Economic Development Committee - Regular Meeting

Steven Robillard for the Economic Development Committee, and I'm hereby calling it to order at three 03:03 today. Go ahead and go to item number one, which is public comments. And if you go ahead and play the recording, please.

Public comment is now open for this item. Available in both English and Spanish. Call (951) 826-8686 and follow the prompts to access the meeting in either language. To request to speak, press 9. You can also join via Zoom. The meeting ID for both languages can be found on the agenda.

Okay. So we have no cars to speak in chambers and we have no callers for item number one. We'll go ahead and move on to our presentation from Blue Zones Project Riverside by Erin Edwards, executive director of Blue Zones Project Riverside and former council member for Ward 1. Thank you.

Thank you so much. It's so good to be here. Thank you for having us here today to speak about and spotlight the potential for economic development through Blue Zones Project Riverside. And first and foremost, I want to share gratitude to our sponsors, specifically the city of Riverside who officially voted to support this public private partnership on 08/06/2024. I like to start always with our purpose, with our promise.

So the purpose of Blue Zones Project Riverside is that everyone, everywhere lives better longer, and our promise is more good years. And this concept of thriving for the long term is also the purpose of economic development in our city. And while our Blue Zones Project is inspired by the five original Blue Zones and what helps people live better longer, Blue Zones Project Riverside is about us. It's about our city and how we are helping residents, businesses and educational institutions thrive. I won't spend too much time here but I do just want to share quickly where we are in our process.

We're just at the end of foundation and planning, which has been engaging stakeholders on our policy priorities. You'll see that here in the discovery and the summit section. This week, we'll have a draft of our blueprint, which is the strategy document that guides our work that will go to the steering committee for comments. And this will be revealed to the general public at our kickoff festival on May 17, and I'll be sharing more information about that at the end of this presentation. And then finally, after May 17, we'll have the green light to really start year one of five of our work.

To ensure that we tie Blue Zones Project's economic development work to our local Riverside priorities, I have taken a look at the strategies in Riverside's economic development strategic plan. And though we have yet to officially begin our year one work, I do see ways in which our Blue Zones project work connects back to all six. I'll start with citywide revitalization. The city's economic development strategic plan speaks to events throughout the city, throughout the year, parklets for public use, and the word citywide really is crucial here. Blue Zones Project Riverside is a project for our entire city, and we have been very, very intentional about setting that tone from the beginning, starting with our November stakeholder launch in Camp Anza and Ward 6 that you can see on the slide here, and policy summits at the Zapara Business School at La Sierra University in Ward 7.

For both events, we had hundreds of employees and I loved this. We even heard feedback at both events from stakeholders who'd never been in either of those spaces before, but who were so inspired after having come for a Blue Zones Project event that they wanted to come back and possibly think about hosting their own events in those spaces in the future. From the policy angle for citywide revitalization, thanks to the work that local stakeholders have done to help us narrow down our priorities, we'll be focusing on more festival like streets, thinking of a proposed emphasis on Wards 3 And 5, revitalizing vacant places like parking lots with pop up events, supporting satellite community centers and senior centers among other priorities. Because we know that getting people out and about and not just in our downtown core keeps people safe and engaged in the city. City pride, which is a marker of economic development, increased by nine points during the Blue Zone project in Fort Worth, Texas.

So we will also be tracking community pride in Riverside via the Gallup Well-being Index because we know that cities with resident attachment or pride also have the highest level of GDP growth per a study by the Knight Foundation. And in our baseline survey through Gallup, we found that Riverside, our city, is tracking four points below the national average when it comes to community pride. We also ask in that survey, is the city the perfect place for you? And in this baseline survey, Riverside tracked nine points below the national average here. So we know that we have work to do, but we are confident that this project can amplify existing efforts, put new wheels in motion to increase pride, a sense of place, and community revitalization.

Open space and recreation. The city's economic development strategies here speak to funding key park improvements and pursuing additional funding. Blue Zones Project Riverside does track time spent outdoors and dollars leveraged as community chosen metrics in our blueprint. And we will be a champion for city parks throughout the city looking for ways to support park improvements via demonstration and marquee projects. We'll also seek additional ways to bring dollars to projects that promote outdoor movement and wellness.

