okay good evening everyone um we are at the economic development Commission meeting for Wednesday April 17th and hey there mark and in attendance is Inga hotelling Greg DIY Samuels Mark fulco CU Serena Fuller okay and if we any guests coming in on Zoom we will let you in Jack okay Jack is coming in excellent so uh couple little housekeeping items before we get into our agenda um I just uh want to say that I know the meeting minutes went out a little late for this meeting um I do personally apologize for that um I've had a loss um in my immediate family and it's definitely been a little stressful to navigate through that um but as of tonight what I'm going to start doing is um after the meeting ends Julie and I are going to talk about what agenda items we want to roll over to the next meeting and going forward we will have the minutes of the meetings posted a week and advance so I want to make that point clear um this evening's meeting I hope we don't need the full two hours um a lot of it is just more of a recap of where we are with our um website and our QR codes so before I open up the actual meeting agenda are there any public comments on Zoom okay so there isn't so old business website update I am very pleased to announce as of two weeks ago when we had Martin in here as our guest speaker he and I spoke today and he sent me um about approximately an hour ago the QR codes for the dining section of the uh signage for the 338 and I also am going to ask you tonight so yeah I guess we are going to need that Quorum um I would like to have every well to see if people would approve it I'd like to create a small lawn sign probably the size of what we see for the um for the different campaigns campaigns so that size so it's like an 18 by 20 inch sign that is going to be green on the background white lettering saying dine Southwick with the QR code and that's all it's going to have on it so that for any events that the town is sponsoring such as the one that's coming up on April 26 which is the art show we can have them positioned going into the building going out of the building it's going to cost probably $20 at the most but it is going to be simple and effective instead of having to produce massive amount of hand outs with the dining guide it's going to be a quick scan and you have the data could be right for they walk in right where they walk in and there still be two points of ENT of entrance there's going to be the front of the building in the back of the building but I want to produce six of them so that we can also utilize them at other events that the town could be hosting so that we can just continually reuse them and that QR code will be up ated as we update the restaurants as well I'll move that we do it I move that we produce six signs with d South and the QR code use for T events good okay roll call vote Greg dialy yes Samson yes Mark FCO yes Jean qby yes Serena Fuller yes and engga hotelin yes and Cat yes oh hey there Jack hey Jack hey Jack um okay so I will get those starting to be produced tomorrow um I am as of this week going to be working from home on Fridays and that's when I'm going to be doing Town business as well so this Friday I will be going down to Spotlight graphics and we'll get the QR code over to Ali and we will get those signs produced and those will probably be done sometime next week and then myself and Ally and Mr Johnson will be putting those up at the 338 track so this is exciting any comments on that from the team congratulations good work okay so it's a start I'm just thrilled that we're getting to the point to where the QR code was tested today and obviously it's worked well um the website itself will probably be able to be launched Within the next week week and a half the most um Greg and I are going to see Martin on Friday and test well he he'll be testing it before then but the survey piece so um it's finally coming to fruition so all is good in the hood so um the discussion Facebook uh because uh Pam is not here here and Amber's not here we're going to roll that over to the next meeting so that can be an agenda item already for that meeting uh what we were going to be doing with that Mark just to get you up to speed is um I have asked a member in the community who has done other work with me for the past three years with different coalitions I've been on here in Southwick uh to create a Facebook page we've got an approval from the the select board so it's our logo it's really crisp and clean and what we wanted to do is see what other towns are doing for theirs this this is a picture of what it looks like oh nice and what I've discovered by doing a little bit of research this past week is the communities that are utilizing the Facebook are mostly in Connecticut I haven't found any within our local area and it's to talk about any kind of grant money that the town has and let in the community know that hey we've got money available this is where we could also put information that uh we are going to be getting from the mass Council of the economic development Commission in regards to other grants or programs um I saw in one of them where employers were mentioning what they have for opportunities for employment this would be strictly information only no dialogue back and forth right so it would just be for information so uh our next meeting hopefully will all be here and then we can just determine what all we want to utilize this for as just another vein of getting out information so this brings us to our website and mailing update this is where um Greg is going to have to now that we're going to have a pretty much a defined date as to when we're going to be able to get out the mailer for the business survey um I would feel confident based on what Martin said today that we should be able to have that mailing out for the last week in April so um I want to turn it over to you Greg to discuss and look at what would probably be good dates for us to look at for a drop off date to put in the mailing as to when we need it back by right the due date and when we're going to actually coate them all at the end of April I'd probably make it the end of May give it time to get out there give it time for people to respond but not so far out that they say oh I've got a lot of time I I I don't need to do it we want a certain amount of urgency in it so I would probably just make it um May 31st okay mailing um and then we would try to mail it you know certainly before the end of the first week in May we'd be committing to that and we also want to have everybody look at the list and tell us which ones you would personally deliver cuz will save the postage we'll also get more attention in those and particularly those where you know the the business owners or their neighbor your business or whatever or you're willing and I would ideally like to hand deliver most of the center Town College Highway businesses right because they don't have we could boxes get some team walk door too um because we I have the physical addresses in some cases I have the box numbers but I'm not sure about um some of the Box numbers whether the physical address gets