Economic Development - Regular Meeting

That's already when it starts. And so call the meeting in order then. And may we have a roll call, please?

Supervisor Alejo.

Supervisor Church.

Norm Groot. Catherine Steadman. Keith Severson. Terrence Clark. Danine Bollier. Gail Pittman. Cesar Lara.

Here.

Heather Garner. Ida Chan. Here. Nicholas Kite.

Here.

Beth Babinski. Here. Janine Chakara. Here. Okay.

Do we have any additions or corrections to today's agenda?

There are none.

Thank you. And we'll move to public comment on the item that's not on today's agenda. Yes, you have a comment. Please come forward.

Good afternoon, Supervisor Church and committee members. I'm Jeff Rester. I'm the executive director of the Monterey County Business Council. And I want to thank you for your continued support and advocacy for economic development here in Monterey County. Through the county's investment in the development set-aside program, MCBC is really producing measurable results. And just to give you some ideas of what that means is for the last fiscal year, which just ended on June 30th, MCBC worked with a couple hundred businesses. It helped to bring over $129 million of federal contracts to Monterey County. That led to the recreation. and the retention of over 2,000 jobs. In addition, we've worked with over 365 businesses, providing them with a wide variety of technical assistance and business support, which helps these entrepreneurs to start and grow and really compete in today's economy. One real important outcome is who we serve. A lot of the businesses that we serve are really coming from underserved, underrepresented communities. We serve a lot of women-owned businesses, minority-owned businesses, veteran-owned businesses, and this really helps to ensure that economic opportunity is provided throughout Monterey County. One of the key principles of the development set-aside program is partnerships, and we are really proud to be part of a partnership that we have with Bright Beginnings and with a group called Nurture, which has led to the creation of over 200 childcare slots here in Monterey County, and that's through the provision of technical assistance and funding to help home-based entrepreneurs to start up. that, of course, supports our small business ecosystem and, of course, increases workforce participation. We are also very excited to be launching in the next couple of months a youth entrepreneurship program called Ignite. I'll be talking more of that program in the months to come. And that really is about preparing the next generation of entrepreneurs and business leaders. So, again, on behalf of the MCVC Board of Directors, the staff, And yours truly, thank you for your support. Thank you for the partnership. And we look forward to working with you in continued partnership to really support economic opportunity for all of Monterey County. Thank you.

Thank you. Do we have anybody else in public comment?

We have one hand raised online.

We do have one.

Colleen Courtney.

Yes, Colleen, please go ahead.

Hi there. Can you hear me? Okay, fabulous. Good afternoon. For those who may not know, my name is Colleen Courtney and I joined the See Monterey team as their Director of Community Relations. And I just wanted to share a few quick updates on tourism's economic and community impact across Monterey County. First, Monterey Car Week delivered an exceptional year for our local economy. Monterey Car Week attracts more than 100,000 visitors and generates an estimated $130 million in visitor spending across Monterey County. This year, countywide hotel occupancy reached 87.6% and hotel room revenue increased 14.4%. to a total of $51.5 million. Collector car sales reached a record $756 million, nearly 75% higher than last year. Importantly, these benefits extend into our communities. More than 35 events took place across the county, including more than 15 free events. And the Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance alone raised more than $4.3 million for charity this year, benefiting organizations serving Monterey County residents. Second, our tourism industry continues to play an important role in responding to the timber and flasket fires. See Monterey has been working closely with the county and our hospitality partners to provide timely visitor information, communicate alternative routes, and promote the many communities and experiences throughout the county that remain open and welcoming for visitors. Our hotel and business partners have also stepped up with discounted lodging, food and resources for those displaced by and responding to the fires. When Highway 1 fully reopens, we're prepared to immediately launch a coordinated recovery campaign with Visit Slow Cal, our partners in San Luis Obispo County, to help drive visitation and economic activity back to Big Sur when they're ready. And finally, this coming weekend, Monterey County welcomes the IndyCar Series season's finale to WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca. This year, Sea Monterey has expanded our investment and partnership with Laguna Seca, specifically to extend the economic and marketing impact of IndyCar beyond the racetrack. In addition to paid advertising supporting the event, we're supporting regional television promotion, the IndyCar Welcome Party, and the Paella with Paolo Media Luncheon, and new signage and promotional materials that bring IndyCar into the area hotels and businesses. The goal is simple, make IndyCar feel like a Monterey County event and not simply a race at Laguna Seca. Together, Car Week, our wildfire response, and IndyCar demonstrate how tourism supports our economy while also strengthening our businesses and communities. Thank you so much for the time to share a public comment, and I hope you all have a great meeting.

Thank you. And to everybody else online. Okay, thank you. Let's see. I was checking where I'm at here. Okay, action minutes. Do we have anybody have any corrections for the minutes?

Move to approve the minutes of May 29th.

Okay, is there a second? Second. Is there any public comment on the item?

No hands raised online.

And we do need to go to a roll call vote since we have one person online.

We'll start with Supervisor Church.

Aye.

Norm group.

Yes.

Keith severson.

Yes.

Terrence Clark. Yes. Caesar letter.

Yes.

I had a chance. Yes. Nicholas tight. Yes. Yes. And Janine check around. Yes.

Hey, motion passes. We have approval minutes removed to the regular agenda item, which is item number two. And we have the unfortunate to use of, um. receiving, but we didn't, we have to accept the resignation of Keith Severson as the construction representative for the committee.

There's, I don't know, if you want to say anything, you don't have to. I'd love to say, you know, it's been an honor and a privilege to work with this esteemed committee, with the supervisors, and with these hardworking volunteers and individuals. Great respect there. I retired about May 1st, about four months ago, and I sort of find my retirement groove. I found that much like when you are a member of too many wine clubs, you have to sort of drop something. And so this is, just consider yourself an esteemed wine club that I just have to step off. And I'm going to make a recommendation. I know we have to go through process, but we've got, Grant Rock's got a far more qualified individual than I, Aaron Johnston, that is our Director of Government Affairs. And I think he will put in his application when we're vacant and ready to proceed. Again, I thank you for all the support and insight and wisdom and take good care of our beloved Monterey County. I'm not leaving. That's it. Thank you.

