- being here for our meeting today on this hot and muggy day in June. So we will start with our roll call.
- Kate, do you want to start, please? Kate Rosenbarger, BUEA. Keterita Ka, BUEA. Jane Cooper-Smith, BUEA.
- Heather Robinson, BUEA. Brad Whistler, BUEA. Michael Hover, BUEA. Elisa Spinelli, BUEA.
- detail the rest of the staff. All right. Sorry, Dee. Oh, bye bye, Lawson. You got this. You got it.
- That's right. So welcome. All right. Roll call has been completed. We have our minutes from last month's
- meeting. Did anyone have any comments or corrections to the minutes as presented from last month?
- All right, we have a motion. Do we have a second? Second and then we'll need to do a roll call. In favor
- police, if you want to start on the minutes approval, please. Police is finale, yes. Kate. Yes. Katarina,
- yes. Jane, yes. Heather Robinson, yes. Brad. Brad Whistler, yes.
- Michael Hover, yes. Virginia Guthrie, yes. Welcome, Virginia, to the meeting. All right. So Dee, I think
- you're up with director's report. OK. Yep. Yeah, we'll do the director's report and then launch into
- financials.
- So first, after reviewing grant disbursements, we found that there's an overpayment to secretly group,
- unfortunately. This happened from a processing error on my part. In their application, they had not
- factored in the matching. Within the meeting, we discussed the matching part and that we would only
- grant against a matching amount. And then when I went in,
- I accidentally made it for the full amount. So I have asked secretly for the difference with a due date
- of one month from now. I'm very sorry for this mistake. I apologize, and I will do everything to rectify
- it as soon as possible. We have signed the contract with Stone Municipal Group, who has been evaluating
- our eases for the past few years.
- I'll start music again with them later this month and something I forgot to add to this director's report,
- which I will amend later. The Office of Financial Analysis, Financial Management and Analysis, something
- to that effect. They're doing a review of all of the enterprise zones within the state.
- So what they're asking for for me is either a shapefile or every single address within the zone, which
- actually isn't that hard because GIS is wonderful here. And then an analysis of our EZ from 2019 to
- the present. Thankfully, the records that we've had with Stone have been really great. So that part
- is awesome. There's some just archival diving that I have to do for things that are here prior to
- my employment. So I'm not super concerned about that. We've performed pretty well. Yeah, excited to
- speak with them and see what they have to say about that. So moving on to the financial report, we have
- no first quarter financial report and I gave a little summary and I'll just go ahead and read it for
- the record.
- We're experiencing difficulties obtaining statements from German American Bank, which is making
- it challenging to reconcile our first quarter statements. These ongoing issues with timely bank statement
- reconciliation are hindering our ability to make informed decisions regarding project funding. To address
- this, we're evaluating our collection approval payment and reconciliation processes and considering
- implementing
- view only access to accounts for the executive director. This change would alleviate the administrative
- burden to our financial agents who are the director of ESD and the deputy controller by simplifying
- the process of obtaining documents required for quarterly reporting and monthly maintenance. Additionally,
- staff is exploring online banking tools that could enhance our control over transactions and improve
- visibility. The current banking tools we have lack the necessary flexibility for efficient management.
- So our three goals are to enhance access for designated financial agents and visibility, improve end-to-end
- process in four key areas, collection, approval, payment, and reconciliation, and increase the overall
- efficiency and promptness of the reporting. If you've been on this board for a while, you know that
- this is a struggle that we've had on a pretty regular basis. Some of it is just the processes that we've
- had forever that need updating, some of it is actually obtaining the information in a timely manner.
- So here's one example. Because our meeting is on the second week of the month, sometimes a bank statement
- isn't ready until the third week of the month. So that tends to be a hiccup, something that we can't
- always work on. So one of the things to solve that is that
- and some of you were here for this when we decided to have the financial report from Cheryl a month
- behind. So then we wouldn't have that lapse. But we're still having some issues getting, like asking
- for paper statements and not getting them or getting the paper statements on a regular basis or having
- the appropriate access to get a statement just because it's very,
- kind of convoluted who has access and who does not. As the executive director, I have zero access to
- any bank account, hence trying to get some of you only things so that when, because it's a matter of
- urgency for me, because I am your executive director, I can get to that sooner rather than later. So
- those are the things that we're working on at this point in time. D, just to punch in there a little
- bit, I fully support
- you having view-only access to these accounts and maybe was kind of unaware that you didn't at least
- have some of that. I get why you wouldn't be able to initiate any transactions. There's an internal
- control for all of these processes. But just to be able to view activity and print statements to me
- is an absolute no-brainer. And as executive director, I'm quite sorry that you haven't had that access already.
