Economic Development - Regular Meeting

Alright.

We're doing all this grass cutting on the highway there, so they close everything up. Yeah.

No. I I get it.

In a hot road too.

Yeah. A lot of work done. Going on. I I understand. I got the meeting order here for twenty second In my days. Amber, we'll call, please.

Supervisor Church?

Present.

Supervisor Lehnem? Present. Norman Grew?

Here.

Cochran Seventh? Here. Pete Severson?

Here.

Therese Clark? Absent. Jane. Danbury. Absent. Heather Gardner. Absent. Aida Chung? Here. Nicholas Kite?

Here.

Beth Babinski? Here. Janine Chikurov? Absent. That's cork.

Thank

you. Any additions or corrections?

There are none.

You. Any announcements that we have, items? I don't see anybody. So we'll move on then to public comment period. And is there anybody that would like to comment on items that are not on today's agenda in the room or on Zoom?

I see no hands raised.

No hands? Great. Okay. We will move past public comment and close it and move on to our regular agenda, which we have resignation of Jonathan Brown. And Yeah. Go ahead. Go ahead, Richard.

So recently received notice from Jonathan Brown, one of our committee members who unfortunately will no longer be able to participate on the committee due to unforeseen circumstances, just continued expansion of in his current professional role and taking him into other things that just taken up too much of his time. And so he wants to ensure that if he is providing support to this economic development committee that it is fully, and he's not going to be missing committee meetings. And, unfortunately, the way his schedule is working out is he won't be able to make the committee meetings for this year.

So with that, we are asking the committee to provide direct or

to receive and accept the resignation from Jonathan Brown from the economic development committee and to provide direction to staff so that we may move forward with an open recruitment. And the way the open recruitment works is we will take this open committee seat, post it publicly. We will make announcements in the weekly and other publications. We will post it publicly on the county website, and we'll also send out an emailer to several organizations to let them know that this committee seat is open. And we'll have that open for a certain period of time determined by the committee if you'd like it to be thirty, sixty, ninety days to receive applications.

And then once those applications have come in, a ad hoc committee. We're also asking that you consider putting together an ad hoc committee that will review those applications and then bring those applications forward to this committee to make recommendations to the board of supervisors or someone to fill that role.

Thanks. Can we refuse to accept his resignation?

You can, but, unfortunately, we'll have an empty seat.

Won't do much good. Any comments from the board on this? Any particular questions

on Well, first of all, it's always good to have, diverse points of view on this economic development committee, and Jonathan represented the only member that came from labor. He's a member of operating in engineers. So I I do we have any criteria like that to get a good mix of of perspectives on this committee?

Yes. Within the bylaws, it specifically states that we have to have, an individual or a member of the committee that represents labor. So this would be for someone

Okay.

From labor. To replace that seat. Okay. Great. That's good to hear.

In the past, you mentioned having a having a period over thirty, sixty, ninety days. What's been done

in the past? In the past, initially opened it for thirty days. And with the lack of response, we ended up opening it ninety days. So we we kept extending the the term or the the open window because we did have a few seats and labor being one of those where initially had no applications for the first thirty days and had to continue to extend it until we did receive applications for that seat.

Did Jonathan have any suggestions on somebody that might be interested?

He said that he he would be happy to reach out and connect with other individuals within the labor space and make sure that they're aware of this this seat coming available and happy to plug them into it and make sure that they know and they're aware that this will be coming online and will be open to anyone within Monterey County to apply for.

Hopefully, they can mention that you email to other organizations. What's this a sampling of those organizations that you're emailing to? And I would really like to see somebody from the agriculture labor arena to be here to kind of represent what what Monterey County is all about. As much as I love my o e three brothers in in construction, we'll take them all day, but I think it would be best for the committee to to really have Ag representative as well.

Yeah. And we'd be happy to receive that. So any any additional organizations that we're not aware of go based on contacts that we currently have, list that we currently have consisting of all the chambers of commerce, as many business associations that we're aware of, other associations that, you know, other committee members have passed along to us. So if you have any specific contacts that you'd like us to send this out to, we'd be happy to put them on a list and get this emailed out to them once we do make it publicly available on the website.

How long is this term for? How much is left in this term?

The term is open ended. So when you're brought on to the economic development committee, you have a unexpired term unless the board decides to to remove someone.

Do we do we do that for any other committee around, have unexpired term like that? I mean, I've it seems I'm not familiar with yes, dude.

If I should ask supervisor, the bylaw state article four, the committee member shall serve at the pleasure of the board supervisors, so there's no end dates.

Yeah. But do we have any other committees that we appoint to there in similar situation like that? I mean, I'm not not opposed to people renewing up and everything. It's just, you know, giving a lifetime appointment. It's keep thinking of the Supreme Court or something. It's you know, it it seems kind of unusual. And I'm just wondering if we have if if if we do that for any other committees to this county or or boards.

It certainly gets in top of my mind, I've gone through the committees that could make of it. We all have term limits. Limits. This particular one does not that's based on the bylaws.

Top it for another day. Good referral. Yeah.

Yeah. Anyway, Ed, thanks for the information there on it. It's worth something to as supervisor Alejo says, we're something to explore in there. I was just thinking of maybe there's a year left on this term, and we had to take that into consideration as well. Anybody else? Make a suggestion.

Maybe, Richard, sharing the contacts in labor that you may reach out to for in case some of us know them, we can reach out to them and support you guys. And then also if we see folks that need to be added, we then know who to add to the list. So just a suggestion.

So in terms of an ad hoc committee on here, that's one of the, suggestions. Yeah.

The chair and maybe one more nonsupervisor.

Well, gee.

Doesn't put anybody out there. Volunteers?

I'd be willing to

help. Alright. Bye. I'd be willing to with the nomination.

The duties of the chair.

Can I suggest we add a third just if we kinda get Sure?

Think that's worthwhile. Do we have we have another volunteer? Decision. I'll do it. Yeah. I thought Norman is And thought you said me.

Yeah. You said I

have nothing

to do.

I wanna do it.

So true. Excellent.

Alright. So with that, I'll make a motion that we accept

take it out to public call first. Alright. Just because I showed anybody in the room or online.

No. I'm going.

Okay. Go

ahead. Alright. I'll make the motion that we accept the resignation of Jonathan Brown, that we provide direction to staff to advertise the vacancy for a term of sixty days, and that we create the ad hoc committee as noted for us three volunteers.

So moved. Second.

Second. Yep. Alright. First and second. All those in favor?

Aye.

Opposed? Motion carries. With that, we'll move on to item two, which is recommendation to approve the DSA guidelines.

Give me one second to share my screen. Richard Vaughan, economic development manager for Monterey County, and quickly be going through our to develop set aside guidelines. And just to give you a brief over cap, I'm sure you're all aware of all of this because you worked on this very hard, but over overview of the ad hoc committee and what all entailed this revision to the DSA guidelines, DSA program. So the ad hoc committee met three times for a total of six hours and nearly a hundred hours of staff time, and an unknown amount of, additional ad hoc committee time spent outside of these meetings reviewing all of the documents, reviewing all of the revisions. I think we're on revision 17 or 18 currently.

The committee completed a review of the 1998 DSA guidelines, which is the last time that this document was updated. Reviewed the fiscal year twenty two twenty three work plans, financial statements, quarterly reports, and backup financial documents, which includes invoices and receipts, for each of the DSA partners. They went ahead and ran through and and completely revised the 1998 DSA guidelines and redlined those, redlined the last version of the 2024 DSA guidelines. And today, you'll receive the updated DSA guidelines as recommended or as requested by the board of supervisors. So what you'll see within this DSA guidelines is updated content to reflect current data.

There is developed developed a set of criteria of what it means to be considered a DSA agency, updated information that needs to be collected from all DSA agencies, updated work plan goals, updated program timeline, updated reporting requirements. And updated program timeline and updated reporting requirements.

So

quick overview of the timeline since we took on this and worked on this mission to review and revise the DSA guidelines. So this started back in on 05/31/2023 during budget hearings that year. The board of supervisors directed staff to work with the economic development committee to do a a full comprehensive review of the DSA guidelines and the full program essentially. By November 6, the economic development committee met, an ad hoc committee was formed. Following that from following November 6 through January 2024, The ad hoc committee met three times.

