##VIDEO ID:nZSr8uHCHoc## all right I think we're up and running okay I'd like to today is Wednesday January 15 602 pm. and i' like to call to order the monthly meeting of the economic development commission and we'll first go around room and announce who's here I'm Greg Diley here Greg Samuelson Diane Samson Steven roach Serena Fuller Julie and we also have Mark Mark FCO on online good evening okay good all right and we expect still to have Jean and and Jack to come in Bill Terry said he was traveling and wouldn't make it but otherwise we should have everybody but we will get started since we have a quorum let's go ahead and and vote to approve the minutes of our last meeting everybody had a chance to read him I didn't get any comments so I'll say if anyone who Abes to approve say I hi hi sounds unanimous so we will go on through the team updates for our 10 short-term goals um that I want to get to one of them for sure okay all right okay great Cliff hope you can hear us we tried to fix all the the sound no worries it's all good all right that's my best Joe my best jo Dei impression all right okay we're just getting started um and as I mentioned I want to get to our southi and Bloom early in the agenda but I want to update a related one here first although I'd like to get the input of Jack and Gan on this I'll give them a couple minutes I'll I'll first update the results of the special town meeting where I put my uh citizen article in and I was surprised at the last minute to get opposition from the select board they wrote up a you know some points and distributed at the meeting and since I only had two minutes to talk I didn't really have a chance to answer all of that I don't think it's a problem we got 40 I don't remember the exact 40 something 45 votes for and and 703 or four against uh we didn't have a lot of the people that signed the petition weren't there we could have we could have uh had it passed if we got even half of them but no problem I think the issue was we need to address the concerns of the select board uh and one of the bigger ones is they said well it's okay we're not against it but we're not ready for it we don't have a plan for walkability and other things need to happen first Etc uh which which is fine we can move forward I think this whole Southwick and Bloom is coming at the perfect time because the whole idea of this is to make our town center more attractive to people to come in um and then the other issue they brought up is well we don't really have any Town parking so you know people can only Park on private lots and and will that be a problem if you try to encourage people to come and walk and I was thinking about that today and I had an idea and I actually already sent it to Diane Gail this afternoon but it was what if we could arrange with some of the businesses that have bigger lots and I'm thinking of the one with the uh dollar store in a the hey Jack you're now Jack Cody um joining us or the summerh house IBS The Daily Grind uh maybe even if if Ras is opening up but to arrange maybe pay them a small fee for a few spots initially at the outer edge of their lot near the sidewalk things spots that aren't filled up too much and put in a sign uh promoting Park and walk and make them kind of a a spot designated for people who want to park and walk through the town because I think a lot of people wouldn't if we promoted it if we made it walkable and made it more attractive people love to go for walks and if if the town was a pleasant place to walk and they had a place to park and they had crosswalks and and slower traffic people would come for a morning or an after afternoon or an evening walk and stop and get breakfast or lunch and you know go to some of the shops and do some errands and you know visit the places that there are a few attractions in the area and we could even create a QR code on these signs because I pictured putting a sign at each of these spots that would be Park and walk spots that would have a QR code with a guide to our our town Center and things they might want to take a look at and you know if they walk all the way down to here there's little maybe hiking area or something out behind anyway all the places that they might find of interest in walking through and and then we do a big promotion of of you know come in and enjoy our town center you know do our park and walk program program we'll give you a some paths you can walk in a loop in a one mile Loop a two M loop three M Loop whatever and just really promote it it would I think that would really help business and you'd have to to upgrade a lot of our uh infrastructure in a sense but not necessarily a huge amount but make it a very pleasant place to walk and and that might give answer that objection that well we it's we have to do a whole lot of other things to make it walkable yeah we have to do some things but it it's doable if we have a plan so anyway that's fits in with the goal that we have for uh it's number what do I have number seven to make an economic case for enhancements to the town center and I want to continue doing that even even with this and and if we can convince the select board that we have a plan then we can bring it up at a at a feuture time meeting uh this also ties in well with a couple things and and we've got the samples of the the signs and why don't we do that second we'll have time to do that and then go on sh share okay first the proofs and then we'll look at those and I don't know if everybody had a chance to look at these These are the initial proofs drafted by uh Spotlight graphics and here's a couple of them and I I kind of like these really well we we decided to do a red and a Green version because Bill and others said well green is southwick's color um and the green could look nice I would have some suggestions for adding a little contrast here and there and and clarifying certain things but this is one here is actually the combo One open up the other file to do the the one that says proofs we'll look at that first because this is what they gave and I combined a couple of these is yeah so this one is similar what you just saw but it has the QR code right in the center um that's not helpful is it I think I think having it down to the side is better yeah so that's why but they showed it scroll up I think it is from this one that's concept four and five can you scroll up or down whatever there's another page can you there got it that goes up this these were the other three they gave which they were saying wow how about saying enjoy life in Southwick as as another way to head it and I'll get the opinion of all of you but I think that sounds like it's directed to people living in southw and really we want to appeal to visitors as much as to Residents so for that reason I I wouldn't go for that but I like this one because it had the QR code down below which I think is better kind of like the I don't know what you call them the images around the words it's enjoy like you know different pictures and things to do yeah although although it I mean we have those on the map and I think that those could be highlighted a little better on the the maps uh I think the green kind of Blends in okay I would suggest like maybe they want to put the the type in the map you know where it has Golf and chop