all right uh good morning everyone uh i' would like to open our Economic Development Authority meeting here for Thursday March 6 20125 uh would you please call the role beaser here grula here Johnson here
kersch here OD here Sandy here Jagger yes all right uh our first item here is our uh item number three this is our annual excuse me oh sorry uh this is our annual meeting uh uh so item 3A will be the election of our chair our vice chair
and our secretary uh so we've done this all we've all done this before uh we will go through I will ask for nominations if you would like to not be nominated maybe mention that uh before uh before everyone starts uh rattling off names who might be uh a good fit for
these positions so uh we will start with the election of the chair um is there anyone who would not like to be nominated I would hate it okay okay same got a few hands up here so uh we've got apparently just a few possibilities here for the uh for the chair so I will at
this time ask for a nominations of the chair Mr chair or yes or interim chair whatever you are right now uh last year I think I uh motion to keep everything the same I think it's worked well if anyone's against it that's fine
but I would motion to keep the positions the same all three positions Mr O day yes okay can you remind me who is vice I think we might have to yeah uh can does that require a second does anyone remember who was the vice chair and the
yeah and uh yeah if we do we do need a second if all right so we got a second on that James can you refresh us who we are I didn't look previously I believe it was maybe Tony was the vice chair and then Marie was the secretary okay and is correct
great so it must not have been that burdensome okay so do we have anyone who would like to raise objection to keeping all three the same or if any either of the three of us would like to surrender those positions to open nominations now would be the time all right hearing n uh we uh is
this a roll we can do this by Voice vote Yes okay all those in favor signify by saying I I oppose same sign very good thank you so we have our uh we have our uh chair Vice chair and secretary established we will go to our annual bylaws they are included in the packet
James anything you'd like to just touch on before uh bring this to us this is certainly time to review if there's no issues it just uh would need a Voice vote for approval anybody have any issues with the bylaws as presented uh yes please Gabe well I just have a
question of staff I think we amended the bylaws a few years ago to make the from the community development director to the city administrator the executive director of the Eda do we do
we want to still have that be the city administrator or do we want that to be the community development director I mean is something we should consider yeah good question anybody have yeah please I just like to ask staff between our administrator and our community
development director what works best for you two in full disclosure James and I haven't talked about this so I don't want to speak for James um I think James is doing a great job I think Community excuse me Economic Development I think uh naturally lives under Community
Development um so I would certainly me in favor I know James is very passionate about this does a great job um I would certainly support the community development director being the economic or excuse me the uh the uh executive director but James if you want to speak
on that I don't want to speak for you yeah certainly you've been working on the past couple years more of a background in planning zoning it's become um certainly a passion of mine and and would welcome that opportunity awesome I would motion to make that change we have a motion to make a
uh do we understand the CH everyone understands the change right okay good so we understand the motion yeah very good we got a motion and a second uh to uh change our executive position to Mr kvic any discussion hearing none all those in favor signify by saying I I
oppose same sign well welcome aboard James okay thank you any other thoughts on our bylaws anyone I had just just one that I wanted to bring up this is article 3 number two this has to do with our meeting schedule we've had some variation and kind of we've we've been
kind of establishing our meeting schedule kind of as we want kind of by year so I'm wondering if the language uh which I believe is listed as every 3 months or something like that in our meeting schedule I'm wondering if the language shouldn't maybe be modified to
be at the discretion of the authority at the onset of the year or or something to that effect um I just want maybe ask staff not necessarily any action today but maybe just take a look at that that was the only thing that stood out to me as as we might want to look at so
section this is uh it should be in article number three keep going down Sean article three I believe it's section two right there y so it says that first Thursday of every third month that sounds like too many
meetings and also is everyone okay with the uh you know the Thursday 7:30 I think this has come up before but works good for me so as long as Tony can make it I can make it so maybe I'm just asking maybe take a look at this wording and make and see if we can come back to something maybe next meeting that uh
