City Council - workshop

I'd like to call the meeting to order at 6, and this is an economic development planning discussion. I'm going to turn it over to Timothy.

Thank you, Madam Mayor Clifton. Thank you, Councillors, for giving up your Monday evening. We are excited about this project. We have spent a big part of today doing some site tours doing some additional interviews uh we have another day and a half of interviews ahead of us we have a meeting with our steering committee tomorrow uh but we are excited to kind of sit with the council tonight introduce you to our consultant team um i know i've sent you all a copy of the rfp we kind of have a sense of the structure of what we're embarking on in terms of the planning process, but really want to give the council the opportunity to kind of engage early, address some of your concerns, get some feedback from you on some of the things that we think are important if we start this planning process. And so I don't think I'm going to take too much more of your time. I just want to thank you for being here. I'm going to introduce our consultants in just a moment. First of all, please go easy on Chris. He flew into Boise and then drove over from Boise. So he did get snared in the... I don't care how that sentence ends.

When it starts to go easy on Chris, I'm really grateful for that.

You didn't get snared in the highway, did you?

He did get snared in the foreclosure. So he kind of just laid out a little more adventure. Yeah. So he made it here, and now he knows when we talk about the frequency and challenges of 84 clues. He's got firsthand experience, so he'll be able to do it. Nice.

We planned that. Just for you. Well played.

Well played. So anyway, with that, I'd just like to introduce our two consultants from Community Attributes. Chris Mefford is principal. And then Elliot Weiss is also our lead on this project. And Elliot and I have spent most of the day out today doing site visits. And I think we're just really excited about sharing with you a little bit more about the process and getting your feedback and thoughts as we start to structure what the next several months is going to look like for us. Can we take just a moment, Madam Mayor Pro Tem, and do a quick round of introductions?

Okay. I'm Marianne Meisner, Mayor Pro Tem. Craig Duda on the Council. Denise Wheeler on the Council.

John O'Brien, I'm just happy to be here.

And I'm Roxanne. I'm on the Urban Renewal Advisory Committee in the form of Budget and Budget Committee Member.

And I'm the city recorder, Stacey Stockoff. Ricky Junkie is another counselor. She's supposed to be here soon.

I apologize. I don't know your names. Either I do need to wake up from my trip, but I didn't finish your name.

Corrine.

Corrine, thank you. Denise. Denise. And you're? David. David, thank you. Sorry about that. It was going quickly. Appreciate that. Thank you. What do you want to stick it away? It is all yours. Are you sure? Yeah. Okay. Good. Well, we are very excited to be here. Thank you. We're grateful that your team selected us to do this work for you. We are extremely respectful and understanding what a major investment it is for the city of the brands. We don't think that lightly at all. We know a lot about economic development, working with cities in particular. And I think the way cities do economic development, it's its own special niche of how to do things. And there's big nonprofit economic development organizations and chambers of commerce. They're important parts of those ecosystems as well. But when it's led by the city and a city-led economic development plan, that means something rather specific. And we're grateful for those projects. We very much enjoy doing those. So that's how I want to just open with, with appreciation that we're here and with respect for the investment that you're doing in your city. And we're looking forward to making good on that investment with you as we move along. We do have a few slides, just to guide this. So please chime in. I'm grateful for this opportunity to be with you all. I think it's very important that elected officials' voices are heard early in this process. You need to understand your vision and to create that alignment up front so that you see your vision as this unfolds. And the last thing in the world we want is to be halfway down a path and not be privy to some of your own thoughts. on this process. And please don't feel this is the only bite of the apple over there. I think you'll get Elliot and my contact info and you can go to the gentleman and write to Elliot at any time you wish. We're happy to be accessible to you off the project, okay? All right, Stacey. We'll talk a little bit about us. We'll talk a little bit about the project and we'll try to get out of the way. There's a total of four slides left, so there's not a lot to go over, but why don't you move us forward there. You've known a little bit about us. I started the company in Seattle 21 years ago. Elliot and I have been working together for 13 and a half years or so. Elliot moved to Denver many years ago and he was the only remote employee we had for a while. We didn't really know what to do with the remote employee. And then COVID hit and we were all remote employees. So then all of a sudden everyone sort of leveled up with each other. About that same time, my wife found a neat career opportunity in Memphis, Tennessee. And so I said, you know, let's shake things up and move there. So I knew it would challenge me professionally and challenge our practice by expanding us across the country. I got a lot of fun with that too. Once I got settled there and we started to hire folks, we would say, you can join us in either Seattle, Denver, or Memphis. And we've grown a little team in Denver in that way. Kind of two steps forward, one step backward in a smaller market like Memphis, but we enjoy working out a lot for you. We are not specialists. I think of ourselves, I think of myself first and foremost as an economic development consultant, but we introduce our company as a planning and economics firm. So we do economic research, we do fiscal analysis, we do market studies, economic development plans for cities, bring it all together. So that's also why I like the city, but process for a month of planning. So we think we're pretty well suited for this. We also like working in small, medium, and large places. We like rural cities. We like rural areas, even unincorporated areas. We very much think regionally. I think that's how markets are formed. Markets don't really know when you're crossing the jurisdiction boundaries. They want to be aware of regional perspectives, but we also know it's the city of development plan. It's a little focused on the city where we're heading in the process. Anything you want to add about yourself and the firm by way of introduction?