and wine and dine maybe in a brighter color a bright red against the green one picture if we did the gree one a bright red uh dark enough where it was very readable and then put those little icon images in Black because I think the green kind of Fades away and is not very visible uh does somebody have a phone with a camera open right now I can do it with mine if if you want but try the QR code and just see what it comes up sou ADC and show it to everybody so that's what you get when you scan the the QR code it gives you three choices so you can go to recreation guide that shows you the golf courses and the Boating and the hiking and the biking you can go to the dining guide which shows you the 30 restaurants or you can go to uh shop South shop and that will show you the shop Southwick site with 60 businesses so and then I want to maybe even add a historical piece to to that too where we have some of the historical sites because the you Historical Society had some interest in that you know promoting and they they're getting this added property next to museum so what I did was I took the QR the bottom part of this and attached the top part of the other one go back to the one that I that you opened the first time the word file so okay so gonna cover that is there a way to move that menu up or to move the file oh great okay so my only other critiques of this I think the I'm going to tell them I think the overlap between enjoy and Southwick is a little too much it kind of obscures the crossing of the te in Southwick um so I'm okay with them touching but I think it's too much overlap what I I really like in these signs is super Clarity I want it to be understood at a glance because we're going to do these we'll test them initially at six of of these kiosks with the big durable signs and as I was starting to tell Serena the the pricing for this heavy duty bracket which should last for many many years is about $400 the signs themselves which are aluminum composite outdoor they're doubl sided so they can be viewed from either side of the kiosk those are about $70 each where will these go the the target the busiest places I want to go to the highest traffic two of the highest traffic places would be the bike trail the Miller Road parking area for the bike trail and I'd probably have put the other one maybe at the kiosk that's just off Route 57 on the bike trail and what above by the batroom then then so two on the bike trail one on the North Bo boat ramp and one on the south boat ramp so both boat ramps one at Grandville Gorge that gets a lot of people and they've got a brand new kiosk out there and then I'm thinking maybe this the New England trail you know off a rising Corner although I have to check with who manages that I know that the park park and wreck manages the bike trail the uh Conservation Commission manages the South wake Gorge and Lake management does the boat ramps but I presented this to all of them and they all love the idea so I don't think we'll have any problem getting that done the uh kiosk at the New England trail may be managed by the AMC Appalachian Mountain Club but I I can contact them and see if if we could arrange to use that if not we'll pick one of other places just trying to get the places where you get most the most residents and the most people from outside to come in and get a among people parking and on a New England trail work across is 57 not they don't have a kiosk there no they don't um that's that's the challenge there the one the one at Rising corner is actually an accessible Trail going into the it's you know wheelchair compli going into that um swamp area that has the B Bridge across it do we have some representation with Motocross like this I was to say or we have those big signs that in arranged to do um for the food for the restaurants that was strictly the restaurants this this you know maybe that that would be a place and qualy park is another potential W Park and the r Center either at the fields or near the r Center yeah I and plus keep in mind that this this isn't all will use the signage for I want to also have them create some smaller signs in a durable you know high quality print but maybe just 8 by1 size that we can go around to the restaurants and shops where they can put them in their window on a shelf on their wall because it's to their advantage if more people will use the business directory and more people get involved in the town right so I want to put this well for the eating for the eating the utensils on yeah I haven't physically seen it youve seen it right have you been up there yeah they have two of them and and the trouble with it is that it's not where you can walk up to it easily and people if they're at a big distance you know it's way up on the hill or not where they can walk right up to it and I suppose you can do it from a distance but people are less likely to do a QR code if they're you know 50 feet away sign can I stop this here already or um let me just finish on on this so what I want to do now is get an opinion on I've already got Bill's opinion he wants he likes the green let's first see if we can reach a a consensus on the collar any anybody want to reuse you on the eyes me I like green better yeah I like the green too all right I think that that's right a a bright enough green because I really want it to kind of stand out and it does with the green and and the yellow and I'll ask them if they can put bright brighten up the map part of itself especially the the activities the golf shop I'd like those to pop out a little better and and the icons to be a little clearer but otherwise yeah I think I think we're good so I'm going to contact them tomorrow and ask them to make a final proof that combines that does what I've done here just cut and pasted them the two together the enjoy Southwick on the top with uh the scan off the map which is clear and I think it it has the Simplicity and I think the wording scan here for all the I may change the wording a little bit I I don't remember if that's exactly what I said I may say scan here for details on all the fun acties and great places you can discover in our town and then historical you're going to put that in there somewhere you said well when they do the scan it'll include historical I see okay I don't know that I need to put it on the map itself I mean we're not that's not a we don't have a whole lot of historical places people can actually go to I mean we have we have have some places we can point out where we have nice not murals but large signs with historical information and we have a new granite marker for the canal over by the south Pond is it yeah near South pond it's right off the bike trail across from the conoman cafe moris museum is that what it's called the mor house yeah that's that's another but it's not open all the time all the time but I'm going to talk to Historical Society or the historical commission and and get more details I'll put it on the website okay but I think the content of this is pretty good so I I will give them the revisions to make a final version and then my plan is I will send that out to all of you and I want you just to reply whether you're okay with that final version or if you have any other concerns about it once we all have signed off on a final version I'll