mailed or not right but it should be easy to deliver because they're close together you go through the chiso plaza Etc pretty quickly and then then you just emphasize please do this as soon as possible it's a big benefit it gets your business in front of people we're going to promote this year round you get their your website out there if you have a website you get your address they can look it up on their phone and get your hours and you get your phone number so we can really personally sell it uh as well and make sure we get all of those businesses in there and we'll have a lower posters bu right and the postage we're going to have run here through the the town yeah we'll run through the meter Jack check in did that already it saves 3 cents a letter right so the first thing that we're going to have to do then uh Greg would be to update that letter with the deadline date minutes okay so we can get that done once you've got that done what we need to look at is because I don't want to take a meeting to do this would be to stuff the envelopes I do we're talking for 270 envelopes oh I can help [Laughter] Al so should we stop them for people we hand deliver I think it would look nice yeah and then we'll have in that also the dining information or the the the letter that I composed for the restaurants and the dining establishments here in town for the what we're doing for the 338 for the whole season so all of the restaurants will hand deliver we're going to hand deliver for sure Y and yeah we can everybody could take a look I'll send I'll send the list out again and everybody take a look and and maybe tell me which ones you can handle under or which section and then maybe we should talk about who would want to participate in the team to walk College High way and hand deliver for those that aren't volunteered well we can definitely hit the plazas the main drag and I think that would be probably sufficient unless we know businesses that are down in the industrial park area so the no-brainers would be our our plazas yeah I'm I'm not worried about going out inside a college highway right but there's a lot of things between when you say plaz there's a lot of things between them too are close yep so so College Highway which would include the plazas the little plaza where Pam has her little cafe now she could probably hit that little H that because it's a restaurant yep yep exactly and the same thing on the other side of the Lakes so what I'd like to be able to do today is talk talk about when we feel we all would be willing to have a little stuffing Gathering um and to see what is best for people I think with all of us if we do like an assembly line because the envelopes are already stamped with the Urgent sticker you're going to have the letters we can fold get a pretty much good ideas to the businesses that we going to hit off of College Highway um then we need process is not going to be that hard you'll have these printed out flat like this and designed it so you can pull the bottom up to the bottom of this box then you fold the top back and then you put it in with the address facing out and just check and see that it shows yep we just need to do 470 of them and then you strip off the the seal and and seal it so I if you if you can do potentially three of these a minute talking a minute so so would people be willing would y'all be willing to spend a couple of hours on say a Saturday or a Sunday to to meet here we can do it here at the Town Hall I've got a key to get in and I can get it approved ahead of time so we could meet here which is a good central location and just have an assembly line and just crank out the envelopes I me if you could do three a minute that's um 180 an hour per person so it you could conceivably do all of them in an hour not it's not going to be a half day up there and this is a one-time shot once we do this this is going to start establishing our website and start getting us that flow that we're looking for for we can contribute into the community we won't have to ever stuff these envelopes again yeah requesting their email address so that future communication and they're mailing that back no they're going right onto our website okay all right that's the big thing they're going right on to the website that's why we had to wait when the website was up and and it was ready to go live but they just all they have to remember is shops what pops up immediately is click here to sign up for your free listing they click on that there's a form they fill out it might take them five minutes okay at the most so it we're not asking a lot I'm sorry that's was a dumb question I no it wasn't not a dumb question so when that listing shows up you're going to create those listings or is it website I am going to review each one that comes in and make sure it looks right and we we said in in the survey we reserve the right to correct ver Clarity Etc um and some cases I can just because I'll get them delivered to a spreadsheet automatically so I can just copy and paste it and I don't have to retype anything so there's not going to be typos but but if I see a description that needs a little tweaking I'll do that so will this just be a list of names or will it point to a website on our website what does it do it creates a listing that includes the name of their business the South Lake address their phone number their website if they have one a description they write up we say in in just a couple of sentences tell us what your business does so that it explains what the business is and then they're hours will it Point them to a website I mean will can you navigate from that list to the website no you go to shops.com to navigate to that listing than if they have a website yeah if they're on their phone they can click on their web address and you go straight there or your last okay right and and you can also click on the phone number and it'll dial it right okay so so that is interactive that's yes it's interactive right the listing will be interactive so what about this QR code with respect to the resturant same thing it'll be a list or will it it will be it will be a list that will bring them right to that restaurant and so they click on it and then they can see any information that they want about it so and the benef of us now having it being serviced through uh Southwoods is when we appoint I know we've got Greg who's going to be one of the um administrators to the website um I don't know if Pam would be interested or Mark you might want to be interested in that but if you want to trust my technical confidence well that's where we're going to want people who are I know for me I'm not going to sign up for that I'll volunteer for anything else but not that but we're going to be able to update when needed um because right now I'm waiting to hear back from the owners or the people who are leasing the old um prime one state um to get their information Ken's connected me to Joe who now is opening up um Fusion which is the old Krabby Joe's so I'm wanting to get their information to put onto the site so we're going to have pretty much control of of what is going into