Community Economic Development Advisory Board - Regular Meeting

All right, good morning. I'd like to call a meeting to order. It is 1032. So first thing, I pledge allegiance. All right, do we have any public comment? All right, no public comment. Moving on, approval of the last meeting minutes. They were sent in the email out that everybody have a chance to look at the meeting minutes and see anything they wanted. I looked at it last week. I don't think I noticed anything that needed updating. Nothing needs to be updated. A nomination to approve the minutes as written. Approved. Okay, second. Tiffany makes the motion. Tim seconds. All in favor signify by saying aye. Aye.

I pass because I wasn't here.

All right. All right, moving on. New business. The first thing on the agenda, discussion of possible action regarding approval of 27 annual meeting schedule. So... That was also sent in there. Let me pull it up. We have it right here. So we've got five meetings scheduled for 27. I only saw five.

I thought I saw four. We've got five.

We've got January 19th, March 16th, May 18th, September 21st, and November 16th.

The January 19th meeting should be just the sunshine. OK. I make a motion to approve.

Okay.

Tiffany seconds. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? All right, so moved. Tiffany, I don't know if we need to, but we did. All right, next up.

Mr. Interim Chair, if I might. Yes, please go ahead. Just one comment. We ran into this same conversation one year ago. that in the November and December timeframe, we are required to publish, approve, or let me back up, create, approve, and publish our annual report for the commissioners. And so without a December meeting, we would need to be working on our annual report so that it is So it's just a footnote. As an obligation, we have that document on an annual basis to prepare. So not a December meeting. We would have to finalize that in November unless we call for a special meeting.

So how do we go about creating that? You're creating it?

Well, unfortunately, we're looking at somebody that's very helpful in creating that. That's what I figured. We will actually create a framework.

I say we, the Economic Development Division, will actually create the framework and distribute that for presentation to you folks. And then you can make modifications, enhancements, and so forth and so on.

But we can only go back and forth so many times given the amount of meetings that we have available to do that business.

Could we trade it via email and then have it for approval at our NOFA meeting this year?

The answer is no. That information would be presented for review here. There are sunshine laws that we would have to take into consideration for these matters. It's not a complicated report. Let me not make too much of it, but we are obligated to report to the commission what this board did do in the prior fiscal year.

Gotcha. And where do we stand? What is our next meeting tentatively scheduled? Or what's our next meeting for this school year? Or school year, geez, my school setting. Sorry, this calendar year. When's our next meeting? And is this report?

I believe it's on, what is it? November, I think. Wait, I can tell her.

The day I had was on Monday, too, which is weird. It's supposed to be on Monday.

It was right, huh? Okay. Yeah, the 17th.

Okay. And then will we have this same thing prepared for this November 17th?

We would, yes.

So we're going to run into the same thing this year? Yes.

Is it doable as like a work group session in this meeting?

Can you hit your green button?

Is it doable in like a conversation type setting in this meeting for November's meeting?

It is.

So we could set it as an agenda item for that time?

It will become an agenda item and I would appreciate if you would submit that to the clerk's office for inclusion in the agenda. You're correct. There are two issues going at the same time. Thank you for that clarification. There's the 27 calendar, which you already did approve. And then I, as a footnote, am reminding us all of the importance of that calendar and the business that has to happen at the end of each calendar year.

Okay. And we still have to do it for this calendar year as well? We do. All right, so will you be, so just to be clear for the next meeting, will you be sending a draft to the team that we will then discuss as a team and then approve in our November meeting coming up? Yes. Okay. Okay. Very good. And if we, after this process for this year, we can potentially make an amendment to the calendar if we need to. If we don't feel like this works after we run through it at the next meeting, I think would be the proper way to move forward.

So you wonder why I bring the issue up. Last year, we had occasion to not meet during a planned scheduled date. And there was also a lack of a quorum. And that then required us to schedule something so that we could produce the report because we needed a quorum.

All right, moving on to the next item, item B for our new business, discussion and possible action regarding election of an interim vice chair. So I am not familiar with our current vice chair's situation. Is she looking to step down, or does she have something that has her out of this for a while?

She has resigned due to a heavy calendar of her own. paraphrasing from her letter that she didn't want to impose those difficulties that she was having with other obligations on this board.

So do we have any nominations for a vice chair? So would the person be interim or would we just nominate someone to be permanently the vice chair?

Okay.

Okay, so for the next meeting coming up in November.

I make a motion that Michael become the interim chair, vice chair. Yeah, I'll second that.