probably send it to select board planning board Lake management the all the people that are affected and just say here is is what we have picked as a final version and uh we'd like to go ahead and do it if if no one has any objection and Jack you can make sure that we're set up to pay them I don't want to be slow pay with Spotlight I want to you know initially they have they have incur I'll ask him to bill for the the time for the design work okay first before the other stop so we can just give that I think you can just submit it so okay no sense all right as long as we don't have any things I have to tell them that we don't have to go through the AP approval process anymore and we have and we're going to talk about budget later but we have plenty of money in our regular budget and in that gift account and both of those we can you and I I understand what they were talking about with the revolving account we can't transfer it if we get down to doing a Business Association and money for printed map it'll be useful then uh but initially it it just use like a regular count but the difference is that the gift account doesn't go away at the end of the year we can carry it over so we should have plenty to be able to do this project and and my goal is to be able to install these in March you know catch the beginning of the spring season and the outdoor season Okay so this whole theme of enjoy Southwick and if we can get a more walkable Town Center that we can enjoy and if we can beautify it that would be wonderful so tell us what you have can I stop the share now sorry oh yes you stop Shar you read inter okay um yeah do you does everybody have the hand out yes oh okay so the bottom page coming late to this I don't know what all you has been discussed well like you remember from other times but feel free to repeat feel free to repeat yes we need a refreshing so the whole idea is that you know what is it it's a summertime flower growing competition to give people the impetus to to do something and U the emphasis is on the street skate so people driving through town so there not going to be anybody walking around somebody's backyard to see what flowers they're growing it's you know what you can see from your car as you drive through we started off talking about uh just businesses but then there are a lot of people that work from home so we said eh why not have residents too so we are still in the planning stages of this but we'll probably have um some kind of awards for people that are commercial storefront and S ones for ones that are residential so we're still working all that out and um but the purpose obviously is to uh increase the traffic to the town and to change the image to build on the foundation the agricultural uh Foundation that's already there we're in a position to um really shine uh in this area more than other towns that are not so agricultural so people already think of us as a place to come and buy flowers so um the ideas to go for it because you think of of different tourist towns and all how did they become that way well you know it's a tourist town more one that people want to come to when you drive through the town with flowers everywhere yeah so window boxes um containers uh they take whatever space they've got between a sidewalk even in the road and fill it completely with flowers instead of grass things like that so that's what we have in mind uh for it to increase um you know traffic and of course as a result of that increase business um but it it's a win-win everybody will benefit from it because of the the way it uplifts your spirit then and and uh being in an environment like that so where is it going over time we're hoping it can dovetail with uh not only what the DC is doing but the a uh commission and historical you know it would be nice uh for it to become a larger event we don't have any big ideas that's going to be huge right off the bat that there's going to be that much participation but it will be more than what there is now yeah so uh for it to turn into I mean these are just a few ideas we kicked around but um to have maybe an event uh more like or or over a few weekends uh bring in professional storytellers to um have something people can bring their kids to besides rides um that has its place but then there's the oldfashioned story nothing is more entertaining than someone telling a story so and we can use spaces we already have it doesn't have to be one huge event but you have the southw and the uh Methodist Church now I'm sure the Congregational Church could you don't know if you could have something outside um at some place like cowards or something something at the Historical I'm not sure what kind of space they have there at the I'm sure the Lutheran Church would be available for that spaces too right spaces like that um maybe some Bluegrass I know East Heartland used to have a Bluegrass Festival that's not something I want to take [Music] on but well there there are other commissions that may want to join with the effort in the longer run right right we're even talking in the master plan there's the idea of a a social entertainment committee that looks at events like events like that right if you look at Simsbury how they built the Iron Horse Boulevard that parallels their main drag and I think it's just a shell or something that uh people can perform on and the rest of it everybody sits on the grass so you know that wouldn't be that hard to replicate somewhere and I know the historical commission or historical society is uh possibly going to have that land um you know it's just some things to think right once you get people here what what is there going to be to do you know uh they want you want them to hang around to have a few things in the summer you know those really are um a lot of fun and really raise the image of the town and the desirability of wanting to have businesses here [Music] and yeah the you know example of a town sb's one Adams Mass has a whole schedule of EV that through their summer one time I was there and right next to the visitors center there was a whole band playing I mean a very big band of probably 20 some pieces playing marches and outdoor spirited things and the whole lawn was filled with people listening it it was beautiful sounded great Stanley Park used to have concerts I don't um they used to the Boston we got Sunday nights they have Sunday nights in the Pavilion don't they yes they weather permitting so and then turn left I think that's Mark's Mark's GPS I'm sorry sorry I'll mute myself so when does it occur we're hoping to repeat it every summer and um like I said sponsored by EDC and uh so much of it will depend on the weather website just like you're finding there for people to go to that to sign up yeah I can set that up I I have I'm managing the website and and Stephen's helping too and and we can set up a page for that so we can give you a web site to go to a special tab so we're we're figuring so far we have our committee um I'm assuming that's sufficient so I'm concerned about the website and using it to we know that there's got to be more solicitation than that more Hands-On you know handle the ring things and so forth to businesses but is a website a potential for initially drawing people out or not or well I would use the website in