give to people because, yeah, they you gotta kinda handhold to create for them.

Well, it's just it's a time it's a time suck form if they have to create something.

100%.

The easier you make the easier you make it for a small business owner.

We wouldn't we wouldn't be asking them to create any

Well, but I'm just saying that that's if you go in with it and, oh, sure. I'll join. All I have to do is share it on my social media and I'm a part of it. Like like, the easier you can make it for the small business owner and the less time it takes them

Yeah.

The more response you're gonna get from it. Because especially, you know, you go into to JR's barbecue, he's cooking. So he's gonna set it to the side. But if I can give it to him, and he's great about sharing things on social media and we send him stuff and he'll share it instantaneously. Mhmm. But again, they're consumed with running their business. So the easier you can make it, if you really want them to be promoting it as well, the more results you're gonna get.

Yeah. Generic one. You don't even necessarily have to just template. You have something generic and you and we're able to send it to small businesses and say, hey. Share it between these dates, and that could

also be another option. Did

did you say that there's a comms team here that can create something?

Yes. Okay. Bridge on rate.

Because she she was just volunteering her interns.

So we we have three interns right now, and I actually have another kid looking for an intern. If anybody's looking for an intern.

So I'm looking for

an intern. So yeah. I'd love to chat with you about that. Okay.

He's one of my one star leadership class graduates. So he just reached out today.

So what's our budget for

this? $0. 0.

100. 17 yeah. 17 1,700 We

got a

little bit money left. Yeah. Okay.

They'll pay.

And then I've the council direction two weeks ago was to run it until it was exhausted. Alright. The funds

were exhausted. So we'll just leave it open

until Yeah. Basically. Yeah. Yeah.

And it maxes per person. Right?

$100. And they they actually gave direction on that

to keep it at the $100 max.

And it well, I'll have more also in the in the EDFT as well towards the end. But So it will be a $100 per person.

Mathematically, what does that look like in terms of like users and how many people you need as users to hit that? You'd have to

spend a thousand dollars because it's 10%. It'll be 10%. Thousands.

Well, how many users though do we need to to hit the 50,000 that's getting a $100? A $100 based on $50,000. How many users is is that?

500 to max out. Okay. So 500. You'd have to have

500 users that all max out.

That all all is that all is

makes out a thousand to get

the users.

And that was harder than it looked. Is harder than it sounded.

Yeah.

It's over a longer period of time, I

feel like.

Over a longer period of time and available at more places. So I I But

I think we people used to posting, hey. I just posted my my receipt of Open Rewards. I can't wait to get my check. You know, more people start talking about Open Rewards, like, share, and follow the businesses. Hey, just got our first $100 recipient, whatever it may be, however they wanna advertise to get people to keep coming in. But let people know about it. I mean, the more the more people that are talking about it, the more people will sign up for it, the quicker we get to that 50,000 mark.

I feel like that would be harder to measure though as a small business owner. From the from the business owner's perspective since they're not necessarily, like, involved on that side whether or not I mean, I go to a lot of businesses. I didn't scan one single receipt. So, like, you don't know who's taking their receipts from that business shopping and then gonna go and upload and scan and and then what they get back. So I just feel like it'd be harder to measure that from a business perspective.

So I was more talking about the end user.

The the consumer. The consumer.

So okay.

So the consumer posts because everyone everyone posts wants to post on Neighborly and all the other

stuff. Mhmm.

But for for people that go to certain businesses, I would say, hey. Finally maxed out my open rewards at the local because we're there every Friday night. Yeah. Hey. Finally, my receipt just got me over the mark.

So we should start that with this people sitting at this table. Yeah. We need to be doing it and Christine.

I would think that was part of the direction from counsel is you being more involved in the marketing of of

this program and getting that word out there.

Brian. But just just based on the averages, back to your question, with four four hundred and twenty one that

signed believe it was 461. One

that signed up and we gave away less than $2,000, we can handle about 10 to 12,000 people Yeah. On this program before we run out of money. So and that's a very significant number of the people in Keller. So I'm I'm not I hope we run out very quickly, because it means people are getting excited about it. But just based on that metric of, because I think that works out to about $5 per person that they got back. I know I got back more than $5, but I didn't get anywhere close to a $100.

But do you post on social media?

He doesn't have social media. His wife does. It's true. I have social media. Uh-huh.

Had a name for city council. That doesn't count. That's Facebook.

So okay.

So alright. Anything else? I like all of the input, and I'll give it back, and we'll, I think is our plan to have this stuff ready by the our next

meeting? November. It should oh, it should be.

Okay. What's the date?

Since it's the seventeenth, November 17. November 17? No. That's the date of our next meeting. So I'm just trying to do the math on the time in between. So it should be right about the next meeting.

Do you know the time frame of when

you wanna potentially re reopen this?

It hasn't been decided the exact start date. It really kinda depends on marketing materials. But Yeah. I know when I last talked to Anna, we were early November mid early November to mid November. Okay.

So that means we'll have to be getting in touch with you and getting materials out before our next meeting.

I I mean, I have some some things today too.

You have some things for tonight?

Yeah. Mhmm. You want me to just go into that? Okay.

Absolutely. Did you want

me to okay. Circle it around because everyone it's by name. Oh, yeah. That's why I was yeah. Bad.

I even have to get in the car. We're gonna scroll around.

We try to, you know. You know, try to be

me. Thank you.

Well, I meant to be with them

at least twice a week, so we're good. Okay.

