Economic Development Commission - Regular Meeting

Well, I guess we shall call the meeting to order. We hope that we might see another member come, but so calling the meeting to order at um time is it? Well, Jen's got the time on the clock where 5:32

at 5:32. This is Joe Cameian, co-chair. Uh with me is uh Jeff, our co our other co-chair, Jeff Jeff Hartman, Mona Caldwell. Mattaline is an observer. uh she has applied to join the commission. Uh Scott is with us and uh Cheryl is also with us and we will hope that we might have some others come. Uh is there any public any members of the public on hearing? None. I'm going to think that there's no members of the public. So we shall uh you know should we we shall we we will hear any public comment should it come to pass but right now there's none.

We have one member of the public hearing. Oh we do. Yes. In mine public no comment. [laughter] Okay. No comment. All right. So our first order on our agenda is to approve the December 3rd meeting minutes. Um do I hear a motion to approve the December 3rd meeting minutes? I'll make a motion to approve. Thank you, Cheryl. Any second? Second. Jeff seconds. Any discussion? All those in favor of uh approving the minutes say I. I. I. The meeting the minute approval carries. Our next item is the strategic plan initiation. Yeah. All right. I wasn't here.

Oh, he's abstaining. Okay, fine. Oh, and we have ah and Jean Winski has arrived. Welcome, Jean. Happy new year.

Only you got one of these, right? Okay. Thank you.

Oh, let's uh Jen Okay. So, um, our strategic plan was approved at the December 3rd meeting. It is going to be posted on the town EDC website and uh, part of our mission now will be to implement, initiate and implement the plan. Um what I'd like to do is go through the posted agenda and then quickly come back to uh a look at our strategic plan. So uh uh next item is grant funding status. Um, I learned from uh our first select person that there's a Connecticut boost fund offering small businesses 5,000 to $500,000 loans at 4 a.5% for 60 to 72-month terms. And it sounds pretty flexible what that money can be directed at. Um, and other than than that, in terms of uh, you know, grant funding, any new or pending, uh, our EDC budget was submitted to the town, and I'm presuming we'll find this approved.

Yeah, I I'll hand out the copy. When we gathered in December, you verbally gave us approval to go up to $10,000 on the budget, and we submitted Thank you. a $7,000 budget. Um, and this is the famous format. So, if you look at the column in the middle in the blue, it shows the makeup of the 27 2027 budget. The columns on the left is the forecast for 2526. What we'll spend 4185. you know, most of the increase, you know, the 2450 of the 2800 increase is due to um, you know, the printing guide, the, you know, EDC website upgrade. We have a $850 charge for the website. Uh, we have some website design fees and things like that. You can see in the notes column to the to the right what the makeup is of that. See, we submitted a $7,000 budget. Um, and we submitted on time and we have not heard back from the town yet when the hearing will be. So, um, kind of align with the strategic plan. You know, when we were here in December, we were discussing a roughly $10,000 budget, and we're going to pay for a subscription service for real for real estate to get uh, you know, a view on what's for sale and what's releasing. Uh, we found a free version of that on Crexy, which when we get to that part, we'll hand that out and we'll use a free version of Crexy with which outlines what's happening in town to the to the best of uh information. So, it's a $7,000 budget. We'll wait and see what happens. Um, does it sound appropriate

for everybody on the commission? Commission's okay. Cheryl, thank you for help along the process or go for Cheryl was a tremendous asset from such deep historical knowledge of the budgeting process. So, uh, okay. Our our next item is real estate and I actually have something from um Terry Lewis sent me the old line report. I'll just give you some highlights. It's residential only. It's not commercial and I'm going to talk really slow for Jen. Sure.

Um some of the highlights. Hang on. Just had Okay. Average days on the market in uh December of 2025 was 30 days. Average price per square foot, $355. Um that's down from a year ago at this time. It's down 9%. Year-to-date homes sold in Old Line, January to December 2025, 98. That's up 1% from the year before. People are paying in December, people were paying 101% of asking price. And there's one other number. Bear with me. I know I saw one other number that I was going to share. [clears throat] Um, it was year-toate houses sold. Um, average sold price, I'll give you that. 798,582. So the market appears to be stable and it continue to be a desirable town to buy real estate in residential real estate.

I think that's the highlights.

Thank I have the I have the commercial stuff. I can have that. So here's the commercial what's available on Crex even the free site uh we'll pass it out but it's roughly there's two sites that are available 230 Shore Road which um is 115 foot annually and then road is $15 a square foot on that as well. And from what's publicly listed for sale in town, I have a sales report. Hand that out. Sorry for all the paper, but I'm paper. My writing is not. So, there's multiple properties for sale. Let me get it. It's interesting. when we gathered together in December. Thank you, Mona, for handling out. I thought the old lime shopping center was going under contract, but it still has it listed for sale, and you can see the listing prices. Old Line Landing, which is the site on 47 Hatchets Hill Road, is listed for sale, $4 million. Um the the Downtown James uh the store downtown's listed for a million395. The uh Snap Fitness is for sale for $50,000. Um

that's business only. Business only. That's correct. Not the space. Thank you. 34 Lime Street, the old ice cream ice cream shop is listed and Black Living is listed for 1,995,000. So that's what's publicly available from our listed in town. Which building is this? It's Pat. Oh, okay. I don't have that historical knowledge.

