Okay, today is Wednesday, um, May 21st. It's 6:02 and we'd like to call to order the meeting of the Economic Development Commission. Greg Dy the chair. We'll go around with attendance. Julie Pichnney,
Serena Fuller, Bill Terry, David, Greg Samuelson. And also we have two guests here, Norm Chver to discuss our pri priorities and Bert Hansen to talk about some
partnership and and you know help you might have with the South and Bloom and Excuse me one thing. Julie, are you going to have a garden pot this year? I'm not sure. Okay, we don't have to get into it. Okay, that's fine. I know I'm
going to because I forgot to do it last time. We've got two sets of minutes to approve and I want to do it right at the beginning so I don't forget this time. And everybody's received these minutes within a week of each meeting and nobody has sent me any
corrections. So unless there's any discussion, I'm going to go ahead with the the votes. I they're all perfect motion that that we approve the minutes. Second. Okay. All in favor say I. I. I.
That sounded unanimous. So the meetings the the last two meetings the minutes are approved. You sure you don't need a paper ballot on that? Well, we might have to maybe we'll take a paper ballot to decide whether we have a paper ballot.
Uh, and just wanted to mention, what was a little over two weeks ago now that we now have appointed a full-time town planner and economic development person, Alvin Allen, and I
was there there at the meeting and met him afterward. Uh, and we talked briefly. I I'm really optimistic about uh going forward with that and I'm I'm I know that he had a couple more things of
testing before he's officially appointed. But as as soon as he is appointed and I did already say you you can come to any of our economic development. I gave him a card so he can contact me and um is he now officially part of the
commission or not? He's not on yet on the town website from what I can see. So I think will he ultimately be part of this EPC? Oh, not necessarily, but he'll be welcome to come to any any meeting,
right? And I will certainly or whoever the chair is going forward will certainly be in constant contact and and we'll have a close and I would hope that he would come to Yeah. you know, frequently at
meetings. I don't know what his schedule is and working through the day if he Okay. priority will probably be to, you know, attend the planning meetings, but if he can be here, too, he would love
that because he does have experience in doing grants and in working with economic development in Springfield. So that would bring a perspective that I would think would be very helpful for us. So I'm I'm looking forward to that.
Alvin Allen, if I'm remembering right. Okay. Um let's go right ahead then and go into the second item here on on new business. the renewed I don't know maybe old
business a new second phase of going through our priorities and I'll just ask Norm to introduce this part of it and and we'll try to be as
helpful as possible very good Norm Chver I'm the chairman of the master plan implementation committee also the chairman of the conservation commissions and a member of lake management committee When do you sleep again? I haven't been sleeping well at all
lately. So, I keep pretty busy. Gives me a big thrill to give back to the community. So, uh we had a resignation on master plan implementation committee. Your liaison
Pam Scalpini uh had to resign for good reasons. Her business is so busy that she has absolutely no free time and she's working seven days a week and multiple Oh, for her multiple hours. Great. I
haven't talked to her in a while. It's from being too busy, not from struggling to mentally very sad to say that she she resigned, but u it's the right thing for her and her business. So what we did is
uh each of us had three or four liaison assignments to other committees in the town and we split hers up and I ended up being appointed the leaison to the economic development commission at least until we got a new
member but we don't know whether that's one month two months three months so you'll see me at least short term on a regular basis So the first thing I have is the results from remember we we we prioritized your
lead actions and then we started to organize your support actions but from your lead action standpoint and actually I probably have enough for you to take Thank you.
Okay. Now, we have one minor issue with this happen to be on page two and it's things are doublesided. Okay. [Music] U the the town say I'm
meeting happens to be on on Julie's column there appears to be two 11s in your priority. So, you're missing a 15. And that may be my mistake. Well, it could I don't know. But what am I missing?
It's we're doing together. It's just that on on the second and third are both 11. Okay. That be one of those should be 15. And that, you know, it's probably for my transcription because I put them all together to send them to.
So if you want to change that it might change the overall but otherwise what are we changing why do I have to change it or just tell just decide which of of those tell me the last priority this is the real number 11 this is the real
number 15 is the the full color which brochure by local it should be grayed out Julie 11 15 so it doesn't have to be okay it can be 11 two times Correct. Yes. You see a grade
out there? Yes. Okay. But overall in the last column, you've got your priorities number one through 15 based upon your individual scores. Okay.
So what we're doing on the other committees that I'm on is is someone's taking the number one priority and doing something someone's going to sign up for number two and that's that's the way we decided to go in our community at our community
meetings. Um well in in ours we you started ahead of time anyway. So right what what we have have done this past year and we'll probably do again is we identified 10 goals
that we were going to do as a group and then had two or three people on each goal. So we had team okay on each goal and people would be on more than one team and uh would so rather than just an
individual per goal we had a team of mutually period okay so it was small enough they could meet without having an open meeting issue so I would be interested to know if if you start which one of these you started
on you don't have to tell the tenant what I'd Oh yeah, and I I noted that I think in what I sent, but we did the the database of businesses who Yes. and put it up in
that's that's in your email. Yeah, that's where you have the the shop Southwait. Okay. Um directory of 160 businesses. All right. So what what we've done now on the
support is you you classify here's my top 10, here's my bottom 10, and everything else is in the middle. So I I I have copies of your top 10 that now need to be prioritized. Okay. Again, I have copies
[Music] and and if there's not enough printed I don't I've got your electronic ones. We all have one. You have two, right? You have I have one. Okay. Everybody has a These are this the second one is the
support. Okay. We should be looking at top 10 support action. Oh, okay. Tell me that. Oh, this is different. That's a different one. So, there are some that were support, some that were main
actions, some that were top 10, bottom 10, master plan action items. Master plan action. I could They're not the same, but they're I'm confused already. This used to say tough. Now we're talking
about this one. This one was your leads. Yeah. 15 if that. So on the support, what you need to do is just wait until the lead whoever the lead is contacts you for your assistance. So you're on hold. So we don't have to
prioritize those. Yes, we do. Oh, we do. Okay. We want to prioritize those to look at how the the bigger population prioritizes things versus the lead to see if there's any major discrepancies. Now all of us have
prioritized all 32 I think it is of the support already. Would it be okay if I used everybody's previous one to to focus on the top 10 and say, "Okay, what
order did they put those in?" Because it would be easy enough for me to take I have all of our 32 on one spreadsheet. Okay. So, if I put them in order for each person,
I could just then show their order. reorder them by one to 10. Even if you know, like maybe they had a one, a three, an eight, a 16. But everybody prioritize all 32. Yes. You just send me
that and and I'll just organize it. Yeah, I can I can fill these out. You won't you won't have to do anymore, right? Because it it takes Yeah, I can do that for both the ones where we're the lead and for the ones that are the support. Okay.
