Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee - Regular Meeting

I'm going to call to order the Wednesday, May 6th PB&A Advisory Board meeting. It is 11.31 a.m. Do a quick roll call. Start and go around. Jacob David from Nineveh and Syrian.

Alvin Davis from Underhill Plants. Sophie Landis from Sophie's Scoops.

Christina Costello, Legends Arcade.

Share Hobbit, Bite Me Catering, and Altitude 15.

Jenna Comerciato, Economic Development Director and Staff Liaison with PBA. Monique Osa, Osa Skinworks.

All right, let's do the approval of today's agenda. Can I get a motion to approve?

A motion to approve.

Second. Second. Sophie seconds. All in favor of approving the agenda, say aye.

Aye.

Anyone opposed? Abstain? Motion passes. Do an approval of the minutes from March 4th. Did anyone see anything that was a glaring error? No? All right, can I get a motion to approve the minutes from March 4th? All those in favor, second, anyone? No need seconds. All in favor of approving the minutes from March 4th, say aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? Abstain? Motion passes. Hi, Anne. Hi. You want to add your name to the roll call just to make it official?

Anne from Lark.

All right. We have somebody sitting here.

I know that we already approved it, but in the minutes, my name is from Lepel.

Oh, okay.

Do I tell that? My name has one L, the last name.

Oh, I'm so sorry. Sorry.

Now we motion to approve the minutes.

Yeah, we will make that. All right.

Do we have any public comments today? You're the only public here.

The only comment I have is I believe there are a few other business owners that are really wanting to be part of this, and I think I already talked to you, but I just want to put it on a public record. That is not correct on the PBI website. It says May 7th, and it says 6 p.m., and it does not have any update on time. So I actually thought it was 11, because that's where Skinny prized when we talked originally. And I also want to say and commend all of you as business owners, which I also want to be a business owner, opening 501 South Capitol, a little bodega right next to Holy Fed. So I would love to talk to all of you, probably to carry some of your products and things. And you and I will be neighbors, essentially.

Yeah.

Yeah. So anyway, I just want to say thank you.

Next to Holy Fed.

Yeah. So I'll be buying Escape Puzzles, 501 Fifth and Capitol. So really right next to you. Oh, that's great. Yes. Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah, and then Farther Quinn will be upstairs, and then Silver Jewelry is on Capitol, and then, so we'll be a small grocery forward convenience store.

What's your address?

501 South Capitol. Okay, so you're going to be on the corner? We're going to be on the corner of 501 South Capitol, which is Capitol and 5th.

Oh, that's amazing.

Old G. Miller Building.

The old G. Miller Building.

Yeah, that's the building we're by. Yeah, that's awesome.

Well, for everything else, I'm sorry? I thought it was the diagonals. I totally thought you were buying a different building.

I know you didn't. We tried to have that conversation during Enterprise for Equity, which I really appreciated. And you kept saying, oh, the diagonal building. I was like, it is not diagonal. It's sectional. You're like, I think I'm too tired.

So yeah.

I said the one with the big brown on it. Yeah, I was like, I'm so happy to hear that. Yeah, we're going to put a rainbow on it. That's great.

When do you think you're going to go in?

Well, we need to be funded by September to be open by April. We really want to be open by procession of next year. Next year. Next spring procession? We want to be open by procession of spring. That's great. I guess that is. I mean, sooner that's great, but September needs to start phase one. We're going to have a 700 square foot walk-in refrigerator cooler. We're going to have a bunch of produce. We're going to carry undergilt plants. Hopefully you'll sell me some plants of yours.

um hopefully we'll carry a beacon tahini pie ice cream uh we'll sell a lot of clothes we'll do an altitude don't know bodega was going arm walk i told everybody about the bodega and i used the bodega yeah yeah but i thought it was just me yeah and selfishly i wish you were closer but i'm so excited well we are going to do a delivery system well no i'm i don't see that

I'm just saying, we have a bike walkable. We're going to do restaurants. We're going to support them in their last mile. I just want to say thank you. It's going to be Nate and Eric's market. Someday I'll be at this table hearing all of your lovely discussions.

We are going to have cold food.

We will not make anything hot because there's too many lovely restaurants in town to compete with. but we will carry everybody else's food. And we'll have national brands and local brands, but we'll do a little like the co-op. We'll do like some chickens. We'll do vegan teeny pies. We'll do pastas, get a cheap, decent bottle of wine. Yeah. That's great.

And we will be fixing the- I was going to say, yeah, thanks for pointing that out to us.

Yeah. About the website though. Thank you for that. And I knew I wasn't trying to call you out.

Oh, no, I appreciate it. Like I wanted people to know.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And this gentleman invited me.

For the roll call record, we have Tim and Kate here now as well. All right, any announcements?

I don't know if it's announcements, more of a question. I heard changes to the downtown guide hearing. I know that's adjacent to our work, but I'm just wondering if there's like updates or changes from our last meeting.

To the downtown guide.

Okay.

Oh, okay. Sure.

That was just a question. 4 p.m. today. Literally today. Okay. Well, then. Any other announcements?

All right. Moving on to item 6, business item 6A is discussion on next steps for phase 2. Yeah. Okay. So.

I wanted to provide an update from where we were at last meeting and then kind of get us up to some things we need to chat about for moving forward. So Brian and I went to council and did the same presentation that you've seen and requested authority to move to phase two. And I asked for them to match your $25,000 to fund the project. They approved moving to phase two and they approved providing 25,000 to match your 25,000. And so we're all set in terms of process to get everything going. But then the piece that I wanted to discuss today is because our contract with Uncommon Bridges concluded with that scope of work for phase one, we have an opportunity to consider how we move into phase two. I appreciate the work that Brian and Uncommon Bridges did. I think that they're clearly experts in this field and got us to where we are now. But I would like to recommend that we consider the first economic development council to move forward with phase two. I think when I think about how phase two is different from phase one, it's going to be a lot of consensus building and a lot of stakeholder engagement. And I think having uncommon bridges out of area is a hurdle when we think about being able to meet business owners where they are. Instead of saying, we have three days that we need you to come down here for an hour. I don't think that's the approach I would want to take. I would want someone who's local, who's like, if you have 30 minutes, any day this week, I'll pop over. And I think that's how we're going to have better success engaging with people and stakeholders down here. And so with your packet, I provided kind of a memo that I got from the 13th Economic Development Council that goes through who on their team would be available to support on this project. Michael Cave, their executive director, would be the project lead. And there's some... language under each person to see what their role is at the EDC and what their experience and skills are. I think that they have local connections with businesses that they can utilize in this. They have some, I think a good local reputation as being business friendly and they're local. And I think that that really would help us kind of move into the space to a little differently. And I have worked with them in the past. I know that they do good work. I know that I can work with them and they have a good relationship with ODA also. And so I've had a conversation with Desiree to see if she had any concerns and she did not. I spoke obviously with the EDC and they're up to do this as well. And so I wanted to bring this to you, see if there are any thoughts or concerns. But ideally, because, you know, Time is of the essence. We'd love to get a direction that we can move ASAP and get somebody under contract and things starting to move.

