[Music] we'll call the meeting to order um Abby can you take a roll call for us please oh my goodness um what are we here Commissioners commissioner Ericson yes I'm here commissioner LGE here commissioner hoitz here commissioner Robert here and president interim president leges President we have a quorum um all those that are able to stand if you could join us in the Pledge of Allegiance pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all is there a motion to approve the agenda I move will you approve the agenda second we have a motion in a second is there any discussion seeing none all those in favor say I I opposed motion carries election of officers I would direct um the commission to our agenda on page three it outlines that we need to elect several position positions a president a vice president secretary treasur and assistant Treasurer um I'll take them in that order or I'll at least start with the president um it does say that the President and Vice President cannot be the same person the secretary treasure and assistant treasure may be held by the same commissioner and the offices of secretary and assistant Treasurer need not be held by a commissioner so we could choose staff members for that so we'll start with the president are there any nominations for president nomination uh for commissioner Ericson as President right do you accept that I'll accept are there any other nominations I want to say it three times because I think that's the rule are there any other nominations are there any other nominations hearing none um all those in favor of commissioner Erikson as president say I I I oppose same same congratulations did you want the gavl know or did you want me to continue through the meeting I'll let you have this one okay the the next item is the vice president nominate Eric langus I'll accept are there any other nominations any other nominations any other nominations all those in favor sign by by saying I I I oppos motion carries for secretary next on the list I will note that the staff's requested action was to have this filled by City staff Abby was there a specific person that staff recommends um I just will note for the record currently in the current um capacity I am the assistant Treasurer and the secretary kind of helping fulfill the duties of the Eda um so we did you did nominate me last time as opposed to the executive director which is the administrator we don't have an administrator right now so um I I don't want to say I would nominate myself but it would be in line with what the duties are for this position I I don't believe you could nominate yourself it has to come from a member but is it is it okay with you if we select you yes I think that that's very appropriate to have staff in those two roles or the secretary you're asking for right we have a nomination is there any discussion on that all those in favor sign I saying I iOS motion carries congrats Abby Treasurer is next there any nominations for treasure treasure I I think the duties are relatively limited to signing a documents on relatively rare occasion I am here to assist you too are there any other nominations are there any other nominations all those in favor of commissioner hoit as Treasurer say I I opposed motion carries congratulations number five assistant Treasurer there any nominations I believe we could select Abby for this as well i' name nominate Abby Whitman as assistant Treasurer there any discussion on that all those in favor signif by by saying I I opposed motion carries I believe we are through the agenda item of election of officers and we're to open Forum this is an opportunity for the public to use a couple minutes and share with us their thoughts on any item on our agenda or pertinent to the business of the Eda I don't see anyone in the audience is there anyone online Abby uh no we actually don't have that option available anymore in our public meetings all right thank you we'll we'll move past the open form and move on to the consent agenda is there a motion on the consent agenda or is there anyone that wishes to pull the minutes probably need to stain full of minut minutes from the January 13th meeting same I I will note and and this is um you you can vote on minutes even if you weren't in attendance at a meeting you're only voting to say that you believe that the minutes are an accurate reflection but if if you feel more comfortable abstaining you certainly can yeah I understand but how about if you haven't been on on the commission at the time you certainly can still vote president less if I might just also add by abstaining the two members that weren't present then the vote would go with the majority I believe so that way because majority in attendance um because we might have some Quorum issues if you didn't participate at all from so I think abstaining would be the best if you didn't want to vote there any other discussion on the uh item to approve minutes there a motion to approve the minutes and move will you approve the minutes for a second we have a motion in a second all those in favor signif by by saying I opposed motion carry I'm sorry abstain obain motion carries and we are on item number eight presentation Washington County Eda and open to business um Chris are are you presenting this for us tonight um president langus and members of the commission just says a heads up we have two separate presentations tonight one from chring with Washington County CDA and then also afterwards um one from Tyler hilc with open to business um they weren't on the agenda that way I apologize but just know that you have two different presentations tonight from our partners understood thank you thank you Mr chair and Commissioners good evening I do have a PowerPoint Abby can you start that on you can use this to scroll through it try to keep it high level and moving pretty quickly here just to give you an overview and please feel free to ask questions if you have any oh I grabbed the wrong one excuse me thank you Abby I do want also mention that um I did ask um commissioner Fran Moran to join me tonight but he had a conflicted but he does give regards to the and um just wish he could be here tonight so all right um so back in 2016 the Washington County Board um had talked quite a few U meetings about the County's involvement in Economic Development why why would the county get involved in Economic Development isn't that something the cities do and the cities actually felt that yep it is something the cities do and in fact the per the permits were issued at the city level the um the Planning and Zoning is all done at the city level but they wanted the county to be a partner with them and come alongside them on economic development opportunities to do some marketing countywide to provide some resources to help the cities get projects done and so that's when I was hired in 2016 and um and I've been uh coming to the Eda meeting since then talk a little bit about uh can I use the okay there it is so when when I first started back in 2016 I wanted to take a look at the at the data what does the county show and in terms of Market values if you look at um the overall Market values in the county how much of it is commercial and Industrial how much is residential and and other agriculture multif family back in 2014 you'll notice that on the slide 14% of the total market value in the county was commercial and Industrial if you look at 2021 we've actually gone down a little bit so Washington County's commercial industrial Market values in 2021 are 10.43% which is just even under uh the average for all of the H County obviously is the highest at 22 19. 