The only thing I can add to that is in terms of real estate is Habitat for Humanity is building two houses on Flat Rock Hill Road. So that's something else that's happening which is a good thing. Okay. In terms of businesses, um I will say that uh Jeff and I met with two potential businesses that came to the town and our first select person asked if we could help them along a little bit because they were meeting with some challenges on getting clarity on on what they could or could not do, which we we do see as something that we hope uh with the rewrite of the zoning rags can be made better so that a a prospective business doesn't run away because they they can't get their arms around um you know what what is the town's requirements for for them to take up station here. So one was a salon a grooming salon for people uh I guess for men.

Yeah. and the other was a restaurant and they're kind of staying confidential on what their exact plans are. But we we went out of our way to to do what we could do for them in terms of you know zoning uh uh department of san health services in terms of uh septic and and uh you know related uh concerns that they had about properties they were looking at. So we did that and um I continue to work. It is an uphill climb, but I'm continuing to work on trying to attract a uh a manufacturing company into our industrial park and we will uh stay after it, but it's a it's a challenge because uh I'm trying to chase them and they're busy. So later on tonight when we go back to the strategic plan, you know, in initiative three, we had the new business guide. So that would help us definitely

we have these phone calls to be able to send that out to them. So that's one of the initi the initiatives that we approved in December that we should I hope dedicate some time to early on this year. All right. So um that's all I have on businesses unless anybody has anything to add. Oh, and we have a new pediatrician in town. Uh Dr. Katherine Camdi, if I'm saying that right, has uh opened an office on Boston Post Road. So that's a new new medical doctor in town which is good. Where on um hold on

the building. Well, there was somebody that was we were talking 149D. So it I wonder if that's the building the one who was going to zoning to get above Salon Pure. Oh, maybe. Oh, remember we talked about that about six months ago, I think. So, good. That's how long it takes, I guess. There you go. From zoning to official business, right? Yeah, it is. 149 is the all building. The all pro building. The one next to They own that. Oh, they own it. Okay. Okay.

They own all the Yeah. are on the first floor.

Okay. Um, does anybody else anything else to add? That's it for business that I can speak to. Um, okay. Marketing and outreach. I'm just going to hold that in abandonance because that's the first line item of our strategic plan. So, we'll come back to that. Uh, shoreline gateway committee um, which I represent the EDC on the shoreline gateway committee. Um, we are pretty much the laser focused right now on the zoning rewrite and doing what uh can be contributed in the way of helping uh the shoreline gateway area recover from business abandonment that is the dominant this the shoreline gateway is Route 156 um you know with the abandoned Cherry Stones restaurant, the abandoned uh we would call it Kelly's silo, but it's been the Black Hall I guess since then. But you know that we're trying our to do what we can to reinvigorate and revitalize that area. So that is the most I can report for Shoreline Gateway. uh Chamber of Commerce. Um the uh Chamber of Commerce breakfast was held on December 18th, the rotating breakfast meetings which I attended at the old linemen in on the 18th. And um very very good group, very collegial atmosphere, a combination of bankers, realtors, and business owners was the population that was there at this meeting. Um, I was taken aback that many of those three groups were former manufacturing company employees from manufacturing enterprises that have gone away. And so now you have somebody who was an engineer working in manufacturing acting as a realtor. Why need to make a paycheck? So that's part of my uh feelings that you know and again it's up to the commission as to you know how

we we implement with our plan but uh the old lime tax base to my knowledge is 95% real estate 5% is business I don't think that's a healthy thing what is it

residential yeah 95% is residential real estate and 5% is commercial you know business income and I think we need to fix that because it's it's not the way it should be. So that's all I have to say as far as Chamber of Commerce. Um oh one other thing is I think it might be common knowledge but Andrew Surprise was the uh very short tenure executive director uh the chamber the greater old Sbrook Chamber of Commerce we are a part of and they're sort of a regional chamber and they hired a new executive director some months ago and that gentleman has moved on. So, I think they're probably still in the process of installing a new executive director.

Judy Sullivan is back as the director. I had a meeting with her this morning and uh they're going to uh be beginning their search imminently. She's interim. She's interim. Yeah, I thought that's what I heard. She was she came back on what is her name? Judy Judy Sullivan. The prior she was the executive director who had retired for many many years. Yeah. a long time. I've never known there to be anyone else.

Okay, so that's it for Chamber of Commerce, Eastern Regional Tourism District. We get any report there? Didn't Wendy send us anything? Wendy send Wendy did send something. Yes. Um I know the grant is due this Friday and the arts district is going uh for a grant um tourism grant. Um they're submitting their application. I haven't heard of anyone else submitting an application for that grant. Okay.

Was there anything else that Wendy reported or was it just the grant? No, there's nothing that I'm aware of other than I think it was just the green. Okay. All right. And then uh our next item is the regional economic planning committee. The river cog. Um it's actually economic development planning. Oh, regional economic planning committee, isn't it? Economic development committee. It is economic development. Yeah. Why am I thinking it's planning? I don't know. Okay. We didn't meet in December. Um there's supposed to be a joint another joint meeting with the regional housing committee. Um but I don't haven't gotten any dates and invites to that yet. Okay.