No, really only be affirming anything you've already said. We've done a lot of this work throughout the Pacific Northwest for cities from 2,000 people to regions of a few million people. We've done a lot of this work in Oregon in recent years and I personally have worked on Economic Development Strategic Plans in Astoria and Warrington and Sandy and McMinnville, across the border in Kennewick. Much larger context, but we did the City of Boise's Economic Development Strategic Plan a few years ago. Grants Pass, Medford, Ashland. Worked with small state universities. Similar in some respects to EOU, but different also. But worked with SOU as a key stakeholder in our Ashland work. You know, universities, private and public, are varying sizes across many of these communities.

So, excited to be working with you on this. We took interest yourself. We did introductions a few minutes ago.

I'm Rikki Hickey. I'm just a counselor.

Just a counselor. Rikki, thank you. Appreciate it. I'm Chris. This is Elliot.

Hi, Chris. Hi, Elliot.

Glad to have you joining us. Thank you. You're almost caught up now. Great. Those are introductions, right? Any questions about us as a company or our practice?

I love that question We do and I wish cities would follow up with us more That's a big part of it. I think

When we give you the final deliverable and plan, that's when the project begins. I have a lot of thoughts about how cities need to be stewards of those plans and who the stakeholders are and what the buy-in needs to be along the way. No one hates the old cliche of a report on a shelf more than we do. We want it to be in play. So our favorite project's back when everyone had paper copies of everything, where when we'd meet clients and they'd have their corners dog-eared and they'd be working off it and stuff, and it'd be marked up over months. In the digital world, it's a little harder to effectuate that. But we definitely could be a part of that. We can work with you guys. It gets to the end on the implementation plan. We can talk about different options.

to work with us all the way to the end. Is that what you just stated?

Yeah, absolutely. When we get closer, if you want us around longer, we're always happy for social calls and updates. As a consultant, a common interview question is someone wants to know what got built or what got done with our plans. We only know that if we can follow up with you all and talk about that afterwards. So we're grateful for those conversations. If we get stuck and something's weird, then we're always here for that also. Okay, we'll keep going, but ask me any questions about us as we go. This is an overview of the project. It's a schedule graphic as much as anything, but it's a good way to see the scopes and there are tasks scoped in the contract. It's a pretty typical way to structure an economic development plan, right? There's sometimes just different ways to do it. Elliot and I are glad to be here up front. We're really grateful for your interest conveyed through John and Timothy for us to be here in person. So we've scoped four in-person trips up front. Things can change. You all might decide you need five, only three, but right now we're planning on four. We try to space those out at the right time. You know, right now it's us getting as smart as we can, as quickly as we can and hearing what your visions are. Somewhere around October or so, we'll be back and we'll say, okay, this is what we think we've heard. We've gotten a little bit smarter from data and analytics with your community profile. So here's some working draft goals that we have in mind. It will help you think through what a vision statement might be. Vision statements can be small, medium, or large. Sometimes people kind of groan with the vision. They say it looks like everybody else's vision. But anytime we've tried to cut corners and skip a vision, we've always had to backtrack at some point in a second. Remind us what the vision is that we're aligning towards. So we'll make sure we have a good working draft vision as we go forward on that. You all can decide things about how formal that vision is. If it becomes something that you formally adopt or if it just lives in the document that says this is a vision that's aligned on that. So we're flexible and collaborative on that and we can talk on that more as that approaches. We can write really good visions all by ourselves and that serves nobody. They need the buy-in and the alignment and the engagement on that so that you all see your own Lots in there. Then what we like to do is get out in front of you with working graphs of strategies and actions. So even with this trip, Elliot's had some interviews throughout the day today already. I'm sure you've heard some actionable ideas that we can start assembling into a working graph action plan. And as we compile that, it just helps us think through how to organize your goals and interests. so that when we turn that corner around the holidays and leading into the new year, we've got a pretty solid working draft in place. Can't emphasize the word draft enough. It's just us putting words to paper or where we think they're going. That gives you ample time to do a public review process, your business engagements, yourselves working with it again to improve on that to get to something you feel better about. many iterations on those drafts, just through collaboration and feedback on that. The actual number of this is a formal full draft. I can't remember for sure what we're scoping for, but usually it's either two or three. We get a full draft in place, we get a lot of substantive comments, we get a second draft in place that addresses those substantive comments, and then we're into polish and semantics and all the y'all buts and if there's any blind spots. So that's a typical process for us. You have some specific things here, of course, in Oregon. You've got a lot of plans you've already done over the past several years, so we're respectful of that. The last thing we want to do is omit reference to those that are relevant. We don't want to redo anything, so we have the benefit of those plans through Timothy. He's given us a lot of background documents. We will refresh some of the data analysis that we think We've done a lot of economic opportunity analysis recently, so we're pretty savvy about Oregon state law and those requirements with Bill and I for the statewide planning goals. So we'll make sure that we are aligned and informed with how to use those things. Anything you want to add on the process there?