- because it would allow you just to see activity flowing through the account or, you know, what grants
- are being dispersed. I mean, you know, there's all different kinds of things that would benefit your
- role by having that access. So just for the record, I would say I fully support you having view-only
- access to all of the accounts associated with BUEA. Are other departments having the same issues with
- this bank?
- You know, specifically or can I chime in? Sure. Um, so the BVA is, it's the only commission that's like
- this, that has its own funding. Everything else is housed within the city's controller's office and
- the city's accounts. But, um, I, anyway, I nevermind. I just wanted to follow up with you afterwards
- because I found that March statement has been on.
- been posted since March, so I don't know why. Oh, really? Yeah, but we'll find it. But when I talked
- to German American, when we talked internally, someone else said, yes, we've been having trouble getting
- our statement. And then when I talked to German American, they said, no, we haven't really heard about
- this. But they're happy to facilitate that online access. And then, yeah, so I think we're on the verge
- of a breakthrough, which will be really good. Yeah, this is pretty much top priority for me at this
- point in time, because it really is hindering what I can do.
- and be able to, you know, when I talk to someone about getting a grant and they're like, well, do you
- have money for it? Well, in theory, yes, I do. But to not be able to solidly be like, oh, yes, we have
- this amount of money for the rest of the year for this particular, you know, grant or whatever would
- be incredibly helpful when I'm working with people. So, so yeah. Yeah, for sure. I am going to
- pull up our spreadsheet if I can, if I know what's happening here. I set this up and walked away for
- like a half an hour, so I've kind of forgotten where everything is. Let's see.
- is problematic. Great. Sorry, this mouse is giving me a really hard time. Here we go. Yay. I think that
- that might be as large as I can make it at this point in time. Sorry about that.
- The equations from last time have been corrected, so they're actually subtracting and not adding. I'm
- so sorry for that. Sometimes I just throw in a number and then think everything's fine. Very quick rundown.
- Education budget, we have 77.5 thousand in commitments and disbursements with a $15,000 balance. In
- the entrepreneurship area, we have 48,000
- in commitments and disbursements with 7,800 as a balance. Arts and culture, 25,000 in commitments and
- disbursements. That's the operations grant constellations, which is formerly when it's been presented,
- it's kind of been housed within all of the operations grants that the BAC provides via the BUEA. This
- has been broken out separately this year.
- and we have $185,000 balance in arts and culture. Zone improvement. Katie, can I have just one question
- on the arts incubator? Any update on that for us? Paige and I have had some really good discussions
- about it. It has still been part of the funding that supports
- The ready grant? Oh, that would be fantastic. Yeah. I've been working on this. Awesome. Yeah. So we
- had significant staff turnover earlier this year. And prior to that, they had been working
- on the accessibility piece, which was what this funding was intended to support. And the preliminary
- work to figure out what it would take to put a ramp on this building revealed that it was really not
- going to be
- super feasible, which is problematic, because that's now a public facility. So this has to do with two
- things. Well, and Brad, you know this building well, the OG Scrap Box building. So the ramp would have
- to go along the east side of the building, which would make it super long, the entrance over there.
- Or there was some idea that it might connect over to the trail, which was also sort of weird. And then
- for it to connect alongside the building,
- which would make the most sense because that's where parking is, there would be required major parking
- lot improvements, which were not feasible for the property owner. The property owner, however, has made
- significant improvements based on feedback from the tenants. So they added lighting. They've, I can't
- remember off the cuff. Sorry, I wasn't prepared for this. But they made some other changes that were
- requested. And then simultaneously,
- The REDI 2.0, I'm not sure if you're familiar with the REDI program, which is IEDC's, the Indiana Economic
- Development Corps' main vehicle for supporting economic development across the state. We're in a REDI
- region for the uplands. And then the Lilly Foundation partnered with REDI to do a round of grant funding
- across the state that is specifically arts and culture focused. And so the city partnered with
- local, it's like a consortium led by IU for a kind of four point project that would really
- drive Bloomington's arts economy forward and make it support not just Bloomington but the region with
- a kind of umbrella goal of entrepreneurship for artists, right? Like helping artists be able to make
- a living at the work that they do.