Richard, do you have anything you want to present on this or no, just that we received the announcement from Keith about his resignation and thank you so much for serving on this committee with us. And yeah, that we just like to receive direction from this committee to move forward with an open recruitment for the position. And if you have a specific timeframe. And how you'd like to move forward in proceeding with that. And if you're interested in creating a separate ad hoc committee to do the review of those applications that come in, like we've done in the past. Sure.

So I'll open it up to the board here. Any comments on this?

If it's appropriate, and there's only like. Let's say three candidates. I think bringing it to the board directly would be good. If we get a dozen, we might need a committee to review the applications.

Okay. So that would mean we would need to wait. You know, I mean, we open up the application. Could you give us a process of how long the application period is? If we were to get a whole bunch of these and it would have to come back to the board of the applications open, as I would understand, and then have a committee.

So, yeah, you're correct. So in the past, we've done anywhere from 30 to 90 days, depending on, you know, how many applications we receive. So if we were to do a standard 30 day window for open applications, we would start most likely early. This following Monday would be the announcement. We would push that out through our communications team, ensure that everybody is aware that this is open and available. We then set a specific end date for that, 30 days out. Once we close that out, if we have, based upon what I'm hearing, from the committee. If we have more than three or a large amount, then we would need to bring it back to this committee maybe in November at our next committee meeting to form an ad hoc to do a review. If not, if you'd like to direct staff to conduct the review of applications and then take all of those directly to the board, we can do it one of two ways. Either bring it back to the committee in November or take those applications once we close out the period back to the board and have the board decide who would be the individual that would replace Keith.

Or we could do a little bit of a little different form. You're suggesting that if we knew a number, we could maybe have a committee gets appointed because I hate to leave this position open for a long time. And then if we have three or more than three or more than five or whatever it is, then that committee could meet and then we'll be able to come back to the board. And if there's less, then we'd be having the names come back on its own. That would be a suggestion I would make.

I think in the past, too, we've gotten pretty substantial applications, more than three. So I think that's a great idea. And I don't mind serving. I've served in the past. Okay.

So Ida would be on it. Yeah, I can help. Did we have two or three last time? I believe the last time, three.

And a supervisor.

Okay. Ida.

I'll do it. I'll volunteer. Very good.

So we got three onto it. And do we want to put a number limit that the committee – But should the committee just take up all that come in? Or if we only get two or three, do we want to let the staff handle it?

Can I make a suggestion? Richard, you're very familiar with evaluating applications. You've done it a while, correct? So I suggest we let Richard be the first look at these applications and prepare it for the committee.

Sure. The committee could in theory me, and if we need and see that story, we could just meet quickly and be like, okay, let's pass it to the full committee.

So the committee will look at them then anyway, and that's perfectly fine. I'm.

So, if you'd like, I can do what we can do is as staff, we can do the 1st pass and review to ensure that. Applicants who submit their applications, submit everything in full. And so those who do not submit all the required documents. essentially would not be moving on if they're missing, you know, chunks of what is needed for the application process. And then we would take that pool of candidates and bring it to an upcoming meeting with these ad hoc committee members. And then from there, it would go either back here to the committee, or if you'd like, we can go directly to the board from the ad hoc.

Yeah, I mean, I think that's it. It would go to the committee.

Yeah, go to the committee. That way we won't have any delays.

Right. So hopefully we have something by November with some candidates to choose from at that point. Before we go any further, I'm just going to throw us out for any public comment, either online or in the chambers.

No hands on line.

Okay. I'll close public comment. So, I mean, with the process here, we should probably have a motion and a second to it.

Okay, let me see if I can word it because there's been a lot of discussion. I move that Richard and his team evaluate applications coming in for completeness, then moving it on to the ad hoc committee for review.

With the three people that have expressed interest.

I would ask that the application period be limited to 30 days so that you have a chance to review this before November.

So is that a second with a friendly?

A second with a friendly.

Great addendum. Okay, so we have a motion before us. Could we have a, unless there's any other discussion, have a roll call vote on it, please? Yes.

Supervisor Church.

Aye.

Warren Groove.

Aye.

Keith Severson.

Aye.

Terence Clark. Aye. Cesar Lara.

Aye.

Ida Chan. Aye. Nicholas Kite.

Aye.

Beth Fabinski. Yes. And Janine Chakarov. Aye.

Okay. Motion carries unanimously. We'll move on to item number three, which is consider a level of approval of letter of support for FleetWorks.

Apologies, I need to step out and answer a question from the attorney handling my mother-in-law's estate. We do still have a quorum, correct?

You can just note that it's not during this. Yeah.

Yes, and so this is something that was brought to this committee during the last committee meeting in May, and it is to consider approval of a letter of support for FleetWorks, and you have that letter of support in front of you in your package. If you take a second to go ahead and review that. Sorry. I'm not sure if we have any representatives from Fleetworks online who'd like to address it or make any comment on this. But this is a standard letter of support for the organization in partnership with the county or with the Economic Development Committee. And so we're just looking for the committee's support to move this forward.

Mr. Church. If I can make a motion since they presented last month, make a motion that we support staff's recommendation of a support letter for Fleet Week as in the packet.

Okay. Do we have a second?

I'll second the move.

I think Keith beat you to it there. So we'll have any public discussion on this item?

I wish him luck.

All right, so we'll go to another roll call vote, please.

Supervisor Church?

Yes.

Norm Grew, step down. Keith Severson?

Aye.

Terrence Clark? Yes. Cesar Lara?

Aye.

Ada Chan? Aye. Nicholas Kite?

Aye.

Beth Fabinski? Yes. And Janine Chikorov? Yes.

The motion carries, and with that, we'll move on to item number four, which is a presentation of the United Way Monterey County on the Financial Empowerment Center.

Yes, and we have Josh Mathis, the Vice President for Community Investment with United Way, here to present to you all regarding the Financial Empowerment Center. If you want to share, and then we should give you presentation rights.

Okay.

Are you on the Zoom? I'm not on the Zoom. Okay, great. My goodness.

Okay.

I think we're good. I'm Josh Mathis. My title is Vice President of Community Investments from United Way, Monterey County. This is my colleague.

Hi, I'm Lynn Foden, and I have a portfolio of financial stability programs, including our financial literacy, our volunteer income tax program, CalWORKs, and a slew of other things.