No, I think that's good. Chris mentioned goal nine. Goal 14 is also implicated, but there are some comp plan implications that we think could come out of this work, and our scope includes work to align the comprehensive plan, the relevant sections of the comprehensive plan, with the key findings of the economic development strategic plan. So once we do have that strategic plan content in place, we'll make sure that it speaks well to all of your other guiding policy documents.

Any questions at all?

process or any concerns or polls or what's the label in the black box at the bottom that's a good question yeah the color coding is matched to the task numbers there may be some white text on there that's not showing up but that's when we will do that reconciliation with your comprehensive plan to make sure it's consistent with the economic development strategy

I have to make that reference. I appreciate that.

You said that you'd be looking at what our plans already have been. So will you then say, this one needs to go because it's not working for you guys? Just curious.

I don't think we would ever say that. We would take stock of what's working and not working. And you're the ones that would tell us what's working and not working with that as well. So if there's anything that's... departure from that and be a collaborative conversation.

Because I know we've had a lot of plans over the years, and I don't know if all of them work or not.

I think the most important thing for us is to be respectful of decisions you've made leading up to this work, right? And so make sure we're aware of that, that we have the conversation that can go where we need to go. With data and analysis, you know, we'll be objective and transparent all the way, so if we want to talk about things, about what makes sense from an investment. Almost always, I try to avoid any declaration of what you should or shouldn't do. We try to take a viewpoint of, if you want to do this, then this is what you're up against, or this is what the opportunities are. So we want to frame the obstacles and let you choose your own venture based on those. If it's really wacky, we'd let you know. But mostly we want to listen on the impartial and objective with their analytics and then collaborate with you on what you want to do. I know Timothy has some great information for you. Yeah. That's great. You've got a lot to start from and that's really helpful. A lot of times with cities like Le Grand, somebody has a real specific than what the market economics really want to happen. Oftentimes, parking is the culprit. It's very expensive to provide for parking. So those are things that we can help by doing analytics and talking about what the development economics are as an example. I think up front, like to hear your aspirations, as I say, unencumbered by economics. We want you to tell us what you want. And then we want to hear that without us giving any friction for you in that. We want to hear your vision, and then we'll work with you to align that vision with what the market reality is.

So that's the part that comes in in October.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Any other questions on process? We're going to turn the No, this is great. This is great. The graphic on the right is a graphic I came up with several years ago, and it's just my go-to for how I think about economic development with cities. And to me, the foundation of economic development planning for cities is to be a good place, just real simply be a great place. A lot of people finish that with be a good place to live, work, play, live, work, play, worship. however you want to finish that, but just be a good place. And to me, that is the foundation of economic development. And that includes neighborhoods and schools, arts, your environment, access to parks, all the things that make a city a great city. I want you to think about that as investments in economic development. They're foundational to creating economic opportunity to people that live and work in LaGrange. So I like to start with that to make you feel like When we say, what is economic development? That's in there, right? It may not be. The economic development plan might not take ownership of some of those, but it can speak to it. You can say things. We're really proud of our park system or our schools or whatever you want. But it's important to me to know that community development is the foundation for economic development. Then the middle of that pyramid is to work with what you have. Your best bang for the buck for economic development investments is to work with the workforce you have, the property owners that you have, the business owners that you have, the employers that you have, all the folks that are vested in your community already in your local economy, nurture that, right? That's where your business climate and workforce development opportunities are. I'll say, again, that's just the best bang for your buck for economic growth in La Grande is to build on the momentum you have and address some of the issues you might have locally. So I can't say that enough just to respect who's here There are many cities and regions who want to choose which industries are their specialties that they want to go after. And we can do that. We'll help you with that. And you've already got some who have already seated for conversation, of course. And there's a community that I worked with years ago that I very much like. They said, we're not going to pick winners and losers. We're going to look at the data every year. And in the industry that's growing, more so they'll refresh that every year so rather than say we're all about life sciences or all about advanced manufacturing it's the construction jobs grew that year how do we add more construction jobs next year to ride that momentum so there's different ways to look at that but to me that's more to the point of take care of what you got in the nurture that but and By all means, the top of that pyramid is to go after what you want. It's great to be really specific with how you want to see your local economy change and what economic opportunities you want to have here in La Grande. So we don't mean to be too chronological that way. You can do all three things at once. But I do think foundationals would be a good place and take care of what you got. And like we've said, we've gleaned from your past conversations and some of your plans that you have some interest in some industries. And we're not going to hold you to those all throughout the plan, the way we talk about things. But those are some industries that we've read about, heard about, and talked about along the way as well. Agriculture opportunities, tourism, something we can unpack and talk about, your healthcare system, education system. and where you've got a little bit of micromanagement, manufacturing, makerspace ideas happening that we'd like to build on as well. The only way you can grow an economy is by bringing dollars in or trade. Sometimes health and hospitals, people are proud of because it's their major employer in town. And that's important to sort of check tiers too with the bottom tier there. However, unless that hospital is bringing in families from elsewhere, from well outside of the region. It's not driving growth, right? It's part of being a good place. Just about every city has enough healthcare to scale with their population. That's sort of standard. You need a certain amount of doctors and hospital beds to grow with the city you have. But that's different than an economic growth opportunity, right? And if that's the case, then you can build on that. That might be something to work on. But that's an example, a very common example. And my point is, the only way you can grow an economy is if you're bringing money in from elsewhere. That can be people, too. Human capital is a form of capital. So economic growth can take the form of new residents that move into LeGrand. But it's really important to have that mindset that when we talk about Growth opportunities it has to be to bring in new dollars from outside of the city Or you're just living it in a closed system Malford buy local and it's great to buy more local and not you know elsewhere to spend your dollars. That's very important to Those things work well together, but the best the mindset for economic growth is who's exporting something, whether it's a service or a product, and services are exportable as well in that regard. Any questions about all that? Or any pushback or yeah buts?