conduction with I think your biggest tool to reach businesses is our email list we we have acquired permission to contact I don't know we have over a hundred email addresses for sure and maybe can can contact others but we have when we did our initial survey we asked them for permission to ask them what email address we could use to contact them so you can go through that list of businesses and decide which are appropriate to reach out to that are are the kind of business that would you know be near the town center and be in the path you have and and reach out to them that way and and the email would have a link to the web page where they could sign up right so I that would be the least expensive easiest way email you can't beat email for low cost right and those are all businesses correct yes we have the full have you gone into our shop Southwick business directory um you got to do that um you know right on the phone you go in there and it has 160 businesses you just and by category or you can do a search and say breakfast it'll give you all the businesses that offer breakfast you can just click on restaurants you get instantly 30 restaurants click on any of the restaurants you get their full you know address and phone number and website and is that on the EDC website or the South website you can get to it from the [Music] we're initially going to approach people and attract them yeah I mean it sounds like this isn't a very good way because it seems a bit cumbersome I mean it it seems like we need something on the town sign you know maybe something in Southwoods or you know how do we get this on out there maybe Westfield will do something for us yes right I have like five five ways we can do that through email hand hand deliver call mail and advertisement through the newspaper website Facebook for like and they have a contact at Westfield even news right and it's something that would just IFI Clark buying buying some space in in you know either Westfield or Southwoods I think they'll help us with that yeah yeah so they'll they'll approach them so okay wrongly recommend like a Facebook event or something like that social media for sure pictures so people like vot on them or organizing some sort if there's a walking if there's businesses within walking distance of downtown maybe organizing a I'll go to each one and vote one or something right once you got established established and the businesses are set up then you you go into promotion mode to Residents and Facebook would be the most efficient way to reach residents and maybe put a sign right over there with the farm yes next to the gas station we'll think about we'll we'll try to and would the event what month would an event be in I just talked to lenita today because we talked about doing it on open Farm days I at least announc the winners on that day and oh you did huh yeah yeah I talked to her today she's gonna let me know she said it's probably going to be the six it's always on a Sunday probably around the 16th because the next weekend is a little too late and too close to soon uh Labor Day okay but she's going to email me and let me know all right so um that's most likely when they done it doesn't mean that's when they're going to necessarily be judged Because by the middle of August start getting ratty yeah it's just so a Target but when you get when you get to the point you want to promote it to the town we'll we'll look at all the ways and and the way they promoted open Farm day is is a good model because that has been a successful event and it sounds like same kind of audience only been done two years so far so it's still early on and she thought it would dovetail really beautifully with what's going on now yeah I was involved in both of them and people loved it even when it was pouring rain it was still a lot of visitors you know this past summer so we'll be working on all of these things some more and and uh our first thing is we've got to get the flyer with all of the information dates and rules engagement no yeah you you we have another the last I think it's the last paper in your stack then yeah I didn't get all I got is right here yeah that's the one right it looks like this the project report oh I did not PR out oh you I wasn't sure I thought it's the only thing oh yeah that's the only thing you wanted to oh no I was to go with this oh okay this is what we went over advertising options um buyers rule of competition prizes and recognitions date of judging um how to invite and connect othere preliminary actions in work in the logo so that's those are the things we talked about at our first meeting so we'll be meeting again Monday afternoon work on this some more because all this has to be done way ahead of time right and is there anything that the committee as a whole can do to help you or you just in the workup phase at this point we will let you know there will be yeah and and at whatever point you need to spend some money we do have money in our budget we have virtually spent nothing uh so far and we're ready to make some things happen we will we we know there'll be a need for that for flyers and some advertising right so far yeah yeah do you have anything to add to that just trying to think how about you Julie I Ed very well explaining everything trying to come up with the logo right yeah so we can tie things together and yeah they're going to get try to get show you know recognition name recognition you also in different places of South southw and Bloom will start taking on certain meaning to everybody yeah I I love all these layers of things that go together we can have Southwick and Bloom and you know shop Southwick and joy Southwick and right all of the things kind of have a on out no well at it a logo not yet not yet um we may be using an old um wood cut print uh for for a logo a woodcut print is where you know how they used to print before they could copy things and it was a right carved in wood and then that was a black you know the black Print but anyway we'll we'll come up with a couple of ideas and uh present those something with a nice giry feel yeah right so I was just going to say lenita when I talked to her she said she would be very happy to hold Workshop um maybe you know in our food court after we're closed at night or something for people that are starting um that aren't sure how to do containers uh or what to put together in containers so so there's an educational component to it oh yeah and that I'm sure helps promote the local businesses if you get people we'd like to see some kind of not Garden Club as much as Garden mentoring yeah uh started on a very informal small scale uh personal level and lenita was all about that oh that's great yeah super so and I in our meeting um you know we really have what the four uh Garden places we talked about the three plus calibri right caliber that's right yes yes oh yeah yeah so these should be great for all three all four of them to give them the heads up and um lenita offered 10% off for anyone that can show that they're registered to participate that's great so if we can you know we can talk to the others see what they'll do about that that's great okay thank you so much yeah they've got a lot to do but I you know we don't I I said it's important that they just develop this and then run