Any more questions about it? I don't know. I've worked with everyone before and always had good impressions. I was really on it and followed through on stuff.

As a business in downtown Olympia, the EDC has really supported not only Fight Me Catering, but with events downtown, hosting get-togethers, that kind of stuff. Aslan was over having a beer with his wife yesterday. Holly had lunch the other day. I do think that they are downtown advocates, and I think that they are invested in our community, and it's success. Yeah, that's great.

So specifically, these two have to do with Gathering information from the shape of sterile stakeholders. And does that also include implementing a paid fee structure or figuring out the, cause I don't know, is that their wheel?

So they would be, what I went over with them as scope is doing the roadmap that Brian provided us at the end of phase one. And so that was, forming a leadership group to build consensus, revenue and services budget, operations plan with ODA, community open houses, and then moving through the council process. And so that would include them working with all the different stakeholders to kind of take the base recommendation that Uncommon Bridges gave us, which was use square footage, a like community is gathering 500,000. But we still had a lot of things to figure out, like, for the businesses and Monique, you have brought this up. You have historic buildings, a small business in a big space. Is it equitable if we're charging scores, uh, bias or footage that they pay some exorbitant amount? Like probably not. How are we going to write the language, um, to ensure that we have this dialed in to a way that like fits Olympia's downtown context. And it's like, we should probably take out or not. Probably we could look at and chat with people. about how we handle storage space or hallways. So how do we calculate using square footage? I think it's not just always exactly what is your building, what's your square footage. We might wanna consider what is counted in that square footage and then how we handle residential. Okay, so yes, this would be within the EDC scope. Yes, like the expectation with this contract is, They take us from where we are from signing contract, like right now, to it being approved and us actually going out. This should be the last phase. The only other piece that I've already talked to them about is there's weird timing with creating the database of who owes what. Because we don't necessarily want to do that. head of knowing that it's been approved because that's going to be a whole bunch of work that we're paying for and then if council says no you don't have enough support for this we will have paid for something that's unusable but I I'd like to think of how we could do that because you're going to be collecting a lot of information along the way that it doesn't make sense to fully wait until it's approved and then start off from scratch so I think that there's a middle place in how we are gathering and storing and building that database. And we are paying the EDC to do this? Yes. And I think another piece of how we work with funding is the ODA had said that they're open to participating in this process. But recognizing that in the past and with the DID, they did a lot of work for that. And then it didn't work out. And they were out staff time and didn't have the capacity. they had said if there was a contract that had some amount of funding for them to do some of this work, they're open to it, but it would need to come with some resources. And so my recommendation would be the EDC, I think we contract this for 40,000, which leaves us 10,000 for the ODAs portion. And both of them have agreed that they could make those work with the scope.

What would the ODAs job scope be?

I think that's something I want to fine tune with the EDC, but part of it is working through the operations planning and the work plan, and then also how are they supporting the EDC with stakeholder engagement and communication about everything.

Yeah, I was going to say communication. I think it's going to be like the big thing that we get.

They also have a big list.

Yeah.

Well, I think they need to be pretty weaved into the whole discussion because that is who would be the program manager. And so I think if the EDC were having this conversation completely independently of the ODA, I can imagine a business is like, where's this relationship coming from?

And so I think they kind of need to be tied to it throughout the whole process. It'll give us great information too. We'll see what the temperature is on how people would feel about it. The ODA being the program manager.

Do we know for certain? I mean, I know we've talked to them in preliminary discussions, and I know this is a recommendation. What's the process for actually choosing that program manager? We have to, I assume we have to put out a call for a proposal of some kind, right? It opening up. We do. Open bid.

I can double check on that. I don't think we do though. Because like as we develop a proposal, so we'll bring a whole proposal to a public hearing. and to council that will go over the operations and the work plan, the budget, who does what. And so all of that kind of nitty gritty details will go forward. I know that council had some concerns just about how this plays out, but they're just like, we want to better understand what people's rates change to, how does this affect residential? And those are just answers we don't have yet because that wasn't really in the phase one, but there'll be things that we'll need to answer when we go back. Yeah. And I think something that I kind of put on the table for consideration is as we've heard that there is some trust broken with the downtown community and feeling like their dollars are going to work how they want. We can also consider, are we putting a sunset clause or like a reauthorization clause of like, give us five years. If you feel like this is absolutely not doing anything, then it doesn't get reauthorized, or we have the option to not reauthorize this. And I think something like that might go a ways in trying to show that the support that they could share now isn't just indefinite, that there could be a trial period in which this concept needs to be proved.

I think that we should just have... sunset clause in the original one anyways, and here we are.

That was the fatal flaw with the original.

20 years later. The original one did have one, and then they removed it a handful of years afterwards for whatever reason. We don't know why. But I mean, like, yeah.

Yeah, it hasn't been there for, like, over a decade. I think anything going forward should have some sort of, you know, checklist.

And you were either being reauthorized or... Yeah.

The other thing, though, too, is that with the ODA... I mean, is there a way that we could work out, like, we don't have more money until we start collecting again. And if we don't get any of this done, then we won't be collecting again. And so I understand that the ODA has some feelings about the DID and all of that, but that was an active push that they were going for. It wasn't like we came to them and made them you know spend that time in that expenditure they thought that it would you know benefit the ODA so I mean holding us accountable for something that didn't pass that they were pushing for like I mean maybe they could work with us as a we will have budget for this like maybe that that 10 grand you do have to like get it started but like once we actually start collecting again, then we can actually pay. Like, could it?

I think that is what it is.

Are you saying for the, for this phase two scope? I'm thinking.

Because that money's already set aside.

Yeah, we have it.

I'm just thinking if the ODA is concerned about, you know, having to expend man hours and stuff like that, like this is going to benefit them and strengthen what they do in downtown as well and help probably pay for some of their administrative costs. So I'm just saying like, you know, this is the first time we're coming to them with this idea, so maybe not, like, hold it against us, but the DID did.

Maybe we could ask for some kind of, like, some kind of match or, like, discount or something, something that just kind of shows that it's, like, they're as invested as we are or, like, similarly invested.

I kind of just think that, like, yeah, I mean, if we're just kind of going to bring all of these forces together, to make sure that everybody is as invested as the money that we have left from the rate change.

I see. I don't think they're holding against us, but I see what you're saying. You're just saying, why don't they put in just like we're putting in?