Dang it. She put me

out of body today. I well, we have

I have Muir there. We have Pepe Neck there. I'm a rotary person. Life there.

I know. Got a good amount of bars on my

I know we talked about that but now that everyone has their assignments. So, this is kinda what was written. So it was decided at the work session during the last city council meeting that we will relaunch open awards in November. Exact date to be TBD just based on marketing which I had said. This round will be open to all sales tax producing retail, dining, and entertainment businesses and Keller offering 10% cash back to participants.

And so with the mayor's direction, we are asking the economic development board to help us reach as many local businesses as possible To help us spread the word about the program and to distribute marketing materials. Each board member has been assigned an area of town with identified local shops. You definitely may switch your area with another board member. But you must let us

know. Do will

let you know when the marketing materials are ready for pick up and more exact time frame of when we would like to make these deliveries. And then thank you for helping us ensure this program is a success to support our businesses during the holiday months, as well as the early months of the year. Yeah.

Which is great when you really need to start

And we will email we will email all of this, but we did wanna provide

this today. Oh, she's closing.

Oh, Inspired Wings.

Oh. Okay. They're closing as well.

Who? Who is this?

Smiky shake.

Yep. Oh.

Yeah. They've announced it. Yeah.

Yeah. So it's

sit down.

Also, Melanie

Talk about some of them.

I know Nate's not here. Is there anybody that's in

North America?

Everyone all the board had the assignment. Yeah. So it's gonna

say if I if I need to take something off someone else, I can

oh, yeah.

No. But, like, Cocoa shrimp.

Oh, no.

As far as, like, their Like, Hilltop, like Oh, right. Okay. So okay. It doesn't have his list. Yeah. Okay. No.

Then we'll No.

We have we'll

send it

to him

right now.

We'll keep in mind they're all

Ashley's already crossed off two and one.

Wow. Ashley, you're just a bundle of joy. I don't know if I wasn't going far.

When does lobby house open?

They're in They're supposed to open '14. They're open in Fortil. November 14.

Because we're having a happy hour there on the seventeenth.

We just talked to them today. Which one is it? By the end of this month or early November is when the house is missed open.

They were trying for the seventh, but then they called today and said the fourteenth.

If we if we want to take this one, we can take that one. Okay. Okay.

Well, we're You guys can you guys can trade up on your number.

But if you I mean, as far as if you trade lists Which you're just like, locales, just let us know.

They're great. They're really nice. So you got this little area.

Do I need to know

what I'm walking into here?

Like, Better use the same

coats like that. Have you been anywhere? It's actually I don't see crazy. There's there's more businesses than OTK. Are there other businesses that you're excited

to be with?

Just Oh,

I got Oh, okay.

I went And, actually, I I've

been So we tried this, Trish, because we know only you can only do so much. So we tried to, you know, pick small, like, small local businesses that would be fall in, you know, retail restaurant entertainment as well. So I definitely can chat with Hannah if you wanna hit more. We don't know. I can

definitely Yeah. Mean, on Olive. I mean, because I'm I mean, I'm right there. So, like, sucker jerky. Coco Coco drinks. I didn't see

her on that list.

She's a thrift store. Actually It would be great.

So I'll I'll add cocoa to my You had some good appetizer. Really good. That's a good one. Yeah. Is that

a second jerky just

west of Cafe Medi?

Yes. Overhouse.

What direction

is west?

Yes. Towards north side.

To the right. On the other side of

you. Yes. There you go.

Yeah. When you're sitting at your door looking out, it's to your right. Wow. I should

know that all town. They're or west. West is a railroad track.

Or it's well, yeah.

Got it.

Sunrise in the East, that's in the West. You know how that works? No. We don't do that.

We don't have mountains here where you can say, that's north or that's West.

Yeah. Although Old Town West, I shouldn't know I shouldn't know that part.

Yeah. Yeah.

Mhmm. Got it.

The the the the one you're not in.

Mhmm. Yes. Alright.

Thanks. Anything

else? Just that's it related to the boards.

Okay. We'll come back to you in a minute for an update. The work session item for tonight is regarding the the structure of the economic development board. I think we shared early on that it's been our desire to make this a self shared and community driven board. And that's gonna be one of our topics with city council when we come up to appointments this year is to talk is this the the right time to do that, to make that shift, make it more like our parks and rec board, and and really give the commission to, you know, make things happen.

And, we'll obviously be in support. Staff will obviously be, very much in support of what's going on. I don't know that I'll ever back away from it because this is, something that I like and, enjoy being a a part of. But if we decide to structure it in a way where there is a liaison or whatever we decide that structure will be. But I wanted to get feedback from you, first of all, are you in favor of that idea?

If you are or not, why or why not? And, and what, well, we'll do I'll just open it for discussion, then I'll, I'll kinda take us to the next one if anybody has any other feedback. So what's your what's your initial thoughts on on that? Instead of having my ugly mug up here. All in favor? I'm sorry. Hey.

It's I think we should try pilot for some time and not just flip the switch and go from having somebody from the administration chair to having itself led. Try pilot and see how that works. Maybe Okay. Put some metric

of success and see So how would you see how would you see that working? How

Right.

Right now, with me from counsel, what would you see this role looking like in that? So I would see

that being somebody else on the board. You from council, you'll stay show up for meetings, but primarily

Somebody else is chairing it. Yeah.