So, I'll I'll just do that. I'll put it in I'll use the the format you sent me because I'm that would take me only 15 minutes on a spreadsheet to Okay, great. Save the time
function. Okay. So then I wanted to give you an update on one of the things we talked about was we expect that people are going to ask to change things in the master plan.
Yep. Okay. We got a lead item. We don't think it's ours. We believe it belongs to agriculture. Or we got a support item that has nothing to do with us. We want
out. we would like to modify our action of them and things of that nature. So we have come up with a a presentation for the changes that that can be made to the
master plan and how we're going to do it. And I've reviewed that with the select board and the planning board and they agree. Okay, there is the whole presentation. And I'm just going to give everybody else just one
page to tell you what their items are. Again, pass them around on the floor. Thank you. item. So, we have a process in place that's approved for how to transfer or lead action item, cancel an action
item, how to modify an action item, how to add a new one. We've added five, the master plan implementation commit. I think it's five. We're up to it. How to handle an unfunded program.
In other words, you do all the work, you're ready to go, and you can't find the funding, you can't find a grant, you can't get budget money from the town. So, we have a plan for how the hell we're going to handle that for a period of time. Okay. We've had one complaint
with a support item, a challenge in the legality of it. So, we have a process in place to handle that now. Okay. And then we have, as I mentioned earlier, the opportunity to remove an
action item for a support group again because it they have no they have no business being there. It was a mistake probably made. Y Okay. And then also in this presentation is we're going to put revision controls in
for the master plan and it'll be on the website right next to the master plan that will discuss list every significant change that's been made to the master plan. So that when someone wants to read the master plan, they can also say,
well, there's been changes and here's the list of changes. Here's the five ads, you know, here's the modifications and here's those that were transferred. [Music] Norm, can you say which one is being challenged? The legality is being
challenged. It's one in lake management that has to do with u is involved with looking at property on the lake that's related to that. looking for taking taking some of the cottages and
converting them to different types of property. So, the process for that is to send it to the chief administrative officer and she has she doesn't have that yet. She will have them. Yeah, we haven't sent
out anything yet. We had to get our approvals from the select board and the planning board. We just got the planning board at their at their last meeting. So, We can now send them out. Our next meeting is next Wednesday. We'll discuss we're going to discuss the final
verbiage of the five new ones. And who is this presentation designed for? Select board and planning board. Okay. But it's going to go out to all of all of the individual uh le uh chairman of the committees and
department heads. Okay. But you're the first to get it. that or I think not, you know, at the risk of speaking for the group before we discuss it in in full, I think for the most part
we agree in principle with everything in the master plan and we might propose just clarifying the wording a little bit. Yeah. An example might be there's one about uh doing a chamber of commerce and we might modify that to a business
association which may be more appropriate for our town than a not large enough for a chamber of commerce that hits mostly bigger businesses but do okay more of a business association you know that type of thing
where we agree in principle but maybe have steered it a little bit different direction. Yeah, there would be in my mind my minor modification would have to know it, but it wouldn't we wouldn't have to go to uh the select board. Major changes we're going to take to the
select board and the planning board. We don't feel that we for major change we've got the authority due to that. Although the select board said we do, but uh we'll still carry things like that forward. Just an FYI if I sure don't want to talk
too much here, but um agriculture is having a a special work session tomorrow night to work on some things just just like this. We have um one of our lead items is the um taste of Southwick Taste of Southwick and we feel
you guys should be the lead on that and we certainly want to support it. And the other one is one of ours is about irrigation and we feel that the language is not very clear. So we're going to work recommend some different language
there and the fact that agriculture commission should be a resource to how irrigation you know processes or irrigation. Your your liaison Jessica Taylor Yeah. did report
that out that you would have one that would want to transfer would be interested in transferring. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Yeah. So, we're working on that tomorrow night. So, excellent. And hopefully Jessica will be there.
Um now the we also have developed a measurement package that uh we're going to finalize at our next Wednesday meeting. listen to some of the proposals there. Yeah. And one of the first things on
that that you could start to think about is we've got what you got 15 lead items. How would you like to say we're going to accomplish those? We'll do 15 years. Well, fine. You know, we're we're
recommending less. Okay. I joking, but you know, you you you look at the list and say, "Well, I think we can get this one year one. We can get these two in year two." You believe? And then they're going to use that to as a form of of showing progress
to the plan. Okay. Okay. But I will say that, you know, from the start, you guys jumped all over it and uh you were way out in front of a lot of other organizations. Prioritizing has been a much bigger
issue than we thought it would be. Uh we finally got the planning boards done. They they had they had one of the the most the most was a select board and they're struggling, you know, when they they got what
65 or so support items that were asking them to prioritize. they finished their leads. But u yeah well in doing it here what I suggest to everyone is think in terms of what we're able to do the
earliest things we don't have the resources to do. Please put a low priority. Yeah. Yeah. So that I do want to show success. I do want to actually accomplish things. Yeah. I'm I have no doubt that's going
to happen from this committee what I've heard. That's great. So when that measurement package is approved, we'll run it by the select board, the planning board, and then it will be issued up. Okay. Okay.
All right. Any questions that I can answer for you? No, that appreciate you coming in and and for printing out everything. I did I hesitated about whether we should print out ourselves and I thought no I'll just wait for N to present before we do that
and it makes it much easier if I can just use our current data to do the priorities and then what I want to ask everybody to do then is think about uh what things we want to tackle first and
what you know in terms of how many we want to do next year and whether we should modify the wording. start, you know, reading that through and have a discussion very soon about that kind of thing. Okay. Your next meeting is two weeks from today. No, we once a month we
are always on the third Wednesday. Third Wednesday of the month. Okay. So, what I'll do is I'll redo the leads or the 211's fixed. See if that changes the priorities. I'll if
you send me the ratings of the support Yeah. Yeah, I'll have that all packaged for you for that next meeting. I'll try to get that to you by the end of the week, if not tomorrow. Wonderful. June 18th is the next meeting. June 18th. Okay, that's all I have. If you don't mind, I'll stay a while. Yeah, you can
stay all the way to the end of our meeting and we'll end by 11:30 or so. [Music] Another one. Always welcome to say. Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you. Now, I'd like to
move on to our other guest and and B. Well, let's let's bring up the first subject you brought to us. You know, what things you can help us with in in doing or what questions you might have about our South and Bloom. And
we'll we'll go right to that agenda item which is later in the meeting, but we'll make that a I appreciate that. I was actually going to ask if you would because you have some pretty inside baseball kinds of things on your agenda, you know, website tabs and, you know, business evaluations and stuff, right?
