Economic Development Commission - Regular Meeting

All right. It is 5.30. And I guess whoever's coming has come here already. So because we have three excused absences, I'm going to call the meeting to order at 5.30 p.m. And excused absences are Wendy Russell, Cheryl Poyler, and Scott Smith. Present is myself, Joe Kamian, and Jeff Hartman, co-chairs. Mona Caldwell, Trent Wright, who's our new member that has joined the commission, and Madeline Longfellow. We also have some members of the public here, and one of them asked in advance to present. So I'd like to invite Howard Margulies, who is the chair of the Old Lyme Housing Strategic Planning Steering Committee. You need an acronym, Howard. and some other members of the public are here as well. So you want to come up? Yeah, sure.

Yeah, we're newly minted. And as you can see, we're probably the most lofty named committee there is. I'm also a member of the Planning Commission and I represent Old Lyme on the River Cog Planning Commission. Okay. So this new committee, It's a housing strategic planning steering committee formed and really to kind of put the heads together of a few of the boards and commissions. You know, in the past, we kind of worked as silos and we decided, hey, you know, we have these housing, the new housing law, let's kind of sit down with planning, zoning, so there's two representatives from each, and Martha is involved. So she had, I'm just going to read this, I hate to read stuff, but it's, let me do this. We met last Thursday and agreed to suggest that the EDC may want to revisit the housing sector's strategic plan. We intended to draft a letter to the D.C. detailing our suggestions, but Martha indicated that the deadline for receiving input was at this meeting. Since we didn't have time to get a letter approved, I tend to present these views as my own, so they're not the committee's because they have not approved them, even though we've discussed them. The EDC's strategic plan indicates we have a well-diversified housing stock. The view is really inconsistent with the housing assessment in the town's POCD, the Plan of Conservation and Development. The POC, which is the overarching plan for the town, indicates there are some deficiencies in our housing stock and recommends alternatives to single-family homes, including mixed-use affordable housing, assessoring housing units, and incorporating these alternatives will, in fact, direct economic development, which DDC may want to evaluate. Additionally, River Cog recently presented their housing assessment as part of this. You know, they are the drivers, basically, of the new P25-1 plan, housing plan. And In relationship to that, they've done housing assessment. And you may want to review that and assess how it impacts your plan. And they concluded that the region has an overwhelming predominance of single-family homes, many of them occupied by retirees, which has a negative impact on our economic growth. and needs to be remedied if the region is to grow economically. Additionally, the new housing law, P251, will have a significant impact on economic development, potentially reshaping our commercial areas. It will permit from two to nine units of housing to be built on a lot in commercial districts. I suggest the EDC should evaluate impact the law on its economic development strategies, and make sure the EDC has a seat at the table in drafting our housing plan, which is a requirement under the new law. You may even want to petition Martha to see if you wanted to be on our lofty committee. And in addition to the housing issue, and I have just some comments that I didn't review with the committee, and want to just share them with you. I agree with the plan's goals and strategies to provide additional support, both known and existing businesses, but suggest the ETC consider the following questions. What is the overarching theme of O-line economic development? For example, the state is emphasizing the need to create a vibrant central business hubs, which incorporate housing, in commercial districts. The Halls Road Improvement Committee, when they existed, centered its economic development around the Arts District. So I would suggest that you need some kind of overarching thing. And then how do we track? Do we track all businesses? Or do you want to focus on those that are a good fit to the town, will be valued by the residents, and are likely to be successful. I'll just say this about small businesses. Typically, we concentrate on small businesses. You look at the statistics. After one year, 20% are no longer in business. After five years, it's something like 65% to 70% small businesses are no longer in business, for one reason or the other. That may not have failed, but they're just not. And then I would say our neighboring towns are employing the same strategies to support businesses. So how do we differentiate ourselves? How do we make Old Line more attractive to do business here rather than the surrounding towns that are bigger and have greater resources? And how do we measure the success of the strategic plan? What specific results do we anticipate What metrics will we employ to ensure the plan is successful? And finally, who is accountable for implementation and who is accountable for the results? So if you want this, I can leave it with you. That would probably be very helpful. Okay. If you're willing to answer any questions or comments or whatever.

Just to provide some feedback, we invited the select persons to come and give us some guidance as to what does the town want in the way of business. Do we want to organically grow new businesses? And the primary signal that we got is there is a significant amount of vacancy of existing former businesses, many of which existed for a long time. For example, Cherry Stones, just as an example. I've been in town 41 years. For most of the time I've been in town, Cherry Stones was not the five-star restaurant. It was a successful business that carried on. So we see a big part of our charter, based on the input from the select persons, is to start reversing these vacancies. So that's the first thing, Howard. I'm very big on creating new small businesses. Majority of businesses in Connecticut are small businesses, overwhelmingly. Part of what we see, if you look at our agenda, I have a line item that I carry on the agenda as a co-chair, the retention of in-town talent, the brain drain. That is the biggest problem we have because we have an excellent school system. fed by a population that is an excellent gene pool. So the school system is successful. It's a good school system, but it's kind of hard not to hit a home run all the time when the kids are brilliant. So we have these brilliant, smart kids getting a very good education. They go off to college, never to return. That's a big problem. So we want to arrest that. So the high school does have a robust school-to-career program And we are very interested to try to help that along because I think therein lies the biggest ticket to succeeding. So that's just kind of my comments back to you. The housing, I don't know. Maybe, Jeff, what signal did you get from the – and only Martha came. We wanted all three select persons. We only had Martha.

Well, I think it's your point – The signal we said, let's follow up on what's the mix of the taxes by residential, commercial, and apartments for taxes. So I work with the tax assessor. And we're not in cahoots here. I just follow up. So this is the schedule based on the assessed values. 94% of the assessed value is of residential burden. So it's becoming more and more. It's moved from 92% to 94%. percent per resident out of the real estate taxes, 95% is only residential. Only 0.4% of apartments and 3.2% is in commercial. So I would agree responsible development for alternative forms of housing, I think should be evaluated. And I think we should be, I appreciate you coming here to say EDC should be part of it. Yes. How to see the conversation. So If you drill down, I know it's difficult. 66% of the growth was through the reassessment of the housing in the last assessment. Only 16% of the year of the growth was commercial. So the residential burden is being shifted to all the homeowners in town. And to your point, Jill, you always ask, is that what the residents want? Do they understand that? Is this sustainable long-term? you know, if it's not sustainable, you know, what's going to have to be cut and what people enjoy online long-term, you know, why don't we, as you told our, to Mona, you always make this point, let's use what we have, let's fill up the industrial, let's fill that up. So, you know, there can be more personal property taxes, you know, some alternative forms of housing, I think is a very worthwhile goal. And the affordability, There was a report that was put out by the Zellman Group. They're a national housing. The gap between renting and affording is about $850 a month now. It's the highest it's been in the last four years. So young folks don't have an opportunity to buy homes like younger folks like we did probably. It's very difficult. They have to rent. Where do they want to rent? You want to retain talent in town. You want to grow up. I want to retire. I still like going to coffees and meet people Tuesday at 10 to hang out and talk. But I don't want to move away because it's my apartment. So I think there's just so many things to tie together here that it makes sense. And I appreciate you asking us to participate.