22% and Chago County at the bottom was 6.87% and I don't think that we're actually losing commercial industrial Market values what I see happening is that the housing is is happening at a a much faster Pace than commercial and Industrial is in the county and I see that um quite often you see a lot of housing growth happening in the commercial industrial is a little bit slower not not non-existent but it's not going backwards it's actually just that that slice of the ining a little bit so we don't have as much commercial industrial Market values increasing as we do housing in the in the county have you anything next slide and why does that matter um this is a slide that talks about the the cost of providing services and so for every one dollar that we collect in property taxes a residential property um uses about a16 in services and this is based on a on a study National National study with the American Farmland trust it's just the opposite for businesses for every dollar that is collected for businesses they only ask for about 29 cents in services and why is that well obviously businesses pay money to the schools but the bus doesn't stop outside the business buses don't or the the the businesses don't use Parks um these are all services that are good residents want them but what I see happening is with that slice of high shrinking in commercial industrial market value it gets more expensive because the housing doesn't quite pay for the services that they're they're asking for businesses Cly and that's why we're trying to actually grow more businesses here in the county and with the city as well so that's when when 2016 the County Board said yep we want we want to be able to help the cities grow commercial industrial Market values and add new jobs and tax base in the county have you excit this that should fill in maybe my apologies but what I wanted to talk about here is um what what does the CDA do what do we actually provide to help cities and that the answer to that is we provide technical assistance both in terms of my being able to help the city with development opportunities or with business opportunities and we're going to talk a little bit more specifically about our assistance for small businesses later and P's going to talk about how we help with small businesses both on technical assistance and financing but we also provide resources to the city in terms of the predevelopment finance fund that you just applied for a couple of meetings ago to do the planning in the southwest Corridor we've helped with some planning in your downtown area to to study it to look for redevelopment opportunities and do we have enough adequate infrastructure to even serve if a new development were come to downtown Forest Lake we helped with the Mulla property we helped with 123 Acres with some Wetland delineation and some ghost platting and those are grants that the CDA provides to the cities to help you get those projects up and off the ground the end of the day if something good happens in Forest Lake is good for the county as well we also have a grant through the um Environmental Protection Agency and it's an EPA grant that can be used for phase one phase two investigation so if you have a potential Redevelopment site and you just don't know if there's any contamination on the site we can cover the cost through that Grant it's 100% uh covered by the grant no match required to come in and look at a phase one phase two some soil testing if there's a building that's going to be knocked down we can also do the lead asbest testing in that building before it comes down and so those are some of the resources that we want to be able to provide to the cities to help you with development opportunities that's countywide I'm trying toit there it goes okay some of it it's gonna load and then also we want to be able to help you with Mark and we we do with um every year we have different opportunities through the Minnesota commercial reals Association where we go downtown Minneapolis and have um a table a booth set up where we we talk to realators and developers and Builders and say come on over in check out Washington County we've got a lot of opportunities here it's interesting to to see that some of them are maybe even coming you know from uh Illinois and Wisconsin driving through Washington County to get over to the West Metro and you get a long ways into the West Metro before you're you're able to find large trunks of land that are 20 minutes from the airport and we've got those here in Washington County so we just want to make sure that people are aware that we've got resources available we've got land available we got really good communities to work with so we're marketing whenever we have a chance that commercial real Association we're a member of men menar is what the name of it is and we have data a database where all of the properties that are either for sale or release or available both land and buildings in Washington County are on that database and we don't keep that up it's the commercial realators that keep that database up so if somebody was looking for a particular site they could go to that menc car.org website and find land or buildings available in Maring County by by the real estate agents and this is the use Metro development summit we're going to be doing this again in May and we just talk about opportunities on the East Metro so not only you know the stuff that's happening in the West Metro lot everybody's looking at Golden Valley and Rogers Dayton for new development opportunities but we think there's really good opportunities here in east side we just want to make sure that that's on their radar uh the predevelopment finance find I mentioned a little bit we um have helped you with a number of different projects we've also done the king plant in Oakdale for or in Oak arites for example where that that coal plant is going to be decommissioned in a couple years is that how Acres going to be used for do we have a potential opportunity to repurpose that land into something that could be really cool uh We've also worked with Cottage Grove for example on a 300 acre parcel that's owned by 3M they're interested in selling it because it's excess land what could that be used for um so we're we're doing some engineering study in Wetland lineation study to say here's what it cost to get the utilities to that site here's what it will cost to develop that site now we can give that to a developer and say here you go take it U run with that information and there's there's no no guess work because we've already done the pre-engineering for you as part of that predevelopment Finance fund right and I talked about the EP Grant all um and then lastly I want to mention our partnership at the chambers this is so important to us we could not have made it through Co um without the chamber partnership so then that meet the other teams there's six chambers that represent the county and we meet every two weeks and talk about how do we work together to help our small businesses throughout the county and the partnership now is growing