Economic Development Commission - Regular Meeting

It is 5:31. This is the April 2nd, 2025 meeting of the Economic Development Commission. We have in attendance myself, Cheryl Pier, Jeff Hartman, Wendy Russell, Gene Wilinski, Mona Cowwell, Scott Smith. Uh, and excused absence is Joe Cayman, and our clerk, Jen Diamano. Welcome. anything's happening up there. Um, first order of business is public comment. We have uh no one in the room itself. And if there's anyone online that we're just not seeing, I'm in a waiting room on this. It would be 8603043291. You're I'm in a waiting room like it's there's music come up and say I think it's the wrong meeting. We're just going to keep going. Do you want me to try to join? See what happens? Sure. If you want to join. Maybe I have the wrong information on the agenda. But we're supposed to have the same meeting ID every time. It got changed. What ID did you do have? Um, what does that end? Phone conference ID 139548155. Well, the meeting ID is too. Oh, meeting ID ends in 273. Yep. It seems right.

I don't know what to do. Don't show up as waiting here. Something different. Don't go back. Okay. Oh, and you're gonna mute that. I'm trying. Okay, thanks Jean. Sorry for the technical difficulties. Best to the best of um very quickly I'll repeat uh this is the April 2nd 2025 Economic Development Commission meeting in attendance. So we have Wendy Russell, Jeff Hartman, Gene Wilzinski, Mona Cowwell, Scott Smith, myself, Cheryl Porer, excused absence, Joe Cameian, and our clerk, Jen Diamato. Thank you. We have no members of the public here in the room. If there are any members of the public on uh calling in remotely, this is your chance to share public comment. If you have public comment, unmute yourself. Hearing none, we will move on to approval of the March 5th, 2025 meeting minutes. Do I hear a motion to approve the March 5th meeting minutes? Motion to approve the March 5th, 2025 meeting minutes. All right, Jeff and Wendy seconds it. Any discussion? Hearing none. All in favor of approving the March 5th, 2025 meeting minutes say I. I. Any opposed? Any abstent? She's got Jane in.

So I'm not doing I'm not Jane. I'm staying. Hi Martha. Would you please mute yourself? Okay. Can't see who's in your meeting. That's interesting. Well, I have our camera off. Okay. No, I meant like who was online. Yeah. Um, okay. Next up, we have some statistics that Scott pulled together for us. You have that in your packet of information I passed around. Um, and I know, first of all, thank you, Scott, for pulling this together. And I printed out for you what Scott just sent the 2024, but also last year's 2023 so that you can compare. Yeah. I mean, they're pretty close from 2023 to 2024. You know, the population went up a little bit, but this is all part of this data Connecticut data collaborative. And I think last year when we were doing those metrics, I got on their email list. So they send me data like every month. That's great. So this month was this housing data for the whole state. So that's why I figured it might be useful to distribute to this group just to kind of look at the housing profiles for this town and how it compares to the rest of the state. Um, so I don't really have much to talk about. I mean, just basically what they they send me. We only have 2% that subsidize. I don't know what the the um affordable housing laws and all that. Jeff, do you

know that like we have to have a certain percentage, right? 830G is requires some I don't know what the date is target of the housing must be affordable. So, that's just an overall state requirement. There's many towns including old L below that. Right. Right. Does anyone have observations looking this over they'd like to share at this point? Yeah. I mean, look, the affordability um the $28 an hour to afford a two-bedroom apartment. So that basically takes two people the minimum they're making minimum wage or something like you know close what is it $156 they're an out so it's one and a half so it's tough out there for renters not a lot of supply [Music] and I you look at page for you know the random sounds that you know that magic threshold 30% of your income for housing costs I can't really tell by scanning this but you know there's that number seems to be moving up and I think up top renters burden by the cost of housing so it's 52% as opposed to 25% for the overall at the top one right says people burden 25% of cost or cost so the renters are more

burdened obviously if 52% of renters but only 25% of overalls continues to be an issue Yeah, the comparisons they make are for the lower Connecticut Valley and then the whole state, right? And that would be the Riverco, right? The lower the river. Yeah. Yeah. Another interesting um set of statistics comes out of the United Way which are the um I had a cost uh you know how much it costs to live comfortably in a town meaning it's not a burden to put food on the table and to pay rent and that sort of thing. the um it's escaping me the name of the the study um living wage concept. Yeah, but it's got the it's got an acronym name that um woman's name. Um is it Alice? Alice. Thank you. The Alice report. I encourage everyone to look at that and and lime. I think it's surprising how much it costs in Connecticut in general um for young families starting out um to afford to live without a lot of burden. Something to keep in mind for the future. It's not cheap to live here for sure. To live anywhere. Yeah. Yeah. It hasn't been cheap my whole life. Portuguese.