Okay, any other nominations?

Who else is missing the meeting today? Our chairman, Sean. I know Sean, yeah.

Our representative who just sold her insurance company. Oh, right, right, right, okay.

She's a relative of Matthews. Sharon Matthews, James Jerome is absent.

Yes, and James Jerome from the bank.

If we're seeking no other nominations, I would be willing to, so I guess all in favor of making me vice chair interim for the rest of this year. Say aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? All right. So moved. All right. On to the next thing. Discussion and possible action regarding STC manufacturing class space.

Yes, I'll kick it off. There's a continuing interest by the community to expand the type of industry in which we attract to the city. A targeted industry has been the advanced manufacturing space, which easily transcends into the semiconductor aerospace and aviation pillars. in speaking with city leaders on the subject, industry leaders on the subject, developers on the subject, and educators on the subject, we have consensus that this is a strong play for the city economically. The age-old dilemma is always where do we get the workforce when we attract the industry? and hence we look to develop the workforce at the early stages of workforce exposure, which is typically in the high schools, then move on through to and include any technical schools and training programs available to technical schools, and then four-year degree programs. We have identified all of those programs and all of those program leaders and included them in these conversations and they are active in these discussions to develop workforce in support of advanced manufacturing, aerospace and aviation. It thrills that community who wants to come to our city and create businesses in those areas. The Technical College has plans to grow their service offering and their class offering as well as physical plant expansion. I'll pass on to Mr. Andy for further discussion on that.

So STC Northport Suncoast Technical College, we're going to have an expansion. The expansion is looking to be hopefully two stories. We're through the design phase of that building and one of the classrooms and lab spaces right now we are designated for a manufacturing program. What type of manufacturing program? We have time to decide still. We're looking to open that. Um, next part of our facility in August of 28, which we basically have. Almost 2 years, just a little less than 2 years from now to figure that out. So. In the interim, we have been working with local company roots robotics. They do educational programs and equipment that go off the colleges. We have. Uh, production lines, um, things that can be go towards semiconductors, all sorts of different things and, uh. In robotics and manufacturing, we have a CNC program at the main campus where we do. Precision precision machining, so manufacturing parts and whatnot. So not exactly sure. Which avenue? We 100% go down, but we're definitely looking to have a manufacturing program. And it might just be some of all of those things built into that lab. In the interim, we're working on the side. We've created an apprenticeship group with Roots Robotics that we're going to offer an apprenticeship starting as early as January, as late as hopefully August of next school year. An apprenticeship program doesn't necessarily require a dedicated lab space and the amount of equipment that a full program for us would require. So apprenticeship is typically people that are already employed in field or just got employed in a manufacturing field where we can upskill their ability levels and get them up to speed so that they have a higher skill set and ultimately earn a higher wage within their employer. So we have plans to get that off the ground. There's their trial running it with MTC right now, Manatee Technical north of us. So that way we do have a starting source to supply workforce coming into the city and the region. Just to have that to me is nothing else. It's a good faith move to make sure that we have some form of training for manufacturing moving forward. So those would be the 2 offerings currently at MTC. We are at. Sarasota campus has many for the manufacturing machining course, and then down South here in our Northport campus, we're going to start an apprenticeship program for advanced automation. And then we'll offer the corel 4.0 certification, which is on. Um, pneumatics, robotics, PLC controls, just things within that manufacturing world that are kind of universal skills that. A lot of manufacturers say, well, you don't train exactly what we do because PGT does something very different than King Plastics that does something very different than Sun Hydraulics. But those are generalized skills that if you know those skills, they apply to whatever machine you're building whatever product for. So our goal is to have something generalized that would benefit all manufacturers. We have some upcoming meetings to really get that off the ground in October, which is also CTE month for the state of Florida and nationally. So that's kind of where we're at with it. So I'm very hopeful that we draw in some bigger businesses into the North Port area, some big manufacturers, and we'll have a pipeline for them to have some workforce. And then, of course, the high schools, a lot of high schools have engineering programs and whatnot where they do a lot of these types of training where those students will either go off to an engineering program at University of Florida or somewhere where they'll come to us and get the same and get a different skill set level to be on that manufacturing floor.

That was going to be my question. Is UF the closest aerospace engineering four-year or does UF have a program?

I didn't understand completely.

Is UF the closest four-year aerospace engineering program?