those P control not just the listings but other tabs other tabs enter anything we want in terms of events in town news items notifications plus we can we can send out emails for business list right those who because we asked for their at the the last one is said could you give us your email address not for the listing we're not going to publish it or make it public but we could use it to keep you updated on events or information probably not more than every month or so so we're not going to blast you with a lot of stuff and you can opt out at any time you don't want to get a emails from us so back to the original question would would we be willing I know I would be willing to on a Saturday or a Sunday yeah get together for a couple of hours crank it out and just have it done and then coordinate from there okay now we got unfolded let's look at making a plan attack as to when we're going to start walking the town so looking at our calendars and anticipating that this is going to be happening within the next couple of weeks is there a Saturday or Sunday that works for yall and and if no and I'm going to say it right now this is a no judgment zone so if Jean for some reason you say you know I really don't have the time to do that because I'm doing a b and c that's okay we only are going to need a few of us to get together and crank it out or you're more than welcome Julie to bring your children too okay so you know we can't you can't bring a buddy the first weekend in May I think I'm away so that's not good I don't know if that's what you're were thinking well we're going to want to be getting this done um as soon as we've done the test and we're probably going to be doing the test on the the um business listings um on Friday once we know that that's golden so earliest it would be the weekend of 27th and 8th right 27th and 28th what does that test look like what how does that work I don't know I've never done one we're gonna be going to Southwoods Martin is going to open up our website and then we'll be sending through a survey doing like a a test of it and then click on it and I should be able to yeah I could bring my you're going have to bring your laptop because we want to make sure that Greg's product is going to be interfacing with self product if we do it through Google forms that should not be an issue because I already tested it I had Pam let her know that I'm up and ready I said go ahead and fill out the survey and she did and it popped into my spreadsheet within a minute it's Google forms is great mree so we're able to do these surveys and the forms and future follow-up surveys we can do and it it just it goes to an online spreadsheet that I have that has they actually do compilations of the survey they'll say how many % answered this question and this and this and then you can also get a spreadsheet of every answer in every field so down there could be a column with all we get 300 businesses that respond be 300 rows and their responses for the nine questions or 10 questions will be across the columns and that's where I'll go in and copy and paste it it's the start of creating our Beast that we've been talking about since October and now it's coming to for the name the Beast yeah to know that it's so hard to put this out you know why it's not out there yeah that there's no place to find this information if you want to say well I want to find a business in South it's tough yeah I know because I had used multiple sources and still didn't get them you just Googling it you can't like say want a restaurant in Southwick you can't get a list of all the restaurants easily restaurants near me yeah say that be complete information things missing but you won't be able to get all of the businesses in southl in every category restaurants are easier to find yeah but other things are harder to find so looking at our calendar for April 27th and 28th that Saturday and Sunday I can't speak to it right now we are kind of in flux for me okay as of this weekend actually okay so for the 27th or 28th I'm just going to put it out there I'm flexible I don't flexible okay for 27 for the 27th okay mark 27 probably be easier for me okay okay so 27th as well so if we're looking at a Saturday want to do it first thing in the morning so that it's done so we have the rest of the day that we can play with our tractors all that good stuff okay so what appears to be a reasonable time for everyone 8 o'clock 9 o'clock usually for five so whatever I am too I think that might be a little too early U what's your thoughts mark works for the group yeah me too okay say nine let's say nine nine is fine okay so September 27th and we can put that in the the minutes as well yes even though we're going to not have a meeting by then but Saturday September 27th 9:00 a April April did I say March it said September September I was I was okay that was a test that was a test are youall listening Jack are you still there yes I am I'm writing it down I didn't bring my calendar with me so not gonna okay if I'm available I'll be there okay so April 27th 9:00 am Town Hall um I will talk to Lisa Anderson tomorrow see what room she would prefer us to be in and then I will send out a message to everyone U confirming uh what time to be here or what room what entrance to come into because that would be a pred determiner okay and at that time too then while we're at the end of finishing stuff in the envelopes then we'll talk about who wants to how we want to break down the town and that would also include the dining establishment visit which is the next on the agenda so we'll be able to get those all done at the same time we've already talked about the Facebook review and um Amber was going to talk about what she found out for vacant real estate and also property for sale Amber's not online is she okay so we'll roll that over to the next agenda as well then and I'll just add on when we go when we stop these I'm going to put them in in Road orders we'll have College Highway by Street by street address and road so we will have those all together awesome kind of the listing that I have now so what we can do while we're stuffing him is you can if people say I'll deliver this one right take it right there take it right then and and deliver it within the next few days perfect so we'll plan on that right and for the restaurants I've got Southwoods printing which we all discussed at one of the previous meetings the signs in the same Decor as the shop local signs that say thank you for dining or you know dining local so we'll be able to not only give them the survey and the by the way the EDC is doing this for you during the 338 season this year for no cost and here's also a sign to put up in your window saying thank you for dining local so it'll be a a nice presentation that's never been um executed before so um so that's the old business any comments from either the public or the team here about anything we just discussed okay so uh restaurant uh reach out for this week um since we're not ready with the QR code yet and with the um since we're going to piggyback this with us of the mailing list that takes care of that