HomeMy WebLinkAboutEconomic Advisory Commission - Minutes - 01/17/20181 | Page
MINUTES
CITY OF FORT COLLINS
ECONOMIC ADVISORY COMMISSION
Date: Wednesday, January 17, 2018
Location: Colorado River Room, 222 Laporte Ave.
Time: 1:00am–1:00pm
For Reference
Wade Troxell, Mayor & Council Liaison
Josh Birks, Staff Liaison 221-6324
Alexis Hmielak , Minutes 221-6600
Commission Members Present Commission Members Absent
Sam Solt, Chair
Denny Otsuga
Aric Light
Ted Settle
Connor Barry
Craig Mueller
Ann Hutchison Linda Stanley
John Parks
Staff Present
Alexis Hmielak, Admin/Board Support
Josh Birks, Economic Health Director
Jackie Kozak-Thiel, Chief Sustainability Officer
Lucinda Smith, Director, Environmental Services
Victoria Shaw, Senior Financial Analyst, Sustainability Services
Alyssa Johnson, Graduate Management Assistant
Ginny Sawyer, Policy and Project Manager, City Manager’s Office
Guests
Dale Adamy, citizen
Mark Van Ark, citizen
Kevin Jones, FC Area Chamber
Maddie Larkin, Student
Meeting called to order at 11:05 am
Public Comment—Name:
• Sam stated that there has been a discussion regarding the process for public comments. The decision
was that if a comment is relevant to the meeting it may become part of the group discussion. If not,
the default is that the comment will stand alone.
Review and Approval of Minutes:
December minutes approved as presented.
Agenda Review—No changes.
Commission Member/Staff Updates
2 | Page
Ann: The Chamber of Commerce Talent 2.0 program is continuing and has a white paper coming out
written by child care advocates defining challenges to childcare in Larimer County. There will be a
task force convened to work on this. NoCo Housing is focusing on childcare, housing, and I-25 as 3
major barriers.
Larimer County owns a software program named EMSI that analyzes work forces across the country
and identifies where there are pockets of over supply and under supply of workers. They will use this
program to help local employers attract qualified workers. This program is available to others if they
purchase an add-on.
Another effort is an underemployment project with Larimer County Workforce to identify how to
keep qualified workers and redistribute them into jobs appropriate for them.
Linda: comment – concerned that keeping people here might disrupt natural population
movement and create a less desirable place to live.
Conner: no update
Ted: no update.
Denny: The Galvanize co-working space is open again under the name “Spaces”. It is run by a
company called Regis, a national brand that has co-working spaces across the country.
Sam: He congratulated the City of Fort Collins for improving its rating to the number 5 position of
Best Performing City as an Economy and Employer. He also congratulated the City for achieving
the Baldridge Award.
• Craig – no update
• Aric – no update
AGENDA ITEM 1— City Plan Update
Josh reported that the Trends and Forces Report will be the lead off for City Plan and will focus on five
key areas.
Right now the City is working behind the scenes to get a good foundation in place for the City Plan
update and will have some open houses in February to gather input from the public, including the
availability of land dedicated to employment and trends and forces with primary employers in the region
ACTION ITEMS: None.
AGENDA ITEM 2—Experiment Update
Ted reported that he and Sam met with the Affordable Housing Board and the Community Development
Block Grant Commission to discuss a suggested experiment to make boards and commissions more
effective. They are getting some pushback comments that the experiment may be outside the purview of
City boards and commissions. The group is unclear if Council understands the problem the experiment is
trying to fix and the frustrations of some board members about their effectiveness.
Josh reported the Futures Committee has agreed to look at the broader issue of boards and commissions,
to research what other cities are doing, and to make a recommendation to Council how to proceed, or
remain in current mode.
ACTION ITEMS: None.
AGENDA ITEM 3—Business Assistance Criteria--Board
3 | Page
Josh asked the board members to break into two groups to discuss two issues: cost of living; and size of
community/population, using the following questions:
• How might a business relocation or expansion in Fort Collins impact the aspect of quality of
place? Positives? Negatives?
• How might Council and staff evaluate the potential of question #1.
• Do any specific metrics come to mind that can help to quantify the potential impact? Any metrics
that come to mind and how to get them?
Josh will have several more of these breakout sessions in future board meetings with other topics and will
combine all into a report.
Results of group discussion:
Group #1
• Possible influx of new talent/people depending on size of the expansion.
o What wages will these new jobs be paying? Will these jobs be able to sustain current
living costs as is or are they likely to drive it higher?
• Cost of housing; where do these jobs fit into the current housing demographics. Are they above
or below the current median?
• More people put more pressure on roads, infrastructure and schools.
o These needs should be considered jointly.
• Need for more housing (obviously). Potentially, drive up cost of current housing.
o Examples:
HP relocation in 1980’s
Comcast
• Concern at the time was a negative impact on housing.