Um typically the meetings for this group are the second Tuesday of the month at 11:30 and they're um pretty hybrid like they're all on Zoom or you can go in person to their office which I think is in Essex. Is that right? Or the Rivercloud. It might have deep a little bit or deep river. I can't I can't remember exactly where it is. But

um they there is a survey based on the um the town they're doing a year-long project on rivercog town centers and there was a workshop on that in November I believe and there's a survey that is out I think I sent that link you did and it's open until January. ruary 14th, right? Yeah. So, it's not too late for those of us who haven't filled it out yet. And that was for all members of the public to do that survey.

Okay. That's all I have. I'll I'll keep people posted as I hear more. Okay. Um, and I believe I'm still the talent rep to that committee until they decide otherwise. Okay. So, while I'm trying to keep you posted on All right. Just email us whatever is

of interest. Um, our next item is retention of in town talent, school to career. Um I am seeing uh as a retired college professor I am seeing on the uh at least an engineering education which is my specialty. I'm seeing an unbelievable level of activity now in the school to career movement where uh colleges are taking it upon themselves now to get a lot more concerned about when a student you know reaches their degree that they actually have direction and you know the the prospects of employment in front of them which is something that I'm concerned about for the town because I think we have a bad brain drain. We have an excellent school system. Sends our students off to college and they never come back. And I can't think of a better way to kill an economy.

So, um, so anyway, this is something that's a personal interest of mine, but I think it is for the good of the town and something that we can we can keep after. Okay. Um, so rather than getting into any new business, I'd like to first start off taking a look at the strategic plan together and um, since I'm a little bit horse from my condition, but I'm I'm well past, but still I'm not 100%. Jeff, if you could walk through the plan. Sure.

Well, again, a great effort by the commissioners uh, to do this. Thank you, Shell, again, for starting this. So uh if you open up what we have our vision statement and our four visions that we agreed upon during the process that it gives the reader an idea and then our mission statement is on the following page page three um you know which we discuss and then page four starts from table of contents in our five initiatives. So, um, no, I think it was a good effort. I think, uh, getting it down to what what we believe was a manageable and executable, um, initiative. I think that was good discussion we had as a group to do that. We earlier drafts may have been a little ambitious. I apologize for that. Um, so initiative one was promote the marketing and I'd like tonight, you know, we talked about the big team themes build our story of place. uh you know reach audiences through print um utilize social media pursue marketing ideas to attract visitors and increase spending. So remember this is kind of an ongoing this is a multi-year document but a couple you know under the initiative one there's a couple that I would like to see if the EDC would like to pursue. The first would be the website management and updates. Um I guess I would like formally to see we could get approval to put the uh strategic plan on the website. You know that's everybody's okay with that?

Yes. Yeah. All right. So I'll get we'll deliver this electronically to Kate and I was thinking about putting it in the upper leftand corner on the website in the first and maybe start taking it you know. Yeah. Cleaning that some of the older materials. Katie usually does it's website Wednesdays. So, she usually works on the website on Wednesdays. So, be happy in with someone else if you want to come in and sit with her on the page and just go through what we want to take have her take out or highlight or whatever.

Yeah. I mean, I want to start slow and and get uh the commission's input. So we'll start with putting strategic plan on there and maybe for next meeting we'll take a look at what we have and make some suggestions to move this. So I we won't do anything without everyone's buy in but we'll come with some suggestions for the February meeting. And then the other initiative that you wanted to talk to me about is the printing print marketing materials kind of get started when the guide are we going to incorporate the 250th anniversary. Does all that come together? Well, do you want me to just I was expecting to walk through for promotion and marketing what our status is. Should I just do that?

Sure. Sure. All right. So, um, story of place. I'm starting to, you know, something like this is great because it tells the story of a place and it this really does kind of match the plan of conservation and development that says what kind of community we are. So the pictures you chose and everything. I think

sometimes it's better to be lucky than good, Cheryl. Right. Well, I think it does tell the story of place and we do highlight we have a a consumer website, if you will, called explore oldline.com and we talk about how we're a small town deal and we support our businesses and it's a great place to live, work, and and enjoy as a visitor. So that all is going to, you know, we're going to start thinking about the storytelling that we do on that website and then in um social media posts that we do. Um website management, working on that welcome page. Um you talked about that. Uh, I'm updating explorine right now quite a bit with the America 250 information and every time we're going to be having three posts a month articles on America 250, you know, we just had one on Stephen Johnson. Um, every time we do that,

it's going to be three per month for six months. Wow. lots of topics to cover, but every time someone goes to that website to read this article, then they sometimes poke around to other pages and learn more about our businesses or what we offer. So, it is a good draw. Um, and it helps our analytics um with Google and everything, you know, how far up we are on a list of Google right?

