[music] [music] [music] [music] It's [music] now 5:15. I think we have a short agenda, but uh I will call the meeting to order. Do we need to do anything else and do that? >> Okay. Uh first item in the agenda then is the approval of minutes. I'm going to entertain a motion for their approval. >> So moved. >> Second. >> Mr. Peterson moves. Second by Commissioner Busy. Any additions or corrections? Not all in favor, please signal by saying I. I opposed. Motion carries 6. Organizational business contract for staff services between the city and the port authority. So, all right. Good evening, President Ericson and commissioners. This is an annual contract that we renew between the city and the port authority. The city provides a lot of our services like finance and legal and then the port operates separately from that. So, this is the agreement that memorializ memorializes that process. We have already had this approved at city council this year at the December 8th meeting and it's very similar with some minor changes to what you approved last year. >> Does anybody want to question anything or make any comment or anything? I think this is a trusted partner so it should be pretty easy. >> It's not the sort of thing where we're going to go to Edina and get a [laughter] >> Okay. I would entertain a motion then for approving that it's on page five of your packet. >> Mr. President, I'd uh move approval and I would move to approve and authorize the execution of the 2026 contract for staff services between the city of Bloomington and the Port Authority for of the city of Bloomington. >> We have a motion made and seconded. Any further discussion? Not all in favor, please signal by saying I. >> Oppos. Motion carries 6. New business. >> All right. Good morning. Not good morning. >> Wow. Good evening, President [laughter] >> and Commissioners. It's who knows what's going on. Um, tonight you are going to hear from Priscilla Maya, who you've not actually had the opportunity to be introduced to before. She is our business assistance specialist. She works with Barb primarily with our small business community. and she is going to give you a brief overview of the CRM software that we'll be implementing to better track our business engagements and also introducing herself a bit as she is new to you. >> Welcome Priscilla. >> Thank you. Good evening, President Ericson, commissioners. Thank you for having me. Um >> you're speaking a little softly, so I don't know if you >> Oh, can you hear me properly? Is this better? >> Okay. Yeah. >> Okay. Um, my name is Priscilla, like Holly mentioned, and I serve as the business assistant specialist. Um, and I'm here to give you the CRM overview. I'm trying to find the presentation. >> Okay. [snorts] >> Um, in the meantime, while we're trying to sort that out, I'll give you a little brief introduction about myself. I was an intern in 2023 here at the city, um, where I helped design and implement the Blooming Bloomington program. So, that was a really great experience. And then I left and worked for a nonprofit as a director of uh programs um serving a statewide council of young people um on policy matters for for youth work. And now I'm back at the city supporting small businesses and entrepreneurs, which I really enjoy doing. Okay, we have the PowerPoint up. Um, just giving you some information on one of my projects is one of the projects I was I was assigned to um when I started. So, to kick us off, what is a CRM? Just real quickly, um it helps organizations, businesses, governments, um track and document interactions with their target audience, clients, however you want to call it, who are the business community for us. um big, small, medium, all sizes. And um it helps us track our activities, help us know like interactions that staff's having with with um those community members. And so to give you some history and context of how we came about this, in 2023, it was recommended to the city that we get this software. And then in 2024, an RFP was put out to procure those services. And then this year we signed a three-year contract with Executive Pulse. And Executive Pulse is a um software develop designed by economic developers and it's very commonly used amongst government entities like ourselves. And then what will this do? It will really help us track our engagement with businesses. So any interactions, any business visits, whether retention, touch point visits, whatever that might be. Um, it will serve as a database where we can store all information on businesses and it will also help us collect resources across the state that are available to businesses and then we can also generate um report and insights that could also be presented to the commission if needed. Here are some examples of the kind of information that we will document in the CRM. So things like address, things like number of employees, whether it's a Bloomington headquarter, um such as that. And then benefits of the CRM. It will really help us be more collaborative across the city, specifically within the community development department. Um also helps us reduce instit institutional knowledge loss. So if a staff member were to leave, they don't just leave with all the information that they have. Um it helps us be better responsive to the business community which is foundational to building trust. Um which is one of the