I will say, historically, that's never happened. They've never put up a nickel. I mean, you can always ask, but I wouldn't hold it right.

I don't see anything wrong with us asking. I also just like, hey, if we get this phase two done, there's a lot more money down the road if we don't get it done. If they get the contract, which looks like that's the avenue to go.

I get you.

That's a good thing to think about. I could have that conversation with Desiree and see what her thoughts are. If she is not open to providing a match, are we... rethinking things because or do I move ahead just thinking if I don't see you for a month then we'd be having another conversation which means no one's under contract for like a month and a half I definitely say move ahead but also just like have the conversation and let her know that like you know I mean what we have basically right now is

part of it is that we're we have this fixed sum that we can allocate for it we don't actually know what we're getting for that it's hard in my brain it's hard to say let's spend 10 grand on something we don't actually know what we're spending it on but on the other side of that we don't really have other options to go with and I'm willing to trust the process to say that yeah we'll get there for we'll get our money's worth in the end hopefully but I get I get where you're coming from, yeah.

I could work on getting the EDC under contract. I could have a conversation with the EDC and ODA, and then I could come back in June's meeting with a fully outlined scope, and then I'd have an idea of what her response was. And so then even if they're like, we're not in position to meet that request, you can still see exactly what a full service list is or a full scope of what it is.

What is the kind of protocol on how we should talk, how we're allowed to talk about this over there? Because we're both on that board. Oh, yeah, sure. It's an open public meeting. All the information we're getting is on the agenda for today. But if we brought it up, Would it be helpful or hindering to this process? Or should you be the?

I guess I would say thinking about like the working relationship with Desiree, if I were her, I'd probably prefer a heads up before the, I mean, it is better as you're already the board, you know, but before she's put in a position to respond to her board without having the opportunity to think through what she can do, why. I guess I'd like to give her a heads up before she's there. But I might be at your board meeting because Stacy's not able to make sure.

It could be a moment where it's like, okay, well, if this is something we're going to do, then the board is going to probably, we're going to have to look at the money. How much money could we match if we were going to push to match it? They don't have a lot.

And as far as like money, I'm not even necessarily saying money.

It's labor and time.

And it's just if Desiree can help us get over the finish line, then we have more work for the ODA. Like it's not a strong arm tactic or anything like that. It's just more of like, if you help us achieve our goal, we have more money for it.

Okay, then I'll plan to bring, I'll have a conversation with Desiree by June's meeting. I'll come back with the EDC contract executed and with a draft. scope of work for ODA. And then an update with what she says.

Cool. Do we need to vote on approving or is this funding already?

Technically, so like I did check on this because I wasn't sure. And as the city manager does need for the liaison, I'm able to execute on the contracts without an official vote. But I wanted to make sure we're all on the same page of

Do we have to, because was it 25,000 is coming from our budget? Do we have to vote to allocate that specifically for this?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Or maybe we just. Because we didn't have the matching.

Maybe we just like agreed amongst ourselves.

But didn't like that entity council.

Yeah. So I appreciate. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, okay.

All right. So we need a motion to approve using $25,000 of the PBIA holdover funds or whatever for phase two project.

I will make a motion to use $25,000 from the holdover project to- The PBIA. The PBIA for phase two.

All in favor, say aye.

Aye.

Anyone opposed? Abstaining?

Sorry, second was Kate.

Motion passes. Is that all we have on that agenda item?

Can I actually ask a question? Yeah. I'm excited about this team, definitely. And I'm really pleased to see, Jennifer, that you also included this equity analysis. I think this is the right team to My question is separate. I feel like this is their opportunity to test this kind of model out for LACI. Have they talked about that? Because there's the new hub going in there. So I wonder if there's some sort of similar paths happening here. So I wonder if there's other partnership opportunities down the line with that. But this is what it made me think of.

What do you mean, the hub?

Amy Dabbs, ricardo's like right out is outside of ricardo's in the hub they're making this whole Plaza surrounded by new residentials and other voting like their downtown.

Amy Dabbs, That is where their downtown is technically so. Amy Dabbs, it's a corporate Center their downtown activities are in that corporate.

center okay um so i literally i think that they are leaning more into trying to make that their downtown that's that was my guess that's what i was yeah i mean yeah i guess we will give them money to do research is that what you're saying well i mean i do i haven't heard even i haven't heard any discussions to do research to then implement a plan i haven't that is not a conversation i've heard

And so the EDC, from my knowledge, has had no conversations about a BIA.

Well, that was one of the things that Uncommon Grounds had brought up was like the sort of like neighboring partners that some of these downtown associations do. So I was just curious if that was some kind of motivator in their thought of it.

I mean, this is something. So I approached EDC on this, just thinking about. what a right fit would look like for phase two. Because I think Uncommon Bridges was open to talking about doing that. But I think just with the challenges we saw with stakeholder engagement last time made me think a different direction might be.

Aslan will just text someone and then suddenly they're there.

A lot of us know them. They've also offered a lot of education to downtown businesses for free. So like,

And money. I mean, during COVID, all those economic trends, they sold out and stuff.

Yeah. So I think they'll get a lot more engagement.

They actually have a good reputation.

Yeah.

So just out of curiosity, so you guys know a little bit more about, is the EDC an independent organization or is it? Okay.

There's a 501c6.

Okay.

And then they have a 501c3 arm, which a few of these team members.

and throw parties and events with them.

They do.

They have their big barbecue every year.

Yeah.

We can say like downtown. They've seen before at the SPSCC campus. That's where they're off. I mean, I love them. I've worked with them a lot. They come in. But I haven't really seen them really very proactive in downtown. As an organization, other than like an individual, maybe businesses, but they haven't put together a party downtown. I agree. Maybe that would be something that we try to get out of them.

Actually, Anthony and I won an award for them. They give you, I'm looking at you, they give you bravery and courage awards if you buy a commercial building. Oh. Literally, I won a bravery and courage award from the CDC. And I will say that the businesses that were there were primarily not downtown businesses. businesses. Um, in fact, so much so that my speech, if you will, ended up being like, have you guys spent it downtown? No, literally, do you have an idea of what's happening? Because maybe it would be less bravery and courage and it would be more like, um, historical, it would be more like, this makes sense because really in many practical ways. And I understand that we do have Tom water and Lacey and Olympia's distinct, um, towns or cities but our historic downtown practically acts as a downtown because we have one lacy has a corporate center right now tom water doesn't really have a downtown that's really i think what the craft district has been trying to hold so so uh and i think there's this perception of downtown for many people that don't have businesses or come downtown so my whole speech was all like come downtown and check it out. I think you're going to be surprised that it's flourishing and there's a variety of businesses, our nightlife, our daylife, our housing. Um, so, so that is, I actually think that's a fair assessment as to where, and then I have friends that are on boards that are talking about kind of economic outlooks and perspectives. And I do think that is, um, and I'll own this as an individual not speaking for the board, but I do think that there is an aspect of that that is taking corporate impact as a priority in community building more than our downtown has sought. And so in that way, I don't think they're disparate, but I do think that they hold a bigger piece and see economic development maybe a little bit differently than I've thought or my vision of what our historic district could look like.