might clean this up just a little bit certainly not asking anyone to craft it right now okay uh anything else I'd make I'd move approval of the bylaws all right we got to move a motion and a second any discussion on the bylaws all right hearing none all
those in favor signify by saying I I oose same sign very good our bylaws are in place okay uh we have an agenda in front of us this is item number four do we have any additions substitutions or modifications to the agenda as presented um for the visit Brainard it
was more of a question I had um can I state it or do you want to pull it out it there's no action at this time that needs to she's got to drop the kids off at school she'll be here later oh okay um no problem also I'll tell you what we'll just leave it as is and then when we go to the consent calendar we'll
we'll bring it up in in our next item and we can ask the question if that's all right y anything else on the agenda I'd move to approve the agenda got a motion to approve is there a second had a second any discussion hearing none all those in favor signify by saying I I oppose same sign very good we're off to
our consent calendar so I will uh now turn the floor over to you just uh for your inquiry please um so for the visit Brainard um and I know um Mary will not have the data today but I was wondering if we could get some information on the traffic of the website so
awesome and she gab you said she might be here to be able to speak about this she after she drops the boys off at school she might be here okay so if it's all right with everyone here if she jumps in we I might we might ask her that question she can jump in wherever we're at in the in the agenda any uh
anything else on the consent calendar all right hearing none we will vote uh by roll call please I'll make a motion approve the consent calendar yeah motion to approve second second any discussion all right
roll call please beaser yes grula yes Johnson yes kersch yes oday yes Sandy yes joerger yes okay we have our consent calendar uh we have nothing under unfinished business so we'll jump to number seven this is our new business and first is the review of the 2024 Eda
measurables and statistics uh please Mr cranic thank you Mr chair so staff included activities and measurables in the 2024 report uh staff will be working with badec this year to obtain numbers on Child Care slots and brainer hopefully also kind of those waiting list numbers so we can track those year
after year uh few highlights from the past year the Eda website became fully operational um very easy to search in Google uh the Eda contracted with Camp reality to install uh for sale signs in the industrial park as part of the um
contract for brokerage contract the Eda recommended approval of a marketing strategy to Mark a city- owned industrial property at a dollar per acre if key objectives and goals are met this was approved by city council uh Eda recommended an extension of the river to rails District to include all of
Washington Street Highway 210 and South 6th Street uh to Buffalo Hills Lane East this was also approved by City Council in the creation of the central business district incentive policy uh the Eda facade Grant funded five facade Improvement projects uh with
$2,534 in Eda funds four projects so far have been completed the other one I believe will be this spring uh shc created three concept plans for Trailside park for low medium and high density uh the Eda considered and recommended tax abatement for Country Manor uh city council took eda's
recommendation for a blended tax abatement structure at 100% for the first 3 years of the operation and then lastly the Eda and staff T are just crypto the office shop Lakes sprinting giovan's pizza and Anderson Brothers as part of some of our tours and business
retention um uh meetings so with that I'll turn it over if there's any questions from the Eda board very good thank you Mr cranic any questions for James I just had a comment yeah I think this is great to have this all summarized and it's pretty impressive the work uh that's been done the past
year um thank you for putting the measurables in there I think that's going to be really helpful and I my only comment is just moving forward it' be nice to have like past data now that we have this kind of Baseline to like for next year just comparing year-over-year just so we can see the progress we're
making to just give context to where we are and where we're going um but yeah appreciate the report the thorough us of the report thank you yeah anyone else yeah I'll just mention also I like having this report because I get asked a lot what do you guys do so this is a really easy summary to just be like hey
this is this is this is exactly what we do here so uh is there any action needed on this Mr kvick no action needed very good anybody else any questions followup anything else all right we're clipping along here item 7B this will the re will be the review of the preliminary
