Economic Development Commission - Regular Meeting

We have a full complement of commissioners. Jeff, shall we call the meeting to order? Yes, sir. So we shall call the meeting to order at 5.30. As I commented in my email to everyone, there's a zoning meeting at 6.30 that many people wanted to go to. So we have sort of a hard stop at 6.30. We shall try and go through our agenda. So we call to order. Welcome, everyone. Anyone from the public out there? Well, we do have a public. Yes, we have a public at the meeting. Mr. McCarthy, thank you. I'm McDonnell.

McDonnell. My wife is McCarthy.

All right, I'm confusing my, shall we say, what would we say, British Isles people.

As long as you give me the map.

Okay. I was close. All right. So first order of business is approval of our June 3rd meeting minutes. Everybody's read the minutes. Anybody want to make a motion to approve the minutes?

I'll second.

Any discussion? Okay. All in favor of approving the minutes, say aye. Aye. Eight minutes to approve. We got an abstention. Scott wasn't available. Okay. Our next item under Chair's report and priorities, the zoning update EDC input. Madeline was kind enough to incorporate all the changes that we discussed. I've been able to read it. I'm okay with the way it stands. Anybody else have any comments on the...

I skidded it down a lot so that it's just like the key points when we send it to them. It's just, these are the changes. I've read it and it seemed to agree with everything that we discussed.

If anybody needs more time, speak up now.

Otherwise, I haven't read the whole thing.

No, it's obviously I'm getting it out.

Okay.

Let me think logically. Could we vote to issue it subject to any discussion that might ensue if Mola has questions about it?

Am I the only one who didn't read it? I haven't read it. But I'd be happy to abstain. I'd be happy to abstain as well, because. Oh, your mic's got to go.

Well, there it is.

Okay.

So we could pursue.

I'm sorry, what were you saying?

I'd be happy to stay in as well.

I don't think so. We have five, five vote in favor.

Well, why don't you after?

What does this stuff do? It's their next meeting is July 23rd, I believe, somewhere around there. And their schedule was that they haven't announced input for economic development yet. So we could let it go. I just kind of want them to get it done so we can start making some progress instead of belaboring things.

Do you want to make a motion or have someone make a motion so we can have a discussion?

Yes, I would like to move to approve the minutes, to approve the recommendations as have been prepared by Madeline.

So since you can't make a motion, do you want to ask?

I will make the motion to approve the summary recommendations from the EDC to the zoning. And I'll second that.

Okay, so in the discussion, if we have a quorum, as long as you have a majority, that will count. Okay, fine. Then I say go ahead and vote. And so...

I'd like to make a motion for us to discuss it for just a moment before we vote. Yeah, so we're in discussion right now. Yeah, we're in discussion. But you were just about to make a motion for us to vote.

Well, we have to make a motion and then we have a discussion and then we vote.

Right.

So we have a discussion now. Okay.

Is there anything in here that was different from what we discussed in our last meeting?

No, so take the original doc and then everything that we talked about adjusting in the last one, made those adjustments and then simplified it down to just here's the changes instead of the kind of the rationale.

Okay. From what I understand from the zoning timeline is our part isn't going to be discussed until COMMERCIAL IS GOING TO BE DISCUSSED UNTIL OCTOBER. THAT'S WHAT THEY HAVE ON THEIR STABLE. AND AUGUST, THEY WILL BE DISCUSSING THE SWITCH.

ACTUALLY, LET ME THROW THIS. I THINK THAT WE'RE ACTUALLY NOT HAVING ANY MEETINGS IN AUGUST NOW. THEIR NEXT MEETING I THINK IS JULY 23. I DON'T THINK THEY MEET AGAIN UNTIL SEPTEMBER.

So have you received any communications from zoning on when they're doing, they've already done environmental.

I think housing was next, right?

This evening, I believe there's going to be discussion on housing, I think. The housing mandates from the state, I believe, is the topic for tonight.

Yeah, a specific one. And I wasn't at the last meeting, but I watched the video. And I do think it's important that EDC weigh in on housing because that also has to do with home businesses, you know, people being able to work out of their home and have auxiliary, ancillary apartments. You know, I just think that all is relevant to us.

Let's leave delay voting then.

That allows us to take that information from today and incorporate it if we want to.

We're definitely having an August meeting.

It's been the tradition, if you will. Seems like a lot of commissions take a summer holiday in August.

So if we meet in August, we'll all have had time to go over it. I mean, it's kind of like, do we want to go over it one more time or not?

And then we can reflect upon what's voted on tonight by that we can incorporate in the final.

That's a good suggestion, Jeff. I like that. All right. So that kind of assuages everybody's concerns.

But now we can vote on whether we are submitting this now as is or not.

I'm going to say we should table it.

Well, you're going to take a vote.

All right.

So the motion was to approve the summary recommendations from the EDC to the Zoning Commission as presented on 1st.

I did.

I did. Yeah. But you don't have to vote for it.

You can vote against that.

Okay. All right. So do you want to call for a vote?

I think we have to.

Yeah, you do. All right, I'm calling for a vote.

All in favor? All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Any opposed? Aye.

Any abstaining?

Abstaining. Two abstentions?

No, I voted against. I want to look at it next month, so I voted against it.

Okay.

All right, so what's your final vote for Jennifer?

One approved, zero abstained, one to six. Six, six, abstained. I don't know if there's a way to capture a note in there, which is we were just delaying the vote, not disagreeing with the recommendations. I don't want somebody to look at the minutes and think we're disagreeing with the recommendations, which is But now it's the timing of approval. Thank you.

Okay. Moving on to our next item, economic development analyst, part-time position that has been budgeted for us. The town has been reaching out and recruiting candidates.

So we submitted the position with adjustments based on what we heard from the committee last week. So we increase the rate of pay to $23 an hour, and reduce the budget to eight hours per week. That allows us to stay within the $10,000 budget. So based on the following of applicants in the marketplace, we received five local and five out-of-state, and they met in the qualifications, so it would appear that $23 is enough to get people to apply for the job and met the skill set. So thanks for your feedback about raising the rates. So we're down to four. Jennifer, who works in town HR, is going to set up some interviews for the final candidates. She's going to arrange them. I guess Jill and I will participate. And I guess if it's an open process, we'll ask if anyone else wants to participate because more people involved will help us make the proper decision. So that will But, you know, here's the resumes of the people who applied. So I've just passed them around.