And we're here to present an exciting new program to you all, but also to ask requests for a memorandum of understanding to join a network of local partners that are interested in supporting financial capacity building, job creation, entrepreneur supports, and holiday navigation for Monterey County. So before I... Again, I just wanted to let you know a little bit about United Way, if you weren't familiar. Our vision is a thriving United Way, a united community where everyone has the chance to succeed. And our mission is to connect partners, people, and pathways across the county. Our programs are around youth opportunity, financial security, community resiliency, and healthy communities. So we have a portfolio of programs that we implement ourselves and through partners, all countywide. In our financial stability portfolio, we are focusing on many programs, but this presentation is about the Financial Empowerment Center and just a little bit of background about how we got to this program. Our building was purchased in 2022 on Main Street in Salinas, and really our goal was to populate it with other local community benefit organizations. We did want to earmark a suite of offices to make available for a collaborative program with loss division agencies, really focusing on a shared population focus. and collective impact. And so we spent a couple of years convening local agencies to really determine what would be the best collaborative solution that we could have housed in that space. And I'm sure you're familiar with the context of Monterey County in terms of size and economy. I'm not sure if you're familiar with a benchmark that we at the United Way use to measure economic self-sufficiency really in the state, but also in the county, and that's called the Real Cost Measure. And so every couple of years, we study metrics and indicators to really understand what are the basic amount of revenue that families need to pay their basic expenses. And Monterey County, I think the most recent one was 2025, 45% of residents do not have enough money to pay their bills. And 63% of Latina residents do not have enough money to pay their basic expenses. And so to address those two sort of overarching boundaries and parameters, our committee came up with what we call the Financial Empowerment Center. And it really was to focus on an integrated network of different agencies really working together on a portfolio of clients to support financial coaching and counseling, or to help with financial stability, increased employment opportunities, build assets and wealth, achieve housing security, and access resources needed to thrive. And so we're doing this with financial coaching and counseling, housing stabilization and asset building, entrepreneurship and small business development, and closed-zoop referrals, leveraging our two-in-one network and supporting care coordination through that tool. So that's the what, and this is the how. So our goal and our process so far has been to bring different agencies to work in this suite of offices at 232 Monterey Street, but also to provide services virtually, to provide this coordination of services, to transfer and refer clients seamlessly to each other through closed-loop referrals and coordinated case management. We wanted to leverage this building we have downstairs and develop formal partnerships. And really the value proposition for our partners has been referrals. If someone goes through one of our partners programs or our programs, then they get an electronic referral to another agency that brings with them their profile. And then those partners reach out to them and enroll them in their services. And we all use the same outcome measurement tool to track economic mobility. So that's really important to a lot of our partners. The office space has been important too. So we provide free office space to those partners in exchange for participating in the network. And they can also use the space for training Etc. They like the force multiplier effect, knowing that, you know, they may be focusing on one silo programs, but together, the complementary services of our partners really round out the whole person needs of our clients. So we're also now able to make grants to some of our partners, and so we plan to launch an RFP process this month to actually pay from our partners to provide services. So our strategies are to use our closed-loop referral software. That's our software. We developed it in 2019 called the Smart Referral Network. And we'll use that not only for referrals, but a common intake process, as well as measuring outcomes. Co-locate partners, but also use a virtual network of partners. And then co-create loan products, services, and other strategies to support our clients. And then build this sort of evidence-based results over time. And I'll pass it over to Lynn. Thanks.

Yeah. And so just to drill down a little bit so that you have a clearer picture, because we're talking about this, like, what services are we really talking about? What is a community member? How are they going to experience the Financial Empowerment Center? And so you can envision people coming in through workshops, clinics, or education. So we do a series of financial literacy, savings, credit, home buying. And so that's one opportunity for community members to get a grounding and get a little bit more information and knowledge about some of the financial literacy, financial needs that they have. So we're helping to build some of the knowledge and the competencies and the confidence. And so people will come in through those. Then there's often that recognition. Wait, I need more. Because you don't know what you don't know. And so going through some of the educational components helps people to recognize, oh, OK, I need to drill down on how do I improve my credit rating? I see how important it is in my overall health. And so then we've got the opportunities for folks to be able to move into financial counseling and coaching. And so these are one-on-one services. Some of it is going to be available for your personal financial coaching. And we also have it available for business development. So we've got one-on-one business development services. So whatever it is that your background as well as for coaching on the home buying side. So in the portfolio of agencies and organizations that we have, we have expertise in these different areas. And so those are kind of the four service areas, the four ways that community members can access services. So it could be through a clinic and education, through one-on-one financial coaching, through entrepreneurship work, or through the housing stability and asset building. And people will move around across those. It's not a linear piece. You may have some personal financial issues. And then you're like, oh, wait, I actually am interested in the business side. Or you start on the business side and you're like, oh, wait a minute, I need to have some tax advice. So there's a fluidity across these four pillars. And then with the core partners that we have here, so we've got a couple of credit unions who are, and this is just an example list. actually a real list, but it's growing at the number of partners. So we've got Bay Federal, California Farm Links, Echo Housing, Get Virtual, Reintegration Services, Santa Cruz Credit Union, the SBDC, United Way, Barnell Associates. And so right now, these are the groups that are providing a lot of these services to community members. And we're growing that portfolio of partners so that as the needs are growing for community members, we're able to have a variety of services that they're able to go to.

Thanks, Lynn. There's one other thing I wanted to mention about our entrepreneur capacity building. We've recently started a contract with a partner that's doing capacity building for family child care providers, and that serves a couple of efforts. One is to build the capacity of local entrepreneurs, and there's a lot of child care providers are operating out of their homes, but many of them aren't aware of the business practices to be successful. So we're partnering with Early Development Services and the Mexican American Opportunity Foundation to provide a curriculum of business consulting and then one-on-one coaching to these family child care providers. And so we're actually paying them to do that. And then...

That's actually really cool because we've got 60, we've got three different cohorts that are starting this week. So we've got one group that's starting tonight. So one group is on Zoom, two groups are in person, two groups in Spanish, one group in English. And when we did the overview sessions for it, we had so many providers who were interested. So we were able to whittle it down to 60 for the first go through. So it is very exciting because it is launching this week.