No, I want to jump right. I I prefer to do our guests first. Yeah. So, we're not holding them through any any tedious minutiae. Yeah. Uh so, yeah. So, stop and bloom. I
um I have a couple of I've seen I'm thinking we can help with some some of the promotion. I've seen you know there's a big banner at the notch. Uh there's one at the intersection of 57 and 10202 but I haven't really seen much
around town yet. I don't know. I said um Okay. Well Craig or Julie can ought to just go ahead first and then uh let him Okay. Yeah. segue into that, right? That's why I said we'll bring our our update up in in the agenda to that
person. Do you want you want to run through this or you want me? Yeah, you can record it. Um I just got this so I'll be reading most of it here, but uh this is just a quick update on on what's happened since the last meeting. As we've explained the
thought process in starting this town beautifification initiative, business owners think it's a grand idea and agree that it should bring more people to our town. Some business owners are getting used to the idea and feel they will perhaps participate next year. Our goal is first years to have approximately 15
to 20 businesses located along the main streets to participate along with residential contenders. We do not have account right now because of a glitch in the technology of the online reg registration and I don't know if we have any update on that at all. Yeah, I I will talk to you after. Yeah, let's I
didn't have time to bring it up. Yeah, we we know of at least personally half a dozen and there's zero that are showing. So, who knows? So, even the one I submitted isn't showing. Nothing showing. We'll we'll take a look at that. Yeah, because I put one through.
So, anyway, not a big deal. But just so you know, I mean, we Well, that's important. So, it is when you're having a Jones. Yeah, but I mean, we know that there's uh maybe a half a dozen, maybe 10. We don't know what that number is, but we
we know that it's not zero is what I'm saying. Okay. Well, yeah, let's after you are you in tomorrow or any time this week or can we discuss this after the meeting? Yeah, we'll talk after the meeting. So, it's estimated there's
probably about 12 to 15 right now and we're continuing to invite participation. So, the flyers and the website is done are done. Um, and awareness has been promoted through the Westfield News article, Southwood's logo on the magazine, social media, Facebook,
Instagram banners posted, flyers posted, and inviting businesses in person. And I believe you guys have, you know, done a lot of that, right? I mean there's there's been uh Mhm. foot traffic here and
um I don't know if we want to discuss the results right now. I mean of you know the response that you've I don't think that's necessary. We can what's that? I don't think it's important right now to discuss the number people but but
I mean it's been the feedback I mean I haven't gotten a lot of feedback. They think it's a good idea, but I haven't gotten commitments, you know, because we've been giving them the flyers and just kind of leaving it. It's kind of frustrating when you don't see the business owner and that's kind of tough when you're giving it to someone. You
don't know if you're hanging up the banner or whatever the flyer. I spoke to a couple business owners. Roma restaurant, he said he wants to participate. The Roma restaurant pizza. Yeah. I spoke to him the other day. I stopped by and Kitchen of Distinction also. He's they're very interested in
doing that because they also already like plant some flowers but they loop. Are you able to kind of launch something [Music] through the list that we have the businesses the business list that we
have or not? We could send an email to that'd be great. Yeah. To the list if we have the list of business businesses. That would be very helpful. Yeah. We really should do that, right? You could
Well, you have all of the you have the directory. If you could tell me which ones we want to target. I I have email addresses for most. And a few of them I have to go through
their contact form, but uh you know, identify the ones you think would be targets. And also it'd be good to know which ones have you've already talked to so that what we send and then then what I would need is for you to write up the message in the
way that you think if you want to do do you know any of you know how to send out an email? Oh yes I do. I don't I don't think it's going to be much helpful with email because everybody's so busy they
can't they don't have time to reply. The best ways to approach just walking in and talking to the businessman. Okay. Just offering if it was a we agree that it may not be the best way to initiate
or close but it's it's nice for a reminder. Yeah. you know, don't forget if everyone agree then or to raise awareness too. So when you do walk in the business, they go, "Oh, yeah. I think yeah, you know, do we get any spot on the
town digital I I did um hang some flyers in town hall?" No, reader in the center of town south there. No, I don't think that
the town. Yeah. Where is that? By Brookshire Bank in Crystal Plaza. Oh, you know the thing that the digital Yeah. You want to use that? Jim Middleton's
the person that does it. That's what I've been told. Yes. There's a there's a form you can fill out. I think go on the town website and fill out Jim Middleton. Middleton. Oh, the it the
it yeah but there's there's a for form that has the number of spaces okay for a message etc that you can submit put it into rotation is that a good or a bad idea or what I mean sure you can also put notice on the
channel 15 you haven't done Um, again, I don't know how many people you get that way, but it's the price is right. Other advertising, we're looking for a volunteer photographer to do shoots the participants um closer to the
end of July. Um, but I did say I will do it. Yeah, you did say that. Yeah. Was that Philly said she would do that? Oh, yeah. That was on a list that Okay. Okay. I'm taking care of the workshop is canled
um for some Yeah. which is disappointing, but next year we're going to have to really get the master gardener lined up earlier. Okay. So, it was a That's too bad. Yeah. [Music]
Um, however, um, obviously we're going to give guidance to anybody that calls and we'll give them resources. No, it's just we won't have that class. Um, a few prizes have been purchased. The committee will be soliciting gift cards from businesses to
give as prizes also. For example, restaurant cards. Um, this isn't a big dollar item. It's just it's more of a recognition. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So, that's really where we're going to go with that. Yeah, I agree that that's better.
Um we don't have a big budget know. So, we encourage the businesses to continue to sign up. We're going to be sending up some follow-up emails as soon as this glitch is fixed so we can find out who's there. Um, we'll continue to make posts to
social media. Um, and I think that's it for now. What What about the We're announcing this during farm day, are we? The winners. Yes. August 18.