I mean, I just personally feel like us facilitating, bringing in the EDC, the ODA and getting the, we're going to call it the awesome BIA, the ABA and downtown Olympia. Like that's actually, in my opinion,

we've previously done so i i mean just in bringing these like three organizations together i think it's actually feeling repeated i think it's the edc through an event in the downtown like the breathing court courage award ceremony which i got a variety of different awards that was just one oh i got that award for during covet they did like some courage awards yeah but um

most of their events are held in Lacey because that is also where their office is.

So like all those things make a lot of sense, but if they do throw it downtown, I think you'd see more downtown. And I think that that would happen naturally. My people are geographically lazy. Yeah.

One of them is stigma. The other one is true. It's not where they're lazy. Yeah. But I'm actually not talking, I'm not just talking about where they, physically for a party. I'm not talking about that at all. I'm talking about a perspective and I don't think it's a wrong perspective. So I'm not saying they don't have my perspective or they have a wrong perspective. I'm just saying being centered in Lacey and the amount of corporate interaction in Lacey with, we have big industry, we have Chick-fil-A, we have Target, we have Chipotle and Trader Joe's just it is the way that they view business and business development. I think we have something unique in our historic district and I just want that to translate because I think if And that's partly despairing from talking to board members about stuff. I just think we could have a very different tone and influence on what a thriving historic district means if we're working with people that see corporate America as playing a larger role in economic stability. So I'm actually, I don't, it's not where the party is, it's how an organization views economic development. And I think I'm fine with that as long as we understand the unique environment and values of our historic district and the role that it plays, not just in Olympia, but also I think for Lacey and Tumwater.

The greater Thurston County. Yeah, for the greater.

I mean, we have a true historic downtown. We have a Victorian and Angorian downtown. It's really unique. And really, aside from the banks right now and the hotels, we don't have to. We have all small businesses. And that, I hope and want that to be seen as desirable and aspirational, not as impeding corporate America playing a larger role in our historic district.

You know what makes me feel, like, better about that element? is that Aslan was the chair of the Economic Development Committee on the ODA for- And on the board. I know. And on the board. So like, I do feel like when I've worked with him and like, from what I've seen of his involvement with that board, with that committee specifically, I didn't get, I feel like he understands the,

value of like small businesses too and Aslan is actually a friend of mine I don't I mean this beyond like Jim or Aslan or Susan I mean I mean an organizational perspective because you can have people and organizations and this I'm not saying that EDC is not this way but I don't want it to be personality driven like we're working with Jim and Jim's like he gets it I want, when we describe the scope of what we want and how we envision them supporting that, for us to be clear about how we see this and what this means to small businesses. That's it.

I think that's an excellent point. I think that's the true legend of Downtown Olympia is that it's not Americana, it's not the strip malls, it's not, and it's so unique to have, I mean, all of us in the state, we're business owners in Downtown Olympia, There's not Chick-fil-A representative, there's not a representative. And I think that that is key to the personality.

Yeah, I think it's key to our thriving, actually, and how we are distinct as a community and also as an environment. And I do think that it is our long-term differentiation and what we'll draw from all those areas. I would say corporate America is doing fine. They don't need our historic data. And also kind of look at it the other way.

Maybe they can bring in some knowledge that they see from corporate America in a small business world where maybe we don't have that expertise. And they're like, well, have you ever thought or have you done this? Or this is what's been successful in this arena and maybe can help grow the small businesses. Yeah.

Like the social media use of like from the city, like what happened at our arts walk was so crazy. There was barely any coverage. So yes, I agree.

Yeah. Don't. bring more expertise to the table from, you know, I kind of agree.

We need more. I think also bringing them in on a project like this will actually work in the other direction as well because they're going to learn about downtown. They're going to learn from small businesses and that could help their organization as well. For sure. They can get that perspective.

We're going to teach them. I'll see if they can attend June's meeting to kind of be a kickoff of starting phase two, if that works with their schedule.

That would be awesome. I mean, they might have access to county and state level rooms that they don't even know about.

Probably.

Fun stuff.

Like a party.

Yeah. They need people to enroll in their classes, too. I'm sure that's something. Yeah. And they are good classes. They are. Scale up and all the tuned up stuff. It's a different perspective, I will say. But it is very helpful. All right.

Any other discussion on this? Seeing none, we move on to item 6B, which is this discussion about the board and attendance. And if we want to consider Removing specifically Janice hasn't been at a meeting in over a year, I think. In our last election, we had candidates, you know, we had an extra candidate that didn't win, but someone who's interested. And I think if someone is interested, I was putting it forward to Jenica to bring us on the agenda because I think we should move forward and get someone to pull it back.

Yeah. I want to say her number as public record. I've been trying to get a hold of her, and I haven't. I've left voicemails, texts, a call.

Maybe I don't have the right number. She might be at the board meeting tonight.

Is the number that's in our group chat accurate?

She does sometimes respond.

In the current group chat, since we've had this configuration of board, I went back and she hasn't. So I was like, I hope I still have the right number. Well, just the meeting update reminder chat.

Does she go to the OJ meeting?

Very rarely, but she did go to one last time. And so she very well might be.

I know that a few months ago, Jenica did reach out and got a hold of her and said she was interested, but she's interested in continuing. But like I said, it's been a year.

Yeah, I mean, so I did look up the policy and I included... the language and the staff report. But according to the bylaws, even just missing three consecutive meetings provides you standing to consider.

So can we just go by those? Yeah. If she wants to, she can react.

But should we first tell her we're doing this? She's been emailed. Her text message is called.

Well, a few months ago, that's what came up again. When I spoke with her on the phone, in which she said she wanted to continue, I had shared that. But

In my text, I just asked to chat about PBIA. OK.

So, yeah, maybe we should give her a final warning. Just because I'm . I think .

I love ,, but I just want someone to attend.

This isn't slight against her in any way, shape, or form. It's just more of the fact that some

my suggestion is not that we don't go ahead with this procedure i think we should just inform her rather than ask her is are you still interested yeah absolutely and i would also say that she's totally welcome to be nominated to be on the election again too you know if you're referring then she's like no i do want to be involved i'm like all right then back on the way on the ballot and if she wins the election then she's back on i do remember because when i was

trying to, before the schedule change was an option, I looked at the bylaws and there was also an option where you can like kind of like pause. Yeah. Until they kind of respond in that way.