framework for 2024 again Mr Ki yes thank you Mr chair so the Eda approved scope of service contracts with four Consultants blade ddbc Swanson Hasam Consulting and visit Brainard to help the Eda accomplish the goals and action steps for 2025 through 2026 so staff
have constructed a preliminary framework document to help Consultants meet their objectives for 2025 uh this is a preliminary document that will be further discussed at the first quarter Consultants meeting that happens right after this meeting so there might be a few things that shift around but wanted to provide a general
overview to the Eda and then subsequent meetings from here we'll be able to track to see where we're at on on some of these action items awesome thank you Mr cranck uh any questions for James yeah please Gabe well I just had a constituent reach out to me wondering if the economic develop Vel mment Authority
knew what year it was because under 7B it says preliminary framework for 2024 it's for 202 it is for we do know what year it is we're moving forward that's all I have oh very good anybody
any any other comments uh yeah this kind of plays into just something I want to bring up uh something that came out in the city council meeting just recently was uh the desire for the city council to adopt a system that kind of of tracks open items and this this conversation kind of
basically plays into that so I was going to uh ask ask you guys uh if uh you felt like that's something that we could have the Eda kind of take a look at also now we have a framework that's pretty close with tracking these items here but um my
thinking is is that uh James and I did speak about this just a little bit that it would be easy for us to also begin to adopt a system similar to what the city council is hoping to adopt uh in their meetings where we would take every single item whether it be you know open dormant or whatever and just have a
basically a a running list of where we are so that we could all keep up to date things that have been brought to our attention kind of through the last year would be items like the 210 reconstruction where we're at with that so as opposed to us having to track all of these and keep track of all this stuff that we're supposed to be working
on there's a lot we would just keep a running list and it would be um a document that we could go to every single meeting and just say where are we at with these things and that would also incentivized staff to to not that they're not doing these things but it would be right in front of them and they would know these com this is coming up
on these meetings and be able to uh to take take action or at least have a report prepared for every single meeting so if you guys are open to that I don't know that we necessarily need a motion for that but maybe you think we do but uh James what are your thoughts yep nope I um we discussed this and I think this
would be a a good path forward for the Eda awesome head yeah please so is this the framework currently just like an Excel Excel sheet or something that you're inputting stuff into so right now the framework I use a Word document um
tracking maybe you know may use an Excel file well I wasn't trying to give you a read on that I was more just wondering like if the city council is moving forward with some sort of plan for tracking these things is there like software available to to facilitate making it easier to keep track of the
things or I just don't know what plan our primary software that we work in is is bsna and that one wouldn't have any type of tracking okay in there it be XL right we would think yeah would think yeah and this just came out in in the last meeting so staff really hasn't even had a chance to really absorb the request of the city
council yet but I would think Excel or something like that is it like public facing then like well I don't know yet I was thinking that this would be a document or at least I I think the the driver for the city council was is that there would be at least be a document that would be in every single packet that comes out that says these are all
of our open items this is where we're at with each one of them and then when they're did they get kicked off the list I think that's the basic mindset yeah please Gabe yeah I I think so it is it would be perfect in Excel James where there's the item is column A where
you're at is B CDE e f whatever and then it's part of I think it's public facing I think I think it's part of every agenda right or consent calendar right it's just in there so the public can see what we're working on and where we're at on it yeah that's kind of what I see
also the Swanson hasat M model that's in here I think is pretty close I mean you guys do a great job of kind of listing out the items kind of where you're at with them the task and kind of where you're at there so it's it's somewhat similar to that but I I agree I think it's a EXL spreadsheet just uh and it's in every single meeting so if you guys
are okay with that have any do you need any other further Direction on that kind of where we're going nope that makes sense all right fantastic okay anything else all right uh uh no no action needed for our 2025 uh framework all right and we're