things that we would like to do build better relationships with our business community. And then finally just show um talking about our implementation phase. So since I started we have been building out and customizing the software making sure it fits our context. uh first phase adopters which is the port administration staff as well as the business assistance um staff. We will be using in testing it starting this month and then next year in quarter 1 we will plan to integrate additional staff members as needed if um it seems good for their own use. >> Now's the fun part. Any questions for me? >> Questions for Priscilla or comments? Commissioner Nelson, >> thank you, President. Um, a couple quick questions. Um, so I use CRM in my own business and and so a couple of things that I'm looking at is does this integrate with our website? Do we get information with regards to if those businesses go to any particular pages on our website? Is it something that can be integrated into um say the uh uh Bloomington uh BMTT travel and tourism. Thanks. Um that you know they could do it because they have a ton of businesses coming to look to do things. Uh does it allow us to do uh sequences or or drip campaigns? Um and then the last question I have is is there any type of AI component to this that allows it to analyze data to help us with any of that communication po portion of it? >> Yeah. Thank you, Commissioner Nelson. Um, you have four questions, so I'm going to try and go individual on each of the questions. So, the first question, does it integrate with our website? So, right now it does not. We have the capabilities to have sort of like a survey collection form embedded in the website. So, if businesses come and they share their information with us, then we can direct that into the CRM. So, yes and no in a way. um if we were to expand the capability we would have to sign a new agreement for more money. Um then the second question integrating with BMTT. So that's a conversation we've had in terms of who are the external partners and internal partners that we can provide access to the CRM. We have not considered BMT specifically um in how they can use that data but that is something that we can keep in mind. And then drip campaigns and that sort. So right now this tool we have not explored it for that use. I don't know how robust it is to be able to accommodate that but there are other tools or other opportunities if we were to ever um do that but right now it's not in our purview to do those things. Um we just want to document interactions and staff engagements and do some impact reporting. So that would be maybe a future consideration. And then the final question about AI I will have to get back to you on that. We have not explored that piece yet. >> Mr. Trump, you go back. >> Forget that to the where you had the input that you capture that screen real quick. >> Okay. The next page. Okay. So that ideally this would be a good source too. Kind of building on what Commissioner Nelson said, but good source for the future Bloomington business surveys when we get around to doing that at at some point in the future. And did you say how are you capturing this information? is that you know by just is when a business comes in and is that what prompts somebody to say hey I've got a few couple co questions or just through your conversation um you're actually capturing some of this or is there some purposeful you're going out to certain segmented businesses [clears throat] to try and capture thanks commissioner Hunt um so we're part of building out the CRM is building out that process that you're asking about right now we don't have a process that we follow at the Um but my plan is that it would be used whether someone comes in at the counter to talk to us or someone reaches out via email um or we go out to a business. So we have we're developing what we call like survey forms where whatever the business is there's a list of questions that a staff member will have to answer and fill in that information and that goes into the CR. >> Okay. And then Commissioner Hunt and Commissioners, if I may, there are a few, well, there are many scenarios where we're capturing data right now, but it's in an Excel spreadsheet. So, this is going to bring us up to our next level, but some of the examples of that would be Barb and Priscilla do business out engagement visits where they actually go out to different commercial areas of the city and directly interact with businesses. That would be a prime opportunity for this. Um, the mayor and I go on business retention visits to some of our large employers. We would use that as well. And then if we had something like the um business forum, we would be capturing all that information in the CRM, making sure everyone who attended was captured. Um so those are just a few examples of how we might use this. The other way that we'll be using it two primary ways. One is those continued engagements and the other is when there's a prospective business that we talk to. So if that comes to us through greater MSP or deed, if it starts to become a serious conversation, we'll document that here because there's often many elements that are discussed in the process of a business considering coming here and we want to make sure we're capturing that in one place where any staff person could see it. >> And the key of