I have a question. Please. You're talking a little bit about recruitment. What do you mean by recruitment?

Yeah. Recruitment, the way I mean it there is the And I guess I shouldn't emphasize product of all that much because sometimes the phone rings and you've got to be there to answer the call, but you also have to work really hard to make the phone ring, as they say, right? So business recruitment is the practice of attracting new businesses to start here, as opposed to business expansion, right? Expansion is working with the business you have. That's retention and expansion. A lot of times that's all bundled together. Incentives, we talk about incentives a lot. Timothy and I were talking about this earlier today. I'm respectful that sometimes you have to play the incentive game with folks that are coming. It's usually, I'm probably a minority viewpoint on this in most places, but it usually isn't a leading asset. You need to win on Those bottom two parts of the pyramid on your assets in your strength, right? so I would rather Hear conversations about what we need to do invest in locally to make it a better place As a way to attract businesses in Rather than say well only we gave away this many years of the property tax or something like that, right? I don't believe that

marginal feasibility being the difference maker I want to see real community foundation but that's just me so I'd like to share a little bit and I know we'll expand on it uh more tomorrow but just so the council knows where my head's at on it and that way you can either confirm it or deny it as you guys contribute today But one of the things that I feel like we genuinely need to put more energy into is we need to brand Legrand as a destination place. However, I don't mean that just randomly. I think some thought and energy needs to be put into what we want to brand it for. And I think there's a lot of opportunity within our community already that we can invest better into that will give us the opportunity. And this is, depending on what comes from some of this conversation, is going to be a part of a greater conversation that we'll have at a work session in the future. But I genuinely feel like what we've done to get to where we are has been good, but I think we need to change the approach. and invest differently than the way we have been in order to enable some of those things. A lot of that focuses on tourism-related type topics. An example being, I don't want to go into too much detail on that because it's a little early, but we have some stuff brewing in the world of archery that's going to be really, I think, good for our community. And that could offer some additional opportunity to say why Legrand is worth looking at. And I think we have a few other areas that are similar to that. And so I'd like to see us. That's going to be the recommendation that I have pending what comes from all of this, that we put some significant energy into that. That's great.

You do need to get the word out. And the branding is a part of that, right? It's how you get that message out. So I don't. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. I don't think it's all chronological necessarily, but in order to get the word out for that business attraction case is important. Thank you for that. I think I've talked at you all. I need to talk at you. I think we have discussion questions next there, Stacey. So you're welcome to backtrack over anything that we've talked about. What I want to hear from you really is what does success look like to each of you, both for the city of the Grand and for this to get there, but that's really what I want to hear from each and every one of you, is what's your vision for the grand, what do you want to make sure happens as part of this project, and have that conversation. Anyone got something?

Yeah. I got lots of thoughts on the subject, but I think this is about your guys' opinion, not mine.

Well, I'd love to see the town grow some. I mean, is it We've lived here for 50 years, and I don't think the population has changed much over a couple thousand.

It's gone down, actually, hasn't it?

Well, when we moved here.

It went up and then went back down?

Yeah, yeah.