In that, reviewed and revised all of the guidelines, reviewed and revised the program, and set some specific recommendations that were then reviewed at the February 7 meeting with this full committee here. This committee made two recommendations, one to our budget committee and one to our board of supervisors for review and for approval. By March 28, economic development staff presented one of those recommendations to our budget committee. That was the route that we had to take for, increasing the amount of funds going into the DSA program. April 2, both of those, recommendations were taken to the board, and the board essentially requested that staff work with our county administrative executive team to go ahead and return with an additional option that the board could then review.

May 7, economic development staff presented to our board of supervisors three recommended options. The board elected to develop their own fourth option, and that was what was adopted and taken forward and approved for the current year current fiscal year that we're in. During that, board of supervisors directed staff to review and return with an RFP process. Staff did return on August 20 with an RFP process that could potentially be implemented. The board elected not to move forward with that and to revert to the the formula base that was decided during May 7 meeting.

Following that, or did also during the August 20 meeting indicate that they would like to see additional revisions made to the DSA guidelines, which brings us to now. So revised in the current DSA guidelines, because I know there are many pages. I don't know if you had a chance to review everything with the red lines. Most likely a little confusing, but we have in red for you on this slide the major changes that were made from the last guideline document that was approved by the board of supervisors with additional revisions requested. So you'll see there that the board had elected to go with a single annual report.

And in the previous version, we had two reports, one every six months. The board also elected to go with an annual presentation to the economic development committee and the board of supervisors. So just one presentation to each of those governing bodies. And we're also requested to condense the criteria of the economic development DSA program from 11 criteria points down to five. And so wanted to go ahead and and touch on that.

So the we condensed from 11 to five points. Within those five points, you'll see there's a targeted alignment with economic development goals. So very specific to goals of economic development and county broadly. That within the guidelines, there's one annual report due at the end of each year. So as we come to the conclusion of the fiscal year, there will be a report received by staff from the DSA partners, which will then be brought to the following economic development committee meeting to be reviewed and recommended to the board for approval.

And lastly, the annual presentations to the economic development committee and board of supervisors. Those are the major changes, and wanted to make sure that we got that in front of you so you can see what was made, what changes were made before potentially recommending this to the board of supervisors for approval. And so staff's asking that you consider supporting this revised development set aside guidelines brought forth and recommended to the board for approval and that we receive receive support from the economic development committee. And we can go ahead and take that to the next board meeting that's available.

Yep. Comments from the yes.

I have a question. So this fiscal year end, is that the the county's fiscal year end, or or are these individuals that are participating also on a fiscal year end? I just wanna make sure that we're Counting's fiscal year. Okay. So if they're on a calendar do do you know what if they're on fiscal year ends or they're on a calendar year end? Because I think it'll it'll make a difference in their reporting because then we'll get half of the year rather than their entire year, so they'll have to do a performance a a performance when they present to us. So we'll have to keep that in mind.

To my knowledge, and we can definitely go to any of the DSA partners that may be present in the room or online. To my knowledge, they base their their year off of our fiscal year Okay. If I'm understanding that correctly, due to the funding that's being so we we're funded on a fiscal year basis Mhmm. And we allocate that funding to these DSA partners on a fiscal year basis as well.

Okay. Then that I just wanna make sure we're comparing apples to apples, not apples to oranges because if they're on a different fiscal year, and then we're gonna have to perform up their financials in order to make it equivalent to what we want to look at. Okay. Thank you. Yes, Kevin.

In condensing the 11 points to five, do you feel like the five points are capturing all the original and just more succinctly? Are we taking concepts out?

Yes. I think and one of the things that was recommended by supervisor Church specifically was that some of them seem to be duplicative. So we took those and and combined them and ensured that, you know, they're very succinct and some that were that seem to be bleeding over into others were were all pulled into just one specific point. So that's where we we were able to to hone the 11 down to five, which I I think covers us, and I don't see any duplication amongst the five points that we have in there. Excellent.

Thank you.

We can go to supervisor Lehultad first.

Yeah. Who are the the members of the ad hoc committee?

Oh, gosh.

The members of the ad hoc committee, Beth Babinski, I believe Nicholas Kite, Janine Chikarat, and Supervisor Adams. Supervisor Adams at the time.

Great. And I I wanted to say that because that's a lot of work that you all put into. So that work needs to be recognized when people step up to do someone at our committee and then look at these guidelines that we've had in place for many years that hadn't been updated or or modernized in such a long time. So I just wanted to commend that work. Staff time alone, you said it's a hundred hours, which shows it was significant. So thank you for for doing that and, bringing us up to date on it. So thank you, Norm?

Sure. Also, I'll say thank you to all of those who worked on this. I think this is a really good, rate document at this point, but I do have two really kinda nitpicky questions. On the criteria to be considered as a DSA agency, we talk about nonprofit organization. And when most people think about nonprofits, they think c three, not necessarily the other c's. And I'm just wondering, do we need a a definition of nonprofit organization so that everyone knows that we're including all c nonprofits?

We can definitely take that as a recommendation and put that into the language if that's requested by the committee. I I don't see an issue with that verifying what the nonprofit status means.

Okay. Alright. Thank you. And then a little wording I find questionable on on it's on packet page 29 under item number four. There's a sentence. The organization must demonstrate a strong ability to secure matching funds from public agencies in the private sector, maximizing the impact of county funds. And I I find this the maximizing of impact of county funds a little confusing. It can be taken several different ways. So I'm just wondering what the intent is with that particular wording.

Yeah. The intent there is to ensure that county funding is stretched as far as it can possibly go so that, you know, when county is funding development set aside agency that there is also other funding coming into that organization to help further the goals of economic development countywide. So it's not just that the county is is providing funding, and that's the sole source of revenue for an organization that's part of the DSA.

Okay.

Any other questions?

Yes. Sorry.

Can you remind me, I I couldn't find it, the revised allocations including the Monterey County Business Council being regularized rather than that fixed amount, is that included in these changes? No?

Okay. No.

This this is just the template for an organization that's a part of the program.

Okay.

The program separately, that was already decided by the board that listed out what that new formula basis.

Okay. So that's not included in these revisions that we're considering?

Not included in the guidelines. No.

So I checked. Yeah. Just in response to her comment, I wanted to let everybody know that we're we're we have budget, decisions next Wednesday and Thursday, mostly on Wednesday. And there's a specific conversation to be had about the funding for DSAs next year. So Okay. All the DSAs are aware about it, but just for our board, if that, matters to you, there'll be some big decisions to be made, because there's some concerning proposals regard regarding the funding of our DSAs that would, I think, concern everybody on this economic development committee.

Could you elaborate on that?

Well, it's not I'll I'll I'll leave it to that meet that that meeting. But there there potentially could be, what do you what do you say? Funds, restricted against DSAs that or they're funding proposals coming from staff that are not favorable to DSAs to DSAs. Yeah.

Any other comments on there? I have a I have a couple too. And, again, you know, I wanna really thank everybody who put this together. I mean, I can see this is a lot of work. It's really updated. It's detailed. I'm coming in kinda new. I only see these things from the board. So, you know, I'm glad Norm kinda opened the door a little bit for me to say appraise a a few things instead of me just doing it. Oh, you're welcome.

I had a and and it's really really most of my my questions are on the annual reports. And when I look at the work plans, I you know, what we're asking for them to do, I don't see as on some things that aren't always being reported back necessarily. And a and a couple points that come to mind is, you know, is, you know, the post serve underserved communities. And I'm not sure everybody is doing that, attracting new industries. There's so I I I think there might be some gaps in there between what we're asking and then what we're getting back to see if it's it's happening.

The other thing that was I know it's coming up here, and I'm just wondering really how this this percent and this number fits in with these these TSAs. But under the work plans, we're asking that administrative expenses not exceed 30% of the budget, and we just had a discussion here about maximizing. I'm not sure if I've seen in any of the DSA reports what percent is being spent on administration or, you know, or there's a lot of them. I probably have missed it and going through there. But I I wonder if that, for example, should be added in.