course is capturing actually indeed the time to register and record that >> encounter however it may be. So, >> thank you. >> Thank you, Mr. President. Uh, so I mean, you mentioned the >> we have spreadsheets already, and I'm assuming you're going to populate with the information that we have. You're not going to start from scratch. [cough] [clears throat] You know what I'm saying? While I joke here, could you answer that, please? [laughter] >> I'll give you one. [clears throat] You might want one like I just did. >> Thank you. >> Can I pass down the line? [laughter] Got it. [laughter] >> I'm sorry about that. I lost. >> Uh, so rather than starting from scratch, we're going to use the information that we currently have and we're going to populate and we're going to build this database from existing sources, but then also from future interactions as well, I'm assuming. Correct. >> Yes, correct. >> Yeah. And just to add as well, we already did populate. So, one of the one of the parts of building out the CRM was gathering all those spreadsheets and then handing it to the I guess developers of the software and then they help put it in for us and in the spring we're going to have an intern who would then help clean it out and do more populating >> and and I bring that up and we we literally had this conversation a week ago as we talked about the invitation list for state of the city >> and all the folks that we've had the touch points with whether it's through connections or the the the Bloomington Business Connection or the outreach, anything that we've done, we want to make sure that we have an opportunity with like those folks to our state of the city. Priscilla, the mayor and I actually just were talking before the meeting about relationships with educational institutions and I would think that maybe in in this base it might be interesting to say I mean we know like with uh Seagate for example we've got Normanddale has got this vacuum technology program there are other ones I think there's more opportunities to do more on those things the the schools obviously are doing some things there's some training and and things. And so it may be just another connection point for the the businesses to do it and perhaps help us to realize what kind of demands there are out there and that can be communicated. I've long felt that that there needs to be more coordination between the educational institutions and business in general and the city in general because you can do a lot of things together and the the German model is very much where there's very active collaboration between the businesses and and the educational institutions and and uh it's been very beneficial in terms of helping companies like sik and others to develop a very robust business. So it there may be a place in there to to do those things and and also just look at other collaborations >> because I I think we're in a unique position to take and and hopefully develop a forum where you can en encourage collaborations and cross communication and things and and that only benefits everybody. Other questions? Commissioner Peterson? Yeah, >> I was thinking about Sean's question about the kind of internet marketing sort of thing and first to be honest like you know uh how why would we bother trying to generate leads on that path you know and in fact I I went and typed in remodeling contractor Bloomington and Google just to spend some of your money. Um [laughter] I got to click on to spend money. Um but and I you know first I was thinking well why would why would Toro be in Google searching for Bloomington? I actually actually think there is an angle on this that uh that's a more sensible angle and it's more like somebody like how do I start a business in Bloomington and and kind of having that as their intent. Um and having a funnel because in marketing we talk about funnels that lead into this. Um I think this system seems like the funnel where you know you're out talking to people or somebody calls on the phone and that's the that's the top of the funnel that that where people are entering. But I think there's also a funnel that's more like a small business entrepreneurship funnel that could originate um from kind of a keyword marketing, you know, or just organic search kind of coming in where you'd want to, you know, if we if we either built content that worked well for organic search or we had a very um targeted um kind of paid campaign that went around that to kind of get people in that door where it was where it was we could show it was worth the money to do it. um you'd eventually want to tie that data to this so that you could take kind of what happened what happened later and point backwards and say, you know, that thing that we spent $5,000 on to get people in the door paid off. Um and so I thanks for asking that because it, you know, it made made me think and it took about two minutes to figure out what you were trying to say. So [laughter] >> better than most. >> Yeah. >> Other questions, comments for Priscilla? >> Well, thank you. >> Oh, I'm sorry. Mr. LZ can't can't leave you out. Oh, >> I'm just I'm just wondering do we how good a feel do we have why a business lands in Bloomington? Is it the old proximity of the bo the bosses the owner's house? Is it the the economic fundamentals which are so good? Is it their sister-in-law lives here? or uh