Chairing and driving initiatives and Okay. Things like that for some period. Okay. And we'll see how that works, and then that gives us enough information to see if we're, I'm gonna say, ready to take

the training wheels off

or not.

Okay. No. I I I think that's that's good input and that's not not too different than what my thoughts have been too that that it wouldn't

So what role would the this board have in the sense of when we make recommendations with like, if if it's like Parks and Rec, when we make recommendations to the council, is it gonna be held with the same weight as like a Parks and Rec? I mean, I guess I guess that's the because we've kinda right now just been kind of a feel good group. Like, no

teeth. And that's at least from my perspective, that's part of the reason for me my personal reason to see it go this way so that it becomes more of an initiative driven board to not only make recommendations, but to take initiatives from council and take it and run with it. And so from my perspective, I want to see it it's hard to compare it with parks and rec just because we we have so much invested in parks and trails and we have a new sports park that'll be, you know, ribbon cutting this next year and and we've got Bates Park. We've got a lot of that going on. But those have been major projects that are now complete.

So I from my perspective, I don't don't look at them any differently. I think it's a different arena, but I I didn't want to see the board just, you know, reviewing facade grants and and making recommendations recommendations or asking the questions on that. I think that's still very much a part of what it is, but that's not what I wanted focusing on. That that should be this much of it. In fact, if if it were me, we would establish a budget for facade grants and this board would determine how that's handled and what recommendation they would make.

And it it doesn't appear as a vote on council. It's already a budgetary approved item. If this board, sees that x dollars should go to this business under that and they meet all the criteria, then it's a consent agenda item. And it just appears and we consent because we already approved the budget. Now if it if it goes to the point that we're because our budget isn't huge for that.

But if it goes beyond that, then that's something council has to take action on to increase that budget or reallocate, which we've done several times in the past. But barring that, that's the kind of the direction I wanna see it go as to where where this board would see things that could develop the the economic base and success primarily of Keller. We we create that. We man it. We we put it together.

And and so from my perspective, yes. The answer is I would I would want it to be looked at every bit as important as parks and rec as it relates to the economic development of the community. Mhmm. Or and this, you know, I joked a little bit about it, but that's the type of thing that I think falls under the purview of this board is she identified two businesses are closing. You brought up another one.

I would want us to understand why. You know, I and and if a business announced that it's it's closing, this would be a a board that would reach out and say, hey, happens. We understand. I've been through it. But find out the the whys because I think that's important for, counsel to know, but it's also important for our community to know. And and it's one of my primary concern. We you know, we're just at Tejin's ribbon cutting here, about a week ago and and was asked I was asked by somebody what city council does.

It was me.

I've got somebody

Everybody's been wondering about it anyway, but I got put on the spot to answer that question.

Because I've been yeas. Getting purged.

And but how I answered it, I just I took a little different direction. And I said, as it relates to this type of thing, it is being a body that that promotes business in our community. And we've had several surveys that have done and the feedback that has come from those surveys, I feel like we've done an exceptional job of focusing on those things. And you go back to when, well, when we were first standing out here talking to voters, where we were at restaurant wise, you know, chicken drive throughs were the big topic. And people were, you know, not wanting any more chicken places.

And you look now at the landscape of restaurants in Keller, we've done, I think, very good job of attracting some of what the city said they wanted or a good portion of what the city had said they wanted. But now we gotta keep them in business. And and part of that equation is another facet of economic development which is daytime population. You know, restaurants, you know, when you get away from fast food, restaurants need that weekday business. A nice restaurant doesn't have a lot of problem attracting business for Friday night, Saturday night, even, you know, Sunday noon type of thing.

That's why they put live music on Thursday nights, try to get people out on Thursday nights. And but the ones that are open at lunch depend on that lunch traffic to kinda help cover the the nut, you know, cover the the overhead. And when that happens, then their dinner traffic and weekend traffic becomes more profitable. And that's the example I I gave her is that, you know, this this is what I want us to focus on is what are those type of entities that we can attract to Keller. I mean, we've got some interest in the building that's down at Bruce Snow And Bursey, but it's been sitting empty for a long time and that troubles me.

When I go buy retail space that's empty, I always go, why? Why are why are we sitting here with an empty building in a a city with the type of or the the market. I shouldn't say the city, but the market that we're in, with with their average and median household income and disposable income, why are we struggling, to keep places filled? And I would want us to to focus on those kind

of things, finding out. Tell you a couple examples. Some of these landlords that are landlords from out of state, they'd rather take the loss Yep. Than worry about trying to fill and lower the lower their rent. You know, it happened with while was with Dickies, they closed this one down. And I went talk to landlord myself and he goes, I need to lower my rent. He goes, I'll fill it eventually, but I'll take the rent off the next couple of years. And that's that's the worst thing to hear is like, so you have no vessels in the city whatsoever. Right. It's just the pure profit for them and and what they do with all the other properties they own.

With that that topic was just discussed specifically with me and staff is that we've got landlords that are, first of all, asking too much for space. But then when they don't care, From my perspective as a councilman, when things come to us for approval and it's with a group that we know that has taken that kind of attitude, then should we be approving anything?

But it's also some of the existing landlords that don't wanna put in the money to fix the place

that prevents

the code the way they should be. Triple a Cafe is a perfect example of that one. They had to struggle with it because they don't wanna do redo the fire suppression system, which was linked to the whole building. The whole building. So I mean, are little things like that that come up that you look at the landlords and you're like, be a good neighbor. I mean, I'm dealing with that right now with the one of our properties in Grand Rapids, Michigan. And Best Buy has given us trouble because they're the main tenant. And they don't they said no. We know a part but we don't have pay for that.