Oh, 17th. Yes. The judging will take place prior to that, right? Yeah. Cowards. That's the third Sunday. So, okay. It's the 17th this year. Yeah. Okay. I remember it was 17 or 18. So I know the ladies been working hard
on this. So it's it's um I think whatever level of participation we get this year we'll be thankful for and and build on it. Right. Absolutely. It takes a while to get momentum on a a new program and
and when people see it going on and you know be able to present it and coordinate with open farm day is going to expose a lot of people to the idea and give give attention to it. We can
definitely um help promote it in the advertising and other things that we do for open farm day. you know that that be sure to come to cowards and find out what you have. Yeah. But uh
is there anything else? I'm good. What about you? I think you said everything. If you have any questions um couple things I very nice flyer by the way. Um, thank you. That took some time. Yeah. I mean, it kind of says flowers, you know,
to me. I just wanted to bring this, too. Um, the library uh a couple of weeks ago had a plant swap and they had a a fullsize flyer like this to put in the store windows and other places, but they also had these um a sheet with four of
them. you know, print them and cut them and then you can leave a stack uh at some businesses so people could just easily take take one with them instead of a full sheet of paper and obviously you get four or on one. So, I just wanted to throw
throw that out there about that. Um, thus far. Yeah, I guess that's that's all we had for the South Blue. Yeah, we're open to any recommendations too at this point. You
know, we're really green behind the ears, but we're giving it our best. Yep. We've been there with I have a question. Yeah. Sorry. Do you have a Facebook page for the Yes. Okay. Maybe you can share. Sure. The Facebook page for the South
Wing Bull to get more, you know, definitely traffic and I kind of do occasionally post on the Southic forum too. So I don't know who's on the Facebook page on the South forum. Yeah. But it's it's new page so
it's not much people you know. Yeah. Like right next anywhere you can get it out there you know it's when we meet tomorrow night when the egg meets tomorrow night um I'll bring this up and say hey everybody you
know whoever your contacts are you know whoever might be interested. Okay thank you. I I wonder can we use them really as far as a resource for the you know the absence of this class that we're going to have. I mean maybe there's somebody that would be willing
to be a point person or something like that. Oh yeah, that's I mean would you still want to try to get it together for this year if we found somebody? I mean, it would be wonderful at least somebody we could refer folk to that had questions or what
do I do about this or you know some coaching or whatever. I don't know if we if we could market that maybe others would join up that otherwise might be scared off right now. I don't know. Stephen shared contact
with another place that they do like training, right? Like gardening, but they do that in early spring and that's I think that's the right time. We should kind of consider that for next year, not wait until like late May. Yeah, because everybody's already planting. I mean, we
could triage something right now would be nice as well, right? So, okay. The ideal time is when it's still cold, but people are dreaming about getting out there if they're something cataloges or something. Yeah, we had a lot of initial preliminary
stuff we had to do this year that won't have repeated next year. So, that'll be good. Yeah, we went through the exact same process with the open farm day. Now, this this will be our third one. And right, we're feeling pretty good, you know. Yeah, the first year was kind of right. Yeah. Yeah, I remember that. Except we're just we're just praying
that this year it won't pour pour rain all I know one of the tasks on master plan is considering a a beautifification committee right and I think that would be
great be a you know a home for this at some point where concentration [Music] well I know people take pride in Southwick and that was whole impetus behind this. So, anything for sure. Any
questions at all? I don't think so at this point. Maybe you stop talking about me. Okay. And and I want to go beyond this then while you're here, Bird, and and say, do you have any further thoughts about
partnerships? I know we had a discussion sometime earlier. Craig was bringing up where one of the things that would be great is to have some kind of event where you had people come into a location and and
have, you know, agriculture, crafts, whatever else. Home uh sales of something that that we're at in an event. Yeah. not necessarily a a weekly or monthly market. I know there are
issues with that, but at least Yeah, it's funny you should say that because I've been thinking and I haven't even talked to the rest of the mission about the tips. I thought, you know, we on farm day we have all farms are open and people travel around and there's special stuff going on, but I I've been wondering if we could have some sort of
a have one of the locations. I'm kind of thinking of the congregational church just because it's in the middle of town and have it be sort of an educational kind of thing with various groups with their information. Um I guess figure some way to make it
fun, you know, too. Uh but that seems like kind of a similar So it's like a little fair almost. Yeah. It's a way to to promote the local business, local small businesses in town, uh where
people might not get out to the locations where they are, but if if they had a a little fair or exposition. Yeah. Whatever. Uh well I think we were also thinking about
how to engage you know the kids and you know a lot of them might be involved in 4 or they might do wood carving or something like that and we in the town wouldn't even know about that. So it'd be nice if they could show their wares. Yeah. And
start learning you know whether it's run a little business or run a stand or something like that. And uh yeah. So anyway, that that's kind of what I think it had to do with farmers market. Farmers market. We were talking about farmers market, weren't we? Yeah. Um
or were you I know there are issues with farmers markets because we've got markets already. People have their locations, right? And that would create challenges for them in terms of staffing and
managing. Yeah. And some of the farmers say, you know, there's already more markets than there are farmers. You know, if you think about the whole region, you know, Springfield and Bitsfield and Westfield. So, um, and that's another interesting thing.
Um, we have been talking about a farmers market and one of our meetings or might have been when we did a presentation for the historical society last spring that Jim Putnham said, why don't we turn that on its head and take people to the farms rather than farmers coming to the
people. So, we're actually doing that. I want to let you guys know about this. We're calling it the the farm hop. We're um uh working with the senior center and uh we're going to use their van and once a month take seniors to two farms, two
farms each month and let them uh you know raise awareness of of the farms and how to be educational but also if they want to go to say Blossoming Acres, they would they would buy stuff, you know. Um so uh the senior center is very excited
about this. So we'll see how how it works out. It's nice. What are you calling it? Farm hop. Farm hop. Nice. Hop from farm to farm. And uh so it's going to be the third Tuesday of the month. Um so far uh June 17th um we're
going to have Cowards and then uh Firefly Fields. And what we're going to try to do each month is you know an established farm like Cowards or Calibri or Basping Acres and one of the newer farms. and um you know
kind of mix it up a little bit and raise awareness of the lure farms. Uh so June it's you know Cowards and Firefly Fields and then July 15th uh Blossom Acres and Klein View Stables and they they run a summer camp for kids
and we're gonna so we're going to go during camp. So we thought seniors might get a kick out of you know seeing the kids riding around on their horses and stuff. So we'll see. Uh we don't know about August because again it's the third Tuesday and that would be two days after
the open farm day and we're thinking that might might be a little much for the for the farmers. So we're going to see if we can get the van and and take folks around on the Sunday of open farm day. That would be nice. Yeah. Yeah. But maybe it wouldn't even have to be just
seniors, you know, anyone who wants to. Yeah. you have a cold. Yeah. And we don't know about September or October and that that would be the end of it with, you know, pretty much the growing season, right? So, we'll see how that
goes. We have um Jen Dietro is one of the commissioners and she's she's taking that day off from work so she can be like ride the bus and be the tour guide. And uh that's awesome. the we met with we went over to Firefly Fields the other day which is I don't know if you even
know. Yes. Yeah. Brass rail fields and so it's um their big thing is kind of a petting zoo and they have goats and sheep and horses and ducks and chickens and they have something called a zebu which has
the body this blew my mind. has the body of a goat and the head of a cow and it's actually an African cow. Oh wow. And she has Yeah. She has a, you know, a small piece of property, so she can't have
fulls size cattle, so she has a smaller smaller cows. Yeah. And the goats um of course it's uh you know spring so they have all kinds of they have up they're right now at 15 baby goats allow around
it's really not like that and it's that big of an area yeah and it's very flat so um you know people they've actually had some nursing homes you take big people there and people can get around in their wheelchairs and everything because it's all it's totally flat you know so
awesome that's going to be very fun. It was so fun. They have u like tractor trailer tires buried in the, you know, vertically buried in the in the ground and then the little goats, you know, hop around just like little puppies or something, you know. It's
funny. So, we'll see. So, that's that's kind of our big new thing is that is that farm. And are you promoting that through the senior center? Yeah, yeah. Yep. And Tara Cartel.
