Economic Development - Regular Meeting

Send off. We we send it over to the governor's office. They work with the business. And once that business, or that investor makes a decision, that's when we get then get looped in to understand who it is that we're working with. Beyond that, we've attended and presented at several meetings, several events, including Monterey Bay DART symposium, Monterey Bay Defense Alliance, which is a quarterly meeting monthly quarterly meeting that we attend on behalf of the county from economic development standpoint, Team California, which is a statewide economic development organization, the California Association for Local Economic Developers, the Salinas Inclusive Economic Development Initiative, and Monterey Peninsula Chamber of Commerce.

We've represented the county this fiscal year at number of events, including the ICSC, International Council for Shopping Centers, where we met with several retailers, including Dutch Bros, Starbucks, you name it. All all the retailers are there, and we're meeting with them to try to find locations throughout the county. World Agriculture Expo and Meet the Consultants, which is a forum that happens annually where site selectors, so those that are working with Fortune 500 businesses to locate them around the around The US, We go and we attend and we meet with those site selectors to understand what it is that they're looking for. What type of sites? What type of regions?

What is workforce? What are all the different factors that play into them deciding on where they're going to put the next Amazon or, you know, the next Joby or whoever it is that they're specifically working for.

What is my current

Our development set aside program. So I wanna highlight this. So the supervisors approved board of supervisors approved allocations for this current fiscal year, and you'll see the total amounts there. So these are the total amounts that our development set aside agencies are receiving for fiscal year 2526. And the board of supervisors also approved the updated development set aside guidelines recommended by our economic development committee here.

So I know it took us some time to work through all of the kinks of updating and refreshing and bringing it back to the board and back to the committee, but we do have a fully approved economic development guidelines. Last time, I believe, we had those approved was in 1998. So so a little more updated and more a little newer document. Next up, we have our small business revolving loan fund and our city partner collaborations. So our revolving loan fund, we have roughly $2.22300000.0 dollars of federal grant funding that was allocated to the to the to Monterey County, specifically for economic development purposes.

And so this RLF funding is a revolving loan, so the county doesn't make money off of it. We we're not trying to gouge businesses and, you know, trying to make money off of these loans. But we do assist small businesses and businesses that are located in Monterey County with getting them started up or helping them with expansion efforts. And so these businesses have very strict parameters. They have to be within Monterey County borders.

They have to be a small business. They have to be producing jobs in Monterey County, and they either have to be a startup or a small business. So startup meaning, you know, you're just getting ready, just getting going, you're needing some capital. And most of the time, this specific type of loan is available for businesses who are not able to access loans through your traditional bank methods. So those that are not able to get capital through, you know, Pinnacle Bank or, you know, any one of the lenders in the area, They're the ones who are overleveraged or, you know, don't have any type of collateral to put up for a loan.

So some of these loans are risky, but we are taking a chance with this grant funding to help businesses locally. What the RLF did this year was we were in our revolving phase. So we issued all of our loan funding before the start of last fiscal year. So every single dollar went out. We we had just our contingency, which is $50,000 in the bank to pull this over in case we had no payments on a couple of loans.

So now we've been revolving for a year, and so we've accumulated a certain amount of funding. So we're looking at trying to find additional businesses who are in need of funding to go ahead and start issuing loans again, this current fiscal year. But in the past fiscal year, what this loan funding did assist with is retaining nine jobs throughout the county, and seven creating 17 and a half new jobs. Our city partner collaborations, so we provide economic development updates across the county to chambers of commerce, to the various city partners. Most recently met with the city of sands or met with Sand City to provide an update to them and let them know about all the things that economic development does here for the county.

Participate on the Jobs First Advisory Committee. So that is a statewide effort that is then headed by Monterey Bay Economic Partnership in our specific region for our three county region. We also provide updates to the Monterey Bay Defense Alliance and actively work with partners as needed and where we can provide effort and any type of support to them with their efforts. And last but not least, our economic development committee and any other economic development projects that could throw onto this slide for you all. So our economic development committee recommended there's a typo there, but six letters of support this past fiscal year with two of those organizations requesting funding specifically from the board of supervisors, and we were successful with those two.

So the Reservoir Farms received $50,000 this last this current fiscal year in an allocation from the board, and then the Monterey Bay Fisheries Trust. So the committee is two for two this last fiscal year with obtaining funding for organizations.

They didn't get everything they wanted.

Didn't get everything. Yeah.

It was an eleventh hour request.

Yeah. Good track record. So we can say we we bet it a 100%, you know, this past year. And then we also have our CalRecycle recycling market development zone. So continuing to partner and work with our neighboring counties, trying to pull in Santa Cruz and San Benito and San Luis Obispo Counties to all partner and work on this.

It's a specific designation from CalRecycle that allows for businesses who are engaged in recycling, specifically recycling and remanufacturing of goods that would otherwise go to a landfill. They get special perks, certain types of loans, certain types of grants. Although, we will see what happens at the federal level because some of this is being changed. So I I don't know if this funding will be available going forward. Next is the what used to be the community economic resilience fund, but it is now transitioned to jobs first.

So economic development, we sit on the advisory committee for that in partnership with Monterey Bay Economic Partnership and several partners around the region. This this past fiscal year, in participating on this advisory committee, several local organizations received funding. So it's not just a committee for committee's sake. They did receive some funding as well. And so we had about 3 and a half million dollars in grant funding allocated from the state to this region.

And so I'll list off just a number of those organizations. So Action Council of Monterey County, the Esalen Tribe of Monterey County, Hartnell Community College District, Monterey Bay Dart, Mujeres Inexion, and Rancho Cielo all receive grant funding through Jobs First. And the last two are comprehensive economic development strategy, all of you participate in. Our second annual update was completed this past fiscal year, and we started on the third update. So the conclusion of this third update, we will then be moving into a full five year sets.

So little bit more interaction and engagement between the committee and our vendor that we end up selecting for that full 5%. And lastly, marketing. So work very closely with Nick Pascouli and the marketing communications team. They are rock stars helping us put together all of our different collateral that we take to all of these conferences and events, and our packets that we take to businesses that we're working with to try to entice them to come to Monterey County. And with that, do we have any questions?

Questions? Yes.

Hi, Mitra. What what metrics do you use to help, you know, improve or steer your efforts on economic development in Monterey County? Wondering.

Be a little bit more

Well, I mean, you're doing, you know, quite a variety of different things, and I'm wondering how do you know that those are the right set of things to forward economic development?

And if

you look at any metrics to see, you know, the value of some of the efforts you have or change your strategy?

Yeah. We look at the success of, you know, some of these efforts that we're undertaking. So specifically with the revolving loan fund, we look at the types of businesses that we're loaning to, the track record that we have of those businesses returning that money back to us. And so we have actually not had high a high percentage of missed payments within specifically within the revolving loan fund because that's the most ease that's the easiest one to track. Business attraction efforts are a little bit tougher because those do take multiple years.

So one of those was somewhat of a traction slash retention effort working with Joby Aviation, which is one that I can directly recall. And that we look at the results of that. So we we worked with Joby Aviation, took several items to the board of supervisors, several items to this committee, and Joby initially was not even interested in expanding in Monterey County, let alone in California. And so with the efforts of this committee, with the efforts of the Board of Supervisors, economic development, they did move forward with expanding 225,000 square feet. So that that's one metric that we like to look at is our businesses within the county that we're working with directly expand or are they retracting within the county?

Yeah. I'm sorry. Should have said my question was about business attraction retention. So I was wondering if there are statistics on the number of active businesses, the number of people employed that got to Yeah. Which one

We tend to look at the employment rate. As economic developers, we don't necessarily have direct oversight of if a business is going to employ more individuals or if they're going to, you know, reduce their employment levels, if they're going to expand in in specifically within our region, we really just do what we can to work with them and try to offer them as many incentives and resources that we possibly can. The ones like the revolving loan fund that helps us track, so specifically with the nine jobs through that one, retaining nine jobs, and bringing on 17 and a half new jobs through that specific program, and then also with our partners. So you'll hear from Monterey County Business Council, from C Monterey as to all the additional efforts through funding that we allocate from economic development and the Board of Supervisors to them, additional efforts and additional economic activity and growth that happens throughout the county.