agenda item so not going to worry about that uh master plan adoption I don't know if you all saw the meeting minutes from the planning department did you go to the meeting Jam um last thing on the agenda yeah very last thing and the drum roll is it's been passed I sign in the paper yeah so do you want to give us a recap on the planning board meeting Jean basically there were three just little items in the me uh that they had looked over is just wording you know says instead of this change that so three nothing of any significance quite frankly that last few bugs that they wanted to get get out and and then it was a simple pass on I would encourage everybody to go on board and read it you know when but it it's it's out there right and I guess the next step now is to go before the select board they'll have to you know also adopt it but just my understanding there there'll be select board planning board and three uh citizens okay that are going to be on the implementation team master plan implementation okay so that's where it's at but I would encourage everybody to read it okay so what I'm going to do is I've already reached out to one of the members and there Julie brought these to the meeting as well so you can yeah that's on yeah it's on the website y it's on the website tobs but I will within the next week email to everyone on our commission the master plan there's going to be also a list of action items responsibility per commission committee and board and on our next agenda see we're already creating so we can get this done it early um will be a discussion about the role that we the EDC are going to play in this master plan we are one of the top three boards and commissions that are going to have a tremendous involvement with the implementation of this master plan so this is where it's going to get fun for you mark to be able to start utilizing your expertise I know it's been a little bit of a haul but in essence it's only been seven months with taking these little baby steps but um I will get that to you and then we will discuss the action items at our next meeting which in my opinion should be um four weeks from now so let's do let's set that date right now I don't see a need for us to have a meeting uh within the next two weeks so that would be May 15 if I'm looking at that correctly yes so May 15th and I just realized Mark you've not met Jean yes we met um the night that he came to express interest oh to express interest okay alternate the planet right so yeah Jean's been appointed by the select board and with Jean's involvement with the planning boards in his previous World um Jean is going to be attending most of the planning board meetings um I'll be with Jean next Wednesday night for Tuesday night the 20 select board no the next uh meeting on the 23rd um and being able to start building that bridge between the economic development commission and the planning board because we're going to want to be in tandem as one of the comments that you made in regards to what about businesses that are soliciting into town how do we know about it so we're going to really start developing more of that proactive um Outreach and um look continuing down our agenda uh we're going to Greg wasn't able to um go to the or to view the western Mass um EDC council meeting and April 11 that would have been the1 yeah that they why did you I was I was on that what was top I'm sorry great we'll let you we'll let you yeah I and I have this if you want have it electronically to Excell sure um there's a really interesting presentation by um Peter Miller from City of Westfield and he talked about that was the the sort of the core of the the agenda he talked about um uh the various developments new developments kind of gave an overview so you've got James Hardy Corporation with 60 jobs they made a $50 million investment in town and they used a a tip similar to what we used in town here one Mr yeah which um is is a good tool um I'm sorry I'm not okay yeah in finan how much was um to amount to I don't he didn't disclose what the amount was he he categorized it as small a small tip so it was a it's what it is um tax increment financing is a way that if a business in this case they invested 50 million uh into into their their building um the town will relieve them of some of the tax burden tax burden until say something right and they have to typically they put certain Milestones or benchmarks in that have to um so if you don't hire like they said they were going to hire 60 people you know that's probably you know a benchmark or at least some portion of that um over time um and as long as they satisfy they stay in town you know it's not front loaded so if they decide to sell and take off well then um so goes their Tiff so right it's a pretty good tool oh yeah I've seen it happen many times yeah yeah and a lot of times it's used really for infrastructure um improvements take that burden off of somebody who's developing uh and then the town obviously has an interest in that because then it's kind of assuring good tie-ins with your utilities and things um they did the the same um with ER metals and apparently ER metals also got some tax credits from the state um they're working on something a little bit bigger investment 54 million um but the job are almost double or more than double 130 jobs at the town they talked about Falcon Landing which um wind Stanley Corporation is developing it's the former Target warehouse um and they're developing that on spec so U when Stanley's Tak a little bit of a risk there's a piece of proper they have um on Turnpike Industrial Road um they had planned the town had planned a landfill there and then they decided um to uh to forego that they got some um site Readiness grants through the state and so that's a good tool it's another tool that if we ever have an opportunity to work with a developer we can apply for something like that as well as as a town um what does that do it apparently and I don't know the details of it but um apparently it helps um with some of the site work work that needs to be done and some of the planning that needs to be done so again you take that burden um off of off of you know anybody that might you know be buying the property down the road or or leasing some of the land impact statements things of that nature that you know say here locally you know Dollar General has no expertise in but still Town may require you know environmental impact statements and that would be prior to to them breaking ground yeah now this one um they want to break this into this is a a parcel that the town owns um and they want to break it into smaller Parcels with individual buildings so um interesting interesting approach then the other things that they talked about um the new hangers at Barnes and the new military jets that are coming online in the next few years um and then they talked about um um Westfield Gas and Electric and whip City fiber Westfield will be fully wired by 2025 I don't know how Southwick Compares but apparently they manage the fiber for Southwick wh City wh City fiber manages the so it's an interesting um Enterprise that the town