- So with that as the umbrella, then the incubator was a really critical part of that. But the grant proposes,
- primarily because of this accessibility challenge, relocating the incubator to a different site inside
- the Enterprise Zone. So it's been, this information will be released in early July. And so from the
- staff perspective, not my Enterprise Zone hat, we were planning to come talk to you all about that in
- July. So hopefully we'll have some,
- some kind of news and some kind of recommendation for how to go forward, but would hopefully like to
- hold onto that funding in order to drive this arts facility need. Okay, is that? Yeah, that's fantastic,
- awesome. Thank you for the detail. Thank you for the update on that. Basically all of a sudden it's
- like, Paige and I talked about it, we're gonna try and keep the funding there, details to come, so thank you.
- Super important. Awesome. Wonderful. Thank you. Sorry, Dee, go ahead. Oh no, you're absolutely fine.
- Love to hear it. Zone improvement grants. We have 51,000 committed or dispersed and 159,000 as a balance.
- The highlighted section is that's the rub and this is another error on my part. I'm very sorry.
- When you see my spreadsheet of grants, you can click down and say, ready to go, ready to go, not ready
- to go. And somehow I clicked that's the rub as ready to go.
- got it halfway through the process, realized that there was nothing in our minutes that officially approved
- it. So that is why we are reviewing that grant today. So nothing has been dispersed, nothing has gone
- out, so we still can amend that. But I'm glad that we caught it before anything else happened, and very
- sorry about that. What category are you talking about?
- Oh, you've got it highlighted in yellow. Yes. So there's no harm, no foul, right? Yeah, no harm. I don't
- think you need to apologize. We can be excited that we're going to hopefully have a name for it. Yeah,
- you're going to give some money to some people today. Yeah, no apology needed. And that pretty much
- is it for financials at this juncture. Once again, when I can give you something more detailed and concrete,
- I will have it to you as soon as possible.
- Yeah, so let me stop sharing this. In light of just the challenges that we've had with getting
- the financials, having this spreadsheet and allowing the board to sort of track and like what's going
- out and what's committed and all of that, I think this is extremely helpful. So thank you very much
- for putting this together and keeping it, you know, updated and so forth. It's incredibly helpful to
- me too because I mean, you know, the wheels are going to be turned slowly and sometimes it takes a little
- bit longer to get
- things through the grinder than it should. So it's nice to know what I do have committed before I try
- and commit to anything else. Yeah. So those are my two reports thus far. Yeah. I think we have that
- grant. Yeah, we can launch right into the grant language. Yeah. OK.
- So in the packet, which was incredibly long, the reason it was long was because I put in all of the
- current grant guidelines and language so everyone could have a very clear picture of what grant applicants
- are seeing when they're applying for a grant. There is a highlighted section within that
- which this is also part of a solo page in here that has the capital improvement grants eligibility.
- With these eligibility criteria, this is nothing new from what's already kind of been in the grants.
- It's just incredibly clear what we're going for. We haven't really had a whole lot of
- issues necessarily as far as people asking for things outside of this criteria that don't fit outside
- of this criteria. Also with applicants, as we saw with the Wonder Lab and the maintenance ask, that
- is something that I think that when we were creating the grant and we put it out there, it's assumed
- that you're not going to ask for perpetual maintenance.
- but now we came to a point where someone has asked for perpetual maintenance, so now we need to just
- clarify that that's not something that we're willing to cover. So that's what this eligibility criteria
- is. It's very clear in our minor improvement grant, but it was very much, it very much felt inferred
- with the other capital improvement grants. So this is, this is,
- feel that the board should approve this particular language because this is what I will be putting forward.
- This will be public facing on the site and for any packet material for any applicants or people interested
- in this. So there's that part. Does anyone have any questions about the eligibility criteria or feel
- that anything else should be added to the eligibility criteria? Is only the highlighted section in the
- first part
- the change or is it changed throughout? We're just highlighting that is pretty much applicable on each
- grant. Yeah. So the way it's structured and this is an accessible packet, so it'll look different on
- the website. But the headline is basically capital improvement grants and then the eligibility criteria
- will be right underneath it before you go into any of the other grant guidelines. So off the cuff,
- this is the eligibility criteria for all capital improvement grants, if that makes sense, yeah?
- All right, and then moving forward, if there are no other questions, and of course we can come back
- to it if you would like. Oh, go for it. Sure.