Um, okay. Well, it's cheaper other places than here because I haven't lived my whole life in. So, but what you swap in other places, you swap here. So, like we lived in Arizona. I think it would be cheaper there. You get more house, less yard. You have to buy your water. You have to pay for your sewage. You have to pay for your air conditioning. So you don't pay for heat. So I mean it's all it's all bargaining really. It's where you know trade-off. It's a trade-off. We lived in Vermont and most men didn't live there. They they well they they would on the weekends but they had to get jobs in New York or Boston. So it might have been cheaper to live there but then they have to go somewhere else for a job. So everything is a trade-off. Just my whole life it has not been affordable to live. My husband and I were talking tonight. Uh not great homes in Rhode Island in Cranston, Rhode Island selling for 550, $600,000 and they're 1,200 square foot ranches. It's very expensive out there. Any other uh thoughts or insights on the data provided? I'd like to find a way, I know we've talked about this before, I'd like to find a way to take some of these highlights and put them on our town web page um as sort of a dashboard. I think that would be really helpful to a lot of people can work toward that. Well, these these reports are they they're sent to you or they're No, they're they're on a website, but they send me an email saying here our new housing data. We've updated it for this year or whatever. And then what happens

is they show the state and you just click on a town and it gives you the report. I wonder if you can pull in a spot that's pulling it in so you don't have to worry about updating it, but it's like Oh, right. Oh, interesting. Okay. Yeah, it's this Connecticut Data Collaborative. It's a group. I don't know if they're quasi public or what they are. Haven or something. Yeah, there's there's so much data on housing. It's hard to consume it all and what what to look at and what it's just all kinds of studies. Look, I know we don't want to do anecdotal, but no, we're I'm doing 10 build for CT apartments in my phase 2 and you know that have been up for 11 days. I have eight rented already. there just such a need for um the apartments. You know that, you know, there's so many programs out there that you know, the state wants to help. This build for CT is pretty good program. It's low low interest money for um folks who build apartments. So, it's a good program state has. Yeah. We're turning a hotel into apartments in New Haven. Yeah. And they're going like hot cakes. Like really unbelievable. Yeah. really that great. I I think I read somewhere recently that Connecticut is at the top of the list of states that are lacking the most housing. He's number five. Is it five? Okay. Survey came out that lack of housing. Okay. Anything else on the statistics? No. Anything else on the statistics? Scott, thank you for sending those out. And then I sent out the new businesses stuff. So that's right. Yeah, that's another thing that comes to me once in a while. And I noticed on there

a couple of businesses I think they changed ownership. So that's considered a new business as well. But some of them I didn't recognize. So that was uh that was I think a lot of them are homebased. Yeah. Yeah. But the interesting thing is when they register they get an email. So, I don't know if you know like we want to start gathering those, you know, if we want to reach out to everybody. Yeah, I thought that was very good that we could have the email addresses because I don't think that we've had that before. Right. So, that same website you can go on and you can look at, you know, all the registered businesses in old line. It's not just the new ones. It's all through the Secretary of State. Yeah, I think you almost have to now. Yeah, that's good though. I think Yeah, they started doing that because when we first started to make the email list that we were trying to put together, we didn't have the all their emails. Yeah, that's really valuable to have those email addresses. That's great. I can pull the whole list. Would you? Yeah. Yeah, I'll pull the whole list, send it to you. That would be great. Thank you. Yeah. Okay. Um, next, oops. Is uh Oh, updates. Okay. Okay. Um, real estate update. Uh, we don't really have a real estate update, but uh, a couple of businesses have been impacted by real estate changes lately. Um, it was announced yesterday by the owners of Homework Colle Homeward Collective that they are moving to Essex because their building along with the red building next to it which is considered one uh it's owned by the same

owner is going up uh for is on the the market and the owner's um Homer Collective shared that their lease was modified. So, they had to make a quick decision and they're moving to Essex, which is disappointing because they're a great little business and a lovely fit for that location and they've been a good community member. They've, you know, participated in Make Music Day and they've wanted to be involved in Midsummer and Light Up Old Line. So, um disappointing to lose them and um the there was some confusion after our last meeting. Um someone reached out to me and said that in the minutes we said that the Caramantes sold both the hideway and the snowball in but they hadn't they had only sold the hideway. know it. I've confirmed for whoever's paying attention to our meetings, the Caramonte sold both businesses for what it's worth. Um, and we congratulate them on their retirement. Um, the Chocolate Shell has changed owners. Um, so we're happy for that new owner who is someone that works at the chocolate shell and um just lost my notes on this. Trying to think there's something else on Halls Road. The ice cream shop is still for for sale on Lime Street. You mean on I mean on Lime Street. Thank you. And I think that was it for real estate. And now confirm. So the rules on Line Street are if someone buys the Homework Collective in the building next