It would be nice to grow. I mean, I don't want to be huge. I don't think we need to be huge, but we need to have more. If we have more population, then some of the other businesses might move here, but there's not enough business here yet. for that. And I'd love to be able to see our downtown flourish better and have more retail in it.

I think having Le Grand be a destination and with things to do. People come here and they'll say, well, what is there to do? And sometimes there are things to do and sometimes not. I mean, if you like athletic outdoorsy things, that's easy. There's things to do. But if you don't or can't, then that's harder.

What are the, other than the outdoorsy stuff, what's the top of that list of things to do?

Like right now? Yeah. We've got a strong arts community, but you have to kind of hit it. There has to be something going on. Sometimes there's shows, sometimes there's not. It's a hit and miss. It is, but we're small enough that we can't have something all the time.

Are they organized? Is there an arts?

Yeah, through the university, through Arts Center East, there's a film festival, there's

There's an ecosystem to build on. Yeah.

I mean, obviously, there's something at a different season. Some seasons, there's nothing going on. Yeah.

And we have an orchestra, too, that plays, but you have to be there at their times that they do. And then they do a chamber series. They do a chamber series, yeah. I mean, we do have a theater that's constantly going out in Elgin. but that's 20 minutes away. So, you know, how do you, well, we bill it with the students that they have another opportunity to perform and to reach out. And because of that, they get to do summer theater, summer stock at Starlight out of Boise and different things like that. But yeah, it's, it's kind of hard. You know, they just finished one, they're auditioning another one.

But I think sometimes we forget that there are smaller communities around us can grow, too, and that will help us by itself.

Absolutely.

And I think we forget that, that they're important to our growth as well. And because housing is always an issue here. Yeah.

I mean, if we don't have the housing, we can't bring people in.

A lot of the people that do move in are retired.

I have some thoughts. I appreciate your pyramid here. Because I think, I love that you put as a foundation that pyramid. You've got to be a good place to live. And as I look at a strength of our community, it's just that. This is a tremendous place to raise a family. This is the core of what it means to raise a family in America. We have the values. We have the sense of community. We have a culture here. That culture is embedded within churches and education and other things. This is just a great place to raise a family. And it's why a lot of us stay here. It's why a lot of us come here. There are elements around that that need some work. But that is a tremendous strength that La Grande has. And we seem to strike this middle ground of being small enough to still be a tight-knit community, but large enough to be a full-service city. And I agree with you. There is some critical threshold to attract certain businesses. We haven't reached that. Maybe that's 20,000, 25,000 population, maybe somewhere in there, maybe up to 30. Much bigger than that, and we would lose some of our community identity. And you see some pushback among members of our community against growth that they have seen in other areas in Oregon. Bend is always the one that gets listed. You know, it used to be this way, and now it's not. They don't want La Grande to become that. but we've got root to fit um to maintain what we have that makes us a great place to live and work without losing that identity and still grow um so i mean i like to i think start with that you know those are strengths that we have um this community does rely on one another a lot so we have businesses that are cooperative that are interactive we have a very strong um are optimists and those allow interconnections between our community leaders and our business owners and so we we have some strengths i think there as well um you know i i would agree with you marianne that what constrains our economic development is largely a population issue we just haven't grown and with the population we have it's difficult for me to see us doing much else short of somebody just happening to stumble on a business startup that blows up and makes Legrand something special. I just don't think it's likely. So we need some population growth around that.

And I just want to echo to what David said. Moving here with our kids was the best decision we ever made. I mean, our kids in the high school, they have they get a gamut of opportunities, you know, for sports, music, theater. uh, shop, bathing or building, um, houses. It's the tiger project, which is incredible. They're working with, um, technicians learning how to, you know, do plumbing and electrical work and just building. And it's our community offers a lot, but I don't think, I think it's kind of what John was saying. We're not messaging it.

correctly messaging is probably the key to for our success i think as well no one knows where legrand is in fact yeah a lot of the people in the state of oregon have no clue they've heard it they couldn't point to it on a map couldn't tell you what side of the state we're on um and that's rather unfortunate but we were just out in the area where are you from legrand where's that Okay. I think another thing that constrains our economic development is that so many of our students who graduated from high school, from university, who are skilled, who are educated, can't find work here. And so to some extent, we're limited by our current economic situation. We just don't have jobs available to retain our homegrown individuals who want to be here, want to live here, and want to use their skill set to help grow the community. We don't have the foundation to keep them here.

But on the other side, the flip side of that is a lot of them leave for a while. When they start having their families, they come back. That's true too. But they change jobs, you can take a pay cut to do it. It's a safe place to raise the family. And they know it, they enjoy it here. The only thing I would say too is we don't have enough activities for our young people.

We have so many activities for young people, we just don't.

What did you say?

We have so many activities for young people, they're just not well marketed.

Maybe that's it.