- clearly must be located within the Bloomington Urban Enterprise Zone. So we're saying for businesses,
- they must be in the zone. For nonprofits, they must be in the zone or serve residents of the zone. So
- thank you for catching that. There should be some clarification as we've like we discussed our grants.
- So I will update that to the language that we had clarified in prior meetings.
- Yes, thank you. I have a question just for clarification that I didn't see previously. The language
- of ineligible major renovations or structural overhauls, is that further explained somewhere or is there
- some type of
- dollar amount, what's the, how would you know what that means? No, that's actually another really good
- catch because that falls under the, wait a minute. Are you looking in the highlighted section? Oh, no,
- maybe I'm not. I think I'm going too far. There's a minor improvement grant that specifically says that
- the minor improvement grant is not for major renovations or construction. Okay. Okay. So that one is
- a, that's,
- very much a micro-grant. You're fixing a window, you're putting in a new lock or something. So it can't
- go towards some type of major, if somebody needed to fill in a gap, they were doing something and it
- was maybe $10,000 and they had $9,000. No, this one is, we want to keep this one specifically for that
- section. Because there is a considerable amount of money for the other larger programs. Okay, great.
- Thank you.
- And just for clarity on that D, that is that sort of flexible up to $1,000 grants that you and team
- internally can approve that doesn't have to come to the board. It's reported to the board, but that
- way it allows quick flexibility. So if someone has a broken window or something and they need that fixed
- quickly, you can have that flexibility to approve it and get the money out.
- Is it equipment? I have a question, sorry. Sure. In the capital, purchases of new equipment not related
- to repairs is not eligible. I guess I viewed capital as like, what if they need a major piece of equipment
- to do their business? I don't know, like a printing press. What? I don't know. Is that capital? Are
- we just looking at building repairs? We're looking at building repairs. That's more acquisition of personal
- property. Oh, OK.
- My interpretation when we talk about capital improvement is the physical space in which the building
- resides. I think that if we want to venture into something about personal property, like a major personal
- property investment, that's something that we should discuss. But I think that that's very much separate
- from the real property that we're talking about. Great. OK. Thank you.
- Okay, so all of these are under this header. This header is applying to the minor improvement, the business
- and safety, everything. Okay. The language on in-kind staff labor,
- At the bottom? Yeah. Oh, so moving forward. Cool. Oh, well, I guess I was under the ineligible expenses.
- Oh, yes. OK, I just. So this will change, barring our next conversation. I was going to say, it's a
- little bit confusing. Yes. OK. So the first part is how the grants stand on the public facing without
- the highlighted text.
- Our next step is to look at the in-kind labor match option that we had discussed at the last staff meeting.
- Teagan was wonderful to get this together before she left for Ireland. We'll see her in July, maybe.
- The purpose of the in-kind labor match is to reduce a certain amount of financial burden for the matching
- requirement that we have for
- our grants. Actually, I'm going to talk about the additional match waiver that is in the packet after
- the in-kind labor match. I think that both of these programs could be options. I think that it would
- be better to choose one. But we've discussed having in-kind labor,
- to assuage some of the burden of having the matching. Then last meeting, we also discussed getting rid
- of the match entirely. We inserted a match waiver option as well. I think that it satisfies both the
- idea of larger businesses having some skin in the game and not just getting some free money,
- because some people just know how to write a grant. Some people know who to ask and how to ask and when
- to ask. And some people are gun shy about asking for grants because A, they don't have the money to
- match, B, they've never done it before, C, they don't know about the program or find out about it late.
- So with the match waiver, which I think is a great option, it's fewer than 50 full-time part-time,
- full-time and part-time employees and less than a million dollars in annual gross revenue. We're really
- targeting smaller businesses. It's very succinct as to who can ask to not have to match. It's a pretty
- simple process. I think that this satisfies a lot of the conversations that board members have had time
- and time and again of
- Why are we doing a match? Do we do a match? When is the best time? And the match waiver is really just
- that simple. How many employees? Are you less than a million? And are you within the zone? This one
- is particularly, are you physically located within the zone? The in-kind match I think is also a very
- good option, however,
- It can get more complicated for a small business who may not have the staff ability to do that. Some
- small businesses are really only a couple people. In kind is kind of a vague term. It can be hard to
- kind of put those things on there. However,
- The worksheet that's put together is a simple worksheet that I personally think does actually satisfy
- all of the requirements of what you would want to see in an in-kind labor match when someone is applying
- for the grant. So I would love to hear your opinions on either of these as you've read through them.