Yeah. Too much of a difference because if we pause, you don't want to elect someone. Right. And so, you know, if we wanted to wait another month, that's essentially pausing or you could move forward.

I've only seen her twice in the two years.

She's already killing me. Whether she says it or not, not showing up is a statement. It's not important enough for somebody to show up, and I think we all are here because we think this is important. Or she's just not able.

For a whole year, though?

You have Wednesday for two hours for over a course of a year once in a while. That's BS. Or she just can't do it. That's fine. I get it.

I don't think the why really matters. Let's meet tomorrow and get another voice at the table.

Do you want to give a motion to inform Janet that we're...

I'm going to give a motion to inform our own supporter.

The motion will be for removal and then I'll try... If you can get a hold of her. Yeah, I'll try and get her.

Actually, isn't the board meeting tonight? Yeah.

All right. Do we have a motion to remove Janice as board member after many months of absences?

I move to remove Janice per the bylaws of absent in three consecutive meetings.

OK. Do we have a second? No.

I'll second.

All right. Monique seconds. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? Abstaining? All right, motion passes. Do we, can we put on next month's agenda about elections then?

Yeah, so I will put out a call for nominations before next month and then I will bring that, I can bring that back in June, and then we can have elections in June.

Sure. And especially reach out to Uptown, Uptown Grill was the first thing.

Yeah, because I was surprised to see a third name on the list. I was like, I don't know who this is.

Right, as I'm saying, we have interests. Usually we're dragging people to the table, so.

Well, you said you're interested too, so there you go.

I mean, I'm not Michelle, she's amazing, and I would be happy to Is it Michelle? Michelle's uptown.

I thought we weren't doxing anybody.

Whoever it was was on the ballot last night.

I say reach out to them again because they were obviously interested. She's a friend. I used to work for her. I will gladly go by and have a discussion.

Remember that we can always add more people to the board as long as we still have an odd number. We could theoretically add It has to be an odd number.

It's a tiebreaker.

So as of today, we're at 10. So we need somebody.

Well, two, four, six, eight, nine.

Are we discussing in Janice? No. So we have two people out today. We have 11.

I might, but after. Yes. I want to read the bylaws again, because I know of somebody steps off, you appoint somebody. It's a matter of removal.

Do we have to open an election or can we appoint to fill the vacant seat until the end of the term?

Without Janice, we are at 10.

Right. That's why I was saying if we have two elections next month or if we can just appoint, then maybe we don't have to go through the whole process. We'd have to find out how much longer Janice's term is until we find that stuff out.

Yeah, and so what I'll do is, because either way, we would be kind of waiting for action next month. And so I'll either follow up with an email saying, please come with appointments ready in June, or if the bylaws say that it does need to be an election, I'll put out the nominee request to the public. And then we'll meet back in June.

Cool.

Great. I wonder what you can do. It would be bad to have a few extra people going into this process. It does increase quorum, though. It does increase quorum. We've been doing pretty good with that lately.

Time change maybe is better for people. Yes. The only thing is then we don't get the juicy. We don't have our ODAs, though. to bring forward. The legality about, like, this is a public. This meeting, so anything said here is public.

But when you're on a board that's not public, you don't have to, like, ODA doesn't have to adhere to that Open Public Meeting Act as a nonprofit. versus the city.

We have to have open, transparent meetings. So then does a board member get in trouble for saying things that are said in that meeting? Like, it's not public, but is it private? If you say it to us, do you think here or here think to ODA? Like, if we said an ODA thing here...

I mean, I think that would be depending what the item is and what... We'll talk to everybody about it.

On our behalf. Yes. See you later.

But in general, anything that you say here, anything that's written, like communications are all covered.

Yeah, okay. We are on the public record here. You're not on the public record there.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right, so that concludes six Bs. Moving on to item seven, do we have any reports today? Nothing from the city to report to us?

No, I have like a FYI item.

OK. You want that under reports or other topics? OK. Well, Dean, no report. We can give you other topics.

So just kind of an FYI, I just finished up the downtown vacancy study and took that to council last night. And because it's hyper focused on downtown, I just wanted to let you know. And I'd be happy to share the report with anybody. I thought it was really interesting. Because the intent of the report was to really have a data-driven understanding of why we see vacancies, like specifically long-term vacancies downtown. Where are we seeing that? Is it the new ground floor commercial? Is it historic buildings? Why is there a difference? What can the city do? Because ultimately, like, they do recognize that a lot of this is, like, market factors and factors that the city has no control over. But, like, there are things that are a real house. And what is that? And so they came back and I thought it was really interesting. One of the items was encouraging the city to evaluate the triggers for half street improvements. And so recognizing that adaptive reuse or redevelopment of certain buildings, especially when it changes the type of use of the building can trigger just with maybe 20 additional vehicle trips needing to improve the actual street, not just like frontage improvements, like trees and stuff. And so that was one of the ones that the city seems particularly interested to look at. Could you reword that? I'm not sure. Like having, depending on the pavement ratings, a development might have to actually improve part of the street. Okay, gotcha. Which is, you know, like what's happening.

Like next to Dunster. Like they've got that wonky sidewalk on that project. Yeah, but not each of the three.

It's based off of a traffic study that every business has to do. So when we went in, we had to hire somebody to do a traffic study of how many new additional cars would be on the road in front of Altitude 15. And what does that entail? Does that increase the wear and tear of the street out in front? If that was determined, we would, as the owners of the building, have to literally tear up the street and put new street down.

Whatever it is, it can be thicker.

I don't know that. Because it was already done through Providence. But it could be tens, hundreds of thousands of dollars, depending on the scope of the span of your storefront. As a building owner. I believe that, well, it would probably be a conjunction as a business building owner because it would be a partnership between the two. But for us, it would just be us because we're both. It depends on the size of the business?

It depends on the perceived traffic. If you're going from retail to retail, that's the same use. But if you're going from warehouse to retail, that would be a change of use that would trigger that. And for Olympia, the threshold, I think, is $20,000. trips, a 20 trip increase in which the consultants found was really unusual. Like many other areas don't have that type. Like they said, Lacey has a similar policy, but there's a thousand trips. And so one of their recommendations was trying to highlight that this is an opportunity for the city to evaluate that policy. And that seemed to have some interest. Another one was was just pointing out that most of our vacancies, 66% of our vacancies are in our historic buildings. And they were saying, you know, the costs for TIs are so high to get an energy code and some of the items like this. And so they had put some recommendations for the city to consider like a low interest loan for new equipment for new businesses going into historic spaces. So any way that we can kind of reduce the capital needs. Some other recommendations are because we see some ground floor commercial vacancy for the city to include live, work, flexibility in development. And so not for like primary streets, but for secondary streets. So then that can kind of flow with the market. If someone wants to live there, that could be a residential spot. If this is a good economy and the market's great, somebody can put a business there. And so we got some recommendations that I thought were really great. Some policy changes for street eateries. So for people, for businesses, they recommended the city look at our policies to make it easier for you to build kind of those parklet style for outdoor dining to increase the amount of space that you have.

