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HomeMy WebLinkAboutEconomic Advisory Commission - Minutes - 04/17/2019Economic Advisory Commission Regular Meeting April 17, 2019, 11 a.m.- 1 p.m. Colorado River Room, 1 st Floor, 222 Laporte Avenue 4/17/2019 – MINUTES Page 1 1. CALL TO ORDER Time Started 11:05 a.m. 2. ROLL CALL List of Board Members Present • Connor Barry • Aric Light • Denny Otsuga • John Parks • Braulio Rojas • Ted Settle • Linda Stanley • George Grossman List of Board Members Absent • Renee Walkup List of Staff Members Present • Josh Birks, Economic Health Manager • Erin Zimmermann, Economic Health Admin/Board Support • Shannon Hein, Sr. Business Specialist List of Guests • Dale Adamy (r1st.org) • Ann Hutchison, Fort Collins Area Chamber of Commerce • Jacob Castillo, Economic Development Director, Larimer County • Erma Woodfin, Fort Collins Women’s Commission 3. AGENDA REVIEW a. Modified order of the agenda by moving the Boards and Commissions Evaluation (Experiment) to the beginning so that Ted could leave early for personal reasons. ECONOMIC ADVISORY COMMISSION REGULAR MEETING 4/17/2019 – MINUTES Page 2 4. CITIZEN PARTICIPATION Erma Woodfin— Serves on the Women’s Commission, which is proposing that Fort Collins City Council approve a CEDAW resolution. Adoption of a resolution would affirm the City of Fort Collins’ commitment to the principles of the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). Once a resolution is adopted, Council could provide direction to staff to focus efforts on identifying areas where the greatest impact on the lives of women and girls could occur. The Women’s Commission plans to present to Council sometime in May and is seeking endorsement from the Economic Advisory Commission. Ann Hutchison— Fort Collins Area Chamber of Commerce and former Economic Advisory Commission member shared that Talent 2.0 launched a new Talent Portal last Friday. https://workinnortherncolorado.com/. She encouraged people to check it out and spread the word. 5. APPROVAL OF MINUTES The March 20th, 2019 meeting minutes approved with the noted correction of “admission tax” on page 5 in John’s comment. 6. UNFINISHED BUSINESS. a. Arts and Culture Master Plan- Denny Otsuga (Listen/ Clarify/Discuss) Denny— Jim asked that EAC consider writing a memo as a statement of support. Propose we keep it high level and entertain motion. George— recommended we focus on the connection to economic health. John— broad definition for creative sector. Brulio— Sounds positive and creates more cultural opportunity. At a general level, I agree with it. I would suggest building a relationship with the education community. Aric— There was a suggestion on focus of affordable housing for creatives. But, attainable and affordable housing is a community need much borader than for creatives. Maybe mention that. Connor— The plan lacks specific numbers on funding needed to achieve these goals. ECONOMIC ADVISORY COMMISSION REGULAR MEETING 4/17/2019 – MINUTES Page 3 Action: Aric motioned to send general memo of support for the Arts and Culture Master Plan. Brulio seconded. George abstained. Motion carried. b. Board and Commission Evaluation (Experiment) Update—Ted Settle (Listen/ Clarify) Ted Settle provided a short recap of the joint Board and Commission meeting last week. Members who attended shared their key takeaways and reflections from their participation. • Overall, members thought it was a good and productive activity. • They identified the importance of additional thought around how to apply and refine this process moving forward. • They liked that it was grounded in the tool and that participants had something tangible to react to during the meeting. It would be helpful to have more assumptions laid out early on. • They would also like to see more focus on the result of having some deliverables come out of the meeting. • The group also discussed how they would like to have had more board representation from all the boards. However, it did demonstrate the value of having multiple groups come together to do some tangible work and contribute input on a larger scale. • Selection of the topic and timing is important. Ted mentioned that for the next one, the steering group will need to explore if it should be kept within the Sustainability Service area again, or if the issue should drive who is at the table. The evaluation component could have been strengthened. Next step will be a debrief and then discuss the planning for a second one in the fall. 7. NEW BUSINESS a. Regional Economic Development Presentation— Josh Birks and Jacob Castillo (Listen/Clarify/Discuss) Josh Birks and Jacob Castillo gave a presentation on the desire to make the Regional Economic Development system more high-functioning. Lots of groups are involved in this work. In our minds, this is an inclusive effort. The purpose is to have more strategic alignment. Partners include: ECONOMIC ADVISORY COMMISSION REGULAR MEETING 4/17/2019 – MINUTES Page 4 • Chambers – Greeley, Loveland, Fort Collins, etc. (Private Leaders) • Colorado State University & University of Northern Colorado • Front Range Community College & AIMS Community College • Weld & Larimer County Workforce Development Boards (Public/Private Partnership) • Upstate Colorado Economic Development (Public/Private Partnership) • Loveland Business Partnership (Private Leaders) Why— To build greater Economic Resilience. We are working on developing specific metrics. The Outputs we believe we can influence are strength and diversity (breadth and depth of our Economy). Four key inputs are industry, Talent, Data, and Engagement (from diverse stakeholders). It is a shift from a traditional hierarchical system to a model that is more networked or webbed in structure. We are working on building out a charter and code of ethics. How?— Use Data to drive a strategic plan that focuses on economic opportunities and growth industries. Why Larimer and Weld County?