a little bit more now we're including the schools and we with Mike Nan and and Molly Bonnet from fors Lake High School on the career launch program introducing them not only to the chambers but to the businesses in the community so that when they want to um grow their curriculum they've got business inputs to say here's what we're going to be looking for in the next five years or 10 years and that curriculum sometimes takes a little bit longer to put in place but if the businesses are talking to the schools and there's open communication and networking opportunities that we can bring to the table that's a really good role for us as a connector and then one more thing I want to mention briefly and then I'll let Tyler talk a little bit about the open the business program our emphasis really has been on Small Business Development here in Washington County and the reason for that is 95% of all of our businesses in the county have fewer than 50 employees 95% 86% of all of our businesses have fewer than 20 employees and so it's really important to us to help that small business economy grow here and and be successful here and I One More statistic that I want to share with you is that we have about 18,000 non-employer businesses these are sole Proprietors that are in the county and if each one of those businesses just added one job that's 18,000 new jobs in the county so we brought together um a partnership with the Metropolitan Consortium of community developers that Tyler works for the CDA pays for that service for the entire County that we can now offer the open to business program it's a service that we cover and it's free to the businesses so Tyler will sit down with you and provide technical assistance and Al have loan programs that they can come in and do some Gap financing so for example if a bank says we can only get to this far and they still just a little bit more room to to go to get started you open a business program come come in and fill that that Gap and get that business started and I think with that I'm going to turn it over to Tyler and and feel free to ask questions if you have any thank you all right thank you Chris and uh thank you for the opportunity to to speak today about the open to Business program which is a program of the Metropolitan Consortium of community developers it's a 501c3 nonprofit based in Minneapolis and we started as Chris mentioned started uh work here in Washington County in 2017 so getting on eight years already so uh with that we can we can get going um so uh mccd as Chris mentioned is a nonprofit and we have uh about we're we're a a group of about 20 uh 20 employees and it's kind of between economic development um and affordable housing initiatives and so uh um our business advising team is about six advisers and we're pretty much geographically based um through these uh service contracts with the with the counties and some cities we go we provide some technical assistance to small businesses which I I'll jump into in a little bit we are a community community development financial institution and that's a classification uh from the US Treasury and so basically it's um to help Finance uh low wealth individuals find financing individuals that can't go into a bank um and get get a loan so uh we we provide what we call non-traditional financing so uh I'll get to that a little into into that in a little bit but we don't do um you know the same we we do underwriting of loans but we don't have the same parameters that a regulated Bank might have so our program areas are are uh broken up into four kind of main areas Business Development which is the open to business program that I run um lending which is also Under the Umbrella of open to business uh we also have an advocacy and field building team so we've got a registered lobbyist on the on the staff that goes and and Advocates and and uh gets uh um funding for our Consortium members our Consortium is about 35 affordable housing and economic development nonprofits and we all uh they're all members and we you know we advocate for State dollars for example Economic Development uh grants such as the deed small business uh development grant that um nonprofits throughout the state can get so uh so we work with state senators and state representatives to help get those bills passed to support the ecosystem that we're in and so we also work in affordable housing uh dollars too to get uh to get uh uh affordable housing uh uh uh bills passed on the state level as well and so we've got a team of about three three members that are in our policy team and then finally leadership development that's where we match mentors and mentees up with um with uh Community Development uh professionals and early stage uh professionals as well so so the technical advisory that I do in Washington County is predominantly um one-on-one uh uh technical advisory with small business owners and so about half the small business owners that I see are either in that pre-startup or startup territory they've got a really great idea they they they've been in the industry you know for a while they really knows know the ex's knows of of the the specific good or service that they're that they're um selling but they don't really have the business expertise and they don't have the framework of oh do I need to be in this you know zoning is it zoned correctly how do I get financing how do I write a business plan um and all of that and that's where we come in and we meet with with the entrepreneurs one-on-one um as Chris mentioned it's free through our partnership with the county and so we're very appreciative of of that uh relationship um and then you can see some of the other stuff that we do in addition to the one-on-one uh training uh we do um um we do some webinars we do some group learning opportunities uh next week Tuesday we have uh uh a um like a hybrid learning session about what lending is and um how you go about uh applying for a small business loan and so we make that available to all all the uh clients that we serve um it doesn't matter how big the business is uh but uh I would say most of the businesses that we meet with are kind of in line with what Chris mentioned before 95% of the businesses that I meet with are less than than 10 employees you know so we do get you know the larger businesses on a you know kind of a one-off basis but mostly this is small businesses that are either early stage or they're experienced their first opportunity to grow maybe add some employees maybe buy some real estate add some equipment and and grow their business into that into that next stage um there's no pre-qualification uh it's open to any entrepreneur the only kind of caveats that we have is that we don't help like investment real estate you know if you're buying some a fourplex to to rent out you know that's not really what we do um we don't do non nonprofit advising either we'll make referrals but we're we're for for for prison for profit businesses here in in Forest Lake in Washington County like please so technical advisory is is a pretty broad brush and and so we do see a lot of different you know uh issues that are facing entrepreneurs you know so a lot of it is based on what's going on in the economy you know interest rates um you know um employee retention you know common themes that we see um but you know for the most part it's