Thank you for your interest in this subject. It's near and dear to us here at City Hall as we develop the program. Our nearest aeroengineering program would be probably Embry-Riddle in Daytona. But the really good news about that is Embry-Riddle has what's known as an articulation agreement with the Sarasota County school system so that students who participate in their, by way of example, one example, their online learning, they could do that here through either dual enrollment or advanced placement classes or through Suncoast Technical and receive Embry-Riddle credits. Should they decide then after say two years to move on to a more advanced degree, they could then do that and all those credits are transferable. And so the school system and their articulation agreement fit perfectly and nicely with the Embry-Riddle-Perot program. UF, however, has made itself the leading engineering school in the state and one of the top in the country. And as a result of that, we have equal interest and participation by UF. And I say participation, we have a workforce council in place made up of educators, industry leaders, municipal leaders and private sector leaders. We met about two and a half, three weeks ago and we had 25 of us in attendance strictly focused on workforce development and the education cycle, placement. So yes, great insight.

And USF has staff locally in Sarasota that work with our public schools to help students get into engineering pathways and to be a direct connect to get our students up to UF.

Yeah, as we begin to unfold more publicly on this subject, it's nice to know that aero, aviation, and much of advanced manufacturing as it relates to things in the semiconductor industry as well, do not rely on four-year degreed professionals. In fact, there are many positions available in those trades. And they make more money than the engineers. In fact, I attended a workshop not long ago where the professionals at the education institutions were asked, why would we encourage anybody to go get an engineering degree when they can get their associate's degree and get certificate-based training and they'll make more money and not have to go into debt. So it's very interesting. We talk about clean rooms and laboratories and laser etching and all these other really interesting things that are related to these industries. These folks come right out of high school and could be making $65,000, $75,000 a year with a high school degree and some certificate-based training. And that's, of course, part of the impetus for getting the Suncoast technical college online is because not only can they do all kinds of great training, but they can have solid placements, which is what their model's built on. It's not just about training, it's about getting students placed into industry. And we're talking about students who normally might not ever dream of making that much money are now coming out of high school and making those kind of dollars.

That's great, thank you.

Alright. Moving on to updates. Economic Development Division update.

Thank you. This is a permanent item on our agenda as requested by this board. I do want to say that we have limited time and I could go on for hours. I love my job. I love what we do. We have so much Questions you might have about the economic development activity in the city and then I have a short list of things that I'd be happy to Add to so I would I would like to open it up for you and give you that opportunity to ask questions I guess the big topic in this city is data center. All right, so data centers or so did you have another subject?

I wonder why There hasn't been more of a response to the people who have objected to the development code. I know that the city had plenty of town hall meetings about the expansion and the changes in the code. And because I went to several of them myself, yet there's this group of people who seem to think we haven't communicated properly. with the public. And it's almost like, you know, they're just mad because they're mad. I mean, I live off the Snover Canal, so I use Chamberlain quite a bit, and I'm past that new apartment complex that's going up there. I worked in construction for over 20 years, and they're doing a good job on that site. It's going to be if anybody bothered to look at the city layout, the plan design, it's going to be nice looking when they finish because they're putting those berms all the way around the property. There's going to be plenty of vegetation. I know the people who live along that back road are unhappy because all of a sudden they've got to deal with construction. It's not a pleasant thing to live through. And they're worried about their sight lines. I don't know why we approved such a high building there, but that's another story. They probably applied properly, met all the code requirements, but

i think that i don't know are you allowed to say anything in response to those people so we got two subjects so far data centers uldc any other subjects you want to is there any movement on the properties and businesses going in right next adjacent to stc along the those lots i saw on the economic there's a mcdonald's at the corner of the school.

You're talking at the off ramp there at I-75 in Toledo?

Yeah, right next to STC in the library.