And I mentioned two purposes. One is business development. But I mean, as you're probably aware, the amount of child care supply in the county is woefully inadequate. I think like 70 percent of Monterey County residents don't have access to licensed care. And so by building capacity of family child care providers, we hope to expand that business and make more child care slots available. And I'm hopeful that Bright Beginnings will be one of the recipients of our grants to really build in some systemic efforts and on-ramps for more people to enter that line of business. On this list, we also have the Monterey Bay Economic Partnership, and they recently signed an agreement with us. I mentioned the Smart Referral Network, and I'm not sure if you're aware, but again, we developed this solution in 2019. Currently, we've got about 60 agencies representing more than 160 services to make electronic referrals back and forth with each other. And that leverages the 211 Health and Human Services database. And so those partners sign agreements with us to then make referrals. So we'd love the county to be able to participate in that network as well. And so... we would have a sub-network within that network of those partners you just saw, and they would be making referrals back and forth to each other. And so clients do an intake sign, they put in their demographic information, there is a consent process, and the software is HIPAA compliant, so all of the information is protected and encrypted, and we've got access controls as well to protect information. but basically they log into a website, they would enter the client information and then client signs consent and then they send referrals to those other agencies who get notified and they go to an inbox to reach out to those clients. And we could document when referrals result in services. We also have 15 domains of economic ability. And from crisis to thriving, we can show over time how clients are improving in things like credit, employment, budgeting and savings, training, housing, et cetera. There is a chat bot as well that lives on our two-in-one page that will allow residents themselves to self-refer, like search for services and refer as well. And this is just an example of how we use this software during the pandemic. And so post pandemic, there was a housing stability program and how Heart and Allergy used it quite well to allow their students to access a range of supports in the county. And so this is an example of a student who was homeless and needed childcare and through a series of referrals and really a very close-knit network of local community benefit organizations, this person was able to access services and enroll just with technology and close referral relationships. Oh, so I'm going to pass it over to Lynn to talk about how the program has been funded and sustainability.

So one of the things that we've been trying to do is not only in bringing together a diversity of partners and providing the services, but also a variety of funders. And we have the Cities for Financial Empowerment, the Bloomberg, which will actually be discussed tomorrow night at City Council, City of Salinas. And so we have the funding for them that'll help with the one-on-one counseling, California Money Smart Grant, We've got contributions from banks. We're also, we've got some fee-for-service work and had some philanthropic investments, public-private partnerships. And so that's one of the things that I think we're trying to build a really sustainable base, not only of the services, but of the funding that's going to be available over an extended period of time. Because We're at the beginning stages of this, and so we want to really make sure that we're thinking about sustainability of services, which requires the sustainability of funding. So we've got a good diverse portfolio of funders who are helping to support this.

Another way to sustain a program is with results. Like I shared, evidence-based determinants say we're actually achieving our goals. And so this is just an example of how our partners will use the Smart Referral Network to document outcomes. And it's a great tool in that we can have multiple partners score, a shared portfolio of clients documenting domains. As we can see for this client, you know, there is an example of employment education and it's pre and post-test, and then we can see results over time. And that's on the left is sort of the graphics that we'll use to sort of document outcomes. So all of our partners are trained to use this tool. But the money that we've been getting grants is great. And to be honest, at Cal Money Smart, we've applied for that grant for the last six years. Every year, it's a state of California grant. And we finally got it this year, I think, in part because of the braided portfolio programs that we're offering. And so to sustain the funding, we need to show we're getting results. And this is how we plan to do it. So I just wanted to speak briefly about how this initiative aligns with the county Economic Development Department. And I know that you all prioritize workforce and households and to build and retain a robust and acceptable workforce. And our financial coaching will support that, as well as referrals from Parnell College, who participates in our meetings, as well as CSUMB. Income and economic stabilization will align with that goal, as well as that financial resilience that will result from that financial coaching. Entrepreneurship and capital and the county's goal of strengthening small business and entrepreneurship is also aligned. We have got our business education and primarily we're partnering with our financial institution partners. So many of them have a curriculum of financial education. And so we're rating all of our curriculums. We have financial education programs. The Bay Federal, Santa Cruz Credit Union, they've got financial education, Small Business Development Center. And so we'll all sort of trade off on this curriculum. And the Small Business Development Center in particular will lead in that regard for entrepreneur capacity building. And then our goal is to really connect those residents to capital. And as we learn about their needs, not only to refer them to our financial institution partners, but actually develop loan products and services that are aligned with their needs and be creative, not just the standard tools, but if there's something unique that's based on the needs of our partner, of our clients, we'll work with them to create those flexible and relevant tools and products. And then our ultimate goal is micro business creation. So we really want to create business, but not just create them, support them. And so develop a network of small businesses, convene them, let them learn from each other, and really support them so that they are successful. Not just like, okay, here's your loan, here's your training, go. Let's continue to convene and come together and provide that support so that they are successful. The housing focus is something that we all know is a huge barrier for our county. I think of that like housing is the social determinants of really everything. And so we're proud to work with Echo Housing that provides advocacy, landlord mediation, and rent assistance for Salinas residents. And our financial institution partners will provide homebuyer education and try to create loans to them. MBAP is going to play a strong role with this. And so not only will we have the homebuyer education, but we'll align that homebuyer education to the inventory of housing that's online, but that's also coming. So folks can really get ready for it. And we know like buying a home is no small thing. And so we'll hope to incorporate into this education what folks need to know, you know, five years in advance. What do they need to know to make an offer on a home and what do they need to know to sustain their mortgage? So that's that's part of the curriculum we're building. And so it's beneficial. And we hope that when you join the network, you'll be able to refer your customers to us. And then also our partners will be able to refer customers to you all, knowing that you've got an amazing portfolio of technical assistance and loans, and we'd love to have you join the fold.

