Yes. >> I'll be Yes. >> Okay. >> Thanks. Thanks a lot. >> Morning. Um it is 10:01 a.m. So I would like to officially call to order um our city
council workshop for this Tuesday uh January 20th. We have one item on our workshop and it's an economic development discussion. This has come up in uh past city council retreats as well as past council uh meetings to move
forward with having this workshop. and we have um Tyler Glenn from Bladec with us today. And so I'd actually just like to turn it over to you um to get us going. >> There we go. Thank you, uh Mayor Karnhan. Um yeah, as as Mayor Karnan
mentioned, my name is Tyler Glenn. I'm the executive director of the Briner Lakes Area Economic Development Corporation. We are also contracted with the city of Nisa to provide your economic development services. So this question uh came up last year with
regards to recreating or reestablishing your economic development authority. It um based on the information that we have from the city that the EDA was I disbanded. I don't even know what the right word is, but uh I believe it was in 2017. Um, so with that being said,
having had an EDA already, you just there's a couple of steps that uh that we need to go through to uh draft a resolution. And um I believe we need to hold a public meeting as well. Once the resolution has been drafted to establish
the EDA, once the EDA is established, then it grants authority to the EDA to do a number of things. As was mentioned um in my memo that I provided to you, you can it gives you tax tax levying authority. It gives you the ability to own property. Um you can do a a number
of other things with that. But to establish the EDA then it um outlines for the city itself to um add two city council members. You can have a you a minimum of three people on a board, an EDA board. It can be up to nine I
believe is the total but three is the minimum and that can consist of two city council members and then an outside or a nonelected official so one other outside representative and then your EDA would
be the city controlled but we would provide all of your economic development services so we can >> [clears throat] >> um I know that the your city attorney was going to draft a resolution or will draft resolution based on this information from today and uh we can move forward and establish that as soon
as possible. And then the primary objective um for the EDA on what properties or um events that you'd like to have us work on. That can be determined by the EDA board. Um it can also be determined by the council. It's completely up to you guys. But as you
establish the EDA gives that, like I said, it gives the EDA the authority to move forward with projects. Um, as I mentioned during the city council presentation, I did apply for and have received a grant from the initiative foundation to develop and work out a uh a master plan for the city-owned
property that is south of Highway 77 and west of 371. So, we can work on that as part of the uh as part of the EDA objectives. So, based off of that information, um I believe it gets tossed back into your guys' hands. you guys can
make a decision on whether or not you want to how you want to move forward with adopting the resolution. >> I guess I'd look to the city attorney. >> I will actually >> just because I can. >> Yeah. Um before I go to Mr. Pearson, I
guess I'd like to just go to the council members if there are any any questions for Mr. uh related to the creation of an EDA um the process the memo he put together for us and I'll start with you council council member Hall
>> maybe just a couple questions more in regards to you know how it works a little bit more in in the deep dive you know um is it focused on like
is is part of it also going going to be focused on um um forgive me I'm losing the term what our whole cities run off of Stephen >> plan >> so it's going to be a part of it that
kind of a front end port that we would look at and maybe redo or revisions >> absolutely this would be a driving force for that >> most comprehensive plans um council member hall most council member plan or uh comprehensive plans typically include a section on econom economic
development. So I'd imagine I haven't reviewed the the plan, but I would imagine that there is a section in there regarding you can take that. So then this the EDA board can take that section of comprehensive plan and can re redo it, rewrite it, you can add sections to it, you can remove things just to
develop a further road map for the city based on economic development. Absolutely. >> Okay. >> Do you have additional questions, councelor Hall? No, I I guess I think that'd be, you know, from my standpoint, you know, a starting point.