And I am happy to share that even since launching our Blue Zones Project Riverside office, we have been a thought partner to the city's Every Child Deserves a Bike project on the East Side, even helping to bring a new funder to the table for this year's event on May 3. In the economic areas of green tech and arts and tourism, Blue Zones Project Riverside has already provided letters of support for two city grants for green tech projects. One of our food systems policy priorities is helping to develop phases two and three of the Northside Ag Innovation Center, which will help, as you know, to develop the farming practices for the future and to train our future ag workforce. And we were also very proud to be the lead sponsor of the Grow Riverside this year, supporting this important convening for local growers and merging our food policy summit with the event, which brought more visibility and attendees as well. And in the realm of tourism, a Minnesota Blue Zones project, throughout their project, found a 48% increase in tourism from start to finish.

And I hope to be able to share similar data with you toward the end of our project, but I can share this. I was able to present at the mobile workshop of the APA conference that was hosted here in Riverside and talk very briefly about Blue Zones Project Riverside. And afterward, one of the attendees, a planner from another city, came up to me and said, how can I live in a Blue Zone Project community? And I said, oh, I'd be happy to put you in touch with the national office so you can learn more about how to bring this to your city. And she said, oh, no.

What I meant is I actually really wanna move to Riverside, and I'm excited that you're doing this work here. So we're already seeing the very beginning of this. Workforce development. Looking at the strategic plan, we see the priorities of collaborating with schools and industry and developing apprenticeship programs. Alvord Unified and Riverside Unified School Districts train the students who are our future workforce.

And Blue Zones Project supports by helping students in both districts become Blue Zone approved. I'm happy to share that we are already in conversations with AUSD, with RUSD, and also with California School for the Deaf. We are also already in collaboration with RUSD's Career Technical Education Program. We're seeking ways in which we can make connections to the big employers who are in the process of becoming Blue Zone approved to explore apprenticeships for our students, which will keep students trained and employed in our city. We're also reaching out to colleges and universities as we look to engage students in career training opportunities via internships in our own office.

And we actually had our first intern this spring, a recent graduate from Cal Baptist with a degree in literature and an interest in food policy work. And of course, I would be remiss if I didn't share that Blue Zones Project Riverside, thanks to our sponsors, has created 10 full time positions for our local team here. And as of the March, all of those positions are now filled. It really is the dream team. They're team members from across the Inland Empire, so they're very local to our project.

They come from across the city with experience in city and county government, the nonprofit sector, small business ownership, education and communications. And they will be and are already receiving professional development training from national and local subject matter experts, which will not only inform their work here for this project, but also above and beyond the project here in our city. Quality of life. Looking at the economic development strategic plan, one of the strategies was for city staff to receive training to increase bandwidth. Through our Blue Zones Project work site approval process, we are very honored and excited to begin with the eight fifty employees right here in City Hall and also within the city library sites across the city.

This will help give city employees a sense of purpose and belonging at work. It will provide methods for de stressing, will encourage natural movement and healthier eating. And I wanted to share that through such work in Blue Zones project in Hawaii, the employers Hawaii Telecom and the County Of Hawaii saw a 34% reduction in staff turnover and a 60% increase in employee performance. The NCH healthcare system in Florida, through their Blue Zones work, saw a 40% decline in lost workdays due to injury. So we will be tracking outcomes in the city of Riverside and we'll be able to report back to you at the end of our project.

And finally, financial stability. The strategy that stuck out to me here in the strategic plan was attracting businesses and customers. Through our Blue Zones Project Riverside Places pillar, we will be supporting grocery stores and restaurants to offer healthy options for customers and employees. So while on the surface and in practice, this is a great way to ensure an abundance of healthy options for Riverside residents, which will lead to improved health outcomes. The work of becoming a Blue Zone approved site also will lead to economic growth.

We'll help by increased publicity, cross promotions, for example, encouraging a Blue Zone approved worksite to use a Blue Zone approved restaurant in catering, and offering and publicizing a ribbon cutting when approval is official. And I am thrilled to preannounce that the Riverside Airport Cafe will become the first Blue Zone approved restaurant in our city. A big shout out to Le Momo Taylor, who is a Riverside pillar, who will be adding plant based items to her menu, but not taking anything away, who will be revamping the kids menu to provide fresh fruits as a side, and possibly even offering a discount to customers who take a few walking laps around the parking lot before they come in for brunch. And we'll be hosting the ribbon cutting from the main stage at our kickoff festival on May 17, where the Riverside Airport Cafe will be highlighted in front of, we're hoping, thousands of attendees. And we will also be purchasing food from the Riverside Airport Cafe for all of our event volunteers, and Le Momo will be providing samples of her new plant based options for attendees.