So it it it is

the the people that own the property here. There's just an ego about them.

There is. And and what's the solution to that?

I I I can't restrict the one who buys it.

No. Well, there there's dozen developments that would take a business down that are outside of our Control. And influence. Right? I mean, we can't control land costs. We can't control their margins. We can't control wait. Wait. There's a lot of things we can't control. You know, I like the open rewards thing because that's one thing in our control. It's just trying to drum up attention and trying to get people to walk in a door that normally wouldn't. That is in our control. Absolutely. But, you know, so we can't we can't save every business from going out, but we can try to listen to them and see try to meet them where they at.

But But to tag's point, when those landlords come in and have a business coming in, it's a double edged sword. Yeah. We want the business. We just like you the way you manage it because you keep raising rent and drive people out within twelve to twenty four months. And that's not the revolving door we want with our businesses.

I think Also too, like, we don't know what we don't know. So I think there's an aspect where I would love as a board for us to have more involvement and more initiatives for sure. That's something Tag and I have spoken about two separately that it would be great if we knew, like, even with the open rewards. Like, I I personally I love this. I feel like this is, a great action item. I think maybe, you know, when we even we did the Piercy City review, it's like, in that next month, hey, guys. This is what we're working towards. And, like, next month, like, bring back. Like, did you go and talk with a business owner? Like, let's talk about what the issues are that they're facing and just have more of that, like, almost round table discussion.

I think that would be a lot more impactful as a board if we were able to kinda have that open ten, fifteen minutes to to do exactly that and talk about who are the businesses that we connected with. You know, what are the problems that they're facing. Is it is it, you know, landlord? Is it cost? Is it, you know, no one's walking in their doors? You know, some people, they have people walking through their their doors. That's all great, but they're having, like, staffing issues. Like, you know, so there's there's different things for for different people that I know for me personally talking to people, it's been across the board. These particular businesses, one just has two babies under three. She had back to back kids, and she's a little older, and she wants to spend that time with her family and just decided to shut things down.

But she owns the building, and she's looking to get a great tenant to go in there. And so, like, that's kind of her thing. So it wasn't necessarily but, of course, everyone, like, on social media was like, oh, all these businesses, the landlords. It's like, no, she owns the building and she's just making a life shift. And so it's, you know, something as simple as that. And and some people, the other one, Swanky Chic, she's actually online as well. And I think, honestly, personally, she probably is doing very well online.

She's doing extremely well online.

And yeah. And what's why have the cost and the overhead if, you know, they're not brick and mortar

when you can do it.

Yeah. Exactly. So retail is just shifting. But, again, we don't know unless we're going out and having the conversations. And I think if we had more opportunities to do that and then come to the table and talk about it and maybe brainstorm, you know, different ideas, I think that this would be a a more impactful board.

And so I to the point of your question, I would support that. I think it's great. I know I've talked about, like, even the UDC for Old Town Keller. I know it's been something over the past couple years, like, consistently everybody wants to take a look at it and and make the changes, but priorities are priorities and sometimes things aren't brought, you know, to the surface right away. Maybe it's something we can dig into and maybe start the conversation here and make suggestions or, you know, have have conversations about it.

So, you know and supporting you guys. I think you guys have a lot of stuff on your plate. And so if there's more opportunities to say, I don't know how the parks and recs board works particularly, so I would love to maybe attend, you know, their meetings and just kinda see. I know the parks and rec for the city of Keller is incredible. And so if their board supports them, like, I'd love to see, like, how and what that looks like. And maybe this board can do the same and how we can support you guys with what you guys have going on. And so I think it would be phenomenal if we were able to do more of that and have more initiatives.

Well, this this topic right here or the the what Steve brought up is exactly what I had envisioned is if if we recognize there's an issue or a problem in our our community or the opposite, if we we recognize that there is, something that, is unique or promotable, how do we approach that? And so, you know, if this were brought to the board like it was tonight, we put it on a future agenda. And from that, we take action items to talk with with businesses, talk with landlords, find out what's going on, and then approach it from a solution oriented, objective. Alright. So what what can we do?

Because there is. There's a lot of things we don't have control over and really can't impact much. But there are certain things we can. And one of those things in relation to shift to that is community awareness. Is when people are made aware that this building is sitting empty because of this, it it puts indirect pressure, and sometimes even direct pressure on, these these, landlords and companies to do something.

But that's exactly what I'm I'm talking about is that kind of vision of this board bringing up a concern. Even in our last meeting, because I meet with staff, before the economic development, board meetings, and some of the questions I asked about just from a demographic point of view, because we we can get general demographic information. You I talked about median household income and that's, you know, for an area, but, what are the average wages? What are what's the disposable income of people in Keller? Some of those specific questions are a little harder to come up with, with the people that we we contract with and get information back from.

But that's just the surface. I mean, there's a lot of things that that drive economic development in a city. And so that's exactly what I'm talking about. What else? Can can I ask Sure.

I guess I don't understand the the distinction. So being less council led empowers us more by default, or can we empower ourselves more to bring these types of things to counsel under the current structure that we have?

That's the direction I wanna see us go. Okay. So and I I don't think counsel is in disagreement. I know the mayor and I are in agreement, about that that we may cast, for example, with, with, the Parks and Recreation Board. Sometimes it comes from city council that we wanna look at this.