door, they could continue a business if it was the same business that's currently there. The same type of business. Same type of business. Yeah. And I am not really versed on that. It's very specific wording. I believe it could be retail. Again, I don't know what other type of establishment it can be. Um, but it's otherwise zoned for residential. So, it would go back to residential possibly. Same with the ice cream shop and um, yeah, those two buildings at 25 and 27. So, the ice cream shop, which now has been residential, could it go back to a shop? I don't know. I mean, that's going to be something for the zoning commission and the historic district commission. Okay. Um, Eastern Regional Tourism District. Wendy, I brought some of the statistics from the tourism meeting I thought might be interesting to everybody, but um I don't have copies of it, so I'll just kind of go through it a little bit. Right. Okay. Good. Um, interesting that Connecticut has grown from 20 to 24, 2.5% in population and that's higher than New Jersey, Mass, Rhode Island, and New York actually went down, which makes sense, right, drum coat. Um, Connecticut has become has 175% more people as a drive-in place to visit. Um and there's a few other things. Um there's been a 10% increase in tourism which I think is going and

tourism related jobs. Um which I think is going to be changing very soon. Uh traffic into Connecticut has um is about 12.5 million um for the uh year of 24 well February to February. um as when during COVID it was about 13 million no wait 12 million it's back to COVID times and from 23 to 24 it was 13.5 million so it's kind of interesting um we're the top drive-in state in New England 44% as compared to New York at 18 Massachusetts at 10.9 New Jersey 4.2 and Pennsylvania and Rhode Island 2.8 So, it's a drive-in market and that's what the tourism is really targeting right now state. Um, and by drive-in you mean people coming from Massachusetts or driving into literally driving into the state as opposed to flying in. Yes. Because sense because our airport's small, right? So, yeah. Yeah. So, it's pretty interesting. So, you know, all the marketing goes towards that type of um business, but it does make up quite a bit of business. And then if the tourism, they're trying to take away the marketing dollars and and they're not going to support it. I don't know if the governor is going to do it, but we're trying to get 3% of the occupancy tax for hotels andor restaurants. Mhm. But um they're not going to I don't know if they're going to do it. So that could all change and it's all going to go away. So is everyone familiar with that occupancy tax issue? The state when you

rent in a hotel, you pay an occupancy tax and that is a state tax, but it doesn't go back. Tell me if I'm wrong because I may be out of No, you're right. It doesn't go back to the tourism industry. Right. That was actually discussed at the regional um commission too. I think it's even higher now. I think it went up and tourism jobs. So, um maybe at a future meeting you can keep us posted on that budget with um how that's going to affect us most immediately. Thinking about like will they staff the welcome center in Westbrook. That's off the table. That'll go away. That'll go away. Sure. Um they did talk about that. So if you maybe next month can give us an idea of what other sort of things will affect us. Yeah, I can find out for sure. You know, maybe it's supportive ctvvisit.com or I don't know. Well, we won't have um a CBB connected visitor. Well, in downtown Harford, we have a CVB that um goes out and brings in business or, you know, kind of takes calls if anybody's looking to bring a big big group to the area or whatever. So, that will probably dissolve more than likely. So, now it's down to these individual chambers like Mystic Chamber, Old Sabbrook Chamber, Old Sabbrook, Old Lime Chamber, right? There's not going to be one entity for, you know, it's it's going to be tough for the hotels and well, for everybody really. Yeah. Yeah. The state and their regional districts, they

hustle quite a bit trying to get tourists into Connecticut and to places like our museum and and to um our other attractions. And I know the Florence Grizzle Museum, you know, we're talking about drive-in traffic and changes in tourism right now. And you know, they would have bus tours from Germany to come to the museum and other local places. So all of this kind of trickles down to our local attractions for sure. Okay. Um, any other questions on regional tourism? Okay. Thank you, Wendy. Um, Rivercog. Oh, I'm sorry. I skipped over marketing and outreach efforts. Should have been RiverCog next. Um, why don't you go ahead with River? Okay. So, the the last meeting and I don't have an agenda for next week's meeting yet, but the main topic was a presentation by um Connecticut Main Street. I think that's their name. Let's make sure I'm given the right name here. Yeah, Connecticut. Oh, yeah. Right. Connecticut Main Street. And there was some talk about perhaps having a regional membership. I think locally Deep River is a member of Connecticut Main Street. So, I just took one of the slides. I thought it was interesting. It shows sort of like their approach. Very colorful. you know, we didn't get the whole presentation, which I'm assuming will be in the minutes, but we haven't gotten those yet. But it is interesting, you know, what what they look like, what makes a vibrant, you know, downtown center and um so just some different areas that they look at in