And Howard, I do think the issue, because I'm one of them, right? I live in a big house with just my wife and I. Occasionally, I have my three adult children and spouses and grandchildren all come so I can house all of them easily. But It's sort of like, I don't see anything wrong with BASH, even though I know it puts pressure, there's no turnover.

But it's, like I say, the POCD says we need alternatives. The River Cog assessment is saying it's really damaging our economic growth because these people just started in the office.

I want to interject for a minute. economic growth doesn't come from more housing per se. Because I mean, the only economic thing that's happening is maybe a person buys a house and the person who built the house and employed people, they made some money. But it's not a long-term, it's not like a business, a long-term economic development. So I understand what you're saying. And I think zoning and planning right now are working on this housing. It's not really for us because there's part of what they're doing now is they're changing the commercial zoning and they're not even including us necessarily on the conversation according to the zoning meetings.

Well, they are. I mean, you have, I mean, as far as the housing issue, all I'm saying is if you have a community with retirees living in single family homes, that doesn't generate a lot of economic new development. So you need people who are in the workforce or new businesses or whatever.

Disposable income, they go out to lunch and go and spend in town. So when tenants try to fill the shopping center, they look in with the averages and what's the disposable income. They base their, am I going to go to a lot? Am I going to go to another community? What's the economic profile? What's the disposable income? How can I rent? Where am I going to invest? So, you know, it's the direct and indirect multipliers on spending, which are national metrics, you know, that spill over in the community. I think Howard's referring to.

I would also, I guess, echo that while I don't think, to your point, it is the leading cause of why we are not seeing economic growth, I think it is yet another roadblock or inhibitor to... people coming into town to whether or not they live here, build their business here. They come to shop at our stores, eat at our restaurants. So I agree with you. It's not a leading cause of it, but I think it is a factor that influences it.

I just want to comment on the new law. There is two housing laws. There's the old 830G, which is still in place. And if you look at the portable housing plan, they would say, we're probably never going to get to the 10%. We don't have the available space or anything else. So P25-1, the 830G was kind of the stick. P25-1 is more of the carrot. So what happens is You could, and I think this is something you guys should look at, you could, there's something called a transit community district. So it's around your central hub, probably Halls Road or Shore Road or something. But if you elect to do that and put housing in there, different units, then you get additional funding from the state. So it's really an incentive. As far as the plan and the, River Cog has indicated they've met with the POCD, which is the state agency that will be implementing the plan. And they really want, their indication is they really want to work with communities. This is not a stick. And they, the way this is gonna work, River Cog will come up with plants and then we could either opt in or opt out but anyway i mean i don't want to get deep in the woods on this you guys have a lot to do but i'm just i'm just saying that all of these things right impact your economic development and you should definitely have a seat at the table kind of discussing you know these kind of issues and the last thing i'll say to leave is Through the years, we've had lots of consultants come through. And the one takeaway for me on economic development was do not do it piecemeal. Do it and have an overall plan and make a transformative whatever you're going to do. And just don't do, we're going to do here, we're going to do here, with no theme, with no cohesive plan. So that's I'm done. Thank you so much. I've taken a lot of your time.

No, no, no, but thank you so much. We value your comments. Okay, thank you. Thank you. We have other members of the public. Sir, come on up. I have problems with this.

Just one page. More or less, I don't have some of the same ground that Howard just did. I'm Mark Terwilliger. I live at 11 News Bank Lane.

I'm sorry, what was your name?

Mark Terwilliger. I'll give you questions. Okay, thank you. Can I just read it? I think that's faster. I read the EDC's strategic plan for 2026 to 2030 approved this past December. I think it takes too narrow a view of the Commission's remit and of the challenges economic and otherwise facing our town. Streamlining business permitting, making key information more accessible, improving wayfinding and publicity, all these are worthy actions. They sidestep more basic issues. issues that will have a far more powerful impact on the town's long-term economic health and general well-being than all of those measures combined. We cannot influence the broader economic currents of the nation and the world. For Old Lyme, these are the conditions under which we must work. Material facts of Old Lyme's location, population, and wealth are the principal factors we have to work with in shaping our economic future in that environment. The EDC plan's vision statement suggests Old Lyme's housing market should be Diverse and strong. It is strong or weak as the broader economy shifts, but has been basically strong. But it has also had a steadily decreasing variety of properties, residential or commercial. Eighty-five percent of housing units are still single-family homes on their own lot, and they are skewed toward larger homes. Retail is limited to a handful of walkable shops in the beach communities or Rogers Lake, and one or two on Lime Street. The bulk of the retail is in strip centers between the ramps of I-95 exit 70 and such light industry as we can boast is clustered on I-95 exit 71. Our economy, such as it is, is on exit 70 and 71. From the point of view of business investors, these businesses are at exit 70 and 71. The fact that those happen to be an old line is secondary. This is not the description of a New England town. It fits any suburb anywhere in America. Many in town seem to think that's fine and only wish it could be a more exclusive suburb. I disagree. I think a town needs a town center, one that's a mix of retail and residential, one that's walkable and invites people to linger. I think the town needs a greater variety of housing types precisely because it needs a variety of types of people. It needs young people with families whose children can make use of our multimillion-dollar schools. It needs younger people of an age to staff our all-volunteer fire department and EMS. It needs workers as well as retirees. These people need housing that's affordable, not just by covenant, but as an economic fact. This is scarce in Old Lyme today. These are all economic factors and some of the few that are within our control or influence. We should be looking at our economic future with this broader field of view. The EDC should be advocating for the kinds of changes in zoning and other regulations that will help create a more balanced housing stock and a younger working population. It should understand the strength of the pull of regional markets on commercial properties located in commercial-only zones right on the interstate. Encouraging retail businesses that serve Old Lyman, not the highway, has been part of our plan of conservation and development for decades. It needs to be addressed by ADC. Reestablishing a living town center is a major undertaking. It will take time and effort on many fronts. EDC should be actively engaged in creating a better future for old lime and not just in advertising our past. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Very well, very well written. Thanks. You know, the thing is the businesses are on the highway and our main business district and the temptation for business people, that spot, looks like a good regional location. You know, so there's a strong factors beyond our control are deriving investment there in things that don't necessarily serve the town. So it could be, you know, regional medical center, or we just said that no new gas stations can be built, although I'm pretty sure that that'll be blown out of the water the first time someone thinks it's worth their money to take it to court. You know, We need to do something on multiple different fronts. And I'll just finish by saying I echo what Howard said, that this type of effort requires a real plan and a real cooperation among and across the boards and a real wish on the part of the population to do something. You know, as long as it's just used as a divisive thing that people can snipe at, nothing's going to happen. Well, nothing that we decide is going to happen. Everything that happens will be out of our hands because we won't have done anything to try and push it in a particular direction. So I hope that doesn't happen. I hope we do some.