Thank you. Questions? You had mentioned on the revolving fund that there are some dollars that now have accumulated as a result. Do you know approximately how much?

Yeah. We have approximately $400,000 available.

Thank you. Yeah. I was

just gonna ask the same question, so thank you. But also follow-up there. What's the limit on those loans? Like, the capacity high on the loan? Is it also then considered a micro loan? Is that the right term?

I I would say that it it ranges. So we can do as little as $10,000, but our max capacity is $350,000. Oh. And so we've had a couple of businesses who've actually requested the full $350,000, and we have funded those loans.

Okay. Good. And then is there a breakdown by economic segment where those loans are going?

We can pull that for you. We don't have it on hand, but I would say majority retail businesses

Okay.

With the the second just from working on that specifically, the second category would be I I

would say

manufacturing would be the second category.

Okay. Great. Thank you.

Yep. So so go ahead, Luke. Oh, just on the community resilient fund Yes. How much are those grants, and where does that funding stream come from? Is that state funding and then they distribute those? And how do you choose those organizations that receive the grants?

Yeah. So I was not directly on the panel. I recused myself from being on the panel for deciding who gets funding. So I was I'm on the advisory committee. So we help put together the the policies and the requirements for for organizations applying to the program.

And then Monterey Bay Economic Partnership. So Tara and her team worked with several organizations across the county. I know Monterey County Community Foundation, few others who are all part of the scoring and grading of who all applied. But then once those awards were given out, I don't have the details on exactly what the dollar amount was. That's why I got I had the high high dollar amount, 3 and a half million dollars that went out to those organizations. But I can do some back end digging to find out exactly what each allocation was

to I I didn't know know about it. And Yeah. How long do we have had this program? So do we get the money? We decide MBEP is the administrator

of No. Actually, the state decided that.

Okay. So

Yeah. So we we at this committee level, we actually supported MVEP in being the representative for this three county region. We're actually a larger gosh. How many counties is it in now? I believe six county regions. So it goes all the way from Santa Cruz County all the way down to Ventura County is our Central Coast region that the state designated us as.

So just for future me, maybe just get how much were those grants Yeah. And the criteria? Just more sort of more more aware of how that was decided. Yeah. Definitely.

Do you so in the economic development strategy that's devised, some sometimes certain sectors are emphasized

Mhmm.

For as more growth is needed in Monterey County. Do you keep that in mind when you select the recipients of those loans or when you try to attract businesses? How does the strategy fold into your

Yeah. So we are definitely looking to attract more manufacturing, agriculture tech, but at the same time, these loans are yeah. They're they're very minimal amounts. So Okay. You know, industries that we're trying to attract are really looking for millions of dollars in funding.

I see.

And so, you know, we're really just working with our very small businesses in Monterey County that, you know, are needing, you know, a a shot in the arm to help them get, you know, that next piece of equipment or, you know, to help them get over the hump until they get that next contract that they've already signed. And, you know, they're in that limbo period of, you know, hey. We need some money to get us through, you know, the next couple months until this contract starts for half $1,000,000, and then we're going to be good and we'll be paying back the loan.

So my question is and I know we're covering broad range of industries and locations to the county and as as we cover this. I I'm wondering how well we really reach out as we're talking about helping businesses that need that little edge that are left out of the traditional funding process. And in areas like in the rural areas, but also like in East Salinas, which is, you know, vibrant economically, but different kind of vibrancy than you would see maybe in Monterey. So how how successful are we reaching out to those areas and, you know, from our programs? I'm sure getting in resources there.

Yeah. Well, you're looking at it, myself and Isela for the entire county. So we we leverage all of our partners. So great partner here, Monterey County Business Council, all of our DSA partners. We work with all of the chambers of commerce, all 12 city partners.

So any type of program or loan program or resource that we hear of or that we know is available, we conduct an email blast. We work with Nick Pascouli's team to to put that out there, to get it in the weekly, to get it on our social media for the county, to post it on LinkedIn, to send email blast out to all of the contacts that we have. We then ask all of our partners to send it out to all of the contacts that they have. But really boots on the ground, it's myself and Ysalla trying to get to as many meetings or convenings that we possibly can each month to get the word out there.

Well, I know the market type business council. I see a lot more accounting cash to go at all. They're very successful. I just just kinda wondering as we look at some

of these businesses, especially some

of these retail businesses, and, you know, there were, you know, the resources for for Spanish language there too and and and getting across that because we're not dealing with just geographical boundaries there, but also, you know, some language boundaries. And Yeah. We have special efforts into that that we Yeah.

We actually have our business resource guide, which is in English and Spanish. And thanks to Isola here helping me translate it all. So we we have a a Spanish version and English version, and we send that out both versions anytime we're sending and pushing out information from our office.

But in this, Lina, so we should mention Suva should be possible.

Working with the

development corporation.

We're close with

Suva. Yes. But

Jordan, they start working mostly with this, what you said.

Yeah. Any questions? Comes? Remaining in in the room, comment on this online?

Not online.

Are they online? And now we got a

a business certificate here. Right?

Yeah. They're it's a chamber of commerce they're setting up out there. They filed. They definitely got the paperwork back from the IRS, but that's that's gonna be a new chamber developing. And I

think Alejandro Chavez that runs super is gonna administer the one on this part of the Yes.

I'd I'd be happy to connect with them just as the Soledad chamber when once they stood up, I connected with Maria down there and working with them and making sure that they get all the resources that they Yeah.

That yep. They kind of Very pleased to see them develop from the the positive positive things to as needed. Yeah. Very much so. So it's been been really good. This is report. No action. So thank you. And a little more item on here, and this is from from the BSA agencies that said that we're having some presentations. And, again, we'll just take it from the first it's the from the arts. Yes.

And we we have Jackie Atchison, executive director for the arts Council of Water and Accounting. She is presenting online. Cool.

You do you wanna go first?

Yes. Thank you. I will get this going.

Good

afternoon, supervisors, commissioners, and staff. I'm Jackie Atchison, executive director of the Arts Council for Monterey County. I apologize for not being there in person today, but I need to be at home this week to take care of my husband who suffered a heart attack this past weekend.

Oh. Yeah.

That's how that was my reaction too.

Like, what?

Thank you. Thank you. Lovely. This is just a photo I wanted to share with you of a mural that we did down at Bradley Elementary School, by our artist Brenda Sagalillo. And we've been a DSA partner since 1985 to provide arts and cultural programs to strengthen our economic base.

K. So our first goal is economic development, and I think I'm having a hard time with the moving the skip this one the wrong way. Let me go back this way. This seems to work better. This past year, we invested $375,000 in the county's DSA funding, which was provided to 68 arts organizations and 19 artists.

This equals economic impact of $2,250,000 as every dollar invested in the art returns $6 in economic impact. We also, receive funding from the Packard Foundation and the Community Foundation, which, added to this amount. And every year, we have a community arts grant. The the the cycle is is twice a year, and twice a year, we have a we follow it with the reception Mhmm. With the supervisors to attend and learn more about these programs.

One of the things we're seeing recently is a lot of the programs that are in District 5, Carmel, Monterey, Pacific Grove, are actually serving more people in South County now. So that that's a really wonderful improvement we're seeing. We also have the artworks in Salinas, downtown Salinas, to facilitate access for under resourced and emerging artists. We provide them affordable artist studios and a gallery space to assist in launching or expanding their art business while increasing sales. You can see it's really increased over the past two years.

The the artists are doing amazingly well there. We have, seven artists in residence plus about another seven artists that sell their wares there. And then every quarter, we feature an artist from either North County, South County, or Salinas. And this has been, supported by the DSA funding. And every year, well, since, about last twenty years, we've been providing an art exhibition in the county government center.