good on our 2024 framework so we're we're we're good we're good all right item C this is the discussion of the agenda for the April Eda Workshop Mr cranic yes so this will be the first meeting um or will this be the first Thursday in April 7:30 kind of same time that we'd traditionally have an Eda
meeting uh staff recommends that this meeting not exceed 90 minutes and I've proposed um a few of the following items to discuss first one would be Washington Street reconstruction what role should the Eda have during the Reconstruction project uh next one improved signage in downtown and along
Washington Street um heard this from a few people that there's concerns especially with some vinyl signage uh so should zoning ordinances be strengthened to improve sign Aesthetics and then discuss possible matching grants for new or improved signage uh commercial child child care centers review and discuss
results of the child care tours um so far we've done two of them um we have two um Eda board members that had volunteered with uh uh grula and Sandy uh and then hopefully completing the last ones in the next couple weeks so having a report to discuss kind of their strengths weak weaknesses where the
difficulties are so then discuss possible ordinance changes for commercial Child Care Centers recommended to the Planning Commission discuss fees policies and potential grants um last one again discussed facade Improvement Grant um you'll be able to show kind of before and after pictures from last year is there any tweaks that need to be done should we do
this again um this next year so kind of discussing that facade Improvement grant for 2025 um something C certainly could be added uh what I'd like to see the Eda do is kind of order these in order of importance and I think you know my recommendation is to do 90 minutes and
we just go from top to bottom and wherever we end off is is where we end off y thank you James yeah so Mr cranck and I kind of spoke about this uh we put an initial uh order of uh urgency on on each one of these or or kind of a ranking of what we thought was first but
I certainly want you guys to have a look at this and then also weigh if we're missing anything and again as James mentioned we would just go 90 minutes we get as far as we go as far as we go and if we don't get to something it get it gets kicked off to the next one so um or the a subsequent meeting so yeah
please yeah I you know perhaps Mr chair you could speak on it or or maybe Eric but I think the H is working on a small cities Grant along the Washington c Street
Corridor and may maybe that could be part of this conversation or maybe we throw that in there somewhere yeah Mr sharpener would you like to weigh in please uh yeah you know we are working on a grant for um kind of lighting and not doing any housing component to this
grant cycle because we were urged actually uh at the beest of deed to to not do that since we've got an open housing Grant in southeast Brainard right now we do and plan to also put in a preliminary application for housing for this next cycle so we would likely
still line up with the project we'd be happy to to continue to update the Eda as as we need to so gabri you thinking you we want to add this into this language somewhere into one of these items or just I think we want it somewhere or we want an update just keep keep an eye on what's
going on on the Washington Street Corridor sure so for sure I mean this almost plays into every single one of these maybe except for well maybe all of them so we'll just uh if if you could James just keep the uh the H element to added as one of these sub items into
each one of these as a part of the conversation so and Mr sharpener at every meeting so for the most part so that'd be easy to do any any other thoughts on anything should be added or changed or I just wanted to note I've met with Matt Kellan and I I was Alison
medic at the last meeting but blade just blade X been a conversation just kind of brainstorming what a mitigation plan would look like for the Washington Street reconstruction and so we've just been trying to like pull together a plan with some kind of plugging in some budget numbers to just give us an idea so I'm
hoping that that can be discussed as that part of item one um at that meeting yes that'd be part of item one awesome okay so uh looks like we can add that into I believe we have a
meeting today also on the on 210 if I remember right as an openhouse meeting as well so one's going right there's one this morning and then there's one this afternoon I believe at 3:30 is that right okay so um and I was going to ask and now is as good a time is anyone here
planning on going to the 3:30 just so we don't have any Quorum issues I'm I'm going I may okay I may go okay I was going to go also so I'll skip it then game's out uh uh how many can we have three we could have three there we could have we could have three there so
I I won't go then okay I know enough it is noticed on the bulletin board that aquarum may be present okay fantastic there you go so we're all you're back in Gabe very good uh Mr cranic you guys could also adjourn to the meeting yeah we certainly could just to double up