- happy to take any questions on any of them. I'm a fan of the word G. I think it is succinct and gets
- straight to the point. Easy to fill out. Put that together and calculate what we're looking at. So are
- we also saying that someone could use the in-kind labor match and well,
- I guess it wouldn't matter then if they use the waiver because it's one or, now that I'm thinking all
- of that through, it would be one or the other. Yeah. Or neither. I mean, they may not, but it's one
- or the other then when we're talking about the labor match, or they might just submit a waiver to completely
- waive the match. Yes. Okay. I guess I have a question. Sure. Okay.
- The umbrella goal of the BUBA is to foster economic vitality within the enterprise zone. We've unpacked
- that a little more to understand that grants can go to zone impacting organizations. It doesn't just
- have to be physically located in the zone. It can be zone impacting. So I guess I'm curious why we would
- require the waiver to have a physical
- within the zone. What's the economic, what's the benefit to that? How does that balance? None, but I
- wanted to make sure that there were some pretty clear-cut restrictions on the match waiver, and this
- can be changed. I mean, there is nothing set in stone here. If that is something that the board wants
- to get rid of, I'm happy to get rid of it. I mean, my personal opinion is just that this is an add-on
- the grant will already go through all the criteria, eligibility criteria, through the evaluation process.
- And so this is just for the match waiver, right? So I don't think that really, for me, it doesn't belong
- there. It's just one more filter. So that was one question. And then fewer than 50 full time, less than
- a million in annual gross revenue, I think that
- The intent is for it to be truly a small business. So that makes sense. And I just wonder if that,
- are those, are those correct for a match waiver? Are you trying to, who are we trying to support? If
- we're trying to support really vulnerable businesses for the match waiver, then is this the right way
- to identify them?
- Isn't that the Small Business Administration's definition for 500,000? Five million is the minimum,
- but 50 employees. We kept it at 50 employees because of restaurants who may have a large roster of employees.
- Absolutely. That's not FTE, that's just employees. It's not full-time. 50 employees.
- Yeah, so the SBA definition, just non-manufacturing businesses under 7.5 million, they must have increased
- that. And then what I thought it was 500 employees. So that's really something different altogether.
- And it makes sense to me that the BBA has a different standard. Yeah, I love this idea. I guess I don't
- know what some of the small business,
- Is that an average growth? So, you know, I don't know. Some of those bars that have 40 employees, I'm
- sure they're killing it. Like Kilroy's, I don't know how much they're bringing in with it. But,
- you know, so I kind of have that question too. I fully, fully support this waiver, but just want to
- make sure we're dialed in right. I think the 50 employees sounds solid because you
- definitely want to be able to capture some restaurants that might have like 30 or 40 fluctuating part-time
- employees or things like that. You don't want to exclude because of that number. But I'm wondering about
- the gross receipts. And that's just me simply not knowing. I mean, Brad, you're a business owner. Do
- you have thoughts on that? And of course, Virginia as well. And Felicia's on. Business owners have thoughts.
- I'm fine with these, with these definitions. I mean, I think a million in gross revenue would be a lot
- for a, you know, for a small, particularly for any kind of, for a retail business, that would be, that
- would be a lot. I don't, yeah, I don't think we, but certainly Kilroy's is doing more than. Yeah.
- They're probably good. I think that's a pretty good number. Can we do some other kind of examples? What
- about the owlery? Because I don't know gross revenue at all, either. Would they have fallen into this
- category? I think $1 million. No, I think $1 million is not much for a restaurant. Food prices are really
- high, and anyone who's turning a fair amount of tables, I don't
- want to share information I'm not empowered to share, but like, I think, um, pre pandemic, certain coffee
- shops may have been in that neighborhood. So I think when you add food to it, the dollar goes really
- high. And I guess that's why I want to get at that question of like, who are we trying to help? Because
- with this, with these filters, there's not a demonstration of need. So, but it's a demonstration of
- size and that's fine. If that's what the board wants you to do, like we want to,
- offer the waiver to small operations, and this is how we're gonna define small operations. I always
- am thinking more about like, who are the struggling operations? How can we define that? Like, did they
- declare a loss on their income, on their K-1s or whatever? Is that a way? I think I would- I mean, you
- could use an earnings test, a profit test instead of a gross revenue test, if you wanted to. I would
- probably struggle with, if there were a battle between need and size,
- I would probably have an objection to need, especially if they would extend the size, because you could
- easily, you know, have 2 million and claim a loss of 1.5. That would be a little crazy, but, you know,
- you could, but it's conceptual, right? So, and if it were, okay, if you're in the zone and the loss
- doesn't matter and you could, I mean, I guess what I'm trying to say is I think both would have to be true.