Thank you very much for your input. We certainly will give it serious consideration. Thank you. We have another member of the public, Mr. McDonald. Oh, okay.

All right. You guys are probably well aware of it, but the online shopping center is under contract.

I don't know if you're aware of that. Yes.

Okay, so that kind of gives us our public comments. Thank you. I'm going to look for a motion for approval of the May 6th minutes.

Motion.

Eileen moves. Anybody second? Jeff seconds. Any discussion? Okay, all in favor of approving the minutes, say aye. Aye. Harry's unanimously. Okay. The chair's report. We are very focused right now on getting input to zoning, which I guess there's some time. Cheryl was kind enough. Thank you. You know, as far as getting input to zoning, it appears there's going to be a little bit of time because environmental issues, Cheryl forwarded the, I also got this, but I'm sometimes remiss in going through the ordeal of logging on to the town's email, which that's something I want to fix also. We should be able to get email addresses as commissioners and let it come directly to us just by forwarding basically. But anyway. So environmental issues tomorrow, there will be a meeting to get input on environmental issues to zoning. They have not yet posted when housing issues or commercial issues. And we are teed up under the category of commercial, although certainly respecting that we're seeing members of the public come forward concerned about economics of housing. We probably should go to the housing one as well. Yes. So. I'm thinking of nominating Jeff to do that, to be our point guy to go to housing.

We should talk about that.

Oh, yes. No, no. There's another commissioner that's interested to do that.

That's often someone else. I'm a team guy.

As we all are. Okay. So with the very well-prepared analysis and recommendations that Madeline had prepared, I just want to go back to that. I took my notes on my iPad and somewhere along the way of going back and forth to Europe and switching, I somehow screwed it up. So I hope we have other recollections, but I read through it earlier today. And let's just kind of go through what we did, Madeline, is we looked at the recommendations as the focus. We read everything and then said, okay, do we agree or disagree with the recommendations? So let's go through this without belaboring. So under category one, special permit overuse, I didn't see any exceptions. I don't recall any exceptions to that, to those recommendations. Anybody disagree? Okay. So now moving to category two, sign regulations. The only thing I recall from recommendations there was the 10 p.m. sign curfew were limited to signs visible from residential properties. And I think there was a comment, I don't know, Mona, you might have said it, about if the business is during their regular business hours, they should be allowed to have their sign illuminated. And I think that was the only comment we had of those items. Okay. Article 3, retail square footage caps. I don't recall any exceptions to that one. Did anybody take exceptions?

I can't find my notes. I know.

Sorry. Well, I blew mine away. That's even worse than not being able to find them.

What are you on?

3? Number 3, yes. Amona's got notes.

Yeah, but I just found them.

Good, good.

Continued discussions about, I don't mean the one that starts out about C10, oh no, explicitly as grocery supermarket as permitted in C10. We wanted to continue the discussions on that.

This isn't changing. It's currently at $3,000 and up. Wanting to increase it to 8,000 to 14,000 or something like that.

So any suggestions there? Anyone that might want to propose different? Actually, I think it is.

Let's let it make sure everybody gets their notes today. I mean, I missed the first two already. Trying to find my notes.

I think there is something about having a different grocery option in town outside of the Big Y. I know Big Y's footprint has been shrinking recently. So there's some diversification. And I know I always go to the health food stores and there's kind of far and in between. I think that might be a good target for a community like ours. So I think, you know, there is opportunity there.

I'm willing to open to it.

Is it, Madeline, because you know these regulations, is it prohibited now to have retail above the $5,000 or is it just requires a special use? So what we would be recommending is taking away the requirement to have special use and just have it be permitted.

Which I support because even if there's concern about overbuilding of businesses, they're not knocking our door down.

Yeah. I think in that CVS space now, that's a perfect space for a little...

I would say keeping it that above 10,000 requires some sort of a special function. That'll avoid the idea that we could be inviting big box stores and nobody...

No, we don't. I mean, certainly I think we all are in concurrence that we don't want big box stores, but certainly to restrict it so much that even a medium-sized store can't fit. So I'm okay with it.

And your recommendation is 65-day deadline. Is that online-specific or is that kind of in constatuary? Because that seems kind of long to me.

Where are you on that? We just got the recommendation to change it from I think right now it's a special use.

Right, so if they fail that within 65 days, it's deemed approved, which is a great, I love that, but I guess you can... That was based on not one specific statute, but just what I'd seen in other regs is like a cutoff, but we just think about, yeah. I agree with your thought process about deemed approved, so I would support that.

Are you on number three?

I think I'm on number one, but I'm probably working.

Are you online? Can you share?

I'm on.

Are you on Zoom? Sorry, Teams?

No, but I could.

Because then we could put it on the screen and all be looking at the same thing.

All right.

Yeah, that was number one.

That was the special.

Yes, yes, special permit.

OK, you can continue now.

It was under Madeline's recommendations of what should be included. Right? Adopted deemed approved provision at the Commission fails to act within the statutory 65 data.

The 65 days is nice because it kind of gives them their two meetings, right?

Which it seems like they often need when they're discussing issues. There's usually the first and then the second.

But that's two meetings. A lot of towns, it's 45 days, which is a meeting and a resolution. So if you can move it to something less than 65 days and be deemed appropriate, I think that'd be a real big win.

Are those towns that have it shorter than 65 days, are they all volunteers?

I don't know. More locally. What are very local communities doing?

I also agreed with the broaden the waiver so that Any new use of the same broad category? So it's almost a like for like.

That's a no-brainer.

That's got to be a no-brainer, right? That's a no-brainer. It's absurd.

Where are we? The fourth bullet under, we're still under special permit overuse, fourth bullet under recommendations.

This is the case, Mona, of like the ice cream shop, that if you want to put an ice cream shop back there, it's a six-month ordeal. It shouldn't be. It's absurd. Yeah.

Yeah, no, so I think in Section 1, we agreed on all four recommendations. In Section 2, we just had one question about one of the recommendations, and that was the lighting of the sign.

We just said that if the regular business hours, the business is open, they should be able to have their sign on.

That would be it. So it's just odd that if a person, if a business says go till 11 p.m., then they should be able to keep their sign on till 11 p.m.