I have a recommendation that nobody asked for, but has been kicking around in my head for a while since I was looking at that space across Formosa. There are a lot of downtown buildings that have, like, asbestos tile or other asbestos issues, and I feel like the city could do something like hiring an abatement appropriate, like, group and do some kind of, like, bulk discount or something for businesses to do all of that asbestos abatement like all at the same time or all together or something because like one of the reasons I moved out of like the first space I was in was because there was asbestos tile in our storage space that the building owner just didn't want to deal with and I didn't want to expose my employees to and the reason I didn't take that space um on the corner across from OSA was because they had really damaged asbestos tile under like a thin layer of carpet that the building owner just wanted me to deal with or wanted me to like have somebody illegally work on. And I know the same thing happened with the old lamplighter space.

I was going to ask you what you know about that.

I know a lot about that. Yeah, so that was just in general. So there's a lot more in there.

They recommend considering looking more into a parking garage. I don't know. But I'd be happy to share with anyone who's interested.

Where are you? On the work list? I'd love to see it.

Around new builds that are seeking tenants in there. Yeah, say that again. They recommend, you guys should probably be doing this.

They do not recommend vacancy tax. And why is that? They have a pretty long section on it, but essentially they think that eventually the market will correct it when there's enough demand for it. When do they do that?

What?

What do they think eventually means? A decade? If you have it, like, It has a nice long section.

What's the party that gave this recommendation?

The consultant group. And so they do some more real estate or planning projects across.

Because you witnessed me having a conversation about a space with a property owner who straight up told me that it just... basically having tenants in there, and I'm paraphrasing, was annoying and they just didn't want to deal with it. And I mentioned that it was across from a friend of mine that had a business. Like, it might be annoying to you, but it actually impacts, like you have a dead space and they're just like, it's not worth it. Like that's, it's not worth it. So when we have that, and these are obviously newer builds, that's like the place is ready to go because I'm not going to share the place I was talking about. But it's like, they're not trying. They're not even doing art in the window, not trying. We're long-term, not going to lease a space, but we're going to do other things to make it look engageable. It's like boxes up against the window, long-term vacancy. So that has been there for at least as long as I have been downtown. and actually that place has been there since the building was built partially built for a very long time yeah for so they built that with the intention of not filling it and when i hear uh and they're talking about building something else downtown like they have they're building something else downtown so when i hear that it's frustrating to me because that's where we get big developers making, like these people don't live in our community. So when that happens, it's like the city is, that's my concern of not understanding, like consultants not understanding or people not understanding the culture that we have here and the impact that that has because then the city doesn't, use whatever teeth they have to say, you might not, this might not, yes, tenants are annoying, but you can't do builds knowing that you're not bringing people in because you're making enough money doing other things. It affects us.

My thought would be that live work will be a good option because if they know they can go residential, they are going residential.

And so I think live work might be a good option. Isn't downtown mostly zone mixed use anyway? Like any building being used?

Mandatory ground floor commercial requirements, it's not that extensive. That's something that they looked at because there had been questions of what's best practice. And they're like, Olympia is following best practice for ground floor commercial requirements because it's on very select streets. And so I think that's something that I support maintaining because Um, as the market changes, like if everything's residential, you know, like we, we want the option for commercial, I mean, it's up to your whole business owners. Um, but that's why I think the live work option is great because it's like, sorry, I agree. Vacant spots is not good for anybody. And so that at least gives some flexibility there that, um, and I imagine if you're a developer and you have an option of creating more capacity in the same size building with a, that might get filled with residential.

That's what we're feeling. they're not filling it. They are actively, and that is not a value that they have because they're making enough money in other ways that they don't have to. And I guess that's the part that's frustrating that if the city doesn't see the impact that has, and these are not mom and pop, these are developers building larger units and we can look around and see that that is, a pattern, like I'm sure it showed up in that report. I walk around, I count them.

So they can kind of... Well, and council is looking at the recommendations and they're going to be kind of chatting amongst themselves about how they would like to see them implemented and prioritized. So more information to come.

I have a question in that report about environmental. Like phase two environmentals, when you sell a building, you have to dig

But yeah, I'll definitely send that out to everybody and let me know what you think.

You don't actually want to know what I think. I don't always want to know what you think.

So. All right. Any other topics for discussion? I don't know. Okay. Alden has two.

One thing, I don't know if everybody knows that the city changed their working ticket stuff pretty significantly. So the city isn't issuing or dealing with them anymore. It's all been routed into the Thurston District Court. So you can't pay tickets downtown anymore. You can't talk to people like on the phone about tickets or you can't use the city's like the permit app to review or pay tickets. And the Thurston District Court doesn't have it set up so that tickets can be paid online. I did hear that. And they have no idea when they will eventually integrate that.

How do you have to go to the courthouse?

You have to go to the courthouse up on the hill during typical business hours to pay for it. Or you can mail it. Or you can try the call. They kept me on hold for almost two hours and dropped the call repeatedly because they don't have enough people to staff your phones.

Nobody thought of this.

Yeah. Something to maybe tell your employees and that I think should generally be on record. Probably would have been a good thing to advise, but parking and parking services still exist as a part of the issue that takes, but you can't contact them in any way. They don't like answer questions. And there's no, it's not like integrated into, like, I still got a mail from the city's thing telling me that I had gotten a ticket, but it's not on their, that website anymore. It used to be that you could just like pay it on there and you could see your tickets and stuff.

Do we know why that got transferred?

I was trying to look it up. There was like, as far as I can tell, there was no public information about it. It wasn't like, it doesn't seem like anyone was really informed of it.

Revenue tickets go now. That's, that's what I wonder. It used to always be the parking service. It's kind of a thing that just maintained itself and collected money and paid wages.

Yeah. I mean, at least the paying for parking part, I don't know. I'm assuming the ticketing part's part of it, but that was, that was also part of it.

Yeah. For the,

any people and the people in the office vacancy study did they talk about parking at all yeah they have a whole section on parking um and had kind of i think they said often like we're at the 85 full range which to them you know triggers that you might want to think about how how your parking situation is and evaluate a parking garage um and if that's needed

I have to say that I have a feeling that this is probably going to impact how people outside of downtown perceive downtown. Yes, this is not good for anything else that has happened in the past. All it takes is one person to get a ticket in downtown from Lacey, find no way of being able to pay it, hold a grudge against going into downtown.

Tell all their friends.

Tell all their friends.

This is no one already.

Oh, my God.