>> Okay. Um, questions, Council Member London? >> Yeah, absolutely. >> Okay. I have a couple questions. Um so for at our last council meeting I believe when you talked about this more in depth right to the group
>> you had I thought you had maybe made a loose recommendation of you know it's usually good to have a board that maybe is >> I thought you had said five or seven but I might be remembering incorrectly and I'm just wondering if you remember if you might be able to refresh. >> Yes. Um so the I did mention the minimum
is three. I believe you can go up to nine. I don't know what state statute allows. You wouldn't want to go that big. But um if you do if you do at a minimum go to three, you are required to have two sitting city council members as
a me as members of the EDA. >> If you could have five, I think there's a greater um I think I I believe that you're going to get more input. You're going to get some more direction from city um individuals. Those are those people that live here. um just around
how you'd like further development to occur in the in the city. Five is five is ideal. Three is minimum and you can do that with three and I think there's obviously there's opportunities for both. Um I wouldn't exceed as I
mentioned I wouldn't exceed five. I just think it gets messy. And then, you know, asking you're with that much like a planning commission, much like a parks commission, you're asking for community members to donate their time to serve on a board like this.
It seems to me if if the council and the public is so inclined to move down the path of creating an EDA that you'd want to create a comprehensive serious EDA that isn't just made up of twothirds council members where you really want to have voices from the community whether
that's the business community, the residential, a combination of both. So, it's all-encompassing and you're getting true diversity of thought, diversity of different uh perspectives and different backgrounds, then, you know, otherwise then why not just have the council kind of make those decisions,
>> right? And and and based off of that statement, Mayor Carneahan, there is um there is definitely um value in adding community people to a board like this. as you look further, as you as you as you look forward to what
the community could be, what it what you'd like to see from a development standpoint, from a growth standpoint, um you know, is it commercial development? Is it housing? Is it you know, there's a lot of there's a lot of factors that play into that. So, it's really important to get as much input as you
possibly can. So, yeah, I would agree five would be five would be outstanding. Um but again to establish it and to get moving in the direction of um you know establishing a plan putting some development opportunities out there you
can start it with three >> council member. >> Are there are there any limitations? Um community members they do not have to be citizens of Nisa. Is that correct? You either have to be a citizen of the community or a business established
business owner in the community. >> Okay. >> And I just want to reiterate this. So council would motion for our city attorney to put together a resolution. Then we would hold a public hearing.
>> Mhm. before >> finalizing the >> finalizing the resolution and moving forward or not moving forward. Right. >> Correct. >> Yeah. >> Okay. >> I'll continue to move forward with some opportunities that I are in front of me right now. The full establishment of the
EDA would be beneficial to formalize that. >> Okay. It will not slow down development or opportunities, but I think there's um putting the EDA into place gives you gives you the ability and gives you flexibility, but it also allows you to
update your comprehensive plan and and create a vision if you want to look at it from that standpoint is how you want to drive development. >> And Mr. Glenn, you have helped or you sit on boards of different EDAs with other municipalities in our county,
correct? Brainer, Baxter, Cross Lake, Peekquat Lakes, the Cailluna Range itself. So I serve on all of those. >> Okay. So you have tremendous background, experience and insight. What would you say to residents, voters, or taxpayers
out there that might bring forward a concern with the development of an EDA? And maybe their questions would be something like, hey, if if the city's going to establish an EDA and now this EDA has broad powers outside of the council to raise taxes or implement
taxes. Um, just because of your experience. I'm wondering if you could share a perspective on that, if you've experienced that in any of these other areas, how that's been addressed, if you've seen those concerns arise. Um,
typically it's an I'll I'll guess I'll start it this way. Typically an EDA is in most cases just pushing forward what the city's agenda has already been established. Um, in communities that own and operate uh industrial parks, it
takes on a little bit of a different feel because the typically an industrial park as it's put into communities, they the city has platted the land. They've they've put resources into um making it a shovelready site location, which means
there's infrastructure to the site already. So, they've incurred tremendous costs already associated to that. So, developing out a plan for city-owned property is typically the priority of an EDA. So if an EDA has already if the
community already owns property reestab in this case reestablishing your EDA to take on the um take on the task of of moving forward and developing city-owned property from
a tax standpoint or from a you know how the city plays with the EDA and I'll use that term plays as a as a loose term and how they interact with one another. Typically the EDA, if the EDA, it would take the city as the city owns this property. If the city wanted to move