has a stake in or owns um with the with the fiber company so which we voted for here as well last meeting yeah there's um you know 14 other municipalities that are also um utilizing them for their fiber so good good business model for the channel um and then three new restaurants uh in in the downtown area um two are open one will be coming online soon um right right downtown there and they talked about the new parking they're going to use for their summer concerts that new uh that new area right so good so a lot going on in Westfield um good good neighbor and you know I think they're a good example of of doing a lot of things right yeah in the last few years absolutely absolutely yep yep Forward Thinking um good decisions um you know really seeing revitalization uh downtown which I think really helps us um it's interesting when I bring people there from from out of town they say oh this feels like you know Oldtown Main Street uh so it' be good to see that and that that just helps southw too I think um and then you know some thoughts about you know just hearing them talk about how they have you know rather aggressively pursued um businesses they're in a very different situation they have some you know big industrial parcels and things um but you know a good approach I think we could learn a lot excuse me from them and as we look uh down the road to entertain you know businesses that want to come into town um I think we can um tap into them as a good resource use you know Peter as a um as a guide because he knows how to work these things and I'm sure right as long as we're not competing for the same business exactly exactly unlik unlikely yeah that's where our meeting that Greg and I had last um month we really have some great resources right here in our neighborhood um in our neighbor mean our neighborhood I'm from Springfield Westfield our our communities here at large and as you all see when I send you the the master plan action items part of one of our responsibilities is to look at how we're going to solicit business so and it has to be the like our mission statement says we focusing on just going to say the last portion here the town's long-term economic health and keeping with the town's rural character and goals so that's where these types of Outreach meetings you get the connections y definitely so that we can tap into them and um I've wanted to talk to you Mark about that piece and I'm thrilled that you spearheaded watching that um the video or that being part of that webinar um would that be an area that you would like to focus on being part of the commission is coming up with and I actually had it as a little side note here for Pam and Mark um to look at how we could create on our EDC website a solicitation page for here's who Southwick is and that's where we're going to tie in with Amber's information here are the properties that we have vacant here is what we have that we would like to see space being utilized with maybe a small little Manufacturing Company down on our industrial park on Wally way so um would that be something you would be interested in doing sure because I feel with your um with the background and just listening to you get excited talking about what Peter was talking about that's what we're going to really need need to really just spark this little Community with some other ideas of how we can fill some of our voids in terms of the website when I originally discuss it with Pam we talked about three audiences there's local residents and neighboring communities that shops out there there is our our businesses our local businesses that will be I don't even know if we've come up with URL for that but that would be you know let's say it's sou bbc.com um but then the third one is potential new businesses coming in and that's what this would be we would have a site for a tab in our site makes sense that helps you know sell our community sure to the the right you know potential audience and have in our toolbox too information about the tip have information about the said site Readiness grants well those things can all be linked to this the state um site right the EDC site right as much as we can we want to the one meeting that I went to before this was about their site which has multiple State um grant information on one site it's called one stop right yeah yeah that's which is the idea for us too is to try to channel it make it easy for businesses and and within the town you know at some point if we could you know work also with um you know the groups responsible for permitting and things like that uh when we have a new business that wants to come in those things anything that can help FasTrack right time is money for business so anything that can help FasTrack the process for them will be very well received right and I've been getting now for close to three months on any new business certificates that are coming to town exent and there's been they're primarily small little businesses uh but that conduits already started and that's something where I can very easily put you in on that Loop too Mark perfect so so is this that to be in the N this was a western Mass cedc correct yes yeah they have a a program they call Partners the western Mass they call it EDP EDP Economic Development partners and that's a group of people from all the different towns around and you know some are planning some are economic develop some in other parts but there are people with the mutual interest in in you know business cultivation I'm just trying to understand what what's the geographical presence of this that's represented I mean is it Adam sooy and all this we get it's all it's it's it's it's western Mass there was somebody from Greenfield Northampton pittsfield's part of it Valley heavily but some from the bur Corridor um probably not a lot from the tiny towns um right no I don't recall anybody from a real small town yeah but but we have about pitfield I mean it seemed like the focus was primarily Westfield that's why I asked about the oh the speaker they had this was a featured speaker right um and they told us we could be a featured speaker and present our s this okay all right I understand yeah this is Westfield or no it's actually a virtual it's like a zoom and but I think they hold it in Springfield y they do it right in Springfield right at the place where rickin is build building right because we a remember so you know um not not doing on any parade but I I think we have to be careful because we've you know this Tiff issue I think is for me it's the controversial because there's part of me that doesn't want anything to do with the government in my life my business or anything so by virtue of the fact that it enters into a competitor's business and enables them um we've seen in this town already uh problems with that so I I think we have to be somewhat careful on how how we treat those I totally agree especially if it's a competitive business coming you don't want to give them a uh a better deal than the same kind of business the idea of it is to bring in a new dimension and something with new benefits I just think we have to be careful that's