it by us instead of us sitting here deciding what kind of and what kind of flowers oh absolutely that's the idea we're trying to organize with small teams for the execution of stuff because the time goes so fast here it's already what the clock is in 45 minutes into Indie here and I know that you've gota get going but uh thanks for coming in the idea great yeah the calendar is clicking you know we got to get this going because the flowers I'm to start I'm going to start my first vegetables indoors tomorrow oh you are I start really early yeah tomatoes and peppers and I put stuff out in March under cover oh so and gets an early start is your daughter your wife saying Laura no okay I'm thinking of a different di there's not too many dilay around okay oh okay I'm going to see a little bit longer so okay than you thank you see you okay thanks D okay um so now that we've covered some of the biggest things on here I think a lot of the other goals here will go a lot faster we'll go back to the the first one about populating all the tabs of our website um and I I think we need to get together you know Zoom could work if if that's a whole lot easier for you although I think sometimes it's easier to get started if you're together and and putting it up on a screen like here but I'm okay with zoom if if that's what what it takes so okay throughout you know if the two of you can agree on a time I'm very flexible because I'm retired and I'll try to make whatever time I'm a boomer so I'd rather be in a room and see it in front of me then Thursday night is one night I'm generally not available well Tuesday and Thursday night are not not good but any other night of the week I can let me just check something can make it I think the possibly next week we have software upgrades going on after work I don't know if I need to be available for that um possibly the week after next okay yeah the last week of January and you know we just can kind of put the website up and talk about things I'm going to try to start working on on this landing page for the enjoy South website I've got work on that I know SK done a lot of work I just hav I I just haven't been able to see the of P yeah I think we have like a landing page for like the main page kind of for ready for proposal for show the all the links of our sources that's kind of been hasn't got a lot of it's been a lot more difficult than anticipated for that to try to organize that into something that's valuable so you've got the links but just trying to figure out how to put it together a challenge it's been a challenging and I think we have something for the QR code of landing page for that have you taken a look at the resources from common Capital at all um not I know I've been on there but not rec they have a lot of educational resources because they specialize in in giving loans to small businesses at slightly above Market rates but businesses that have trouble getting a regular Bank load and they make it work by coaching the businesses to succeed so they've got videos they've got instructional materials they said we can link to all that yeah um it's it's a good small business resource that that we should use in link to I agree yeah one of the pro I mean we can get into like details but one of the problems is kind of information overload and the best way to organize that so if someone's visiting our website they can find what they need quickly rather than digging through and making another job our our primary task in all this is not to create the content but to make it simple to get there exactly so that's what I'll need help with when we meet right sure yeah and I we'll throw out ideas we'll brainstorm when we meet and uh correct and I know what I put together through a lot of information there but a lot of it was there because of was already on our website but that doesn't necessarily mean we have to keep it on our website I was just trying to yeah take the scatter desk and try to P make piles out of it for pair it it down yeah makes sense yeah I mean there certain PR principles of I'm I'm not a never been a Hands-On web person I always had people that did that part but I've directed a lot of websites so I know what it takes to look good to be easy to use I know the principles of of easy use and WordPress is pretty easy to create the the kind of stuff we we don't need fancy Graphics I think a lot of you know you hire a professional web designer and often they just go overboard in trying to create gimmicks almost that on the site you don't need those fancy Graphics you just need straightforward easy to understand information and clear links okay what I'll do then let me I don't it's hard to check my calendar on the phone so what I'll do is tomorrow I'll shoot out some dates and yeah let me know if they work okay no that that that sounds good I'll make a prior to work with that and then on the second one uh the website traffic is now up to about 1,300 unique users so we're moving quickly toward our goal and we have I think think 5200 page views now so we're more than halfway to the page views what will really shoot that up is once we get these enjoy Southwick QR codes out there that'll generate traffic right now the biggest link are people going on to the south.org to the town website and clicking on shops Southwick or you know whenever bliff mentions Us in his Westfield news article we get about extra clicks um so those but getting the those QR codes out there we be able to track that because this goes to a special landing page and I'll be able to know exactly what traffic that is generating specifically and uh you know at some point and maybe when we meet to talk about the website I'll bring my laptop and pull up the Google Analytics and show you how that works I don't know if are you do you have a a Google account yeah yep and have you tried to go into oh yeah when you first sent me the link yeah I haven't been in haven't been there since okay but we can just talk about the the metrics that you can look at there and you can set it up I set it up so that I check it every day I have it to look at the last 12 months so I just click that one link it opens up within two seconds I can see the latest traffic close it down it takes in 20 seconds I can get an update on a daily basis and and it shows the graph of the last year okay um number three Implement a new business evaluation process and we did do do some work on that over the last couple weeks Mark and I met with Diane Gail on a atur afternoon early January I think it was and talk for a couple hours what's that vacuum second Flor and the Drone anyway we got a lot of input on the concerns about you know what we can do and what we can't do and kind of one of the the takeaways from that meeting was that I would reach out to the planning board I was gonna I reached out to John Godard who's the town planner now although for only a short time and and then Mike dty and said we want to do a get together with you and talk about this and talk about the the master plan document and whatever and then Diane called me last week and said well you're not going to hear from them because Mike D you know dropped off the planning board and he said said it was just family reasons he had other priorities right now nothing really negative or any I don't think