Whatever the Google rank um when we have new content. So, it's a really easy way for us to have new content over the next six months. Um I have uh where it says encourage businesses to promote explorine with EDC window stickers. I do have those window stickers with the QR codes. So hopefully late spring maybe we can divvy up some walk-in businesses and they're just little squares window stickers and ask people if they would put those in their windows. Um and also there's a QR code to go to where does it drive you to world line

to the homepage. Um [clears throat and cough] and then also the websites. We get some of our best traffic from the Florence Grizzle Museum's website. um they highlight us and then uh the print materials we'll be updating that little trifold that Mona just had out um in May um has to be as late as May because that's when we know kind of where how the summer businesses down at Sound View are shaking out like who's coming back, who's not coming back, who's new. So, I like to wait as late as possible to do that and then we have a quick turnaround on printing and we'll distribute them um to our usual places. Um the photography and video content we have ARPA money we have to use this year on photography and video. So, I think maybe at a future meeting we should really nail down what we want, how we're going to get it. Um, it would be nice to get photos of business people in town, interacting with customers, that sort of thing to really show our story. You know, people like to see pictures of um people as well as the beautiful images that we tend to have on the website. Social media, I did a little bit of by local for the holidays. I haven't posted anything with EDC this month on the town Facebook page. Um, I just want to remind everyone when we post on social media, we can't highlight a business per se because you have to, you know, it's like parent loving all their, I'll tell you, Brford, you're in Brford, right? Brford's EDC has a great Facebook page and the same thing they'll promote,

you know, seasons of shopping. I was thinking about for January, remember our year round businesses because it's flow season, go out and support our restaurants, that sort of thing. Um, we can announce something big going on with the business like a new opening like welcome to the pediatrician or things like that. We know. Okay. So, social media, event outreach, and business promotion. I guess when we get closer to June and July, we'll talk about Make Music Day and Midsummer Festival. Also, there's going to be an America 250 townwide picnic date to be finalized, but it's either the end of July or that second week of I'm sorry, it's either going to be the end of June, that last weekend in June, or the second week in July. [clears throat]

Second weekend in July. Where are they thinking holding at the high school? On Woods. On Woods. Ah. So, um, you know, perhaps we can do something there as well. Sure. Business milestone support. We don't have any ribbon cutings or anything planned right now. Um, I know that pediatrician office um is open. we might want to share with them some information about, you know, if you want to do a business uh ribbon cutting, here's what we do and we'd be happy to attend it.

And then the tourism business support um we got the word out about that grant with ERTD, Eastern Regional Tourism District. Yeah. And um it would be I it seems like all our tourism businesses have ctbvisit.com pages. Mhm. Uh I'll do a second look through, but I think they all have that right now.

That's that. So I guess the second initiative, the uh granded signage wavefinding initiative. Um this one is going to take a little thought about how we approach this. So we want to be very thoughtful about this and and make sure we start in a collaborative uh manner because there'll be probably a lot of stakeholders involved this in this one. So I believe I signed up for this.

Oh okay. Yes. So, so I'll need some guidance uh from from the commission about how to approach the various groups and um you know we were going to start out with the research and planning phase right across commission townwide government committee. So I haven't candidly started that in the next 30 days before the next meeting. I'll probably solicit it some input on how to do that and and come prepare in the February meeting to discuss that. I think that's for the next 30 days. I'm really going to f focus on the research and planning phase because it's just premature to seek out grants and other funding efforts and implementation plan until we get consensus on a research and planning. So that as the uh commissioner assigned to initiative two, research and planning is the focus for us.

Okay. Uh initiative three, the business resource initiative. Candly, I forget who who was assigned to this one. Excuse me. Okay, good. So I mean I obviously we you you know you gave us the commercial properties you know there are ways we can get those in you know into the website so that they'll be updated. So

yeah, I mean I I can convert I can convert that KY stuff and send you an Excel file and and we can figure out, you know, we could put that online um on uh the website update days on Wednesday. So we can work together on that, right? Yeah. Yeah. There's ways to maybe even embed that so when it gets updated by then it'll automatically update. Yeah. So that would be the easiest for sure rather than trying. Yeah, because then we don't have to maintain.

Yeah, because Yeah, we could ask. It's a free It's a free sign up. So Kate can sign up and then she could pull the data and and upload the report. I'll talk to her about that. Yeah. I mean and then the second part of that with the you know the application and permit process I think that's going to be really important because you know obviously new business coming into town they don't know what they need to do so I think that's something that going to be important to you know have available either on the website or to be able to give somebody who's like you guys met with some potential business owners you could say here's the process. Yeah, it would have been nice to follow up with a that PDF that we could have sent him something.

Right. Right. Yeah. So, I think that's going to be important to get that developed. Um, [clears throat] I mean, basically just need to talk to, you know, some of the people in land use and figure out every town has their own procedures. So, and you know, obviously the zoning regs are getting re rewritten. So, that that may affect that, you know, a little bit. So yeah, my my greatest hope is that the the zoning rigs are this thick,

you know, and u my hope is that we can somehow pair that down because, you know, the consultant that is assisting with the process, I'm hoping is not going to expand it. I want to see it contracted. So, I'm gonna that's my two cents that I'm going to try to plug into that, you know, through the Shoreline Gateway, right, participation that I'm doing just because it's it's un it's unwieldy. It's unwieldy. I mean, uh, you know, if a pro p prospective business wants to come to town, um, you know, look at this, excuse me, you look at it and you say, "It's going to take me six months to wade through this and figure out what I can and can't do." Right. Right. Yeah. And every town has different rags. So,

Right., you know, they hire attorneys to go look at them all and figure it out, you know, but I think it'd be easier if it is more streamlined. Yeah. Yeah. So, that's kind of Am I your secondary person on that one thing? So, maybe um we can find out, you know, maybe spring is a good time for the land use office to sit down with us or I know right now they're to their eyeballs in the red cross.