That's so frustrating. Write something on behalf collectively of the PDIA board and be like, what's going on? Why weren't we informed about this change? And someone who sits and doles money out.

I would love if somebody from parking services could, like, come in and talk to us about this at the next meeting. Sure, yeah. Because we've had them come in and ask us, what do you think about this potential change?

They were great. So they were going to come if we had held last meeting to chat about seeing if anybody was interested for a pilot of something having to do with coupons that we'd be giving to people. Yeah, so they were going to come probably for a meeting, but then we'd cancel.

Yeah.

Well, they can talk about that too.

Yeah. My understanding is they want to do that because they want to get rid of the 15 minute buttons. Awful. I'm putting this on record. Terrible, stupid thing to do.

Great. When they come out, you can tell them how we feel. Why are they? I don't know.

I guess you probably don't know, but they're just like, it seems it's like making something more cumbersome.

Yeah. Yeah.

And for people, yes, and for people. Jenica, who holds the policy decision? I'm sorry, I'm an outside public member.

Jenica, who holds the policy decision? What's that?

Who holds the policy decision for those approvals? Because that's a contract. That's a contract with the city that obviously got farmed out that the district court took over. So who, is it parking services that determines that or is that city council?

I don't know. not enough to speed on this issue and that's so that's something that feels problematic for the pva to be completely out of the loop as opposed to well i guess i would so the pbis function as the fund advisory board um it is not it's not built in that we would have parking decisions coming no but he's not required to talk to us yeah and so i'm saying that like General awareness is not good. There was not anything procedurally or process-wise that wasn't done.

I will say, though, that I think logically the city could understand that making major changes to parking policy and administration would impact small businesses. So I guess I would like it on record that the organization or the group, the board that the city has convened, if you will, to advise them, and right now we are a PBIA, so parking is in there, that it would be a natural step to inform that board specifically because of the impact on small businesses. And employees. And employees and on people coming into our historic, because we, are representing the ambassadors, which is all of us small businesses, when we are talking to the public, when we don't know, we can't communicate what the sea change is. And whether or not the city takes our advice or takes our opinions into matter and decision-making, that's a separate matter. But functionally, it seems like a missed opportunity not to, include this board and at least updating so that we can go and be ambassadors about what's happening because we're getting a certain to a kiss um like you happen to have an experience and then you did a little dive now we're hearing about it and then it's um let's use the let's be efficient and use the methods that we have in place.

We're going to catch the fly for it.

No, absolutely. And we could also be the messengers giving the message and teaching people how to like, it's a missed opportunity.

I guess I'll just say, I'm happy to ask. I think that they would like to come. They had planned to come last month to talk about this other item. And yeah, I think it's always great to share additional information, but just to state it is also not in the scope of the group for them, but always happy to make sure that there's additional communication.

Who has partner services now? I'm kind of interested too.

Partner services.

Sarah's asking if I have a partner to talk to pay what the front desk has to say.

They're just going to tell you that you have to. That they can't take care of anything. That they can't do anything with it.

Really?

Yeah. That's what happened to one of my employees is they came down here to pay it, and we're told, like, oh, we don't do that anymore.

Yeah, that actually, one of my employees told me that. I walk, so I don't.

No other information given?

I think they were just told that they had to go to the courthouse.

Yeah. I got a parking ticket. I paid it, and they sent it, and they returned it to me. Oh, no.

On your website, it says it's the city also.

Oh, there we go. Oh, okay.

Yep. It's a city hall.

On the city website, it's telling people to go.

The district court's website said that you can pay parking tickets through their portal. But if you type in your parking ticket, it will say like no record found or something. And the person on the phone told me that they had not yet integrated

the systems together.

I don't know everything about it, but the bus changes, one of the big ones is the 41 from Evergreen directly to downtown is cut. So there is now no way to get from Evergreen or Division In general, you end up at SPS directly. Yeah, you can't get directly. Yeah, you have to take a transfer. It takes you a long direction and it takes twice as long.

It takes to the mall first. Yeah.

You have to transfer. And when somebody reached out to, I think it's like the head of a new city, somebody very official. the response that they basically said, like, that they are prioritizing the West Side as a hub. And that, like, service, like, connecting to downtown and making sure that downtown was accessible is not a priority in this.

capital triangle there's like a big development thing that just went through i can't remember it's like going to be in like 2040 or yeah it's it's been planning it's a very

Well, did we miss something we were supposed to protest against this change? Yeah, probably.

There's a lot of sessions and information sessions, but a lot of people attended and were like, we want to be able to get directly to downtown because there's no West Side Food Bank. There's no West Side. There's technically a library in the mall.

Yeah.

But, you know, the library has other issues going on right now. There's no.

I personally think that our largest college needs a direct line to our downtown for mental well-being for students. When you silo students, I'm not kidding. When you silo students into that experience and you stop integrating them into our arts and food and festivals, It is poor health outcomes. And work. They can't work. And work. And that, to me, is another systemic online thing today. It's another systemic supporting more corporate culture than independent business.

We'll make people drive more also.

These are people that are driving. These are people taking public transportation. So you silo people into experiences by access.

And you'll get both. I think that's a good point.

I think we'll start driving more. Because I took the bus for a while, and it was easier. And then when I stopped making sense, I just drove more.

Yeah.

Not all students have that option.

Right. My first out of Washington experience with college was moving to Prescott, Arizona, of all places. And the community college, Yavapai, that I went to was downtown. Prescott College was downtown. And then Emory Riddle was way out in the middle of nowhere. Emory Riddle students just stuck out in the middle of nowhere.

Yeah.

a lot of money.

Well, is there any way we can change it? Nope.

We have neither the parent nor the student. Even I was trying to think of how with public services, because scope wise, your scope is limited to the fund advisory for your PBI funds. It's not a larger advisory body to the city. And so I don't know that it would be best practice for us to start inviting people outside of your scope of work for these meetings. But I'm having to try and think of an alternative. Considering that we are young business owners, how can we provide an avenue for you to get better updates from certain groups?

Yeah, I think rather than thinking of us as us advising them, because you're right, we are not as a board going to go to IT and advise them how to do it. However, we do have an opportunity to be informed by these people so that we are better educated when we're making recommendations on how those funds are used. So knowing that we don't have a direct link to our largest college That is pretty significant for both employment and engagement. I'm constantly, as an alumni there, trying to, you know, in the 90s, people were, that was, downtown was flooded with college students. Flooded. Multiple bars, restaurants, clubs, coffee shops, bookstores, college students. I don't see that anymore at all.

Orca cannot get those kids in that building. We have tried. anything and everything and they are not.

Yeah, it is really such a bellwether change from the reef impact with college students, all these places. So I think it is important for our economic outlook. And I think if we can be better informed on those systemic changes, then we can advocate in other ways.