People don't know what to do. Look around, it's really big word of mouth. for marketing yeah you can't put up flyers in stores they come down a week later like you know it's just it's it's weird we don't sell ourselves yeah we don't we're not selling well and another thing is in this town if you try to sell yourself so people will meet you with kind of a knee-jerk reaction of oh you think you're all that when they don't need to oh i i've run into a lot so like i i don't know it's it's just something that i've witnessed growing up here

I would suggest to...

When I said about the kids' activities, I guess my kids were always active and doing things, but they all left home here. Nobody lives here anymore either, though.

You know, Chris, you and Elliot both spoke about remote work. And that to me is an untapped opportunity for the brand. And we have seen some people come home because they can work remotely now. And I realize that that has sort of, it hit its crescendo and we're now maybe a little bit on the downhill slope in terms of what commercial activity is seeing as far as remote work. And there is some drive to have people return to the office setting, but there's still enough of that. And I think that we've flipped the script on that enough that it is a real possibility. And that to me is an economic development opportunity is to allow people to come here But part of that is, so we just touched on marketing, again, if people don't know who we are and where we are, we're not gonna be on their radar enough to have them come in unless they already have an established relationship here.

But some people don't want to have people come here. Actually, they don't want us to tell anybody because they like the community the way it is. That's not sustainable. I know it's true. We know it is, but that's how some people live here. Yeah, there's some people, yeah.

Well, again, for remote workers, there's not sufficient housing. So for someone who has a physical job here... it is hard to find housing. I work at the hospital and we have had doctors sign on and then go back on their contract because they couldn't find a place to live or the schools were not adequate. And the rigor of the schools limits maybe more intellectual parents.

Yeah, some of our high-income earners are not finding housing that is suitable for them. Law sizes that are suitable for them, that sort of thing. And some of those are, unfortunately, things that are out of our control because they're driven by the state and not something that we can dictate locally in terms of... Of course, one of our biggest constraints is the fact that we do get...

snowed in at times. It's hard to get out. They close the road both ways. So that's not, you know, a lot of businesses want to have access all the time, which we don't have.

Well, supply chain too. If the highway's closed, whatever is on that truck is not going

We have had businesses run analysis in, correct me if I'm wrong, but elect to go to other communities precisely because of the number of days the I-84 closes. And so if they're engaged in interstate commerce, that can be a hindrance to government.

How many days is that roughly? Yes.

Yeah, it varies from year to year. It has increased. It happens more frequently the last three or four years. I mean, there's been winters where we have root closures almost daily for a month or two in the wintertime.

Not all day, sometimes. But it seems like we're getting more accidents now than snow closures. That's what we're getting. They increased the speed limit on the highway and the trucks crashed. And then they blocked the whole highway.

I'm surprised. Well, that's what happened today. And that's why it was closed both ways.

I spoke with the regionals. transportation here sat down at dinner with him once and and it was interesting to hear his remarks and he admitted that they are closing the roads more frequently but he said it's a consequence of driver behavior right rather than anything else he said they used to be able to you know have an accident they can work on on the side of the road and people would screw around and slow down he said unfortunately drivers are no longer considered enough and so they feel the need to close the road they can ensure that everybody's safe. But whether other things, regardless, it is a negative mark on the community when it comes to interstate commerce. It's an unpredictability that businesses don't want to have.

Just in case, yeah.

Ricky, I feel like you were trying to get a word in a minute or two ago.

Oh, I think I was just agreeing.

Sorry, just wanted to make sure.

No.

Didn't leave anything behind. And John, I know you're in a different seat of this table, but there's got to be some stuff here.

Yeah, I'm just prompting a potential thing to throw in, but I don't want this to be a – I can easily make this into the John show.

But that's a good suggestion. I don't know how to expand on what you have.

So there's a lot of conversation around the airport that we have here. and the future potential growth of that as well and so even though we don't technically own the property that doesn't mean there couldn't be some good synergy that could be gained in partnership with the county to grow it and I think if we do a lot of our economic development and desired efforts that would be something that should be on the horizon or something we should be more seriously looking at.

Cool, appreciate that. On the tip of my tongue, I'm glad you What else? Rod, you want to chime in?

Yeah. You know, I like what everybody has offered. I grew up here.

He's lived here the longest.