Yeah, sure. And then were you done with that one? And then the new business guide, that's just a matter of me taking what advanced CT had done for us and um rewriting some of it. And I can um coordinate with you, Scott, because you have some of those um metrics, the statistics. Yeah, the statistics that go in the back of that, so we can work on that together.

Online resources for businesses. says we do have a page. Oh, it's there. Explore online has a page resources for online businesses and add it to the web page. [clears throat] Does that mean explore or like that grant you came up with um that Martha told you about? Where would that go?

Oh, good question. It it was um it was Connecticut Boost Fund and all she did was just pass along the email with it. Um can actually look it up real quick. So I guess the question is how do we get you know Mona and I maybe Scott you were involved in this too like we have struggled with mailing lists like trying to mail out information to businesses in town. Our list I feel like you and I worked on it or something. Oh, you downloaded some stuff from the state secretary of state's office where everyone has to register their

So, they send out a they sent out a monthly list of new businesses that incorporate, but then if you go to their site, you can download everything. And now they're requiring when you register your business to put an email address. So, you actually email addresses. I have them actually. So, you can create a mailing list to blast things out to people. It it's just a time consuming process. So there in 2023, three years ago already, I had done this kind of snazzy looking, it was a PDF that was emailed out to businesses and then um

it uh we had obviously had the printouts here, but it had 10 things to know and it was things like a grant, you know, right? Um how to get the word out and free advice, free law advice for for artists. That was one of the things that quarter. So, but this is very time consuming to keep up. So, yeah, we got to find a way to um get news out to our Are you sure? It was in 2022. Yeah, I looked at the date 202. Forever ago. Yeah. Could you Can I see that? Yeah. I brought

up my files. I brought you guys to copy. So your the thoughts about the Martha the the grant opportunity. Maybe we can come back in February on on the website and maybe there's some section for some emerging news or something that'll be relatively can rotate on the website so people you know that would be a spot that if anything new came up that we would dedicate so it's not buried somewhere else. It's on the landing page and there's a direct link to that.

And just thinking out loud that is something I could put in a social media post on Facebook. But if you write the text, like if you write the three or four lines you wanted to say and the link and and email it to me, I'll get it on the Facebook page for the town of Gold. For the town of Gold and I'll put in there posted by Economic Development Commission, something like that. Okay. I I'll uh I'll do that and send it to you. Okay. Um, and then the new business mentorship program.

De's already single-handedly moving that agenda along. How how's your excavating contractor, kid? He's doing all right. You know, he's uh he's going he's balancing going to school and and running a business and and uh so he's doing all right. I haven't actually seen him since Thanksgiving, so I don't really know how his holiday season. calling plowing snow with his reference. Yeah. So, he's uh he's quite ambitious young man, Kyle. I think the mentoring core meets still meets on one Friday morning a month, but I'm not.

And that's something we have to try to help with. Also the high school school to career program desperately wants people to come and speak to the students you know with basically people coming from different professions coming in and kind of just giving them a you know hey here's here's what here's what it's about if you want to be a consulting engineer building power plants you know ships or I used to do that when my kids were in school. Yeah I did that when my kid Yeah. So, I'm thinking we need to sort of somehow get that into this mix. You know, the new business mentorship. I think that that's where we could really maybe do some impact is helping the high school get speakers.

And then the mentoring core, it looks like they meet the first second Monday. They're meeting this Friday at 9:00 a.m. at town hall. And just as a reminder, those are retired business executives and community leaders that um work with small businesses, career and financial workshops, students, and humanitarian groups.

Sorry, you're getting your steps in tonight. Yes. Good thing I'm a little short. Okay. Okay. Initiative four, economic development considerations in the land use process, Mona.

Well, right now we're all supposed to be reviewing the results of what they have found so far. And Joe, one of the things that in this first phase that they did was they buttoned up a lot of existing rules and regulations to reduce the number of rules and regul regulations to simplify them. Um, but it's 2026. They're saying early 2026 they're going to be sending out something. So, we just have to pay attention and wait to see what they send out because this first phase, they want feedback from people, but it hasn't really been presented yet publicly, right? I'm not sure. Am I missing something?

No. No. Didn't we get an email that they were, you know, a townwide email or an EDC email? Well, there was the one EDC that they were looking for feedback that you guys forwarded. Right. Right. That's what I'm remembering. Right. But it's supposed to be Isn't it supposed to be a townwide initiative to get us all involved or No. Well, I think first it's the commissions and boards. So, how how So, how do you guys want to handle this? You guys want to go or participate as EDC co-chairs? Um,

I think what we need to do, I will admit I have not looked at the reg rewrites yet, but I think we need to look at them and see if anything shouts out to us like this is not pro business or, you know, we ran into that thing with ceiling height last year. Um,

is that being covered? I I'm going to suggest I've I've sc excuse me I've scanned the document. I didn't read it obviously in detail, but going through it, my biggest fear is that the consultant is pulling language from other towns. So, I'm seeing things like, you know, we need lots of exterior illumination in the high crime areas. Well, we don't have any high crime areas. So, what the heck is that doing in there? So, I I I'm very concerned. Also, there's a whole section on adult entertainment. And I'm like, what do you mean? You know, we we used to have that at Sound View. It kind of got turned into a botchi court. Long story. Uh but um but you know, my concern is that I hope a lot of extraneous information hasn't been injected to this because of the the knowledge base of the consultant bringing what they have done. So that's the first thing I would want to attack is, you know, get rid of anything that doesn't seem to to relate at all to our town.