- to make it make sense. I don't think it would be reasonable to also allow just claiming a loss because
- you could potentially have 200 employees and I mean, who didn't claim a loss, right? Who hasn't claimed
- a loss depending on how long you've been established and if you were in COVID and you know, so I would
- argue that both would have to be true or it would just have to be at the size irrespective of need.
- But that's just my...
- And excuse me, can I say something, please? Yeah, of course. And this is what I meant. And maybe my
- passion overweighs sometimes what I'm trying to reach. And I didn't mean to disregard Brad or Regina
- being business owners when I spoke last month. I just meant the smaller businesses in the zone because it's
- in this time right now is different for smaller businesses. And just like Virginia said, even as a larger
- business, you could have the need. And I don't want our level of criteria to outweigh the need of people
- in the zone, no matter what size you are or
- how many employees you have, because in this time right now, there's need to help businesses. And that's
- how we stand aside from banks. So I think that is a beautiful compromise to what you guys are doing
- by putting the waiver out. But then again, on another hand, it still sets
- people would leave aside because you're biased on how big or how large the business was before these
- triumph times. And that can happen to any size business, especially in the zone. Yeah, I do fully agree
- with your point, or I fully understand your point.
- I would say though when it comes to, I think that part of the idea of keeping it for smaller businesses
- with smaller revenues is money attracts money. And so larger companies, larger businesses tend to have
- an easier avenue to obtain more funding.
- they can usually get more traditional funding and have those different tools to use. Whereas when smaller
- businesses go into and have an issue, it's harder for them to get traditional lenders and to get traditional
- funding, which is why I think that we were focusing on smaller revenues and smaller numbers. But I fully
- understand what you're saying for sure.
- And because our budget is limited for these particular categories, I mean, there is some consideration
- around that, to your point, D, that we've essentially sort of, the waiver exists because we don't have,
- you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars in budgets for these grants, so that the waiver really tries
- to reach some of the most vulnerable small businesses, whereas to your point, larger business can have
- greater access to other funding resources. So, I mean, I think that also might be a point of decision
- or discussion with us as well, you know, that we could still base it with around some need, but with
- some of these other criteria because we've set as an organization, we want to, because we have just
- a finite amount
- of money from our budget that we want to make sure that those that are receiving waivers are some of
- our vulnerable small you know might you know what might be some of the micro businesses I you know just
- kind of throwing that out there for thought and discussion. I'd like to say so this waiver is for
- funding for capital improvement, buildings, safety and security and accessibility. It's not for operations.
- It's not for paying staff to do business as usual. I'm thinking about Lotus. We would fit under 50 employees,
- under a million dollars, but I wouldn't have any money for capital improvement at all in my budget.
- If I need to do a capital improvement, safety and security accessibility, I have to get outside money,
- because that's not part of, like, we operate under this money, and there's nothing, there's nothing
- extra, you know? And the building is, I mean, for us specifically, it's a historic building, right?
- It's like something that needs to be maintained. But like, the waiver, it's like why, why even,
- Why have the barrier of the in kind when most businesses are not going to have the money for these kinds
- of expenses anyways? I mean, I don't know how many businesses in the zone have money for building
- improvements, unless they own the building, but how many own the buildings?
- I have a personal example of that actually, because depending on, well, now that the economy's a little
- different, so a lot of, if you're leasing, a lot of places will do certain leasehold improvements, whereas
- 10 years ago, it was all on the person renting, right? So in commercial, a lot of times they're doing
- it because they want you in the space, and it's just harder, it's more of a buyer's market, right? But
- you find the money.
- I mean, I'm just saying, like, if you have to improve the space to fit it to what you need, you figure
- out how to get the money. So, I mean, I just, I would agree that sometimes- You're applying for a grant,
- right? Yeah, yeah. Or asking for investors or something like that. So you're saying that it's a barrier?
- Yeah, it's not outside of your regular operations. We're not paying for anyone's salaries. We're asking,
- like, people are coming to us to ask for something that's outside of their budget.