You know, the the whole concept or the whole conversation about upgrading our sports car. That that that got started and then they took that ball and start running with it, did the research. What do we need? What do people what what does our community want to see there, what would really create a different impact, all the way through to design. So city council would would might put forward a a particular segment of of economic development and ask this board to work on it.

And and then it would be up to the board to determine, right, how do we approach this and and drive it through to a six a successful and significant outcome. So but it can also go the other direction. If you see something that needs to happen, you bring it to counsel and it it it comes from this board is we want to we wanna do this initiative or this work or we want to do this research to find out what what is driving these things. The the the whole Pier City thing, that I introduced, is that that type of thing is why don't we look at what cities that have unique challenges that Keller has when it comes to economic development. We don't have a freeway.

We are not a resort or a we're not near a body of water. There's just a lot of things that naturally draw people to that area that creates business. We don't have a lot of those things, but we do have a lot of other things. Mhmm. And so how do we approach that? And that was one of the ideas I had of let's let's just go take a look at cities that have those same challenges. Find out what's what's thriving there, what's working. Employers is one of the things I wanna look at there, is find out, alright. You know, what what do you got that brings a lot of, you know, people to your city during the day? And and look at those and see, are do we have opportunities in that?

So I I think I'm answering your question. As as far as how the the agenda for that year pans out, it's both both directions. Council may say this is something we wanna look at. But more often than that, I would like to see the board say, hey, we have identified this as an issue and we wanna we wanna approach it. We want to brainstorm here about what causes it, what are the potential solutions, what is it that we can do, about these things, and then bring a recommendation to counsel that that we'd like to do this.

We'd like to move ahead with that. And I I think most most of counsel, if not all of counsel, would be behind those kind of things. And I think that's what brings it back to what what Beth brought up is is will it be looked at with the same important thing. If it's if it's provided back the same level of of, due diligence and work that's going to improve it, it it's going to take on that level of import with counsel because we've got a group that cares about the the the economic health of our community.

Are there any particular goals that, like, just overall as a as a city that we're looking for as far as, like, how many businesses or tax revenue? Like, is there anything that's, like, a a measurable goal that we

can kind of work towards?

Well, do do you have some? Because I'll talk.

Don't know.

I'm gonna

let you start.

Okay. Well, we we outlined or we reviewed our what do we call our thing? Our handbook, whatever it is. And and that's all good and fine. But when it when it comes to a self driven board, the I'm struggling now.

Sorry. The the goals or objectives, we have are a a I guess from a 30,000 foot view is a balance. And this is something that I'll I I will talk specifically like Old Town Keller. Old Town Keller started with this one vision and then it it kind of migrated, council changed, and then it we it kind of moved a different direction. And so right now, I don't know that we have a well defined goal or objective for Old Town Keller.

That council can say, this meets these lines. We we've done a a very good job of of outlining what our priorities are for the city. And in fact, everything that's brought to the city bounces against those things. K? And we're up for a review of all of that.

So from economic development, our goal overall would be, let's define what that balance is for like an Old Town Keller. But it's not just Old Town Keller. For Keller as a whole, we're 18 and a half square miles. We've got this much I mean, you can look at any of our map. We got this much of of commercial space, and and dedicated areas.

We know where we need to drive the traffic to. It's not difficult here. I mean, it's it's like a big t and that's and that's where our business is. So what is it that will cause, for lack of better term, money to flow towards those directions? And anytime you get momentum built where this is where people want to congregate or go.

And we do a good job with city of of planning events, at least the big ones, but there's a lot more that can be done. And so when it comes to the specific goals as it comes down, I can line them out because I I've got them. I I want to focus on, how do we keep the businesses that we do have healthy? Where where does their business come from?

What does that mean though? Like as far as like a certain tax revenue that you're looking from that perspective? Like how do you Like what are you measuring that against?

Well, our only Closed are open.

Did you ask or did you?

Well, and that's That's not a bad base,

you know? But,

yeah, we

Go ahead. For what's worth because a lot of what you're saying makes me think of this. I can't remember who was on the board or who wasn't when we last did this. But we have the economic development strategy.

Strategy is what I was talking about.

It's got like Strategic business plan

or something.

I forget what it's called.

It has

the word strategy in

it. Okay.

And it had four sections. I think it was the goals were strategy. Yeah. To keep business, retain businesses, grow businesses, attract businesses. I forgot there was a fourth one, I think.

Promotion. Yeah. Maybe promote. Recruitment, retention. Recruitment, retention,

No. I'm getting them mixed up. Growth?

Something. So anyway, under each of those, it has like a three or four page, I think, description of like what the areas we can focus on to

Expansion. Expansion. Maybe expansion.

To do accomplish those things. In some cases, there's some I wouldn't call metrics, but there's some baseline data for, like, you know, how we would measure at least, right, the progress against those things. Sure. It was getting a little outdated, so we did like we spent, obviously, six months rewriting it. So I now I don't know. Is anyone on here on here? Maybe it's a whole refresh now when you can bring

it back to the board. With you then. Yeah.

I mean, I've on board for three years, and I don't think I've seen anything.

Yeah. Maybe

Yeah. We we worked on it in here. It it was the print. I was gonna pull up a copy of it and and show you, but it it's it's we looked at a different section of it over a period of time to rewrite it, and that's that's great. But I I view that document as the the 30,000 foot

view. It's a good baseline. I just if if we haven't read it, I would recommend just as a starting

point for the We can resend it out to everybody so that you can everybody can take a look at it. Because what I'm I'm trying to now identify as the goals is, alright, if that's our objectives, then how does that break down to a, a, action item or a initiative that we do? Because we can't tackle all of those things. We don't meet often enough and nobody is full time with this board. So we have to take portions of it and say, alright, let's prioritize.