Well, would we as the EDC just concern ourselves with the commercial and it would be the commercial districts, the land um marinas, what else? Uh light industrial. Yeah, a good suggestion. Yeah. I do want to correct what I said earlier. There are public hearings scheduled, so I apologize, but this website, the first is Monday, January 12th. So, this Monday coming up, and the second is February 9th. Where's the Are they held in this building in this room here?

So, it doesn't say Oh, I'm on the calendar. I can see 6:30 to 8:30 in the meeting hall. Okay. Oh, wait, hang on. There might be a second meeting. This month is kind of No, that's it. 6:30 to January 30 6:30 to 8:30. [clears throat] And there's no description on here yet. Oh, download agenda. So, so as a group, do you think that we should discuss the zoning or exit our initiative? I mean, if you want to lead that lead us through that exercise and we'll Yes, let me go to the meeting. Okay. Let me go to the meeting on Monday. Mhm. And y'all are welcome to join me. Mhm.

Yeah. You might be interested. And that way in case I'm sure there's going to be things that I'm going to pay attention to more than you. So

yeah, two sets of beers of beers is better than one for sure. So, and then we'll bring it to the next meeting because then the spring summer is the commission will host gatherings for stakeholders and local agencies inviting public input to improve the regulations, identify new issues, and evaluate potential solutions. So, that's going to be the fa the the feedback loop will be spring and some. I know the answer to this is probably no, but right now the intention is to maintain a zoning and a planning separate planning commission and not to combine them. Most towns outside of old line have one combined right now.

I did my own survey. The majority of Connecticut, it's combined. Yeah, I don't think it's on the table. No. No. All right. There's no sense of bringing that up then. That'll Uh yeah. So it's the public hearing on Monday night and then again like you said February 9th. Yeah. Yeah. So so um yeah let's we can discuss discuss this at our February meeting.

Yeah. And then well I guess this Mona are we providing our feedback in a public hearing you know where you stand up and read off your statement or are we as the EDC meeting with them separately. I guess I'm not clear on our opportunities to provide feedback. Well, why don't we have our meeting in February and we'll decide what to do, but then we'll have input from the our next meeting in February will be before their next meeting in February, right? So, if we need to do something, we can plan that at our next meeting.

Yeah. Our our next meeting is February 4th. And there's next public hearing is the 9th. The 9th. That'll give us at least some days in between to to take and then we can know more after Monday. Right. So if we want to speak on the 12th we'd be speaking as individual citizens of all mine not on the committee not not sorry commission keep making that mistake. Sorry. Okay. And then initiative five interrupted unless I'm sorry before we move on. Unless Cheryl, you wanted us to have something prepared for Monday.

Well, I think we have talked so much about how we want to have input on this. I just don't know which opportunity is our opportunity to give our feedback. if they're setting up at one point it sounded like they were setting up separate meetings with the planning commission and EDC and probably wetlands right and others and um I just don't know where that stands versus the public hearing because if they're not setting up those meetings then we should probably have certain notes because they were saying in the um in the announcement about the public hearings. Um they they're launching phase two. That's what the public hearings are for. Focusing on big questions. How can our zoning better support housing, economic development, and environmental protection? So, I think we need to have a voice in that. So what if what if at this Monday's meeting what [clears throat] if we present this?

Yeah. Would it impact strategic? Well, this is our strategic plan. So if you want to know how you can support CDC, this is what we're focused on. or no. Would it affect their zoning regs? Anything that we're doing? I think we would have to read them and point that out to them. I don't think they're going to Yeah. change things based on what they read,

right? Yeah. So, is it appropriate to ask at the public hearing that there is maybe a joint zoning and EDC meeting to address any concern? Yeah. Do you want to ask that? Maybe that's Well, if you're going to be there, you're the co-chair. I think so. Wasn't someone going to ask Eric Knap or me? Wasn't someone going to ask Eric Knap or Land Juice if we were having a meeting with them? I can't remember. Probably. Yeah, I think we talked about it, but we'll form. We got to nail that now in December. Maybe we all got caught up with Christmas. Yeah.

I mean, maybe that's the we have a joint public session and then an executive session to go, you know, go through have a public meeting and then maybe we'll have an executive session if we have more pointed questions. that good. I don't think that that we could do an executive session, but we'll have a joint session. Leave it leave it as is. I think we should all read the re the regulation revisions and then at our February meeting share any issues we see. Yeah.

And we should focus on just do we want to just focus on commercial or do we want to focus on things outside? I don't think we've I mean when you talk about a big book that's because it covers you know everything. Yeah. Yeah. In our realistically for the scale and size of our commission there's only so much we can chew on. Yeah. So let's do commercial 10. Yes. Marinas light industrial distribution. Correct. Yeah. Correct.