all I'm saying well but it's not I mean it's not in our perview to Grant these or entertain them I mean that's a bigger decision that's made by the town and and made by um I guess the select board I would imagine they would have to approve we can make recommend yes we can do an economic analysis and we can give cautions we can speak through the local business community and say you know I wouldn't I would be hesitate to to give too much away for that kind of business sure well again that's a bigger I think that's a bigger question I think the analysis should be okay what is the town going to gain especially in tax revenue compared away absolutely that's PR seen situations where they gave away tax benefits and probably didn't gain anything from it but if you had the right uh either to retain a business like in the case of Wall-E you know it's a good company clean industry um good corporate citizen uh to retain them and to help them you know good faith gesture um you know some some Tiff financing uh you know I don't I don't see any issue with that um in even attracting um and it and it can get competitive and Connecticut does this very aggressively oh yeah so right across the board there was if there was a um a company that we wanted to have locate here in southw it can be a good tool coupled with the incentives that the state would have which are much greater yeah than what the local u local government would do or could do with these they're usually fairly nominal um uh in terms of the the abatements and again you know over the course of several years so that you kind of earn it in um but the state have some very um attracted incentives for the right businesses to come in um sorry yeah I'm just I'm just speaking out of it's anotal I mean we had an issue you know years ago where U A Tool Company uh moved in near another one and you know got their tax free incented for about 10 years and then all of a sudden went belly up so I mean we have I think we have to be careful and it has to be well analyzed absolutely yeah and we're not that governing authority to say yay or nay but for us to be able to be part of where we're going now with the master plan looking at soliciting to businesses we can use our website as a tool to direct them to other programs that are available now here within our town hall yes you've got to have other commissions and Boards agreeing to give this incentive we will not have that power to do that but it's good to know what is out there to attract but going back to something that Greg said earlier which is part of um our fifth agenda item on tonight is looking at what we want to start looking at going forward in the summer or for some of our goals and initiatives I think to come up with a business analysis that we can present to the um assessors the planning board the select board the finance committee this is a questionnaire that we would like to be part of when we're looking at new businesses where we can offer value then so the whole thing is to look at how we can contribute to the overall growth with in the community and doing that analysis is something that a lot of other edc's do as part of their value within the communities and if it isn't even necessarily an opinion it's not a recommendation or but it's an analysis an analysis dat what the we might gain financially and here's what we might give away here's some long-term maintenance costs might be incurred we should have have we should develop some of that and I know Jean you said you had some some knowledge of of that kind of analysis I'd love to do a tax revenue analysis a property tax revenue analysis I'd like to understand how businesses are assessed I would maybe meet with the assessing board and and say what's your process how you do this right help us understand because we need to know it if we're going to do that kind of analysis you know if a new business comes in it was an issue on carvana they're all over the board saying wow we're going to get this much I don't know that anybody get a real Revenue analysis and then you compare it to what infrastructure costs will the town incur and do we gain or lose and some things you gain early on and then you lose it when the have your maintenance comes due later on so It's Tricky yeah but that's something that we can look at Forward Thinking as part of what we want to contribute to the community I want to go back to something that you said earlier Craig the Western excuse me the the western Mass Economic Development Council is based out of Springfield and this is a resource for us it's a free membership and uh Greg and I met with them last month we met with Rick Sullivan who's the president and the CEO and also the vice president uh Zamara so it's a tool for us to be able to understand what's happening in the community I want to say two meetings ago I had asked if anybody else wanted to be part of that email stream to let you know okay and and get the reoccurrence of their webinars so once again anyone that wants to be part of that just let me know I'll reach out to Karen and share with her your email addresses and then you're going to get a zoom invite for the it's the second Thursday of the month I think it said 8 to 10 or something it's 9 No it started at 8:30 8:30 8:30 in the morning so it starts at 8:30 it's an hour long um they have guest speakers so where Peter was the guest speaker for this month and he's talking about what he's doing in his community uh Rick said if if we want to be the guest speaker we could as well um we're not there yet but it's something that you know they're always looking for people that want to talk about things that they're doing in their communities so both what it does for us is it gives us points of contact so like now for uh Mark he can reach out to Peter and say hey let's talk about what you've done I want to understand how you've done solicitation so they can actually now start having those conversations so um so any questions about that what is that THS 8 so we have to ask you to if we want to do it just let me just tell me if you want me to reach out okay I think I menion I I don't know that I saw it come through last time so okay so so they'll send us a zoom link yeah yeah yeah and the email address that I have for you Serena the Serena K3 okay and Craig the Craig at Shephard Corp okay it's a good um it's a good session um the last one that I participated in which I think was last month's they had some folks from the state and they were talking about the OneStop okay in program to make it easy to access okay Jean are you interested yes okay and Gan n instead of me putting through Gan M the other day okay excellent so well we haven't we haven't attended very much yet but I mean I just wonder if there is a lot of input from any of these Northwestern Towns at all does it sound like it or I because it seems Rick had told me that they have sometimes from Pittsfield sometimes from some of those but being that they're further away they don't have as heavy of involvement taking Zoom I I you know I zoom why they wouldn't why there wouldn't be more involved thanless all set up there I don't know