If your recommendation was an or, so you said remove the curfew or limit it to...

Hours of operation.

Yeah, hours of operation.

Whichever is later. Whichever is later.

Yeah, and I think the key there is regular hours of operation so they don't decide, well, we're ready for business for 24 hours. Right.

But I wouldn't want it to just be hours of operation. It could be hours of operation or, I think it's at 10 p.m., 10 p.m., whichever is later. Right. The Bowerbird does not stay open until 10 p.m., but if they wanted to leave their sign on until then, for people that might go, oh, tomorrow I've got to come back to the Bowerbird as my reminder, that would be okay from my perspective. It's almost whichever is later.

So that was it for two.

Then in number three, the continued discussion was for I circled in C10, raise the tier one retail cap to 10,000 square feet, add to 10 to 30,000 square foot special permit tier.

That was under retail.

Yeah. The second point, I think.

Second one was at grocery store supermarket.

Yeah.

Special permit is the first one, I think. Yeah. What's the specific concern?

What was the specific concern?

I'm not sure I caught it fully. I think the specific concern was raising, we just wanted to talk about raising that threshold. Okay.

So just magnitude.

So we're questioning it as in we're not sure we want to do it or? I'm sorry. To me, it would be to make it even larger, make it even higher.

Oh, no. I don't think so.

Well, I would be. So if we take it, we break it down.

The first recommendation is raise the base retail threshold to 10,000 in C30 and C10. Does anybody disagree with that? That makes complete sense to me. Add special permit tier for retail, 10,000 to 20,000 for C30 and 10,000 to 30,000 for C10 with a traffic study requirement.

Now, I think that's going to give them something to think about and discuss. But based on their discussions over this past month, there is concern over having special permits because then it could be more discretionary. And it sounds like they're trying to create more stricter guidelines than things that are on your special permit.

But I think depending upon what the kind of commercial or industry it is, they're going to want to have special permits. I mean, it's not for us to decide that. We're just making recommendations that we think will benefit the economic development. So I'd include it and then let them figure out.

And certainly they've got large retail, not retail, but commercial spaces off of exit 71 that would meet these sizes and beyond.

So I would be fine with it because personally, I think a special permit should be required for this.

Yes.

But maybe there's a time limit just to special permits, period, like to them reviewing special permits. Well, then that goes up to the top one. Yes. Which ties back to the top. All right. The next bullet is add grocery store supermarket as a name special permit use. I think everybody said we were good with that. allow expansion of up to 20% of existing retail floor area without a new special permit subject to administrative site development plan amendment.

I think that's reasonable, too, because, again, we have nobody knocking the doors down to do this.

Does anybody disagree with that? No, I don't think we have. I have just the ones that we needed to talk about, Circle. So that was the one in Section 3. Section 4, the one we needed to talk about was the setbacks. 25 to 15 feet. We discussed that 20 feet is typical. That's what I wrote. We can address that.

Maybe change the 15 to 20 feet.

This wasn't part of the conversation. What I took my personal notes was I'm not sure I would... I think you could get some pushback it depends on what that residential boundary is if if it was these were the zoning guidelines when people bought their homes will they feel you've now changed it on me and my home already exists or that whatever that buffer is um so i think that could come up so i'm a little mixed on whether or not we just leave it at 30 i don't know honestly, what the impact would be on a business to change it from 35 to 20 or from 25 to 20 or 15. I have no idea what that, is that a big consequence on the business?

I had it, the residential boundary setback was 25 to 15. That's what I had underlined and that we were thinking about changing to 20 feet.

Right, and I'm saying, I'm not sure I would change that. I'm not sure I would recommend changing that. What I'm asking is, if we didn't change that, what's the negative consequence on a business of not having a 20-foot setback instead of a 25-foot setback?

It's the developable area. It gets in the percentage of the building and parking together. I think there's a 50% threshold on the developable area based on impervious and building. So it reduces that. you know, that percentage, that denominator, I guess. So it squeezes the building size and parking spots. So, and I do believe 20 is kind of a standard.

I don't.

So I would be inclined to support the recommendation.

But not, no, it's recommending 25 to 15. Are we saying 25 to 20?

I'm sorry, 25 to 20, I misspoke. Yeah, 25 to 20. I think that's a correction.

If that is standard in the area, that's fine. I think, as I said, those folks that are living in those resident, whatever those residential boundaries are, may say, hold on, I built my house when the guidelines were X. You're changing the now guidelines to, They knew that a commercial area was next door, but it was now 25 feet away instead of 15, but whatever. Zoning is going to have to decide. We're just making the recommendations. I'm fine. Make it 20.

Okay. I don't recall any comments on anything else.

In Section 5, we needed further discussion on Raise the residential floor area allowance in commercial zones from 25% to 40%. Remove the one unit per lot cap. Basically, it was under what you called simplifying the mixed use. Zoning had a special meeting on May 28th, and they're discussing changing all of the commercial zones into mixed use zones. And- Will that require retail? That will be required.

See, that is very difficult. Towns that have that, towns love that, but it makes it very difficult for the projects to kind of make economic sense because the retail on the first floor in the world of Amazon is very difficult to have that amount of retail. Basically, anything that can be impacted by Amazon, you look at the Niantic project downtown, it was stalled because it was mixed use and they had retail on the first floor. It makes it very hard because the rents on the retail don't support the construction costs and allows the projects to be financially viable. The second floor works for the residential. The first floor is always a struggle because you can look and see what we have now and the vacancies in town already. Having that mixed use makes it very difficult for someone to come in and do a project.

They're not saying it's a requirement that it has to be a mixed use. I think they're just opening it up to say that it is an option to have it as mixed use. And especially as they think about it. I don't think it's a way to find a house.

It's not. Yeah. Yeah. It's not. Wait. You can't. What they... so what they are doing is they're taking the new regulation that was passed. And I actually feel like this particular meeting that they had on May 28th would be well worth all of us listening to, because it does absolutely affect economic development. So they're, then they've been working with a lawyer who's working with river. And so, um, The lawyer is going the very more conservative route and he's making recommendations to them more on the conservative route. And I unfortunately was listening to it and not taking notes. I had to go back and re-listen to some, but I did really think all of us need to listen to this because it's going to affect all of the commercial areas of which there's not a lot. As we know, there's not a lot of commercial areas. And It was an either or they could either do the housing or the mixed use. And they're leaning towards the mixed use so that they will not take away all of our commercial area because we have such limited commercial area. And so all of our commercial area will not turn into residential. That was the way that the lawyer was leaning. So. And they're talking about this middle housing, which is two to nine units. And there are already restrictions in place on how many of these middle housing units can be per acre or within certain zones. So they've got a lot of zoning regulations as it is. So what they're trying to do is trying to adapt to what the state is requiring without jeopardizing our commercial space. So it's very interesting. And in the, you know, in the grand scheme of things, I hear what you're saying about, you know, like it's very difficult to have this first floor. Well, I don't think anybody's going to do that over on exit 71. I mean, how many people are going to do that? They're probably, they're not, you know, it's not going to become a village, right? This might affect the sound view area and halls road. So,

So we suggest just adding the word as a site development plan option. We just adding the word option.