terms of how to, you know, what what makes up a vibrant community. I mean, to be honest, it's probably more than just a a main street, but a community at large, you know? Right. So, that was that was the main main topic of our last meeting and I don't I don't remember what the topic is for next week and we haven't gotten the agenda yet. So, and you mentioned that River Cog might be joining CT Main Street. they were considering um a regional membership that would allow all the communities to have some ability to work with them and and I guess they do come in and do some pretty you know involved work with you about you know your main street or your you know main area which would be an interesting thing to have and I think she asked that Deep River maybe will come and pres present to us what they're doing at a future meeting So, huh, it would be pretty interesting. And there were a couple of other towns, but I don't I didn't write them all down, so I don't remember. Um, and the only other thing I would say, just a quick note on the the the local chamber, um, there was a ribbon cutting last Saturday morning at last Friday morning at the um new, um, salon over by the hideaway, which was which was a fun little gathering. Yes. Yes. Salon. Paragon. Oh, Paragon. Yep. I'm glad you could attend that. Thank you. Yeah. No, that it was worked out quite well and just down the road from my office. So, any other news from the chamber? We should know. I don't think so. I think you know they're having this marketing series that that starts next Tuesday for next couple of weeks over there and they're having a woman from Oh, yeah. Miranda created social media outreach. I

thought it was an interesting series of meetings that maybe we could repost or recirculate. You know, they have a it's free for members of the chamber and there's a modest fee. If you're not a member, you have to register in advance and that starts next week or so. I think the Yeah, the the eth is the first session. It's somebody from Miranda Creative is doing that. So, that came out in the email today. Oh, okay. Yeah, I saw it. But he didn't creative people are pretty good. They're not They're pretty good. Yeah. Favorite is their client as well. Yeah. So, they do some nice things. They do. They're very uh they're strong in the tourism industry. Yeah. Okay. Excellent. Um marketing and outreach. I reached out to the owners of the carousel because they are celebrating 100 years of the carousel itself this year. Um the business isn't 100 years old, but the carousel um merrygoround is 100 years old. So they have we're going to meet once they're in Connecticut uh for the season, but they are thinking about special things they can do some special merchandise. um we're talking about publicity for them and they might participate uh in some town activities um to promote the carousel uh which I think is a great idea. um other marketing explore old line website. I find that whenever we do something new, it gives us good traffic on the whole website, which is kind of how websites work. But now that the America 250 committee is up and running

and they are they have blog posts about uh different things going on David Rugles um who's a person of note um lime line history there's a blog post that went up about him on a Saturday and that Saturday we had like 100 visitors to the website so anytime we can add an element like Midsummer Festival always bumps up our numbers quite a bit. Um so something coming up through that committee is two lights for tomorrow which is April 18th. Um and it is uh one if by land to by sea. It's Paul River's ride to Lexington. 100 men from lime marched marched to Lexington from here. Um so uh and it's interesting when you see the list of names they're you know very familiar names of streets around here and families around here. Um so everyone is encouraged to put on two lights in their home that night and uh municipal and business uh buildings will also be encouraged to do so. tricky part is it's also Good Friday, so many buildings are closed that day, don't have staffing. Um, but I, you know, it's a a nice way to encourage everyone to participate in the next 15 months of celebrating the country's anniversary. And a quick note, uh, Mr. Commtock was approved by zoning to have his business at 99 Halls Road. So, that was a good plus. You're going to start to see some activity there. I think his goal was to get some lily plants in before Easter. So, uh they're working hard to level out that land. There's

kind of a a a drop. You know all about this. Yeah. He was at the meeting as well. So, doing lots of Phil over there. Yeah, the Phil. Yeah, he's brand. So, uh, we are happy for Mr. Comtock to have that move ahead. Uh, what else can I tell you about marketing? Uh, Old Line Arts District is putting on Make Music Day again June 21st. I think this year that's a Saturday, which will again be the stroll on Line Street from 5 to 7. and we will if we like we can have a little outreach table out front of town hall that evening. And then um Midsummer Festival will happen again this year, the last Saturday of July, which is Saturday, July 26th. And we can start to think about our outreach table. Um, we've already been guaranteed a spot on the front lawn of the Line Art Association. I think that's it for marketing. Um, Shoreline Gateway Committee. Just get to that page. Joe um sent in his report. He said at the last Shoreline Gateway Committee meeting they discussed blight and implementing, you know, how to proceed with um pursuing an ordinance to prevent blighted properties. Um and the finance committee um has approved the proposed shoreline gateway committee budget and the funds will most mostly be directed at engaging a planning consultant. Um and those solicitations