Which takes us to initiative five which is kind of my commitment to the plan. Um, you know, the goal is to asssure the long-term viability of Old Lime's commercial districts, support businesses and property owners investment in Old Lime. And without going through blowby-blow, you know, we're we're talking about the Sound View Commission and the Sound I'm sorry, the Shoreline Gateway Committee. And I leazison frequently with the Sound View Commission because the members are also on sit on the shoreline gateway committee. So, u this is this is something that uh you know I've personally been after for more than 30 years, maybe closely closer to 40 years that I've been in town. Um [clears throat] you know, we we need to come up with um some methodology, if you will, to help uh replace businesses that once sustained. Because for example um the abandoned Cherry Stones is the restaurant on Shore Road that was a year round you know it wasn't fancy but it was a quite acceptable family kind of place and it sustained year round for a long time. I mean like 20 30 years or more and how the heck did it go bust and now it just sits there decrepit. Um so you know that concerns me. the restaurant owner that's looking to come to town was looking at a location that had been a successful restaurant, a different place in town. And you know, by the time you get through the zoning hurdles, you know, there was just it just became like the diminishing returns, you know, that I'm going to how much money is the business owner going to put up to lawyer their way through this mass of information, you know, with no guarantee of success. And it ends up it ends up you know where it it's so that's my hope here is to do

what we can do between uh you know should we say simplifying the zoning requirements having a a if you will a you know a PDF of like okay here's what you need to know that we can tell you easily. Um and also the you know the the last part of this build actionable plans for key districts. You know, we do have a light industrial park and we now call it a distribution district. Why is it a distribution district? Well, it was kind of an accident. We didn't steer that to happen. You know, the the principles of the enterprises that came in there turned them into distribution operations. [clears throat] Um, but you know, I I go back to, you know, I look at this. The town of Stonington has a place called the Velvet Mill. I don't if anybody's been there, right? The town of Stonington like 200 years ago or whatever bankrolled the construction of this mill. They recruited people from Europe that knew how to make velvet. It became the largest employer in the town of Stonington for over a hundred years. So therefore, I, you know, I'm I'm no socialist and I'm no, you know, I'm a free enterprise kind of guy, but sometimes there needs to be a, if you will, a management process to pull together the elements to get things going. And I I see that as something I'd like to try to have us as a commission contribute to. So that's something that I'm going to work on with this.

You know what I'd be curious to know? Because we did talk about the woman, the pediatrician who's opening the office. I'd like to know from her point of view as a person who's coming in now and opening up a business, what took her so long and let's get that firsthand account. She she just lived through it. Well, did we know it was a kind of Yeah, it was a while ago when we heard she was at the zoning meeting, but she's been open for a while. She didn't open this month. Oh, okay. Yeah. So, maybe it wasn't She's been open like four or five months. Mhm. Yeah.

Time flies. So the question with respecting Zona's Mona's concern, you know, how long did it take her to get squared away that you can open up that practice there? It probably straightforward because it's an office and it's a rental. It's not. Yeah. So it doesn't have, you know, the the things that slow what I've seen with the small businesses in the past few years is if it's a restaurant or food service, it's those think vent thing or what do you call the hoods the black hood the hoods the hoods

the pandemic took out the hoods and so it was you know waited probably a year for for hood so they had everything in line it wasn't a zoning issue it wasn't the fire marshal just was pretty much saying okay when you have your hood let us know um same with I want to say with I could be wrong I But it's the it's the supply chain issues, electrical switch gear things, hoods, things like that. Excuse me, J. I'm sorry. Wasn't you mean when Seapori had the fire? Seapori. I'm saying I'm sorry. Um used to be. Yeah. Um

a long time ago,

but it's for the small business. I can't speak to the big businesses like Kellogg and you know um but the small business it's the the supply chain waiting for stuff. So, you know, all of the above we will work on as part of the commercial districts, you know, and and another thing that I will say I'm a very I'm very interested in and I I look for support on this, the industrial clusters. I' I've called it concentrations. I think the economists call them industrial clusters, but for example, um you know, once upon a time, New Britain was the hardware city. They made all the hardware, you know, locks, hinges, all that kind of apparatus. And what that did is it it created a skill set population of people that could work metal and you know and make such things. Um the uh you know there were others. I mean new new London obviously was a ship building center. You know EB survives because it's a defense contractor and you can charge 10 times the price to get whatever you need. However, we need to think hard about what would be the appropriate businesses we'd want to have in town for, you know, as far as clean, light industry, and what could be the industrial cluster that we might want to create as as a means of creating, you know, employment in town, creating the ability to produce things that could be exported from the town and, you know, wealth creation in town. So, so on the commercial district support as it relates to the shoreline gateway, what what's your what's going on with the sewers and what what do you think's going to happen there?

Well, the sewers were voted down. So, now the question is, is the de going to withdraw their offer to fund um I believe the number is the whole project is an $85 million project all in and and yet that number continues to grow. So, it's something north of 85 million. The town was on the hook for 20 million. That was the last vote. You know, do we commit to 20 million of that 85 million? And and the voters said no. So, now D is going to say, well, the balance now you're on your own. You know, we're mandating you. It's it's an unfunded mandate now. You got to go do it. I think it'll get tied up in court forever. I don't think D is, again, I'm this is just an opinion. So is there any alternative discussion about [clears throat] um right now was neighborhood by neighborhood each each homeowner pays a part of the $20 million. Right.