I think we just have to note that it says it has to be aligned with whatever the state regulations are. We can't be we have to be aligned with and they will do that because.

Yeah, one of the things that's been interesting in this process is it seems like their things are iterative. So it sounds like they're talking about this. So I imagine what we're proposing will be updated in their next iteration. We'll probably get to a good spot. So I think just framing it as like this is the key issue that we're looking to address. Right.

So we want to encourage this.

We want to encourage you. Yeah.

Okay. Article six, restaurants and drive-thru restrictions. Okay. The second bullet, I know I am of a mind that drives through only for banks or pharmacies. That's it. When I first came to town, one of the big issues that evolved was Best Eaten Donuts wanted to set up shop with a drive-through donut window. It brought out the town. It was so rejected by such a majority of people that it kind of gave me a lesson that You know, banks, pharmacies, that's it. I don't know if anybody else has anything else with that one, but that was my thoughts.

Well, I had to note that we were going to look up the national restaurant definitions. Yes, yes.

What is fast food? Yeah, yeah. That's a good point. Okay, so Madeline's got that.

Yeah, clear definition. Or maybe it's of table service. What is the definition of table service, right?

Yes.

There is something with 95, like people could choose to stop so many different places on 95. And if we had a place that was easy to stop, okay, you're stopping here. You're getting gas. You're then seeing our shops. You're seeing this. So there is kind of this, like, I think of the Duncan. I don't go to the Duncan here because it doesn't have a drive-thru. I got old Saybrook. If the Duncan here had a drive-thru, I'll go to the Duncan here. You know, and how many people are making that calculation during the course of the day? We have, I mean, we have a Dunkin', we have a Subway. Like, it's not like they're new businesses, but are we not attracting that flow?

It is, you know, I hear what you're saying, Joe, but the younger people, and NGOs used to say this, you know, like they want to go to like the Starbucks. We're not going to drive Starbucks, right?

Sure.

Whereas it's not really a drive-thru and I'd say parking go in, but.

Well, what they like also now is because you can pre-order, right? So now you're just pre-ordering, you're pulling up. It's speed. But I guess the whole point. But I don't think we could sell drive-thrus. No. And plus then. I mean, we can put it down there, but I think it's going to be shut down. Unless it's a pharmacy or a bank.

Correct. Cool. That's just my recommendation based on experience.

I like the way you run it, especially pharmacies.

Yeah.

They want to fight it and go through.

Yep.

Okay. Moving on. Article 7, independent and small.

Number 7, we didn't have any problems with the recommendations.

It's very well structured. And then moving on to number 8, proactive tools for business subtraction.

so we crossed off a number well I don't know why I crossed this off oh I think I had an older version okay I don't and I don't think these are things that we would be taking to zoning no I think this was your here's some of my thoughts on what we can be doing to be proactive and and I think they're all it's already in our plan and stuff and it is so yeah but I I think they're yeah a lot of them are really good just based on the discussion then you know Madeline if you could

Just incorporate, and then as far as I'm concerned, we'll maybe at our next meeting, we can just put it to a vote to pass the recommendations on.

I don't even know if we have time to do that.

Well, they haven't set a date yet.

It'll probably be July.

It would be our July meeting. I think, let's see what Jeff thinks, but I think we'll be okay.

He just asked you to switch the location of our meeting for the July 1st, which is probably... The reason he wanted is for public comment.

Their hearing, their hearing over the changes that are required by the state is July 1st. Wednesday, July 1st is the day of their hearing. So we need to have our comments to them before the hearing so that they are on file.

I think it would be good to get to them before July 1st. It may not be that our meeting is before July 1st, but.

And that's also why I recommend that everybody listen to that, that we all listen to last week's meeting. It was May 28th when they met to discuss these changes that are required to meet the state's deadline. So what they're trying, they're talking about different things like parking and housing and Hispanic housing in commercial districts.

So things are waived under 16 units and stuff like that.

And setting in, creating in zoning the parking requirements so somebody can't come in. So the way that the lawyer explained it is if they have the rules in place, according to the zoning. So this isn't going to be like a complete bypass where people are going to be able, builders are going to be able to come in and just do whatever without paying attention to zoning. So the more rules and restrictions that zoning has, the better. If we don't have a parking, like a defined parking rule, then yeah, they could go with what the state recommends that could force on street parking. And that's not feasible in some areas like down in the beach community where people can't really drive through and safety and hazard. They were saying like may not be even applicable for this so that they need to set up these parking rules. It was a lot of information and a lot of slides. And like I said, I was listening to it, but I wasn't watching it. And, um, I need to go through it again because it's a lot of information.

The slides are probably on their notes, right? So you could download the slides, look up as well.

Yeah. Slides would be helpful. Can I just ask one other thing? So you captured the EV charging station.

Yes.

We should probably pull that up into what we would send to them as part of our recommendation. You've got a section in there which is the proactive tools, and then it goes back to the EV charging stations. That should probably be pulled up. If we're thinking about this as a starting of a document that we would be sharing with them as recommendations, we should pull that in. And the other is, having heard a bit of what we heard today, is do we want to include something related to housing. Are we ready to even draft what we think that would be? And if not, which I don't, I'm not, I wouldn't be ready because I don't know enough about it, but we want to include that in what we share with the zone, right?

Why don't we give them a teaser and kind of a placeholder that we would like to share it and we'll deliver it to you by such and such date. I think that's a good way.

I think that's great because I'm just trying to think if we want to finalize this document to get to them. Is there any other areas besides housing, the EV parking that you've already kind of captured? And I agree with that.

The convergence of the zoning and planning. I know I'm like a broken record, but from efficiency and saving money, why don't we have two bodies?