And left to go to Seattle and start my career as an engineer there and came back 20 years later. And when I came back, of course, what had been the retail corridor in La Grande downtown, had moved to Island City, to Walmart, and of course in the 25 years since I've been back here, since year 2000, now Amazon and the online world has taken another bite out of what used to be the core of Legrand's downtown business. So I've been involved with economic development here over the past 20 years or so in various ways, mostly small ways. But I have seen an important transformation of the downtown assets, the buildings, in the extent to which new uses have come into play with the service sector lawyers and insurance agents and mortgage brokers and professional services have moved in and it's served the town well. The economic development, the urban renewal economic development effort was key in getting the first building owners to invest because those building refurbishments weren't viable, weren't financially viable without some public support in the beginning. The tide has now turned and the investment in downtown buildings has been very significant. In the past 25 years, the asset values are something close to three times what they were. And only a fraction of that has been the public support. So the economic development that has brought the downtown area back into play has been very, very strong. The efforts over the past 25 years to bring new industry in haven't have been more difficult the thing that we have here is a good labor force high school kids you know kids coming out of high school that have a good diversity of skills you know whether it be in the industrial arts and you know as well as reading writing arithmetic in the arts Uh, we don't have a lot of opportunity for, uh, you know, for professionals here. And I know when I moved back here, I had just started a, an engineering and aircraft design firm in Seattle. And, um, we tried to expand our operation here, but it was very limited because with the resource that that resource is not here. So the resource that's here is. um you know it's a very strong labor field we have a um more than other smaller towns we have a significant number of people whose skill levels rise above that uh you know the the blue collar level so Companies that want to grow here can find people that are capable of stepping into leadership roles. But the basic growth that we've seen, of course, over the years is the light manufacturing. The travel trailer industry has flourished here. It hasn't grown extremely fast, but it's been a great opportunity for for the business world to make use of the labor force that's here. We did try to attract professional industries here with more hope than success in the last 25 years. That's hard. I appreciate all that.

Does that trigger anything for anyone else to chime in on?

I think what's hard for me as somebody who wants to go shopping downtown is that there's not a lot of choices for shopping downtown. Instead, we have a lot of insurance buildings, like buildings full of insurance or gyms or studios. And that's not just someplace you can walk into and have purchasing power, right? So it would be nice to see... I don't know, more retail, like Mary Ann said. I'm so tired of watching more and more insurance buildings pop up on our main drive. Or churches, non-profits that don't have to pay taxes on the buildings. It's really hard as a community member to see that happening.

Well, part of the problem too, and you stated this before previously, is parking. Because I tried to go downtown a couple times, well, four times exactly, last December, and I just couldn't find... and stuff like that. We do have restaurants downtown and stuff like that, but I would love to have more retail. And there's even talk about certain retail people that are thinking about at the end of the year to call it quits, which breaks my heart going to school, but I miss stationary stores.

In the past few years, I mean, we've lost JCPenney, we've lost Sears.

Well, JCPenney went everywhere. Yeah, they were going out every year.

But we've lost Bergman Outfitters. I mean, we have lost a number of retail outfits that were there. They're just gone. And again, I don't know that that's unique to us. But what is, I think, unique was the proportion of our downtown retail that that occupied us. relative to other towns that had more to offer. That was one thing falling among many. Here that was one among very few. And yes, we have not protected the downtown for retail businesses. They have largely been, it's largely occupied by service.

However, we have no choice either because whoever owns the building can rent it to whom they wish to. So, I'm down.

Chris obviously they're going to bend it to somebody who wants to bet yeah yeah well Amazon and Walmart have killed where are the what I mean I apologize I didn't get here in time to know some of this first hand but one of the what are the attraction places in Walked in the coffee shop There's one I'm sorry a city and something that's in it right uh but you're talking about the city it's a small one it's got the outside it's got outside seating to do pizzas on thursday through sunday they don't do pizza on monday i figured that out that's all right let me know it's a cool place they're a great space uh good gathering space i mean it's it is what it is but i mean i've I would rank that as a plus for downtown. It is.

The small shops really are, like Rosewood Cottage and Fitzgerald Flowers, Cherries. Yeah, I mean, those are really nice shops. They're quaint. They have a niche. But there's not really any general retail space. Well, yeah, it's all used clothing downtown. And when we do get a clothing store, it lasts for about three years. I think part of the thing is that folks... don't want to spend extra money on on themselves as adults i'm learning they just want to spend it on their kids so maybe more kid options out there i don't know tj maxx is really booming though out there it's okay i'm sorry but it is it i mean there's all the time no

The discount retailers, I think, would do well in the ground.

But there is no children's stuff. I took my grandson.

There is that one place in the underground.

There are a few places. Yes, but they're usually little ones. I mean, like school-age kids. To go school shopping, people have to go to Walmart. We're out of town. Or go to Tri-Cities. Or see our wall-to-wall.

As you asked about.

That is true.

Why someone goes downtown, I think it's the restaurants are the primary destination. So going down to find a bite to eat. Not generally to browse. Community merchants is an example. We had a drive-in.

I like community merchants, though.

I thought it was too bad that our drive-in is closing because it is closed. It was one of the few left in Oregon. Or anywhere. I can't say that I've gone to it lately, but I can't stand that lady anymore.