So there's a few things in terms of here. I'm just thinking it would be really great to to add into the reports so we can see that in those reports that the goals that we're asking these this work to be done is a little more aligned that way. And, you know, particularly on this on to this administrative costs here too. I don't know. We don't do we have any information on that on how each of these DSAs spend on the administrative?

Yes. Each year when the revised work plans are submitted to the economic development committee now with the updates to the guidelines, they specifically call out how much is being utilized from their budget for administrative costs. I'd be happy to work with our DSA agencies so that on the back end when these annual reports are due so this will be our first annual report. Typically, we've had quarterly reports done. So this annual report, I'll I'm happy to work with them to ensure that they incorporate that into their report that here's what they'd stated was allocated for administrative expenses, and here's what was spent on ex administrative expenses.

That bring my other question is is and I don't wanna put a squeeze on. I know I think I we only maybe have one DSA here. So I you know? Is is that, you know, that 30%, is can it be lowered there and not impact

their operations? So that that was something that was decided upon with all of the work conducted by the ad hoc committee. So I I if there's direction to go back and No.

No. I'll if if it's been looked into and included in there, then I'll defer to you folks. I say coming in a little bit new here not knowing all the work that's been done, so I appreciate them addressing that. But, you know, again, there's a there's a few things in here, for example, are being asked. One of them, visitor experience, for example. You know? But that's one of the the work goals in your work plan and, you know, whether you know, just to make sure that we really are drawing upon those annual reports in a little more detail. And I mean, there are some things listed here, but I don't think it's all inclusive like the under underserved communities. Just what's being done out there, I think, would be really really helpful. There's also this one part in here, which I'm not really quite clear on.

Let me find it. It's under goal one, overall economic impact. Data showcasing TOT generation. Is that really feasible, I mean, to for each of these DSAs to be able to come back and say, this is how much TOT it's generated? I mean, it'd be great, but I don't from my understanding, I don't think that's always really feasible.

Yeah. I I'd say, in my experience working with the development set aside agencies, they have been able to showcase that. They do run specific reports that will show based on the specific work that they're doing. This is what the economic output or economic activity is from these specific events or these specific room nights or specific activity that they've conducted throughout their work.

Okay. Alright. So that that's great. So, I mean, again, my my only point is is whether, you know, we could work into this, you know, some things couple of these things like the underserved communities, which I don't think are necessarily being addressed, and couple of the other points, you know, I don't wanna get too too much of detail onto it there.

But Yeah. And I I'd be happy once the annual report is submitted to go ahead and get them on the next available committee agenda. Yep. So that way we can do a full review here at the committee level and allow for additional time so that if there are any changes that you'd like to see or or any additional detail, I'm sure that DSA partners would be happy to provide that.

Okay. Thank you. So we'll take this out to the public. Anybody in chambers wanna speak about this? Anybody online?

Yes. We have raised from Moyers Moida in Monterey County.

Okay. I'd like to give you two minutes onto this, please. So you Sure. Go ahead.

Yeah. I was just wanting to say the the comment about the TOT. I wonder if that should be clarified to county TOT because it could be Marina or Monterey or Carmel or Seaside, and what we're really looking about is the unincorporated areas, areas, I believe.

Okay. Thank you on that. It it's kinda my my read on that is that's what the whole report's

talking about, and it's a county document.

And it's a county document, so it's sort of self inclusive into there. But thank you for raising that.

Okay. Well, I I guess when we report economic impact, it's a it's a compiled number. So it sounds as though the new process will be untiezing the details a little bit further, and I'm I

think I think

it's a pretty big a heavy lift for us.

Thank thank you for your comments there.

Mhmm.

Do we have anybody else online?

Yes. Monterey County Business Council.

Yes. Please go ahead.

Hello. This is Paul Farmer. Can you hear me?

Yes. We can, Paul.

Thank you, supervisor and committee members. I just wanna make a couple of quick comments to your points. Supervisor Church, as far as the impact that our work at the business council does, We report it's actually very easy for us to report on the ROI and the numbers because both our Apex accelerator program and our small business development center use software where where they gather that information from the clients that we're working on we're working with. So we're able to show demonstrative numbers. Like, this is the economic impact we had, and this is the, this is the number of jobs that that translates into.

So we're very easily able to do that, and we and we do that in our reports. The second point about your question about equity and reaching out to different communities, MCBC has prided ourselves on doing that a lot. This year, with the Trump administration changing the rules and and and, you know, they're recommending defunding the women's business centers, veterans business centers, different groups like that. But they did leave intact, the small business development center funding and the funding for the Apex accelerators. So we need to be mindful going forward not to cross any lines with the Fed so it doesn't jeopardize that, that funding.

But at the same time, you know, we can clearly show, our outreach to those communities. So, we're appreciative. And alert like Richard said, whatever you need, we're happy to, to comply with. So thank you very much for your time.

We have Andre Bostoni.

Yes. Please go ahead. You have two minutes.

Hi. Yep. Can you hear me?

Yes. We can.

Oh, thank you. So first of all, just want to thank you all for allowing me to speak today. My name is Andre Bustani. I'm the director of science for global ocean conservation at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. We I just wanted to put some comments in regarding the Monterey Bay Fisheries Trust.

That would be coming up next. This is about the TSA. So but that would be the next one. Alright. No problem, Andre.

Thank you. I'll hop on.

Anyone else? It's raised.

Bring him back here for the board. Direction? We still approve the

the DSA guidelines. Yep. Yep. As amended.

So recommendation to the board of supervisors for Correct. Final okay. Second.

K. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Alright. We'll move on now to item three, which is the Monterey Bay Fisheries.

And I'll go ahead and introduce. We have two individuals that will be presenting today. We have Melissa Mahoney, executive director of the Monterey Bay Fisheries Trust and Kristen Coates online with us, the CEO of Regenerative California.

Alright.

Great. Well, good afternoon, members of the committee, supervisors, and staff. Once again, my name is Melissa. I'm the director of the Monterey Bay Fisheries Trust. And Kristen Coates is online.

She's our partner on this project with Regenerative California. So we were here before you in early March with a brief public comment, and we really appreciate the opportunity to come back and tell you a little bit more of our story and the the work that we're doing to revitalize the coastal economy. I've I've just spent the last twenty minutes looking at the the sign there behind us, and I see this, the land and the sea. And so for the next ten minutes, we're going to talk about that ocean part. So today, we're asking for your recommendation onto the Board of Supervisors to support the future of Blue, which is our initiative.

So we're gonna take you on a quick journey to learn more about that. So who are we? Well, the Fisheries Trust is a local nonprofit that for over ten years now, we've been working hard to support and strengthen our local seafood economy. We have a community seafood program. We raise public awareness about the choices of local seafood, and we're really trying to find that balance between profitability and ecosystem protection. So that's what we are up to. Gonna pass it to Kristen to say just a little bit about regenerative California.

Hi, everyone. Nice to see you all. Can you hear me okay?

Yes. Yes. Cool.

K. Fantastic. So I am Kristen Coates, and I run Regenerative California. We are a nonprofit organization with a big audacious goal to make California a regenerative economy. And what we mean by that is an economy that actually restores health, prosperity, and resilience for the residents of California and the epic natural ecosystems of of the state.

We are launching this work in Monterey County. We think there's no better place to do it. And what success looks like is generating billions of dollars of investment, more jobs, and more protections of the diverse population of California, Monterrey, and the EPIC natural ecosystems. And then once we're successful as well, this will be a model for the rest of the state. So I'll take us to this next slide, Melissa.

Thank you. So let's just start with some basic terms before we go on our journey of what we're proposing to your here today with the future of Blue. The question is, what is a blue economy? And what we mean by that is that the blue economy is all the economic activities related to the ocean and our working waterfronts. Our partner at the Center for the Blue Economy at Middlebury Middlebury Institute uses the World Bank's definition for the blue economy, which is this is the sustainable use of ocean resources for economic growth, improved livelihoods and jobs, and ocean ecosystem health.