will happen once the budget is approved. Um, Sound View sewer construction bids have been received and are under review. Okay. Uh, and Rooney's package store remains under family ownership but has trans transition to a younger generation. So, that is the Sound View Gateway report. And next up, we have Falls Road Improvement Committee. nothing to report except for the meeting next Wednesday, the the continuation of the uh earlier meeting. So, I think um we'll find out what happens next week. Very good. Okay. Next up, um Jeeoff, I want you to hop in as much as you're wanting to on this next section of the um economic strategic plan. Do you want to speak to even though it's a draft what we're hoping to Yeah, I mean as when we last got together, we we it's still draft because we're rating the outcome of Halls Road. So um you know there are some aspects that I think of the plan that will probably make it to the the final review the promotion and marketing. Um so we discussed uh talking about this and there or there some initial tasks under the promotion of marketing uh that we can work on and set some deadlines. You know, from a highlights perspective, you know, we want to support the town's economic strength, promote Olime as a great place to live, visit, and work. You know, we want to improve the visitor experience with other old lime stakeholders to pursue a unified way finding sign

strategy. Um, support property owners attracting businesses that thrive in their location, create online materials and resources. So, those are kind of the big chunky items. There's some subtopics after that. So I think uh Sean and I wanted to start with this group, you know, with us and can we think of some tasks to to support each of these three main initiatives, I mean these main sub points on the promotion of marketing and put some deadlines uh to them. So and we want to make this strategic plan a living working document. We don't want to we don't want to finish it, improve it, put on the shop. We just want to make we want to keep going on our efforts. I think you know under Cheryl's leadership we've made great uh strides in putting this together. Um so you know kind of thinking about each one. So on the top one to support the town's economic strength we have build our story of place placemaking communication strategies. So, let's kind of talk about, you know, what what do we have right now? You know, what what's working? Where's an opportunity for enhancement? Um, I know we've traditionally, I think, done a lot of print, you know, should we be moving to online? You know, is there is there a digital program Wendy that maybe we could go to? You know, what's our social media strategy? you know, new ideas to improve uh attractions for our town, things like that. So, that that's kind of a big thing, you know, before we get into signage and things like that. So, maybe the maybe tonight focus on the top part and the core, you know, what what are we doing, what's working, and where are the opportunities as we look in 25 and beyond.

So, you've been the ar the brand architect to date of a lot of this. So, what what do you think has worked well and where you see opportunities? Um, this I just want to pull up the website very quickly. We Is there any way we can minimize that window and put it up on the Can we do that as well on there? Not sure how to do that. I'm just going to reference something very quickly on here though. Um, so building our story of place utilizing placemaking communication strategies. Placemaking is really about understanding what is unique about Old Line and then thinking about who that will matter to in terms of visitors, potential residents or current residents and business businesses that want to do business here. And the uniqueness of Old Line that we've focused on as a brand has been nature, art, ecology, and small town feel. So on the homepage of Exploro Line, we have this little twoliner. Come for our great high come for our great hiking, kaying, and gallery hopping. Stay for our small town feel. So I guess um and I would say the two well we do three things um that I can think of. Uh we have the explore online website. We have four things. We have the explore online website. We have the brochure that we go through every year. It's time to reprint these again. Um this is at town hall. Sometimes the library flows goes through a lot of

them. Um I've had I think it was either the flow or line in they were putting together um welcome packets for people coming to a wedding and they wanted these to go into those packets about a year ago. So, we've got the brochure, the website, outreach, which is us sitting at Midsummer Festival or other um you know, opportunity opportunities that we could um identify and then being on things like ctvvisit.com. I don't know if is there any other place I would have this old line arts district. those um like the museum and all they will uh link you know they have our logo on their homepage and we get a lot of reference um act activity from there. Does the chamber have us? We're members of the chamber. We must have that's a good question. Do we have those brochures at the chamber too or will they? No, we did at one point and I haven't checked on the status of this. I don't recall. I was in there a couple weeks ago for the Chili Fest day. Don't say Okay, Jean, would you just check and see if how many we would provide them? We'd had them in the welcome center at Westbrook. Um to say, too. Do they still have their rack? But they'll take them behind the front. Oh, okay. Got it. Got it. Got it. Good paper. I'll walk down. If they do have a rack, then you can't because they pay for that. It's through distribution. Yeah.

They had a They were one of the few that weren't part of CTM. Um, so I used to bring them. Yeah. But I think a lot of places are getting rid of paper. They don't like the paper getting tossed around, but sine in is a great idea. Old line in. Okay. So, a good distribution strategy. O line in. So, we kind of need a restocking strategy for that, if you will, because I've brought them once and I haven't returned. So, and you have a QR code on the back of that. I was just going to say yes. Yeah, birthday. Thank goodness. This is due for an update. We've had some businesses change. So, um what if one of our Who does that? Who prints that for us? I do this on Canva and um printing. I've used different printers for different things. And we need to check on that CCM printer that they were talking about on Saturday. Um, I have the business card somewhere to see what their price would be. Okay. So, is that our first deliverable? That's our Yeah, that's our first such and such state. Everybody look out and make any comments and then this is it, right? Is that it? This is it. That's the guy from Oh, okay. Good. All right. So, um, up I'll have the brochure updated by 4:30. Is that too late? Is it enough time? Yeah, because I just have to update a few things. Yeah. And then meanwhile, if someone could check on prices.