a lot of uh folks that come in and just say I need a compass I need some direction what's what's my checklist of things to do to get over the humps that I need to get over um to get my business started and so some of the different areas is uh business planning you know we're not going to sit down and write a business plan for somebody but we'll provide guidance and we'll review and we'll look at the different uh gaps in the business plan and how we fill them um we look at marketing plans uh like I said before the the tax and Licensing a lot of what we do as being a cdfi is the financial assessment and the direct lending and so we do direct lending and then we also um if we don't do a loan with somebody and they're going to a bank we can help them prepare um their loan application and so a lot of times banks will require that business plan to be uh cleaned up maybe some projections a startup budget um we can sit and help someone do that and facilitate that financing even if we don't do it ourselves um access to governmental Community financing if you know the city has a a facade program or something like that or a city's got a a 2% Loan program to to help uh fund Capital Improvements um we can put them in touch just based on uh you know our relationships with our city Partners um loan packaging for private financing uh is uh what I mentioned before and then um referrals uh is another thing that we do we don't have the we don't have the professional expertise to do everything I'm not an attorney I'm not a bookkeeper but um we've got access to pro bono Legal Services through the University of Minnesota and through bookkeeping resources we offer up to 10 hours of bookkeeping uh either training or you know I've gone through a year I want someone to review my books um we hope to catch everyone on the front end of their business and say hey you got to meet with this bookkeeper um and make sure that your books are set up straight so you're not unwinding things you're paying all the sales tax you need to you're paying your all your employment taxes and things like that SL please um and then our lending program is what we call non-traditional financing as Chris mentioned it's Gap financing but it's also startup financing it's a it's a it's basically everything where you can't walk into a bank and get a loan and so um we um we underwrite and we do all the analysis on the front end we do projections we really try to figure out how this loan is going to get repaid but um but we don't have you know like if there's a credit score that's low because there was a problem with you know like a bankruptcy due to health like a like a medical bill or you know someone went through the housing crisis and had to give up their house something like that we look at kind of like how they're doing late lately you know and so we do a lot of uh loans that are considered high risk but by the time we provide the technical advisory um our repayment rate is fairly high it's you know above 95% of the of the loans that we put out were repaid for were repaid on um because of that ongoing technical assistance and the flexibility to work with clients um during their tough times during Co we put pause on payments for all of our loans in our portfolio um for I think six months and then we lowered all of our interest rates down to 7% and so um you know for a loan not to go through something pretty you know drastic has to happen the business closes or you know something like that um but uh but we uh we do that startup financing and then we partner with private Community you know lenders to do Gap financing up to $300,000 is our maximum loan amount um like I said we're five to seven 5 to 7% interest and so so we come in and um you know we work with sba7a loans SBA 504 loans we basically ask our banking Partners to say what can you get approved and then what's the Gap and a lot of times it's just that the equity requirement in these deals sap up all the the working the all the cash basically that like everything's going into the down payment so they don't have working capital to run the business and so that's where we can come in and provide a little bit more so instead of an 80% loan they might be getting an 85% total loan you know or 90% with a Bank to 70 or 80 we come in and do like five or 10% and then the client comes in with the rest and so they have working capital to actually run their business and ramp up and you know go through those first very critical Cycles in their business um startup loans are up to 25,000 typically 50,000 so not huge loans but you know um you know loans to get folks started and if it gets higher than that then we'll partner either with you know Banks or you know other nonprofit members that we uh that we uh work with um but those loans are typically 3 to five years we um line them up with leases so if someone's got a five-year lease we can make it a five-year loan if it's a threeyear lease we can make it a three-year loan we just want to make sure that they've got a space to operate their business during the term of their loan um and then the Gap F financing I mentioned before so I we don't need to stop on that so these are just a few examples of the the deals um that we do this isn't uh I won't get too far into the weeds but um like the startup business that we worked on uh for a tailoring tailoring um company was um someone that had worked in the business for 12 years she was ready um Bank didn't want to finance a startup you know her credit history wasn't really welldeveloped um she had a little bit of down payment and so we came in and we did a $25,000 loan um and then we also uh G gave her uh a bookkeeping assistance uh legal we had uh the attorneys review her lease um uh and and other you know different contracts that that uh they that they had that needed to be reviewed and so that was at no cost to her and that that loan is that was probably done about four three or four years ago and so that loan is still going and then next slide please and then the Gap financing is just uh here's just another example this is uh uh someone had an opportunity to buy the real estate that they were gonna um operate their home health uh home care assistance company and so it was about a million three project the lead lender could do 50 the ba504 uh program could do 35 and so the the down payment requirement at that point was 214,000 and they just didn't have that amount they they came close but they didn't have that and so we came in and we did uh a portion of that uh 24 and so the result well we provided 125 and they were um required to come up with the rest of the down payment and so um very favorable terms 5% um we could amortise out like a normal real estate loan up to five years and then we have a balloon payment at 10 years but very favorable fees and and uh and uh interest rates to the clients so in in Forest Lake uh last year we met with nine different clients and you can kind of see the breakdown of uh different kind of categories that we served um the different types of business we're kind of all over the board we see a lot of uh service related businesses a lot of retail and a lot of restaurant type which is basically food and beverage anything underneath that that um and then the startup versus existing is very common through our whole portfolio um is about 5050 so really early stage