there's a a nodule of similar businesses, suppliers or something that really helps them. It's probably all of the above, I'm guessing, but is there a trend or anyone you can discern that this really seems to be a fundamental reason why we're selected? >> Um, thank you for that question, Commissioner Lens. I will point to the 2024 business survey that we had that showed that um I don't want to quote the wrong number but something over 70% of Bloomington businesses were also residents in the city. So I would I can infer at least through that survey that most of the business owners in our city people setting up business and setting up shop here are either in the region in the area or live in Bloomington. But it's all of the above like you deduced as well. or should I >> I'm sorry. >> The Bloomington Business Connection. Do you >> Oh, you're welcome to. >> No. Uh, so if I may, Mr. President. So, uh, Commissioner L, we we asked that very question. We've got a group that gets together. It's our Bloomington business, what do we call it? >> Bloomington business. >> Which one? >> The Bloomington business >> economic partnership. >> Yeah, econ the Bloomington economic partnership. I lose track of what we the Bloomington economic partnership where basically we uh quarterly we get together [snorts] and we meet twice. We meet first to kind of form up a problem uh an issue and then about a week and a half later meet again to brainstorm what to do about it and how to go through this. And one of the most recent ones we did was uh I think we did it in the fall late summer. Why Bloomington? And and it was it was a very interesting conversation. And these were businesses across Bloomington, new and new and old, big and small. And uh yes, all the things that you brought up and a lot more including uh you know the ample parking, the the free ample parking or close to employees or um the the welcoming climate or the fact that it's not in a city that is less than it's in a business friendly city. I'll put it in a positive spin there. So uh so there's a we we can we can get you that information and we we put it together. I know. And it turned into our uh a one-pager that we actually did take on the uh the trade mission that uh that um Kim and I went on with the governor uh to to Switzerland and Germany because it showed what we heard, why Bloomington, and we put it into a a one-page sheet and it it turned out really well and it's a good a good explainer of what we were doing. There's no one really one that hits you in the nose though that this is our fundamental asset why small businesses and medium businesses come. >> As a as a real estate guy, what's the one reason, Rob? >> Location, location, location. >> Or as they say in South Africa, position, position, position. [laughter] >> No, that's probably the number one thing. It's the location, the proximity to downtown, next door to the airport, on the freeways. uh it things that make sense, but it it makes sense uh a lot of sense when you really kind of put it together with the international companies that we have and with when you look at rush hour traffic from here to there and when you look at uh just the >> No, no, exactly. Uh so if I mean if you can get off a plane and be at your place of business or your company's place of business in two minutes in Bloomington, uh there's an attraction to that. >> [snorts] >> others. Cecil yeah have a comment. Yeah, I would add that kind of in line with the presentation, I like that it's being used as a port to rather than like a portal intake because to [clears throat] kind of or to add to the conversation, what I've seen sometimes, not necessarily kill deals, but definitely slow down momentum is if you have a process where you don't have direct connection with the the staff at a city or if you have competing interest for basically your time or your resources, then that's what could affect decision-m whether you go to Bloomington or you go to another market. I was just wondering if there's like a car dealer effect. Car dealers like to be together, a bunch of them. >> Yeah, sure. Yeah, >> depending on the business. >> Okay, any other comments, questions? Well, you engendered a good discussion, Priscilla. Thank you. >> And so, um, Holly, you you >> Yes, President Ericson and commissioners, we're moving right on to administrator updates. This was a brief meeting today and I'm actually going to have the mayor start to give us an update on the trade mission he alluded to. >> Are you our new administrator? >> I I am not. Um thank you uh Mr. President. Thank you Holly. Appreciate it. I I did at least want to mention and I I mentioned it just in passing. So before Thanksgiving, uh Kim Bergrren, who's our community development director here in Bloomington, and I went with uh the governor's trade mission to Switzerland and Germany, and we stopped in uh Zurich and Dusseldorf and Berlin. And uh it was it was a goodiz group. I think there were close to 60 people on the in the in the mission who went. uh we other than state people you know deed and and the governor's staff I think we were the only public entity involved in in the mission which I thought was >> kind of disappointing but kind of surprising as well. Um it was uh it was broken down into cohorts. I ended up with the the higher education folks and and bumped around. So uh your discussion