I'd be interested in participating.

Right.

Great.

So.

I think Cheryl would be great. If the timing works out, I'd be happy to.

So we'll email them on Tuesday and let them know.

Mm-hmm. Jeff, did you say you had five local and five out-of-state?

We had five that could meet most of the book, you know, kind of drive, and it's an in-person job. There's five that apply from out-of-state that Jennifer eliminated. So these are the five applicants that met the criteria. Great.

Yeah.

I'm thrilled. I think we'll be able to have... this individual's stored products are up for an August meeting, so we can have this individual probably assess with the materials for August.

I hit the ground running. Okay. Excellent.

Yeah.

Okay, next item is community resource management. The on-call services available to us. This is through the River Cod. Confirm scope and request services. Does anybody have a suggested scope of what would be requested, to propose what would be requested? Does that make sense?

I did put down some thoughts on how we might utilize the 12 hours. 12 hours. Something like that. It's a one-time 12 hours. Not a lot.

No, it's not.

I only need four copies. It's not far off, actually, because I know, Joe, you put something out there. I tried to think about what I thought would be most helpful for us as a committee from a... Right here. from a perspective of learning and understanding. I also think it would be helpful since I'm new to the commission to understand, are we all aligned with what we think the role of the EDC is in helping the property owners find tenants for available vacant spaces? So I saw our role as essentially that was to work with the property owners to understand what their thinking is, what they see as gaps or what we can do to support them as they are recruiting or seeking commercial offices to join. Versus are we, I'm not talking about, this is just for the consultant.

Okay.

But I'm just trying to, it shapes what we ask the consultant to do, which is why I was starting to, just to clarify what the role of the EDC is. So is it to help the owners of the property? That's what this is largely targeted to try to do. Give us information that will then help them to identify and bring in commercial tenants. Or is it for us to actually find potential commercial opportunities and tenants for the property owners.

Can I just make a comment based on history? One of the things is the SWOT analysis that was included in that attachment that Joe sent. And this was actually brought up in that SWOT analysis that we had decided that we weren't capable as a commission to fulfill that type of a directive. Like that we are not fulfilling a realtor service type thing. And that we could provide information on what's available, but it wasn't that we would be doing that. Okay, so that's why I agree, because I think that's how I read this one.

And that resulted in initiative one. Put the materials together. We said we're going to put the materials together to help businesses that want to come to online. And that's the first initiative. So we kind of came up with that.

Yeah, supported it. Further to that, it was my expectation that our new economic analysts that we are going to be interviewing and recruiting would be largely doing this for us, which was my feelings.

But I was trying to understand it because, and Joe, maybe I just misinterpreted how you structured your recommendation. It was to find businesses that could be find businesses that might fill the supply chain for something like EV, and then bring those to the property owners. That, to me, wasn't what I thought our role was. It was to come at it from the perspective of what the property owners need.

Okay, I guess, well, to clarify, I'm looking also, because what I included in there was for the consulting service from Rivercock, to identify what are the assets, whether active or latent in the town. Because we've got a town full of scientists and engineers. EB is high tech, and they're receiving billions upon billions of dollars. So I'm of a mind, and again, I'm speaking freely here, everyone. I'm of a mind that that is the reality of economic engine for our part of the country right now, for the state, our part of the country. So that's why I'm kind of advocating a targeted approach. I'm concerned that with 12 hours of time, the broad spectrum approach is not going to get fulfilled, not with this consulting service.

And I would agree with you that it needs to have some specificity to it.

Yes.

My, I guess, perspective, though, is if we go too narrow to say it's to support what EBE's gap is, there may be other opportunities that we might be missing. Or we don't even know, or I don't know, what are the interests of the current property owners that are, and what are they doing to try and market their space? I don't have enough information and maybe I just haven't been able to find it on a website somewhere.

You're dead right. There is not enough information. That's the problem. We don't exactly know what's going on because with the exception of, thank you very much, Cheryl, for assembling the spreadsheet that you put together, which is, that's kind of the, initiation document that I'd like to hand to our pending analysts to flesh out, say, here's the skeleton, now start fleshing this out so that we do have, if you will, an awareness of what is the reality of our commercial properties and how.

To Irene's point, we don't always know if they're dormant by choice, right? You know, people may be sitting on properties, we've talked about that before, or if they're actively looking to fill vacancies

I mean, I think the warehouse properties are like cherry stones. You know, they're boarded up and they're neglected and they're ugly. You know, the warehouse, if you will, the banking of facilities. But I can't imagine why any well-maintained, heated, and, you know, preserved facility can't generate revenue. I mean... Well, Eastgate's about...

I didn't... Eastgate's about... I know the gentleman that owns... He's having a tough time getting people there. So I don't know why. I didn't spend any time. I didn't think it was my question. I might have asked him, but he's, you know, it's empty.

And so when we talk about the 50% in the light industrial zone, it's that property, that 50%. Everything else is pretty much fully taxed.

You know what's interesting? When we did our SWOT analysis, I was looking back at my notes, and there weren't a whole bunch of labels.

There weren't. That's correct. It's that one property, and we don't know why.

But that's why I was so thrown off at the last meeting, because I was still thinking we were all good.

Right. That's more or less the last meeting you were at. The last meeting.

Yeah. So I guess what I was trying to summarize, again, one time, 12 hours, one person for a consultant to gather some information, perhaps give us some recommendations that we can move forward with or then hand off to our eight-hour person to do. It was to gather some of that information, to get the specificity, like, What are the demographics? What is the building types that are there? Current leases that are there? How long are they in place for? Or should we be anticipating that someone else might be?

I would suspect that the building owners, unless they're very unqualified to be in the business of real estate, they should have a solid grasp of what is the availability and what is the utilization.

Yeah, I'm just saying, what if they gathered it so we knew what it was?

What if we... Yeah, we use the consultant to survey targeted, like we give them a targeted list of, and maybe key property owners, if we have 10. And you deep dive with them on what are your expectations for your space? Are you actively working? What are the ways that the EDC can support you?

What are they doing to market the space?

I'm of a mind that our newly engaged analysts can provide that for us. When I see River Cog having a hook into every conceivable state allocation of money or grants could do us a lot more with a targeted approach. Because if there's, I'm just saying.

12 hours. I mean, that's.

Exactly. It's only 12 hours.

That's two days work.