And this last one had about 30 artists, more than 60 pieces there. It's throughout the three floors, the Monterey room, which you can see, and also the CAO's office. Where they are. This is really an opportunity to showcase our local artists and provide a venue for people to see their work and hopefully purchase their work. And if you haven't come by, I would we would love to see you there. We're at 262 Main Street right downtown, and, we're open on Tuesdays, which I know you're on board meetings, but we're also open Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. So please drop by.

Oh, trying to skip one.

Okay. Then our next one is workforce development. That's our second goal, and we do that by providing free professional development program for artists, arts organizations. This year, we had over 212 artists and arts leaders attend the four programs. You can see some of most of them three of them out of the four are led by other artists, and then we had the an attorney lead one on laws that changed at the beginning of the year for most nonprofits.

Next goal is our workforce development. This is one we're really spending a lot of time and energy on. Back in 2022, prop 28 passed, which provides a billion dollars in arts and music education, but 80% of it has to go to credential arts teachers, which we have a shortage of over 5,000 in this state. So just here in our region, we have a shortage of 285 credential art music teachers. So, the three local arts councils, Monterrey, San Benito, and Santa Cruz, were developing a pathway for artists and teachers to obtain the required training.

The certification will come through CSUMB. That will take time because, working with the the state does slow things down a little bit, but I think it's gonna be great probably in another few years, and we can really bring in more teachers. We're also going into the high schools and letting students know that they can make a career out of teaching and arts. We've kinda got to rebrand teaching because, we have seen a shortage in that due to the the lower income and the cost of of, supporting that. So this will be a multiyear project.

The next one, workforce development. This is this is a mural that we commissioned in April by artist Hamid Pani in Chular, and this is honoring the Bracero workers who were killed when a train hit a makes bus. This was initiated by supervisor Alejo and supervisor Lopez. And this contributes to workforce development by providing paid creative employment, enhancing professional skills, and generating opportunities within the local arts economy. This fiscal year, we'll be looking at doing a mural in Salinas or East Alasol.

We're just looking for a location for that right now. So our next goal is is focused on marketing, and this was our open studio art tour last year. This was the first year we took it over, and we were really impressed by how we increased the number of participants from twenty twenty three, 60% increase. 42% of those were first time participants. We had a, free mobile app last year, and this year, we'll have it again, but we're adding a mural tour to it so that that will be available, you know, three hundred sixty five days a year.

We can add as we see more murals. We're also adding QR codes to our murals so it would lead back to, the website of the the artist and hopefully help them find more. This year's is happening October '19. These dates coincide with Santa Cruz and San Luis Obispo Art Tours. So next year, we're moving it to November to see if we can get even more participants in it.

And we also participate in a lot of community events and festivals. You can see how many here. This is just to connect with local residents and build relationships. It provides, the arts, the opportunity to promote the awareness of the arts and also engage audiences and and foster, like, a a sense of belonging. This past year, we also held five community input workshops in each supervisor district to get feedback from different artists and community supporters to help us grow the arts organizations and to support these individuals.

And you can see the marketing we do year round. Probably about 80% of participants in the larger festivals like Cali Roots, Monterey Jazz Festival, Carmel Bach Festival come from outside of the county, and those are the ones who are staying in hotels and eating in restaurants and and contributing to the tourism tax. So we leverage, you know, radio, television, print advertising, but mostly digital marketing, which we really don't can't show on this, but, you know, we do email marketing, website, or online advertising just so that we can reach a much broader audience. You know, we even advertised in the Fresno Bee for the open studio tours because we know we get a lot of visitors from the Central Valley. And we also work with the, Sea Monterey and collaborate on this cultural road trip, which they have on their website and, I think, at least to our website, and their app so that those who are coming here maybe for, Pebble Beach, Concourse, or for the AT and T aren't so interested in golf, they can go and check out the arts and culture in Monterey County.

I think that's enough. And

we also focus on collaborations and partnerships. This past year, we partnered with the city of south of Soledad to provide three murals at the Cesar Chavez Park. Those were done, I believe, last August, September, and we're working on another one. Actually, we just finished another one on the firehouse apparatus that was supported by supervisor Lopez. We also collaborated with the King City Art Selection Committee for the art in their new plaza and along Broadway.

We consulted with Sand City and ELS planning on their proposed art park, which will be a live workspace for artists, green space, and community events. And we also, consulted with EMC planning and the city of Marina on their proposed arts village. So one thing we also do on behalf of the county is sponsor the Monterey Poet Laureates. We have the the poet laureate, Rochelle Escamilla. She's her term ends at the end of this year, so we'll be bringing a new one in in January.

And then, Maya Pop became our youth poet laureate for this year. She's the youth poet laureate through, April, I believe. And let's see. And then this is a thanks for your partnership from myself and my board chairs, and I'm happy to answer any questions.

Jackie, anybody I a question. Yes. So you mentioned that there's a severe shortage of certified art teaching teachers out there, and CSUMB is is having a program to certify these people. How long is that program attended? And how long is how are they promoting the program so people know it's out there?

Well, they have to put the program together, the credentialing program, because there's a lot of, classes that have to be taken pre prerequisites before they even get to CSUMB if they're transfers. But they don't even have that put together yet. I I I imagine this is gonna take probably four years. So Okay. But we are working with the dean of education there.

She's very supportive of it. We're working with Janine Gus at the at the county office of education. So, you know, we're meeting. We're talking about we're trying to figure out all the different steps to take to have a whole new credentialing program because it's it's not like, elementary school certification. It's a specific art medium. So you have to have one in visual arts or music or performing arts or theater. So it's not, they can't. These teachers can't have one in all they can't have one that encompasses all the mediums of art, if that makes sense.

Sure. Is there a there has to be a model from other programs out there that I use.

Yes. San Marcos? More streamlined. Yeah. San Marcos, CSU, San Marcos has recently completed that, so we've been meeting with them to, you know, kind of follow their footsteps. There actually isn't in any of our region any art credentialing except for it's, San Jose that's, yeah, San Jose State, and that's just in music. So you can see that, you know, it's really there's no real pathway here in Monterey County, San Bernardino, Santa Cruz. So that's that's what we're we're trying to develop.

I just wanted to share. Never I had the experience of working closely with Jackie on a project until, True Lark came up. Obviously, it it's trying to, create something beautiful out out of what was a a tragedy and a forgotten story by many in our in our county. And, obviously, the 32 braceros that died and twenty two that were injured. It has remarkable history.

9,000 people came out to Palma High School just to pay their respects to these 32 braceros whose bodies were laid in across format in the gym. But but I started from beginning to end from an idea talking to Jackie and then working with her to to try to find the location, working with the owner, while while at Tia, and then finding the right artist and then finding the right design. And until the very end where we had a community celebration of 250 people with the resource fair, a car show, cultural dancers, food. It was a really beautiful event, and an event like that never had happened in Chulart. This is the first public art in their community that really tells an empowering story and a a place for the community and the kids to take photos in front of.

So I just wanted to thank Jacqueline. But for me, this is one example where art is really helping uplift a disadvantaged community and really telling a powerful story about the Bracero workers. My grandfather, Chris Lopez's grandfather were former Braceros. These are the people who laid the foundation for our families, and it's told through this, this this mural now in that community. So I just wanna thank Jackie and just commend how how easy it was to work with her, and she has all the connection to this amazing artist. Anif Pani was just amazing working there, and, and nice to see see how it started from beginning to end was a really, beautiful thing to to win it. So thank you, Jackie, and, it really is one example of many where this has really helped, uplift and empower neighborhoods through public art.

Well and thank you, supervisor Lejo. We certainly couldn't have done it without your enthusiasm and support. It was, it was quite the amazing turnout that came to the ribbon cutting. And, like I said, we couldn't have done it without you.

I And was even cutting weeds and picking up papers, whatever it is. Beautiful. Had you find that area. Yes. Part of it.

Thank you. So,

we'll take public comment, I think, after all the presentations, but, do anybody else on the board here have anything for this one? Not Jack, I just wanna say, I think that rural the ones you are, obviously, is a very beautiful too. But the one here in Bradley, I really love the vibrant colors on it. It just really it just really stand out.

