Okay, we're recording.

Do this first.

I will call to order a community development committee meeting.

I'm Hilary Quiet, Chair of the Community Development Committee.

The other committee member present is Justin Amon.

And no other council members are present this evening.

The clerk will please call the roll.

This Quiatec here.

Mr.

Raymond.

Here.

And Ms.

Daniels.

There is one item on tonight's agenda, the annual financial accountability incentive reporting or FAIR hearing.

This matter is for informational purposes only.

We do have a public comment period.

I will now recognize the public for comment.

Is there anyone who would like to make a public comment with a five-minute time limit?

Then we'll move on to agenda item one, and I'll recognize the representative of the administration.

Good evening.

Thank you.

I'm Sean Ziller.

I'm the deputy director of economic development for the city.

And as last year, here to present uh this year's FAIR report.

Once again, thank you, Chairwoman Quyatech for holding the meeting of the community development committee.

As a stated, um, I'm here to present the 2025 FAIR report.

I'll be the sole presenter for that report, but I did want to introduce, and she's in the back row, um, our newest addition to CED in the Economic Development Bureau, Chastity Haxton, who assumed the role of our economic development coordinator this past May.

Uh, Chastity brings experience with the Missouri Department of Social Services, the Missouri Department of Economic Development, the U.S.

Department of Agriculture, and has spent time in the nonprofit fundraising sector.

Across these roles, she has focused on business recruitment, grant funding initiatives, and program implementation specific to small business development.

Chastity holds a Bachelor of Arts from Ohio University and a Master of Public Arts in Public and Master of Arts in Public Affairs from the University of Missouri.

Um, and because she's like all of us, she's currently completing a second Master of Arts and Public Interest Communications, which she expects expects to finish next month.

Uh we're unbelievably excited to have her join the department, and I'm sure Chastity uh would be happy to speak with members of council regarding her background, her previous experience and kind of what she brings to this role.

She's been here for two months and I think has already been doing a really great job thinking about how she can bring her skill set to advance the great work we're we're doing in the department.

Uh in addition to myself and Ms.

Haxton, we're also joined this evening by Ms.

Collins, Director of Community and Economic Development.

As in years prior, we're here for the annual Financial Accountability Incentive Reporting hearing.

The FAIR program was established for ordinance in 2018 to help City Council better understand and have transparency into the economic development tools we utilize here in the city.

Uh to that end, you received and should have in front of you the annual FAIR report, which is what we'll be reviewing at this hearing.

The report is looked back at the year 2025, examining how economic development incentives, both tax and non-tax incentives, have worked and had an impact during the last year on continuing Bethlehem development.

You can see from the table of contents in the FAIR packet that the report includes an incentive inventory, incentive program summaries, evaluation reports for each incentive program, incentive program impact statements from recipients, um, and tax expenditure spreadsheets and reports.

The incentive inventories on on the numbered pages one and two.

So it's actually a few pages uh further into the packet, uh, list the tax and non-taxent incentives included in this report.

Uh they include the local economic revitalization tax assistance or alerta, the city revitalization improvement zone or CRIS, the Enterprise Zone Loan Program, the Bethlehem Small Business Loan or Small Business Loan Fund uh program, the business infrastructure development or bid loan loan fund.

Uh the program summaries are on numbered pages three and 10.

These have not materially changed from years prior.

Importantly, the program evaluation portion is on page 11 to 28.

As has been done in prior years, we'll go right to the evaluation reports and provide brief refreshers on the incentive programs.

As a reminder to brief prepare these evaluations, program beneficiaries receive uh a request annually from our office seeking information such as where they are with respective projects, how many employees are hired and retained, and how the program has impacted their project.

Information that we gather is aggregated and presented presented for each incentive program.

We do not report and re represent to program recipients that we will not report on specific financial or employment data of individual projects on a project by project basis.

As we go through the incentives, uh and I think we've we've discussed prior to this, we can stop after each section and then a loan fund section, uh loan fund sections uh to take questions you may have before moving on uh to the next.

Um we'll start by turning to LERTA on page 11.

Pennsylvania enacted the local economic revitalization tax assistance act uh in 1977, and for deck several decades following, the city of Bethlehem has implemented multiple LERDA designations across different areas of the city.

As you know, these programs helped incentivize the redevelopment of much of the former Bethlehem steel property into productive job generating and tax producing in the tax producing district it is today.

Um the two LERTA zones currently in effect uh are summarized, therefore, in the next section.

Bethlehem's existing LERDA ordinances reflect the distinct policy objectives that they were uh designed to achieve at the time of their adoption.

Earlier alerta designations responded to a struggling local economy and the need to simulate investment in key areas, much of which comprise was once the largest brown field in the nation.

Given the limited level of private investment at that time, those incentive structures were appropriately tailored to encourage redevelopment.