So in Monterey County, what that means is that we're contributing. The blue economy contributes to the $3,100,000,000 tourism industry. There's thriving fisheries, world class marine research institutions, and thousands of ocean related jobs. So from fresh seafood to climate innovation, the blue economy drives local opportunity, protects our coasts, and honors our deep connection to the Monterey Bay.

So I think you can see from that last slide that the blue economy encompasses so many of the economic activities that are essential to the prosperity of the county. And right now, the problem is those activities are fragmented and siloed, and and truly, the the sector is failing, especially the seafood sector. And yet this has been our legacy. On the far left is a great book that both Kristen and I have read and suggest you reading. It's a it's a really great read about just the boom and bust cycles of how humans have arrived here and used various resources in the ocean and how we've come to protect it and how we've seen it become resilient.

And we still have work to do, and we're wanting to uplift and raise visibility to that. So going from the history where we were thinking about Cannery Row to what things look like today, this is just a very brief snippet of sort of what is our blue economy today. That's Wharf 2 in the background, as I'm sure you know. But in the entire Monterey Bay wide, we have fewer than 100 full time fishing vessels left. We we've we've experienced a a heavy loss of infrastructure in every port in our region.

That means a decreasing workforce, vacancies on Wharf 2 and in Moss Landing. And more than 80% of the seafood that's consumed here is not actually from here. And and that's that's really when our tourists come and they see the waterfront and they want to eat something local and they're not getting that, that's sort of sort of like we're not telling them the true story. And, also, 90% of our kelp forests here have been destroyed by the purple urchin. And so there's a need for regenerative fisheries and aquaculture that many great folks here are working on that could be part of this blue economy system.

So that's just a very, very brief picture of where we are today. And there's actually a lot of great work already happening up and down the state, and we've been in touch with leaders from these and other regions who are are advancing blue economy initiatives and building really great partnerships. And so we're we're wanting to uplift and and really bring Monterey back in focus along with these groups to be leaders in the blue economy for the state of California and beyond. And so we are are proposing an initiative called the future of Blue, and it is really about a community based effort and a data driven with data behind it that we are working on right now to unlock the potential of our ecosystem and our human communities. So it's really about bringing seafood production, aquaculture, tourism, bringing all the all those things back online to have a resilient blue economy by 2030.

That's our that's our goal.

Kristen? So thank you. So over the past year, we have been taking the pulse of the region, and the response is really clear. There's a strong appetite, there's energy, and there is commitment to elevate the blue economy in Monterey Bay. By socializing the vision and already convening some stakeholders from scientists to fishermen to entrepreneurs, We're laying the foundation for the plan that we're bringing forward today, the future of blue.

The momentum is definitely real, and the message is loud. It's time to put Monterrey back on the map as a global leader in the blue economy. We even got started, as you can see in this picture, in a more formal way, just a few months ago when we brought together set stakeholders in Moss Landing. And this image, as I said, shows some of the opportunities and the challenges ranging from the needs of more, fishing sector infrastructure, working with the regulatory agencies, education, and much more. And I I just wanna add one other, comment that that, you know, in this process back in 2023 when Regenerative California met with, people across the county, from in all sectors, there were four items that came to the surface of what would really move Monterrey's economy to becoming more regenerative, and the blue economy was one of the top four.

So we have really, seized that opportunity by working with the Monterrey Bay Fisheries Trust for the introduction of Julie Packard to bring our work together to make this happen. So here's, if you can just go to the next one there. Yeah. Here are here's just a small sampling of some of the partners and the funders that we're already working with. And, you know, again, it's really arranged from science to entrepreneurs, business, community foundation, and we are working with some seed funding that that Melissa will tell you about in just a moment.

So on this next slide, you know, the question is, like, what does success lie look like? Because it a blue economy is a complex system. And yet, as Melissa said, Monterey has always been known. It's been synonymous with the blue economy for a long time. And so for us, there's sort of three lenses or three pillars that we think about for success, economic success, ecological success, and social success.

So I won't read through all of these, but, for example, today in Moss Landing, if you've been there recently, you see for sale and for rent signs, which marks the absence of businesses and opportunities that once thrived. And but the future of a thriving blue economy would tell a different story, one where Moss Landing and our working ports are alive with innovation, science, tourism, and enterprise, where dozens of new ventures will emerge creating thousands of good jobs from entry level to entrepreneurial and to high growth. So Monterey will continue to lead in marine and climate science, but not just in reputation, but in real visible impact. Because true success means that we're making the blue economy a cornerstone of our strategy or economic strategy, not just a side note, for economic vitality, community resilience, and a healthy ocean. Okay.

I'm being told that we need to wrap it up. So just a quick is an overview timeline. If you have questions, I'm happy to go back to this. The middle section in bold is really where we are asking the county for support over the next year for our convening and action planning process. This is a a budget overview that gives you a sense of the funding need that we have across our organizations and and otherwise.

And we are asking the board of supervisors to consider a onetime funding request to get this project going off the ground into its phase two of $170,000. So just to quickly wrap up, we would love this committee's recommendation to the board in support of the project and and next week's budget meetings and beyond. And, again, we're asking for a onetime funding request of 170,000. Thank you. Any any questions that you might have?

Thank you, Melissa. I'll kinda start this up here. So you as you mentioned, it's a onetime funding request to a 170,000. You're looking at a three to five year project. So you've you've you're not asking for a 170,000 for each of the next three to five years. You're looking at other funding, I believe. Correct?

That that is correct. We, we already have three funding partners. The The Aquarium is helping to fund our research portion now, Resources Legacy Fund, the Community Foundation. We have other foundation partners and other philanthropy that we are planning to tap for the remainder of the funds.

And just you know, you know, my own self, I'm I'm really supportive of this project. Obviously, Moss Landing is one of the the key areas in here from the three ports in the Monterey Bay Area because we're not looking just at Monterey County. You're you're looking at from Santa Cruz to to Monterey. But Moss Landing is the major fishing poured into there, and the fishing has a long history in this county and has provided a lot of jobs in the past as we well know, but it's in a it's a weak legs at this point, so to speak. And this this is an opportunity to try to salvage what we have and give some some breathing room to it.

It's it's also, I think, know, as we look at sustainability, and I think you showed that that was 90% of the fish that are consumed here?

90% of the kelp forests are gone,

and percent

of our seafood is not coming is not being consumed that is not local.

And that's not sustainable because you're obviously bringing in and transporting fish from a long ways away. So making it more local makes a lot more sustainable. The big challenge on this, I'm sure supervisor Lay will bring that up too, is is budget because we're in a tight budget session, and this isn't gonna I don't believe this is gonna make it for the budget discussion next week onto there.

Well, it depends on the recommendation. Right?

Well, if we can and I guess it could get into I guess it could

get into It'll it'll it'll recommendation will at least put it as an issue for discussion. And they'll let the board full board decide.

I mean, it is a matter that the board needs to decide. It's coming in a little It is a under the gun.

It is eleventh hour. For sure.

That's so but I I am, you know, supportive of somewhere, you know, trying to find some funds for at some point here. Any other comments for anybody? Yes.

I had a question. The these funds, what specific activities will they be supporting? Could you give more specifics on that?

Sure. So we have we have a a plan design out for essentially, right now, we are building out research that's going to create a trends of Trends of Monterey Fisheries report. So it's basically an up to date understanding of our system, which will inform a convening process where we're going to be gathering stakeholders in a set of facilitated discussions and webinars. There'll be some in person, some webinars that is going to synthesize. It's gonna help us take an understanding of the system, take it to the community who's inside of that system, and say, does this does this align with your reality?

And if so, what is it that you need? What does this community what does Moss Landing need? What does Monterey need? What does Santa Cruz need? That's another process, but we're talking about the county. But what do these communities need to envision a revitalized future. So we're not talking about going backwards and doing things that we did before. We have to look forward. And so the convening process, a synthesis process, and an action plan that's a prioritized list of what those communities need to secure investments for a blue economy future.

So is data collected from people, or is there also physical data being collected to support this?