It's like the joke about, you know, the big sophisticated machine. If anybody's ever seen a paper machine, it's like the size of the high school. Okay. And the joke is an engineer comes in and, The machine's not running. And he puts a little X with a chalk mark and says, oh, by the way, my fee is $10,000. Because the downtime on the machine at the time was $500,000 a day. And what do you mean? You just took two minutes and put a chalk mark there.

I've been a consultant, so I know of those 12 hours, four at least are going to be report writing. So now you've got eight active hours. You've got at least an hour or two of prep time. So now you're down to about four hours of active work. research time or an ounce of time.

What I'm hoping is that the consultant time from them will be a catalyst to what exactly might be the channels that we could provide services, products and services.

I think whatever the final report Rivercom is, we can give it to the analysts and make sure they follow up on. So maybe I look at the analysts will take the report and work on that. So whatever the report is, if it's targeted and it's broad, the analysts would take their report.

And actually do hire.

Yeah, yeah.

But then we want to make sure that we're not repeating any of our previous reporting and work that's been done for the last five years. You know, there's... And I'm sorry to...

I think to have an independent agent reach out to particular property owners not someone in town, but an independent person from the region and ask them questions that will give us a lot of insight on why is this property dormant or why is this property tough to rent? What are the strengths and weaknesses of the EDC you're seeing? How can they better support you? Copy owners will be more willing to... Is it a survey?

Is it a survey in the business community in 12 hours? I don't know if they're doing it differently, but is it doing a formal survey for the community?

I'm thinking a deep dive, you know, qualitative interview, you know, not the survey monkey. I don't know, you don't think that I...

I definitely think we need a survey and we need that information. I saw that as part of the role of the person that we're hiring because then there'd be more continuity of thought and gathering the data and using it. I was just trying to say, rather than focus it more narrowly on EB opportunities, it was what are the demographics? What is available? How long has it been available? Engaging the property owners to understand how they are marketing the space and what they are doing and how we can help them. What's the foot traffic rates? If we wanted to go out and help to pitch that this space was available, what do we know about the space that we could describe it? When was it last renovated? What was the type of business that was in it before? Those kinds of information, yes, we could get the new hire to do all that, but We only have 12 hours.

I was looking for it. But Joe, if we don't focus on EB, if you go down to the decision tree and they start and they find somebody EB, if they say, no, we're not interested, game over, report's done, right? So it's a yes-no dynamic with 50-50. If we make it broad enough, maybe there's some other opportunities. If we don't get a no result, then we get nothing out of the 12 hours.

And I guess that's why I was bringing it to you. Based on the business and commercial trends in southeastern Connecticut, which they should have that already at their fingertips, can they offer recommendation for types of and specific commercial opportunities that would fit with the available space once they have a better space?

So then we have to be able to do something with that. You know, I think Advanced CT 2021, when they did a presentation after the big analysis that was done and the work, the survey and all of that. They basically gave us 11 initiatives. I think they still hold. And, you know, at that time she was saying office space is a good idea because you don't have water. You have infrastructure and water issues. But now in office space, needs are going down.

I don't know how to resurge in Toronto. Most of it is hard. There's not a lot of office space in towns outside of Vermont. You can't find anything in Old Fayetteville at all. Yeah, which is good.

That'll bring a beer. Look, I was just offering another idea. I'm open to whatever you guys decide.

I do think we should decide on something.

Yeah, because we keep procrastinating this, and this is part of why I'm being a little bit rough about let's move things.

I don't feel like we're procrastinating. I feel like each of our meetings has really been cut short, and it's like we're always rushed to get done within an hour recently, and that was never the case. We used to have meetings until we were done, and now it's like every meeting, it's like 6.30, let's get out of here. Well, normally I don't. I mean, today I'm just saying because of the zoning.

We were until like 7.30 at night, I thought.

No, not an hour. Yeah. Yeah, we've been very rushed and we never were a rushed commission. We were very much going through things, talking through it, and that's how we were able to come up with reasonable solutions and votes on what the next movement was with something. And I feel like with this, it is important for us to think about what we're doing. And that's why I asked at the last month meeting that our new commissioner would receive the information that they hadn't received before, like making sure you guys have this. And then the SWOT analysis, which that was actually an interesting format for the SWOT analysis, because when you had sent it to us, it was tabbed. It was like a different task for each one. That was a very, very lengthy meeting that we had had in January of 2025. There was a lot that we covered in that meeting. And this one analysis, I don't even think we gave enough time to at that time. So it was good to see the one pager again, because we've covered a lot over the last five years and more.

And I don't think whoever this consultant, the 12 hours, needs to repeat. But a lot has changed, even in 18 months. And it should be just updated. Look at all the great work that you already did and pick a district. Not all districts. Pick one. Make it the light industrial one. And they should update that if it had changed. Or at least look at it and see what has changed. Or they would make a record. Also, they would be a third-party outside view on what we see as our strengths and weaknesses and opportunities. Because we see something, we might see something different than somebody from the outside might see.

Because I'll tell you an example, jumping ahead to the signage thing. So I mean, I'm working on this, and she made some comment to me about the the signs and all the signs and the ancillary signs and really do a, you know, a 10 sign. We all try to buy things every day. I mean, oh yeah, there's a lot of signs here. There are a lot of signs. There are blue signs. There are old signs. There are faded signs. How do we deal with that? And we all try to buy that every day. So outside looking inside independently I think is a good thing. Yeah.

I don't think Japan did the swap because I don't think that is specific enough. I don't think that gives us enough tangible, actionable things. But I do think they could start and should take them right now.

I did go back through your stuff in your website. I'm sorry.

There are protocols for town meetings and there's public comment.

We're not allowed to comment?

Well, not during our discussion, unfortunately.

Could he comment after we finish discussions?

Perhaps, but that's how that works.

Sorry.

Sorry.

So, I guess we have, you talked about the EV thing, what's that, and we have maybe a broader base.

Right. I fear a broader base output from this consultant service is not going to provide anything tangible. That's just my opinion.

And they're a part of our strat plan that they can help us with. That's my, my general observation. I feel like we're like talking about all these new ideas and nothing that I've heard is one of the, I think it's the six strategic. What if we just look, what is our weakest thing moving on strategically and say, okay, what can, cause we all agreed on this and we're all aligned on that. So, and this is kind of like our, I guess, North star. So I wonder if there's anything in here that we feel like can really be utilized.