Yeah.

Great job and fun helping that. We'll move on to the thank you for your presentation, and we'll move on to c monitor rates. Let's see. And I I don't think that's by your way, go ahead in front of your Oh, I did. I mean, I was gonna do that one. Oh, I did.

I'm gonna I'm gonna explain that. That's good. I'm fine. But thank you, and committee members, senior staff, for an opportunity to go through what we've done. We're gonna do an overview of what, we did in the last fiscal year, try to keep it, brief in the interest of your time and, and my colleague's time. So in short, and Alyssa Rendon, Heinzer is on line right now running this, so she and I are communicating. She's here with us for another less than a week, I believe, Alyssa, where she's going on maternity leave. So we won't see Alyssa around for a couple of months, but we can't wait for her to get back already. Alright. For tourism matters.

So this is from our tourism impact report. Overall, we do this once a year. It's done for every county in the state. It's done by a company called Dean Runyon. And just sort of gives you the sense of size and scope of the tourism economy, it's a $3,100,000,000 in 2024. So we're just, like, a few $100,000 from 2019, so we're getting there. In other areas where we're actually the highest ever, employment's never been higher in 2020, '4, and it's growing since then and will continue to grow with new hotels being built. Couple of three new ones coming online in the next few months. Tax revenue at $310,000,000. It's never been higher.

Those most of those taxes stay here, and some of those go to Sacramento. And, a few other stats that I think are important for you. But, again, when it comes to and I hear this a lot, I'm not hearing as much as I used to. Are we back yet? And I've never really looked at, like, getting back to 2019.

I'm I'm looking at getting us to where we would have been if COVID never would have happened, and we're making a lot of progress there. Next slide. This is a report that goes to the county. We do for each of our jurisdiction partners, includes the county, City Of Monterey, a number of other cities. We've got PG, Carmel, Marina, Salinas, Soledad, King City, Seaside. I think I got them all. So each gets their own customized report because each makes some level of investment. The county is our largest investing partner. And so it is an investment. It's not simply funding.

It's what do we put the dollars to and how do we use those dollars and what do we get back from those dollars. So specific to the, four key areas that we focus on business development, that's meetings and conferences. And at the end of the day, we generate a lot of leads. We help those leads get converted with the properties. In the last fiscal year, we helped generate 315 leads for properties in the unincorporated county.

And 20 of those, we helped to book into definite room nights, over 3,000 of those. And if you look at the economic spending that comes from those 3,000 room nights, the people who come here, people who come for meetings and conferences stay longer. They do more, and they generate a lot more spending. And you can see that investment. The accounting investment in just the business development side generated almost $2,400,000.

On the marketing communication side, there's a variety of things we do, website, visits, PR ad equivalency, how much we generate specific to the county. You can see that's over $2,000,000 there. A lot with community relations, like we say, sales and marketing are the bricks of destination marketing. Community relations is the mortar that binds it all together that makes it all work and makes it all work better than it would otherwise. We have a number of businesses that are unincorporated accounting businesses, and we've grown that by 42.

Total members in the unincorporated accounting are 288. I would remind you most of those businesses are small owner operated businesses. They don't have sales and marketing teams. They rely on what we do, and we often are going out to the community to help. Alyssa and her team, and I've myself done this. We do go door to door knocking to up to meet with members and find out how we can work with them and help them. We've worked with Suba. Suba actually helped us do that and do a better job of that, and we continue to enjoy a great relationship with those folks. And then visitor services, that's, that's a little bit more specific to our app. Hopefully, you all have the SeaMontery app on your phone and use it.

We got a Car Week tab on it. I'm not gonna talk a lot about Car Week because I'm talking about the past and what we've done. But, if you don't, you can get it at the Apple Store. The the app has been, very valuable. And one I will say one thing. We work very closely with the county for our Car Week platform, so we're a a great resource. And working with the county, their mapping technology, where we just did a press conference yesterday to talk about how we work together to ensure people know where to go, when to go, sometimes where not to go, because it's not a good time to go. And we get as much compliments on that from residents as we do from travelers. So I'm very happy about that. Next slide.

This is sort of a restatement of overall countywide impacts, impacts, sort of an aggregate of everything we do. And like I said, it's a $3,100,000,000 industry in terms of visitor spending in one way, shape, or form through our leisure marketing, PR, social media, etcetera. We help influence about a billion dollars of that by reaching out to these folks in our flight markets and beyond. Our marketing programs span the country and around the world. And this report gives you a sense of how many leads total do we generate, and that was 775 with our groups.

And we helped book a record for us, 83,100 room nights. That's throughout the entire county, and it's not just the unincorporated county. And that's more than we've ever done before. And, again, when people ask me, are we back? Well, we're not only back in many ways, we're better than before, and we're gonna continue that. Next slide, please. We launched a new website. I'm not gonna spend a lot of time on that, but cmonterrey.com is completely revamped in the last year and includes we're one of the first, destination marketing organizations to incorporate AI and an AI trip planner in there that's really getting a lot of use. You just put in what you're looking for. It'll give you ideas that you haven't even thought of, and it's got a higher engagement.

People are spending more time on our sites. But one of our goals is to get people from our site to one of those member businesses' site so they can buy something, book something, make a reservation, etcetera. Next slide, please. Culinary is very important for us as a destination. Culinary includes wine.

We recently did this was in May, a James Beard Foundation event in New York. We took five of our chefs. We took one of our sommeliers, we went and we took the Big Apple by storm, had a really successful PR event, and then it was followed by a sold out dinner that our chefs prepared for, a lot of VIPs in New York, and the media piece of it was really important because we need to put ourselves on the map on the East Coast, in the Midwest, and all over the place. And, again, you heard me say this many times. We not only want people to stay one more night, but we've gotta get people coming here because we're gonna have a thousand new hotel rooms by the end of the decade.

We need people coming here visiting us who never even thought to come here and visit us. And so this is one of those ways where peep we take people by surprise through our culinary offerings. It was outstanding. Next slide. We talk a lot about branding the destination, but we also do a lot in the retail space. Brand tailing, fancy marketing words, just taking two words and smashing them together, and that's pretty much if you know that, you know marketing. I got a degree in it, and I spent a lot of money on that just to know that. So we worked with our hotels because we want that one more night. So we said, alright. Let's put our promotion out there when we worked with a number of hotels on a test this spring, and we did a third night free.

And we went to the hotels and found out who wants to be, test subject to work with us. We had about a dozen hotels working with us, and so they created a structure and their pricing structure, their business, they wanna do it. They set it up so that you're essentially getting a third night free. And we did all the promotion. We set up the website for the whole thing to take place. We pushed it out there. And with just 12 hotels, we generated 750 plus booked room nights and 823,000 in economic impact. That to to us was a passing grade, and we're gonna do the same thing now in November through January. And that's the off season when we really need it. This was done in the spring.

We could take it, and we could use it then. And this success is going to push us to do more of the same in the future. How Highway one. Alright. What's up with the badge? K. So how to Highway one does a lot of things, but it's centered on a couple of key ideas. One, the road is closed for six mile stretch way pat way down south, but it the once that road's disconnected, when the Highway One's broken, people think Monterey County's broken. And we're doing a lot to work with that, including working with Caltrans, our friends in SLO, senator DeLaird's office, visit California to try to figure out when and how is that road gonna get fixed. But in the meantime, we need to let people know that regardless of that, you can still enjoy, do all the things you wanna do down in Big Sur.

And even better, how to Highway 1 has a lot to do with Salinas, King City, Soledad, because we're talking about how to Highway 1 and how to do Big Sur, then how to get around. And it adds an hour, hour and a half depending on where you're going, but it opens up that quarter that starts in Salinas and goes all the way down. So we bought two great experts as part of our overall marketing production behind this program. Two great experts coming together to talk about all the bliss you can find in Big Sur and all the excitement and history and culture that you can find in Salinas and Salinas Valley, and it looked like this.

You.

Give it to us.