Right. Right. So is there any they looking at any alternative structures to pay for it? I I have not seen anything yet. I will tell you sound view in particular in terms of commercial development in Sound View is completely stalled because no developer is going to pay to put in an advanced septic system which would be required if sewers are going to come and then you have to you know it's basically a big stranded investment. So the whole thing is hamstrung right now. Um, you know, I didn't the people leading it somebody resigned and like who's running the process now?

You know, I uh I mean the old line has a water pollution control authority.

I don't think the ch the chair resign. I don't know if the chair resigned. Chair did resign. So right now there's there's a a vacuum if you will in that whole process. Um, I I personally feel that the only practical solution is going to be some kind of a community septic system intelligently designed and deployed because the the $85 million number does not count the liabilities that are going to come with it, which is, I think, a part of why it got voted down. Um, the the the for anybody who doesn't know, the logic of this is we're going to take the sewage from Old Lime and we're going to pump it 15 miles to New London. Like, go figures. Does this make sense? And the wastewater plant is the new London City wastewater plant, which with enough growth of capacity, are we going to be on the hook for capital expansions of that plant?

Probably will. Yeah, that's big money. So, so in your centralized plant concept, is there any conversation about, you know, unlocking the commercial value in Sound View and passing some of those costs on to the subsequent businesses that will come in? I I think Jeff that that's a very rational approach. I mean I don't know what else we can do. I mean it's a discussion that we I I um I haven't heard from the Sound View Commission. You know there hasn't been any uh meeting that I've been able to get with people to see what's the position coming from the Sound View Commission right now. But u you know I mean what we've got is an impass because the state isn't willing to consider the engineered septic. book

the state laws. No, that and that's true. Back in 2023, the WPCA, I read this, they and I haven't followed it all, so there's a lot that I, you know, I mean, this has been going on for years, but in 2023, they tried to speak to D about the the new technology, correct? And [clears throat] D would not consider any new technology.

And and Mona, meanwhile, old Sabbrook has done exactly that. They've put in all uh you know advanced septic systems in all of their beach communities and they've got a major major program going on doing that and how can the DEP mandate we have to pump our sewage to New London if Sbrook is already successfully implementing the model that makes more sense. So so hopefully our town can come up with something like that. But is the shoreline gateway committee starting to talk about okay if this happens here's our plan to yeah scenario map yeah scenario planning

unfortunately the dilemma is that it's a complete stalement it's like a Mexican standoff because nobody is going to commit to putting as long as long as the threat of the de coercing sewers is there no developer is going to spend a dollar on anything and and it it sits it just it's been sitting there now for 30 years. So, you know, breaking that log jam is going to require the the resolution of the whole septic issue because we've had we could have restaurants that would be there that are not. We could have other enterprises that could be there that are not. So, um, I I do think it's, you know, it's got to get resolved somehow. And, u, you know, the town of Old Lime versus the state of Connecticut, I think the state's got a little more horsepower.

You can't do

things that, you know, you can't make people do things according to our constitution. Yes. So, then it gets tied up in courts. Well, with the 250th coming, you know, there was some early things that happened in this town that indicated significant toughness, you know, there there's well, some of them were pretty awful. Also, actually, people that were loyalists versus the, you know, the colonials didn't get treated well. But my favorite story in town, which I don't know if you've heard this one, maline, but there was a woman in the early settlers, 1600s in old lime. And again, I I've se I've read this. I don't know the province of it, if it's totally true legend, but allegedly there's a woman working in her kitchen, looks out the window, and sees a bear carrying off her pig, which they brought over from the other side. So, here's this pig that probably was pretty hard to come by, right? The woman went out with a broom and beat the bear, took the pig back. So, there's hope. There's hope.

My kind of guy on her agenda. Back to the agenda. Okay. So, I think we've gone through all of our initiatives. Yeah, the page 11 you can read. That's our review and accountability. So, thank you for the strategic plan. Page 11, you know, it seems like we'll be able to please ourselves. Well done on making it a very handsome document. Thank you very much. I'll let it be now. Yeah. All right. And there's a new business item that has the benefit of a very wonderful commission that can attend to different things. Is this where we get our Christmas gifts?

Since this is Jean's last meeting for the commission, your commissioners wanted to recognize that this is not an easy job and it requires a lot of work. So, we thank you for your service to the town of Old Lime and we appreciate it. How's that? How many terms did you serve? Not that many. One and a half, I believe. What year did you come on? 21. 21.

Oh, wow. Okay. Well, you've been a great asset to the committee and you have always participated like doing Riverco and letting us know what's going on Chamber of Commerce and promoting that bringing level thinking. Yes. To the table.

No, we we uh we definitely have an eclectic appreciation for such, you know, forward thinking and having opinions and different views. So, we appreciate it. And I don't have any other new business unless anybody has any new business items. Cheryl, usually you always have something. No, she's tired. All right. So, do I hear a motion to adjurnn? I'll make a motion to adjurnn. I will second it. 18 seconds. Any discussion? Hearing no discussion. Uh say I if you want to adjourn.