businesses is about half of who we deal with and then half of the other clients are either uh unique challenges that they have in their existing business or opportunities to expand their business I also wanted to kind of highlight the overall uh since we started the program um in Washington County we've seen about 800 different client engagements uh since we started and so um um and that's kind of just through the years um we've done um 50 loans in Washington County since we started and the dollars that mccd has put in uh to the through direct lending is 2.5 million for those 50 loans and then the leveraging so adding the the private financing the bank financing is an additional 16.5 million and so really the total investment has been about $19 million um and then during Co we we we administered the the cares act um business grants that were uh that were uh put out there during covid and the state state Grant programs and there we did about 900 grants for $1 million in Washington County so not huge to 12 12,500 $12,500 per Grant pretty much on average um but we were able to get 900 of those out in Washington County during covid and and during its recovery um we've got uh business advisers that speak different languages too so we asset on the client intake form so if you've got um you know a Spanish speaking client that wants to see a Spanish speaking adviser we can be flexible within the team um we've got some different um um areas of expertise on the team too I used to be in in banking we've got some people that were in marketing we had some people that were former former business owners so if there's like a unique need um from the client then we match people up with uh with who can help them the best but generally people just get in touch with us um we we have them fill out an intake take form I get notified and then I reach out to the client we and we start our relationship there and with that uh I can I can pause and uh answer any questions you might have thank you both for presenting uh commission questions sh yeah um is any of your financing funded by the federal government and grants or loans so our we're going on we're going through that exercise right now um all of our service contracts with our cities and counties that fund the work that we do is um is not federal funds and so we're those funds are uh not at any you know risk or anything like that um the loan funds are a a collection of different sources um that have not been affected by any executive orders and so as a cdfi for example there's different you know programs that provide financing to nonprofits or or you know grants to nonprofits for their Loan Fund to support their Loan Fund none of those uh have been have been cut ba uh loans that we partner with with uh with banks those have not been affected either but um we're keeping a a close eye in it um we heard that maybe like the new markets tax credit has been put on pause but um everything that's been affecting the lending environment has been outside of what our Direct Loan Fund is the other way that we get loan funds is is um Banks invest in nonprofits through loans and so to get uh Community reinvestment act uh credits and so instead of doing a lot of small loans like US Bank or you know Bank of America they'll give up they'll not give us they'll charge an interest rate but they'll say will lend you $300,000 for five years and then you know at 3% and then you go out and lend it at 6% you get a little spread but and then they can count that as uh their credit to be you know to be a community lender and then we're the actual you know we're the ones that are like doing doing the loans so whenever we approve a loan we assign the the funding source and none of those funding sources have been affected by um by any federal requirements question for Chris you mentioned um uh the APA work that Washington County might do for somebody is any of that a Federal grant it is 100% Federal grant yep we are two years into it we have a $600,000 grant for the county we have about 200,000 left and we have to spend it between now and September 30th so we're looking for projects pardon any chance that has gets Frozen that in this yeah there there's a possibility um but I think it's you know it's been pretty well received it it's really an economic development Grant we're looking at sites that are potential Redevelopment sites and doing phase one and phase two investigations and assessments on those sites so I think it should be well received bipartisan other questions followup question for Chris on that those funds there's a deadline to spend them are those uh accessible when there's been a Redevelopment identified or are you proactive in saying hey this is an area that's right for redevelopment let's proactively do these studies so thank you for that question it's a good question um so because the EPA Grant is looking at at assessments and they they want to do sites that are a little bit more challenging or could be challenging you just don't know if there's something there if there's already a developer that's making an investment in the site they're going to say no it's too far along if it's not that far along yet let's let's talk because it's a really simple process it's a one-page site nomination form we send it off to our our consultant which is stantech uh the engineering firm that we hired to to do the assessments uh they send it off to EPA and Chicago and and we get a yes or no on it but it's it's a pretty simple process but if it's not very far along yet we'd love to take a look at it we've got some resources that we can maybe put into it if it's a large enough project where EPA grants aren't going to be um a possibility then maybe we would look at the predevelopment finance fund to assist with that opportunity as well that can also be private private Investments you doesn't have to be City match it could be private match for that predevelopment Finance fund so we should talk if you have something in mind thank you can I also just note for the record the EPA Grant we have used on the Fenway Business Park Parcels we did a phase one environmental assessment last year and then we have been in discussions with vacant land owners down town about utilizing the program just some of those trickier sites that have taken a little while to have some action um trying to be proactive in the development community of where we might be able to help that landowner gain some more information to maybe um SP development in areas that haven't been yet so other questions for members U changing yeah a question on I think Chris you mentioned there's 18,000 so Proprietors in in the county did I catch that number right sorry could you repeat the question uh the number of so Proprietors in the county was about 18,000 is that correct yeah I know I believe that um nationally a large percentage of those are of the baby boom and more so coming into Gen X Generations now what are do we have a breakdown of what that looks like for County it's based on Census Data that's where that comes from and I'd love to see if I could dive down a little deeper and get some more information they just don't have it for you tonight but I'll I'll certainly see if they can find it maybe deed can help us dig down a little bit deeper and find out good question the followup question to that is I mean it sounds like a lot