there all right uh looks like staff is looking for a recommendation for us to approve this we did get we have just a couple additions that were added do you feel like you have a grasp of those Mr kvic I do very good motion we have a motion to approve
yes is that to approve to approve I'll second that okay got it we got a motion and a second to approve any discussion all right hearing none all those in favor signify by saying I I oppose same sign very good and we will uh bring us to item a this is our staff reports uh
I'm going to start with uh Mr BRS anything no Mr chair thank you yep former executive director yep uh Connie hman please nothing B and our new executive director drumroll I was going to do you last but we just
going to keep going here Mr Ric thank you Mr chair so I already mentioned we did a couple tours of childcare facilities um I'm going to be looking at setting up our first quarter um visit for the entire Eda here so kind of stay tuned for that um and then wanted to let the Eda board know that uh block metrics
has submitted building plans for TC Industrial Drive um so that's uh uh work in progress at this time very good thank you Jennifer have anything oh I thought it was already green sorry um so the only thing I would add there was a question about uh
website activity and while I cannot report on the eda's website I can tell you that we also are um hosting all of the property listings and uh there were a couple things uh related to Camp that were in the news and we saw a pretty
significant Spike actually in looking at all of the listings for Brainard as a result of some of that publicity so um on our website which originally had very very little activity I think between the sign and some of those um media pieces
uh there's been cred a bit interest so just kind of to give you a sense of we are seeing quite a bit of activity that wasn't there before all right excellent thank you Tyler uh just to Maria just mentioned the the meeting that they had with uh with Maria and Matt and Alis and I was I
was gone last week so they just started some framework and having some discussions around how this should all lay out so we'll keep moving forward on that and um Matt and I will meet probably early next week uh or the week after next week is spring break so I don't know if he's around but so we'll
start talking about this a little bit more in detail hopefully we can bring something to the uh to the April meeting um I contacted James with regards to the the group that's looking out at the industrial park with at the VC whatever
their name was um at their property our state representative contacted me just um apparently they've been kicking around at the state level as well so the the state wanted to know if they were being dealt with here locally and they I informed them that they are but there's
also if they happen to turn this into a data center there's some funding that could potentially be available but they just wanted us to be aware of that and um yeah just uh one last on a staffing side uh Haley Majerus who is our um
admin and marketing staff person is has accepted a new job and today is our last day so we'll be maybe looking for somebody new we're going to just kind of take a step back and see exactly what we need but just as an FYI for for staff very good thank you
Sean from it Tony just technology just to this Mr sharpener please yes thank you Mr chair and members of the Eda just a couple updates as we get into of the New Year seeing it's this the first meeting that we've been together
uh flurry of activity for Minnesota housing and getting a bunch of their Grant dollars from the 2023 legislative session finally out enrolling that includes the state Voucher Program which is called bring it home that RFP has finally been released uh and that will bring potentially anywhere from 35 to 45
vouchers to the community to Crowing County and for the h here to administer uh if we do so choose to move forward with that uh RFP and accepting that um we'll be bringing that to our board here likely in March uh we've been talking about it for now for at least two plus years it's exciting to have
more voucher opportunities and more funding for that uh but we also need to to keep an eye on capacity for our staffing as well but happy to see that the the state's moving forward with these big initiatives they've also got Housing Trust Fund local Housing Trust Fund Grant application out that is part
of the cro County H uh but we are going to be uh trying to get some up to $225,000 of State funding into our local Housing Trust Fund and that does affect uh certainly rehab in Brainard uh development in Brainard so we're hopeful that we can qualify for that uh also
have an eye towards an infrastructure grant that we will be hopefully teaming up with the city of Brainard I'll be bringing that to the city council as soon as that gets released hopefully sometime in March is what they're looking for we're looking for that to specifically help support uh out Lot F and Outlaw e uh in brainer o a project
that we're working on that we have the developer now um ready and and uh has accepted some additional funding to get infrastructure put in to uh get to Outlaw F to build upwards of 18 more housing units there it's the same developer that built out Briner o so