Selfies of your life. Our executive producer is from Salinas, and she loves the Rodeo. Yes.

Well, I'm

glad you're saying Rodeo. That is the unique thing about us. It comes from the Spanish word Rodeo, which means to round up. So if you're here in July, you have to come to the California Rodeo. We are number one in the state and number 15 in The US. You also can visit the entire Salinas Valley, hiking in Pinnacles National Park, authentic Mexican food, history, and more. It's great to have a family getaway or a romantic getaway just based on what you're looking for in your vacation.

That sounds amazing. Kurt, real quickly, we're talking about Highway 1. Let's talk more about Big and that special road trip.

What makes Big Sur special right now is

If you don't know that's Culture, sir.

Daffel from the hunting

and Mandy Limpas from the Rodeo.

Environment. It works

with stars. For guests to be

We shouldn't cut it there, Alyssa. It goes on a bit. So that content showed up in over 25 markets, including New York, East Coast markets, Midwest markets, on all these morning shows. We help create content to get that out there and let them know. And that connectivity between Highway 1 and Big Sur and the 101 corridor has never been stronger, sort of connected, and, I think valuable for us as a destination. Next slide. International sales and marketing, we have our Encuanto to Monterrey program that we continue to develop. That's for Mexico and also domestic, Spanish language speaking markets. We are doing fam trips. We work very closely with Brand USA.

When it comes to international, despite everything that's happening, in the headlines, we're still pushing ahead with because people are still coming here, and we have what they're looking for more so than a lot of other places. So we're not giving up on the international markets. We're gonna continue to push on that. Business development, we talked a little bit about, sales. Lots of program there. We have an office in Chicago. We have an office in Dallas. We have an office in LA, and we're soon to have an office in San Francisco. We we've got 12,000, soon to be almost 13,000 rooms with the new products opening. Group business is really important, and it's extremely competitive.

So we're kind of all over everywhere all the time as much as possible there. We talked about community connectivity. This is the mortar between the bricks. A number of different programs and and a lot of partnerships. We work with pretty much everybody.

I appreciate Jackie bringing up the programs we're we're we've been doing together, some new stuff on board that she and I just met with last week that, we're gonna be excited to tell you about in the future. We work with SVTVB. I was just there at the Heritage Center earlier this week on transportation focus, program. So, when it comes to partnerships, CSUMB, we're taking two of their students and sponsoring them to go to the Cal State, Cal Travel Summit. We've done that before, so we're creating opportunities there and a lot more than I can tell you in the time that we have here. Oh, I should mention that Alyssa who, normally goes to the Joint Information Center when there's a crisis or an opportunity, she was just involved in a meeting with them this week regarding Car Week. Right, Alyssa? She's probably saying right.

That's correct. Yes.

And then the right path, we used to call it sustainable moments. We now call it the right path. It's all about sustainable responsible travel. We just kicked that up in a in a in a much bigger way, and we wanna educate, visitors before they get here. If you're driving around the Bay Area, you may see our billboards. They're back up. We're we're got the otter there, and we see a door responsibly. And if you look at the MST buses, we're on the sides of those. I just heard from big sir Kate. She's asking along with what the county asked on fire wildfire awareness.

So we're doing a lot. We've been doing, but we're gonna do some, some more, bigger push on that, especially during car week to let people know. So all of that kind of plays under the right path program. Then next slide. And m c 20 MCT twenty thirty, this is just the plan that we published a year and a half ago, and it's talking about thousand new rooms.

What are we gonna do to fill those rooms? Well, I'm happy to say that the stuff we said we were going to do, we're doing a lot of that stuff already. So the next slide, we've gotta show up to become we have to show up bigger to become better in any and every way that we show up. So we've got some new park, partnerships in place. We just kicked off a new partnership with WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca. You will see see Monterrey on the track.

Finally.

I've been working on that one for a long time. Not only will you see it, everybody who watches on NBC or Fox will see us out there. We're a a official destination partner with them. We're helping them sell tickets, and they're giving us a lot more exposure to make it work for the destination as a whole. That one goes into next year. We have partnership with Pebble Beach already in play for the US Men's Open. We're a travel partner for the Sea Otter Classic. We're doing a lot more sales and marketing collaboration with the Salinas Soccer Complex. We we're on the phone or out there with them at least once every couple weeks to help that develop. And we're also in discussion with the with Monterey Jazz about what they're doing.

So the things we said we're gonna do to be able for us to be successful in the future, this past year have really taken shape, and I'm really excited about what we're gonna do next. But what we're gonna do next and what I invite all of you to is our SeaMonterey annual meeting. It's at the Sunset Center, first time we've ever done it there. We got a big stage. Don't know if I can handle a big stage. We'll see. Show up and find out yourselves. But we're gonna ask Steve Panetti, who is a cofounder and former SVP for Kimpton Hotels, and he's gonna be talking about the power of experience. Enhanced experience drives revenue and quality of life for all of us. I hope you can all make it. And you mentioned already questions at the end?

No. We can take questions. I'll probably get the, well, comments at the end. We'll have

So so questions? Question?

I'm I'm just curious. How many people are you expecting, or would you expect to be here next week during Car Week? But they're arriving now, I think.

Oh, it's happening. Yeah. It's late just getting here. But any idea? What It's gonna be over a 100,000 people, and we're projecting over a $130,000,000 of economic impact just from Car Week. Car Week alone accounts for 5% of total room nights sold throughout the entire year in Monarch County. And I remind people, and I say this a lot, it usually takes me six minutes to get to the Safeway. During Car Week, it takes me fifteen, but it's a $130,000,000. So we encourage, a lot of patients. And, we put out a lot of postings that law enforcement was on yesterday's media call and saying that we'd love to push the law enforcement message to make sure people are behaving themselves.

I have a couple of questions. First, you may have already done this with LA, but now there are heat waves all over

the country

and the world that we marketed, but coastal parts of Monterey is a climate haven.

So we we don't we don't make

a big deal about this publicly, but we actually have weather triggered media placements. So when it's hot in Fresno, in Sacramento, and further inland, we run media that says, wouldn't you wanna get away to Monterey to to cool down? So we're actually doing that. We're protected in other ways. And supervisor Lehl, you'll you'll, I think, appreciate this. A long time ago, we made a commitment to help wine country tourism. I met with Scott Gariccioli and Gwen from SLH and Kim Stemler took a minute to come back into our world, and we're working on a really big program there. I bring it up because from a weather standpoint, it's getting too hot in Sonoma for certain types of grapes. It's getting too hot and slow for certain types of grapes. So Scott Caraccioli is telling me, you know, we've got something here. We really gotta capitalize on it.

We will.

My other question is, how do you I may have asked this to you before, so I apologize if so. How do you collect visitor feedback to encourage return visits, and do you work to disseminate that to the businesses you work with?

No. Absolutely. Well, a lot of the feedback comes through where you'd expect social channels. So we're constantly monitoring that, and people contact us through our website. And when we do surveys so sometimes we'll periodically go out and we'll ask people about the brand and the perception of that. We put those reports out, and we put them online. So, yeah, we do wanna get that out. And we disseminate it primarily through our board, which is made up of 34 folks. And so they take that information, and they spend it out too. It's not just hoteliers. It's, a lot of different sectors. It's film commission's on our board. Jackie's on our board. Norm's on our board. Janine's the chair of our board this year. So, yes, it's very important to hear what the visitor's saying.

Thank you. Yeah.

I just wanted to to say, maybe we're cutting ourselves short because it's not even car week anymore. It's like car week and a half. Right. Right? So there's a there's even, like it starts this Friday, and it goes through, like Car weeks. Yeah. Exactly. Hard Yeah. Is. Yeah. It's getting there. And then on the on the advertising in Mexico, obviously, it went to to Monterrey. Just so we know, there's a moderate in Mexico, no state of Nobel on the East Side. It's very industrial, and it's like a tech hub in Mexico. So we just gotta be cognizant that we we really can make sure it's not the Monterrey with double r's.