So we know this is going to create more fans of the Riverside Airport Cafe and customers for life. And in our blueprint, we will be tracking to the extent possible sales of healthy items, use of local vendors, and our certification goal is to have 44 restaurants, which is 10% at least, Blue Zone approved over the five years. And the last slide is just my official invitation to you to attend our kickoff festival on May 17 from ten to one at the Riverside Airport in Ward 3. We'll have words from our mayor, from council member Robillard, from Danny Butner junior of Blue Zones, and of course, from our first Blue Zone approved restaurant. And as you can see here, we have many fun activities for the whole family.

I don't know if I mentioned this is a free event. We'll have cooking demos, food samples, mocktails, Zumba, yoga, story time, planting arts and crafts, musical performances, even a musical petting zoo, because music is a way to de stress, and an official walk in together from the Harvest parking lot that will start at 09:45. So we hope to see you all there. And that concludes my presentation, but I'm, of course, happy to take any questions you might have.

Thank you Erin, that was a great presentation. I wanted to briefly say why we invited Blue Zones here to present on the Economic Development Committee is to share that this is not much more than a health initiative, this is a very holistic approach to helping our residents, and economic development is a a big component of that. And I have some more comments, but I'll open it up to my colleagues here.

Thank you so much. This was a beautiful highlight. Very grateful for the background, of course, on how Blue Zones is gonna serve our community, and great to hear about all the different places that you've been. I know your team has been very active, and congratulations on getting fully staffed. That is a huge accomplishment. But, yeah, we're I I'm thrilled. I'm I'm grateful I was able to come down to meet with your team to learn about what you're doing. We look forward to working with you in war two in the East Side and and all the the war two community, of course, and across city riverside to really integrate and see how we could get folks active. People are definitely excited when they hear and learn about it, and we'll definitely put this kickoff festival on the calendar. Thank you.

Thank you.

Yes to all of that. No. I've been able to see firsthand all the great work you've been doing. It's been a lot. And you can already see the synergy and the energy around this effort. And so I too will be supporting wherever I can. I love the notion of food samples and healthy food and food and food on here. So thank

you for

that. But no, this is great work and I'll look forward to the next update of amazing things happening. Thank you. And

thank you, Erin. And, you know, I wanna give a special shout out to Harvest for providing the parking because I I think we will have thousands of people there. And I know that's a big component to that, making this thing work at the airports. And, you know, just from my personal experience with the the what you guys are doing with the Blue Zones and why I think it'll be very effective in Riverside is, I know I went to the grand opening of Bushfire Kitchen in Canyon Crest. And sitting down with a couple of customers who are sitting by us and they said, yeah, we're so excited for this place because this is the only place that we know of that you can get grass fed steak and and have some healthy options.

And so I think a lot of people out there are very, very, hungry for those options. And, given the restaurants this opportunity to kinda refresh their menu a little bit and get that Blue Zone certification and and so people know that this is a healthy place to eat and they have healthy options. I know that LA Mamo, you know, she got diner food down pat. She has the diner food down and to expand the menu a little bit to have some of these healthier options. I think a lot like you said, it'll open up a whole new customer base that she didn't have previously. And so very, very excited for this, and I think the potential of, this being a little sticker that you can put on your business, I think, will be a very, very helpful thing in the future. I'm glad Riverside is part of that, but I think that's it for us. Thank you so much for the presentation.

Thank you.

And with that, we'll go ahead and move on to our discussion calendar. And this will be Citi branding efforts, including existing and upcoming initiatives updates, and Caitlin Ryerson, director of marketing communications, will be going ahead and kick this off for that. Thank you.

Good afternoon. Thank you for having me. I'm Caitlin Ryerson, your Director of Marketing and Communications here at the city. And I'm excited to provide you an update on our branding efforts, our accomplishments that we've had, and where we plan to go moving forward. So the marketing communications department exists to amplify Riverside's identity, values, and achievements.