Great. So we're at the beginning of this journey. And right now in the first six months, we're really putting together a lot of that infrastructure that's gonna be required. We're putting together all of the partnerships and we're establishing that coaching problem, coaching program, getting our coaches trained and ready to go, and really ensuring that all of the processes are in place right now. And then at the end, so we've got the roadmap at the end of the first year, which will be a year from now, we'll be really looking at those outcomes for community members as they're going through and experiencing the program, seeing if it's beneficial, how it's beneficial. What are the, you know, what are the barriers to be able to participate? So in 12 months, we'll really have the entrepreneurship pathway, which we're literally launching this week with the training of the childcare providers. You know, we'll see then how that is going, the home buyer pathway. And so at the end of the 12 months, we'll really have a good idea of how this is all going. And then at the end of the 24 months, you know, how then do we scale this? How do we expand the programs? How do we provide more services? And there's more detail there, but it's basically ensuring that we've got this roadmap of going from where we are now with making sure that we've got all the right partners, the systems, the tools, the processes in place, looking at how the outcomes are for community members, what's their experience like with this, businesses that are growing from it, and then in two years' time, how do we replicate it? What are the pieces of this that we really want to be able to carry forward? And so, yeah, we're building the sustainable hub for economic mobility. At the end of the two years, we want to be positioned as a coordinated hub. And that's the thing. It's the coordination. It's the warm handoffs. It's bringing all of these pieces together that exist in the county. And some of them are coordinated. And this will be an economic hub where community members... have that place that they know that they can go to to get this variety of services. So we'll be positioned as the coordinated hub for economic mobility, helping residents move from financial crisis to long-term stability and wealth creation. That's the path that we're all on and that we hope that we are walking side by side with all of you as well on this journey, because it's about going side by side. It's about with the Financial Empowerment Center. It's about with community members when they're coming in. We're walking beside them to help them to be able to access the variety of services, resources, and education in a coordinated way with warm handoffs so that they can get the various pieces. And so we want to also be walking side by side with you hand in hand in this journey to make this all possible. Thank you very much.

All right.

Questions, comments, just go. So it's on.

So if someone starts in one of your cohorts, what's the expected timeframe that they would participate in this? It looks like it's a longer term process than...

So they'll participate as long as they want to.

As they want to.

So for each of the education series, it's typically four to five sessions, depending if it's personal financial education. We've got a series of five sessions. For business, we've also got, that's a series of six. For home buyers, it's going to be a series of four. People can go through and they can participate in all of those and then be referred to a one-on-one coaching. They can also come in through a recommendation from, like, you might be a community member who's having a housing issue right now. You talk to Echo Housing. They go in and they get one-on-one financial coaching then. And so there are periods for the educational component with these series so that people have the whole toolbox. And then once people enter into any of the one-on-one coaching, that can be, you know, three months. Typically, we want to see people for two. Up to six to nine months, because it takes time to be able to go through. But people can stay and come like you stay in, you come back, you have another question, you come back later on. So you're not going to get kicked out of it as long as you're participating and there's something else that's needed. You might go after six months to a whole nother, you know, a whole nother organization or service that you might need.

OK, great. Thank you. Can you put it on this there?

I just want to say I've been privileged to hear this. I recently joined the United Way Board, so compliments to them. I'm just learning myself about all the good things that they're up to, so I'm looking forward for this to come into fruition.

Great. Go ahead, and then we'll go to church.

I have two questions. One is, you said you have a diverse portfolio of funding. to keep this financially sustainable. And I was wondering if you could talk a little bit more about which of your funding sources are more at risk of going away with the variability in the economic climate. And then I'm just gonna ask my second question so we don't forget about it, which is, can you reiterate what you're specifically requesting from this committee? You mentioned in the beginning a memorandum of understanding, but I didn't fully understand what the request was. Those are my two questions.

Well, fortunately, we're really the beginning of three major funding sources that have come to support the work. One is the City of Salinas Cities for Financial Empowerment Grant, and the other is the Cal Money Smart Grant. Both of those together are... Maybe $350,000 for two years. And both of them have the laborables for specific numbers of people we will serve, particularly for the one-on-one coaching within those two-year periods. We got a significant grant from a local entrepreneur for about... 1.2 million to support the entrepreneur capacity building. And it's our intention to leverage that for the grants that we support. And I almost feel like I know I feel my colleagues in the nonprofit space that are really struggling right now. because of the drying up of federal funds. There's just an incredible amount of competition for other funding sources. But I almost feel like the gifts we've received has been in response to that, that there's been philanthropy and support to help really address the high cost of living and help with job creation because of the pressures from other sources.

So Mr. Church? Just wanting to know when you say you're helping small businesses, What's the upper limit of a small business? How far up are you going in size?

That's a great question. And I still think we're still kind of figuring that out. I think to start, it would be relatively small. And I think our sweet spot really has been the kind of the family child care providers. I think it's a bit small. And I think we're sort of still kind of building the plane as we fly it. And to get to your second question, the request is signing the agreement, but then participating, which means coming to the meetings, and Richard actually has been coming to our meetings, but it's also receiving referrals through that electronic platform of clients that could benefit from the county economic development services, and then referring to the other partners in the network, clients that could benefit from those other services.

Richard, can you talk about how the committee would Participate in that process.

So, uh, we, I've been working with Josh on the back end, uh, trying to pull together an MOU. Uh, we have some legal difficulties with our legal team reviewing that and going through it. Um, so we're actively working on it and we anticipate bringing something to this committee, uh, hopefully by November. Um, we were hoping to bring something for this meeting, but unfortunately. Just with. The complexities of of. Pulling together an agreement between the United way and the county and the legal. Legally is within the documents need to be further vetted before we're able to bring them to this committee for a full review and approval.

Okay. Yeah, just a couple things. One, if you could talk about how outreach is going to the non-Salinas, you know, people because we have South County, you know, the whole peninsula.

Well, I mentioned we plan on making grants, and our grants are really going to be for service providers, but also to partners that are out there for, that really work with the community and to support community outreach and referrals. And I think, you know, to Lynn's point, you know, our goal for the next six months is really to build the programs here. But over time, we would like the services to be really extended throughout the county. And, you know, maybe if this is like a hub and spoke model where the hub might be here, but we can have spokes countywide and really delivered through our promotores and, you know, grassroots agencies that are working with the community, maybe out of family resource centers as well.

And then the second back on the scope, I just want some clarity. Is it an MOU just for the economic development department or, you know, or maybe down the road to the supervisor's? a more comprehensive MOU because some of the issues you're tackling aren't exclusive to the economic development, you know, like housing, for example, and some of our homeless services and kind of our housing department and others.

There's a lot of alignment, you know, and I think our initial intention or interest was just, you know, with the county, just the economic development department, because it was very aligned with what were the other partners, but I agree that over time it would make sense to expand that much more so.

Yeah, I'm just thinking if somebody wants to open up a child care center and we're partners, wouldn't it be great if unincorporated the planning department knows how important this is? Yeah, that kind of stuff, for example.

Anyone else? All right, let's go. Comments from the public on this? I don't see anybody coming forward in chambers. Anybody online?