Yep, I'm familiar with that too. All right, we'll start. Data centers came up first. that I'll give you a brief overview. There was a development application submitted. The development application is in review. The Commission met and voted to allow that application to continue for review and it stops the development of that project short of approval. So the planning process, some of you may be more familiar than others with how that works, but the planning process for the data center continues and will continue up to just before final approval. In the interim, the commission has charged the city attorney and the development team to create what seems to be additions to the ULDC, the Universal Land Development Code, to provide for specific language on what it means to add a data center to our city. When the ULDC was written and then updated and revised, nobody had any foresight into the fact that something like that might come to town one day. And so there were no provisions for that. And so now the city is working on creating provisions, if you will, guard rails, to preclude the concerns, all of them legitimate, might I add. None of us want to drink contaminated water. None of us want to see aquifers depleted. None of us want to have to fight noise and environmental matters. I think as a citizen group, we are all unified on those matters. We don't need to fuss and argue about them. We all want clean drinking water and the long list of other things as well. What does happen over the next number of months is important for our community. It's important for the developers so that everybody understands what those boundaries look like. Let me address water for you. And I'm giving you the synopsis. of everything that's transpired. Water is not regulated solely by the city. We sell our water. We source our water from our own aquifers, from Peace River, where we buy that from the water management district and the like, and then we resell that water. But there are clean water standards, just like there are clean air standards. And of course, data centers really don't have emissions. In terms of noise, the city does have an active noise ordinance in place. It's not part of the Unified Land Development Code. It is part of our ordinances. It's in effect today. And it is something that's more simply modified if needed to be modified. I can tell you that data centers today are very different than data centers of ten years ago, five years ago. Have you ever walked in across the parking lot in a shopping center and turned around and there was a car right behind you that you never heard? Well, we've all had that experience and that is the current state of technologies and data center development. principally well below any decibels that anybody could have imagined just a few years ago. So most of the concerns that are raised, as I've already said, are legitimate. We all have the same concerns. And the city is working to create the bumpers, the guidelines by which this type of project can move forward in our city.

Has the city been in contact with any new entities that are existing right now that could come and talk to the citizens in a presentation?

You mean subject matter experts who could advocate for or against?

Or a development center that's already in existence at a specific location that that city or county, whatever it is, could come and actually talk about what they're experiencing and what they've done to alleviate any concerns that the citizens of their community have.

Yes, there are those. There are plenty available. We are cognizant that bringing in subject matter experts is a dual-edged sword because some might say, well, those were the people you picked And where are the people that, whatever side of the issue you're on, where are the people that we might pick who can speak to the subject? This is, let me elaborate, this is not a red and blue subject, but it seems to have fallen that way in America. Because now we have candidates running for office, including our gubernatorial race, where they're making statements to, for, or against these kind of projects. We are not in that posture here. Our economic development team is not in that posture. This is not a politically motivated project for us in any way, shape, or form.

So who does the development? I mean, it's not the commissioners making the recommendations for the controls. It's your department, right?

Or not? The commissioners have made and tasked staff to develop the boundaries for presentation back to them for their approval.

Okay, because they don't have the expertise.

They don't have the expertise. No, nor does the city have all the cards. The city is learning. The city is talking to experts.

It's not like data centers haven't been around forever. They have. I worked for a company years ago that makes the racks that are in those service centers, and that was 20 years ago. They're internet. So it's not anything new. We're just being more aware of them because we need the expansion. And if people would stop taking pictures of their food and posting silly stuff like that on the internet, we wouldn't need all that power. But the more people do things like that, instead of using the internet for knowledge and intelligence, then we'd be better off.

I'm sensitive to opinion. and I'm open to understand what I don't know. And it's not just myself, it's the entire economic development team, and that's who I'm representing here at this table. I speak loosely on behalf of the city on that same matter. We are open to understand and learn. we want to know, we want what's best for the citizens and in no way, shape or form is there any desire at any cost to bring harm to citizens or this community. And I know that's a root fundamental desire that is legitimate. I see it. I walk these halls all day, every day. I can tell you that's a strong sentiment here.

Change is hard for people. Some people accept it readily, and other people are constantly in anger and denial stages.

This may all change with the upcoming election also. Of course. From what I've been reading. Doesn't mean it's going to change. Some of the commission candidates are not.

If I had a crystal ball, I'd be in a different line of work making lots of money. Yeah, I'm supposed to be a millionaire by now.

All right, let's move on. I didn't mean to get political on that, but I do a lot of reading about this stuff, and all the work that's going to be done may be going out the window for nothing. That's what I'm concerned about.

I think there's a strong case for the work that's

Once people know what's going to happen, it'll change. I'm very confident, yes. With 5,000 people turning up for the meeting.

Well, if you haven't heard, this was part of my report to all of you, but this is a good point to interject in. We exceeded 100,000 in our population standing for the first time. We did put it out in the press, but that's a nice number. And so when we talk about majority and minority of belief systems and where people live and where our tax money is coming from, we're now spreading 100,000 citizens across 104 square miles, which is really awesome stuff.

Well, I guess the question is, while it's under review, but sounds like it's something that's definitely going to happen, is it possible that it Or is it something that's pretty much inevitable and just kind of being delayed within data center?