Double checks. So one hand washroom. what is the other and vice versa so that one person can't go ahead there's a lot of room for individual like zoning and they'll say they say this in the meeting there's a lot of room for them to just make decisions and so it helps to have the checks and the balances it's a it should provide an opportunity for you know for good development at the same time but We've seen it happen in the opposite way, where one committee has said to another that you can't do this, but it's really not against the regulations or the rules. So it's been a good system. It's cost the town a lot in lawsuits and other things. But if people set the rules and then one group like zoning can just have special permits and then allow this and not that,

So why in the majority of Connecticut towns do they have one organization? I would have to say it's 90 plus percent have planning and zoning. And why are we unique? We, you know, there are, you know, most planning and zoning have multiple officials that vote. So it's not one person, one body, like you said. But if it's a seven or nine or 11 person zoning committee, they vote on it and there's appropriate time to have rich discussion. I think that in the two years I've been here, there's numerous reasons why people do not come to start businesses online. And I think that's not a primary or secondary or tertiary, but I know it's on a list of top five. So I think we should maybe have a richer discussion. We'll continue on her document at a future meeting before we But then in a document, obviously, we would have to agree upon that as commissioners. So we're going to have that future discussion.

I also don't think necessarily that that's something that we would be recommending to the zoning commission.

If we want to do that, that's a recommendation to the board of select persons. Okay. So as I understand it, so July 1st, what is the topic of discussion for that meeting?

They have not announced it yet. They announced that this was the order that they were going to.

And July 1st actually doesn't have to do with this. There's two other meetings that are happening before July 1st in June. And I don't know where they're posted. But they might be in these meeting minutes. I do have their minutes. So July 1st is the hearing meeting. for the regulations that they are going to be adopting to meet the new legislation. So that's what July 1st is.

So that tells me because therefore they have not yet scheduled housing or commercial issues. We are pegged in for commercial issues.

Well, they might have because on May 28th at that meeting, which the minutes were not posted yet, they discussed that they have... Two meetings coming up in June.

Okay.

I just don't know the dates.

Yeah, it's not on here.

I was just going to go to their website. Is it on there? Is it on their website? Is it on the website?

June 8th meeting and June 1st special meeting is on their website that I'm looking at right now.

Okay. June 8th and July 1st? June 1st. I'm sorry.

June 8th and July 1st. I'm sorry. Those are special meetings. Regular meeting is June 8th. Special meeting is July 1st. And there should be.

You guys can look at it.

One more meeting. And that's so everything on July 1st is what they were discussing. You guys need to see this?

No.

What they were discussing on May 28th last week. They may try to cover more than that.

At the special meeting, they can only cover that topic unless they... My thinking is that we're not going to be denied input if we submit this after our July meeting. So what's the big deal? Let's just proceed. I don't think this process is going to go on for several more months.

I don't disagree. But maybe we could just... Joe, could you reach out to that? Commission Chair, to just say, you know, we're pulling together a summary of our recommendations that we would like to share with the Zoning Board, wanting to understand their timing a little bit more clearly so we, you know, have sufficient time to get you the document. Can you confirm if we got it to you?

I think that makes sense.

Just before or after the July 4th holiday, is that sufficient? I think it would be good while they're planning for this July 1st. And So right now, as Cheryl pointed out to us in the email, we're supposed to be taking that survey. There's a survey on there that they want people to take. And that was only supposed to be open for two weeks, but it's still open. And according to their May 11th meeting, they were going to have The three community workshops, they were tentatively planning on having the first one by June 3rd or 4th. They have one tomorrow. First one is tomorrow. So that's the environmental one. The environmental one is tomorrow.

Because I'm going to go to that.

Is that the first on the list?

Environmental is tomorrow.

So that is the two meetings in June. So tomorrow. Tomorrow.

It doesn't say on the website. It said June 8th and July 1st.

Isn't that interesting? Yeah. It is tomorrow, though. Yeah. And that's June 4th?

Mm-hmm.

Where is that? Probably be here. Yeah, should be in this room.

And do we know what time?

Yes. Yes, 7 p.m., I think was the time. Pretty sure.

It's on my calendar.

Most of the meetings started at 6.30 per their website.

But, you know, they debated it, and they did talk about it. 7 o'clock.

Yeah, 7 p.m. Now, how did you write it down?

It's in Cheryl's note. It's in the note that came from zoning through all the chairs.

And Cheryl forwarded that.

Right.

Okay.

Okay. So we've got our mission for that. Our next topic of discussion is our part-time analyst, which, Jeff, the Board of Finance approved our analyst position, I believe.

Yes. So the process would be with the town that said whatever is approved, the job description, give it to the town, or they post it to the town website. indeed and they used they posted to you and then it did municipal the third word i forget but that agency so the job the job was approved so we went back to anita and asked you know salt confirmation was a person or was a dollar so they approved the part-time person we had the email from anita It says, EDC seeks a paid position to professionally help EDC to meet its strategic plan needs, supporting existing businesses, monitor empty space, support filing commercial space in a way that supports the POCV and EDC. So the budget was approved on May 18th, so the money is approved. So I think before we kind of, Joe calls for votes, It's kind of, you know, there's a job description, but some of these things that we've been talking about and we do, I think the time is right. I think the town is expecting us to help with this problem. The citizens are coming in here today to help with this economic. And I think this can support us because we all have jobs or retired and family duties. And I think we can keep this individual busy.

It's like 10 hours. Yeah, it's 10 hours, and it's productively busy because the problem we have is the inability to maintain continuity on things. So as an example, the vacancy in the light industrial zone, it's 50% vacant. So one of the first tasks that I would suggest is to have this analyst look at, okay, what are the vacancies here? What were the prior occupants of those vacant spaces? And who are the realtors or building owners that should be interested in filling the vacancies? And so at least getting some of that information in front of us, we could develop actionable things to maybe start getting some businesses back in there again.

I can think of a lot of things that we could ask this person to do. I don't think we need to necessarily narrow that down. I think, Mona, I think it was your email message. I agree that let's use them effectively. So let's not ask them to do work that you might have a commissioner be able to do 100%. But I'm fully supportive of The description is so broad.

It does the job.

It's almost so long and so broad it might scare someone away from telling you 10 hours.

The HR person will carve it out. I was like, wow, all that in 10 hours.

I thought the same thing.

They would report to our commission.

Cheryl told me, but I know she's not here to

to say this, but she said to me that they would report to Martha. Well, the job description says they would report to Martha.

I don't really know the answer to that. Either way, I don't care.

They may have to, from an organizational perspective, report to Martha because you're not a paid person in the town, an official employee, if you will. We're all volunteers. But they would be responsible to

the- We would set the mission and- Direction. Give direction and Watha would be the supervisor, if you will.

Yes. All right.

So I was going to ask if we can vote to accept the position description and begin this process of recruiting.

Anybody want to- I'll take the motion.

Eileen moves. I'll second. Any discussion? Okay. All in favor? Aye.

Aye.

Okay. Trent, are you in favor? Aye. You're opposed. Okay.

And I oppose.

All right. So we have two in favor and two opposed.

No. Yeah, I'm in favor.

Oh, so we have three in favor.

Four, if you count yourself.

Oh, I'm sorry. Count yourself.

Okay. Four in favor, two opposed.

Thank you for correcting.