We do this through creative channels that foster civic pride, promote economic growth, and promote community engagement and information. Our team, as you'll see behind me, everything that I'm going to be mentioning in the following slides would not be possible without each and every one of their intentions. Our team works very closely with all other departments to tell Riverside's story. As you're familiar, our work travels across multiple platforms, including graphic design, social media, Riverside TV, video and photography, website, branding, tourism efforts, and placemaking. Let's start with placemaking.

As a lifelong riversider, I know the ins and outs of Riverside. I know there's a lot of history here, and I know that there's a story to be told. So our role in marketing communications is to elevate that history, is to elevate that story, and part of how we're doing that is bringing that sense of place to the next level. As you can see here for Midtown, which is mainly focused on the business areas of the MAG Center area in Riverside, we're in the process of bringing additional identity to area. As you can see on the slides, there's banners up around the area supporting Midtown at Brockton Arcade, Elizabeth Street, and Midtown on Sunnyside.

We've also expanded our efforts in working with council member Mill and his constituents to rebrand the Arlington Village and to assist in those revitalization efforts. If you're driving down Magnolia, you will see an over the street banner for Arlington Village as well as those newly branded street pole banners along the street. And the Arts And Culture District. Back in 2005, the Arts And Culture District was identified in the general plan, but not a whole lot was really done to bring unique attention and activity to this space. So we worked alongside the council member and their constituents and businesses to create a look and feel for the ACD.

As you can see on these banners, we worked with local artists to elevate their artwork on the banners, and we've incorporated a lot of architecture as the background design. So there's, elements from the Fox Theater, from the Muni, from the Cheech. We carried that ACD branding over to the window wraps at Garage 3 along Main Street and University. So those thousands of vehicles driving by, they're not just driving by these blank tinted windows. It's now welcoming.

Welcome to the Arts And Culture District. It's giving an identification to the area. It's continued over into the trash bins in front of the Cheech and throughout different areas in the district as well as safety signs along the pedestrian mall. Several businesses in the area have also sponsored wraps that have now transformed traditionally blank canvases and eyesores of those electric box and utility boxes. So now it provides some continued branding throughout the district as well as some history and education.

To continue that energy through the ACD, the Year of Arts and Culture in the ACD was created. This effort is housed under the umbrella of Visit Riverside. It's on our Visit Riverside website, and it has really garnered great attention in showcasing community events, historic buildings and architecture, exhibitions, concerts, and celebrations of all walks of arts and culture. Here's the video. As you can see, a lot of things are happening in the Arts And Culture District, and we wanna let people know about that.

Unfortunately, we never had a tourism initiative, a tourism, oomph for our city exactly. We have some different efforts in the area and in the region. But back in January 2024, we took that under our department and launched the Visit Riverside website and that tourism initiative. Over the years, we've built that site and continue to grow it. It's had nearly 60,000 web views.

And we've carried that over into social media. We have Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook. Considering this report was published a few weeks ago, I know it's grown since, nearly 22,000 followers. But what's even more impressive is 6,100,000 video views, and this just launched in September. So it's only been a few months, relatively speaking.

We've also expanded our physical reach with placements over at the Riverside Airport with banners along their tarmac welcoming pilots, students, and visitors to the area. We also had a mobile video truck going down the Las Vegas Strip back in November during the Formula One Las Vegas Grand Prix event, which garnered over 1,000,000 impressions. Here is a Visit Riverside video that has been shown.

Visit Riverside, California, a place bursting with fun at every turn. From amazing museums and arts and culture events to d one sports, live concerts, and a buzzing nightlife, Riverside is packed with unforgettable moments. For a holiday experience like no other, don't miss the festival of lights at the Mission Inn Hotel and Spa. Get ready for millions of sparkling lights, festive decorations, tasty treats, and nonstop holiday fun, all in the heart of Riverside's Arts And Culture District. It's a holiday experience you won't wanna miss. Whether you're here for the arts, concerts, or pure holiday magic, Riverside has it all. Visit Riverside.

So we've also continued our getting our message out in, print media. So we've partner partnered with major media to raise Riverside's profile in the business and investment circles as well, including the Los Angeles Business Journal, which back in October we were in the placement for State of LA, the best cities to live, work, and play. The San Diego Business Journal with 26,000 weekly readerships. We have a monthly placement with them throughout the year of 2025. And Ontario Airport with 6,400,000 passengers annually.

