Planning Board - Regular Meeting

It's 100 days to Christmas. That's a lot of work. It's such an awful work. I can't even consider it.

I can't do that. That's easy right now. I was in choice of attendance this morning on the beach, Kingston Point Beach, and I'm sweating and saying, I don't want that to happen.

I don't want to be later on. It's called Georgia.

I don't want to be later on. Done. Yeah, I don't know if you have done it. I couldn't.

Thank you.

Great. I can only guess. What we had to do.

Good morning, everyone. We are officially ready to begin. So I'd like to welcome everyone. This is the September 17th meeting of the Kingston Local Development Corporation. We're going to call this meeting to order at 8.03 a.m. Thank you all for joining us this morning. We do have a forum, so we're going to get started. First, we're going to do a short treasury report before we have KDB give us a presentation. Sure will be, my friend. Good morning, everybody. Welcome back. It's good to see everybody.

I hope everybody had a phenomenal summer. I certainly did. If you look at the treasury report spreadsheet, you'll see the balances for the most part have stayed pretty consistent with the exception of the KLDC RLF account, 1822. We're the right levels, folks, so Those funds come from somewhere, and that's where they traditionally come from. So, in a good way, those balances are decreasing because we are putting loans on the books. If you see the other attachment, this is just our borrower spreadsheet that shows what we have currently on the books, and you'll see some nice big fat numbers that are being posted there, and that adds up to this group of people who are getting it done. So, Very straightforward Treasury report today. Again, the balance is a little bit lower, but loans on the books are rising, and that's what we're here for.

Any questions for Tony before we motion to accept the Treasury report? Thank you. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed?

Okay. Great.

All right. So next up on our agenda in KDD Marketing is going to give us a little bit of an update on some of the work that they're doing. And I think Casey and Kerry, I wasn't sure who had the PowerPoint, so I bet you both co-host, so hopefully one of you will be able to share your screen. Hopefully, if it doesn't work, let me know. But you guys can take it away.

All right, good morning. Kerry, I can share if that works. All right. Good morning, everyone. Can everyone see the progress report display? Great. My name is Casey. I'm a design and marketing strategist. Sorry, what was that?

You're good.

Oh, okay. Hi, I'm Casey from KDD Marketing. With me is Kerry, the vice president of the company. We just wanted to give a status update on the work that we've been doing and how things have progressed so far. Some additional ideas we have for ways to potentially get more loans on the books, like you said. So just to go over from the beginning of the initial request for proposals what KLDC was looking for. You had mentioned RAC cards, flyers, looking for graphic design support, looking for a website redesign, which we completed in 2025 to make it user friendly, communicate your mission goals and initiatives, and to serve as a resource for the local community. You were looking for someone to train the KLDC administrator on updating the website. looking for a social media strategy to increase awareness of what you're doing and your online presence across multiple social media platforms, and looking for regular content going out through a social media calendar, as well as a targeted advertising campaign. So, so far, this is what our current scope of work looks like through our 10 hour a month retainer. We're providing ongoing marketing support that begins with monthly meetings with Mandy talking about what the current priorities are, what deliverables you all need. We're running through a social media strategy that goes to Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. planning the content, designing the graphics, writing the copy, going out about once a week. Now that we've had some testimonials come in, we've had the opportunity to go to your loan recipients to meet them, hear their stories, record their stories, to create that content, keeping an eye on messages that come in, directing people to the website when they have questions about loans that come in through direct messages on social media. We started some meta campaigns. We had an awareness campaign begin this spring and then the traffic campaign in August. I'll go into a little bit more about how that works later on. We've been providing graphic design support. We designed a rack card earlier this year, always available for that. And then website updates, edits, monitoring, keeping an eye on SEO, keeping an eye on how the site's performing, what potential updates might come up as needed, and our regular maintenance updates for the site as a retainer client. This is just a status progress update on the website from when it was launched in May 2025 to the end of last month, what the growth trajectory has looked like. We launched in May. With anything starting new, it can be a little bit up and down at the beginning in terms of traffic, but we Started to see a really great stretch of steady growth. Quarterly, we go a little bit deeper into what's happening on the website, who's going on the website, and we noticed between the analytics and what searches you were showing up for that we needed to make some changes to help you reach the very specific audience of people who live in Ulster County, own businesses in Kingston, the people who are eligible for the loans. There are a couple radio stations in the Midwest with KLDC as their acronym. So there were some unaligned searches that were coming up and a lot of international traffic. So We made some updates for local SEO, and while that dip was there, most of that is from China, Singapore, from states besides New York. So nothing to worry about there. And then shortly after that, once we were able to share these stories we were hoping to share about the loan recipients and feature people in the content that was going out on social media, as you can see, we've seen a very large spike in website traffic. This is how it breaks down across all of the different channels, ways that people are coming to the website. Direct is when somebody has your website saved as a bookmark or they're typing in the URL directly. That's where a large amount of key events are coming from. That's where we started tracking earlier this year. specifically who is downloading the application forms you have on the site, as well as people filling out the contact form. The largest amount of those key events are coming from organic search, which is great. That means you're showing up in the right places for search. Paid social is a newer audience now that we have these meta ads coming in across all industries. This tends to be a lower engagement rate, but you are bringing in a lot of traffic to the site. And these users, when they're interested, they tend to only come the first time through paid social, but they might type KLDC into Google search and come in as an organic search or have saved your URL and come in through direct. Organic social similarly is growing and bringing people to the audience. Those might be direct users or organic search users later on. So we're seeing traffic come in from a lot of different places. Looking at how... Yes?