The motion carries.

I know we already had discussion go by, but... And it will go forward. But can I just understand a little bit more about what you're opposed to? Is it the type of work they would do or just the position itself?

I sent an email about this already, but I mean, I'm opposed because there were a lot of things. I've been on the committee for a while that we've opposed. Together, we've worked on a lot of things. We've accomplished a lot of things. And I feel that if there are members on the commission that aren't doing things, or maybe they don't belong here because they don't want to do things, then maybe they should step aside so people who want to do things can be on it. I've always done everything that I've ever been asked to do. So when I personally looked at the job description, I felt like, well, these are a lot of the things that we could do. These are the things that need to get done. I felt that we could do them. I really, that's the, that's how I feel about it.

My objection is just solely, solely on one issue and that's to pay. I've been in a profession all my life and I, I could not support $19 an hour for an economic development analyst. It's not an appropriate pay scale for the scope of the duty. So I'm fully in support of it. I just, I couldn't do that.

Have they defined that as $19 an hour?

A UConn MPA graduate intern, okay? Not graduated. Got a bachelor's degree, one-year master's. Even that is, if you divide the $18,250 per intern, divide the hours in 15 hours a week, that's what they do. It's $31.20 an hour. I'm fully supportive of it. In my profession, I couldn't in good conscience, tell someone, I want you to do this kind of work for $19 an hour.

That's just... You know, it's also a part-time position. So somebody who's interested to get this on their resume, I think, could be recruited.

Well, the market will tell us.

Yes, the market will tell us, exactly.

But you also want to get a quality individual. Otherwise, we've all hired people, and if you don't hire the person with the right skills, it's more of a a drag on maybe a six or seven hour job a week and make it pay them more. But I mean, does it have to be defined at $19 an hour?

Again, the TAM will take this and we approved it and they'll put their HR and they will put it in their job. Okay. Run it through their system process. Okay.

All right. So if it wasn't 19, you're in support of the position, just not the $19 or whatever.

And you would have to be much more clear about what you want because you can't do all this. Obviously, you're going to have to really prioritize.

What they do.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay. Next item I have is community resource.

One final question. So we handed this out last week, the last month. Why didn't you raise that in the meeting last week or in this meeting?

Oh, I was new. I wasn't even a member officially. So I just, I did some analysis.

You weren't today. So when we were discussing it, how can we bring it up? Because your points are well taken.

Yeah. Well, I wanted time to look at this and then find out what an intern would cost and what, you know, and, and, you know, minimum wage is about 17. So you're paying $2 above minimum wage. And I,

That's just my... And share that message back to HR and let them know.

Yeah, they'll price the job.

I'm still supportive of the position, but we need to hire the right person with the right skillset.

All right. We're running well in excess of what I allocated to try to hold these meetings to an hour. But one more thing I'd like to get discussed. Community resource management through River Cod. We have 12 hours of EDC on-call services, I guess would be the economic development on-call services. This is going to sunset if we don't do something with it before December of this year. So I am proposing, I've researched what they do and it's quite voluminous, but I would like to suggest the following. Electric boat right now is the economic engine driving southeastern Connecticut. I mean, there's multiple billions of dollars getting in general to that. I have seen certain local evolutions. One of them is the crystal wall being bought by electric boat. Another one is a warehousing and distribution center created sort of midway between Groton and Quonset, which are the two building locations they use. So I ask, and this is what I'm thinking of saying to Ruben, okay, we want your 12 hours of work. What part of EB's supply chain is currently being filled with out-of-state suppliers that could be filled with an in-state supplier, of course, in Old Lyme? As an example, I'm a retired contractor. consulting engineer, and a nuclear submarine, I don't know how many control points are on it, but if you take a commercial ship, there's 3,000 to 5,000 points of control, meaning in your home, you've got a thermostat on the wall, sets the temperature in your room. Well, there's about 3,000 of similar ebullitions now, all computerized. The building of control panels to... to fit out that work. There's perhaps maybe 100 or 200 panels that will get built into the submarine. This is equipment that requires highly skilled electricians combined with programmers. It's work that, knowing the electricians that are in town, I already think if we could get some interest there, they already have the skill to do the electrical part of it, the physical panel construction and assembling the componentry. Typically, there is electricians that step themselves up into becoming more technicians to do the programming. However, our school system is generating students that I guarantee you I could probably mentor and get them to do the programming six months, a year maybe, you know, worst case. So I'm thinking there's an example of something that I suggest would be, you know, economic gain to the town, virtually no demand on water and sewer other than the facilities for employees to have coffee and have a restroom. So I'm thinking for the, you know, somebody give me a better idea, but I'd like to propose asking. And what I learned also is through that, there is, couple of programs that River Cog probably would be very intimate with. One of them is looking for my stuff here. One is the Connecticut Boost Fund, and the other one is the Southeastern Connecticut Enterprise Region Sector Rise. And Sector Rise is offering $10,000 to $25,000 grants for small businesses, specifically in Southeastern Connecticut. The Boost Fund, if a business is established and has been in business for at least a year, they're offering low interest loans up to half a million dollars. So I see this as potentially what could be seeded if we could get something started in the way of, you know, even to knock on the door of EB and say, hey, what componentry do you need that you're not accessing locally? Any thoughts?

I'll tell you my initial thought.

So I am fully supportive of tapping into this resource. It's free and you don't want to go to waste. And you read through the description of here's the services that they can offer because they have a list of here's the things that we can offer. Tapping into what they can offer because these people already have the experience in these particular areas I think is the way we want to go. My only hesitancy in what you're suggesting, Joe, and I'm just talking this out loud, is you're making it very specific to EB and almost asking the question where in our Southeast Connecticut could help to support driving commercial opportunity that we could bring You know, you're asking the question almost from the perspective of what does EB need and then trying to say, well, then can we build it here in Vermont? Correct. And I'm saying that answer could come very quickly that the answer is they're already building it 16 other places or whatever it is. It would be better to do it by asking them to do the cluster analysis and the sector planning. So in their description, They say that they could do cluster analysis and sector planning, which is basically assisting us in assessing sector strengths and identifying growth strategies in key areas, one of which could be EB, one of which could be in engineering, one of which could be in data and technology.

What I'm afraid of is without giving specific direction, we're going to get a boilerplate output from them. That's my gut.

Well, what if it was something like presenting to them the strategic plan that we worked on and we created and then just so they're not going blind, they're starting at a place where we've already got our strategic plan that we created and things that we were working on and their professional analysis of what we've created.

I would suggest re-spinning it then because my intent is what expertise is already resident in our town that could fit into supplying highly technical products. And I chose the electricians because I see them as the best to succeed in what I'm proposing. We don't have welding fabrication shops here. We don't have pipe fitting. We don't have metal casting, metallurgy. We don't have that. But we do have some good electricians. And I thought that could be the kernel of something. I'm very concerned. If you give them a generic request, you're going to get boilerplate.