D it kind of is it's western Mass but heavy polio it's just very heavy field Connecticut Valley pineer Valley Valley area but it's resource and we need them as we're starting to get our feet a little bit deeper into the sand here so okay and Jean you already gave us a recap of the planning board meeting and for summer accomplishments um item number five under new business start thinking about what we want to accomplish because now that we we're getting the website rolling um our website's going to be our new tool so once we start getting the businesses on board we're going to want to think about other tabs that we might want to add into it um the first one that I would think about would be events and also employment opportunities that we can help support our local businesses with but um so think about thoughts that you have going forward that we would want to start implementing going into the summer yes Craig um I do have a question about our relationship with the agricultural buch I mean can you speak to that right now I where we left out with them I mean we had talked about a few things U well right now um where we are with the our relationship with Adcom and the relationship with Adcom is um me um because I'm an honorary member of the Agricultural commission uh Bert and I are the ones who put together the open Farm Day last year on the first one that we had and it was a phenomenal success here in town and we're going to be doing open Farm day in SE um August um I will confirm that date Sage are you still on with us Sage hello hey Sage what's the um confirmed date for open Farm Day this year uh we actually didn't make it totally official yet um we did write it down but um it's it's still not plan plan like officially with everybody we still have to confirm it but I think it was the last weekend second to last weekend of uh August right so the 24th or the 25th correct yeah it was something something about there but let me get back to you on that I'll send you a message um later I just want to confirm with Bert really quick right right so what the involvement will be with the economic development commission with the Adcom as as long as you all are on board with it and we're going to obviously have to vote on it is I want to be able to put our QR codes at all the Farms for the dining for the restaurants to be able to promote the restaurants and um that's pretty much going to be it for open Farm day uh because this is all about sharing with other communities in our geographical area uh what Southwick does for farming and that farming is a business and it's vital here in our community and you can get good employment with these farms and you can learn a lot at these Farms so it's more of an educational and informative day um so but for the EDC involvement I'm looking at just those signs at the I guess I'm just saying in terms of this website and the three you know c three buckets you talked about and so forth and how the Farms fit into this because it seems like we need to develop that that would be definitely a tab for us to to focus on they are on the business listing they are on the business listings so they are there but what I would think that we could potentially do and this is just brainstorming is when we could have like a farm tab saying okay um pansies are out and then oh tomatoes are starting to come out or fresh strawberries are out so it could be promoting the produce of the month as well and maybe tying in you know this is a grander scheme the locals couple of dining establishments focusing on a farmed table but that is more of a broader reach right now we're just trying to we're just doing little baby steps just to get the website open going but that would be a great tool to Fus on have the shop South right and then we have the businesses right well shopop is the businesses well what is the other B the other audience is going to the businesses to tell them about events and grants and what do you think D South is that you're thinking what was the other bck more what is it the other one is perspective businesses we want to bring into town okay those are the three audiences I we talked about a potential for people employment you know solicitation people looking for yeah I just I just don't know the egg is going to get lost in in the business aspect I think it's yeah the biggest question on any website is it's not worth doing the website unless you can promote it and get a sufficient traffic so you have to have a strategy for how to promote it and if you do the farm you know what what reason do they have to go and look at what's in season um what reason do they have to go to that tab where you're going to promote we're getting people to shop southw because we're going to put signs all the businesses you know go go to this website to find any business in town but how do you get them to the tab about the the Farms it's not good enough to just build it and they come you have to promote it some right what I'm saying is if you're going to shop Southway okay you know don't you have categorical things yes Automotive all cized so well it's it's under food and dining is where that comes in the Farms come in under food of diamond and then you have subcategories of farm stands and markets you know supermarkets restaurants it kind of it's one of those categories but it's under food and dining because I mean when you're promoting it to the public it's about going to bu produce or food the products they produce well okay at this point with the WordPress that we've purchased with Southwoods we can build on it the most important thing for us to do initially is to get this business directory so that we have direct contact information from all the businesses Greg's done a really diligent job in regards to breaking it down in categories the benefit that we have is we can always go in and redefine we just need to get it open running and knowing that it's been tested and then we can build from there the the the categor start with 10 or 12 General categories you can't have too many to start with you got a list that's too long and then they click on that and you get a list of subcategories so we we want to come you know so they can go through and and say well I want Automotive I want uh industrial I want whatever is you could even under dining you could break it down from Italian you know Chinese Mexican you know we don't have so many that you can't just show all P the way the way that we the way that we divided up the restaurant is based on Geographic we've got the Lakes we've got the West Side the East Side the downtown area so it's broken down geography wise which seem to go pretty smoothly because a lot of our restaurants are very similar in state right so but once again it's just the start yeah once we see it in action then we can play with it but that's where even thinking about it out loud face our Facebook page might be another good way for us to promote our ad business as well I I know it's not an immediate thing and I'm not being critical I'm just saying as we think about our relationship with a it seems like when we talk about rural community and Our Roots and