Mhm. Yep. And for these monthly ones, it's going to be just seniors, but again, I'm hoping on open farm day, we can open it up and and have it be a little like a little shuttle for anybody. I'm not sure, but a lot of details there, but uh we'll see. Um one
other thing we might um actually two other things. Um Deb Humphrey is a new member of the agriculture commission. Um she's been around town a long time and she has a homestead kind of farm on Kangan and uh she has people asking her
whatever happened to the tractor rally. We had the tractor rally in April. We did it five times and kind of um kind of was killed by uh co so we may look into the the tractor rally again. And we did
it at the DPW and uh people brought their antique tractors and a band and you know hay bale toss and you know stuff like that. So I don't know that's another pretty pretty big event. So I don't know if we can do that
and open farm day. But um the other thing I want to mention is the farm parade in in October. And just to be clear, most people don't know this. That's not the agriculture commission. That's the Southwick Civic Fund that
puts that together. We participate, of course, but we don't organize it. So, um I don't know if there's something I don't know. Did did has EDC ever been part of that? I mean, you're not really a far.
Um yeah. So, I wonder there's a way to Well, we're talking about doing some kind of fair of businesses and information, whatever. It would be nice to coordinate it with an event like that. Yeah. Where they would end up and
you got people coming out for the parade. They would be customers for information and Yeah. and goods and wares and awareness of local business. Yeah. That's that's a good idea too because at
the end of the parade we just we're a town hall and then everybody just kind of they just go away. There you go. So if there were some sort of an attraction there that would be that would be good. Do we still have the carnival in town? I don't think so few years. That used to
be a big deal when I was growing up. Huge. The firemen put it on. We had rides and everything. There was a parade for that. Yeah, there was a parade. It was great. Yeah. Used to be like right after Labor Day. Is that right? They had a different time. Some I think sometimes they were
in July. But that was annual. It was a big deal. It was. Yeah. Used to always take my kids. Yeah. We had it different places over well now where the fire station is. And I think it was I think they even had a powder
mill over by the powder mill school in the field there. Oh, okay. Yeah. Um, but that was always a great draw. Yeah. Yeah. The police and the firemen got involved. We should have it. It was excellent. They had turtle houses. They had all
kinds of stuff. Like open town though or something. Lot of fun. Well, I would um that's yeah, I'd suggest we keep all of these in mind because one of the things we're going to be doing is tonight I'm focusing on
wrapping up the 10 goals we had for this year, seeing how we can close them out, the status, what else needs to be done on them, and then I want to develop a new set of goals for next year. And so some of these ideas should be part of
those. Uh the the idea is to you know get it down to a doable number and to have teams assigned to actually accomplish within by the end of the ne next fix fiscal year through the
end of June. Yeah. As we're trying to Well, you guys are saying you guys are ahead of us. We haven't we're still working on the priorities, let alone teams to do them. So great. Well, I appreciate the
opportunity to come and thank you so much for sharing. Yeah. Yes. Thank you very much. You can put that sound of voom on your on your Facebook. Just share share the page and think that's going to be the Yeah, absolutely. because I will be posting more
interesting stuff and promoting the businesses that will participate in this contest on that page. And if you've thought of any other places to put these, we have more. Okay. Stack. Good. I take four or five of
those. Absolutely. You promise to have them posted publicly. Yeah. I don't really need them in my house. So, yeah, definitely. um take your agenda.
[Music] Okay, I'm going to let you guys go ahead. I'm going to take off. All right, thank you for coming. You're welcome anytime. Thank you very much. I have an open meeting today. Yeah, I will email you above the plot. Okay,
thank you. That's right. Have a nice Memorial Day. Thank you. You too. Thank you. into a little monsoon. I know tomorrow and the next day it's going to be nice. At least it farmers aren't going to like that. Oh yeah. To cover my plants. Well, it's
it's good to get extra rain. Yeah. It's going to get washed out before the before the weekend. Inch and a half maybe. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Good night. All right. We will try to move quickly through through some of these other
items. Uh in our our goals, I think on the first one to populate the EDC website, we're pretty much there. Stephen is anything to add. I mean, obviously there's more
we should add, but at least we've got something for the tabs that are out there. We've taken down any tabs that don't have content. and uh you know we will work to build off that base as going forward. So I would say we accomplished that goal and then as far
as the website traffic uh as of this this morning we're up to 1960ome unique users. So I think we're going to hit our goal of 2,000. Nice. Wow. And
uh we've got I think up to 76 or 7700 page views. So we'll get close to the 2,000 there. I think having the people getting out on the bike trails and the boat ramps and and building from
our enjoy Southwick tab is getting a lot more hits. I think we've got 110 or 15 unique users on that and we're just starting to get into the nicer weather where people be out. So I that one is under
control. Uh the new business evaluation process, that's one we're not going to get done this year because we didn't get support yet from select and planning board. they still have concerns about that we're
being objective enough. Um, and maybe that's when we'll think about reformulating and into a different kind of goal. This, you know, maybe making it more defined or something. I don't want to give up on this because I think it's
an important part of what economic development commission should be doing is is helping evaluate the kinds of businesses or the kinds of economic more broadly economic development which goes
beyond just businesses and and even is about what kind of housing and housing development because all of that's economic development. uh and and targeting some more some areas where we can make a
difference. The next one with the the signs installed durable signs promoting Southwork recreational assets. We did that. So that one I would say is accomplished. We still want to continue putting out these smaller signs where we
can. And a goal I want to think about for next year is doing more Facebook, Instagram, if anybody is good at that, promotion of our recreational page of sending them
through because we have that set up now where we have uh the landing page that shows all the the categories of recreation, the the golfing and boating and fishing and everything. So, it's set up to to promote and we should start
doing more online promotion of that as well. Uh, meetings with groups of business owners, get their input on EDC initiatives or to create initiatives. Bill, what are we what should we be doing? I've been so out of touch. I've
done absolutely nothing. No, I I understand. Yeah. Now, we'll we'll talk a minute about getting that enrolling in. Yeah, we can maybe we can think about formulating that to a more specific goal next year to what kind of
meeting, what kind of business is, what category. Yeah. You know, whether it should maybe it could revolve around a print brochure we want to develop or revolve around some kind of uh promotional effort for certain types of businesses. We need to develop a
relationship between the owners and the commission. However, we do that. That's hard to do. I agree. That's very hard to do. One thing that I've between what the commission and the business owners in town just some kind of a relationship that's the dialogue. They give us some
input and we give them some input. One thing I in some ways hesitate to throw out, but something I would actually be in favor of the local option meal excise tax. We're one of the few communities that don't take advantage of that. Mhm.