I would feel like that, too, because in the scope of the light industrial area, just a couple years ago, totally filled, no capacity. Now it has openings. That could change, too. And so out of the, you know, like, if we would pick just that one area, was it just one

There's one property that is 50% unoccupied and I unfortunately, I don't have.

The spreadsheet, I think you had comments on the show, I think.

But now if the property owner still owns the property, it's not like we're not getting collected taxes on that commercial space, we're still

Right, except the business assets would be also taxed.

Yeah. It's a function of NOI. They tax you in the session based on net operating income, and they apply the mill rate to the 7%. So to the extent the building is half occupied, there's a lower net operating income and a resulting loan tax base. So any owner would go and say, okay, here's my net income, apply the cap rate, the value, and results in the taxes that's the way the commercial properties work so it is impacting the town by lowering you know it's that function we talked last week the residents are paying 93 94 percent of our total taxable revenue in town and you know maybe we'd like to get that to 90 so all these things i think tie together as economic development i'm looking at your numbers isn't it more the residential does 96 percent and commercial four percent yeah you're being collected on this. But the residents have almost 100% of the burden of town.

I have an additional question on that. So if you don't look at 2024, because that's the year the assessments changed, right? So 22 to 23. Is that right? Yeah, 22 and 23. If you make a comparison, homes are being built. So to residential, that added $12 million to the grant list. because of new residential properties. So if you're looking at residential going up and commercial, it had a little bit of a dip, like 150,000, if I'm remembering it correctly, but it was definitely 12 million added on the residential side. That skews, that changes the percentages by quite a bit.

It's still unsustainable long-term for most communities that have their tax burden on the residents. It's not really sustainable.

But what makes us unique is that we have a huge population that do not live here 24-7. We are a tourist town that has that seasonal bump, which is great for our economy because they're only here a small percentage of the year, but contribute significant amount to the tax. That's a huge industry right there, our tourist industry that the seasonal homes. I just say that because I think I've shared this before. I used to live in Killington, Vermont, and it was the same, it was the same, that it was the bump in the winter that added to the overall economy of the town that the town then benefits from, but those people aren't there 12 months out of the year to take advantage of the services.

So, Joe, what do you want to do here? Okay, I think the answer is going to be simple. Let's simplify the problem. We're going to ask, I've already got a call in to Susie Beckman at River Cog because I couldn't get a hold of Dale Proop. Turns out he's on vacation. You know Dale Proof? Good. You're going to be our conduit then. So he's supposed to give me a call next week, Trent. And I was going to query him as to is a targeted or a broad scope investigation more appropriate for your expertise? So I'm thinking the commission should be the following. Review our SWAT and look at commercial vacancies in the town, and how do we fill the commercial vacancies in the town? How's that for a services scope?

I feel like that is jumping ahead. We need to understand what the owners are thinking about their properties.

Well, the study will go from now until December 31st.

When you say, how do we fill them, there may be no intention to fill a property. We need to understand what that is. It's not our job to fill a property if a property owner wants it dormant.

I find it hard to believe that any property owner that's paying taxes would not want revenue.

I'm not naming specific properties, but there are dormant properties in this town that are being sat on.

Yeah, tax write-offs. Make too much money, you want tax write-offs.

I feel like we can't be acting without talking to property owners, and we've gotten into this in the past. We have to partner with property owners and understand what their objectives are.

What I'm suggesting, Cheryl, is that our newly hired analysts be doing that investigation, and that information would then be available to Dale Proop, the consultant. So that's kind of how our approach is.

Okay, so in timing, you're thinking... We hire our person. They're on board for, say, three months before we actually use the consultant.

That might be the way to go.

I don't know what the timing is to be able to use this consultant.

We basically have until December 31st. And it's 12 hours. So the question is, what's the budget?

So just ask them, will they be doing it two hours a week? Could we get 12 hours over two weeks? How that would be structured. Because if that's the case, then we could just hire the person, let them dig in. I'm with you, Cheryl. I think we need that information to have a baseline to know where we're starting. And then they can help us to think about, so what specific action or specific work?

I'm thinking that Cheryl's spreadsheet is the initiation document for our analysts to then flesh it out. It's basically right now kind of a skeleton. So let the analyst flesh that out a little bit, then make that information available to the River Cod consultant.

Yeah, I would put more information in it first because now we're talking about someone outside of town. In our mind, two or three of us can sit down and say, all right, mentally going down Boston Coast Road, what commercial buildings are there and are they occupied or not? But we could just run through that very quickly. I just had started... the spreadsheet. And then just very quickly, Vista Drive is that property six and eight. That's where currently, we don't know what happens tomorrow, but they have some unoccupied units. Hatchett's Hill, that corner unit is 20% unoccupied and all the other properties on Hatchett's Hill are not reporting unoccupied space.

So what is, which is the property that is on the southbound side of 95? Where like the doctor's offices were, because they just left. Dr. Sadie's office? Yeah. That's Vista Drive. Okay. They all, they moved.

Yeah.

So I don't know if that was. That's the Vista Drive where there's multiple, that's where this 50% number is coming from. It's that property. That property. Okay. Yeah.

All right. Does anybody know why they left? Updated space down at the Orville Partners building.

They thought it was beneficial. They consolidated Eastline Walk-in, the primary care of women.

In cardiology, I think they all moved.

Cardiology moved. Yeah. Where Orthopedics is. Yeah. That goes on. Perfect.

But right now, Dale Proop, the consultant, will be available to discuss, you know, scoping what we might put with Alaska next week. So I'm thinking that since we are bringing an analyst on board who can, you know, with assistance, obviously, from us, can flesh out the definition of, okay, what is vacancy in the town, commercial vacancy-wise, and then have our consultant work on that. Does that sound like an action plan? Yeah.

Okay. A normal consensus? Yes. Okay. All right. Okay. On to an easier one. The Midsummer Festival. Our booth coordination.

So I'm not here this year at the festival. I'm hoping someone will again set up shifts for you all. like last year.

Last year, I've only put out a page.

I already have a page that I started for today. Yeah, so Library Association, again, you're back on the corner. I can provide Joe the email from last year where here's where to find the tent and here are my tablecloths and the new brochure that I have today.

So everything should be in the town storage space.

from 9 to 3. Is there anybody else who's not available at that time? I am not, no.

I might be at the race, and I just won't know the time of the race until... We are going out of town, but I think we're not leaving until 8 p.m.