forward with having the EDA manage and control what's city-owned already, it has to be transferred. It has to be conveyed to the EDA from the city. You don't have to do that. The EDA continue to work on that. >> But in the instance of whether you'd want the EDA board to control property,
city-owned property, the city has to convey it. for the EDA to sell that property, it has to come back to the council. The council has to approve sale of any city-owned land, whether it's the EDA or not. >> Okay. >> The gives the from a concern, if you
will want to if you want to look at it from that same from a concern or what I've seen to this point, typically the growth and sale of city-owned property increases tax base. So that should be the driving force around an EDA. In the communities that I currently work for
and am contracted to work with, that has been the case in every instance. We haven't seen a situation where um well, the city of Brainard has owned their industrial park, phase four of their industrial park for as long as I can remember. And the only piece of property that's been sold out there was sold to
FedEx in 2009. >> So they're sitting on a considerable investment. We continue to try and move that property forward. um we do have some opportunities there, but um it's really a major it was a major investment made by the city and now the EDA is tasked with moving that forward. >> Okay. So, the
>> I hope I answered your question. >> Yeah. know I I think you know the the outreaches that I've received over the past couple weeks about it were more a concern of hey is this going to allow >> this platform to bypass right the public
to kind of wipe away any transparency to exclude perspectives and people's voices and and I figured you know you have such good experience let's get it all it does not um and you know and when we talk about how you know a a makeup of an EDA
board like this. Um, you know, in the communities that we have, we have, as as council member Hall addressed with his question, we have business owners, we have community members, and we have council members. So there's there's a there is a good um mix of
experience but also having the the council member sit there for oversight and then bringing it back to understanding what the EDA's sole purpose is is to address development and and bring tax base to a community. >> Okay. Um perfect. I didn't have any
other questions. Uh council members on uh Mr. Glenn went over, you know, just giving the briefing on the background of establishing the EDA. We obviously had him at our past council meeting. I opened it up to counselors for additional questions that they might have for Mr. Glenn. So, council member
Hall, London and I have asked our questions. Um, >> do you have any questions? I know you missed the first part of the conversation, but anything on your mind? >> Okay, >> Mr. Pearson, I will turn it over to you now. >> Mr. Pearson, on a Tuesday. [laughter]
new year professional. >> Good morning. >> I do have a couple questions. Um maybe a comment first. Tyler, can you speak to to a concern if it's a real concern that if a formal EDA is
appointed that it might start to open the door for things that the city hasn't seen much of to date, things like funding requests like TIFF and stuff like that. That's a concern I have. I can remember >> one TIFF project since I've been here in
nine years and that was at Sportland for the bank. Mhm. >> Um concern, speak to it if you would. Is is that the formation of an EDA could >> blossom into more of that kind of thing?
>> Um I it it a great question and I've seen it in I've seen it both ways actually. So um I have communities that only have EDC's so an economic development commission which ends up being just being a sounding board if you will or provide recommendations to a
council. um they have tiff and abatement projects both in their community. Um with EDAs established, we see we do see tiff and abatement opportunities in those communities. I don't think it really in my in my professional experience, it
does not hinge on whether an EDA is established or not. Um the one thing that I'm cautious of when you establish an EDA is it does give the EDA the ability to be a taxing authority. you can levy your community for dollars to create, you know, to bring dollars into
an EDA to then further expand an industrial park as an example. Um, but I don't have concerns with an EDA um raising the raising the awareness to a developer to ask questions arounding surrounding tiff or abatement. TIFF is a
great tool. TIFF can be used, it's used positively in a lot of communities. It really depends on the city's appetite for assisting business development. You know, TIFF as a as an example, TIFF is a tax increment financing. And what TIF does is that it it allows the developer
to, you know, establish we establish a TIFF district. It can be an economic development district. It can be a housing tiff district. They both balance themselves out in number of years that that the incentive is in place for the business. It's really the city stepping forward and saying we're
going to forego tax the tax dollars on this project for an economic development interest is nine years. So they you're foregoing the taxes that you would get from a business for nine years. It's completely up to the city, but the EDA establishment really has never driven that
conversation from a development standpoint. I may have went too far there, but >> No, no, no, no. That's, you know, that's that's the concern whether or not the existence of something like that then begins to bring in applications, >> the formal authority of it. Yes.