Uh the standard meal tax rate is six and a quarter, but you have the option to add a another 75 on it that comes back to the community. And that is a way to go outside of our
residential base to collect tax. Anybody who comes into the community and uses it, that would contribute to something that would come back into town, not just all but go to the state. But maybe some of that could be even designated toward helping promote our restaurants in some
way. That's really something for next year's agenda, isn't it? Right. No, that's what I'm I'm saying. Think about it for whether that could be a goal. And I don't know why we're we're not out of the out of all of the and I did this analysis of all the towns
that take advantage of this that are the size of Southwick and larger like out of 250 pounds 230 or 40 of them take advantage of it. one of the very few that don't. All of
the neighboring Westfield, West Springfield, Springfield, all of them do it. And it's only 75 cents for $100 spent. So, it's not going to reduce business. Talk about a tariff. That would that
would repair a warrant article voted by the town, right? I would think. Yeah, I think it would have to be voted on, but and I've suggested it to select board. I haven't had a response and I haven't pushed it. You could set it up as a
revolving account so the funds flow back to you. Well, I would I wouldn't necessarily take all of it, but it would I don't know how much it would be, but I know that there's the town of Stirbridge has
similar population to Southwick. Now, maybe they have a little more restaurant business, although I think they have a similar number of restaurants, but they also have a couple hotels and whatever and more attractions. They get $600,000
from the that Xhouse tax alone, the low cops and meal tax. Well, I So, even if we got half of that, it would be well worth doing. Sure. I think we need to look at all angles because small businesses I mean that's
just that's one more thing that you know one more accounting thing that's got to be done and well it's not the they're already paying the meal tax. Yeah. and the state does the the they just increase it from five
and a quarter to six and then you get money from the state. I guess it' be worth you know having a conversation about okay that that all of the local complicates my business any more than is already complicated right now. I've got to tell you I am yeah it
should just not into it. It shouldn't shouldn't add complication. It should it it's set up. It's been set up for years. Uh say all the local communities, the other towns do it. Well, that doesn't make it right in the
first place, but in this in the second place, I'm not saying it's a bad idea. I don't know. I wouldn't make that argument just because everybody else does it. Historically, that's not been a good rule to follow. But, uh sound like my dad. Yeah,
the the point is it's it's not they they don't find big hurdles to doing it. It's it's kind of standard process for for people because it's a way to go beyond your your resident base to get some additional money. I actually like
to see more accountability in this town on how the funds argue as the different funds argue before we start taking in anymore. But uh I don't know. that remains to be seen. Getting perspectives like that from the restaurant owners and stuff might be a good thing for us to focus on on this
tab for meetings of groups of business owners. And I've done a little bit of work on this since our last meeting. Okay. Um something that has kind of crossed my mind is what are we going to provide of value to get people in the door to actually attend this meeting? Like mentioned at the previous meeting, right?
um contacted Bergkshire Bank um and they're in on presenting um people that want to um invest in Southwick or start a business um doing lines of credit or starting up your merchant account or u loans for
purchasing property. they'd be interested in presenting uh something like um was thinking possibly using a library incorporating their resources that they've already developed for economic development as a possible entry point for to start this conversation and
build relationships like Bill was talking about. Um it's start maybe something to consider. Yeah. And mentioned a number of times common capital is more than willing to come and do presentations and they they give loans to people who won't qualify for a
bank loan because they have a personal approach and and consider and train people that are new in in business that may don't maybe don't have the credit line and and are you know slight for a slightly higher rate they they can get the money. Yeah. for people that say,
"Hey, I have an idea, but you don't have now the expectation of this is what it kind of takes and then maybe to talk to the right person for it to actually happen." So, something like that is possible. Um, I'd possibly be interested in pursuing something like that. Yeah. Think about how to formulate formulate
that into a goal that we would officially try to accomplish next this next fiscal year. Okay. So that we'll we want
to continue and pursue the uh vacant town properties. Mark wasn't able to make this meeting. We do have a link on our website. So in a sense we have done at least the first step toward that goal. Maintain were we maintaining
that? We are we are not trying to do our own database. We're just linking that to That's where I was. Perfect. And and also we're trying to be aware of of properties that and whether whether they're contacts or
people we can personally go through uh and I don't know what the best way to to learn about their progress or even check. There's not a lot we can do to make a difference there, but there are a
number of properties for sale in the town. Who we linking to? One of the realtors or like what do they call that? The master loop. What's it called? Loopnet for commercial property or
cracky.com. I the big ones South Porest and the King brothers the the tenant the owner for landlord for those tenants and the south buildings church for sale too.