there's any reason other than that he had other things that became a a priority and then once he dropped off than um who's the other one Gard did you say no the Dave suton yeah Dave Sutton also said well this is a good time for me to say that I've got other things too and and I can understand that because the planning board surely is one of the more intense boards as far as as time and attention so anyway there might take a little time to before they are ready to meet and talk about this business evaluation but we're going to try to keep it alive one thing that I did do or that I sent to all of you is the I got the database on the assessments for the town which was great that's what I wanted it's the same data that's in our JS map the G map but there you have to you can only look up one at a time this one I have the whole database where I can sort and you know I have every record for every residential and business property and can figure out it it's a great tool for helping to estimate if we have a new business coming in we can estimate what that contribution might be also got the personal property tax table and that was kind of in interesting did did I sent that out too didn't yeah I it's there's not a whole lot of businesses that it has a 10,000 minimum I think if you don't have at least a 10,000 of a personal property you don't have to pay anything it has to be about 10,000 before you even pay so once you apply the the tax rate it it ends up being only a couple hundred dollars at that anyway and then there's a whole bunch of different rules whether you're a corporation or whether you're LLC or how you're organized and corporations pay tax on their property in a different way so they only have to pay on certain very narrowly defined uh personal property anyway it's a big complication but the bottom line is most of the business's personal property taxes is insignificant so um and and this would give us a base to understand what that would be so put the two together and we get the revenue side and then the next step is we have to get the cost side of a business because these are the most objective things the things they're worried about in business evaluations are ones that might be more subjective MH and you know these two things we can try to make them objective as much as possible so to determine the cost side of a of a business I'd like to get the whole town budget in Excel and then figure out how to split it between fixed and variable costs and then to take the variable part and see if there's any of those that would vary based on any metrics we can measure from a business the first one I think of is Road Frontage you know the more Road Frontage you take the more costs for maintaining a road or items and things going in and you know whatever that would have mostly apply if you're building a new road that you know if it was a development that required New Roads but we'll look at at what point does a business incur incremental costs to the town that's mostly what I would want to look at are there certain variable costs that would go up the infrastructure infrastructure and services okay any Town services and DPW type things know maintenance and and that would just take a careful analysis of that but to it's just like any business you look at revenue and you look at costs and what do you gain the revenue is is mostly the tax there there are some fees that we could look at um revenue from property tax primarily in some cases a little bit of personal property and maybe some fees that's Revenue to the town and then what are the costs of found so we'll get that objective part in there and I i' still like to explore what we can say about the more subjective things mark would you have any comments on the discussion you were there with Diane no I I I think you did a really good job of of um you know capturing it Greg you know was a good a good discussion um I think there's um you know there's receptivity to the to the idea of having um you know an objective um uh objective input on the economic development impact both you know revenue and cost as you as you mentioned um but you know making sure that uh we do it right um apparently there are a couple of towns in in Connecticut uh that have done something things similar and uh we're trying to trying to connect with them and um get get some information on the criteria that they used uh to provide um an an input tool um that is very eff yeah yeah if we can find someone else that was able to get away with doing that kind of analysis and I think it's I don't want to give up easily on this because I think it's something the EDC should be involved in there's new business coming in we should it should be done very early in the process but an evaluation is this something we want to pursue or do we want to discourage it is this something that's going to help us or potentially hurt us the key is to be as objective as we can make it so you're not leaving yourself to interpretation right the problem would be in objective is you can end up being subjective by what questions you ask so we'd have to what you're anal what you're analyzing yeah I don't have any illusion that you can be 100% objective everything involves a certain amount of judgment yeah I'm just saying there should be a lot of thought in it because but you just try to be primarily you might be disfavoring some businesses because you're focused on amount of cars coming in whereas other businesses may have a higher requirement for police monitoring or something you just want to make sure that you're as level playing field as it can be for anybody coming in but isn't the elephant in the room though that um maybe it's a subjective thing that really is what determines whether or not that business is a good fit for the town I mean it's it's not all just you know mean subjective but we have we have certain standards we want to retain the agricultural character um you know a lot of other things that go with the master plan and you know say well our master plan is subjective you have to well then let's define those terms more tightly but I'm saying why do we run away from this subjectivity I mean we all sat around here said you know it's not good this business is really bad for the morale of the town or whatever that's a subjective thing but can't we have that discussion why do we run away from that um I would be it more bold but there's a lot of people that doubt makes very nervous I'm just saying we have a responsibility if we feel strong whether it's objective or not but we do represent the town and even if we have that disclaimer at the bottom this is only EDC as Diane pointed out I think Mark can back me up is it's still coming from the town if it's coming through our commission so we have to be careful oh I know yeah okay uh so then we went over the sign one already arranging groups with business owners bill is not here he can talk about it next meeting the program increase awareness vacant Town business properties I think goes into our website updating because the next step on that Mark has provided a number of resources there and that's a part of what we have to incorporate now into our website in a way that's acceptable would you agree Mark you have anything on that um no I I agree um and I do actually have a an update on the