I think not directly to inner city transit, but in terms of our relationship with council and how we advise them on, you know, just the general health of business in downtown. I think that falls in our scope to still continue.

I guess I've seen in the rollback with ODA here because part of ODA's role is to be advocate and liaison for downtown businesses to other entities. And so I think that there's an opportunity of thinking how we engage ODA for some of these discussions.

We'll bring that to the board meeting.

There you go. Yeah, I do think, though, that it's like, is the 41 also the bus?

Yes, it's the same route, and they did keep the late bus. So it is still doing that. It's not the commuting version of it. It's just the late bus. My roommate is a bus driver.

It's true, though.

I'm sure when they did the study, they noticed that there's less people using it coming from Evergreen.

Evergreen enrollment is down 50% since they made the route. It's not even in the top 10 most used routes of all of the interstate transit routes. I see it from there. Yeah. So there are reasons that it got cut, but they should have made some other option.

with the rest of the West Side suffering just because Evergreen is down.

Yeah, and to the mall first. I think it's like some other connection to the mall. Yeah. It just doesn't make sense. Like, it's like the mall. Right, there's nothing in the mall.

They're using the mall as a transit.

Yeah, it just means you have to take 15 extra minutes to the next bus to take you down or whatever. It's like the same...

You know, it doesn't seem big enough to that. I mean, it just feels like a prioritization of like corporate businesses and like these larger scale, you know, like prioritizing the west side as a hub. But when they say that, they mean the mall. And there aren't small local businesses for the most part in the mall and in that area in general. And even with that, like, you know, that future plan, I can't imagine it's going to be connecting students with local businesses.

It used to be. Janice, who's not here, but she would tell you her business was in the mall originally, and it was a very different landscape.

Okay.

Okay.

Thanks. Thanks, Alden, for presenting it real high.

Any other topics?

Art Club seemed great.

Busy.

Yeah. It was bumping.

Yeah.

It was great. Because it was on Percival Landing, we got way less foot traffic. No one walked down that far.

Art Club was on Percival Landing?

The vendors booth and all of the art vendors. They used to be outside of Orca. People would walk all the way down Fifth. Not this year.

You know, it's funny. We have this perfectly good just city park that's right next to the crypt that would just be like, you know, an amazing place to set up vendors for something like a citywide walk of art to display. You could even have local artists selling their stuff there. And it would like promote art.

You could call it like an artesian.

Art.

I will say over the years there has been an appetite from some downtown businesses to not always hold the events at 5th and Washington, basically, to spread it out. There's one example, so I think that's probably why they moved it around. Or maybe they said more, I don't know exactly.

They had a flat across the street from us that is last year because they couldn't get into their apartment.

Oh, yeah. I can't even get to my downtown house during it. I've still cut through streets, but then I just get yelled at and drive a brand new vehicle, so that sucks. I love being off the footprint.

Yeah. Yeah. And it is great. Yeah, I'll come there to use our restrooms, which are not technically public restrooms. But I also will go on record that the city needs more restrooms.

We have one close.

They're gonna work to improve. Oh, wow. I'll double check.

Because originally, we were told that I'll never come back because it's Yeah, busted.

Yeah, many I would double check. It might have changed recently, but at one point recently, they were planning to.

Also, were there port-a-potties at our swap? No.

That went to our bathroom.

There were not. I don't know.

At least the state bathrooms were probably open down by the water, but still, you'd need more. And if they do fix the port in Portland, Lou, they should also install like two or three more.

In past years, they have had port-a-potties for arts law.

It's a city event. That was a city-funded event. How do you not with that?

Tens of thousands of people coming through and probably more.

Do we know the attendance versus previous years? Because it seemed like a lot of people.

Yeah, it did.

This year was for the weather. Yeah.

Ever has attended arts law. Say that again? I attended the procession.

We have geomapping. Could we get a geomap of the attendance?

Yeah, I know that they do that.

I mean, we used to get geomapping information here.

Are you able to access that geomapping?

Yeah. Yeah. I'm curious what those numbers are. The city doesn't have that. I have Placer AI.

Oh, you do? If every weekend was like that, we wouldn't have to worry about vacant buildings and downtown buildings.

My thought about that, I wonder why they do the craft market the same weekend as the art swap. Because it's such a short period of time.

I have an answer for you. Because it used to be very focused on getting those artists paired with businesses, right? It used to be all in businesses, and there wasn't the outside fair. And then one of the people... working but is like an actual employee for arts block it was like her brainchild and she put a bunch of effort into having like the outside market and they basically were just like we are not ever going to stop doing this part of it because they like it and the artists like make a shit ton of money make a lot of money that way and it is but why not just do it and do two separate events it could be two separate events I found as wanting to see stuff

I just couldn't make it everywhere.

You can already barely promote and like do, you know, like get the information. Like our events have been printed wrong. Like the dates, the times have been printed wrong in the official marketing a couple of times.

I think it's harder to get people to come into your business to see the artist because they all go to the factory.

yeah like the artist is just sitting here with all of their art like inside the bookstore but i've heard from artists they do sometimes like being inside better than out there yeah yeah especially the weather you know yeah but there was a the oda had the um organizers come and had like a little question and answer session which i complained loudly about the like why are we focusing on having this outdoor fair where, you know, the artists stuff gets all rained on and whatever. And like, it doesn't promote, you know, artists making these connections with businesses and it really doesn't help the businesses at all. And that year they also put businesses or put the art market in a way that like blocked businesses. So they've been like, tell that there wasn't good ways to get behind the big rooms and booths into the businesses. And the arts organizers were basically just like, well, we're going to keep doing it because we like it and the artists have given us positive feedback about it. And we don't care for that, but we're like, well, we're going to keep doing it.

And was that the thinking of putting them on the waterfront this year?

I think what I was suggesting was putting them in the city-owned parking lots. Because, like, spread of arms. Yeah, there's multiple small parking lots.

And it still makes you walk around. Yeah.

Right. And it wouldn't be blocking off the smaller streets.

Yeah.

And they wouldn't like people who want to drive downtown.

Who's the board that inspired the Arts Alliance or something? Isn't there another board that works with ArtsLock? The something board, creative board.

Oh, yeah.

The creative district? No, it's the art space alliance. Oh, yeah. The art space alliance.

No, it's one of the advisory boards.

I'm just trying to, yeah.

Yeah, it's one of the city. It might be, I can't remember which one it is, but it is one of the city advisory boards. I can remember they were at that advisory board meeting we went to, right?

Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, it might be a good one to think about just because it's... You know, good, fresh info.

Can we call it? It's about 1 o'clock. Let's adjourn. I'm going to officially adjourn the Wednesday, May 6th, PVA.advisory board meeting at 1 p.m.

Thank you. Thank you. Uh, yeah.