Okay. I have an obligation at 3 p.m. I'm open from 8 a.m. until 2.30. Okay.

Now, last year, I wasn't able to eat at both of them. So... Do you want to be sure?

Who set up last year? Anybody, do you remember who set up last year? Did you help? Scott broke it down.

I think we set it up. I was in here last year. So I... contributed to setting it up.

I remember that.

And I helped with setup too.

I can do setup.

Yeah.

Because I know I'll be here in the morning.

The main thing we do is hand out Midsummer Festival brochures.

Are you still available to write down? I should be. You've done that like four years.

I should be, or 8 a.m. Okay.

So set up is at 8 a.m. Jeff and Joe will set up at 8 a.m. Jeff and Joe.

And then Joe, once you have the parking instructions and everything, send that out to the rest of your crew so people know that they can put the compartment back to set up and then they can take their car, that sort of thing.

I think, God, usually down like 1.30 to 3.30. That sounds about right. Yeah.

Whatever the breakdown time is.

Okay.

I just did the last shift and then broke it down.

Yeah. Okay. Trent, what about you?

Leadership. Do you want to? Was it over two?

No, three o'clock.

It's over three.

And you and I can do like the middle of the day. Is that good? Good. So if you guys come at eight, um, Do you mind staying until like 10.30 or 11? You can stay until 11.

Until 11 is fine.

Okay, until 11. So we can come maybe around like 10.30 because we want to have some crossover too. So we'll do 10.30 to like 1.30. And then if you guys want to come... a little bit earlier. And you might have to go until about 3 or 4 a.m. Do we have to bring anything?

We don't have to bring snacks. We don't have to bring water.

We don't have to bring... Joe has already started getting the word out to businesses. If you want us to have your brochures on the table, we're going to have a stand-up glass, you know, plastic glass thing with Nautilus Architects Lego Showcase with their QR code to have people over there. I met with them yesterday.

Is it that day?

It's that day from nine to four or something. And food trucks will be at the Florence Grizzle Museum. I heard in one of our earlier meetings, someone saying there's no food at Midsummer. It's all at the Float Grizzle in the driveway. But I would bring water and a snack. There are restrooms in the LLV.

Just for us.

Yeah, you're not doing handouts. Yeah.

All right. You know, my men were selling drinks, too. They sell drinks. And then the bakery, they were killing it. The bakery was killing it last year. They were sold out, like, But we're on the corner again.

You're on the corner again.

All right, good, because we were in the middle last year, and we're like, what do you want us to do?

Yeah, you're catching people off the crosswalk. Which corner? The corner of?

Paul's Road and 1st Street.

On the front lawn. Oh, you're catching people coming across the crosswalk.

Everybody walks from there to the parking, so they walk right by it.

So it's a way to engage, get engaged in.

So is it just the table?

It's a table with the tablecloths, pop-up tent, you know, step and repeat. I don't know.

I don't know what they're doing this year.

Didn't they have a booth last year? They did.

I thought we didn't get any height ranges. usually they beautify okay where where should we park probably they're going to tell us they're going to give us designated parking and i'm going to guess it's behind the uh lion academy i'm guessing but um they do all the parking out yeah back there okay that's where i parked yeah it's pretty easy getting in there

The tent and tablecloth and table and so on, I believe, is in the town storage unit.

Yeah, I'll pull all that stuff together.

All right.

Thank you, Cheryl.

Okay. And if you can make it, come at any time.

Yeah, it'll probably be in the morning if I can.

Yeah, just come, get the tent, get a bunch of people. We usually hand out the schedule so people know where to go, because we're one of their first points of contact. We try to give out the schedules to people so they'll know where everything is, like the map and everything that's going on, and then just talk to people about businesses.

The maps of the town hiking trails is a big thing people like.

And we have all that print material.

And that is, yeah. Right, isn't it? It's in that pamphlet of maps.

Oh, in the Explore-O-Mind one? Yeah. There's a link to it.

Yeah. That was a big one a couple years ago.

Oh, okay.

It was that people wanted to know where the hiking trails were.

Oh, so in addition to the midsummer activities, which we give out, definitely know we have the Explore-O-Mind. Want to get that in the hands of people. Right.

Okay.

Moving along, strategic plan progress. So promotion and marketing.

Okay. I did the first round with our photographer we're paying for with our money. There were many, many photos, and I'm just giving you a very short photo slideshow. This is a Saturday. These are just small businesses. We're still going to reach out to the Lighting Death Thrill Zone and all, so I want to move that. So it's, all right, is there a glare? Okay. So we were at the new DeMillo's marina and these are photos that can just be used like in the strap plan or the business guide that we're going to be doing the website.

then All Pro, full line hardware.

Hi, how are you doing?

I'm good. They're up, the 4A's, 4A's, the goose, the goose, cafe flow, full line in, line in, side door, outdoor shot, studio. Outs at Florence Griswold, Hooli Gallery, Flying Art Association, The Shop at Flowgrid, Sour Bird, Carousel Toys, Hallmark, Hallmark.

I don't know if I liked your close up or far away, but yeah. Carousel. I went with the carousel. So this is just a small selection of photos that'll make kind of like nice little sidebar photos.

Really nice. Yeah. Excellent promotion.

We'll get more kind of warehousey.

You have to allow me to share a screen on the master. You have to go over there and share screens right now. It says we have a combo package here.

Invite someone.

This is. Don't show captions. Turn off. Looking for share.

It's on the way next to the hang up, the red phone.

I see a microphone. I see a camera.

Who joins as a guest. She has to authorize me to do that.

Yeah, but she's trying to, like, we in this room are doing this as a guest. I think that's the issue.

Does it not, you don't have share on your...

I don't see how I can make you a presenter.

I think we're Try.

You can just pull it up and. of displayed the same way you'll be able to read it though it's not small there's one i don't draw one yeah actually though hold on a second here jeff if you just plug this into the side of your computer nobody's online so nobody else will be missing it do you have a hdmi connection i don't know if this will work but we can try

No, I don't have time. It's a professional student, right? I should go there, right? Yeah. Keep going. Good. AI. Here we go.

All right, so this is related to the wayfinding signage that Jeff and I have been talking about. So we started, I don't think it was the last meeting before that, we talked about the different areas that we thought this is where we would want to put the wayfinding. We identified, I want to say it was six different areas. The next step for us was to think about what is the message or what is the, who is it we want to be identifying or doing some way finding on each individual sign? Because they're different, because they're in different parts of the town.