It's hard. It's at risk to be a small shop entrepreneur, right? And retail is extensive inventory to invest in and to get a loyal customer base. It's hard. Yeah. with to build on some of these examples. That's why I asked the question is you can find the entrepreneurs that are willing to expand in what they do, right? So it starts off at a nice coffee shop and then there's some art that's for sale there. And then there's a little bit of clothing that's for sale there. And so they build a little bit of an experience with those offerings and then that can start something up. I'm just thinking out loud about places that individual businesses that have succeeded, starting with some of the assets.

We do have some started businesses, the building next door, downstairs. Unfortunately, a lot of people won't shop there because they can't go down the stairs and there's no elevator.

That's a barrier to shopping downtown in general, is if you have a mobility issue, There's no handicap parking or it's rare. It's not near where you need to be and you still have to get from your car over a curve. I'm a physical therapist. I've seen a few people who have fallen and hurt themselves. trying to access stores downtown. And another example of a business that kind of added to their focus is Alpine Archery. And they have an archery shop, they've got a shooting range in there, and now they also do fly fishing, which is appropriate for the area. And the bike shop, Mountain Works, started as a bike shop, but it has ski gear. So they've found some added areas of interest.

I'll go upstairs and send it into apartments.

I think to Rod's point about the shift into Island City of the retail area. Most, not only are there taxes, the tax structure is a little bit different than La Grande, that allows them to be more attractive to larger entities, but also just available land and neighboring locations that will drive people into a retail environment. Our neighbors in Island City have a little advantage there. That's on the actual, having the business within city boundaries side, obviously, growth there helps us because it creates job opportunities, opportunities for people to come in, where many of them are going to move into La Grande and work in Island City. But yeah, as far as attracting larger corporate or retail entities, I believe we've lost an advantage to our neighbors.

Well, I also question how much retail is going to be there in the future.

Because people shop online.

The Lloyd Center, which was iconic in Portland, is no more, and they're going to tear it down. And that was a huge shock and awe.

Well, people stopped going there because of Prime and other things, because everybody... When we moved here in 2001, everybody went to the Boyd Center, I mean, for school shopping and everything. And it became worse and worse, and people started not to go there.

I think people, that may be a piece of it, but I really think people just are not going to retail stores much. It's so much easier to sit in your slippers and say, I mean, well. It's true. It is true, though. Looking ahead, how reasonable is it to expect a lot and a variety of retail here?

I agree with you.

Because it's going away nationwide.

I think if we could have it here, then maybe people from Union Cove, Enterprise, any of those places might have it too. We have a drawing here. A lot of people come down here to go to Wal-Mart.

People from Baker come to Walmart.

Well, we see that pattern here that happens everywhere. You put a store that sells non-discretionary stuff, food and clothing, some of the basic clothing, and everybody has to go there for their non-discretionary stuff. They stop. And the littler stores congregate around those. So, you know, it's been suggested for downtown La Grande, if we could park a big box store right in the middle, we would instantly fill up all the shops surrounding it. Now, I don't know if we want a big box right in the middle of downtown La Grande.

I think one of the really nice things about La Grande and why my family moved back is that we don't experience time poverty in this town like you do living in a big city. So it's easy to get from one place to another here. Also we have, even though they're not always in the best of shape, sidewalks almost everywhere and it's easy to walk anywhere in town. Just downtown.

Not anywhere in town.

Well, most anywhere. There's sidewalks.

Up in my area, everybody's walking. I'm a walker.

It's easy compared to other places. I've lived where you can't get anywhere without driving because there's no sidewalks and you're on a highway. You just have to

And I think that's important to note, too. Just to remind everybody, it is 7 o'clock, so if there's anything else that you want to talk about, because I think we're kind of rehashing what we've already said.

But that's some strength in numbers on those comments. I hear what the emphases are.

That's all right. I want to make sure that they know their time.

I want to be very respectful of your time, of course, but I'm grateful for the conversation.

We advertise and schedule for a 7 o'clock adjournment. Yeah. So, yeah. Thank you.

So, is there anything that's new that somebody wants to know? Just real quick. I guess not. So, do you guys have any other questions for us? Yes.

You certainly addressed all those questions. Maybe if we could sit around the room, we'll go to the closing question to help us. What does... What does success working with us look like in your eyes? What do you want to come from this process with our leadership? Anyone have a top of mind answer for that?

I think looking at everything that we've done, I know you're going to say, I know you're not going to say, hey, this really stinks or whatever. But give us suggestions.

Yeah, well, if you keep brushing me, I'll find something.

But maybe suggestions like, you know, maybe you should try this instead of this. And stuff like that. Because you're coming from the outside. We're in the inside. And sometimes when we're in the inside, it's hard to see.

For sure.

We have blinders on.

Yeah. I think success looks like. that the city can implement. Given the resources we have, we're going to shorten the time by accumulating resources in a way that's sustainable.

Do you have anything? I'm in agreement. I guess everybody's in agreement, so I'm going to, to respect their time, I'm going to adjourn the meeting.