>> Y um are you are you typically from your office do you do you end up being appointed to committees? Are do you do that? Are you willing to do it? Would you be on this committee if you were asked? >> I would and I am able to. Yes. Even though I am a contract, our office is a
contracted employee, but I am a citizen of Niswah. So you could estab you could appoint or request to appoint me to that EDA board. Yes. So it doesn't it is not a conflict on my end. >> Okay. >> And I believe Mr. Pearson state statute
uh which I don't have in front of me but I believe Maggie put in front of all the other council members uh when I sent her an email is that the mayor appoints um the EDA and then the council affirms approves or denies. Well, I I I Yes, the statute says that.
I don't think it's any different than any committee appointment process you've gone through. Mayors make suggestions for appointments, council. >> This one is a little bit different. >> No, I don't think it is, but I think >> I believe it is. >> I think it's from the point. I guess we could figure that one out. Um, Tyler, a question I have for you also is if the
city, and I kind of paused this or posed this question to you when when you were here last, the city's got to figure out what it wants an EDA to do, knowing that the statute has a whole umbrella of different things, powers, etc. The city's really got to figure out, in my
opinion, what it wants an EDA to achieve, what the reason would be to talk about EDA. Now, um, if it's just about the the Mills land purchase and what to do there, master planning, that kind of thing, great. Whatever whatever that is, the council's got a sort of
game plan that I think if the council decided to do a committee instead of a formal EDA, would you and your office still be involved in the process of helping with master planning and the kind of things out there just with respect to that par those parcels out there?
>> Yes. Yep, we would. And um I do serve on two of the EDC's that exist in this county. So yes, and again I could ser again I could serve on that as a citizen as well. So >> um I think that's the only questions I
had to the council. I would just say you know I I don't know how much everybody has looked at the the statute provisions here about what the different powers are. Tyler did a good job of sort of giving some bullet points to what an EDA does, what it can do, that kind of
thing. But I think it's really up to you to decide what you think an EDA is going to do or even an econom economic development committee would do here in NESA. What it's what the main chore would be if there's other chores, what
do you want an EDA to be? >> Yeah. And that obviously I have a couple other questions. Um we all know about the property the city has purchased down there. However um even dating back five
six years um there are several different land owners um even up to this year around that intersection on the north side of the road, the east, west, all surrounding that intersection. I mean, uh, two months ago, we just saw a plan
for somebody on the north side of that road come in as a as a possible area. Um, that's all something within the EDA that we could look at in conjunction with planning and zoning, kind of look at the whole bigger picture with that. I
know um, even Tom has some plans on sewer development, stuff like that. that would all be under part of this umbrella that we'd look at as a whole. >> I think that would be my recommendation. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. If you when if with the
establishment of an EDA, the the broad authority is is is um attorney Pearson mentioned, the broad authority of an EDA does give you that ability to manage the land and the opportunities that are available in the city.