I have hundreds online.

All right. If there's no final comments, I would just say thank you for for this important effort. I know on the business side, you guys are focusing on childcare providers certainly major need there for the training side for all the regulations that even come with being able to do an in home childcare kind of business. But But you are I know you know this already, but there is other existing community services like Pajaro CDC, the Women's Business Development Center in East Salinas. That's where I usually refer people because they really help aspiring business owners to develop their business plan so they're successful and how to access capital. And so... They've been doing that for quite a long time here, and they expanded from the Pajaro Valley now here to Salinas Valley. And then there's other resources on the housing side or landlord-tenant side, not just equal housing, but the Housing Resource Center, CECL for disabled tenants. So there's a lot of other resources that you don't have to duplicate, but when you get people coming to, like, a one-stop place like the United Way, those are all just natural partners to be able to provide those resources to people coming through the door. Yeah, 100%.

We work with those partners, and they're aware of what we're doing, and we're always looking for opportunities to collaborate and complement.

Great. All right. Well, if there's nothing more, then thank you very much for your presentation today. Very good. Appreciate it. Thank you. All right, let's go to the next item here, our number five. This is a review, an overview from CVL Economics regarding the comprehensive economic development strategy itself.

Yes, we have Uday Ram, founding partner of Civil Economics, online with us. He'll be conducting the presentation. All right.

Brilliant. Good to see everyone, even though you look very small on my screen right now. Hope everyone's doing well. I have a short presentation to share with you today. And since this is geared mostly to the Economic Development Committee, I imagine most of you are quite aware of what the SEDS is. But indulge me for about 10 minutes or so, and I'll walk you through what our plans are for the next few months and how we got here. First of all, so in case we have forgotten what a SEDS is to date, this is essentially a countywide plan that is requested by the Economic Development Administration at the federal level. And this gives us an opportunity to set a vision and some concrete goals to achieve over a five-year period. And this gives us also an opportunity to engage stakeholders that may not always be involved in the economic development planning process, really recalibrate on what some of the major issues are that we're facing, and try to think differently about what kind of economic future we are aiming for, given all the uncertainty and external forces that are upon us these years. If we all do our jobs correctly, we'll come up with a very actionable evidence-based plan that we can implement over the next five years to see us through and set some priorities. A couple of these slides are pretty busy, so hopefully you'll get a copy of these to peruse in your leisure. But why should we produce this ads? There are a lot of self-evident reasons, eight of which are listed here. But the most cynical reason and probably the most important reason is that in order to qualify for EDA funding, that's the Economic Development Administration, we need to produce assets every five years. And this allows us to access pools of money that go towards capital improvements, workforce development, entrepreneurship development. And really, as time goes on, even given the current federal climate, what the EDA really wants to fund is expanding. So by taking this opportunity to set some priorities, give some indication of what the county would like to achieve, and show what's already being done. This makes Monterey and its cities and unincorporated areas more competitive when it comes to applying for funding when there are other competitive grants or even one-off grants. At the same time, it's not just about the money. I think there are a lot of reasons why we want to do this. We'll get into some of the guiding principles for the SEDS a little later. But by and large, Monterey is a very complex ecosystem. We're looking at coastal versus inland, north versus south, agriculture, tourism, healthcare, as well as a whole bunch of emerging industries. And these are not all separate silos. They do interact. We need to have a cohesive, coherent, and somewhat comprehensive plan to be able to ensure that we're amplifying all of the effects that we're seeing and that the sum is greater than its parts. So why are we doing this? So we can get all on the same page and make sure that we're taking an equity first and growth second approach. So how did we get here? I was part of the team at a previous firm that worked on the 2021 SEDS. This was on a very abbreviated time scale. So we did a lot of research. I left partway through and then a strategy was issued that had quite a few goals. I think... One thing that we can improve on this time around is that we're giving ourselves a lot more time for stakeholder engagement in a meaningful way. And then also we want to make sure that the goals that we develop, the objectives, the actions, they really are a bit more measurable and targeted. I think if I had one self-critique on this plan from 2021, that a lot of the recommendations were generic. And I think They were great for our first run to kind of get our feet wet, but I think Monterey is in a very different place now. This was done during the pandemic when a lot of our data were lagged. So I think the picture that was presented then as far as a document that could really lay the groundwork for future development, that was a work in progress. I think we're in a much healthier place now. How do I know that? Because we've been along for the ride for the last three or four years. We've worked with you on the last three updates. And with each update, we get a little deeper into some of the nuances that the environment offers. So year one was mostly about trying to figure out where we are post-COVID. Year two took a look at the emerging technologies and the defense sector. And then year three really focused on the changing nature of agriculture, ag tech, ag tourism. And these were all little snapshots that help frame where we want to go with this SEDS. But by and large, that's what they are. They were supporting the previous SEDS. This SEDS gives us an opportunity to really be a bit more novel and thoughtful in terms of like how you want to think about the Monterey economy. So how do we want to think about the Monterey economy? So we have, like I said, three main sectors that to date have been the drivers of the overall prosperity of the county. So like I said, tourism, agriculture and health care. But I think we're emerging into a much more complex and uncertain world right now. And a lot of these sectors, there are opportunities for them to cross-pollinate and to reinforce each other, as well as take advantage of emerging industries. So with all of the challenges we're seeing, from climate change to housing to rising costs, workforce challenges, Thinking in terms of sectors is helpful to an extent. Thinking in terms of a broader economy and how these sectors fit into it, I think is a lot more helpful. So we want to be holistic and we want to be proactive. So when we're thinking about climate change, we're not just thinking about environmental hazards, but we're thinking about oh, what does a climate economy look like? What does it mean to bring in climate tourists in terms of businesses, have expos, really reinforce a different part of our tourism ecosystem? I know ag tourism is a bit of a more difficult issue to approach, but what does the changing face of ag look like? I mean, it's going to be a lot different than it was 10 years ago. And where does that overlap with emerging technologies? I think the most important point right here, and I might be biased, but it's the last one, In recent years, it can be very easy to think in terms of technology and the next big thing. But by and large, this is a plan for all of Monterey County. We want to make sure that we are offering pathways that are not just for the sexiest, high wage, high skill jobs, but jobs that really are beneficial to everyone here. And that includes people who may not show up on the radar in every economic survey or who may not normally come forward because of unemployment. a number of different issues. But we're talking about immigrants, undocumented workers. We just want to make sure that we are touching every part of the county that we can. And we'll be definitely be leaning on a lot of nonprofit organizations, a lot of you, a lot of our partners through the Monterey County Business Council. And just we want to get as much of a clear picture of what's happening right now and who's participating as possible. So the main components of the SEDS are these five right here. This is what's mandated by the EDA. This includes a summary background, which is the summary of economic conditions. So where is it kind of right now from a quantitative standpoint? We also are going to be, like I mentioned, doing a lot of community outreach and stakeholder engagement. And that coupled with the quantitative analysis will feed into a SWOT analysis, which will give us a sense of what are the current strengths and weaknesses that the county has, as well as what are the opportunities and challenges and opportunities that we need to address. This will all lead into a formulation of a vision and a series of goals between four to six goals. That will be vetted by everyone on this committee. We want to make sure that we are getting your guidance and getting your input as we flesh this plan out. And then finally, we get to an action plan that will include an evaluation framework. But the action plan is really like the implementation. So who is doing what, when is it going to be done by, and how do we know it's working? So if we say the strategic direction is like, you know, how do we get to where we want to get to? The action plan really is saying, like, what are the specific steps that we need to do? And that's not just on Richard and Estella. That's going to be on all of us. So a lot of these goals and objectives will be attributed to people outside of the government as well, because this is really going to be a shared responsibility and a shared initiative. I know this is really small, but just to give you a general sense of the overall timeline, we were underway as of July, and this will run through next November. For the next few months, we are going to be doing document review, getting ourselves caught up on all the latest data. We'll be coming to you for a little bit of a gut check. And then we dig into the real stakeholder engagement in phase four, which is going to include a couple of surveys, one to the business community, one to the resident community. These will be done in multiple languages. We will be coming up in person to do community perspective sessions. And these are going to be for populations that normally don't have a chance to participate or don't normally join Zoom calls during the middle of the day. And then we'll also be doing much more targeted sector based focus groups. And this will be more of a cross section than strictly a sector by sector look. So we want to make sure that we're bringing people who are in tourism, in agriculture, in health care, in advancing mobility, in climate, in research, all together for a bit more of a holistic discussion to see what kinds of things are possible beyond just any one of the sectors that we may belong to. And then we come back at the very end, back to you, and we workshop all the things we've found. And then we start setting up some strategic priorities. And then at the very end of this, we issue a plan and the board will approve it, hopefully. And we're off to the next chapter of Monterey County's economic future. And with that, I'm happy to turn it over for some questions.