of your work is spent on the startup side of things but as those baby boomers continue to age and most business owners especially those Soul Proprietors never sell their business uh they just shut down is there ever an opportunity in the scope of work you do to be kind of a Matchmaker so to speak we we have someone coming in uh that is going to Pro provide training and succession planning and so as you know the um as the retirements you know happen a lot of times the best people to sell the business to are the people that work there um or a family member and so uh we would uh we would facilitate that that training we couldn't get as in-depth as the the professionals do but we have resources that could that can help out with that um we also have under uh mccc's umbrella a shared ownership group and so a worker you know based Cooperative can can buy a business that's in transition um as well and so we've got a director of shared ownership that that could provide service whether it's a co-op or another ownership structure when you know those businesses are transitioning so they don't just stop the business you know it continues on yeah thank you other questions I have a couple um Chris or Abby are you able to share the PowerPoint with us the first portion Chris's portion because some of the yeah the bullets I I suspect the font and maybe your computer doesn't exist that he used or something um after the meeting he certainly will thank you the the second is um Chris on the commercial Market values you showed a slide that uh compared counties in comparison from business to housing do you have data that would show at the city level perhaps Forest Lake to other Washington County cities or our neighboring CI Mr chair that is information that is available uh online and I can get you that information for Washington County cities I don't have it at my fingertips but it's actually based on Minnesota um Department of Revenue data that's reported every year to the Department of Revenue and it is broken down by city that would be that would be interesting to see and then the other question I have I forget your name thank you um it sounds like you work with a lot of cities around the Metro um and and you had mentioned in your presentation some component where you work with City programs to help small business so I imagine you have an understanding to some degree of what cities do to entice business so is there anything you think that Forest Lake maybe doesn't do that you would suggest or we might benefit from considering or looking at doing to attract more small business yeah definitely um you know some cities have loan dollars that they put out there you know on a limited basis and so the City of Minneapolis has kind of a large 2% Loan program for example where they fund a certain amount or a certain category of of of project costs that would that would increase the value of real estate so like Capital Improvements and things like that it's not for working capital and that's a matching program so someone like mccd would come in at you know $50,000 and they would match 50 up to $75,000 and we've modeled that in some other cities too around uh uh I think the city of uh Roseville St St Louis Park also have 2% programs too uh a lot of the different uh cities had um kind of like micro forgivable loans for the same reason same same purpose um we are we are also doing uh non-traditional financing events so like in different uh different cities where the audience is local Bankers like Bankers from Forest Lake for example um where we would invite someone from in the city and then maybe someone from another nonprofit group um just to let folks know like what tools are in the toolbox as far as um you know financing options and things like that um just because a lot of times the the financing doesn't go through just because of a small Gap and so if all the bankers know about us that's kind of where we get our clients you know and so that would be um that would be helpful to get some deals you know moved moved forward in Forest Lake um some some folks have done facade grants some some have done um um events for certain uh business owners you know just to um just to reach out do some Outreach I mean certainly we're going to be um doing some Outreach you know going uh to different uh business owners and just you know kind of door knocking introducing ourselves and letting people know that we're that we're available um but a lot of what we've seen is is is kind of um Finance related financing related so attaching some you know kind of benefit benit beneficial loan onto kind of an existing uh you know startup loan or Gap loan that we've that that's already in place so setting aside Minneapolis because I think it's a whole different scale in animal than Forest Lake but maybe comparing us to um I think you mentioned St Louis Park in Roseville yeah how did those cities Perhaps Perhaps you know how do you think those cities would do the initial investment of funding those loans or getting that program launched cuz I can't imagine that's inexpensive no and there's different levels of programming too I mean some of it was some of it was kind of residual covid financing that has kind of been recycled into their own kind of earmarked Loan Fund um some of the smaller programs uh that have happened uh like one was um it was for like leasehold improvements or Capital Improvements of up to I think three or $4,000 so really kind of smaller loans um and then if you stayed in business and you did them you provided receipts then you could um get that loan forgiven that was a smaller scale one um but it's just kind of a case-by case basis on where where the the funding you know actually comes from um it's it's generally um you're right it's not as large as that minap the Minneapolis one but um I I could I could check those specifically too and see where those where those loan funds come from and then they recycle too and they um they kind of become you know kind of self- sustaining after after a while right thank you are there other questions just a followup question yeah uh you mentioned bankers and local area do you feel like You' got relationships with the local area Banks here in town some of them yes some of them no so if if anyone has um referrals uh love to you know come up and and meet them and let them know about the program too but well I know you've got a good working relationship with the net so I'll work with her and and see if we can't figure you know something to facilitate that great thank you questions to that point I think it would be good to maybe have some type almost call a summit or something to bring in some bankers and and actual business that and I know that Chambers done a little bit that but just to introduce us to you don't have relationships with can I just note something for the record um couple months ago we brought you a draft brochure I think I showed it to the Eda that nette and Tyler and Chris and I had been working on trifold brochure for business services or business Outreach that kind of says here's the city here's the chamber here's mccd we're here to help and um that should be printed within the any day now and so all four organizations will start utilizing that within the community to kind of continue to just um do more education on the resources available for businesses Within um