- So whatever size you are, whatever kind of business you are, if you are in the zone, shouldn't you just
- have access to capital improvement? Because that is what is actually making the zone better, is having
- a better looking, better structured community in this area. I think there's two competing principles
- here. One is we want to make it as easy as possible for
- struggling organizations and businesses to access capital. On the other hand, we want to make this money
- go as far as we can make it go and support as many organizations as we can. So we don't want businesses
- that are thriving who don't really need this money to come in and scoop it all up. So we don't have
- money to support the ones that are in the most need. So I think what we're trying to do here is create
- some test for the need
- that we could that we can apply so that so we're making sure the money goes you know to the to the people
- who really need it so I was just gonna say it references here applicants seeking the match waiver must
- complete the match waiver request form we don't have an actual we don't have that form I would just
- suggest that on that form there's some portion where they
- describe the need or the hardship that should justify the waiver of the match. It doesn't have to be
- a strict quantifiable guideline, but I think we can judge relative to the other applications that we're
- seeing at the time where the need falls. That's really helpful. I was just pulling up the bylaws just
- to orient us
- And so briefly without the big preamble, the corporation may coordinate zone development activities,
- serve as a catalyst for zone development, promote zone to outside groups and individuals, establish
- a formal line of communication with residents and businesses in the zone, act as a liaison, blah, blah,
- blah, blah, blah, blah, initiate and coordinate any community development activities that aid in the
- employment of zone residents, improve the physical environment,
- or encourage the turnover or retention of capital in the zone. So I don't have an argument. I'm just
- offering that as centering. Yeah. I think all the comments here are really good. And I think that your
- point's good, Brad, in that being able to just simply make the case. If Lotus came to your point, you
- don't have money
- for capital, but you have found that suddenly there's a $7,500. I think in the waiver application, then
- make the point of the need. It's not in the regular budget for the organization. I don't know another
- example. Someone who'd be outside of that $1 million in under 15 points. Someone who operates.
- a business in the zone who's above that, but would still have, not necessarily have funding for these
- specific kinds of things. And the only things that I can think of are like the Buskirk Chumley or something
- or like, but again, these are historic buildings, so maybe it's a little different or. And they could
- go through the historic facade potentially if it's like facade. I'm just, we're,
- kind of nitpicking a little about who should be getting this money. But it feels like the zone, if you're
- in the zone, you have a need, don't you? Isn't that the whole point of the zone? The whole point is
- the distrust of low-cum-census. Yeah. So whether you make over a million dollars or not, you might still
- have a need. And let's just say you are trying to really invigorate
- the building that you're in that, yeah, I don't know. I'm just trying to understand a little more like
- why do we need to be so specific and limiting of those that apply when this whole, like everybody, like
- we need to be supporting businesses so they can actually do stuff, right? And it feels like we're actually
- hindering. And these are only for the waiver.
- All of the other businesses can't apply. They just have to bring the match. They have to bring the match,
- right? Yeah, so OK. So if you have over a million dollars, does that necessarily mean that you have
- money outside of your regular business to be putting into building improvements or safety and security
- and accessibility? I appreciate what you're pushing on. And so I might summarize kind of what I see
- as the types of things we're talking about.
- On one hand, we have this proposal for a match waiver that is focused on business size. We have one
- discussion that I think we backed away from about need, because I think we think there's a need. And
- then I don't know what the third category is kind of questioning. Do we need a match at all? Is that
- kind of where you're pointing to? Or do we need a criteria for a waiver? But either way, the third option, I think,
- more expansive, less of a barrier. Is that how you guys are understanding where we are? Yeah, I would
- say that the options that are on the table right now are match waiver, no match at all. Those are the
- two clear ones that I am getting from the board in general. I personally favor no match at all.
- From an administrative point of view, it's very helpful. I think it maximizes the amount of people who
- are willing to apply for something. I think it's a major barrier when they see that they have to match
- up to 50 percent of their ask. Because when people are asking for money, it's usually because they don't have any.
- I am partial to that. I have given options, and it is up to you to decide. I'm sorry. I just want to
- add one more thing. So we're talking about building safety and accessibility in the zone, but then we're
- also talking about businesses applying for these grants who are serving the zone and outside of it.
- The fact that it's funding for physical improvement, does it make sense to apply that?
- that same accessibility to people who are outside the zone. Is that, am I? So like the benefit of having
- the address requirement is that these investments are going to the physical improvement of the zone,
- which is cited in the bylaws. And so therefore you would want that barrier because you're ensuring that
- the dollars are going to the improvement of the zone itself. I'm fine with that, like I do think that
- The bar for businesses that are physically outside the zone should be a little bit higher. I'm not saying
- we should eliminate it completely, but I'm totally fine with saying if you're outside the zone, you
- gotta pay the match. We're reserving match-free grants for businesses and organizations inside the zone.
