Chair, all the mics are hot, Chair, just so you know.

Usually you're on that side.

Oh no, it's good once.

I never use it.

I actually was supposed to be to adjourn.

Yeah.

Hi.

I was just I was just walking through.

You're gonna get rolled in.

You're you're welcome to say not that you have a lot to do on shirt, but for our time.

Five years ago.

No.

Yeah.

Yes.

Twenty twenty-one was five years ago.

Crazy, right?

Good evening.

We're gonna go ahead and start our Wednesday, March fourth economic vitality board meeting.

We're gonna go ahead and call the meeting to order.

It is six oh one.

Just a little point of notice.

This meeting is held in person.

It's also held online via video conferencing.

So if you'd like to do that, you can go ahead and click on the register link at Bozeman.

If you want to participate by phone, you can do that by calling one two five three two oh five zero four six eight.

And you will need the access code that's nine eight four four one four seven six three five zero.

Do we have any disclosures before we begin the meeting?

So I just wanted to disclose that.

Any other disclosures?

Okay, changes to the agenda.

We have no changes to the agenda tonight, Chair.

This is the time to comment on any non-agenda matters falling within the scope of the Economic Vitality Board.

There will also be time in conjunction with each agenda item for public comment relating to that item, but you may only speak once per topic.

Please note the board cannot take action on any item which does not appear on the agenda.

We do ask all persons to address the board in a civil and courteous manner.

And we also ask the audience to be respectful of others.

We ask that you state your name and state if you're a resident of the city or if you're property owner within the city.

Please use a clear and audible tone and please limit your comments to three minutes.

Do we have any public comments on non-agenda items only?

Speaking for myself tonight.

Speaking to comment on an agenda item F1, which includes a discussion of the EVB's interests and involvement in the economic development component of the EVB's 2627 work plan.

Specifically, I'm suggesting the economic development component be renamed economic vitality because the EVB's founding resolution, 5329, is more about economic vitality.

One second, I'm so sorry.

Did you want to discuss F1?

Okay.

So we do ask that you wait until we actually get into that.

So typically, typically boards do not take public comment on FYI discussion items or special presentations.

So that is actually an error in the way, and this was true last night at the city commission meeting.

Yes, sir.

We actually do on our board.

We do allow for public comments.

Okay.

Well, I'd just like to do it now.

That if you don't mind that you um wait until I would like to do it now.

We actually ask for people to do that.

Actually, I'd like to do it now during the appropriate time.

I would like to do it now.

And I'm asking for you to please wait for the appropriate.

And I would I'm asking you to let me do it now.

All right.

Well, last point of reference to City Commissioner Douglas.

We would like you to just say that that it's true that boards and the commission typically do not take public comment on special presentations and FYI discussions, even though the introductions always say each agenda item.

So if you can clarify that, then I will sit down and wait for F1.

I can clarify that the City Commission typically does not take any public comment during a special presentation or an FYI.

Um advisory boards work with slightly different rules.

And so in this case, for this agenda, we'll be taking uh for the chair a public comment during this FYI discussion agenda item F1.

Okay, and then I'll wait.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Courtney.

Thank you so much.

We do appreciate you being here, and we do look forward to hearing your comment.

Thank you for understanding.

All right, Mr.

Fartnerth.

Would you like to come up and introduce our speakers?

Oh, there's another public comment.

I'm so sorry, I didn't see you.

That's okay.

I'm good to go.

You are good to go.

Awesome.

Excuse me.

Hello.

And uh let me get you a time.

One second, two, three, and start.

Now you get to go.

Thanks.

Hello, board members.

My name is Skylar.

I am an MSU alum and Bozeman resident currently working in Belgrade.

I am speaking to you as representative of the Students Against Genocide movement at Montana State.

Our group brings students, alumni, and Bozeman community members together to fight the university's investments in the Department of War and educate the public about the bloody business dealings at the innovation campus.

If you don't know, the innovation campus facilitates new and in-depth partnerships between Montana State University and private sector businesses.

Reveal technology and Mitria have a presence on the campus.

These two companies actually have something in common.

They have provided the Israeli military with their technology and services in the past couple years.

Students against genocide is demanding the MSU adopt an enforceable ethics policy governing military and surveillance research, innovation campus leasing and research funding sources.