So this is the legacy sign at exit 70, the first one we agreed upon. So that's when you come down off to the exit 70, right?

Yeah.

That's when it has the sign pollution there. Really notice that? Yeah.

Yeah. There's that. You know, each of the churches has put up their signs, they're metal, many of them are rusting. So now is our opportunity to look at each location and say, how do we feel about, and this is where we need input from all of you, and we will be talking to the constituents about this, but we're starting with the committee because we want to go to them with, here's our recommendation on what we're proposing. But it's an opportunity to sort of clean up that clutter and sign and the wayfinding on the sign, the focal point, rather than all these other signs that have kind of come up with it.

And it gets, you know, once we agree upon the content, it gets into font sizes, state highway size, what the font size is, what the background has to be. So it's a little bit of a complex project.

And the branding guidelines that have been recently completed is going to be an enormous help for us to do that when we get to design the design and fonts and colors and everything. But for right now, we're just trying to talk about what we think should be out of signs. And then how do you describe it? So, for instance, if this is the sign that when you're coming off of coming 95 north and exit 70 and you're getting off, it's the one that's literally straight in front of you. Do we, so right now we could say, is it, are we going to say Halls Road? Are we going to say Town Center? Right now it says business district. Which of those three or another description do we think is the best description to have an arrow going left to indicate that's where the shopping or the collection of the dining is? The other is, how do we feel about highlighting the churches, on our signs. I'm not sure how I feel about that. They have their own signs, which we would want to eliminate as we create our own signs, but are we going to be comfortable with putting St. Anne's Church with an arrow going to the right? And then on other signs in different locations, it says, you know, First Congregational or Christ the King or whichever the churches are. And I, obviously, we will definitely want to have a sign that says Lime, go left. Beaches, go right. Historic district, you know, right. Maybe we want to put art district. So this is the kind of, we're trying to decide right now what could be the content of each of the signs. So let's just stop there because you can go through every one of them and look at them. But as a starting place, what is the view from the committee on reducing the ancillary signs that have been installed by various groups around town, like at least the three different churches. What's your view on that?

I personally don't think it's very customary to have church signs on town. I can't think of a town around here that does that. So I think it would be probably not something I would recommend.

And how do we feel about letting the churches continue to have their independent signs.

Do we have the right to remove them?

I don't know. We don't count property, so I guess we'd have to go to the county.

It's technically probably on state property, because that's a state road.

But those church signs are customary. If you drive around, it will see other, oh, you know, the little plaque ones. So I would...

You can ask them, update them.

Maybe update them. Many of them are kind of a little rusty. But this is what we need. We need your input. Anybody else have any other thoughts on the church?

Well, the church thing, there's probably four, maybe five religious institutions in town. Maybe six, I would think about it. So it's like, where do you draw the line?

Well, that's the thing. And you don't want to be inclusive.

Right, you want to be inclusive. You want to be fair.

You wouldn't want to miss one. Yeah, well, the businesses are going to want to be put on there then. And then, you know, where does it stop?

You could just say churches, arrows, and not specify. Or you could not put it off.

Well, you could have a sign that points south at that exit saying churches to the south, and then at McCurdy Road, you could have a sign designating the churches that are that way, and you could have another sign going southbound on Shore Road for more churches.

These are all welcoming points and other big points in town.

These are largely going to be, I think as Jeff said, many of the things that are, we don't even see them anymore because we drive past them all the time, but visitors coming to our town. This is their, in some cases, their first entry into our town.

What also goes with it would be a nicely landscaped patch, you know, along the whole line. Yeah. Kind of in Saybrook, the, what is the furniture store and the restaurant? Saybrook Country Barn. Saybrook Country Barn. What a wonderful, you know, little garden there.

Yeah, and we can get into all that. Right now we're just trying to do a content on the signs.

Yeah.

So,

So is it more generic of the commissioners that say churches to the right?

I think it shouldn't be included at all.

I think they should let them do it.

You know, being part of a larger parish, whatever, congregation, they're used to having their Episcopal sign or their Catholic sign. I think that's customary. And it would be nice to ask them, do they have funds to update their signs that I I feel uncomfortable.

So as they ask, maybe we have our signs at the bottom of exit 70, our revised sign would be on the left, and maybe the signs on the right would be the church's sign. So our sign stands alone, the town sign. And the churches get to keep their respective signs, but they're away from our sign. Probably a good compromise.

I think that's a fair compromise.

Thank you.

All right.

So what's the idea of adding the arts?

I think it should be like, what do we want to be known for? Art, speeches, history. Right.

So on the other one, did we add art? So one of the things, the historic district has a defined area. Does the art district have defined? So when you're coming off of exit 70, would you say art is left? Remember, there's no additional sign that tells you to turn right at Halls Road. It's just that one sign. When you're coming down.

Like off the bridge.

Yeah.

Texas 70. Yeah. Go left. They have to go left.

You can say art district would be left.

Historic district is right. Now, why would you say right? Because then they got to know when to turn left.

Well, see, there's art galleries on Lyme Street. So you have the Flo Gris going left off Halls Road. And then you got, you know, the Lyme Academy going right.

Well, you can make the sign. You can, in some of those cases, like if we are at, Not this one, but the sign that is at 70, but at the other end of all. You can make it go like this. You can make the arrows go both directions. But when you're coming off of 70, when you're coming off of 70, you want to be able to direct them to historic or whatever. And then the list starts to get kind of long, and you're like, well, would we say art and historic? Or are they going to feel like, no, they want separate

based on the sign.

One compromise could be, you know, Lime Street that way. I don't know. You can simplify it somehow.

But Lime Street, they won't know.

They won't identify with that. So I definitely agree we should have the art district and the historic district should be called out. They are really important to the character of our town. What about town halls? given that these are visitors coming to town, would we call out Town Hall?

I think Town Center speaks to it better.

Okay, so we're going to call Halls Road Town Center. That's not Town Hall. Are we going to call that, right now on the sign, it's called Business District.

This is support keeping it that way.

Yeah, business district. Okay. If I go to a town and I'm thinking we want a restaurant, I'm going to follow the signs to the business district.

Okay. This is why we're having this conversation. Yeah.

Making tremendous progress.

So in all of, you'll see in all the places, we'll change everywhere where it says Halls Road, Town Center, we'll change that to business district. What about Town Hall? What about, would we call out where Town Hall is?