Forest Lake again anything from you know your your oneman startup to much larger so um they can reach out to any organization and start getting information on any organization Abby I know that this was listed on the agenda as a presentation was so you're not looking for a motion tonight but are you looking for any other feedback from the board uh no it was my goal to just start bringing in some of these Partners um to continue to remind the Eda educate the Eda we'll have some shifting bodies over the next couple months and make sure that folks know too some of the resources that we can rely on um to help achieve our mission all right well thank you thank you for presenting thank you and moving on to agenda item number nine regular agenda action items we have none today so we can move right down to number 10 discussion um city council Eda joint Workshop did you want to kick us off on this Abby yes thank you um so the Ed is aware we have a number of outstanding items related to the 2024 25 work plan that have yet to be accomplished I'm just going to pull up your 20242 work plan so everybody can be refreshed with it we have a couple new to newly returning to the Eda um members you might not be as familiar with the eda's work plan I give you a little bit of update on the work plan um up for you guys should be coming up here in a second takes aot it's not but it's page 11 of the agenda you're pull it up all right so a few updates to the work plan um we have when it comes to um some of that policy review We you've given Direction on the forgivable loan program legal council's just vetting through the final particulars of that that Lo program should be back for you in March for final approval which would be available to all essentially all non-residential non-institutional um properties at your direction um we've got some draft program materials from the County CDA for use of the housing dollars again that's that affordable housing aid dollars from the state that new state tax that was implemented last year um that program uh use policies are in their draft format staff's reviewing um if those are approved by the Cy um then we can start to look at whether or not we're going to partner with the county for the use of our laa laa dollars um the Southwest area study has been ongoing we started Wetland delineations we just didn't get it done in the fall unfortunately before the snow came so um they've been doing internal work on that in our engineering firm has been doing internal work on that it'll resume in the spring with landowner um discussion and then um the downtown boat launch the launch study was presented to you last year I had a little typo there with 202 2,24 um no action was taken at this time however as many of you know we had quite a bit of damage with the heaving this year it's really necessitated us to kind of continue those conversations both at the DNR about the launch the shoreline stabilization and working with your boat club about the long-term sustainability of improvements down there we'll be talking with the new Parks Commission your boat club and the DNR this spring and summer determine next steps there we'll bring anything forward to the Eda as that comes so really what's kind of left is some policy review update downtown priorities in Headwaters 123 um there's a number of outstanding items relating to all three that staff will be seeking some direction on so staff was seeking to a joint city council Eda Workshop this spring so either March or early April we're waiting for our executive director Mark St stats to come on board and just kind of help finalize that agenda but I wanted to bring this forward to the Ed to see if there are discussion topics that the Eda would like to talk about with the council um as well as any sort of you know identifying or just things that we should start talking about for future dire with the Eda and their work plan know I'm kind of opening it up to you we still have quite a bit of time still to chat but really kind of seeing where what kind of things the Eda might want to talk about with the council members well there's there's a couple of items I'd like to see added to that one is an understanding of what are the parcels of land that forc owns that could be marketed for for you know not that we're looking to develop it but you know is there a neighboring land owner you know is there some land that we should be looking to to market for sale that'd be one and then the second one would be to revive the conversation around a visitors bureau I know that Columbus has one they've had one for a number of years um and I believe they' probably be interested in partnering with us at some level on that and so love to see where what everybody's appetite is for that before we go into those discussions but um it's something I'd love to see considered others I I think FS Works knows the interest on those two Fenway sites um just uh I think that should be part of that initial meeting also to see appetite of um option and just opportunities that are coming up potenti I will say will get a little tricky because those will be open public meetings and we don't necessarily want to get into land sale negotiations but I think that we definitely can keep the council and the Eda updated on on where we're going with some of those to Market those more or not in land uses probably others you seeking anything else from us Abby I was not I think that those are kind of the uh bigger items I wanted to see to make sure that we we really try to address what the Eda wants to focus on still a lot in our work plan and trying to make sure that we don't bite off too much um but make sure that we're getting the direction from you and then that the Ed and the council are working together kind of in the same path it's important for staff so I don't have anything else on that matter unless there's anything else from any other commissioner hav seen any I we'll move on to agenda number 11 updates and we're back to you Abby for any updates from the city the only verbal update I have is I had planned to have a 2024 year end report for you I realized that the Eda has never really kind of seen anything like that so I've been trying to put together a better snapshot for not only the Eda but also the council the Planning Commission on the community of the what we did last year but not just like what we did what had happened in our development World um really to start a baseline for the Eda I'd H to have it done for you last uh for for distribution today but I had the flu last week and I was unable to finish it that being said it sounds like there's some information that you'd like to also potentially see from the County CDA that we can incorporate into it some of those things like breakdowns of land areas and things like that to start monitoring year-over-year if there's any items you'd like to see like that if you want to just reach out to me individually I'd be happy to try to include those in uh that year on report for you it's the only update I have at this time thank you um oh of course so speaking of that Loan program um how would force Lake establish that have to be through the Eda fund or is a general L that or item that we'd have to prepare for money to create a a revolving Loan Fund um there'd have to be a seed the Eda does have a a a fund balance um currently we use that