There's right right now empirical data on the system. And then the convening process is a sense of it's sort of the human dimension side. It's it's qualitative data that is ground truthing that data. As a past As researcher in this area, it's really important not to just get the empirical data and then make assumptions about things going up or going down. It's to take inventory on what businesses and what infrastructure is actually there and actually working.

So it's, yeah, it's that integration of those those two things. And in that process, it's also building trust with the community, building buy in that the community comes together and says, yeah, we need an ice house more than anything else, or we need these docks fixed, or we need we need bait, whatever it is. And then, I mean, I'm I'm really I'm talking about fisheries. I acknowledge there's recreation and tourism. There are other things going on, so there will be those those pieces.

Those specific examples were very helpful. Okay. Thank you.

Norm was next. Norm?

Yeah. Kristen, you have a bullet point that says reduced housing burden for residents, which is a pretty broad statement. And I'm just wondering if you could offer some context to that because there's a lot of of organizations as well as initiatives working in the space of reducing the housing burden for residents. So is this more specific to the phishing context, or can you provide a little more information there? Because I guess what I'm looking at is there's a lot of people working in this space already, and I don't wanna see you duplicate those resources.

No. Thanks for the question, Norm. So I guess there's just two quick responses. I mentioned that there were four areas when we were asking the county where the pain points are, how do we get moving towards a regenerative economy. Housing, of course, was the other. And what we learned is that there are a lot of efforts, like you said. And in fact, we're leading one that's focused on more attainable housing, more missing middle housing. But specific to the blue economy, it's often overlooked. I mean, there's a lot of efforts around agriculture housing. There's, you know, again, the missing middle, thinking about our teachers and and, you know, firefighters and health care.

But in terms of workforce for the waterfront and for marine related blue economy workers, there's not. So it would be more of an integration of learning, and collaborating with other efforts. And that's part of the learning process, Norm, that we will be, engaged in through these convenings.

Great. Thank you for the context. Appreciate it.

Thank you.

Supervisor? Yeah. Thank you very much for the presentation, and I I met with them before. And I like the presentation because you're able to walk the public and all our, committee here, certain concepts. Right? Like, what is a blue economy? I I appreciate it. It made it easy to understand from beginning to end of of your presentation. I I'm supportive of this. I think, I want I wanna I I'm glad that we have a a team of of individuals and organizations who are willing to look at this.

I think there's an obvious need for it. It's such an important part of our tourist and our our our economy, and then also just the beauty of what we've had here for many generations. But, unless we pay attention to certain aspects, certain infrastructure and and certain needs within our our our economy are are gonna continue to not do so well unless we pay some attention there. And, I look at Moss Landing, which just for few years back was thriving because it had several, restaurants that were the two go to places. And now Phil's fish market was moved out.

They used to have a actual fish market, next door to it where you could buy freshly catched, fish and other, seafood from from the Moss Landing Harbor, that's gone. And then the other two restaurants, whole enchilada and the hoop hoop enchilada are now gone. And then as you're saying, you pass through there and you see other businesses when they don't have these anchor attractions, it has a domino effect on the rest. And and so I if I could just look at that part of our county and said if it could help reenvision and hopefully revitalize Moss Landing, it'd be all worth it. Right?

But there's other needs. Right? We have a working, wharf in Monterey that needs attention. As you said, the vacancies on the Monterey Wharf itself that that attracts tourists from all over the world. So all along our coast, I think I think it's it's important to focus the expertise, the data, and the ideas that could help us address those.

But as my colleague rightly said, it's it's crunch time on the budget, and we we're gonna face more difficult budgets. But, nonetheless, at at least we have a plan here. We have a concept, a plan, details of where money can and will be spent. The question is how much, right, the board is willing to do when we're having to make really tough decisions next week. And I I I spoke frankly with with, both our our speakers here today because, we're we're gonna be making hard decisions just keeping core county services.

Right? Sheriffs want certain positions. The DA wants certain positions, and it's hard to look at new commitments. But, nonetheless, what helps them in their fundraising is to say a key partner like the county put some skin in the game. They said they put some amount towards this goal.

And then when they're going to other funders, they they're able to say, can they match what the county put in? And that's where I that's where I'm I'm coming to this. If we could put some commitment towards that 170, I think it it it helps them in in their fundraising and and their progress towards, moving this this work forward. I think I was gonna say the same about our next presentation as well, but, but that's what I I I think I'm glad it's on the table, but but I hope that our staff and Richard, we had a conversation about community development block grant funding. And, hopefully, some of these new endeavors, which I think would really help our county's economy and job creation and tourism and many other things, many other benefits that we could somehow put them on the table for consideration this year or next year.

They have to be in the pipeline of potential funding because, a lot of thought has gone behind this, and it it would be very beneficial to the mission of this committee, in advancing economic development. So that's where I'm at. So we want I wanna I wanna do a recommendation, but then we'll hash out the exact number, I guess, hopefully, among the board if if the majority of the board is willing to help with with some level of contribution.

I I do wanna point out to everybody. We do have two more presentations coming up in short time, and we might we started a little late, so I'm a get a little flexibility going past that 01:30. But does anybody have any more questions here before

Yes. If if I can just add and provide some clarification. So we understand that it is close to budget timeline, and we are close to budget hearings next week. And so that's why the request specifically was to consider support so that to my understanding, both presenters will be going before the board during public comment to also make this this pitch as well. So if if at minimum support from the economic development committee will add to their request to the full board next week.

Okay. Thank you. Anybody else from the board here before I go out to the public? K. Well, anybody in the chambers want us two minutes, a public comment or online? Andre, this would be your time. I'll let Andre go here.

Yeah. That's great. Thanks. And sorry for jumping the gun earlier. Yeah.

As I was saying before, my name is Andre Bustani, and I'm the director of science for Global Ocean Conservation at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. And I just wanted to speak today on behalf of Monterey Bay Aquarium's conservation and science program and the Monterey Bay Fisheries Trust. The aquarium has long supported Monterey Bay Fisheries Trust as a key partner in revitalizing local fisheries among other work. Currently, we're collaborating with the trust on a comprehensive socioeconomic update that will inform efforts to strengthen our region's seafood and working waterfront economy, and Melissa spoke to some of work that we have, that we're starting up now. As we know, Monterey Bay is an incredibly productive and ecologically important ecosystem, and Monterey Bay Fisheries Trust is is really only one of the only groups that can bring together fishermen, scientists, local partners to really build this cohesive vision, for investment and to plan for the future, for working waterfronts.

I feel this work is is essential, and we must you know, I believe it can be a game changer for, local fisheries and, working waterfronts in our area. The aquarium has committed $30,000 in seed funding to the Future Blue initiative, and we're wholly supportive of it. I'm personally serving as a science adviser on the project, so we are wholly invested in this project going forward and hope the, the the board can support this as well. It would be great if the committee could support this effort, by recommending the county allocate the $170,000, to funding this important work, supporting local fisheries and, local seafood. And, yeah, just wanted to say thank you for your time and, wholly support this project moving forward.

Thanks.

Thank you. We have anybody else online?

Yes. We have Melanie Wong.

Yes. Melanie, you have two minutes, please.

Hi. I am Melanie Wong. I'm the codirector of the California Food Policy Council and have been working with the Monterey Bay Fisheries Trust since the start of the pandemic with the community seafood program that we were able to take statewide and bring in over 500,000 in philanthropy dollars to California to purchase local seafood along our entire California coast. And so I see the power that this kind of organization can have and when we're able to mobilize and bring together community at Fishers and other partners. I've also been, working with them, very heavily on related to California Jobs First.

California Food Policy Council has been a co convener of a Central Coast coalition across our six, counties, on the Central Coast, and, we have been quite successful in coming with regional initiatives to get catalyst funding. And, also, we are in the finals. We are one of 18 clusters that are being considered for, implementation funding. And that the cluster that we are putting forward is for is a Blue Economy cluster. And this project is, we're we're hoping to get some funding for the feasibility study that, Melissa showed in her slide, the 100,000 that is not funded yet.

So we hope to be part of the capital stacking and to be able to promote this effort. I also want to mention that I'm coming to you as a fifth generation Monterey County resident, born and raised in Salinas. I'm a descendant of the fishing families that came here in the in the early eighteen hundreds that started the commercial fisheries in California. And so this is a very important project to me, and I ask for your support.