Wow, those were some big words. Inevitable, if possible, could. I'm well schooled to listen carefully.

Anything's possible, I guess, would that be your answer?

Anything's possible? So in understanding the development cycle of any municipality, and these are basic rudimentary components, a development organization would submit an application for development. And that application is reviewed to determine its sufficiency. There are zoning components that are evaluated. There are then engineering designs that are submitted for review. There are compliance matters, whether it be fire, natural resources. water management, there's a large number of things that get evaluated. And obviously, you just look around our city and you see development, so other people have gone through that same process. And received the permission to then build their project. This is very similar. It just happens to be a subject that is not well understood and is just being unearthed, so to speak. But the process of development remains primarily the same. And so going through all of those things and checking the boxes and being compliant and zoning and all these matters, not the least of which includes environmental impact, environmental impact studies, All of that is continuing today. Thank you. You're welcome, sir. Thank you. All right, moving on to the ULDC. Thank you for your comments, ma'am. ULDC, Universal Land Development Code, was updated approximately almost two years ago now. not quite, but approximately, and there has been a great amount of discussion whether or not those in the city who were most impacted by this knew it was coming, how it was told to them that there was a chance and how where they live is mostly for the those who have single-family homes where their zoning was changed to some some form of corridor district and Again, I am completely open to understanding everybody's concerns. I did not write this code. I don't enforce this code. From an economic development standpoint, though, it is the Bible for development that the planners use, the zoners refer to, and so forth. I feel for those who were not aware that the land development code was being updated.

I'm sorry for them that they did not have that knowledge. Because they didn't pay attention. I have to comment on that, because I was with Northport Forward. I don't know if you ever heard of them or not. It was a not-for-profit that was formed years ago. And from four years ago up until two years ago, we were having meetings where we had the staff come and talk about the fact that the ULDC was going to be updated. And we had all kind of communities come. We went to their community and had the city staff So the fact that information was not out there, I find that hard to believe because we had hundreds of people showing up to these meetings. Yes, the information was put out there in a large number of ways.

I think when you speak of it from that perspective, I think when you have a community center or like Tarrant Creek or something like that, I think they do a great job at getting that information out to their people that live in their community. But when you have just these random houses in the back of a neighborhood, I think that's probably a little bit different from a perspective.

So getting the word out was a mission? Absolutely. Absolutely. what was being communicated. After all, it's land development speak. If you're not a professional in that arena, it might be hard to understand. It might be hard to know what that meant for your property specifically. And so I can empathize with those who did not understand what was coming or those who bought property not understanding what the buying might be. I'm sympathetic to what they're going through if it's an adverse situation for them. In many cases, that type of zoning has actually enhanced their property values, not decreased them, as you might have heard. And so there are both sides of the fence there. The ULDC is not a perfect document. No community's ULDC is perfect. It's a piece of governing language that will always be in a perpetual state of update. But of course, getting those updates implemented requires that whole process, at least in our community, of going before the commission. So I hear the general public. I don't ignore it. I have no impact on what they say or think. I don't write that. That's part of a document that resides in the development services team, specifically the planning group.

Yeah, you probably can't respond anyway. It just starts a fight, and you get baited by the objectors.

I can add in on this topic as an engineer. A lot of these lots that have been rezoned by themselves won't meet any type of standards. In the past code, there have been minimum lot sizes for commercial properties, but the cities changed the wording to state that it's corridor, and they don't necessarily have a minimum design standard for lots. So a standard quarter acre lot is impossible to build commercial standards on. And I've told the city that in multiple lawsuits against the city so my concern is they should have taken that into consideration and said minimum lot sizes if you don't conform well then maybe we can look at alternatives because a lot of my clients they can't build nor can that lot by itself ever be built on so you have to buy up five ten lots and buy up the two homes, tear them down to build it. So I think the city was short-sighted when they did the ULDC. They didn't take into considerations just because you rezone it doesn't mean it's built. It's not a field of dreams. designing to begin with with the city when they zoned everything for residential they didn't put enough commercial I know the city rezoned it for commercial to get enough income but just because you rezoned it to a fancy corridor transition I think there's gonna be a lot more problems the city faces and just wasn't well thought out

on price if they didn't know it was going to be eventually expanded well maybe they didn't care some people don't care where their lot is and so but other people are shocked by it and that's too bad i mean look at i hate to well in park i'm sure the realtors didn't tell some people who bought houses in the flood zone that it floods It's not something a realtor would brag about. But it's up to the buyer to figure that out, to look for that. When they probably found out, it was too late after they went after their insurance and found out that they needed flood insurance. But neither here nor there, it's the way that land is bought and sold. And we're not getting away from that in this century, probably.