It's Monterrey here in California. And then lastly, I know you attended the real committee meeting for TAMZ here, and I just wanna make sure that, as we get closer to 2028, perhaps when we will have enhanced passenger rail, that we see that as an opportunity to find, promote that there's other ways to come visit, Monterey County through enhanced rail. So

And rail tourism is growing double digit. In California alone, in last year, it was up by 24% despite some of the weather challenges and other things. So it there's huge I'm so excited about that. There's huge opportunities there

in the future. Thanks. Yeah.

You had mentioned AI in the trip planning, which sounds exciting. How do you update with new destinations that you have or new? Is it do you have to go in there and do that, or who's keeping up with that?

We gotta do it at least once a week. So we do sweep throughout through our website and added content, so it gets picked up by the language model that we have. Language model, basically, the AI that we're using. And then we also do some, well, trickery. We make sure that we plug in. If someone's thinking about, like, what can I do in Big Sur? Or where's hiking in Big Sur? We always serve that up with a responsible travel message. And not just for Big Sur, but overall, we've kind of you can see things in there where you want to really emphasize. So that's very helpful for us.

And things are happening all the time. New members are coming on, so we have to do it it started off twice a week, and now it's to once a week, and it works. It's not trying to take over our world. It's helping our world. Any questions?

Alright. Thank you, Rob. Thank

you. Appreciate it.

And I wanna point out we are at 01:10. I'd wanting more minutes. Hope, you know, hope you know, somebody have to if we spill over five minutes, hopefully, we are, but and we have to public comment too. But let's have a film commission come up next. I don't mean to wanna cut any of you short on what your presentation needs.

That's scary. So we have some notes so we can keep moving along. Anyway, thank you very much for inviting us to share a summary of the activities and the goals of the Monarch County Film Commission in the last fiscal year. I'm Karen Nordstrand. I'm your Monterey County Film Commissioner.

And joining me is Moira Mountain, and she is our film office administrator. We're pleased to say that we've had a very successful year and up to date, the positive economic impact from filmmaking in Monterey County is $142,000,000 in direct location spend that came to the county since we were established by the Board of Supervisors back in 1987. Next slide, please. Oh, is there another slide?

Oh, we requested that all presenters will will will pull it up.

Okay. Oh, sorry about that.

We gave it to you. We thought you were gonna steer the steer the car. Sorry. Well, that first one was just kind of

a If it takes your time, think, something.

We'll ahead

and pull that up

if you want, Rich.

You wanna switch?

If you wanna switch. I

have it.

Yeah. Okay. Let's see. They have it.

The paper version is out of the way. Yeah.

Have to be here to see it. Anyway, I'll keep going. Our our we're a small but mighty organization that Yeah. Next slide. Was, again, very helpful.

But, yeah, that's just our next slide is fine. It's part of our annual report. So we had a good year despite a very rough first half start because there's a slow rebound from all the problems in the film production industry, particularly in Los Angeles area with writer strikes and AI negotiations and then the horrible Los Angeles Wildfires that affect a lot of the productions and production employees. But still, we had a 147 productions that came to film here, which exceeded our goal at a 118%. Yeah.

Next slide. And there's a wide range of productions, two feature films, online videos, commercials, documentaries, fashion shoots, advertisements, student, films, and more. And the most significant one from an economic impact standpoint was the feature film Whale Fall, which is a twentieth century, studios, Disney production based on the New York Times bestselling book, of the same name. And another feature was maintenance required. That was an Amazon production.

You can see some of the other brands and productions listed on this slide, including KQED's Check, Please TV, which filmed at local restaurants, including Julia's Vegetarian in Pacific Grove, The Meadery in Seaside, Schooners in Monterrey, and El Bistro by the Sea in Carmel. We also had commercials for, Audi q five and then Honda CR V hybrid models. Next slide. That shows you some of the filming for Will Hall that was taking place. We dealt with their production people and scouts months ahead of the June film days.

And that and in the book, Wellfall, Monastery Beach is a key location, so we're hoping that in the final film, it's referenced so that we can have additional spin off tourism economic impact ultimately. Some of the locations they rented and permitted included boat and water scenes like you see. Also, Monastery Beach itself, they wanted that. Pacific Grove Cemetery, Highway 1, Monterey High School, and Monterey County's Jack's Peak Park. So all those properties received compensation, which is a positive thing.

Base camp space was rented at the Crossroads Center, and that that money goes to the Point Lobos Foundation. A film boat and had a local captain. Other locals got jobs as production assistants, extra location scouts, and many local restaurants saw increased business. Next slide, please. This shows you maintenance required.

The movie came in September and shot near Lovers Point in Pacific Grove and on General Jim Moore Boulevard and Seaside after filming in San Francisco and England. Next slide, please. Here is just illustrations of some of those other film productions. Clockwise, starting with the crew members joining actor Hillary Swank, who is here for the BBC brand USA Tourism video. Then there was a documentary on a special car called driven by legacy, the road to Pebble Beach.

Then there's Carmel Valley's Holden Ranch in the background with the fashion models for Johnston and Murphy and photography and videos at the concourse. And in the corner there with the CRV logo was a private ranch in Big Sur that was chosen for a very secretive reveal, shoot for the Honda 2026 CR V hybrid had to be very, very isolated and so nobody could see yet. Next slide. So, yeah, so we continue to photograph potential locations for our location library, which in our very visual industry provides location scouts and producers some initial inspiration and possibilities for for any upcoming shoots. Shown here, we got some County Park, Salinas Valley artichoke in North County, Strawberry Field, oceanfront homes in Big Sur, and then, of course, our Fisherman's Wharf.

And we're continuing to always search for new locations to be able to offer. Next slide, please.

MCFC is pleased to report that this year's economic impact was $4,050,000 in direct spend, which was 107% of our annual goal. Next slide, please. The initial, local community expenditure report prepared by the California Film Commission indicates $904,000 was spent by Wailfall. This was for five days of shooting only. There was also advanced trips by the principal location scouts, the director, producer, and their key crew, which added another 30,000 to the expenditure.

11 people were hired for about $44,000. A 118 background crew members for 24,000. Hotel expenditures exceeded $480,000. Location fees were more than $95,000. All other spend was about 259,000.

Next slide, please. As a member of FLIX, which is the film liaisons in California statewide and in conjunction with many other film related industry organizations, we were in full support of governor Newsom's increased tax incentive program. The state legislator passed that increase, program four point o on July 1. The new program is $750,000,000 a year for the next five years. This this more than doubles from 330, the annual amount available for this program.

It really shows the vital importance of the film industry to the economic well-being of our state, and it enables us to be more competitive with other states and countries that have larger incentives to lure business away from California. And then we also like to say that, you know, they get a 5% credit boost if they come to fill outside the LA zone. So that whale fall feature film was a tax incentive program. Next slide, please.

Our, industry marketing and promotion, we received, achieved a 106% of our goal in a reach of 2,490,000 impressions as we increase ads and listings in film industry trade magazines and guides, trying to keep Monterey County locations top of mind, exposure in print, distribution at global film festivals, online page turners, websites, social media marketing, and we attend a a select film industry events to make personalized contact with our key clients. Next slide. Here's some examples of some of our advertising ads, globally. Locations International Magazine, which had a an ad that shows our range of locations from Salinas to Carmel and Big Sur. We had a California on locations award ad, which said you Otter Film Here.

Also, the Location Managers Guild International Compass Magazine, and you can see some of the partnerships that we have and that we participate with, like Film LA I mean, Film USA, the California Film Commission, and FLIFTS, and they do their own publicity that we get to gain some impact from. Next. Oh, yeah. Then we also try to generate earned media. We worked with reporters in the print, TV, and social media influencers to gain free publicity, effectively expanding the word about the the benefits of the film commission and the film industry.

And I'm happy to announce that the Monterey County Film Commission was selected as one of six nonprofit partners with Coastal Root Hospitality in 2025. They choose a a nonprofit for two months. So we were March and April, and we got 10% of all of their takeout food from their three restaurants, Montreal, Rio Grill, and Tarpee's. We received a check for about sick $10,650, which helps to leverage our DSA funding. We also were successful in this goal of community collaboration, establishing 51 different organizations that we connected with over the last twelve months.