Thank you, Melanie. Anybody else?

No. There's on the line.

I know their hands. I see nobody bring them back here, for some for action onto this. I mean, if we if we approve this or recommend it, does it end up on the does it get on the augmentation list, or is it kinda separate out of presence? Do we I'm not pressure

on I think it's separate. It's just like an additional item to consider that will be brought up Okay. During the budget hearings Okay. That that has a recommendation, but no no commitment and no no recommended allocation for any part of our budget. K.

Motions here? Thoughts here about one, two? Yes?

I'd like to make a motion to support their funding request.

K.

I'll second the motion.

A second? Alright. Very good. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Opposed? We'll pass it on to the board then, and we'll move on to the next one. You. Thank you for reservoir project.

Yes. Next up, we have a presentation for four farms from Danny Bergstein, CEO of the reservoir, and doctor Jackie Cruz, vice president of the office of They just kept it. Yeah. Advancement. Director of the Hartnell College Foundation. You take it away.

Okay. Great. Well, we're here today. It's, I think, our second or third time being able to introduce this to you for feedback and just kinda chipping away at the progress and partnerships, and we really welcome your feedback today. And, you know, what where we come from on this from an economic development perspective is around job quality. The other side of the coin so you can kind of call that the rural economic development side, and the other side of it really is the agricultural sustainability side. And and so let's just talk a little bit about job quality. Monterey County really lacks quality jobs relative to other counties in California. This is census data. We have a higher percentage of tier three jobs.

We have a mismatch between capable workers and quality jobs. We have more capable workers than we have quality jobs. The results of that, this is actually research that we did on our own that I presented to this committee before, is that we have a brain drain, and we can actually measure it. So what we did is we looked at LinkedIn profiles of now professional tech workers who went to high school in Monterey County. We looked at public high schools across the county in every district.

We looked at private high schools across the county in every district. We identified 300 workers. We found that close to 90% of them were no longer living and working in Monterey County even though they went to school here. The result from just the sample is $25,000,000 minimum in a lost lost tax base. And and where we come up with that is just basically the minimum of really what tech workers are paid, which is a $100,000, multiply that by the 287 270 people that were no longer here, and that's tens of millions of dollars in lost tax revenue.

So, basically, what we're asking is, what are the kinds of things we can do to facilitate job creation to keep these high quality jobs local. The other side of this is looking at incumbent workers as well, and in many cases, incumbent Ag workers. And we are automation is we'll talk about the tech side of this, but AgTech is coming. We know that our growers are early adopters of tech. That's the that's the that's the legacy of of ag in Salinas Valley is really some of the most tech forward ag workers or ag ag companies in the world.

Taylor, Driscoll's, many of small producers as well. And automation will change jobs. And so the question is, how do we work together to think about readiness along those lines? And and that's a lot of where us as a impact venture capital firm running a nonprofit and became became to start to partner with organizations like Hartnell. Another stat we've shared here before is that though California and the Bay Area specifically is really the world capital of venture capital, Rural California sees a sliver of that, and it's point 8% of California's venture capital goes to 20% of our population, which is the rural regions.

And if you take out Santa Barbara and Santa Cruz from that, it's only point 24%. So point 24% of California's early stage risk capital, its company creating capital, goes to rural regions. Our ag industry, meanwhile, while it's significant, of course, it's a multibillion dollar industry, it's facing significant threats. And and, you know, we we can't, at this point, just expect that ag will be here. And and we're seeing more of our crops move into the global south.

I'll just give you an example. Asparagus in California is now a $14,000,000 crop across the state. $14,000,000. In twenty years, asparagus production is down 97%. We've lost 97% of acreage. And then there are other crops we kinda think, oh, they'll always be here. Just take garlic. Our garlic acreage is down double digits in the last few years as well. And so and regulatory increases are there. Labor is getting more expensive.

Therefore, it needs to become more productive. And, really, tech is the answer here. And and institutions like Hartnell have been preparing for this, and Jackie will talk about that. They've invested over a $100,000,000 in a in a ag tech and mechatronics program. CSUMB just launched a mechatronics program. And we can expect that our local producers will be at the forefront. They have been, and they continue to be. We have the Western Grower Center. We have very innovative growers here. They will adopt technology.

So then the question for the group really is this, is if we can assume that our growers will adopt the technology, what has to happen for that technology be technology to be invented here, to be manufactured here? The United States and China are the two robotics powerhouses in the world. We have what what will it mean for us not just to buy the tech, but to invent the tech? And then to have these more circular outcomes where it's it's our incumbent workers, our students, our rising tech workers are able to launch those companies and establish those companies here. So that's what gave rise to this alliance.

Jackie, you wanna talk a

little bit about the alliance kind of

Sure. We brought together. Yeah.

Good afternoon to the development economic development committee. Thank you for having us. So, really, to ground the work in community based organizations and really the trust the trusted organizations that have been in our community for a long time. Like, Cardinal has been here for a hundred and five years. We're not going anywhere.

We are invested in quality jobs, and we're excited about company creation, quality job creation, and very importantly, to reduce that brain drain that we have been concerned for a very long time. So when you look at workforce development and who's doing workforce development in our community based organization ecosystem, these are the folks that are truly, invested in Agenac Tech and being the newer one, but they are mothers. Mostly, we're farm workers, and they're going to help us bring in the the out of school community that maybe is not at heart now. Maybe it's not at the adult education. Maybe they just after school, they didn't do anything.

So Mujeres is gonna be, another added element that will help us bring people that we can't even get to. So, really, this coalition, is built around, innovation, community centric, community responsiveness, and then, of course, our responsiveness and the work that we've been doing with our industry for over twenty years.

Yeah. So and so that core, which should be five organizations that are basically making ag tech workforce strategic to their long term plans, we also have this very broad network of partners. And, you know, we have people like Norm who've been, you know, providing input on this initiative now for over a year. Western Growers, which is a really early backer. And then we've increasingly received really wonderful support from the the industry.

So what we'll be talking about is a a a broad sort of set of coalition members really built on these core principles of inclusive innovation, where we've had partners like Now and Digital Nest and Rancho involved in the planning of this really since the very beginning versus as an attachment. And so the the what's new here and what we're bringing from an innovation perspective is is something called Reservoir Farms. And when we open later this summer, this will be the first on farm robotics incubator in the world. So we are leasing 40 acres from the Tanimura Land Company. We've we we have a a place picked out, which I'll show you on a map in just a few minutes.

It's at the corner of Highway 68 in Hitchcock Road. So it'll be a very visible location, which will be exciting, I think, for the region. And we will have spaces for 12 companies when we open. You can see kind of different orientations here. We are close to confirming our first three companies, and I'll just kinda tell you a little bit about them. One is a Massachusetts company that has already raised $3,000,000 in venture capital, and they want to move to Salinas. With that capital, they will bring it in big bags of I'm just kidding. No. But they're gonna they're gonna bring that capital here. Another is a Canadian company that's raised $5,000,000 in venture capital, and they wanna bring that money here.

Another is an Israeli company that's raised $4,000,000 in venture capital. So you can kinda see how we're beginning to say, innovate in Salinas. This is made the ag tech, but made in Salinas. And that's millions of dollars of venture capital that can then translate into jobs, and then the ripple effect of secondary economic benefits, tertiary economic benefits, and things like that. Two minutes. Yep. That sounds great. So the value proposition for these companies is come to Salinas, and you will move faster. You will get access to a farm, access to a shop, access to growers, feedback from Western growers. You'll meet growers in Norm's network, etcetera.

Come to work faster. And the idea also is that we will have workforce integrated from day one. So the partnership with these community organizations, with Hartnell, our work with CSUMB, is really about as these jobs are created, as venture capital starts to flow here, we will have a a local workforce that's ready to go. And this actual this this investment comes after the investment that Hartnell has already made, that Rancho Seal has already made, etcetera. We could talk about some of these outcomes.