We are definitely visible there. We have placements in the TSA area, all shuttle buses. We have video at Brewery X, the international arrivals, and we have a static light box, as you can see there, with the mayor. He's taken a selfie. So if any of you are traveling in Ontario, I expect a message with a selfie.

And so we are definitely out there and being seen. We also have a placement in the Inland Empire magazine with 155 readers and subscribers. We are in the hardbound book, is found in every hotel room here in the city as well. And Riverside Magazine, the local magazine, we have a very close partnership with them. Once you open the magazine up, we are on the first spread.

So we're right behind the cover. Every one of their editions, we have an article, we have an advertorial, we have some images in there. So we are very close in partnering with them and telling Riverside's story. We also have digital impressions out there. So we have a contract from September to June with iHeartMedia.

During October, November, December, we did some Festival of Lights advertising. It has now transitioned over to Visit Riverside. We are elevating that year of arts and culture and multimedia efforts in the digital and print space, and we're continuing to share our Visit Riverside message with our hotels, our RCVB, and our sports commission. Coming up in regard to Visit Riverside and spreading our message near and wide, we are completing this spring a really heavy lift of a brand audit. Once we have those results back and really analyze that audit, we will look to craft our strategic messages, taglines, and selling propositions, which will be very ideal in the coming years, as we're expecting FIFA Cup twenty twenty six, LA28 to the area, and a lot of other national and international organizations have reached out and have their eyes on Riverside.

So this is a perfect timing to strengthen those partnerships as we bring pretty much unprecedented tourism to our area. Moving internally, we worked very closely with the Office of Sustainability to create an award winning, I might like to add, for the American Advertising Association, a development of the logo for Office of Sustainability. We carried that branding over into the Omeo Wrap. So we worked very closely with Omeo and RTA over the past few months. And I would like to say that I spoke with a lot of their members from their business, and those particularly from London and New Zealand, and they said that it was the best wrap that they have seen worldwide.

And that was done by these folks. Economic development. We have an ongoing effort to support our economic development goals, drawing in new investment, tourism, as I mentioned, and talent, while reinforcing Riverside's identity as a place for opportunity. We've created materials that showcase why Riverside, Riverside's incentive opportunities, and the vast economic developments of doing business and opening a business here in Riverside. We have created materials specific to the targeted areas of excellence, providing targeted information relative to the conversations that are being had.

As you can see on here, biotechnology and aerospace and defense are just among a few. We also work very closely with Riverside Public Utilities and their customer engagement team and their commercial efforts. Historically, residents and businesses do not think in departments. So that's up to us to really gather that information, provide it to the businesses in that one stop shop, in that one place for them to make it easily accessible so they have all of the resources and connections that they need. This is a customer engagement business kit that was created to do the same.

It's welcoming and provides them the contact information they need. So with that, I would like to encourage you to connect with us, encourage residents and businesses to connect with us. There's no shortage of ways, whether it's email, online, 311, phone call, social media. We are connectable, so please do. So in short, our branding and communication efforts is about more than just visibility. It's identity and economic resilience. So thank you for your continued support as we continue to tell Riverside's story, I'm and here for any questions and comments that you may have.

Thank you, Caitlin, for that. I'm gonna go ahead and open it up for public comment.

Public comment is now open for this item, available in both English and Spanish. Call (951) 826-8686 and follow the prompts to access the meeting in either language. To request to speak, press 9. You can also join via Zoom. The meeting ID for both languages can be found on the agenda.

Okay. Seeing no callers and no speaking cards in chambers. Go ahead and open it up to our my colleagues here. And just thank you again for the presentation. You know, just some background I asked Caitlin to give this presentation. Just there's so many things that the marketing department is doing in communications, and they have a very, very large team. And thank you guys all for being here today. It's a I it's funny. It's it's good to see you guys all in one place. Can put all faces to names now. And you guys are doing a lot a lot of work. I think this is really a part of what we're doing in economic development is growing our awareness and telling our story like you said. I think that's been missing for a long time, and I'm really glad to see that we are really expanding that and aggressively pursuing that. But, yeah, go ahead and open it to my colleagues.