But I think a lot of times, Joe, and I think your entrepreneurial spirit is great. But what I'm hearing from you is your ideas. And I could spend all this time talking about all my ideas about what I think would be great, too. But what we as a commissioner, I think, are supposed to be doing is something a little bit more broader in terms of just the town in general. I mean, I certainly would support you if you wanted to start a business doing something like this. I would say, go Joe, that's great. But if you're not starting a business doing it, if you're not going to be the head of it, putting up your capital and your expertise and driving it, But I feel like it's, you know, it's like me talking about wanting to open up a doggy daycare and expanding economic development, but not actually even following through with it. Like, do you know what I mean?

What I'm looking at, Mona, is where's follow the money? Where is there money to be spent?

That I think is an individual. I don't think that's our job necessarily when there are so many things that we're looking at as an economic development commission.

All right. Here's my ask then. Everybody go back, come to our July 1st meeting with specificity of what would be the ask to the River Cog people. Is it 12 hours of consulting time? Is it 12 hours for a fiscal year? Yes, it's 12 hours, one shot. has to be used before December 31st.

Oh, I was wondering, December 31st, and then are they going to think about doing it again?

I don't know. But my thing is that we should take advantage of it.

Yeah, I agree.

I agree, but you should. If you can tie it to a section of the strategic plan, and you can tie it to a specific section and say, we want you to do more of the work on this section as it relates to the supply chain, You know, then that's a double because you're going to incorporate that into the plan.

Well, the ask is, what are the resources available in this town that could be deployed profitably to supply electric both? That would be my ask because I see that as, you know, the doggy daycare or, you know, you want to create a pet store so you can wash your dog. You know, for 15 bucks to wash your dog, it's not going to do a whole lot for the economy of all of Lyme. On the other hand, I'm talking about potentially millions of dollars of product sales.

It would be a compromised government strategic plan. And under the charter of the EDC, the first initiative, which I believe is how do we recruit businesses here? So give them a real narrow focus to your point and to your point.

And then take into consideration that 50% of exit 71 is empty space right now.

It's light industrial space that would be ideal for what I'm suggesting. You know, because I was thinking about what could be recruited into there.

Well, maybe that's what we ask is analyze that area specifically and tell us what kind of would be a fit.

I think there's something about, like, who are we and where are we, like, differential? Like, what is in our town? And if they could help us with that analysis, then maybe it gives us the pathways of knowing, okay, yes, this is a connection, this is a connection, but, like, where are those skills? Where are those, like, opportunities?

Which would be a general analysis on what are the skill sets that we have in the town kind of thing?

Just, like, who, what, you know, I think of We don't really talk a lot about the arts district here, but it's a huge driver of what people think is special here. Are we not tapping into it? So it would be interesting for somebody who specializes in this, what is our differentiator? There is economy that comes with that stuff. You might say, okay, it's a different scale, but what are we leaning into?

Well, and that kind of goes back to what we worked on a few years ago where we were identifying the different business districts, which... Slot analysis by district, correct? Yes, which I felt we never really did anything. I mean, we did, but we didn't really do anything. There was never like some, let's finish this project. And so we looked at all of the different business areas for the strengths and the weaknesses. And then I felt like we got onto the strategic plan. This is just me personally, but I felt like we never really did anything with it from what I thought we were going to do, which I thought was going to be putting this on our EDC website, identifying those areas with what we came up with as strengths and weaknesses that could help draw people to those potential areas. Like, for example, The Laysville area, that's one business area, you know, and it did actually has, it has one of the most recent new businesses, the pediatrician's office that went in there. So, and now there's, you know, there's potential there. There's open space there that's available. There's open space on Halls Road. There's open spaces for businesses down at Soundview. There's open spaces off of Exit 71. And what is our fifth business district? Is it the marinas?

Yeah. So is the general consensus that we'd like to use the hours to help us with the strategic plan?

We have the strategic plan.

Helping one of the initiatives.

How do we get to action items? It sounds like we've done a lot of the groundwork. I wonder if it's giving them all this information that's our groundwork and saying, What are the three things that can help us move the needle in these areas? What would be the first thing to do?

Yeah. It's going to be very generic, though, to your point.

I don't want generic. I want actionable items.

I do think that all of our new commissioners should get a copy of the SWOT analysis, too, because I don't know where it is on the website, if we have it.

Yeah.

But I think it would be beneficial for you guys.

I mean, one of the people that would be sensitive. So I can circulate all the notes from that plan.

All right. Just because we did put a lot of work into it. We did a lot of special meetings. It was my fault because EDC wanted to potentially hire somebody. And I said, We could do the work, and so I thank you all for coming.

You were right. We did all of our sleeves and do it ourselves. How many did you do? Roughly how many key?

Me, extra meetings?

No, how many SWAT analysis? How many key industries did you do? Arts, did you do? Districts.

We did all the districts. They just did it by districts. So five districts. Five districts. Five districts total. We got a little bit sidetracked because sometimes we had guests coming to the meeting. It was free. Halls Road voting. And so, you know, we got a little sidetracked, but, you know, we're trying to be focused on the different business areas and where our tax revenues were coming from. Because prior to that time, a lot of economic development, the sole focus was on Halls Road. But we're not just Halls Road. We are all these other places, too.

All right. Go on. I just want us to take advantage of the 12 hours. It's available in the most productive manner that we can. I do not want a boilerplate report, which is what I'm afraid is the easiest, thickest thing these guys are going to get.

That's part of our responsibility to push back on the consultant, which is to draft and say, that's not good enough. So we have to, we have to do that as well. So we just can't, you know, we have to.

All right. So at this point, I'm going to ask, you know, compose thoughts, come to our July meeting with a task request to go set this one. So I can look at the five or whatever they were.

Yeah, we did Light Industrial, Halls Road, Arts District, Laysville, Sureway, I mean, Gateway area, General. So we had, it's in Excel formats.

And you did separate spots for each of them? Yeah, we did separate spots.

Yeah, so we have that.

That was about what? Three years ago? Probably.

No, it was 1625. So it was a year and a half ago.

That's it.

It seems like it's like dog years here, right?

It seems like forever ago.

All right. We've been here an hour and a half, everyone. So I love it.

I would say, well, no.

I'm half hour late for a birthday party. It's all right. It's all right.

Is it your birthday?

No. My son and me. It's okay. He'll understand. But my grandchildren are going to be. Yes. But anyway, so I'm going to move to adjourn. Second. Madeline seconds. Any discussion in favor of adjourning? Aye. Unanimous. Okay. Thank you.