So we we are also submitting to the state of California. So we have to submit heavily accounted and rigorous specific metrics around job creation, internships, apprenticeships, incumbent workers trained, etcetera. So these numbers have already been heavily scrutinized because this group's already received close to $900,000 in state funding. And our goal also is to bring a $100,000,000 in capital investment to Monterey County, and I give you some specific examples of how we're starting to chip away at that, really even with this first cohort of companies. And we wanna bring 50 companies here in the next five years, which is ambitious, but you can see in very specific and tactical ways how we're starting to do it.

Our ask is an ambitious one. We've already received $895,000 from the state of California. This AgTech Alliance is gonna be asking for over $5,000,000 from the state of California, and our application is due on May 28. So we're looking for that signal of county support, that tangible signal of county support. We are competing against other counties that have significant funding already in the bag, and we want Monterey County in this coalition to be as competitive as possible.

This is a a asset map. This is Reservoir Farms at the corner of Highway 68 Hitchcock Road. This is the pitch that we give to these companies. Come here. Be ten minutes from Driscoll's, ten minutes from Nature Ripe, ten minutes from Taylor, ten minutes from Braga, walk to TNA, etcetera. We have extraordinary assets we can leverage. We have extraordinary community infrastructure with Hartnell and other institutions, and we're really looking to land this with you all.

Thank you, Danny. You know, just trying to start up on this one, begin to I mean, it's kind of brief out of out of this, but, like, you know, when you pointed about about asparagus leaving and other crops leaving,

it's kind of canary in the

coal mine. There's there's something to be concerned about here. And, of course, we the labor issues of trying to, you know, bring in workers into here isn't doesn't appear to be getting any easier in the future. So, I mean, I think, you know, is a this is a big important product for our future. And you mentioned tech as the answer. I would almost really be able to put out and say tech is really the only answer, you know, at this point to to go ahead. So wanna just throw it out here for any other comments from the board to beat this, but I'm I'm really supportive of the project and what we can do. You know, I know we're in tight budget times.

More more. I'll just say to Danny, much support and glad to see Hartnell jumping in on this. Really appreciate that. There's so much synergy that could be accomplished through the community of all these great partnerships. I will mention, and it's probably no secret to everyone, that the ag economy has been really terrible for the last two years and probably won't be much better this year.

So at some point, I think we're gonna need some assistance to work this tech into the companies that are going to ultimately employ it. So that's gotta be part of the equation too is the investment is going be a heavy lift for ag organizations. But this is a great way to really kick this off and the visibility of that site is really great.

Yeah. On the economic side, we're also working really closely with like Bartley Walker, Pacific Ag Rentals because we need rental models. We need service models. Like, we cannot be asking for a farmer with a million dollar top line or whatever for $400,000 machine. So we have to be really thoughtful about the business model development here and and working with you from day one.

Excellent. Thank you.

If if I can jump in real quick, supervisor. We will be losing a committee member here shortly. So we wanna sorry.

Four if we lose our

committee member, we don't have a quorum any longer.

Yeah. I thank you for bringing that up. So we need to move one along here as quick as possible. Any other comments?

No. I'm supportive as well. Thank you. The project has come along with a lot more details, a lot more, important partners, respected partners on this. And as we all recognize, tech the tech aspect of ag is here to stay, and it's gonna be even more important in the years ahead just because of the challenges that we have with the aging domestic, ag workforce and the expense to bring in guest workers on the H 2 A is very expensive, not to mention the housing component of it. So yeah.

Any other comments from anybody here? I do need to send this out to public. I'll do that right now. Anybody in public wanna discuss this?

Short of the time.

Yeah. I would definitely well, I'm just gonna see if there's anybody first, anybody in the chambers or anybody

We have Melanie Wong online.

Melanie, I can give you a minute on this. We're running really short on time here.

Yes. Melanie Wong again from California Food Policy Council. I'm here in support of Reservoir Farms. I'm a board member of their nonprofit and also to support our partners, Hartnell College and Rancho Cielo that have been part of our Central Coast coalition for the past two and a half years. One thing that I wanted to emphasize this is the the talking about the inclusive economy.

The Salinas Valley and Monterey County are known for having provided more for farm worker benefits protections during COVID innovations in housing, and that's part of our DNA. And it is very important that the ag tech economy for California and for our country and for the nation have that attention to farm workers and to labor force and workforce development built into it from the very start. And I believe that that can happen through this particular project, and I urge you to to support funding it.

Anybody else online?

And Paul.

Walt, we're kinda running short of time here. You have a minute?

Yeah. Thanks, folks. I won't even need the minute. I just wanted to echo everything Danny said. Western Grower has been working with the team for over a year. Really excited about the Salinas location. Everything Norm and and Danny have said in terms of Ag Synergy is right on point. Western Growers members individually are supporting and contributing. Western Growers contributing capital and strategy for the team. Really excited to see this come to life. Would appreciate your support.

Thank you. Anybody else?

None of mine. Okay.

We'll close public comment on this, bring it back here for the board for some action here. Recommendation to them.

I'll move support.

I'll second. Okay.

This to support this go to the board of supervisors for consideration then. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion passes. We're gonna lose quorum here then. I mean,

I didn't And you'll be at the budget?

Yeah. We'll do it. Thanks. I yeah. We were sorry, Tim. I didn't realize we're gonna lose quorum here at 01:30. We just have a presentation wrap.

This is information only. So if

we lose quorum, it's okay. Yeah. Can't take any action. Can't really do anything.

But Thank you.

Sir. Thank you. Please, I guess, is Rob here. Right?

Yeah. We have Rob O'Kleefe, president and CEO of SeaMonterrey, here to provide a presentation, wrapping up what has been conducted with the ARPA tourism project program that was funded over the past three years. My apologies, Rob, for

throwing you in here and getting at the end when we're Quite alright. With some people.

This has to be conducted. I totally understand, and

we'll try to keep this brief. Yeah.

Alright. Again, I'm Rahul Ghee, founder of the president

and CEO of Saint Laurent. Thank you for

the introduction, and thank you for your help getting all this set up. So quick a little bit of a history lesson. So over three years ago, the county came to came to us, came to me, and said, we we may have some ARPA dollars, and we want to do something to help accelerate the recovery of hospitality. And not just hospitality, but just we need a broader group of folks to work with. So I was tasked with going out and getting support partnerships from a number of different, sometimes seemingly disparate partners.

We met we brought together an informal group from hospitality, from ag, education, Honore County Veterans and Growers Association, and a number of other partners. And we all pooled our thoughts together. Because what I was asked for by the county is we don't want 10 different plans. We want a plan that integrates all these different ideas. And so that's where we came up.

We called it the heart group, hospitality. At one time, was hospitality a for ag recovery team, but then we got an e in there for education. And then we got another e in there for energy because we had one of our folks from three CE had that voice in. So we had a lot of different voices come together and say, how and what can we do to help accelerate recovery of our economy? And this is a report on that. It was $1,800,000 meant to be spent within three years. Couldn't go over. Anything you didn't spend would have to go back, and we wanted to be as efficient as possible. And I'm going to start with the end in mind on, where we're at. So this is where we're at as of today.

We just put a report out from a company called Dean Runyon. They do a report every year. It's a Monterey or it's the tourism impacts report. They do this for every county in the state of California, and the numbers just came available to us last week. So I'm starting here because what I'm about to show you help contribute significantly to this. I'm always asked, are are we back? Is tourism back? We're at $3,200,000,000 in 2019. Are we back? Well, we're at $3,100,000,000.

We're getting almost there. Just almost there. But, happily, three of the most important things, within this report, because it breaks things down quite a bit, show that employment for hospitality is back. In fact, it's the highest it's ever been. Tax revenue, which is very important because what we do, Sea Monterrey in particular, we are, the main force, I guess, you would say, that is focused on contributing and growing TOT that funds a lot of different things, including some of the things you've been all been talking about today as well as sales tax and supports, like I said, employment.

And accommodation spending, eclipsed a billion dollars for the first time ever. Length of stay, 2.9. Twenty nineteen, 2.6. Aiming for one more night. I won't sing it. I was going to, but I cut that out of the spiel because of time. And you're hearing you don't wanna hear that, but we're getting there. One more night, it means $877,000,000 in incremental spending per year without an additional single traveler. That's why one more night is so important. So what I'm about to show you contributes mightily to where we're at and where we're going.