So from an economic development standpoint, back on task here and as I represent the city in terms of EconDev, I will tell you that we respect and honor the existing code of the city. We get many questions about the ULDC from development concerns and we refer those to the appropriate folks within the city who can answer those questions and then interpret the ULDC for the I am not aware of projects today that have come before me where we haven't been able to get some sort of an interpretation or directive that allows for the continuation of development. That's not to say there aren't folks that shy away from it because it's a difficult situation. As Mr. Drum was mentioning, you know, there may be people out there that just shy away from it. On the other hand, I have none in my area for the city where we're aware that that is the case. All right, and the last item that you guys asked for was from Mr. Endy about the property adjacent to the Technical College along Toledo Blade. It actually is an L-shaped property. If you're coming southbound on 75 and you get off the Toledo Blade exit, as you come down that exit ramp and you look to your right, there's a treed lot with a retention pond. And then as you head down Toledo Blade south, towards the college entrance, you'll see more of that property. And that property has gone through a lot. Ownership has changed. There was bankruptcy involved. There was bank ownership involved. I will tell you that as part of my update that I was gonna give you and relates to that property, I went to the Florida ICSC show two weeks ago in Orlando where we were exhibitors selling the city of Northport to investors. And as I entered the convention center and rode the elevator up on the first morning, I rode up with a gentleman who I'd never met before. He didn't know me. We said hello to each other and come to find out he's the broker for the very property you've asked about. So, two birds with one stone, the value of these shows that we go to and our exhibition efforts are very powerful because you don't know who you're going to run into, right? And here on the morning of the first day of the show, I'm right in the elevator with the broker for that very property and we start to chit-chat and He said, oh, so-and-so, and this one, next thing you know, before lunch that day, I met the owner of the property, the broker of the property, and some prospects who want to build on that property. The status of that property, I'm happy to tell you, is back in my active category. I spoke to the real estate firm representing the owner just yesterday. names of Development concerns who wants to be in on that parcel It's well known and long been known and they have held on for five or six years now McDonald's has wanted to go on that property forever and And my gosh, it is a good location for McDonald's. And McDonald's was also at the ICSC show this week, and they confirmed that they're still interested and want to follow through on being on that property. And so it's an active property. Economic Development is actively engaged in working with the brokerage and owners of that property to help them get that thing developed. So yes. It's moving along finally. Thanks.

It reminds me about the property right there at Price and Toledo Plate, right behind the strip mall with Little Caesars and Pink Tequila. That was for, I know the city was trying to develop that for years, except for over there, I believe, at one time, and one of them was a holdout right in the middle. Are you speaking of behind Publix? No, on the other side of Price. Oh, yes. That's also an active project. Now that's ongoing. Do you know what's going there now, or has it been sold? I thought a developer got it now.

Well, I know one thing that's going there, because I ran into her at the same ICSC show, and that's Chipotle.

No, I'm talking about behind the Walgreens.

Behind Pink Tequila.

Behind Pink Tequila and all that. There's five big lots there. And from years ago, I remember going to a meeting, a town meeting, that I think Debbie McDowell had, and she pointed out that the city had been trying to get it, but there was one landowner who would not, of the five that owned it, would not give in, and he had the middle property, so No, but I thought, I know a developer has it for sale now. I thought I saw a sign. So I'm assuming now it's open for development.

I'm glad you brought that up. I get in the car periodically and just drive around, not aimlessly, but just looking because it's hard to keep up with. Yeah, me too. And I'm amazed how many times I see a sign and it's an old sign. or it's a sign I never saw before, or it's a new sign from somebody I've never heard of. I can't even keep up with the signs, let alone all the projects. And they don't always say what's going there.

I'm from Chicago, and it was a rule. You had to say what was being built there on whatever development it was. The same with most of the suburbs.

I love the observations. Thank you.

Yes.

best in fact our team gets out on a monthly basis we show up here at seven o'clock in the morning on a given Friday once a month and we pile in a car together the economic development team and we have a specific site or business and we go and visit we go look and we put on our boots and we walk the property because we're trying to keep about a site and we're like, have you ever been there? No. Have you ever walked that lot? No. And we go. We just do it at 7 in the morning. It's a great, you know, then we come back here and have a cup of coffee and do a debrief on what we just did. And it's interesting for us to be able to try and keep pace. It's It's tough. It's tough.