Great. So we'll open up for questions. Anand? All right. Always get it started first.

Thanks for the presentation and appreciate this. I participated in the first round of this in 21, and I'm just wondering, is that going to be part of the analysis of all of this, is what did we get right and what did we get wrong? And I realize we generalized a lot of the concepts and the goals, but is there going to be some sort of analysis on how we did?

That's not something that we had anticipated doing, but I like where you're going with this. So I think we can definitely build that into the narrative.

Okay, thank you. And then my other question is related to the SWAT analysis. Does this also take into account geopolitical events that are happening that may increase the cost of goods that we're using and the inputs of what we're producing here in Monterey County or other costs that are incidental to actual economic development here?

Absolutely. I mean, I think by and large, local economies are beholden to forces that they can't control. So just knowing what those are is helpful. And then we're able to figure out what are the things that we can do about it and what can we do. And that might also lead to some advocacy positions that we can take to the state. So if we understand that the moderated agricultural sector is facing these headwinds because of these reasons and state regulations aren't helping, that gives us a chance to be able to say reasons X, Y, and Z. There needs to be an objective that focuses on trying to change some state-level regulation.

Great. Thank you. Can you educate us a little bit about how this impacts or dovetails with regional SEDs and regional designations? Yeah.

Sure. When you say regional SEDs, do you mean the California jobs first or sub-regional?

No, more of the tri-county area. moderate sample data.

Sure. Well, we'll be cross-referencing them. I mean, these are still separate processes and work streams, but part of our job is to do a thorough document review as well as understand any planning processes underway. So we want to make sure that we are not conflicting with anything that's currently in process. And also we are allotting with them. So if we are to have certain goals that can benefit from work being done elsewhere, we will definitely do that. You want to respond to this too?

Yes, I can address that, Uday. So yes, we are aware of the current regional SEDs that's being conducted by MBEP. And so essentially the work being done at the local level with our SEDs would then be leveraged by MBEP to pull this information and any research and data from ours into theirs. So that's essentially what they're doing now. They're taking what we've done and then pulling that into a larger, broader tri-county SEDs that they're pulling together. So they've taken all of the past annual updates and the 2021 SEDs, and that's where they've leveraged our data and research and reports and have used that along with what San Benito County has produced and what Santa Cruz County has produced to then build theirs. Thank you.

Great. So is there anyone? Okay, let's just have that and then we'll go this way.

Yeah, the same question. I met with the consulting team last week about the regional SEDs. I was kind of... And more of a question on the consultants and the staff too. So understanding, because I was with Norm when we did the 2020-21 plan, you know, what's the timeline on our engagement? Like, is there going to be parts of this at every meeting until, you know, until the end of next year? Or what exactly is the plan for our participation as the team here? Yeah.

Yeah, so we're actually working with Uday and his team to go ahead and build that out. So we haven't fully put that together just yet, but we anticipate bringing a draft version to this committee for review. Along with that, having you all participate in the stakeholder engagement calls as well. And then also pulling together potentially a workshop specifically with this committee to go through the full details of the actual report. Minister?

Cesar asked my question. So yeah, I enjoyed participating in the focus groups last time. So I was going to ask if there'll be a similar process this time.

Yes, and probably more detailed. So this will be because we have the benefit of some additional time that Richard has afforded us and the board of supervisors have. I think our goal is to really make this a lot more of a back and forth with all of you and with the broader stakeholder groups in the county. Stay tuned. Actually, I'll take this opportunity to introduce my team here, Lupita and Ryan. Lupita is going to be doing a lot of our community outreach and will be coming up to Monterey with me as well to do that in-person work. But you'll be seeing a lot of Ryan and Lupita and my colleague, Alyssa, you probably recall from previous engagements. So we will definitely be putting together a plan that's a bit more robust than what we were able to accomplish the first time around.