— They don’t seem naturally aligned in a lot of attributes, but the data demonstrates that it functions as one system. Looked at regional data from industry standpoint, as well as occupation distribution. What breadth and depth do we already have and how do we build on that success? Labor Distribution data demonstrates that workers in Larimer and Weld live within Larimer and Weld primarily. Every morning and every evening the amount of people equal to the population of Loveland community within from one county to another. Started with current assessment. What is the current state and what is the future state? Partnering increases the sophistication in our data. You will see this presentation is shared by the network to present the same information across northern Colorado and is not branded by an individual organization for this reason. ECONOMIC ADVISORY COMMISSION REGULAR MEETING 4/17/2019 – MINUTES Page 5 Comments: Linda— What has the reaction been? Josh— Every entity has responded positively to the fact that we are wanting better collaboration. Some comments from individual municipalities are around making sure when we are engaging we are engaging in things that specifically align with our municipal objectives. Jacob— I’ve heard that people like that this is not a Larimer vs Weld thing. I think people are pleasantly surprised that we are all working together very well. Josh— We have operated under a code of ethics for the last two years. Not going to incentivize business to come from Loveland to Fort Collins and we don’t knock on their doors. We are committed as a region to first keep businesses in our communities, and then if failing that keeping them in our region. Connor— Has there been any push back regarding wanting the hierarchal gatekeeping structure and not the web structure? Josh— What’s important is if you build the network correctly, every node looks like what that top node looks to like. I think that critique comes more from those who are outside and not heavily involved. There has been some skepticism. Jacob— What is this group interested in having as metrics? George— How is this the same or different from OneNoCo? Josh— OneNoco was born out of the hierarchical structure. Our outlook is for them to be a full participant in the collaboration. OneNoco is one who has voiced skepticism. Their view is a little outside the day to day. It is good to have that healthy tension. I think they are in transition, so we are also trying to figure out what their mission is. We are trying to stay engaged with them to find common goals and alignment. They are also their own entity. Best solution we have is to continue to invite them to engage. It needs to be a public/ private partnership. We need to be working together. Linda— This is a big step forward. It sounds very positive. Jacob— This has been years in the making. Go slow to go fast. We’ve spent two and a half years thinking about what this system needs to look like. Josh— Our immediate next step is to build out two governance documents. Code of Ethics and Charter— what does it mean to be a member? What are the expectations? What is the accountability? What are the objectives? Hope to have that more mid-year. It is the stone soup approach where we are using things we are already invested in and doing. ECONOMIC ADVISORY COMMISSION REGULAR MEETING 4/17/2019 – MINUTES Page 6 Jacob— It is the idea of leveraging and getting rid of waste in the system. Broulio— It sounds really positive overall but there could be a blurred line of our city interests. The resilience concept is good as general idea, but I think you should put some metrics in place to measure it. Josh— we are changing City dashboard and looking at metrics that tie into resilience. 5-year business mark. Can they scale? Can they survive. Denny—Is there anything we can do to help or enforce this? Josh— The best thing you can do is help share the story. With this level of collaboration, there’s not a lot of awareness about it. We are trying to bust some of the myths that are out there. That would be helpful. Denny— There are a lot of initiatives like this where a lot of money goes into it and I think I would like to know more about how much resource and effort are going into forming that network. What’s the structure and processes? b. Business Survey Results— Shannon Hein (Listen/Clarify/ Discuss) Shannon Hein gave a presentation on the National Business Survey that will be every two years from now on. She also highlighted the small business survey results, though we do not have funding for the small business survey currently. (See PowerPoint slides for results) Key takeaways: • Businesses want to engage with the City, but they are not sure on the best entry point. • Businesses identified Safety, Economy and Mobility as priorities for the upcoming two years. • Don’t anticipate relocating out of the area. • Talent and workforce continue to be a priority. We will be doing some small group discussions and focus groups. The small business survey had an option to include contact info, so we will be doing some outreach to bring them together. ECONOMIC ADVISORY COMMISSION REGULAR MEETING 4/17/2019 – MINUTES Page 7 8. BOARD MEMBER REPORTS Denny and Connor had a meeting with the Mayor. For him to be here at this meeting is very difficult. Instead, Denny and Connor will meet with him once a quarter and then he will attend the EAC meeting once a year during the big planning and visioning. The are also in the process of exploring setting up individual coffee meetings or happy hour meetings outside normal business meetings. Josh and Erin can send out a survey to explore the potential options to move EAC meeting times. 9. OTHER BUSINESS None 10. ADJOURNMENT Adjourns 1:12 p.m. UPCOMING TOPICS May: ▪ Climate Economy Action Plan- Sean Carpenter ▪ Open Slot Unscheduled: ▪ Update on Industry Cluster Approach – TBD (Listen/Clarify) 2019 Priorities: ▪ Talent Development, Economic Dashboard, Business Engagement, & Cluster