What's the most important thing that we could do to to drive the economic health of Keller based on what those objectives are? What's the what's the most important thing in our opinion that we need to focus on and prioritize that and say, okay. This is our number one, and and we are proposing to counsel that we want to look at an initiative of of retention. And and that just taking one of the the articles out here. What what are the most important things we can do for retention of the businesses that we do have?

And and define what that means and define what it is that we can do to to impact that. And that's gonna be a limited scope, but that's what we focus on. When that one's done, we'll take a different one, take the next priority. So back to your original original question, what are the goals or objectives? Those are all the objectives. I think our goals have to be defined by which this board defines as, alright, our number one thing is this. Sure. K. We've done a good job of of attracting, but we're not gonna attract a lot more if they don't if we don't retain them. Mhmm. So let's focus on that one.

Yeah. I think that's a big one that I'm seeing across the board is is that aspect. I think that's a concern. And it's not just Teller. It's it's all surrounding towns that are struggling right now with businesses closing.

It the economy is what it is. And and interest rates that are starting to ease, but household income hasn't caught up to to the way we've been hammered over the last five years. Damn. Falling down

the stairs. You know, that's the sound of the mop left. They're going across. Oh,

someone drops something.

In our house, I have to ask Tammy, what's that sound?

And she knows all the time. Yeah. So it it'll be worth sharing. You know,

you know, was there a report or something

from that activity? Did you have a report?

Yes. Yeah. Okay. So if you

can share that, that'll be good.

Oh, just are you talking about opening rewards?

No. No.

On the guys, that should be in It's on the web. The drop yeah. In the Dropbox.

Yeah. It's available. Okay.

We can re link it, but in the it's I guess it wasn't a Dropbox.

I think we should share, like,

a yeah. Google Drive. Yeah. That should be off. It should be in there. Okay.

And I wanna send the link

out again.

But, yeah, we'll send it out again.

Said there's

a Google Drive?

The the Yeah. There you

The general goals and objectives were recruitment, retention, expansion, promotion, and Along with that. Recounted all those from memory. So those are the overall objectives. If I'm was looking at this list, I would say retention would be the the most important. And so now we define how can we impact that, pick one or two of the items that come up under that topic, and and define a plan for how we're gonna impact retention.

And something like open rewards, you know, and and when you're talking with your little set of businesses, if they have time, start a conversation. If they don't, say, here's my email. You know, I'd love to, chat with you sometime about all of this. And because I wanna know from them, do they see this as something that's a good value to them? Is this something that is a help to them?

And if it isn't, then why are we doing it? Why would you let's put effort, money, and man hours behind something else that is gonna have an impact. I, you know, I will just tell you how I approached, you know, I I did corporate turnarounds for a good chunk of my professional life, and that's what I always started with is is I talked to the existing employees in that business. Not just the chief executives, not the, you know, not the controlling part of the company. Talked to the people that were actually doing whatever it was they did.

If it was, like, cargo control with a company in Dallas that I did a turnaround on. I talked to the people that were actually making the the tie down straps, making the cargo bars, making those things, sewing them together because most of the time they have the answers, but nobody up above them is listening to them. Nobody is is paying attention to what could solve their problem. And I I always told whoever it was that was engaging me is that, you know, what I do is I borrow your watch to tell you what time it is because your answers are already sitting there in your building. It's just nobody's taking the time to go talk to the the people that can offer them.

And that's what I think is is a key here is if we talk to these businesses, you know, Beth has has said, I've been small business owner and you're right. There is there is no time, you know, And we we did an analysis back when I was in the franchising business, and and we found out that these small, you know, owner operated franchisees would go through this cycle because nobody is a better salesperson than the owner. And so they go out and they get the business and they drive a bunch of orders in. Well, now the the production team can't keep up with all of it. So they pull back in and they get all the work done, but now nobody's out selling.

So they get all the work done, and now we're sitting here with no orders. And we we discovered by the time those franchise owners got through three cycles like that, if they did without getting a solution, by that third cycle, they were ready to call us and say, wanna sell because they were burning themselves out because they didn't realize what their primary objective was. And it's that way in every small business. You wear all of the hats. And, and so what what I see us as being is that consultant that comes alongside and finds out what the challenges are, and then we determine how can we impact it and we put forward a plan.

So all of that just because you asked what a goal was. So back to the original question, is everybody in agreement that this is a something you do wanna do? Yes. K. The structure of it, is is something that I I also wanted to talk about.

Initially, we had defined, just a couple of of occupations that were important to this. And one of those was being having a commercial broker on on the board. I've kind of expanded that a little bit in, the scope is that we we we maybe should identify, you know, two or three. We've got a CPA that applied. We didn't have to go ask.

And we've got the chamber, and that's a very, important, component of it. They bring a broad base of information back because they're in touch with the business owners. But is there other arenas that we should want to have represented in this board? Even if it is just I shouldn't say just. Even if it is an advisory capacity to where they're available there to to bring a perspective, whether it's a commercial bank that they they provide banking services for businesses, because they're gonna have a different perspective on what businesses are challenged by.