um the business vacancies as well uh that I can I can you know send in um U electronically yeah send yeah you know go ahead and and send it to everyone yeah as long as we don't engage in a two-way conversation you can send informational did you get that from loopnet Mark um it's actually from a couple of sources um because loopnet is not I've been finding it's not all inclusive it's not you know Universal but there is a loopnet um component to this um I also searched the business brokerage sites for particularly for um businesses for sale um and I did find that there is one business for sale uh in town it's actually a party and event rental um business uh that's that's out there for sale um and um there were a couple other new just a few other new listings one listing came back 151 Point Grove was being brokered as a business and now it's being um marketed as a a property as a a potential restaurant uh site property okay all right yeah thanks for keeping that updated we will try to thank you get it incorporated into the website we've already talked about number seven um the Southwick Public Library number eight is another one for the website and Gan isn't here to give us any updates so we will um on from that we talked about number nine southon Bloom number 10 I'll say a couple words about reviewing the town zoning map it's something uh that I think we did touch on a little in our meeting with Diane and it's something we would work closely with the uh planning board for anything related to that but it's something that is in in our uh tax database that I got has the uh zoning is one of the fields and so I can sort things by Zone and some of the zones I think were incorrect on the map or at least on the database that because I was looking at the ones that had the condos the MDU developments multi-dwelling unit and those are mostly in a in an r a special R zone and I don't remember all the the terms but some of them were were labeled wrong but the other thing I I've dug into a little more doing deplay which I'll I'm going to have a discussion with our just team on this when I can get together with Jean and Bill we can dig into which specific streets that did an analysis by Street of the average revenue per acre because if you're going to make a new develop we have limited land the more dense the development the more Revenue per acre so you you get more mileage out of it some of the highest revenue per is coming from our or condo properties cost cost to the town par is probably highest for those so in what way more kids in school well our school our School attendance has been dropping every year the last 12 years and it's now 26% below where it was 12 years ago uh yeah that's because it's not really growing anymore it grw well and it's too expensive for families in many cases they can't afford to right to be by by property here with the big family but I don't think it's a good thing to let the let it's it's good to and there's a lot of fixed cost obviously in a school district and and the incremental cost for additional students depending on what kind of students we get would matter well it does bring in more people to be able to go to restaurants and different businesses in town yeah we want we want a balanced town we don't want a town that's just filled with you know us old people whatever uh we what families went young people young people yeah young people and families we we want a balanced town right so back to the um well first of I have a question I I don't want to be labor tonight but would you have time in the next meeting just to briefly go over that analysis that you sent out with respect to the tax base I don't have my stuff here right now to you know just just a quick explanation on some of the items I didn't understand it very well so I just oh I didn't want to read into it so if you just look at that maybe next a little bit just so I appreciate what you've done there and I don't know how good you are with Excel but I can actually give you the whole uh record level database if you want it's easy to filter you can you can just go through and you know select which street you want to look at you can select Which business which zone all of it is easy selectable and instantly we'll filter it down to just the records that that relate to that is this the Government Solutions website or no no I got this through a special information request through the town okay okay and okay you know I'd asked for it before but then you know what was figured out as well if you fill out this form they are required by the law to respond with the information and I got it in three days from when I put in the form the through the clerk's office and they delivered exactly what I was looking for okay the raw data needed a lot of I had to clean up a lot of things in order to be able to put it into a clear database but that's I've done that my whole career is deal with large data sets Millions records so I know how to do that the other thing is um does not our master plan give us any direction or potential direction for what we might be looking for in zoning or no it has tasks related to zoning it talks about what kind of zoning changes we might want to make and and the EDC is at least a supporting role on some of those actions and that's a good lead in if you can take a look at two pages here that are are these prioritizing pages in your stack one is the 15 lead actions the other is 32 lead actions ones with all the squares and the lines um I got just late last week an email from Norm cheber who's on the mic master plan implementation and he sent something far more complicated than this and said have every one of your commission members prioritize all of the actions that the EDC is involved in both his lead and his supporting and that's this other detail is in the really small type for reference if you can't read the small type you can look it up online because I sent it or look open the email that I sent with with it in Excel but basically what want everybody to do in the next week or two if you can is just take a pencil go down through and rank what you think in order of which ones we should do first and which ones we should do later now on the 15 lead action items a lot of them relate to goal we already have and I made notes where they relate to things we're already involved in so that's a factor and what I did here was I took these long detailed descriptions of actions and I shortened them down to a little phrase if you don't understand the phrase uh you can look up the detail they match the master plans organized in chapters there's a chapter on economic development and then the actions all have a number next to it it's 1.1 1.8 1.12 2.5 Etc so you can match it to you can either pull up the a master plan document from the town website or you can take the attachment I set sent that has the details of all the actions that are both we have a lead role and a support role so do we rank the lead roles and then go and rank the support rules separately separately and I just see that I didn't change the heading this 32 should be say 32 support action items sorry I I missed that change so just cross out next to 32 lead and it's support those are the support ones and it has has in the support ones it shows who the lead committee is you know and