And commits to transparency by publishing annual public lists of research funding sources and innovation campus tenants and disclosing defense-related research to the greatest extent legally possible.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Hi everyone.

My name is Emma Shahabi.

I am an attorney and a resident of Bozeman.

And as Skylar just detailed, uh, the innovation campus and several of the companies that houses has blood on its hands.

And while Skylar didn't mention this body in their comments, I'm sure you can guess, or maybe some of you can guess why we're here.

And I'm sure Mr.

Fonant is aware of some of the tenets that Skylar just described.

As I understand, the innovation campus is in a tax increment financing district, the South Bozeman Technology District, where Bozeman taxpayer dollars are supporting partial infrastructure costs.

And as I understand, the city also approved $16,409 to facilitate planning and move forward projects and development in this district with further funding bookmarked as well.

As part of those efforts, the city also approved the innovation campus's application for a planned development zone, which grants them flexibility when zoning code is enforced.

Mr.

Fonant and the city have lauded the success of the innovation campus and have referred to it as a quote, field of dreams.

And I'm not too young to get that reference.

We build it and they will come.

So understand that the city by facilitating this campus is actively promoting and enabling these companies.

But I'd like to ask: are we looking to diversify this economy into war profiteering?

I think there's a narrative about private companies that we have no control over their actions, but this board, maybe more than anyone else, can understand that when there is a private-public relationship, discretion is necessary and ethics do play a role.

The Bozeman city government and staff are making policy decisions that reflect our values.

So I want to ask what kind of research and jobs are we supporting through this relationship.

It's troubling, frankly, to link Bozeman City staff and this economic board, uh, and that they're being used to platform war companies with direct ties to Israel's genocide in Palestine.

How many people who attend these meetings or city commission meetings know about this relationship?

How many of our community members know where their tax dollars are going?

This board has a responsibility as an ambassador and liaison between the citizens of Bozeman, the city commission, and private companies.

You are a trusted source of information.

And regardless of whether you are unaware or aware, these ties are incredibly responsible.

And I'll just end by asking that you stop supporting the innovation campus and advise against our city's ties with these genocidal companies.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Do we have any other public comments?

Do we have any public comments online?

I see no public comments online, Chair.

All right, thank you.

We're gonna move on to our action item.

E1, and I'm gonna have Mr.

Fartner introduce our speakers for today.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chair.

Good evening.

Um Britt Fontano, your economic development director and liaison onto this board.

So thank you for making time this evening to um listen to the presentation from Tekami Clark, Communications Manager, and our newly hired belonging and Bozeman coordinator, Courtney Smith.

Thank you both for being here tonight.

I believe Tekami will lead off the presentation, and the goal tonight is to have this board review the work plan for the belonging and boseman plan and then uh take an action to approve that work plan this evening.

Thank you.

I think she's gonna you're gonna stay at the at the uh Yes.

Can I advance through are you gonna advance the second?

Thanks.

Oh, cool.

Thank you.

Yep.

Hello.

Um I'm Takami Clark, um as Britt mentioned, communications and engagement manager for the city.

Um here with me, as he mentioned, is is Courtney Smith.

And Courtney, do you want to say hi?

Hi.

So Courtney is just a few weeks into the role, but she has already done a ton of work and has a really great understanding foundation so far.

Um, so there might be things that I feel like you answered during the QA round, but yeah, um, I will be presenting tonight.

Um, but this presentation will just be a brief overview of our recent efforts, and then we'll have a board discussion on the recommended work plan priorities.

Um, and I do have some recommended um motion language for you guys to consider as well.

Um belonging and Bozeman was adopted by Bozeman City Commission on December 19th, 2023, and that this board was really heavily involved in the creation of that plan.

We went to you guys a few times for your feedback to help guide us throughout that planning process.

The plan itself involves collaborating with partners across eight issue areas: housing, transportation, health and well-being, education, child care and youth programming, economic security, community resiliency, community safety, and civic health, and all with the goal of addressing barriers and ensuring all of our residents can thrive in Bozeman.

Um, progress on the plan has been a bit slow since we have really needed the belonging and engagement coordinator to help move things forward.

Um, but I did want to point out that it has been ongoing since 2023 and since since adoption.