will be a similar build type uh will be Twin Homes versus single family homes though so very very hopeful we can get some State money into uh the brainer Community here and working hard to do that I have not forgot about 805 Laurel neither has the developer obviously we're we're in a bit of a standstill
there was a flurry of activity at the end of the year which we did see visually uh the developer is still very committed to that project they've got a lot of money invested in that uh property uh we are currently trying to to get some um Headway in the state
housing tax credit Avenue or realm to to see if we can get some support for that project to move forward uh sooner rather than later um and I think I will we'll leave it at that oh thank you very much Mr sharpener is there any questions for any of our staff yeah please Gabe yeah I
I have one for Eric and and sorry I'm not on H anymore so as well as I I still could attend the meetings they're public meetings right they are but but the bringing it home Grant with the extra 30 to 40 vouchers in the community is there
a are there any concerns for long-term funding of the program so it's built into base and so if it's built into base what we're always told is that it's really difficult to pull out a base it's always an ongoing question are future legisl
legislative bodies that could make those changes it is built in uh what I don't see right now in that program is anything built in for inflationary factors that's my concern currently is if we've got a set amount of dollars and over time our housing assistant payments
are going to go up rents are going to go up it will somewhat naturally erode that so I know the legislative body is working on that haven't seen Headway in that yet in this session uh but that is is a concern the fact that that our purchasing power our our assistance
would dwindle over time which would lead to less households mhm thank you yeah very good any other questions for staff okay we will uh move on to our commission uh member reports uh please uh member beer I have none anything Mr
grula I'd just like to say that we started those Child Care tours and thank you James for setting those up awesome member Johnson I attended the uh downtown business owner social this
past week as did you Mr chair and it was great and it is growing MH like I went to the early ones and there were four five six of us there now there's a room full of people wanting to talk to each other about how their
businesses are doing downtown and it it's fantastic to see so good on the ddbc for putting those together and the food was excellent yeah very good thank you uh member kers uh yeah just to add on to that we've had two socials so far this year we've moved
to a monthly uh model for that and I think that's really helped just people can keep in mind when they're happening so that they show up and yeah it's it I'd say it's been great to see the turnout and just a lot of positive uh Vibes happening with just getting everybody in a room and being able to to
share what's going on with our businesses so we can help support each other um just putting a plugin for for the St Patrick's Day parade happening downtown on the 15th and then ddbc is also uh helping organize a shopping promotion the week um it's going to be
the 10th through the 17th just a stamp card promotion program to help uh get people shopping downtown um so that's what we got coming up in March and uh James if I can just put a plugin for if we can please get the banners swapped
out downtown so we don't have holiday banners up for St Patrick day that would be much appreciated uh that's how I got do we need a ladder truck for this from from come on what do we need I'll let Public Works know okay very good all right thank you Mr OD day yeah
um next this coming Monday we have a council Retreat uh off-site meeting scheduled for about 6 to 8 hours um it'll be fun I was told there'd be Refreshments is this true somebody somebody mentioned breakfast sandwiches
I think okay uh but we have to pay for themy but my hope my hope for uh voted Council voted the council voted uh My Hope for part of that is um we're going to touch on goals for the next couple of years for for the council
um both internal external um I think we'll definitely touch on some economic development so hopefully something of that comes back to the body as a a recommendation or some questions or things that we can touch on at our next meeting
so um yeah just look forward to that awesome thank you Mr Sandy I don't have anything further to add I guess there's a benefit to being last in the alphabetical order absolutely that's why I did it I you guys basically touched on every single thing I was going to touch upon so uh I'm very proud of the work we
do I'm very proud of the team that we have staff's excellent you guys have been awesome and um look forward to uh to serving with you you guys another year it's going to be fantastic and with that we will be looking for a motion to adjourn we got a motion to adjourn is there a second all right uh hearing none all those in favor signify by saying I I
post same sign we're done thank you