• Jobs were primarily call center jobs. Not viewed as being of particularly
high quality or at least what the city would want to spend money on.
• Speculated that the “costs” of that expansion would be more than the
potential benefits.
• Has median income gone up or down with previous expansions? How has cost of living
changed?
• Metrics:
o Changes in average rent
o Changes in average home prices
o Comparables (i.e other communities or previous experiences)
o Relocation assistance if business is moving:
What is the size of the package under consideration? What else could these
funds be made available for?
o Ratio of organic jobs (i.e. drawing on labor pool already present in Fort Collins) created
vs those that would need to be brought in.
Assistance could be tied to some goals or objectives around this.
Group #2: Members: Denny, Linda, Denny, Craig, John
• Ideal size – big enough for expansion, but not too big to move
o 50,000 and 500,000
• How might a Business Relocation or Expansion in Ft. Collins impact this aspect of Quality of Place?
o Linda – How many people are they bringing with them vs. how many people will they be
hiring here?
o Craig – What draws companies here? Other than the direct business incentive
Is it the mountains or the college students?
Unlikely that any company that comes in that would decrease the size
o Craig – Positive population growth is a negative impact
4 | Page
o Linda – Population growth negatively impacts all infrastructure
o Denny – I’m not anti-growth. Growth allows for increased diversity of communities and
amenities
o Linda – Current surveys say 60% think we’re growing too much
• How might staff and Council evaluate the potential impacts described in question 1?
o How many people are they bringing with them vs. how many people will they be hiring
here?
o The city’s job is to diversify the economy rather than to develop one chain that could go
under
o With a 2.9 unemployment rate, there is no need to incentivize population growth
• Do any specific metrics come to mind that can help to quantify the potential impact?
o Infrastructure capacities and load measures
Traffic
Schools
o Count of the number of companies affiliated with the City and the number of companies
that receive direct incentives from the city
• Big takeaways
o There are a variety of positive and negative impacts of population growth
o Do we want growth or not?
o The city will grow either way – Do we want to incentivize the growth?
o Diverse economies are more resilient
ACTION ITEMS: None.
AGENDA ITEM 4—Triple Bottom Line-Scan, Jackie Kozak-Thiel, Lucinda Smith, and Staff
Presentation by Jackie Kozak-Thiel, Chief Sustainability Officer, Lucinda Smith, Director,
Environmental Services, Victoria Shaw, Senior Financial Analyst, Sustainability Services, and
Alyssa Johnson, Graduate Management Assistant.
The group presented an overview of a revised Triple Bottom Line process called TBL-S (Triple Bottom
Line- Scan) which included:
• History of the Triple Bottom Line use in the City
• TBL-S Objectives
• Potential Metrics
• Overview of the City’s Leadership System
• Link to Strategic Plan
• 2016 Survey/2017 Value Proposition Canvassing
• TBL-S Refinement
• The Multi-Step Process of TBL-S
• Overview of TBL-S
• TBL-S examples and guidance statements
• Visualization recommendations
• Visualization Outcome level
• TBL-S One Page Summary
• On-Line User Guide
• Matrix of when/when not to use
• Next Steps
• What Success Looks Like
Discussion/Q & A:
o Ted: Don’t weigh all items equally on the one page summary, because some items may actually
be more important. Maybe use a ranking instead, or the respondent could rank them.
5 | Page
o Linda: Some items might be too insignificant to mention – weed them out.
o Connor: How do you determine when questions need to be reworded? Also, do not have too
many questions that say, “high confidence is 0”.
o Lucinda – The Executive Lead Team reviewed the draft process and suggested that we
develop a quality assurance mechanism to make sure something wasn’t missed.
o Denny: Most people don’t like to say negative impact. Also, is there a way to point out which
questions are more important to each council person’s district?
o Lucinda: It will take training for people to realize it is not a bad thing to score a negative
response.
o Linda: Take into consideration that are two different kinds of importance: value or individual vs.
impact.
o Victoria: This is flexible process, but we don’t want to remove anything from the
conversation
o Linda: It would be interesting to have Council members rate the questions. Who will be using
the form to take the survey?
o Victoria: It depends on the audience. It is variable. However, Program and Project
Managers mainly will be using the survey.
o Josh: You don’t do the work alone. It is a guidance document.
o Jackie: It links to community engagement guide and will be transparent.
o Sam – Suggest there be multiple versions of the one pager. Also, how can EAC stay involved
with this?
o Lucinda: We can come back and share an update after being evaluated by the FC Lean
process and the board could also weigh in.
o Josh: The Economic Advisory Commission has been discussing how to offer business
assistance. Maybe the EAC could investigate a way to complement the TBL tool. The
tool might also cue a Project Manager when they might want to engage the community
and where to place the most impact.
o Ted: Most people don’t know what TBL is. Perhaps use it as an educational tool.
Meeting Adjourned: 1:05 pm
Next Meeting: February 21, 2018