Thank you. A great lot work. I don't know if the chair knows. I think the chair of the economic development committee is required to wrap their car in the same way as Omeo. I think that's a rule.

I have a few people that can help you Great.

There you go. It'll look good. No. This is great. And maybe you said it so I apologize if I missed it. All this tremendous work that's happened in the last bit here, is there a way that we can aside from impressions and other things capture whether or not it's driving more people here? In other words, when they check out from a space or when are we able to see, hey, I was here because of these specific efforts? Do we have a way to other cities maybe do that?

Through our visit Riverside brand audit, they're really looking at what KPIs are we going to create and measure. Okay. So that will be coming out. The the analysis will be this spring, and that's when we'll really be diving deep into analyzing that.

So it's in it's in the works and

we'll know. Absolutely.

Yeah. That's great. And my last question. So it looks I love the the new branding the space branding, Midtown and all the other things. Are there ways what's the process for thinking of all all across the city how we might look at special places and spaces and do that? Should we just get creative and come up with an idea? Do we do community engagement? I guess community engagement would be key. But how do we get to the places for at least these few?

Absolutely. The ACD I know was in the general plan. So it was launched from there. And I also take direction from our city manager.

Great. Okay. So it's great. I love it. Because then folks can name a space and it just becomes its own identity in place. I love it. So we'll we'll we'll put our thinking caps on for

Yeah. And I'll I'll kinda just pick up a little bit on that because R And D Village has always been a name that already existed for a long time. They have a bid there, and that was kind of an easy fit to fit within the boundaries of the business improvement My office, a lot of effort, we had the the three r's in the Magnolia Corridor, all that public engagement through there, and how do we revitalize Magnolia Corridor. And part of that discussion was obviously Magnolia Center. And so my office came in and kinda built upon that and said, okay.

How to revitalize this part of Magnolia? And we the idea was presented to give it its own identity with the Midtown identity. So I think it's it's all unique to every area. Every area has its own kind of story and where that comes from, and I think that's the opportunity of the community or the or the council members or whatever you guys see fit to do. I think, you know, there's a a renewed interest, especially along the Magnolia Corridor of revitalizing each part of it. And

yeah. Yeah.

Thank you for the presentation. I we received a public comment and just wanted to I wasn't sure, and I didn't take from the presentation that the specifically arts and culture district in the downtown was I guess, had a boundary. Mhmm. So curious because we did get a comment letter from Riverside Community players that had expressed wanting to be included in that, which I would, of course, would love to advocate if that's the case. But I think I was under the impression that I think they're in within the boundaries. I don't know if you could speak to that or had any comments if that's something we do need to discuss or consider.

I know the boundaries were set in the general plan. I have not explored any wiggle room on that. I think I would default to the planners, the general plan, and the council member in that area.

Okay, so it's not relevant really to this part of the conversation. I know the update was in here, so for those that might be listening from the Verosecondi players, I think this needs to be probably then taken to the comment, as you said, the general plan area discussion, which we could do then. Okay. Thank you. I wanted to raise that item just because we got public comment on it. But I'll say for the rest of this, can I just say when I was watching the video, it was giving, like, Coachella vibes, but in a good way? I don't know. It was also, like, a millennial must have chose this song. I was very proud. But I would just I I was personally just so happy.

I'm sure all of those in the audience saw me smiling. I just I got I loved I felt like this really displayed the energy that we have cultivating here in Riverside, especially for it feels like, you know, the last maybe decade or so or more than that. But, you know, millennials, we are, you know, the the the average age right now for families that are living here in the community. So I do feel that it's exciting to showcase what we have accessible here in our community, the activities, the entertainment. So and I personally think a lot of it's growing. I I get excited to see all the different activities I could go to or take my daughter to. So I think you're doing a great way of doing the storytelling of what we are offering here. And so it's vibrant. It's fresh. I think we're doing a great job on social media.

I'm so happy every time I see the different collabs. I just love seeing the different departments that are also collaborating with the team to do promotion. So I just wanna say you guys are doing amazing work. I know I I see you also out there, like, getting, you know, getting the the videos, you know, taking the pictures. Like, you're with us out there in the community. Also giving up your weekends, your, you know, your your your evenings time with family to make this content. So long story short, content is a lot of work, and it's not easy. And to get it right takes a lot of professional time and energy. So I just wanna say to all of you here in the audience, can we give you a round of applause? Yes.