I don't hear any takers prices on what on printing. What's the quantity you've got? Um I think last I've been doing small quantities like 200, but we could probably do five or 600. Where did you get them printed before? I need to check. I've used a couple of different printers. Do you want me to reach out to this guy? Yeah, that would be great. I will. Um, Jean, I'll send you the specs on this because it's like glossy paper, all that kind of thing. Send specs to Jean. Maybe I'll check on his price. I'll pull up the price I paid last year. Okay. And then we can have it printed. We need them printed before make music day, June 21st. So hopefully we can get them printed by May 20th, printed by and then perhaps we can divvy up a distrib, you know, who's going to take them to the chamber, who's going to take them to old men, that sort of thing. All right. I'll volunteer to deliver them. Okay. Okay. Okay. So, that's a deliverable. Uh the website can really there are some things I need to update on that. So, that's another um that's kind of ongoing. I'm always updating things on there. When's the last time it's been like is is it due for a total refresh in theory, but I don't know how we would manage getting that done. Yeah. Pay for

it or it's a huge undertaking. I mean, we're allowed to. We could decide, but we don't have the budget for it. and I I just don't have the time to do it. Did we ever get Speaking of the budget, what funds did we I know if the budget is subject to approval, is there some kind of tentative approval that we receive for some amounts? We um received tentative approd to go forward to the town meeting are the same budget we had this past year, which and I don't have those numbers in front of me. So, the budget that we've used for printing and um chamber membership, a few other things, term, something that didn't make it, right? Correct. Yeah. Okay. And CT visit, I can check on that as well. Um, but maybe rather than updating the website, maybe it's better to spend our time and effort on the social media strategy. Wouldn't you think, Wendy? Yeah, but do do we have anybody that can do it? No, I can't. I can't do No, that's a lot. It's a lot. Um, I mean, we'd have to maybe we can get a a kid because they're the best at it. The thing is when this is what I see constantly with social media strategies is people do it for a short amount of time and then they lose their person and it stops, right? So, it's like as a commission of volunteers, the website is a lot. I mean that is a

social media strategy and I know that you do a very good job of posting things too when when it's timely on people of old lime and old lime community forum and utilizing tools that are already out there. I think that if we were to do Facebook LinkedIn and all of the things it'd be very difficult very time consuming it would be very short-lived and I don't see a benefit. I personally that's just my opinion is it takes a long time to create a following and a get people excited about it and there's rules for what we can do as far as being a town commission right we'd have to go before the board of selectmen to kind of gain permission to do it um I think we have a good set of reasons to do it um Mona I see benefit but I don't see how we could do it well you Well, that's the thing is like Yeah. I mean, there's I can't see a long-term benefit. I could see it no matter what. So, our hands are tied. I mean, I think we should we should do it, but if we have the money for sure, it's the best way. It's the best outreach. Oh, right. And there are programs that you can do one post and it goes to all the platforms. So it's but what are we what are we advertising our businesses? You could do you could do the Midsummer's Festival. You could say just come to online live. You could do whatever rotate through the business the the Black Hole Marina. It's kick season black hole Marina rotating. You could post an Instagram you know or you could tag them. And then previously we we said we wouldn't do that because then we'd be highlighting certain businesses and not all businesses. So I feel this is counterintuitive to the plan that we had previously where we wouldn't be highlighting certain businesses over other businesses.

You have a long-term strat if it's a a strategic effort. Then you make make sure all two or three hardware stores get highlighted over the course of the year. You know all the restaurants eventually get highlighted. So you have a calendar and you make sure everyone gets highlighted or that there's you know you're highlighting come down to Sound View for an evening with the family. Um well that sounds lovely but then shouldn't the businesses pay a fee and be paying the commission so that they get this free advertising? I mean and isn't that what businesses do? They we're just promoting online really. You could do a picture of the sunset for all you that matters and you're getting followers. It doesn't really have to even be a business. It could be, you know, anything. You could take a picture of a tree, right? I mean, people, you know, having fun on the beach, boats, like your point about being consistent and having someone to consistently can't start and stop and only do the summer and let it die in the fall, right? So, if you're going to do it, you have to commit to it. And I think it's really important and you should do probably five posts a week if you really wanted to. and not more and not less. The more you do, then you lose your followers, you know. Uh, and we start to talk about our budget for next year in October and submit it in November. So perhaps this the social media aspect is just, you know, I don't want to kick the can down the road, but maybe it's something once we have a better sense of, you know, our full plan. It's really not as hard to do anymore. That's why because of AI, you could just put give me something to say about old lime and it'll it'll do a whole post for you. It's super easy. It's attending to it. It's doing it.