Mr. president about uh the the different education models in in Europe and particularly in German Germany uh is is well timed because we we learned a lot and had some good conversations with a variety of different folks. Uh Kim ended up in the uh the medtech cohort and um they ran those folks ragged with all that was going on uh including a a big trade show that they went to. Uh but all in all it was it was definitely a worthwhile trip and probably the what it made made it most worthwhile when we were in Zurich we were uh about an hour and a half from the sick world headquarters. They're up in the Black Forest. So, we rented a car and we spent the day with them and um there's just something to be said, I think, about if you're in the neighborhood, you you go see you go see you go you go visiting and we went and visiting and it was uh it was very wellreceived and they've got an impressive campus there and uh they are a big player in that in that cute little town that they are in, but also in the region. uh the the uh I think one or two towns over the soccer pitch is named Sikfield. And so I mean they're they're they're very involved and they're very um uh deeply embedded within the community there and much like they're becoming here in Bloomington. So it was definitely worthwhile and definitely worth the time spent and the connections that we made. Uh people in Germany love Minnesota. They really do. and uh to make those connections with folks there, but also with the the the Minnesota business community that was on the trip also that we had time to to uh just talk to and and uh get a chance to know a little bit better. Um they had a lot of good things to say about Bloomington. They wanted to learn more about Bloomington. So, uh all in all, I think it was definitely time well spent and uh I'm I'm glad we went. The second thing that I'll just quickly bring up if I could, uh, last week we had our third meeting of, uh, Bloomington CEOs. Uh, we've got this group that we get together. Uh, I don't even know if it's quarterly now. It's just kind of as they as we get an opportunity to get together. And we did meet over at the new sik building over in the South Loop. It's absolutely stunning. So, I'm looking forward to the uh the ribbon cutting next spring so you can all see it because it really is special. It really is something. Uh but the group of uh CEOs we had together, I think we had eight or so of our uh CEOs of our biggest companies and uh spent literally two hours just kind of letting them talk amongst themselves about issues of the day from um from immigration and ICE enforcement to tax policy to uh workforce development and a variety of different things. And I think it's powerful that uh and helpful if uh to give CEOs the opportunity just to talk to each other. It's um it's kind of like uh you know elected officials talking to each other or or developers talking to each other. When you can talk within a peer group and uh get get some different perspectives, it becomes I think pretty uh helpful and and folks can learn a lot. So it was another worthwhile endeavor that we kind of put on and staff did a great job pulling it all together and it uh and like I said the sick facility is fantastic. Just fantastic. >> Commissioner LZ that U group of CEOs I don't even know if they're still around. There used to be an organization in the Twin Cities called the sobs. >> You know where they were? >> Sons of bosses. >> So they were air app parents and they would get together. I don't know if they still exist but >> haven't heard that one but >> that but that would be another one that >> Okay. >> All right. Few other updates then. So the thank you all for approval of port levy and budget here. The levy was approved by city council on December 8th and submitted to Henipin County today. They've acknowledged receipt. So, we are all squared up for the end of the year and moving into 2026. Um, another event we had over the last few weeks in was the broker breakfast. We had 41 commercial brokers attending. Um, I really want to acknowledge Alan Thorp, who you saw give the presentation about our large employers. A lot of those connections were hers. So, very well attended event. Commissioner Lens was there as well. um your people and um so we had some good conversation there and actually something we learned is that next year when we do this event we are going to have to do some BNI 101 building and inspections. Um we realized that our commercial real estate community just has a lot to learn about pulling permits and change of use and just some some real basic questions that needed to be answered. So we'll be taking that on next year. And we also had the Bloomington Economic Partnership meeting in December. The mayor mentioned the Y Bloomington exercise that we did two meetings ago. This past meeting, we took a stab at mapping the workforce development ecosystem here, which is very complicated. Um, we had representatives from the state, from the county, from Normandale, and from a private employer, AON, that does a pretty innovative apprenticeship program. and we are taking on the exercise together of trying to map every single program that there is available to people in Bloomington. It became clear in the course of the exercise that we're going to need two separate maps. One that is aimed at job seekers and one that is aimed at