Well, yeah, I know because I noticed that. I tried to look up what was on the corner by the Publix there. It's a bank now from what I understand, but the city hasn't updated the development map to say what's being constructed there, and they've already got the foundation in. So I'm assuming it's a bank because that's the rumor. But again, there's no sign there. The one by the Burger King. But yeah, I do the same thing. I drive around. Well, my first job in construction was working for a home builder, a regional home builder in four states, and I worked land development. That's how they started me.

I love your interaction. Thank you very much for being so participative in these discussions. I should share with you that one of the best indicators and economically from the business side of the fence here in our city is our reporting that we do that tracks the business tax receipt metrics. And I'm happy to tell you that for the fiscal year through August, we have had 283 new businesses here in the city. There are plenty of communities that would die for those kind of numbers to have that many businesses through August move to town. And those are the ones that have filed, of course, the business tax receipt, that we're able to therefore track it. That's a 25% increase over last year. total number of businesses, and that's a sign of the health of the business community. It's very strong. If you're not engaged in any way with our local Chamber of Commerce, you would see that by going to their events, their meetings, and hear what's going on. Very lively, very, very upbeat. Mike McClellan on our staff Every week has ribbon cuttings, ground breakings, grand opening events. It's just on a perpetual basis. And we are real proud of the fact that we have such a strong business community here in our city. We recently went over to the Northport Business Park, which is there at Toledo Blade, the Benderson facilities. And we welcomed a new wholesale electric supplier that just moved in there. We welcomed a new saltwater fishing tackle supplier, global supplier that just moved in there. They are getting ready to announce some additional major tenants in that facility. I'm working with developers on new early learning and day care centers here in the city. Our health care component continues to grow. Almost sounds like a broken record. You'd be like, well, Michael, you already told us that. Well, there's new health care stuff coming all the time. Whether it's new physician offices, diagnostic centers, out there for the VA clinic which is down you know they broke ground about two months ago on that I'm working actively with a brand new project which I'm not able to speak to today but it's a multi-million dollar project for drug and alcohol treatment that's going to be coming to our city the Exalt Healthcare opened up last week for It's a 100 plus bed facility with 60 new employees. Healthcare just continues to be a bright spot for our city. And hence, we also, in addition to the workforce group that meets on advanced manufacturing, aviation, aeronautics, semiconductor, we have a parallel group that works on the development of the healthcare workforce in our city. here pretty quick. And so with the technical school's capabilities to continue to train in healthcare, we continue to support their efforts, their expansion in programming from the Sarasota campus to the Northport campus. Obviously their physical plant expansion because these jobs are of critical demand. Critical demand. So health care continues to be a growing component of our community as well.

I did, actually. I'm from SMH. That's where I work. But they're going to start hiring for the campus in fall of 2027. And they expect about 800 employees.

Isn't that amazing? And Jeff sits on our advisory council. We're actually doing something interesting with health care that is novel. And that is, as opposed to just having a job fair where you have a hiring event, well, SMH, by way of example, as well as the others, Northport Behavioral and all the others, they have their own hiring events. What we did is we brought together the health care community and said, what if we created awareness for the existing health care professional who's burned out on their job, who wants to transition to something different in health care. So if you're tired of bedside care, let's say, as an example, and you're a CNA and you don't want to do bedside anymore, well, you could become a sterilization technician. But a lot of the CNAs don't realize that they have transferable skills that allow them to cross over and explore other health care opportunities. So we hosted a health care exposition. We had 60 tables over here at the McMullen Center where we were with the health care community demonstrating to the health care trade that they have options. They can move from one side of health care to the other. And so yes, it's not only growing the base of workforce, but it's also letting that existing base know that there are options within the base of healthcare where they can pursue new things. So another exciting thing, and we have our next exposition, city-sponsored exposition for healthcare planned in the month of March. So we're excited about that as well. I am working with our grant development team to secure a statewide grant that is a job growth grant for communities who are pursuing advanced manufacturing, aerospace and engineering. It's very specific. and that grant would potentially give us a few million dollars and it is specific on how we use it and it is for infrastructure development of the community and so we have put together a and other members of city staff from other departments. We're working on getting an application pulled together to submit that to the state. There's about $50 million available. And our idea is to bring those dollars to the city so that we can further develop plans and engineering designs and the like for the continued expansion of infrastructure and create a new on-off ramp of I-75 in the Yorkshire area, which has been talked about for a long time. But the Florida Department of Transportation is not likely to move on that unless we have our infrastructure in place to support their highway expansion. And so we're working on that as well. We have a lot going on. Yeah, you do. All right, I yield to you.