I think that one of the um misconceptions that I hear often is that it got approved and then just kind of sat on a shelf.

Um, and wanted to remind this board and others that when it was approved, there were already things that we had put into the work plan that were in progress, and those things um remained in progress, some of them got completed, and we were able to start some things as well.

So there has been slow progress on the plan, uh, but we expect things to pick up really quickly here with Courtney.

Um related to the plan, uh, once it got adopted, Economic Vitality Board adopted three work plan items for 2024 to 2025.

Those were implement the belonging and boseman plan, provide training on how to apply for city contracts and become a city vendor, um, and connect those experienced vendor city vendors with small business owners to subcontract and gain experience, and then develop an equity impacts decision making tool and train elected officials, advisory board members, and staff in its use.

Um these three uh goals were adopted, and we had recommended them to you all back in 2024, in part because they really aligned uh pretty closely with your work.

Um, you guys have great connections amongst business owners and the equity impacts decision making tool was also a recommendation that we had put forward for the commission, and it's um an important milestone because there's uh other goals and recommendations that then follow as a result of having that tool.

So we really saw these three as goals that you guys could really dig into and implementing the belonging and boseman plan was also a commission priority, which we will discuss in a little bit.

Um progress has been limited on these goals, so as you heard, we were able to get some things rolling, but without the coordinator um, especially starting new tasks was new tasks like these the training and the equity impacts decision making tool.

Um, those were really challenging because that work had not sort of been existing or um didn't have like existing capacity that was pushing that stuff forward.

Now that we do have Courtney, we expect um these things to move forward a lot quicker, and Courtney definitely is prioritizing them within her first year of tackling the plan.

All right.

Um this slide, we received a question from a board member about the commission priorities and what they had set.

So um I added this one in to provide some extra context around what the commission city commission directed back in 2024 during their own priority process.

Um their main priority, um, they had a bunch of different priorities, but the sort of overall one for belonging was implement at least eight recommendations, and then they had um these eight sort of sub priorities or recommendations that we had picked out as part as part of that process.

Excuse me, Mike, I've been getting over a cold, so lots of clearing my throat over here.

One is create a new belonging and Bozeman coordinator staff position and dedicated budget.

So I'll be running through what they had dedicated as priorities and then its current status.

This is done.

We did hire this coordinator and have the dedicated budget for this plan.

Two was implement on-demand interpretation services and train frontline staff on using it.

This is also done.

We now contract with Montana Language Services to provide those services.

Three support partner organizations by funding transitional and emergency housing programs, also done.

This is done through the commission budget process, and they have prioritized housing and emergent emergency housing and transitional housing consistently through the past years, and we anticipate that this will continue to be a priority for them, and that is more it's one of those goals that kind of gets done on an annual basis that we'll be reporting on as we report on the plan.

Continue to convene external partners to implement belonging and Bozeman plan.

This is an in-progress one.

Now with Courtney on board, she's tackling this really heavily, meeting with all of our partners, understanding where they are at with some of the items that they're working, we're collaborating on, and then we're looking at convening the whole group as well.

Um create a full-time position to serve as ADA coordinator.

This is also something that's in progress.

We've been having conversations with HR about what this position could look like.

Um and we'll really get an update on where things stand within that process and the staffing process as the budget is talked about as well.

Hire a part-time disability community liaison and full-time BPD community liaison.

Um we are restarting, sort of starting those conversations on the disability community liaison position now that Courtney is on board, and then the BBD community liaison should be posting within the next few weeks.

So that one's really close.

Reconvene the BIB belonging and Bozeman interdepartmental committee and update its charter.

This relates to sort of our internal team where we have one member from each department forming our internal sort of advisory board-ish team that helps us, helps guide us in this process.

We have started this goal by just kind of revisiting who was on this committee in the past, identifying who has turned over or changed in some way, and then looking at who can sit on this board next as well as what it could look like.

So we've been doing some work in the past couple of weeks since Courtney has started on what this could look like in the future.

And then develop an in equity impacts decision-making tool and train board staff commission on its use.

Um Courtney has started with some initial research on what this could look like, and it's certainly a high priority since it's showing up across multiple areas.

Here's our recommendation, um, continue priorities from the 2024-2025 work plan.