So right now you have it just when you come off exit 70, heading south on 95. So Lime Art Academy is right in front, Lime Art Association is right in front of you. You take Town Hall to the left.

Yeah, I would put it at that exit, but not at the other exit.

Okay. I think I had it at one other place because we do have one sign that is on 156 at McCurdy Road. So we had a sign there that said, McCurdy Road, yeah. Straight ahead kind of thing.

That's a long sign.

Yeah, that's exactly, that's why I was like, now all of a sudden it's like, okay, let's take the churches off.

Let's take the churches off.

The other question was, would we call out the school center? We don't have to, it's not currently on signs, but if you think about what are the focal points of our town, guests and visitors coming.

I think with the schools, if some parents, you know, the big thing would be out-of-towners coming to an event in town out of school, they're going to GPS the address. So I don't know if we need to call out the schools.

I don't even really know what is a central office. I mean, I would think like middle school, high school, or like what you more commonly see on signs.

Yeah, we didn't, there's not enough space to call out all those different schools, which is why we just went central office. But we don't, again, yeah, what does that even mean? I don't think.

I think I would think schools are. Okay.

All right. That gives us obviously more space to separate art and historic districts into their own. How about How was Rogers Lake recreational area or town or something like that?

So I think that kind of would be worthwhile.

What intersection are we talking about at this point?

I mean, there's various different ones that you might put that at. You might put that at the one coming off of 70 going south. You would put that at 71 going south. You would put it at 71 going north to direct you up toward Rogers Lake.

I do think that a lot of people end up coming here for Tamar Woods for activities, and they do get confused and lost.

Now, we do have to remember that you come off and you say, okay, Tamar Woods to the left, and then you drive all the way up and you intersect with Route 1. There's not another sign there that says, now go left again to get to Tamar Woods. But to your point, John, most people are using GPS to find their way. This is really just welcoming us. What is townhouse? Is that that little, like, the big soccer field?

Okay, all right. I know what it is. I just never knew it was called that.

Okay, yeah. Been there, the senior center.

Yeah.

Didn't call out the senior center.

I think when we were first talking about this, for me, and I know we're focused on wayfinding, but I was less concerned about wayfinding than having nice signs at different locations that all match. The senior center sign looks like the Haines Park sign, looks like the- It's peanut butter and chocolate together.

You get both. Nice signs. Right.

If we're describing Town Woods and Rogers Lake. I can't remember what that would be. How did Rogers Lake and Recreation Centers, right?

Say that again. Rogers Lake and Recreation Centers.

And you probably think there's fields at the high school as well.

But maybe you don't just like, you know, just like just apart.

Yeah.

You say Tom Woods, I don't know.

It's apart. But it's not really. Yeah.

Like, it's just feel. And the majority of the time the field house isn't even open. Every day it's open. I've learned all this week. So every day it's open during the summertime when they're running soccer. Okay. Okay. And so, but. Maybe it is open. I don't know.

Oh, no early in this process, you have to, discuss the Exit 70 South sign on the L.A. land. We have to discuss that and get approval from the Historic District Commission.

He's already reached out. He's a listener. He's already reached out, and I said we'll be to him this summer.

We wanted to have kind of a consensus in this room before he even talked to others. But there are many other constituents that we will need to talk to.

Yes. So is this... Are we through location C?

Yeah, I mean, I don't think there's any others that. So, yeah, that we would want to answer those. Then we get down to by where the industrial district is. And again, we've got industrial district orienting when the standby is at 71. We can go left or right. We're calling both sides of 95 industrial district. Will that work? Is it light industrial district? Is it industrial district? There's no signage there now, so there's nothing to replicate.

People will think of industrial.

They even need to know that.

Gross. Sorry, but it doesn't sound appealing.

That's how to go to the beach. We don't have to have industrial.

How about office?

How about office? It is. I'm sure business owners would appreciate that. Yeah, businesses.

I don't know.

Well, he gave it to business just yesterday again because it's, we're using that.

How about in Delftville Park? That's why they call it a park. It's a nice little connoisseur. Same Delftville Park.

It does sound kind of, I think of folk stats, but.

Like with the Delftville Park. And then we agree it's just town woods, right? Yes. So take off Rogers Lake.

Uh, I wasn't sure I heard that. I think we might have heard Townwoods Recreational Area, but are we okay taking Rogers Lake off?

No, we probably should leave it because our crew teams probably have people coming from out of town to compete.

And then they park at Townwoods and have to walk.

So that's kind of long, so maybe we'll break that one into two depending on how many lines we have. You could have Townwoods versus Rogers Lake, and that is another... the main area. That's one thing that.

Respecting Marla's concern about not cutting meetings too tight. If anybody wants to go to the zoning meeting, you know, excuse yourself and go. Basically, it's already taking place.

I think we only have like one more.

That's just, it's the same sign. That's just going to be having arrows put in the other direction because it's coming off the other exit.

And the one that was down by Soundview.

And again, that one to me is, I'm not quite sure what kind of signage we would put there. It is not for people when they're first coming to town because they've already driven through town to get to it. You can, and that's the one that's down by Soundview. The way it will be oriented is, I'm not quite sure where you put it. Do you put it, so the sign faces north, and then people are just going to drive by it? Is it going to be on the southbound side? And so, again, it's going to be parallel to the road because there's not really, unless you use the intersection and you turn to, where's that cross lane?

It might be two sides.

What about, wait, so where are you picturing this Soundview sign?

So it's not a Soundview sign. It's just the location is the Soundview area. When we think about the various areas in town, we just call it Soundview. We haven't decided where the sign would be. I'm a little uncertain that we actually need a sign there.

I would say at the top of the village at the top of Hartford Avenue. There's currently a sign, but again, the idea being we want to unify all the signs. So replacing that sign with Soundview Village District.

What does the sign say now?

Soundview Village District or something. Yeah. Yeah. It should be Soundview Village District is probably what we should call it.

Okay. And then it's arrows for beaches. It's arrows for... No, just leave it like that.

So no arrows. Okay.

Easy. I couldn't figure out what you're pointing arrows to say, go back, go across the street to get to the beaches. They're right there.

Yeah. No, I would identify some view as two words, just for the future.

You identify it as a public beach?

Public beach with an arrow.

Because people that are not familiar there, they drive by and see all the gates on the other beaches.