Yeah. Which is zoned R40 but could be a medical facility. Could be any number of things that would fit into R40. got a large a large million-doll building there. Does the town have any power for any
sort of sanctions or anything like that on property owners that are not maintaining their properties or seem neglected? Um possibly properties that could be potentially for development but aren't being maintained might be a safety issue. Does anybody at the table
know? That's a good question. That's it might be a motivator for somebody that's um for a property to be developed if that was if the town could I know that's that's an issue and I've talked to people in other towns where they have landlords that are just leaving property
vacant and parking money there and don't have an you know it becomes a liability because in the undeveloped property is assessed at par less. Yeah. Yeah, and we don't want someone absent in, you know, the town, you know, we want some people
to be part of the city. But just a just a thought. Wonder if somebody can something I guess can look. Yeah. Um then the economic case for enhancements to the town center. Uh the
specific ones I thought we should start with consistent with our master plan were were not supported by the select board, but I'm not giving up on that. We're pursuing some other directions on that. I'm I'm working on and making steady
progress on the idea of the the rail trail connector to the town center. Mhm. Fact was out of last week with David Deorei looking at had someone from the the pipeline that's go go goes through
that spot walked up with them and they said oh it shouldn't be a problem and you know gave notice for the trying to think through all the things that will need to be addressed as we work on developing that. What was bringing the
really. We've always Yeah. to bring a connector. And the place that I'm proposing to do it is at the Christ Lutheran Church property coming up through the Daily Grind parking lot. And the church is willing to actually designate some shared spots even for
bike trail parking if it would come up through there. It's just a quarter mile connection from the bike trail through the church's property up to their parking lot in View and you come right out at Summer House and all the But
wouldn't that close to town a lot of money because you have to Doria thinks we could get 60 80% through a grant and maybe some community preservation funds to a quarter all strip of pavement
essentially. Right. Right. There's not any, you know, other than maybe a culvert or two. There's no bridge work. I don't think necessarily any railing fencing. Yeah. Nothing. And we've got cooperation from it. It also will cut
through a small corner of the 42 depot uh which I hope break ground breaks around sometime soon. But the developers said, "Oh yeah, we'll do whatever you want. We'll be fully cooperative with that." because it'll be a great boon for
their their condo sales. So, it's it's something we're still pushing to do and and uh David Dori is on both the chair of park and rack and the on the bike trail committee. Perfect. So he's the
ideal person and he's all aboard board for that because it's better than any other alternative going up depot or going up feeding hills road there's just are not good shared bike roads
and and come through a nice pleasant woods you know a little bit of a slope 4% maybe spots but for walking and biking and then having we've got such limited bike trail parking mostly on Miller Road. This would be another node
for and it would bring a lot of people that are from other towns going through up in the middle of town. Yes. As Pam knows, a lot of business comes through the bike trail. Sure does. And more of it would come even down to her
from the middle of town because they would come down there and from south they have in the summer I think an average of 1,200 people on a summer day weekend per day going through
there. So it's economically you know all over the country it's been shown to be an economic move to have have what's the next step in getting that adopted? I know uh it's
yeah excellent the next the grant writing probably I think the next grant timing would be the beginning of next year. Okay. So, if they could develop that to
a point where we could get it written up for a grant. Who's the grant for? Do we have a grant writer? No, we'd have to do it on our own. Well, David did. He would do it. Yeah. The I'm the park and wreck manages the bike trails. So, they're the
logical Yeah. one to to take that initiative, but we're pushing it from the perspective that it would enhance the town center. And so we would have no position other than pushing for it. We have no no real
methodology for making it happen through this commission. um only to you know promote it and saying how good it would be for for business and any information we could have and and also through my connection,
you know, this is I'm on the church council and I was able to get the full support of them for that coordination and and they've just redone their parking lot or portions of it with permeable pavers actually came out very
nicely And you know that would be a you know a good use for that property which didn't have any other use. Yep. That the church had owned since the 60s. Okay. And anyway, just also if we bring
bikes into town, that would be another incentive to maybe make the town a more pleasant place along with the Southwick and Bloom and, you know, make it make it a little more bike friendly, walker friendly,
walkability. There's so much evidence and support for how how much walkability does for a town's economy. the more walkable your town center is, the the better it is for
business. And so we should, you know, I intend to keep keep pushing that. Yep. All right. Uh partnership with Sufffort Public Library. We do have initial link on our website if we want to continue
working directly with them. We'll need a new point person on that since Jean QB for reasons of health is has has dropped out of the of our group. Oh yes. Yeah. What's that? Jean
QB a couple meetings ago, you know, put in a resation reluctantly dropping out because he's he's struggling just to walk. He's got a lot of pain in in in joints and has damaged some muscles or whatever
and and just so we have an open Yes, we have a and that's all been communicated through the clerk and I don't think Mark would mind me mentioning it. Mark's term is up at the
end of June and he told me he was not going to seek reappoint because his business is just taking him everywhere and more traveling than ever and their their business I guess is booming. Big territory is in
construction and health related things. So he said he'll he'll be supportive in any way, but didn't feel like he had the time available to give sufficient commitment. So we're going to after the end of June have another a second
opening. So if you know anybody that I'll ask around. Yeah, ask around. Please do. Then we talked about Southin Bloom. Then the the last thing I wanted to touch on
is is the is reviewing the zoning map and recommending some things. Now when my wife came, did she have anything to say that count or contradicted what we had talked about on the map in the other room there? Was she
all I don't know? No. No. It it encouraged me. It was a positive encouragement to me. I'll put it that way that I know that the process is difficult that I would like to write up and maybe I'll think about this and
now that we you know the our group well maybe the two of us could just sit down and absolutely and go through it because I have several and we can start with principles. We we goals we'd like to
have relative to changing zoning. Yes. Relative to zoning. Yeah. One of them is to make it easier make it easier to do uh the multi-dwelling units. Um and I have specific places around the
town where I think those would be really good. They're all walkable to the town. Mhm. There's five or six locations, you know, several owned by, you know, Wall-E. So,
and and they all have access to the town center, walkable to the sound center, you know, at least 10 acres in size. And I'm thinking depot square type things or south view type things. Those
are incredibly profitable per acre for town revenue. And that's why I say economic development. It's about getting more revenue for the town and and doing it in a way that actually enhances the quality of the town. Getting more
residents not only adds more tax value, but more customers for town businesses and is also another way to push walkability and bikeability and and making it a not just a drag strip on the
way to Connecticut. Let's um make a appointment after the meeting, I guess, to get together and yeah, have a work through. Yeah. Okay. Uh so thinking about the the goals and we you know I made several rest um
references to that already to come up with a new list of goals. I'm even thinking about and we can talk about this next meeting. Our next meeting is is in the middle of June. Give it the
date. I'm considering whether to skip a meeting in July just to give us a breather to to start fresh in August on the new fiscal year. Uh so the next meeting I'd like
to to really wrap up the goals to I can tell you right now I will not be able to make June 18th. I won't be in town. So, if we're going to skip a meeting, we skip that. We can skip the whole summer. Well, I want to wrap up our last meeting of the fiscal year. Yeah. Um, and then
the other thing I want to bring up as we look into the ne next fiscal year that I brought up before, but I'm serious about being willing to swap out the the chair position. Well, I've I'm a believer in
rotating leadership around in these kind of uh commissions. Open to anybody that wants to propose it. Bill, Stephen, great. I I suggested to Mark when he he told me, "Well, I'm I'm just too busy.