Next slide, please. And we had several Hollywood in your backyard industry mixers in the last fiscal year. September was at Lady Somme in the Barnyard, November at the Hoffa House in Carmel, and in January, we held a mixer at Patria's and Salinas. The purpose is to identify and connect local filmmakers and businesses that support the film industry. Most productions spend on vendors and support services such as hotels, catering, props, and everything from security guards to porta potties.

We promote the local crew and services to the film industry on our online production resource guide. All countywide residents are eligible to have a free listing in order to be potentially hired by production when it comes on location. The Hollywood in your backyard mixer had over 880 attendees, and we had 47 new listings on our resources guide as a result of that effort, which was really terrific. Next slide, please. We were also selected to curate a year long art display at the Monterey Regional Airport entitled Lights Cameron in Monterey County.

This spotlights the history of movies and television made here. The display offers film highlights, behind the scene photography, and memorabilia, all to celebrate our county's rich cinematic history. A Monterey Peninsula chamber and MCFC ribbon cutting is gonna be held on September 18 at the art at the airport display to show the economic impact film and TV production has here in Monterey County. We hope you will enjoy it or come and join us. The display will run through February. So when you're at the airport, please take a look on the mezzanine. Next slide, please.

So I think our time is pretty much up. But just a reminder, we had a great successes last year. And we regularly receive heartfelt testimonials of thanks for our help from film productions and local crew that benefited from the film commission's work. So I'll share a little bit of this one that came from a local production assistant. She said, I was provided with the opportunity of a lifetime all because of MCFC.

The Whale Fall production hired me as the local production assistant for a month's long employment. I never dreamed that I would work on a Disney production shoot. I learned so much, and I have a resume of a dream job career all because you recommended me as a resource. So that's a wrap for our presentation today. We're grateful for your time and support and happy to answer any questions.

Any questions? Yes.

Well, I just have a quick I was just looking at your p and l. And how many employees do

you have? You're looking at it. Yeah. One one we're 1.8. We have three part time employees. 1.8. Okay. And you're hourly or salaried? Hourly. Okay.

$15.25.

What's the big picture forecast for on location shooting with equipment and technology in the the film industry? I mean, are studios avoiding on location shoots because it's more expensive? And and

Not not yet.

Are you going downhill or not so much?

No. Not so much. And then and then with you know, there's a a demand for content with the streamers and, you know, there's all kinds of extended opportunities for on location filming. Probably, AI will start to make a a definitely an impact. But a lot for for a while, at least, a lot of directors still wanna have that live experience and essence of a of a property. They prefer that still. You know? Everything

seen a decline over the years.

Well, there's been a decline here Right. Because of these incentives that have been pulling productions all around the world. Even a shoot in Bulgaria doubled for Big Sur because they could get they could get such a good rebate there. So Right. That's why we're happy to have this new rebate, and I think it'll keep pulling productions back. They're going out places, so we just wanna try to retain them here.

Okay. But no no no reduction overall in the industry?

Not yet. No. No. I think there's different opportunities. I

mean Okay. Any other questions, Deborah? Do

you get many requests for production facilities that include agricultural fields or rangeland? And if so, how do we make those connections? Because these changes so fast, and I know when I get those requests, there's just no way I can fulfill them because everything moves too fast. So how do you

handle them? Yeah. We do we do warn people that I mean, you wanna feel today? Well, it may be dirt tomorrow. But we've we've been very lucky.

We've had, you know, New Holland farm equipment filmed in several places and and having a rural look, not necessarily in the field kind of thing, but that rural farm is a is a is a draw. We even, in the past, have had Japanese mayonnaise companies standing in the fields of in Soledad and fashion even the fashion shoot was wanted that kind of a look. So we just but we we sometimes depend on people like you to give us a hint, like, what might be a good The crop the crop calendar is really wonderful.

Thank you.

I know we're here at 01:30, and we saw the business council today. So so I think that maybe in in a few period, we need to have our agenda a little smaller or else we need to live. Expectations to ten minutes.

Thank you

for your time.

Think it's fifty minutes for your grade. So, Paul, I don't wanna cut you off on in the bank.

So I appreciate that. Thanks so much. Norm said you've been fast, and I will do my best. I thank you all for for sticking around. My presentation is not too long. Monterey County business driving economic development here in the county. You know about us. We advance economic development and promote regional prosperity through free business advising, leadership development programs, business workshops and training, government procurement support, and some high impact networking opportunities. These are the programs, the Monterey Bay FX Accelerator. I'll share some exciting and specific numbers about the economic impact we've made this last year, the small business developments.

And then so the Monterey Bay Monterey Bay Apex accelerator provides support for businesses trying to win government contracts. Small business development center is primarily no cost professional business advising, access to capital, things like that. The Leadership Monterey County program is, develops leaders in the area, through an experiential program. And then Monterey County Business Council ourselves do a number of other activities, including the supervisor speaker series and monthly speakers and a number of other things. We'll start off with the, excuse me, small business development center, helping businesses start, grow, and succeed.

Again, expert one on one business advising workshops and other resources. Our staff is bilingual, English and Spanish. We have outreach centers since in well, our main office is in Salinas, outreach centers in Monterrey and Soledad. Our business advisers also speak a variety of languages. Much of the advising can be done via Zoom, so that opens up, you know, Korean, Japanese, Portuguese, Arabic, you name it.

Results. So for this is this is our first full year operating the small business development center, 253 Monterey County businesses served. I won't repeat all of the information that's on the slide, but you can see, helping businesses access capital so that they can grow is important. So we're able to do, $1,600,000 this year. Also helping, with government contracts because they may work with a business that may be able to sell to the government, so that pairs nicely with our Apex program.

You can also see we work with half of the businesses that we worked with were owned by with by women. And then the top businesses sectors served are listed there in the bottom. And what are they asking for? A lot of times, it's their they wanna start a business. They don't know what to do.

Need help with marketing and sales. Getting funding and being prepared to be able to get that funding as well. Something very important in Monterey County, as many of us know, is the need for childcare. And this is also an opportunity for us to help small businesses that may have the skills to be able to take care of children, but they don't know how to get the business started. If you look at some of these statistics here, we helped in a partnership between the Central California SBDC Network and Nurture.

We offered a free bilingual and virtual twelve week program to help those businesses get started and get their child care licensing. So they could get a a grant for a thousand dollars. We had a 114 Monterey County participants, and 72 of them were Spanish speaking, and forty two were English speaking. So you can see we've got a big demand for that. We've got people who can provide the services, but they don't know how to get a business started and how to get the certification to be able to do that.

And that's where we help. So that's that's a very important story. Next, we move on to the numbers for the Monterey Bay Apex accelerator. Again, you can see the numbers where we help, disadvantaged and women and minority owned, businesses, help bid and win government contracts. We delivered huge numbers for the investment that we got from the county, through the DSA partnership.

We deliver a $143,000,000 just this last year, and that is only the federal contracts. There are also maybe state and local contracts that they may get. And I wanna tell you a little bit how this how this system works because I think more than many groups, we can point to the work that we do and the direct economic impact. And the way that works is that each business gets a unique identifier. So consider it like a Social Security number.

And then when, when contracts are awarded at the federal level, they all go into a database, and we're able to query, okay, all of the partners that we work with in Monterey County, which contracts did they win? And it gives a very specific number. 143,000,000, $33,006.23. You can verify these numbers. We're not making things up. We're not imagining it's, you know, $5 to 1 or $10 no. That's the number of contracts, federal contracts won in Monterey County. That's the number of businesses we worked with. That's the number of contracts, a 145 contracts. This, for this cycle, those the, board of supervisors are requested.