It's doing it and being and to our point consistent photography you know taking pictures getting contact that's what is sounds like we have to get permission first right yeah do we already have an accounts any accounts the town of Oine has an account it has a handful of accounts like harbor management the harbor master has an account emergency management parks and w would be the most um comparable Facebook accounts and Instagram, right? And it has to be linked to a staff person in town hall. So, isn't isn't that So, you're probably looking next year. So, you have to get permission. Then you have to get a budget and then you start after that, right? So, so we have to get permission from the board of finance. The board of I think board of selectmen, but I'm going to check off. So, so board of selectman for permission to do it and then board of finance for money. Yeah. So, it's a kind of a multi-step process. So, is that the task? The task is to ask if we if if we want to do that if we want as a commission, do we want to ask the board to select them to do this? I guess that's the first is if the committee doesn't want to do that, then we shouldn't, you know, we're right spinning on our wheels. So, but in theory we we said we did because we put it as a as part of our strategic initiatives. So, if we're doing this, you said that the uh accounts have to be associated with an employee. Who would our employee be and what would their responsibilities be for that? I guess that's a question. Well, we have to get an employee. Maybe in the first leman's office or something. And what would it be like the same header as exploral lime? Would it be that or would it be economic development?

I guess it's up to the commission. Well, and I think this was put on a list, but I mean I don't know if this was anything I would have voted on. So I don't think it was like agreed upon, you know, it was like a working list of things that I because I I mean you obviously can hear I'm I'm not for it as a volunteer committee. I think that I think it'd be a lot of work. Well, it wouldn't but that's what we're saying. We'll try to get someone to do it, not us. But I think that's beyond I think that the point of having this committee is that it's supposed to be what do we want to do, not what can we outsource to somebody else. Like I just uh I just disagree with the idea. I just don't I I think that the website that you've done is fabulous. I think that trying to create a social media campaign for Economic Development Commission, I just I just don't think it's a great idea. But that's just my opinion. Yeah. I mean, if you flip this thing over, it says, "Our mission is to support the growth and sustainability of existing and future businesses, creating an improved quality of life." So, you know, there's various ways to do it. Print, digital, um things like that. So you I mean that that that's what our mission says. So um right and that's we use outreach. We've got our website. I just feel I think I feel like we were having this we've had this conversation before in the last four years. I really feel like this is a repeat conversation because we've talked about this and then scrapped it to the side. Do you recall there? I know uh we had to um I know the social media policy has been under development for town hall so it was kind of put aside by that.

Um, but I think it is worth considering if we could do it, how we can do it because it does it's it doesn't harm businesses in Old Lime or bringing visitors in who want to spend money here or um attracting people who want to buy houses here or people who say, "Oh, all right. I will lease that. uh retail space because it has a nice the town has a nice sense of place um and which can be beneficial to my business. Well, what if the town of O Lime had a marketing strategy and we provided information to them that they could utilize to promote the town in general? So, it wasn't like an EDC thing, but it was like a town thing. That's kind of us. We're the state statute is economic development is kind of the marketing arm of the town, the municipality. We are the town. We are the town. That's our role to build. Well, I haven't even looked, but does the town actively do social media? There's a town of old lime Facebook page that um it's not No, it's town of old lime. Oh. Um so it's the um municipality itself. It's not a group. So the people of old lime is that's just a that is literally people of the county of old lime has one and it's not terribly active. Um, it's not consistent. I'll say that. But, you know, it's it's a busy building. So,

so should we just find out what the rules are in town and then come back and say, "Okay, here's what the rules are. We We'll continue the conversation. Do we want to do this? Let's just find out what the rules are." We could probably piggy back off theirs if they're not updating it. We do. Um, so if we had a ribbon ribbon cutting, which is a legitimate way of promoting a business in town because we're doing a m, you know, as a municipality, we're doing an event there. It goes on the town of O line website. Well, if Facebook page, I'm sorry, Facebook page. Thank you. If if we were to have a marketing strategy, I would think that that would be the best place to put it instead of having another Facebook page or Twitter page or Instagram that people have to go to because times are changing. I mean people are really inundated with information and to have another Facebook group that's people have to look to people are already frustrated as it is because the news is so all over the place. So that would I mean someone is doing this because the last post was March um about the traffic about the traffic. Yeah. pretty pretty riveting stuff here. But um no, but they did the proclamation for with David Bugle's thing. Um so someone is doing this. What So what if we find out the rules, get an update on the rules? Maybe Wendy and you and I could come up with if we were to do this, what would we do? What kind of calendar would we have? what would we want to post? And then we'll propose it to the group and if it doesn't make sense, it doesn't make sense. Um, maybe have a real like a social social media