Would you be able to just zoom in a tad for everyone here? Of course. Just because we're a little far from the TV. Yes. Thank you.

Perfect. Yeah. Okay. Going for the old guy. Thank you.

You're right.

Can I ask one question about the slides? Does key events mean...

So when we're tracking the website analytics, there are general events, which is whenever somebody clicks on a page, whenever somebody scrolls down on a page, starts a form, Google will track all of those actions so we can see how people are behaving on the website. And then we are able to label events as key events when that is an action that is important to us to see how many people are looking at. the site. So for us, the key events we're tracking are on the apply for a loan page, how many people are clicking on each of those loan applications to download it. So that's a key event. Filling out the form on the contact page is another key event. So this is helping us see how many people are going to the site and downloading those forms to see if they want to learn more.

Would you say the best return for what we have up there is the organic serve? If key events are a positive indication of people moving through the thing and doing the thing we want them to do?

I would say it's all working together in unison where people who have come through organic search, that is where the most key events have come from. But those people coming through organic search, they might not know to search unless they see an ad or unless they've seen you on social media. So it all works together, but that is a good sign that we're seeing a lot of results from the organic search that shows people The website SEO is doing what it needs to do and people are able to navigate the site well to get to those events. Thank you.

Thank you. Organic search is somebody Googling loan sources in the Hudson Valley, something like that.

Yeah. Yeah. We've seen searches for small business loans, searches for small business resources. Kingston, I think, was one. So, yeah, whatever people are typing in the search bar, sometimes they type in KLDC, sometimes they type in Kingston Business Park to get to the site. So there's we're able to see in the search console what people are searching for. All right. So looking at the social media growth from the same timeline, so May 2025 when it launched to now, this is looking at Facebook on the top row, the following growth and engagement over that span of time, likes, comments, shares, people interacting with the posts. And then the bottom row is the same for Instagram. So a few key things to point out here. The Awareness meta ads started in March. So we did see some upticks in the following at that time. But where we really saw the increase was, again, where we started featuring loan recipients, where we started telling the stories of people in the content has proven to be very effective. On Facebook, when we do the bi-monthly feature of somebody on the board, those posts also tend to get very high engagement as well, which is a good sign that you all as board members have the ability to also tell the story. And your being involved is really impactful in getting people to trust the story. and being more interested in filling out an application. So these are the meta campaigns we've been running. It's a small $10 a day budget split equally between Facebook and Instagram. We started with the meta awareness campaign just with the goal of getting as much awareness out of of your name as possible. We got really low CPM cost per 1,000 impressions on that. Click-through rates tend to be very low for the awareness campaign because it's designed to just reach as many people as possible. But after doing that, we had the base to have more people interacting with the pages, have more people interacting with the site. And from these people who have engaged with these ads, we're now running a more targeted traffic campaign that's sharing the testimonials of the loan recipients. So the click-through rate on that is much higher. It's targeting a much smaller audience, so the CPM is higher, but these are the numbers that we expect to see for the meta ads. So that is what we have running so far. We have the website, organic social, paid social, the rack cards you have all working in conjunction. So these are just some more ideas we have for additional things that come into the mix to continue raising awareness, continue building trust, keeping in mind that you have such a niche audience, making sure that we're building trust with them. Excuse me. So given how local you are to Kingston, we think traditional advertising could be a really effective route for you. This could be direct mail, sending postcards to businesses in Kingston to have some outreach. Excuse me.