Yeah. Yeah. That's the only public beach. Public beach. So pull that one. Public beach versus the Longview Village District and then under a public beach with an arrow.

Do we count White Sands as a public beach? No. Do we need to public beach without public parking?

All right, that's new, right?

Yeah. Okay. All right. This is the one that's on 156, where you would turn to go down McCurdy Road. So this is where you can have a sign, an arrow that says, line, keep going north. We've already said we're not going to have a town hall. You can just make the other one historic district and the other one art district. We're not going to have the school condition to be consistent. I would take Lyme off of there.

You're already far away from Lyme.

Okay. And we're going to call, we're going to take out the school.

Take that off.

And we're going to call that business district. At 156 in McCurdy, I would just have

Historic district and arts district with an arrow pointing down.

That does definitely cover it all there from there.

Beaches. You're just going to continue straight for those.

Okay. Art district and historic district.

Take off the beaches. Good.

So let us go back and update this, because we'll be consistent from sign to sign. And we can bring it back in the next meeting and review it one more time. And we'll start to generate a list of who are the key stakeholders that we need to engage.

Thank you.

Any other comments or suggestions? We're open to them.

This is a suggestion. I don't know if you guys have like an inventory of pictures of where you're like, this is what the current signage looks like now. I think it would just be helpful. Okay. We can bring those next time. Maybe I know what things look like, but to the point somebody said, there's things that I don't even really notice anymore. Okay.

How many are you paying attention?

The signs, I mean, everybody, locally, you don't even, they're invisible at this point.

Yeah.

Cheryl's smiling.

Probably because I just put out 40 lawn signs all over town.

Oh, a lot of them are not invisible. I see those. It's working. I think it's working.

40. Yes. Oh, my gosh.

We're at 250. The awareness is growing.

Yeah.

See? It's working. It's working.

So shall we continue with the full agenda?

Is there anything pressing?

Other than if Cheryl needs anything from us in the way of the July 4th town-wide celebration.

Yeah, I want an email that's going up to commission chairs to share. I know that that one is the end one, but anyway. Okay. There are plenty of events, lectures, exhibitions. There are amazing exhibitions right now. But some of the key town events that if you can make it this weekend would be great. On the 4th of July, the Soundview Parade is in the morning at 10, but at 1.45 on Saturday, July 4th, Martha is reading out a proclamation about recommitting to the ideals of the declaration, followed by ringing the doorbell 13 times for 13 colonies. We're going to have light refreshments.

We should move out here.

Yeah.

Town hall.

We'll probably be inside town hall. The idea was to be outside, but who knows with the heat. So that's at 145. Then Sunday is the picnic from 12 to 4. We can have many hundreds of people work There are a few people because of the weather. We don't know what the weather holds, but there's a band and the Lions Club, and it's all coming together really nicely. So it's the weather.

Is that rain or shine?

Rain or shine, yes. And then the other thing I really hope you'll consider finding out for is on Thursday. Wednesday. Wednesday, thank you. July 8th at 4 p.m. We have a public reading of the Declaration of Independence here. And that is because it's the 250th anniversary of the first time the Declaration was read aloud in Philadelphia. And we have resident Bill Bradford reading it, who has a delightful voice. He's an actor. So he's going to do a lovely job. So we hope you come by for that as well, support that.

Again, lots of lemonade for you.

3 p.m., 4 p.m.? 4 p.m. on Wednesday, July 8th.

I took it at 6 p.m. because that was supposed to be the statewide. There was no time given, so I plugged it in my calendar at 6.

Okay, it should be at 4 because there are meetings here.

There was somewhere in the state's information. Oh, information. All of them were supposed to happen at 6 p.m., so. whatever. So, hey, we're declaring our independence. I didn't have anything else that is pressing that we need to talk about right now, other than if there's no objections, I'd like to let Tom, who was not aware of the policy about public comment only at the beginning.

If that's not how I'm allowed to make a public comment, then I'll be making my public comments at that time.

I just...

I spend time, I read your stuff. You guys have done so much stuff. There's a data collection. I went, I've been through it. You don't need doing data collection. You can update it a little bit. But I don't know. I was just, I was thinking about this. You know, I've never, well, I've met Dale Croop one time. I don't know if you remember me, but he's got a great reputation around the state in terms of economic development. I would almost ask him to come in here and sit in with you guys and listen to you guys talk about the issues, the issues in town, what you should be doing, and then let him write his program for how he can spend these 12 hours helping you the most. You got your analyst guy over here to do data collection and interview people and stuff like that. But I would use somebody like Dale. Dale Croup has been around for 40 and 50 years.

I'm not thinking he's knowledgeable with all state channels of assistance. He's been in every town.

He knows this stuff. I think he could help you guys figure out maybe where you should put your guys' energy. Because you guys are all volunteers, you know. And so... You know, get you guys just to do that. The only other thing I was going to suggest, and again, it was in this advanced CT report that you had prepared in 2020, is you need a business planning council here. You guys lost your Chamber of Commerce. I know you guys are part of Old Sabre, but you have a new Chamber of Commerce here. You have nobody here pushing the businesses. You've got none of the business people in this town know where to go. And I think we did. I lived in Madison for many, many years. And we did a business planning council there. And it created a whole lot of things that made Madison a wonderful, wonderful town. But it had a good chamber. It had a really strong EDC. Now, you guys had a strong EDC. You might need some small amount of funds for that. But I think you need a group that really is business-oriented. Not so much property owners. Businesses. Businesses. That's all you should think about is business. That's all I was going to say.

Thank you. Appreciate it. All right.

Can I add a comment? So just because we didn't do anything about zoning. And I just don't want there to be any confusion over these dates or for us to miss anything. So tonight there was, there's the meeting. Then they have their regular meeting on the 13th. And then in their notes from back in June, they were going to have River Cog come on July 29th to work with them. But

I swear I've gone somewhere that they have a meeting in August and I can't now while we're meeting, figure out where that is.

So I feel like we need some more clarity because if they're going to have river fog at their meeting on July 29th, I think that'd be an important one for us to pay attention to.

Yes. Craig in the zoning office and Eric as well, but Craig is so resourceful and helpful. And I think if either you or Madeline, or to reach out to him and say, you help me have some clarity on which meetings are what, and are you actually having an audience meeting? He would be more than happy to give you some heads up on what they're doing, even if it's not posted yet.

I hear a motion to adjourn. Second. Any discussion?