- I don't have any objection to that.
- I'm sorry I don't mean to interrupt you Kate. I do want to note our time and we have not reviewed the
- one grant request we have for today. I think this is an awesome discussion and I wonder if we could
- D if you could maybe refine this a little bit on basic and if we could pick this up Kate I didn't want
- to take your comments there off the table but I wonder if everyone is is good with that so we can
- actually do the business of approving one of our rights today. Thank you for the discussion. I will
- come back with some more fine-tuned things for this. Yeah, let's move on. If that's okay that this is
- cutting into another meeting, I can do a little off, but I do have two more thoughts actually. Okay.
- All right, so that's the rub. AD is located in the grant building. They are doing physical improvements.
- This is a business building improvement grant. There is painting, patching, and priming of walls and
- treatment in the hallways. This is a CFC building. CFC is a fantastic support of small businesses. They
- are incredible landlords.
- They are putting up part of the match as per usual with most of their projects. They're also helping
- with tenant improvements. This is pretty straight forward, I feel. So do you have questions if there's
- anything specific? Sorry, because the time is limited. I don't really. I just can't. I think I need
- to log in to Civvy Forms if you. Oh, to see the. Yeah. Hold on. I can't see a picture. Yeah.
- I can, I got pictures. I think you have to make them really small. If you're doing that, it sounds good
- to me. I'm not, I pulled it down and say that to my desktop center. I think too, they're in a really
- difficult location, that huge one way street and stuff. So yeah, so hard to get foot traffic. Is anything
- so I look through the pictures,
- from a contractor perspective, it looks like there's maybe some humidity issues. Do we know if that's
- being addressed? That is being addressed by CFC. OK. So there are other improvements that CFC is doing
- to this so that these don't come back in a year. Yeah, so it doesn't come back in a year. So they're
- not painting for painting sake. OK. All right. But yeah, some moisture, some cracking.
- about this one? Okay, do we feel good about approving this grant? I'll move that we approve this grant.
- Second. Okay, we'll deed a roll call for it. I think it's still up there. Sorry, if you want to start
- the roll call for approval of that. Okay.
- So that's a yes from you. Yes. OK. At least for now. Michael Hoover, yes. Fred Whistler, yes. Virginia
- Guthrie, yes. Heather Robinson, yes. Jane Coopersmith, yes. Katerina Carl, yes. Kate Rosenberger, yes.
- All right. Kate, so sorry to cut you off. Please finish with your comments. We have like two or three
- minutes here. I don't remember. I had two things I don't remember. I think one was because we are becoming
- more flexible with them,
- zones that impact or businesses and nonprofits that impact the zone that are outside of the zone that
- do want to be careful with like how much we give to one organization for sometimes the match might be
- useful in order to leverage dollars that we can then use to help other organizations I guess like I
- think if organizations or businesses have dollars to leverage I
- I am interested in keeping that part still. And if they aren't, I think it makes sense to not have that
- match. I don't know. It's just something I think about, I guess. But I definitely get to like improving
- anything in the zone is useful. I mean, I think about some like facade grants that whether or not we
- did the grant, they would be doing the facade renovation, right? So that was like nice to have, but
- didn't need to have, which is okay, because definitely facade grants make the zone look much better.
- I think about that sometimes too, I guess. Well, this grant in particular, they're leveraging CFC money,
- which obviously CFC is, if they're the ones who are owning the properties, the match, well, it extends
- our ability to, we don't have to give as much, it extends our ability to give more money to other people,
- but then also,
- Like maybe CFC is more willing to do these projects for the leaseholders because they're getting a little
- bit coming to them. That makes sense too. So yeah, I don't know. I'll dissect this for all of you guys.
- Good discussion. We'll continue that next month. And Dee, I think you were going to check July is a
- tough one. Yes. So July, because we missed meetings earlier in the year, I would like to keep the July meeting.
- Probably not the second week of July as it's right after the holiday. I know that usually we take this
- month off or July off. I will send out a doodle poll to see if either of the remaining Wednesdays are
- good around the same time. But there's just obviously we didn't get through all the business today.
- I'd like to get through that business on Wednesday or on July. I'll be remote in July. That's not a problem.
- All right, thank you all so much for your time.