Yes. I also love when the Citi teams are here with us and they get to see their work, and that's highlighted. So congratulations to all of you. I think about only in the future, which I'm curious, but this is also like the science nerd part of me and with the data. When we were showing the portions that had the the metrics, can we go really quick to the slide that showed the impressions?

I'm curious now, what is the cost? You know, like, what are we spending, and then what's the outcome we're getting for those max impressions? And, you know, are there places because I I you know, we do this in politics just to share. You you know, you see where you spend your money and what's the cost return, and is it worth it depending on the market, the location. So I think for future, I'd love to see what are we spending in some of these areas, more so specifically where we were showing the commercials. Because I know that could be very expensive, you know, having broadcast or having us do that type of airtime. So would be curious to know what does that cost in the future for the impressions and the return. But I think at the end of the day, the investments we're making right now yeah. For the things like that. I think it's worth it.

So I I think it'd be helpful though for us to see and measure what that impact is and if we ever wanna make changes or look at other events in places where we wanna increase it. But I think that's been my only feedback, but other than that, you guys are doing an amazing job, and congratulations.

Thank you very much.

Thank you. And just going back to the all the different brands or or logo, the last page you're on. You know, there's a lot of really, really cool logos and designs. And can you maybe touch on what our official city logo, the that one? You know which one I'm talking about. When was that designed? Yes. When was that do you know how

old that know the year.

Logo is? Like, twenty years, thirty years, forty years. Okay. So I

don't wanna misspeak. I can find out for you.

And I know as part of our maybe I don't know if this is included as part of our brand audit. It this is maybe just a personal thing. Maybe Rafael can line light this. Yeah. I'm gonna I'm gonna say in reference, the rain cross symbol has been associated with the city of Riverside since the year nineteen o seven. Well, know the rain cross, but I'm talking about the specific blue square. Yeah. I I have seen historic documents that date back probably at least twenty five years. Wow.

Yeah. Okay.

Wow. So very, very old logo, and I I don't think these have changed dramatically or anything like that. It's just I think the yellow and the shading, and it just screams nineteen nineties to me. I'm sorry. That's my millennial speaking. Yeah. And it it reminds me of something I saw in a CD ROM case. And just a just a thought because I I see it compared sitting next to all of these, and it really sticks out in not a good way. And so, you know, the square the square is fine. The city of Riverside script, totally fine.

It's just that color scheme really kind of throws me the wrong way, I guess. But everything else you guys are doing is really, really fantastic. I'm sure I'm not the only one who noticed that on your team. But you guys I think what is what you guys highlighted is the creativity on your guys' team and the design prowess. I think a lot of people don't understand what a fantastic team we have in house here, and it really makes it you know, your turnaround times are excellent. You know? I I I feel bad sometimes like that that aerospace and defense one. I was getting ready to go to DC, and I'm like, I need this now to hand to somebody. I can't have nothing to hand somebody, and you guys put together a wonderful booklet like that. And a very, very high image.

And when I'm talking to companies that are looking to relocate here, when we present them our offering of what makes Riverside unique and why choose Riverside, we really stand out. We really stand out from the rest of the crowd. And I think, you know, there's a lot of things that we can and can't do compete on when we're trying to attract businesses and residents to our city. But the effort I think the this marketing shows our effort and our willingness to work with, people and that we're gonna go above and beyond to make sure that businesses can thrive here, that residents can thrive here. And I think that pride aspect that was Aaron spoke to in the blue zones, I think this is also part of that.

People I remember the first visit Riverside Instagram video I saw, and it was, like, showcasing just the Victoria Avenue and all the different cool things. The first thing I did is I sent it to my brother and sister-in-law who are looking for a I'm like, see? Riverside is cool. And, you know, and it's a great place for people to live and grow. And so what you guys are doing, think, is a fantastic job, and it really, really is I can't wait to see where we go in the next couple of years. And with that, thank you.

Thank you very much. Appreciate it.

Alright. We're gonna go ahead and move on to item number four, communications. Items for future economic development committee consideration. I'm seeing shaking heads, and so I think that does it for us. Thank you so much.

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