So in Nisa um unlike some other towns maybe can you speak a little bit to um what that's looked like uh particular to um changes to like for instance our highway business district and some of the zoning let let's just say the
previous coverage >> you know is that something typically the EDA gets into that far and going hey we have 50% out there right now but we we think it'd be better suited to raise it up to 80%. Is that
>> go that deep into looking into stuff like that? >> A couple do. Um, and I think that working through that, establishing those types of items in your comprehensive plan, I think would be the the opportune time to do that would be as this EDA has
established, putting those parameters in place that, you know, an EDA really wants to take the opportunity to guide the development and guide proper development. You know, you can bring that back to the full council for, you know, recommend with a recommendation for with approval. But I just
understanding what the community is looking for, what this council is looking for, how you how you make the most out of what type of development ends up here. Um, you know, we've got I've got a community that I work with that will stand here all day long and pound their fist and say, "We don't want
big box. We don't want big box. We don't want those types of things in our community." That's what their EDA is established to do is is they're they're setting guidelines in place for their council is they when a if a request like this comes through, the EDA is handling that request and typically it's not
getting very far. So they're looking at and establishing guidelines and ground rules within the EDA stating this is the type of development we're looking for and how do we set those parameters correctly and establishing that through your comprehensive plan can be a I think
a a worthy activity. But again with an EDA these are um these are planned open meetings. So you are subject to open meeting laws. You're you're you're doing the same thing as what a planning commission would do in regards to the
legal statute, the legal authority of it. >> Okay. Any additional questions, councelor Hall, council on >> I think the only one that I would have Tyler is in regards to an economic development committee.
um it versus an EDA. Is there similar guidelines per the state statute that's been discussed or is there are they two separate? >> Two separate an ED an EDC which is what it's referred to economic development commission. They are um
>> they are they have no legal authority. They are just they are a committee >> like an advisory board. >> They're an advisory board to this council. Yep. provide recommendations. We have some that are really directed. The council does a really good job of directing that commission to go forth
and do the thing they'd like them to do. They handle marketing. They handle um development um conversations, different things like that. They use us to to do a lot of that for them, but they just make recommendations. They don't have any authority at all. >> Okay.
What are the I have a follow-up question to that as you've seen it because you sit on both. What are the pros and cons of one versus the other? >> I mean the main difference obviously is the legal authority. Correct. Not the ability to >> I think you have less buyin from a
commission than you do an authority. the authority. When when you establish authority, in my professional opinion, it tells it tells people, it tells developers, it tells the community that you're serious about the type of development and opportunities that you
have in this city and that you want to take forward. A commission, it's just a it's a sounding board. It really is. And they do a again, I no disrespect to any, they do really good work and you have community members that are stepping up and doing this work. Um, but they don't
have a council person sitting on those. They're they're loosely affiliated to say it that way. The authority just gives I think it, my opinion, it makes it real. It tells it tells the community, it tells developers, it tells everyone
that you're you're serious about what you're looking for in this community from a development standpoint and a growth standpoint and how you want to do it properly. and setting those setting those uh guidelines in place does that.
>> Councelor London, any Okay. Uh Mr. Pearson, anything else from your end? >> No. Thank you. >> Anyone else? Anyone in the audience have any questions? >> I'd gladly give up the microphone. No,
I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. It's a great opportunity and I appreciate you taking the taking the steps to move this move this forward. Um, you know, there's like I mentioned I live in this community and I want to I want to see it continue to
grow and thrive and I think there's tremendous opportunities here for for this council and for the city. >> Well, thank you for all of the time that you've spent with this council at the last meeting today um outside of it talking to folks and preparing information. I think it's very helpful
and it's good for the public, anybody that's here or watching it to be able to get the background information and insight and to see all angles as well. So, we appreciate it. >> My pleasure. >> Thank you. >> Mhm. >> Um, at this point there would be no council motion at this workshop, but
would you need any direction from the council >> uh today? No. >> Yeah. Okay. >> I mean, I don't Yeah. I mean, I think you're if you're if you're going to advance this, then you have to get to a council meeting to say >> we want to establish an EDA. Um, we want
you to begin drafting resolution to make that happen. So, that would be the process, I think. >> Okay. Well, sounds good. Well, thank you everybody. Um, a motion to adjurnn would be in order. >> So, moved. Second. >> All those in favor signify by saying I.
>> I. >> Opposed. All right. The workshop is adjourned. Thank you everyone for your time.