Casey, do you want me to take over this slide? That would be wonderful. Good morning, everybody. So yeah, so thinking about other ways in addition to things that are happening online, direct mail to Kingston businesses would be one option. Since Kingston is relatively small, that could be something like we do some research and we create lists of different types of businesses for you to create a mailing. Welcome packages for new businesses as they come in. We thought that that might be a nice touch, whether it's something that's mailed to them or dropped off to them that has information about KLDC and maybe some of the other local businesses. Signage, flyers, brochures, those sorts of things. We could be talking about doing radio scripts for public service announcements at different radio stations that are local to reach small business owners. So networking community outreach, potential partners. We had talked in the beginning and throughout about partnering with different commercial lenders, commercial real estate agencies that work with businesses. So, you know, we could be creating some kind of either mailing for them or information that, you know, if board members or if Mandy meets with them, that she can do like a leave behind with them. It had email campaigns through either the Elster County Chamber of Commerce or through CUBA to reach, again, those businesses directly, hosting a workshop or a webinar for Kingston business owners, and then sponsoring a Kingston networking event or even just attending the networking events, CUBA in particular, we think would be great. And I know there is one coming up at the end of this month, I believe. So any other questions about this or any other ideas that we should be adding to this list?

No, it's great. Essentially, we were just talking offline before we started about doing an email blast through the chamber because we're also trying to get board members, as you know. And so it could be a kind of a twofer where we're talking about our law products, but we also are reaching out to the business community to try to get some more board members because we have like three openings. And that could maybe be an opportunity for us to kind of package that all together into just one email blast. So that's a really good idea.

Kerry, is there any priority sequence of these? A lot of great suggestions in there. And then how do you spread it out during the course of the year? Or is there a plan for, let's say, one a quarter item?

We could be, yes, we could be doing that. Something like reaching out to businesses could be something that's done maybe once a quarter. And it doesn't have to be the same businesses each time. But some new businesses, welcoming them, reaching out to them would kind of be ongoing as new businesses are starting here.

How do we find out about new businesses then?

Yeah, I mean, I think it's kind of a mix between, you know, what we see from the chamber in terms of announcements. But, you know, that is something that we as the city, you know, we also are generally aware based on some things from the building department. Yeah. I think with Mandy and I, I think we would be able to kind of communicate about, you know, when we hear of new businesses opening. And I think as long as we have like a package designed, you know, with the rec card and the letter and maybe the loan applications kind of all in a nice little bundle. I mean, that could be really something that. I can answer that question.

Every single week I go on to the county website. And on top of that, I go to, it's called like bid something, and I literally log every new business certificate that was applied for in about a week. It's usually, which is still, yeah. Most of the time, they are, for corporations, I do Kingston, Burley, Lake, Katrina, I kind of do on a quick level radius. It takes me anywhere between two to six hours to get it done. And then I do a letter to each and every one of those business customers congratulating them and just putting that customer name. So I do that. Personally, I've actually taken notes here. Yeah.

We need to show Mandy how to do that.

Make her duplicate. I'll show her what I do, but if I'm doing it anyway, I'm going to never make you duplicate that. That would be insane. You would never do that.

It depends on what they're incorporating, what their charter is. I look for DBAs and I look for LLCs in our general geographic area. So I know we're getting on the sidebar here, but I do that every single week.

And I have to say, excuse me, that yesterday at the Chamber Expo, a person actually approached me and wants to have Bobby

the diner about because they sold me out yeah that's awesome that's great so i so it's out there yeah i think one takeaway could be you know it would work with your team to be able to get um out of that package together to see if we have all the printed materials that we would need to have in any kind of what a letter packet would look like. But I also do think that we talked earlier about trying to host a chamber event and that, you know, because of their schedule and how busy they all are, you know, we may have a better chance of like partnering with the Midtown Business Association or the Kingston Downtown Business Association to be able to kind of co-sponsor an event with them. Like that may be more within our realm of an organization to be able to kind of get that type of event together. We may not have a large enough draw to be able to, you know, get into a chamber event.

Is downtown essence not active or?

Yeah, they're trying. They're trying. They don't meet as formally and as often as some of the others.

What about partnering with the people that we're doing loans with? Like, you know, if the brewery is going to do some event after they're done with their thing, for us to have a presence there and jump on them.

So I've spoken with them and the distillery. When they've all gotten where they need to be, with their expansion and their opening up. They may even do it together with us. And then we'd like to find something to maybe help out with.

We should try to do that running cutting, too. I'm sure we're going to do it.

Yeah.

I would know, actually, if I wanted to do it with the Chamber. So I could even know.

So Casey or Carrie, did you guys have anything else for us? I know we sort of in your presentation here, so.

No, I just, I do wanna just say on those notes, I think those are all fantastic ideas. The chamber also has business card exchanges about either once a month or every other month. And those could be something that you talk about sponsoring or like hosting at the Kingston Standard and then being one of the sponsors too, because a lot of times, you know, Casey and I go to a lot of them and they are very often new businesses. So that's a way that maybe is less, well, first of all, less expensive and then less effort to have to do like a full chamber event, be a sponsor of the business card exchange. And also just as far as you all know for budgeting, I don't know what a dedicated email would be like for Cuba, but for the chamber, I think it's $350 for a dedicated email.

Cheap enough.

Yeah, it's not bad.

It would be a lot. Yeah, so. Subsequently, would we pick a sequence here or just kind of?