I'm gonna have to drop out of Yeah. So, he's not gonna I think you need to hang in there for one more year, Greg, and then we can I'm willing to do that, but even if somebody else takes the lead, I will I'd be glad to be the
vice chair and and give as much support and help. I just I think it's good from two standpoints. You get new ideas when somebody else you make make it clear. You don't want one person putting so
much of a stamp on the mission that it suppresses other ideas. You get a chance for other ideas to bubble up and you train other people. Uh and you you strengthen your bench. You you just on the select board they
rotate every year. Yeah. I don't think we feel suppressed. I think we have a lot of wind in our sale right now. And I just assume I I think you know we saw a lot of things. It'd be nice to get another year underneath us before we really disrupt things. So, that's No,
it wouldn't be a big disruption. I' I'd like to keep that on the on the table. Yeah. As far as these goals though from Net Fear, I mean, um we were talking about getting the businesses in here. Um I'm just thinking I don't this Fiverr thing, whatever took
place last night, I'm not really privy to. I don't know what was talked about, but um I'm just thinking it seems to me that we ought to take an active role in things that are brought before this town
instead of hearing about it after the fact. Yeah. I I'll mention in in that relation Diane the day before the town meeting she said she asked me in an an email does the EDC have a position on this
kind of surpris I would have been glad to bring it up and discuss it if if someone had requested our position on it. Um and maybe we should have been proactive in that but I on what the fiber object right that town worm even
as the constible I didn't know about it until 3 days before the meeting but things that are important like this I mean we we really should be appraised of them we should be well there there were to be fair there wereformational meetings where people attended they were
advertised and their video online I listen I didn't go to the meeting but I did listen to the informational video on online. Uh I thought I understood it although there were some curves thrown out just at the meeting last night that
I didn't know about that and some question raised about whether the numbers were all working. I think that more of those numbers should have just been put out there. I think there should be more transparency on on that.
It just seems to me that things that are going to affect businesses and maybe households, you know, businesses and homes and all that. It seems like we talk about getting businesses in here. It seemed like if we had a form for something like that
where, you know, we I guess it would have to fall upon the select board to notify us of anything like that. Well, I mean, that was publicly out there for a while. I I try to listen to all the select board meetings just so I don't miss any
of those. Right. But we don't know if it's going to wind up as a warrant article during the town meeting. Well, those are are published a week in advance. That's it. Yeah, that's not a lot of notice, but Exactly. a five minute like bullet point at the front of the meeting like, hey, current events in
town that you think EDC should have a viewpoint on and then open the the whole panel at the meeting. No, like at our beginning of our meeting. These meetings. Gotcha. Yeah. five minutes say, "Hey, is there anything going on?" And maybe I should have maybe brought that up, but I I didn't know if that was
something they didn't contact us about. And there's been a a tremendous amount of work was put into it. They had this internet uh the fiber commission that met for hours and
hours and and then I saw a mailing against it like well there was days and it was quite they had like a red I don't I don't get I'm not living it the mailing came from who did that PR
company that works for Comcast. Okay. So it was full of inaccuracies and and wrong implications. Their big thing is to imply that the the borrowing would come straight out of our
taxes. The whole idea was that this would be an enterprise that would pay for itself that wouldn't impinge on taxes. But in order to do the borrowing, they had to do it under the faith and credit of the town.
Now, the the key was how many subscribers, and if it's a good enough deal, they should have no trouble. I don't think in any of the other towns from Westfield and there's two dozen other towns that Whip City has gone into, I don't think they've taken from
the taxes of any of them. they've had, you know, they've had good success and good take rates, but it's a matter of timing and there's a lot of details to the payback and whether it would impinge on on town
creditor funds. And I thought I understood it until last night and I sure understand it. But in general, I'm supportive because that it it essentially over over the internet speeds I have
now, it would be more than 10 times the upload and 20 times the or 10 times the download, 20 times the upload. To Craig's point though, I was sitting in a meeting last night and thinking to myself, as an ETC member, we should had a statement about this. It just seemed odd that we didn't even have the
opportunity unless somebody told us be a warrant. They asked us the day before or two days before. We've never had for years, right, Craig? Right. We're trying to get there and I think, you know, we just because what I would have done if they asked for a statement,
I would have dug into I would would have asked for a lot of numbers. Oh, yeah. I would want to know all of the interest rates, the borrowing, the commitment, the timing, the flow. I'd want to have all of that laid out because I would
like to give a factually based recommendation. Uh, and I think we were, you know, the big issue is being a little short of facts and having the people from out of town, you know, promoting Comcast.
So, yeah, I just have the feeling in and I don't a feeling that the big winner last night was Comcast. Absolutely. Because if they're pushing it hard because they if they lost 50% that would be like 2 million a year of
revenue out away from Comcast two or three. Well, we could certainly be a forum for getting the information on out there if we were notified in a timely manner. And well, we've got to and we've got to take
initiative. And I will try to, you know, bring that up when I see issues out there that that I think we should comment on. And you know that's the whole idea of of the one about having the the analysis of new evaluation new
businesses that was so we'd have an input on that and not be caught kind of on the on the sidelines when when there's a but having a full-time economic development director will probably change things for us. Oh
that'll that'll be a funnel for information. I would love to be here a lot. I hope to be in touch with him, you know, in in the next week or two. I I can't imagine it would take too much longer to get them fully in
place. You know, the other thing is you touched on this and I think you had one meeting by yourself, maybe with somebody else uh with respect to the tax assessing department. Oh, yeah. And I really think that we need to start focusing on that as we're trying to
attract businesses and we can't even explain the lack of there is a lot going on right now. Okay. In there there ought to be a lot. I'll tell you I'll tell you rather than trying to do that but you understand my position. Absolutely. Fighting with these people and no
response in eight years. No, there there are big changes happening right now. Yeah, there should be. Okay. Uh, I think we've covered all of this. Any any else
anybody has? Motion to adjurnn. Second. All in favor say I. I. I. Move.