Can you break those numbers down and let us see what how many contracts are won within each district? Okay. That is not easy. It's easy to pull those other numbers because it's just the database. But for this, what we had to do was pull out all those numbers by ZIP code and then look through all the ZIP codes and see which ZIP codes are in each each supervisorial district, and we did that for you. And so here you can see at each of the districts how much money, did they get in contracts. I will tell you, we are out in the community. We serve everybody. If there you can see District 5 got a $132,000,000 of contracts. That may be because of the nature of the businesses that are there.

So and and I don't know the specifics of all of the numbers and the contracts awarded, but if there are defense contracts that defense companies may be, you know, naval postgraduate school, DLI, that's more based on the Peninsula. So it's likely that many of those companies are based in that area, which would which would show why they got higher numbers. So we'd have to dig into it, but I'm just here to tell you, we are out there to serve everybody. We're outreaching different parts of the community to help them as we can. But even in some of the the smaller, more rural counties, there's still a significant amount

of contracts that are helping these businesses. And real quick to add to that, Paul does not decide who gets awarded these contracts. Provide assistance to them.

No. Please do not blame me. Not my fault. Whoever whoever is

meat tractors are. Yeah.

And whoever is issuing these RFIs or these requests for federal contracts, they decide who they select.

Yeah. Yeah. What we do is we try to help them get in the system. So they have a number. We help them jump to the hoops. You know? So thank you for that. It is not my fault. I don't decide anything. Alright. The leadership program. Ten month program designed to cultivate informed engaged leaders. We typically have about 30 cohort participants. Some of you have been guilty of going through the program, in the past, and they get to talk out in the field. You'll see that's our local, leader for Kaiser Permanente is the middle of that photo.

That's the the new police chief for the city of Salinas. I believe that's the back of doctor Denim Gus on the bottom. But these people get to go out, learn about the different industry sectors. The days are each themed. So the government and law day, infrastructure day, they get to go out and tour the oil fields in South County, get behind the gates at Naval Postgraduate School.

These things that open up their eyes, build their connections with leaders within the community. And the idea is that the graduates go out and they lead in nonprofits, business, and government, but the change that that drives throughout the county is immense. And so this is a program that's also supported by, the funding from the GSA. Now the county of, MCBC also is engaged in other economic development initiatives. These are not directly funded by the DSA, but, we've done an employment trends report.

We had, doctor Chris Thornburg come last year and talk about the first ever employment trends so we could see where are the jobs in Monterey County, how much do they pay, what's growing, what's not. That's all avail available on MCBC's website. And I just signed an agreement the week before last. They're doing an update for that with the latest data. So look forward to that.

We're gonna do an event on October 10. We've done a South County retail feasibility study to support the cities in South County, basically, to look at with the population they have, what are some businesses that they could support that right now are driving to Salinas or out of the area? So that helps those cities retain some some tax dollars and allow their, the residents who live in South County to to buy locally. So we've supported that. We also contributed to the Monterey County military impact report to look at, you know, how much is the the value of the, you know, the economy here locally.

I'm sorry. I'm talking a little fast because I know we're over time, but I'm trying to go real fast. But I'm done in nine minutes. Okay. Any questions? You get the gold star.

Thank you. Thank you. Just real quick.

Where what do you do on infrastructure day?

Oh, so what they have done in the past is things like I don't know if I should say this, but they did a tour of the Vistra plant in the past. Mhmm. They can go and look at Pure Monterrey water and do that site tour. They go to Regen Monterrey, which is I I like to call it the world's greatest dump. But they get to go in there and do a tour of that. So the idea of infrastructure days, there's all this stuff happening behind the scenes as residents. We don't think about where does our garbage go, how does our water get here, energy, all of that stuff. So those are some of the places they've gone for infrastructure day.

For this the small business development, is part of the component there also include include to make sure that the startups are in regulatory compliance and have the proper insurance in place?

Good question. I think I I can say that the point is to help them do whatever they need to do to get that business started. Right? So that's gonna include regulatory things as well, right, with the childcare and whatnot.

So Particularly for childcare.

Yeah. Particularly for that. Because as you know and and something else related to that, Norm, is the microenterprise home kitchen operations, which the the state approved, the county approved. We're looking for ladders of success where people can start with something small. And so the idea was, you you know, you can prepare food in your home kitchen and sell it. Okay. Well, there's rules related to that. And so we've done some very well attended workshops where we talked with people and invited the county and invited the cities and said, you know, here's what that looks like. And I was stunned how much interest there's been in that. There's a big underground economy that we don't necessarily know about.

The idea is these are ladders for people who are sometimes outside of the normal economic system to be able to get started and, you know, maybe hopefully one day have a catering service or or a restaurant or something like that. We support all of that.

Great. Thank you. Thank you. Any questions?

Let's see. So you said your top sectors serve from the business development center, number of professional, scientific, and technical. Do you know or is there a place I can find out how much of that was scientific and technical since that's a broad brushstroke?

It is. So all of the data that we have here, we could we could back it up and let you know. Now there are confidentiality rules with the SBDC. We can't say that Keith's company got this and whatnot. So it but it does roll up. But Yeah. But that avail

that breakout.

Yeah. Some of that stuff we can provide. And our our SVDC sends out a a regular report to all of the city count the city council, I believe, is on it, city managers, and it says, here's what we did this quarter. Here's what we did within your community, how many businesses we served, and whatnot. Again, that data is at an anonymous level. And if you'd like to be on that, I can make sure that you all receive that quarterly report as well.

Any other questions? With that, thank you all for the presentation. Alright. Thank you. Do we have any public comments? Let's see. Ready in the room, online? Public comments? Can. I guess.

I just wanted to let the committee know that I'm going on on tour. But But first of all, tomorrow or this afternoon, actually, they see me, because I was on Rotary to talk about the proposal to do what the Rotaries and the city Salinas accomplished on Main Street with the Salinas Rotary Arch. What was recently accomplished through state grant and capture little beautiful new signage out there that these have become iconic markers and and projects that bring pride to the community. And so we're proposing to do one from the yellow cell. Idea originally came from Peter Kosovon who designed the one here in Saipem.

I'm gonna run away with I'm gonna run away with this idea and try to make it a reality. And luckily, we have discretionary funding, so I'm I'm putting in the first down payment of a 100,000 towards this project. But we hope that this will be a partnership between the county, say Salinas, the rotaries, and individual donors to not only instill pride on in the East Side as a as another landmark, a kind of marker within the county. I think it's a good way to tell the beautiful history that it had because the Alasaw has always been a multicultural, multiethnic community whose story will not be told unless we tell it. And then lastly, I think it's a way to brand peacefully nest in terms of the one of the most one of the busiest business corridors in the county and the most heavily immigrant part of our county as well to have an iconic marker that could brand the businesses, brand the the the the Dallas the district there.

So I hope to then go to the Selena Downtown Rotary in Santa Lucia, actually, the sign that rotary, and then anyone else who invited me. But I just wanted to bring that up as a way I see it as a economic development project, a beautification project, and certainly a history and, neighborhood, empowerment project as well.

I'd just like to ask that in a future meeting, maybe our next meeting, that we'll receive a presentation on the draft climate action plan that the county is is going to be releasing here, I believe, this fall because I believe there's some economic impacts that might be facilitated through that plan. And I think it would be good for this committee to understand where we're going with the climate action plan and what that means for the mitigation efforts that all businesses is running up to

undertake here. Right. Any other Tell me the definition of the new RO Chamber of Commerce. Is it what's it called? I'm not sure exactly what name they've settled on. I was you know, it's a business community there. It's that's they're setting up a chamber of commerce. Yeah.

They did send a letter. It's like I other it's at Paro Business Group. Business

Group. Okay.

For now. But I think it's a work

in progress. Yeah. I I

don't know what the I know they've submitted

the IRS official name, but I don't know what that official name is. I got you. Anybody? Yes.

I want a second. I'm just requesting. Well,

thank you. We'll make sure we get it on there then from next agenda. And if there are no other announcements in the next meeting, which I hopefully will have this on, is 11/13/2025. Same place, maybe not the same time.

Okay. So

I would like to thank you. Okay, everybody, and

leave it to journal. Alright. Thank you, everybody. Good seeing you. Thank you.