plan just means the planning board select board social Entertainment Board which hasn't been created yet agricultural commission conservation school select board CEO is Nicole what's this supposed to say up here is it leave on on the 32 it should say support instead of read right the 15 are where we have lead action and those are all in the economic development chapter the other ones are in chapters like land use open space facilities now some of them are in econ Economic Development too because even in the economic development chapter we don't have the lead in all of the actions some of them we have a support role and the planning board has a lead so anyway we don't need to go through them in detail here now but I like the first one in support I shortened it diagnostic of our zoning bylaws you know the description goes through well you look into the zoning bylaws and determine which ones relate to this and that and whatever and make recommendations on whatever anyway I wanted to make it short because you can't look at a whole big paragraph and and sort them and you can't fit it on one page and it's easier to sort if it's all on one page and you can kind of scan down through it and say oh that one's should be number one and now that one we we'll put at the bottom number 32 and then just do the best you can and and when you get them done you can do you all have Excel access to excel's spreadsheet because what I'd really like is if you could just send it to me in the Excel format I mean you can do it on paper if you want or you can do it on Excel but just you know type in the number after you've got it written out type it into the spreadsheet and and email it to me was did your email have it in Excel already or do we have to oh it's in Excel the these are Excel spreadsheets okay thought it was coming back as school all you have to do all you have to do is go over to the priority column and once you've got them or you can do it online if you're more comfortable but if you did it on paper you just go down through and type the numbers for each one that you put in I've used Excel a few times I work so we'll be able to go right into Excel and do it and if you can't do it in excel fill it in on here take a picture of it and text it to me that would work too but if it's easy for you do it in Excel that's fine but otherwise just do it on the paper take a picture and text it to me I need your cell phone oh okay I I should have yours too we'll we'll do that at the end of the meeting okay thank you we're almost done um any questions about this I'd like to be fairly prompt in getting it back to AI because what he what he asked for he has a spreadsheet that I'm going to combine this in he had a p spreadsheet with a column for each of us by name he has all our names in there my he specifically what's our individual rankings for all of these 15 and 32 items but I'll combine them together from your individual ones it won't take me long to to do that like either with the picture or the spreadsheets or either one work and uh see my agenda Shuffle the paper here I'll use this one I know the last thing is proposed budget and I sent you a a copy of what I I have to submit the budget by next week I think are they asking for 5% reduction they want both you know they want a version where you say here's what we'd like to have in the it is with a 5% reduction over current year the pricey yeah just a formula looks fine so what what I have suggest doing and if anybody has something different let me know I suggest putting in the same as their budget this year what was it 5,000 no no 1,700 of that's all no we 2000 yeah 2000 we have 1700 left but it was 2000 so I suggest request I don't know if the go for it we just have one budget line instead of breaking it out between website and I and seems limiting on what you can how you can allocate your spend Julie if you could open up the share do a share because I I open that up here and do the spreadsheet one yes okay here's what I was going to suggest um and the split is is to say $50 for website and 1950 for supplies and the description I put on supplies is materials to help promote and enhance the economic health of Southwick I wanted to make it fairly broad uh and the website hosting is the annual hosting fee for the EDC website and business directory which yeah I think was $42 and so I put in 50 to make sure that it cover I think that makes sense here I didn't click that part have some and we don't have any Capital items we don't have any salaries so that's what I proposed to put in now click on that well I'll do it here well fiveyear projection I put the same thing in all the way down but they will automatically put in a 5% reduction I think on on the budget so if we put in this they will you do one for 42 for the hosting fee yeah I think that's what it has been I I guess I'm saying to take 5% off to 50 we just want to make sure it's big enough to cover the whole student yeah well 5% of 50 would be only what 40 4750 that's what I was asking just to make sure that the fee is under that yeah and if they haven't raised a lot I'm still trying to track down who I think maybe Inus still has it on her account and I want to make sure we don't let it expire I've been talking to her and asking for I think she's going to call me sometime soon and we'll try to work that out um okay if everybody agrees with that that's what I'll put in I also have the task of putting in um data this message it says by bylaws of the town of Southwick all departments commissions have to submit a detailed report for their 2024 accomplishments um so I'm gonna just go ahead and write that up and what I'll do is I think what I'll do is I'll just write it up and send it to everybody in the next couple weeks it's not it's due February 3rd this one's due February 3rd and you can see it and just ask if anybody has any corrections in it I'll go through you know that we launched our website and the new people that came on the people that dropped off just it's what it gets printed into the town report which has been in print form up to now and there'd be a whole page for economic development and then here's what we did last year so I'll just do that b kind of the way the format was done before this year they are going to do it electronic which I think it's a great idea those printed books must be expensive and I I'd rather look it up online than in a print book like that anyway search reads those book no I don't think so no one reads those I wouldn't I would love it if they put the financial information in spreadsheet form in those books it's so useless to look at the printed Financial detail can't analyze it you can't can can I stop this share should I stop this share yeah stop that share I think we're wrapping up now um any other items that we missing on our agenda anybody has anybody have any new items that they'd like to see on next month's agenda in particular question about that earmark for development and do you have well Bill got some more information about that I will put down for him to update us on that he has been digging into it um and has gotten a little bit of information about it but yeah that's a good point I'll I'll add that to be anything else anybody want to make a motion to adjourn second I all in favor say I okay thank you