employers. And so we're going to continue to work on that until we have our next meeting in the springtime. If that is something you have knowledge of and you would like to be involved, it is a big project. It is bigger than I thought. So, um, we would absolutely welcome involvement in that, but we're going to continue to work with Henipin County particularly on that project and Normandale. We find them both to be very informed partners. Um, we had the CEO round table which we mentioned and then you are going to have a couple upcoming meetings um, in January and February. I know some of you are traveling so I just wanted to take a moment and note that open meeting laws have changed. So, if you are offsite, you can still participate remotely. You do not have to be in a public space. You can be in your home. You just need Yep. You need to let Marret know what you're doing and what the plan is. So, we can note that in the agenda. >> I don't know the answer to that, Commissioner Luns. Um, it is a legal question and we do not have a city attorney with us this evening, but if you're truly interested, I can >> find out how it changed. >> [laughter] >> On a personal note, I'm very happy that is because we'll be in Florida for the month. And it used to be that there was really only one place that was even somewhat convenient for me to get to, which was a library, but it closed, you know, at a certain hour. And so we've had meetings and stuff and then then what you had to do is go through the rigomearroll of reserving a room, which was not always possible. So that uh I I very much like their their change. >> Well, I I think it's helpful to you all. I know it was challenging to get consistent internet and libraries. >> All right. Um, a few other things that are coming up on those meeting agendas just for your awareness. January we do all of our procedural items and then we also do appointment of officers. I'm mentioning that because we have a new board member this year. So, if that's of interest to anyone, if they'd like to learn more about the officer's roles, you could speak to our port president about them. Um, we will also likely be seeing the water park in a January February sequence. Um, we continue to work with the mall to get that scheduled and we do expect to actually see Southtown coming in for at least some preliminary discussion soon. I know it's been a few months since we've had that and there may be some other projects in 2026 as well. So, very much looking forward to seeing some projects coming up. It's been a challenging development environment in 2025. We are also on our another segment of what we do recruiting our Bloom and Bloomington internship locations. So if there businesses that you know of that would be interested in hosting an intern, please let me or Waran know. You may remember we had over a 100 applicants for internships last year, but we only had 29 locations. So we're really trying very hard to expand the possibilities there. And then the creative placemaking commission is recruiting commissioners. So for those of you who have interest in art, if that's something that you would like to check out or try something new or if you know other people who would like to, um, that is one of the commissions where I think you actually can live outside the city of Bloomington. If you do have a reason to be involved in that commission and an affinity for arts. So we welcome that as well. Alejandra can take any questions about that. I'll put it in the port weekly as well. And that concludes my update for today. >> Okay. Well, I I was talking with Holly uh and what we've done in the past, we're going to have some massive documents and stuff coming to us on the water park thing. I don't know how long they'll be, but two 300 pages. And historically, what we've done when we've had one of these major things, obviously, it's it's you have it presented at one meeting and then you you don't vote until the next meeting. And then also we've historically made available our legal counsel if people have questions. So that's something that uh I think we'll try to follow again and make available. I mean again this we've had a term sheet out there for a long time and term sheets are important but but when you get the agreements and stuff we want to make sure that you know you do have resources to look through it and and go at it. And then the only other thing that I would do is this is the end of the year and we want to wish everybody a very happy holiday, merry Christmas and happy new year and uh we hope that you and your family can have a nice time getting together and doing things. And so at any rate let's uh we'll look forward to the new year and I think anything else otherwise we >> What's the projected timing on the mall thing. >> Water park. >> Oh, >> the date. >> Yep. Commissioner Luns, we don't have a date set, but I'm expecting late January for the first one and sometime in February for the second meeting, but it depends on a lot of factors and we've shifted it multiple times, so I don't want to make any promises. >> Okay. Well, nothing else. Commissioner L. for his honor. I may be wrong in this, but didn't Mayor Winston keep a little bottle of little mini bottle of fireball in his pocket to handle that conflration? [laughter] I can neither confirm nor deny. >> All right, with that comment, we are adjourned.