We really see these, continue to see these as important priorities.

Um as well, and still continue to feel that these are going to be the priorities that you guys can dig in and help us most with.

Um, so implement the belonging bosom plan, provide training, and then develop that equity impacts decision making tool.

And then here's some motion language for you guys to consider.

Um while we have that on screen, we can move into questions.

All right.

So, what I was thinking is that each person would just ask one question, uh, and then we can always circle back if you have additional questions or follow-up questions, and we'll go ahead and do that.

This is new to half of our board.

Uh, they're seeing this for the first time.

So I anticipate that we'll have a lot of questions.

Does anyone want to start with the question, or we can go down the row?

Or whatever you feel comfortable with.

All right.

Um, so tell me a little bit more about this equity decision making tool.

From what we've discussed so far, what sort of components are you looking to include in it?

What's what's the vision so far?

Cornea, you want to take that.

Sure.

So a lot of local government entities utilize certain tools in order to make sure that their decisions align with some equity principles.

So essentially, I'm looking at creating something that you all can use in your decision making process that considers equity when you're making a decision so that there are no like bad unintended consequences that flow from those decisions.

So still doing some research, but working with like national uh organizations who do these tools for other municipalities around the country.

Sure, I guess like that look like having criteria that you consider when you when we're like voting on an item or when the commission voting on item, it would be like kind of like how the community board has criteria when they're looking at annexation, we would have kind of criteria, or what might that look like?

Yeah, it usually looks like a list um in different narrative-based um bullet points.

So, for example, um, I'm making a decision around a housing priority.

Let's go through this list and make sure that there are no unintended consequences that could negatively impact a certain community or constituency, like disproportionately this may impact this community.

So that is essentially how you would utilize this tool.

And just to add on to that, um I think that you guys could offer um a lot of help in creating that tool as well.

Like we'll we'll certainly bring a tool forward for you guys to react to, but um it wouldn't be like a final product, it would be something that you guys could help us look at, explore, see if it works.

You could try it on a policy that you're looking at as well, um, and just help us make it better.

I'm really excited about the disability community liaison position.

Can you give maybe one or two like concrete examples of tasks we would anticipate that uh position executing?

Sorry, could you repeat the last part of your question?

One or two concrete um tasks we anticipate that position executing.

Like I can look at the job duties description on the posting, but if you can just go, you know, one or two examples of what they might do.

Yeah, so um thanks for bringing that up, and I'll um sort of contrast this because one of the other positions that you saw on the priority list was the ADA coordinator, which is a little different from the disability community liaison.

So the ADA coordinator, not that you asked about this, but would be more focused on um what we refer to as a transition plan.

So it's like making sure that the city as an organization is adhering to um all of the requirements of the the actual ADA.

Um, and that is the Americans for Disabilities Act that was passed by the federal government.

Um the disability community liaison would be way more focused on less on like compliance and making sure that things are um going as they should, more focused on um community engagement and getting um folks within the disability community to participate in city projects, city planning, um, and getting their input, sort of being that middle person between the city and um the disability community.

And we saw we actually implemented this in the belonging imposement plan, um, and it was um very successful in helping us get great input from that community into the plan.

And so um one of the recommendations that our liaison for the disability community um recommended and had for us was creating this position in a more sustainable long-term way.

And so um one of the things that we've been talking about is um very low uh like hours in terms of per month, so something like 10 hours a month, in which they would be um emailing with contacts in that community, making sure that they're aware of things that they know that they care about that they would probably want to have a say in, um, facilitat helping to facilitate uh engagement or um get their feedback in some way so they might decide like oh I want to host a community chat up around this parking plan, um that just an example.

Um, but they could they could take a lot of different ways um to be that facilitator to get that input and then provide it to the city with the wrong answer.

No, it's perfect.

Hi.

I was wondering how often you're gonna touch peace with the belonging and postman focus group and if you plan on expanding it.

Oh, great question.

I think that yeah, I'd be curious what you think.

Um, but I had envisioned at least providing um at a minimum having like one to two meetings a year so that people can at least have updates on what's going on.

And that's not to say that like you would certainly be meeting with individual groups and partners within the plan on um a more regular cadence depending on what you guys are working on, but I'm curious if you had other thoughts.