You know, what, I've have you guys here's just one example. Have you noticed that a lot of places have gone to charging you a credit card charge on your receipt? The discount rate or whatever the fee is from the credit card company is now appearing on your receipt for dinner as an additional item. Have you noticed that or no?

That's something that the business owners can choose. Yeah.

Right. No. What I'm saying is a lot of businesses are doing it. I've started noticing the little notice either in the menu or up at the register or whatever that that's happening. Keep going up with

the transaction fees

or cost

them an arm and

leg. Yep.

Yeah. Because it's eating into the profit margin that they have that is already slim

and it's so turn away credit cards. So

Right.

Yeah. And they're all in the business like my old man, Tacos, they'll give you discount for use a debit card or cash.

Yep. Well, it it's a

lot of All of them. Do it. Yeah. That's it. I haven't

taken credit cards in a decade for the same reason. But it's, yeah, it's punitive to a small business. They should be passing it on to the customers to know what it really cost them to buy that.

So my purpose of bringing that up is if we had a commercial banker on here that could give us ideas of how do we fight back against that. Are these fees getting outrageous? Do they need to be, you know, the we're still America. And and so we vote with our with our credit cards. And if we tell them, hey. I'm not gonna use your credit card anymore because you're charging the fees like this. I'm gonna stop using it.

They're usually third party vendors, though. They're not usually direct like our commercial bankers. We don't usually do our credit card processing through. It's it's whatever third party. Oh, yeah. Like, I'm using, like, Stripe. Yeah.

Stripe is common one.

Email processing. But I will say this to speak to the commercial banking side of things. Just being an entrepreneur for twenty five years, I will tell you that as a small business owner, it is nearly impossible when it comes to getting funding for your business. And it's really one thing I learned and it took me many years before I even knew and understood this was having a relationship with a local bank Yep. Is really critical.

I mean, I would not have been able to buy my building if it wasn't for the relationship for Frost Bank. And the very first thing I did when I got here was I if you some of you guys know me when I first got here with a pink truck. I wasn't able to get funding from a bank for that, and it was actually the marketing company I bought that truck from that financed it. Seller financed it to me, but then I leveraged that asset and I built a relationship with Frost Bank. And then they did my second truck and then they did my building.

But it was that relationship that went to bat for me at underwriting. And so I just say all that to say that small businesses don't understand that. And I think that there's a lot of, like, educational gap with a lot of small businesses that are struggling that really don't understand the different dynamics of a small business. And what was profound for me, I was probably twelve years as a business owner before I got access to those resources, and it was in Connecticut. It was a it was a nonprofit. It was an entrepreneurial center. We don't have something like that here. Like, the chambers can only do so much, and you guys, I know, have in the past done, like, classes.

Or actually we actually have one on November 20 that covers banking. Yeah. Finance with a local bank.

Yeah. And so I think to some degree, if there was more access and I don't know if the city can do any of this. But if there was a way to create even just free access for for classes of some kind where we're doing these types of partnerships, like, for example, a commercial banker and, like, it's being held, you know, at this in this room and it's gonna be on this date. Like, I don't know if that's a possibility, but that's, like, an idea I'd love to bring to the table because like with respect to the chamber, if they're not a member, they might not know about it or may not see it. I know that there's non member pricing but sometimes people you know, even just that.

But like for me, twelve years into business, it was huge for me to be able to access free classes and access to a lawyer to ask questions and access to I know, again, you guys do some of that stuff. But I just felt like if there was something like that and, again, I don't know what the city can even do with that partnership to bring in.

But it's also it's also be something to help encourage those wannabe entrepreneurs to take the leap and get the information

to Yeah.

Wanna build a large city. Yeah. So taking it one step further and just taking someone who owns a small business, I have people that are interested in maybe, hey. The property's fine. I thought I could

do this there. And then

find out what it takes to actually do it and get the loan go to the process you did.

Or even some type of workshop style, like like, for example, when you wanna be say you're interested to even have a business in Keller. Like, if there was some type of, like, on this night, we're opening it up for anyone that has interest to do business in Keller, you'll be able to ask questions with economic development or, you know, you can learn about the different programs that we have here, like the facade grant. Like, some kind of

thing that plans that people

will probably avail. It gives people the

opportunity to ideas. Can I draw us back? Because what I was asking is should are there other You need a restaurant fields. Yeah.

You need someone who owns a restaurant.

K.

But we were just going through this with the chamber board, and they are the ones that that see the microeconomics going on. They're the first ones that see when we're doing a little bit better and we're doing a little bit worse. Mhmm. So having someone like that, I know Bob's no longer in the business, but having someone like that that really truly sees the pulse. Like to me that's where I I go to when when I'm kinda seeing things at my level to see what they're seeing at their level because they truly see it first.

It's the first thing people cut out, discretion income. Is

there any other professions that we believe should be considered?

I think you need to see a nonprofit. One of our local nonprofits that services those that are really struggling.

What about marketing or digital marketing?

What does that show?

We have that.

We have that. Very underutilized.

Thought we used to have, like, we have, a nonvoting membership.

I don't

know if that's what you mean by or whatever. Yeah. We had a couple of brokers who would pretend pretty regularly. I don't know when that stopped happening. But

That was part of our charter for this board was that

Was that Reboll, Matt?

I feel

like he was at the Matt Matt. Matt sounds right. Was on there for several years.

Yep. There was a I was more than one, I think.

Was more one. Yeah. Okay.

I don't

know if you've been on this board.