all of that but that's much more important than you know a muffler shop or something like that as far as the town's identity you know because it is I mean when Meadow Brook was open it was the destination people would come from it states away to come here so I'm saying they they're not going to come from three states away to come to get their Muffler fixed on a car so I I I think we have however we can capitalize on that I think it's important to us because it is part of us well I know with the uh shop Southwick or the the excuse me not the the shop Southwick the uh the dining Southwick promotion I did the past couple of years the amount of people that came out of state deliberately just to buy their Christmas tree at card's Farm was amazing absolutely amazing it's a destination that they do every Thanksgiving because they've been doing it for years and years and years so um definitely hear what you're saying Craig and our character of our community is is true and dear to a lot of us but with us being part of the EVC we also have to look at how we can promote our local businesses whether they are a muffler shop or they're a coward's farm or an Italian B abely and that's our focus is to get the awareness out there because here in town there's a lot of houses being built still uh I see more and more pieces of property coming in and these are people that need to have access and are probably in that demographic where they're going to be like wow we got a place now that we can go and get all this information and build on that sage just sent a date the hard date for Farm open 8 August 18 okay August 18th is our open Farm day second second annual so um so think about what we want to start looking at going into the summer because next month it's going to be tying up our website tying up the the promotion that we're doing at 3:38 and then looking forward and what we want to actually accomplish uh the uh I just realized when I had said earlier about the um the Southwick art show the evening of the 26 which is a Friday is an open house and this is something that all of us are invited to attend it is a many of items will be available able to purchase but it is a meet and greet here at the Town Hall from 5:30 to 7:30 is that something that you have an email form yes I emailed a lot of people to okay could you email the the team here this tonight or within the next couple of days and just to um kind of give a heads up they have from 10: a.m. at 10: a.m. to 400 p.m. so e would be at 9 would have to to probably be a different room or something yeah we'll probably be down here oh for that day we're still in the that's the day will be here so work start from 10 right well if we're down here we shouldn't be having a conflict with the art show oh okay I don't know where they are so just um that's from the um the main lobby into the auditorium Okay so you pass there you go you'll get you'll get an email of that from Julie within the next 24 hours as well did you want this posted then or what were we to post this is this what this is for to post at the station or no well for invitation only so it's not for the general public so I thought we uh do we need are we going to have something that we want to post for the general public on the other days or no this is the only invitation I have is it RSVP RSVP okay for the 26 for the evening of the 26 right but the other is a general public 27 yes on the weekend correct so I didn't I I guess I didn't I haven't seen that before so I thought this was something you wanted to post at the stations you know the mark art show that's what I thought it was so but they do have a sign up there but I think it's um it's talking about the weekend not the Friday and here you have the Friday as well I just noticed that so okay so are you looking for a sign for the art show another they have another sign that I mailed to the list this is this is probably this is the public I was to put something up down there but I obviously don't want to do it they say the show is open goodby they would really love that all a sudden start having 100 people show up from the notch yeah that's my first time with the art show so I don't know how so normally do they bring you a poster to put in your window we have in the past we we put something up to do that drop it off down there make sure out we'll have Julie jump on that was going to put these up everything okay all the were invited any this is also by invitation I think so yeah any other comments discussion points and because you're going to the wick and specifically says dine uh and I don't know we don't have any nice motorcycle shops in town per se we do you have green craft right okay was wear all right so if somebody's needing parts and whatnot that would be the point to go then again probably those guys know who's what wear anyway I don't know just thinking of another Avenue to get you know more local business tied directly into W um funny that you mention that um I have put a call out to uh Rick and I am following up with him this week letting him know that we're ready to put the QR code on the signs um I asked him um that I want to talk to about something else and what that something else is is um there is a bulletin board by the shop at the wick and there's also the building where the individuals sit when they do the counting of their Racers and the ones that are controlling the on an administrative point when things are happening at the race uh one of those administrators asked me if we would be able to create a 11 by 17 only one is necessary laminated that they could put on the bulletin board that would say um here are the where the ATMs are and here are where the there are Nappa Riley uh Tractor Supply IBS greens motorcycle shop so that if they need a part or they need oil whatever they might need the folks in the shop and say go right to the bulletin board you're going to see an 11 by 17 there's going to be a QR code there that's going to direct you to where those places are so great way I like your thought process their Gene and that's something that I am going to talk to uh Rick about this week to see if he would have a problem with me creating that and getting his approval to put up so that it's other businesses here in town that can be promoted because the Bigg thing that they're told is that people don't realize they got to pay cash for things and if they run out of money because they do have an ATM on site but if they run out of money then they know okay where Westfield Bank is and where Brer bank is and if they need like a c before parts or something this is where you can go their insurance pardon corruptor insurance corruptor insurance so that's where open on the weekends I I don't I don't want to give you that Mark that's the the sign that we ended up um all agreeing on and um it's going to be 4 feet wide by 8 ft long double-sided heavy corrugated the colors there that printed out on my computer are not the colors they're red white and blue colors or they pink so okay well if we're all set then I'd like to make a motion to adjourn the meeting a second okay all in favor all in favor hi okay thank