Yeah, I think we just really need to kind of tell Mandy, you know, kind of as we look at 2027, you know, I think that we still have some more testimonials to do with some of the new loans that we've given, right? So I think we're going to want to continue that for 2027. Clearly, we saw some really good Facebook and meta response on that. And I think, you know, doing some more targeted, And then being able to, you know, I like the welcome package for new businesses.

I think that's a really good package. Or an actual packet that if we can go to these events, that we actually have something in our hand. So that people are, you know, they're very interested. At least we have something. Like I'm going to need one of those packets. Right. So people can.

Yeah. Yeah, they do their ribbon cutting for businesses at the Chambers. Like if one of us, you know, when we saw it and got on there, we rotated going to them and welcoming the businesses and dropping the packet at that time. Yeah, that's a great idea.

That's a great, yeah, really great idea.

Casey and I talked about that actually. It would be great to get board members involved in that.

Yes, we actually had one more slide speaking to that about now that we've seen the result of sharing the stories of loan recipients and we're scheduled to go to Kingston Standard on Wednesday to film. So we'll have some more coming out as well. But there's a lot of different ways that you as the board could share your story to connect with the audience. You can talk about the loan application process, any tips you would give, your own stories of running your business, advice you'd give to new business owners, resources you found that were helpful. So if you're, for folks comfortable appearing on camera, I'd love to come and film a couple clips. If not, we could also... You could email me these stories. We could do them as social media graphic carousels or as blogs on the website to get additional content out there. So there's a lot of different ways we could tell those stories.

That rooted modular post was really good. Kudos on that.

Thanks.

Okay, so we'll start to design things for a welcome package and then some kind of a handout or leave behind for when you go to different events or if you're talking to lenders. The dedicated email, it's a big graphic, so we can also start thinking about that design if you want to go in that direction. And like you said, it would be both for raising awareness about the loans, but then also board member positions with that dedicated email.

Yeah, I think that's great.

Okay, great. All right.

Anything else, Casey? No, that was it. Thank you all so much.

Thank you. Thanks, you guys.

Thank you.

All right.

So we've got some other agenda items today. So I asked Nandy if she would just give us like a brief update on our loan closings, just so we know kind of where everything stands.

Yes, so we've imposed on two, we've imposed on two side loans, but I have to, made them department loans after they finished handing in their reimbursement. Right now they're doing . There's a status issue, so I feel a little screwed. We've got the microloan, and we had two large gap finance loans. We closed on all points west of the story, and it came to standard. And it's somewhere around $826,000 or $836,000. That's your date? Yeah. They're in the experience. They're in the equations. All of the COVID loans have been paid off.

So what we have, I forgot to send out to everybody, but we have $9,000.

active zones right now.

Anything to link with right now?

Anything to link with right now?

Okay.

Well, thank you, Mandy, for your work. The closings have been, you know, a lot of work for you. Interesting. um so the uh before we go into the kingston business park um could i just actually have a uh approval of the minutes um from our last meeting in april and so uh just a brief update on the business market and i think i'd like to go into a transplant session to be able to talk about um the actual um kind of the next steps for that MOU that we're working on. But I just wanted to say that, you know, we did successfully have, you know, an MRFP process. I want to thank Hugh Hayes for your work, the review team. And I think we've been able to get to a place to have an MOU between the city, the KLPC, and the developer that, you know, does as a memorandum of understanding, it doesn't actually promise anything in particular, but it basically is an agreement for all of us to be able to just work together to be able to move to the next steps of the development process. Similar to the MOU that we initially signed with just the city and the GLEC a few months ago to be able to begin this process, this MOU really just kind of takes Um, into it and then really kind of plays out, you know, what the development team is responsible for and what the city and the would be responsible for or not. Um, you know, over the next few months and so I'd like to. you know, just go and do a training client session to be able to talk about the MOU and just make sure that we have a chance to talk to George about it. And so with that, I'd like to just ask for a motion to enter into a training client session to discuss the MOU. A motion by Crystal, a second? Sal? All in favor? All in favor? All right, Sarah, we'll talk to you soon, okay?

Bye, everyone.

All right. everybody's been waiting patiently all right um can i have a motion to come out of executive session our attorney finds it thanks crystal our style favor um um so we have just one uh agenda item coming out of the executive session and so does someone want to make a motion

I make a motion that we approve the draft memorandum of understanding for the mixed use development case in Business Park with the amended language as proposed. All right.

All in favor? Aye. Opposed?

Okay.

And then Mandy, do you want to just update our next meeting?

Yeah. So we need to have another meeting in October to discuss discuss the budget that needs to be uploaded to the New York State Authority's budget office. The 15th meeting, we're going to see if we can change that to the following week, which is the 22nd. And obviously, public notification will be made.

Yeah, that works great. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Thank you.