fund balance for our Capital Improvement program um I'd have to I'd want to look and i' talk with you know Chris and the N knowing other community and and Tyler knowing other communities and what programs worked and what is a good seed starter um but I definitely think that that's something that we can look at but that would also be another one of those kind of work plan things um it definitely would be a program that we would partner with another Agency on we would not be a good administrator of loans um where we we're just just some things we're good at and some things we should probably save away from but I can definitely put that down as another discussion topic other questions of Abby all right we'll move on to Washington County King thank you Mr chair and Commissioners I don't have any additions to my report but I'd be happy to stand for any questions if you have any any questions thank you and we'll move on to the Forest Lake chamber of commerce thank you for the opportunity um we are working I'm going to give you just kind of three areas that we're working on that I think you might find of interest uh we have just welcomed two new businesses just last week to that are in Forest Lake and one is salon luo and the other is Mike's Discount Foods so again it's always great uh there was much excitement last week just uh just with both of them and so both Force Lake businesses so I'm going to uh make it my purpose to tell you the businesses that we're celebrating I feel like your interest in that so I'm going to add that to my report um event wise um I do want to mention to you and you maybe make note of this but with career launch at the for Lake area high schools we are doing our member mixer there in April uh it's going to be a little bit different and a little bit different timing and they are inviting the teachers as well and we will be doing School tours and so I do want to let you know that of course you're invited to attend that if you'd like and so that will be the first Thursday in April and um so again just jot that down if that's something that you might think is of interest to uh in the Washington County CDA is helping us uh sponsor uh some of the the um some with that event as well and then the other things that we're working on of course Easter is around the corner so looking at how that's going to work uh big time into the Lakes area Expo lots of vendors already uh signed up and um we got the Easter Bunny and face painting and all kinds of great things to draw people to the event and then we're already uh looking ahead to the street dance in July and a band has been secured for that so just lots of event related things that we do uh and then you're just electing your positions here well we're looking for board positions and so this month we'll offer two different uh nominated candidate sessions so that uh we can spread the word to uh a select group of folks that have been nominated and and fill some board positions that we'll have coming up up and open here shortly as well so with that any questions I'll gladly answer if I can questions of the CH any it would be nice if U maybe in aby's reporter Baseline thing if you could do the annual growth of the business as we've got this contract with the chamber for you to that and it would be good if the city had that also I'm wondering Jenny if it would be better to have numbers as far as the Forest Lake businesses that we again because remember we serve six communities and so versus membership rather than membership perhaps it's the businesses that we've had contact with because I do have that information and I was thinking about when you when you were talking about that that might be a nice number so I kind of preemptively had already asked for that information so I can definitely provide that for 20124 okay question just based off of uh Eric's question on the um funding for tourism or whatever we're calling I think at one time when we when I was on the previously on the Eda we were talking about that and the Chamber would be kind of intimately involved in that or help fund or not funded but maintain those dollars or if so just what the bandwidth would be for the chamber to be uh we yeah we definitely had this conversation a number of times I think this is the third time around but Co kind of knocked us off uh track for a bit uh um councilman what are you here commissioner commissioner Erikson and I did meet early in the year just to take a look at all of the uh content that I have you know and so we took a look a pretty good look at that typically just to give you a really really high level very short typically typically I say typically but not always Chambers are usually the one to administer um because we have shared funding or share shared resources the chambers are usually the ones that do work with the tourism um and so we've had conversation around it I did tell uh Mr Ericson that I did feel like it was good timing uh we've got much more in place now compared to three to four years ago um and we are looking for hiring as well and so it just might be maybe be a good time uh and then too with um with Columbus already having interest in having conversation with us that's really a big key because they're already collecting occupancy tax and so uh so we we had a great conversation around it we also have lots of questions as well and so typically the city is the one that does the collection of the funds through an occupancy tax because I know um several of you were not here through the first two three rounds uh the city uh applies for that occupancy tax and collects it and then uh it does have the opportunity to keep a small portion of it for their administrative and then the funds come to the administering body which is usually through the chamber and we're trying to also Identify some of the uh some of the things that maybe have not gone so great in some areas as well so but definitely so that was a long answer to your very short question is that helpful okay any other questions in the chamber all right we'll move on to other and I will just say welcome um mayor Roberts and council member Erikson to to the board I look forward to working with you guys in this capacity is there anyone else that wants to get any updates for other if I could I um thank you everyone for your service here um we uh just a couple updates on our uh city council member uh process so we did if some of you might know we had 11 11 applicants we brought that down to five we did interviews last Thursday of all five and we chose unanimously Uh Kevin Miller as the next city council member uh so uh he was going to be here this evening uh I think he's going to do a great job he's been 10 years on the Planning Commission and he'll be Council um in that process we did interview one individual Jonathan Wright he's a local business owner has a business down in Maplewood um who um tonight this evening we're going to recommend as joining someone the next meeting remember where he lost that person with this would yeah any other updates seeing none we're on item number 12 adjourn and if someone wants to make that motion I promise I won't hit the gavel as hard as I started the meeting make a motion that we adjourn this evening's meeting there a second second the motion is non debatable all those in favor signif by saying I I oppos motion carries [Music]