Yeah. That's how was When you said the update, that was the last update was '20 with the strategic business plan, it was, 2021. So that's why I was

Oh, I didn't know I don't know when I started.

Okay. That sounds like I didn't know you're

They so I I I think they're part of this is when you do candidate selection too, but that's an opportunity for representation.

That that's what exactly what I'm talking about is when we go to structure the board, do we want to make a place for certain professionals? And I've got about five here listed of ideas. Okay.

The turnaround professionals, how about representatives of the landlords that rent to these businesses?

Say it again. I'm sorry.

The the landlords that rent to

these businesses.

Okay. Do we have that already?

That that was what we were looking for from a commercial broker because they deal with a lot of different landlords and a lot of different tenants, to bring information from that arena. I'm a broker but commercial is a very small percentage of what we do. I mean, I've represented some buildings and I have a management company but we don't have any commercial accounts right now. But that's what a commercial broker that's what we were expecting them to bring is that that information. Okay. K. That's Frank. Just kidding. Just kidding. Okay.

I said it kinda loud,

didn't I? Well, I've got enough notes. And I think I've got a consensus from everybody. So we will move on to our economic development update.

Just

Who's that? I don't think was like, I just usually print 10. I usually print 10. Alright. So we have two eight new businesses in September.

Stretch Zone Color at 242 Rus Snow Drive, Impossible Printing at 1103 Keller Parkway, Marie's Future LLC, which is gonna be a counseling office at 1149 Keller Parkway, the back nine at 721 Keller Parkway. I also wanna know they do have a ribbon cutting tomorrow from four to five if anyone can is able to attend. Poly Plumbing at 1762 Keller Parkway, Methodist Surgery Center, at 1220 Keller Parkway. They do have a utility permit to begin construction. They're making some, renovations to the building.

KD Shipping Plus at 2041, Aroof Snow Drive, and h HTO. They have their grand opening on October 11. So that brings our total to 98 t o's have been issued through the September, and 55 of those are new businesses. Just an update with businesses coming soon, any applications we've seen in permanent applications we've seen in. So Grutogi Bistro, they had their grand opening on October 11.

It is formerly Two Brothers Rhino Winery. Also Wobby House, we did mention them earlier. They're set to open the end of the month or early November. Also, formerly, Shanden Harbors, that was recently purchased by Aurora Venues, and it will be kept as an event center. So once we get more information, we'll definitely share it with you all. Just moving on to some of

our

incentivized projects. Keller House Collective, I know I'm excited about that project. They're still planning on being open by January 2026. They just had a few delays with material, but they're back on track. And then city sports campus, they're still aiming to begin construction in November, December. And we did talk about opening rewards. So I'll just jump over to Sarah. She had some updates regarding the UDC and the town color. Right.

So in community development, we keep a running list of UDC amendments that are either staff identified in terms of trends, issues, hiccups that we see both in our daily dives into the code and also that are communicated back to us from all different types of applicants, residents, business owners, property owners, who have our developers, are always happy to tell us where our code is is lacking. And so we keep a constant running list of those and then also things that we hear from counsel. And so, on that list for a while has been an OTK update. I think I've shared that with the group before. So we actually kicked that off, with counsel two weeks ago.

We're focusing on, I shouldn't even say focusing. We're gonna look at the entire section of the code for OTK. So some of the things I highlighted with counsel, during the work session were, some of the inconsistencies or just lack of clarity. For staff, it's very confusing for us and then, of course, for applicants where you follow OTK guidelines and then where you have to follow the overall UDC guidelines for developing non residential properties. And it's important to to define that in the code for OTK because the reality is there's several things in the non residential guidelines that you're never almost never going to be able to meet because of the constraints in the lots in OTK.

So things like parking, there's very few unless you're assembling property, there's very few lots in OTK where you're ever going to be able to meet the parking requirements. So,

and then there's several other things

like landscape buffers, landscaping in general that we're just looking for direction from council on. Can we create the guidelines in OTK? And if you meet those, then you don't have to go through all these variance processes with with counsel. We also wanna go line by line through the use chart in OTK. It's probably not been looked at comprehensively by the council since 2015.

We've identified, event venue as problematic, with several different businesses have kinda stumbled over that. It's been used as a catch all for businesses that don't fit neatly into the square boxes within the UDC. We always try to on the side of finding a pathway for a business to seek council approval rather than saying, no, you can't come in at all. But we also recognize that it is a very imperfect catch all. So that and then all of the other uses in OTK, we want to make sure those are looked at. So we want to take our time

with this process. The goal is

to not drag it out, but really make sure we're doing this methodically, getting input from stakeholders, both in Old Town and just across the city. So we'll do a couple of probably, I

say

a couple. We'll do at least one input meeting and then have a, easy form or method online where people can submit their input on on their experience in OTK or what they would like to see or change or whatever. With the goal of having it fully updated and everything well before we finish Elm Street when we're hoping to see an uptick in, increase in redeveloping properties at OTK. Much like we saw after we finished Bates Street, we definitely saw an increase in in folks looking to to do things in OTK. So the next council work session so council gave us direction.

They wanna do those work sessions themselves and and discuss the different chunks of the code. The next work session will probably be the second meeting in November. And so some kind of public input meeting will be after the holidays most likely.

Great. That'd be really impactful. Yeah. We still appreciate that.

That it? Anything else? No. Not for me. Thanks for being there. Thanks everybody. And if there's any other business or discussion, we'll be adjourned.