We divided the program into six buckets, and the purpose of this was to do the things you couldn't otherwise do if you didn't have these dollars. Stretch your minds and stretch your budget to do these things that are gonna help in these very, very specific ways. And so we integrated the dollars. We kept them separate. We kept separate ledgers.

We manage the dollars, very carefully and provide reporting on that down to the receipt to make sure that we complied with this, but these were our focus. And at the end of the day, we had we increased our reach massively in terms of tracking more folks, dry mark dry markets and fly markets that help really fuel a big push for fly in markets and getting flights here, new flights here, bolstering the flights that we already have. You don't just get that Dallas flight and then walk away from it. You gotta keep focusing on Dallas, Denver, Seattle, San Diego, Las Vegas, the other, markets that we have. You gotta keep those, and this helped us do that.

And we, we're able to and I'm gonna show you in a little bit more detail on some of these things, generate incremental visitor spending with groups, which are very important. One of the things that we did that I will show you that we couldn't have otherwise done was show up on the Rachael Ray show, and here's how.

Uh-oh. Sound not gonna work. Sorry.

Sound doesn't work?

I think it's because it's from the laptop, and we have to be muted, and then it would double

Gotcha. Alright. Sorry. We'll go with that. Saves a few minutes. Point is we're on the Rachael Ray Show. Wanna know why? Supervisor Church, I know you'll be particularly proud of this because we celebrated the artichoke. We created the first ever artichoke trail, world's first, that stemmed from Castroville all the way down to Peninsula and all the way into the county. Over 40 different distinct places where farm stands, farmers markets, restaurants, hotels.

There's even a bar called Pearl Hour in Monterey where you can get an artichoke cocktail. We went to Rachael Ray, and we got we were aiming for, like, four or five minutes of content. You can't hear her excitement because you can't hear what's happening here, but I can tell you she was absolutely thrilled, and she went on and on for about fourteen or fifteen minutes in this segment. Great coverage for us coming from. That's something we'd not would we would not have been able to do had we not had the ARPA dollars.

The economy wide advertising bucket. How do we expand? One of the big things that we need to do is distribute travelers throughout the county, get them spreading out. And so we were able to do some things like a a new South County photo shoot that was integrated into our TV advertising, and we came up with a a number of promotions, including a winter escape campaign. With wine promotion, we did a number of things

with our folks in the

wine in wine country ranging from a meet the maker event that hosted 365 attendees. We did some photography work with them. We created some drone videos and a variety of other things to help boost wine consumption, which Norm could tell you,

we

all know this. Wine consumption is down. Doing my part, but it's not enough.

So we

need to promote that more and more. With groups and meetings. Now people who come here for a group, a conference, they spend 158 percent or more of what a leisure travel. Very, very valuable, very, very competitive. We compete with Napa and Sonoma for small business groups. We compete with Palm Springs in San Diego for the big stuff, and we need to be more formidable in that. And one of the things that we would not have been able to do is form a partnership with a company called Conference Direct. They're the ones who they know everybody. And we were not able to spend the dollars to get at that level. After we injected some dollars to the ARPA program, we were able to get there.

And in those three years of this partnership, actually, two years because we didn't do it the first year, we had over 30 new leads and definite groups. Definite is and not just a lead. It's I'm booking. I'm signing the contract. I'm coming there. So those definite leads turn into people here, turn into spending, and that spending generated over $11,000,000 just from this one aspect of the ARPET program. We did a program with the Points Guy. If you don't know who the Points Guy is, you should because that's the organization that teaches how to make the most out of your travel points. We hosted their corporate meeting here. So they were all here all at once talking about us, and we got really, really great coverage.

And then we just were able to show up bigger and better at major trade shows. All of that things we would not have been able to do without this program. Agritourism and heritage. Again, I already mentioned the, world's first ever artichoke trail. A lot of folks thinks, and Norm knows this because and I know this because Norm's told me, people think of agritourism that you wanna get out there and touch things in the fields. You can't do that. You can do other things. You can promote things like we did with Artichoke Trail and some other programs that we did, program with California farmer farmer and farm worker month. I think that was last year. We brought in journalists to cover that.

And we did a program called Atlas Obscura, which sounds obscure, but it's 10,000,000 people around the globe looking for off the beaten places, off the beaten path places to go, and we were able to get a lot of really great coverage there. Our responsible travel program. The ARPA program was like a b 12 shot to allow us to do things we never would have been able to do. If you haven't seen them, we have we've started doing two years ago billboards in the Bay Area in the LA Drive area to tell people to be responsible with things like a door responsibly. You put an honor out there. People pay attention. The National Marine Sanctuary was paying attention. Monterey Bay, they called us. They called Alyssa and I and said, hey. Did you guys do these ads?

We said we did. We're trying to educate people before we they get here, and we also put ads on buses, MST buses, to remind people when they're here. Whole bunch of other stuff we do. This type of exposure is not cheap, but it's very important. And we were able to really up our game there. The National Marine Sanctuary at Monterey Bay, those folks didn't really think tourism was a friend. They thought tourism, bad. Right? People are gonna touch the water. Gonna do things. When they saw this and they understand our mission after we came and met with their board, they said we get it. We your values are our values, and and we need to focus on conservation and protect the product. We see you're doing that. Thank you very much. Thank you, ARPA, for us, you know, to step up in that way.

Air service development, again, we had a program, supporting the flight that came in from Minneapolis Saint Paul, which to me was just a dress rehearsal for getting that Chicago flight, which we all want. We're just talking to United Airlines about that. We had one of their folks in who ran the marathon, and he spent a half a day with us going throughout the county, looking at all the things that we've got going on. This is a a great program and something that we obviously want to continue. So we have a lot of partners involved in all of this.

Obviously, it's not just SeaMonterrey, and none of this would have been possible without the county and that ARPA infusion. I mean, we're really excited about what we're doing. One of the challenging parts of this is that what this allowed us to do, we want to keep doing. Alluded to, and I actually talked about, but not talked about too much, and I won't get into it too much. But we'll be here next week during the budget hearings because some of the stuff that we've been doing might be a little bit challenged by some of the challenges that we're all feeling when it come comes to next year's budget.

So I wanna thank county county supervisors for putting this together or help allowing us to put this together and all of these partners and so many more who had a big hand in taking us and doing with those dollars the things that we could not have otherwise done. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Rob. It was a very nice presentation. Although, wanna say, I am disappointed that you didn't sing.

I'll say, maybe next week, I I got three minutes. I can cover that in public comment.

Believe me, you'll have everybody's attention. Any questions? Any question, anybody?

I got a comment. Oh, was just gonna say that when you talk about artichokes, you can't leave out that artichokes are the official vegetable of California per legislation signed by governor Jerry Brown.

That's right. That's right. I actually knew that because of this program.

Right. And, just, just on the concerns on what's happening in the wine industry wine industry because they are concerning younger generation, different consumer choices, but it's having a detriment on on wine sales, Napa, Sonoma, all across California. So we're we're, we're we're not immune to that. So that's why some of these efforts that you're doing to promote, visitors to visit our wine quarters is, I think, more important more important now than it's ever been because of where what what we're facing in the industry.

I think we've got just very quickly on that, we've got something that Napa and Sonoma don't have. We're cool. We're hip. Yep. We're like Napa was in the seventies. We're fresh. We're authentic. We've got the core ingredients that I think the younger the folks just coming into the wine industry, just wine, you know, in their twenties to whether in your sixties and you've been a wine connoisseur all your life. We've got that fresh, experience that we're gonna take to new levels in the coming year. We got some plans for that.

Keep marketing that right there. Any

other comments from anybody? I know for technical main department, not even in session, but I should say there's no quorum. But any public comment on this matter?

No. No.

Okay. Great. Alright. Thank you, Rob. I think

Thank you very much. Thank you for going over a little bit.

Alright. Appreciate it. Thank you.

Thank you. And we'll adjourn, I guess, and come back on the August 7, I believe.

Thank you, everybody.