Perfect. Well, if we don't have any more updates there, our next thing is our update on King Plastics YMCA child care information update.

So they broke ground about two and a half months ago, maybe three now. King Plastics, city's largest private employer, to the north side of Price. They partnered with the YMCA. The YMCA, by the way, you should know, is a seven county governed office. They have Manatee, Sarasota, Charlotte, Lee, DeSoto, I'm missing something on the other side of 75. And so the regional YMCA is headquartered in Venice on the island, but they have responsibility for all those named counties. And they run early childhood development and daycare facilities throughout the region. And they partnered with King Plastics, and King Plastics the property there on their site to create their facility despite what a lot of people think it is not a YMCA with a gym and a swimming pool and a place that you have a membership and you can go and work out it's not that at all it's it's early childhood development and daycare It is open to the general public in terms of being able to use that facility for those purposes. They are going to give some preference, and I'm not sure what the priorities are and how it works for King Plastic employees, but it will be also available to the general public. They are pushing dirt. And I don't have a new anticipated open date just as of yet. That is being constructed by a firm by the name of Atlas. And Atlas is working on that project.

All right. We still have no further public comment. Do we need to add anything for the new business next month or in November for talking about and reviewing that drafted document for our report? Do we need to add that now for our business item for next month or for two months, I keep saying next month, our next meeting? Okay. So do I need to do anything official to add that on to our new business for next month? procedural thing i don't think so we just need to make sure that we have that on the agenda next month okay all right anything else for the good of the order all right well that's okay i just want to introduce myself prior to me moving to this area i was a realtor and

where I saw a truck component, so hiring engineers, assembly workers, purchasing agents, tool and die, all that. And then I went to PGT, the industry helped them move their old location to their current location, 350 to 700 employees and do that. So my experience in manufacturing is great. Then I worked, left then and went to, because the main deterrent for them was recruiting female drummers. So the reason why I'm here and wanting to be involved is I live near the Yorkshire area. I've been looking to see that area developing very well. I've been here for two reasons. One, for emergency population. More importantly, because when I was with PGT Industries, they made the mistake by going to the lower McComas area because for DOT purposes, a driver can only drive a maximum of 15 hours. That's getting lunch. So there are drivers going all and then time constraints. So they have drivers actually sitting in front of the border overnight, because they can't meet these time constraints. So we are logistically positioned at that Yorkshire corridor for logistics, manufacturing, and distributions. And we need those type of industries to come here. We need the middle-age industries. So I'm passionate about that. I know a lot of people. I'm also a legislative director for 35 years. I have a lot of contacts with Senators and so on. I was also president of FIAT, which is now CareerSource. I developed training programs through a few tax dollars. I have a lot of experience being a proponent for employment. So when I hear things like, oh, McDonald's coming, they'll come in. That's why I get excited about those things and I certainly would like to explore this city and seeing the area developed to the potential that it should be, quite honestly. So thank you for allowing me to sit in because I wanted to see what was happening and it is really good. I have to be honest, I've been here 35 years. I don't drive major roads too much. I'm a country bumpkin from upstate New York So I drive high school or back where I live. So whenever I do have to go at 75 and I get off, I get lost. Because there's a new building, a new commercial building, seems like every week. And I'm like, where am I? Because this city is developing. That's the tension. But it's really good that Sarasota New World is coming here. I have to say, I did have an opportunity

an opportunity. I'm sorry.

It was not a dream for me because I was critically sick and I had my ambulance and it was not a good experience. And when I had to go to my ambulance again, I went to 6th and 4th and it was a five-star. I got unbelievable care. And we're so lucky to have them. So I'm going to point, you know, we do have large potential for these medical staff who

are limited because of the type of offices that we have.

We have either a CNA or general nursing, you know, blood draws, pulps and stuff, when a hospital has a potential cell tumor. Yeah, and we're very lucky.

Absolutely. All right. So I guess that goes under our public comments. So no other public comment. We have... go ahead and adjourn the meeting. It is 1139.

I'll make a motion to adjourn. All right.

I don't think we need to make a motion. We don't need that? Nope.

Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Mike, for assuming your