strategy. Cherylyn, Wendy, Wendy, are you coming along for the ride on that? Okay. Sometimes. Okay. But I think it's important for us to realize that no one at this table can take it on. So that's important. Okay. But we are a couple commissioners short, right? I don't think that is going to make a huge difference unless there was someone who joined the commission in the next couple of months who was actually doing that as their job and wanted to just but again what happens I think you said this people do it for a while and then they leave and no one picks it up behind them has to be consistent so having a a strategy and a plan should make that better. Okay. All right, Cheryl and Wendy will come back with the social media strategy. What about LinkedIn? That's LinkedIn. I think it's I think that's part of the social media strategy. So, okay. So, you'll look at that as well. All right. All right. So the next one is pursue marketing ideas to attract visitors and increase spending in town and short focus includes sound view. It's a yearround location. So do we have a do we have a current marketing calendar right now? No. So should should we should we build a marketing calendar? Maybe that's a great idea. Pardon me. That's a great idea. Yeah. Build and build maybe a quarterly event in town. So the midsummer festival, something in the fall, the winter could be the tree

lighting at, you know, um, on Hall's Road and then some kind of spring event. Yeah. There's just, you know, we could sponsor or or we could lead or have an outreach table at. Well, or are you thinking beyond that? I mean, maybe kind of the problem here is where can we do a tree lighting? Well, the academy has been doing a tree lighting already. Oh, they do one academy. We have one event that we could get behind, you know. So, that is that open to everybody? Yeah. Yes. It used to be here and then they would have little gathering across the street. Kids sing, you know, the chorus would sing songs and stuff like that. Middle school band played not as well. So, so we so we already have two out of the four seasons covered with Midsummer Festival is already Yeah. Make music day. So, we need a fall vent and a um spring vent. Easy as that. Easy, easy. Oh, did I tell you I'm getting seven more hotels? I have an idea. Great. Found we learned on Saturday. Um Jeff and I, Jean as pension committee, Jeff and I attended the chairperson's spring into action on Saturday. Um which was Martha's meeting for Hello. Hello. Which meeting are you looking for? That is probably across across the street at center school. No worries. No worries.

Um uh the bound for the sound race. Sound view commission is going to combine that with craft fair. They've been wanting to do the Osprey Festival and that hasn't been really working out in terms of volunteers. So they're going to I think Bound for the Sound. It used to be in September. I don't know if it is. I think it's still going to be in the fall the way Frank was talking about that. So, and I know it used to be in September when the education foundation processed that. I'm sorry. No, you're right. He did mention that. So, so the you know that could be a potential fall event, right? And that's an interesting So, the bound for the sound was originally the education foundation which is now defunct. And I think last year, the year before, the fire department picked it up as it sounded like that. Yeah. Lysb has their little race. They have the race on mid to summer day. Yeah. So, so we just need to have a find something that we can do for next spring. What I would suggest is something to do with the opening of the Sound View business area. Um, what I'm hoping to do is I had a blog on Exploro Line which gave all the opening dates of the businesses down there. Most of them are Memorial Day weekend. Um, and I could post that on Town of Old Lime's Facebook page and share it to people of Old Lime and community forum and all of those. And that got a lot of hits. So, I need to update that and put it out there for 2025. Um, but maybe next year consider some sort of spring opening c not celebration, you know,

something recognition of the summer season. So maybe we work with Shoreline Gateway Committee. We could have Joe maybe look into that. Who's who controls the tree lighting? Lime Academy. Yeah, it shifted from a a chamber of commerce sponsored event to the Lime Academy sponsoring it now for the last probably five years, right Cheryl? Mhm. Any other thoughts on those four sub bullets? So I can take this and expand it out with the tasks I came up with to date. Thank you. Do we want to take on the wayfinding signage? Add one more since we have a

little time or does everybody want to go? Memorial Day parade is in spring. Oh, that's true, too. Yes, that's good. That's That is a great event. Well, I think the first step for the wayfinding sign strategy is to call a meeting of the different commissions that would be involved, which would definitely be served district commission, sound view commission. what I had there. I need a brand brand handbook or some consistency agreement with everybody to roll out consistent look and feel sign. So, we have a former EDC member Sherry Cody um who was the economic development director for Guilford and Madison. She had time at both places and she did their sign strategy. So maybe perhaps first we consult with Sherry. Um we could have her come to one of these meetings or Sounds like a great idea. Yeah, let's start with that. Invite Sherry to a meeting. Okay. All right. All right. Right. Don't put it on me. I like your honesty. I get it. All right. That's a lot of We do have

Everyone has a task, right? Or a bunch of us do. That's my best I can do that. All right. Any new or other business? I don't have any. Thank you for supporting Mark and I know you went to the meeting and so that was was happy to do that. Sound like there she knows someone who was there. Which meeting? Um Mark Comtock had a public. Got it. Okay. Uh is anyone interested in Making a motion to adjurnn the meeting. Wendy Jean is seconding it. I can never say that. Any opposing? All right. All in favor say I. I. Thank you everyone for being here. Scott, would you u turn off the recording and Jean, you can sign out. Thank you. Hopefully