If I can just address, we looked at the 2021 SEDS and the timeline that was afforded to us then and realized that it was a very short window to pull that together. So we anticipated how much time would be needed. And so that's why we have roughly 18 months of time between now and when the final report will be produced. So we have plenty of time to take. any comments, meeting with stakeholders and move this all together and try to pull together as many different voices as possible before we get to a final product.

Anyone else? Sina, we'll go to the public. Anybody in chambers? Anybody online? All right. Well, thank you very much. Obviously, the last plan was... All right.

We'll go to that person online.

Give me a couple of minutes. Arts Council.

Hi, this is Jackie Atchison with the Arts Council for Monterey County. I was just wanting to make a recommendation that in this report, you actually include the creative economy. The sector in Monterey County is about $1.6 billion, and it's never been included in one of these reports. So I appreciate it if you think about that. Thank you.

Are you on your standpoint? Sorry, if I could just comment on that. You're talking to the right team. We actually focus on the creative economy and civil economics. So that's been one of the things we've wanted to bring to Monterey for some time now. So absolutely.

Great. Anyone else?

No one else. Thank you.

All right. I was just going to say that the last report was at the beginning or the height of COVID, right? A very different plan than we are now. Thank God we survived. But definitely a critical document needed for accessing federal funding and for our EDD status designation. And so the goal is by the end of 2027, have a report finalized. All right. Thank you very much. I think we're done with that. If there's nothing else. All right. Let's go to announcements. Anybody have any announcements? Yes, good. We'll start over here.

Cesar, we'll go this way. Yeah, I just wanted to report out and thank you, Luis, for attending. But last meeting I reported out that we were on some plane starting a cohort to educate truck drivers around, you know, preparing English because the federal uptake, we have started that program. We have 52 participants and we had celebrations. Yesterday, we're going to do a couple other cohorts. But a state study showed there's 600 truck drivers that might be facing this. And 52 is a good start towards that 600 statewide. And so we'll be expanding the Central Valley, but we're going to do another 50 in the Salinas Valley because the need is big in agriculture.

So the issue is a new requirement that commercial truck drivers must be proficient in English. Yes. And so... The Teamsters started with their members, but obviously this applies to a lot of other truck drivers that are not Teamsters. And they include the big rigs that you see on our highways, but they also include the trucks that are loading lettuce or strawberries and taking them to the coolers and processing plants. So this is a really big issue. And the Teamsters... with partners develop an app so that truck drivers could learn traffic proficient English and learn on their own time or after work or on their breaks or weekends so they kind of get trained as they go or train as they got time to be able to do that so hopefully that's a model that We'll work for other truck drivers and not only in the Teamsters, but hopefully the industry could look to that as an example of how to address this for the non-Teamster members that are in the same situation.

And we have a couple of the 50-something that are non-Yin and we want to open up to the community. And it all started at Labor Day last year. We did a thing called Labor in the Pulpit. and where we presented at the Catholic Church in Gonzales. We had meetings afterwards for those that wanted to stick around, and that's how this issue got highlighted. So less than a year later, we're going to implement a program. It's great.

And since that helped access some funding from the Labor Federation and some other resources, Hartnell is a partner.

Hartnell is a partner. Solid is the company that joined it, Strategy Partners. And then UC Merced gave us some money to actually fund it. Yep. Great.

Oh, we're going to go this way.

September 12th is Royal Oaks Park's 60th birthday anniversary party. So come on out to Royal Oaks Bank on September 12th and enjoy some food trucks and activities.

September 12th is Saturday. So everybody's invited.

Glenn's district.

And they're trying to have taco trucks or food trucks and make it a big community celebration, right?

Two or 15 of them, I think. I think so. Nice. It's going to be somewhat of a potential model for food trucks and other county parks. Great. See if it works out. Yeah. So come to the food trucks so that you'll see more of them.

All right.

Anybody else?

Any announcements?

Yes.

So in Southern Monterey County, we are hosting in partnership with CCAH and Alinea a mammal screening. We have four events starting this Friday. We will be hosting. So anyone, please come on out, go to our website, please sign up. We have events for September, October, November, and December. And this is mammal screening in Southern Monterey County. please come out, sign up. We are there to help women. Screening is very important. It can save lives. And we want to be a part of that along with CCH and Alenia Health.

Great. Thank you for that. Anyone else?

Not necessarily an announcement, but a request for our next meeting. We're in a natural disaster again. And I'm just wondering if our next meeting we could have some sort of report on the economic impacts, particularly since the first fire started during Car Week and precluded a lot of folks going to Big Sur. But I think it'd be important to understand the impacts overall of what the disaster is doing to the Big Sur coast right now again.

Again, yeah. Yeah, Pentia alone, every time it was shut down, that one business was losing $70,000 per day. I can't imagine collectively for everyone else what that means. So that would be a good topic to consider. Okay, thank you. Just on top of that, also, Glenn Church and I are on the Potoro Regional Flood Management Board, but we also are through our agency, and then we got Monterey, Santa Cruz County, another agency was also to request an executive order by the governor to be able to do more preparation in terms of the super El Nino storms that are projected this winter. We're dealing with fires now, but perhaps some very serious storms in just a few months. And so whatever we could do to help clear out more vegetation, because there is rules about CEQA and NEPA, endangered species. You need permits for all that kind of stuff. And when the governor did it last time, we were able to get and do more work in the Pajaro River. But we also asked Cal OES to start preparing to bring assets here. as we get closer to have assets ready to be deployed to help communities prepare for what is coming. On a brighter note, though, we do have IndyCar coming this weekend to Monterey County, and it is at our county of Monterey-owned Laguna Seca Raceway, but that brings in tens of thousands of visitors. They also have events at Laguna Seca Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. It's Labor Day weekend, so hopefully people will come and enjoy the beautiful weather and have a great time and spend money here in our county as well.

If I could add on to your request and Norm's request about disaster and how's it going. I know the county was able to get some pass-through money through the state to support businesses in Pajaro. So maybe if you can include that as part of the broader discussion, because we don't know where the next Pajaro might be if we're going to face some of those challenges.

All right. If there's nothing else, then we'll adjourn this meeting. Thank you very much, everybody. Thank you. Thank you, Glenn, for stepping in. I would have been early if I had my time been right.