Yeah, that was kind of a thought that I had as well.

Um, I'm envisioning that the outside group is gonna be more of a group that holds me accountable and also provides input and feedback on how we're moving forward with the plan, especially around um some of the more concrete outcomes and metrics that we have outlined within each recommendation.

So I'm envisioning a couple of times a year this group convenes and provides that for us.

Hi, uh thanks.

I would like to ask a little bit more about um the training of vendors who work with the city.

Um I guess the goal is to expand the number of people who have access to these opportunities.

Is the current interface quite complicated or like like how would you um is it an interface issue?

Is it an access to information issue?

Do you kind of have an idea of how this would play out?

And I guess I was wondering um it's it's great to try this goal of getting other vendors to help, you know.

But in some ways I can imagine that might be kind of a tricky thing to do in practice because these are people you potentially gonna be wanting to do the same work.

So I was just wanting to hear a little bit more about that.

Yeah, yeah, it's a great question.

And I've been thinking about this a lot myself as to why we don't see more local folks applying to our RFPs, and um that goes for both like locally in Bozeman, there's folks that I know that um who do very aligned work who simply don't apply, and then others um in the state who I know who don't apply.

And I'm not entirely sure myself what that barrier might be.

Um I I suspect that even just doing some promotions of like this is how easy it can be, and this is how you get signed up for e-notification so that you can get notificated notified of our RFPs, and it's really not that hard of a process.

Um, I think just doing this training could really help increase awareness.

Um, I don't think that there's necessarily like a ton of barriers from the city and um when you're applying, I think it's more like I if I had to guess it would be more on the awareness and um you know creating accounts to apply with the city.

Um but yeah, I sorry I don't have more information.

No, that's great.

I was just getting an idea of what's working about.

Yes, the goal certainly is to um be working more with our local community and having people who have experience and want to launch their business locally and get more funding from local government and be able to sort of grow grow their resume.

Um, this really gets at that too.

Okay, thanks.

And I guess I could just ask again, and perhaps this isn't the right uh you might not be able to hop inspections, I mean, do we um do you have data on kind of for each RFP, like how many vendors actually kind of apply is it is the median like one, and it's just they get the contract like kind of type of thing.

I I don't have that data at my fingertips, but I do know that it's not uncommon for us to only have a couple of applicants, and um more often than not, I feel like we have put out an RFP and um just haven't gotten very many good applicants.

Thanks.

Um Mr.

Jones uh kind of took my question, but I've got a follow-up related to the ADA coordinator and the disability community liaison.

I think it's great that we're doing that work.

I'm curious um how partnerships with organizations serving those communities are are playing into the the strategy about um growing that capacity with the city.

I don't know.

So I will try to answer your question.

Let me know if you want to phrase it a different way or if I don't get at it.

Ever since the approval of this plan, they have like that, those relationships have just grown over time.

Especially during budget time.

But there has been an interest from our partners in seeing those positions.

And I know they have asked about them regularly.

Sweet.

Thanks.

And mine's probably similar to yours as well when it comes to partnerships.

So you mentioned that when it comes to conducting training for vendors and community.

And in many cases, you only get a few.

How are we creating awareness?

Do you have a plan for that?

What kind of partnerships, perhaps, small business chambers and things like that may be able to help.

But what kind of partnerships have you explored in the past?

Yeah.

We haven't done a ton of work on this one, to be honest.

So I think that's this is one where we could also use your guys' feedback on like, oh, we should do it this way, or like consider this and talking to this person.

So whatever thoughts that you guys want to maybe that can sort of tee you up for some comments.

But whatever you want to share, I think would be great.

As I think about this priority, I think about like methods of communication for how people can apply.

But also like the RFP itself, and if it's written clearly and if there are ways that we can improve the RFP creation process that get more people interested and involved.

And then yeah, like building on relationships with the chamber and Prospera and other groups that have connections to people who are just trying to get started in some of these spaces and making sure that those folks are aware and starting workshops for and trainings for folks.

Thank you.

Any additional questions?

I'm guessing that staff's pretty much at capacity, so I'm just wondering, is there any room to add anything else?

Or is this kind of another, and that's even a lot for two years just to get a gauge of staff capacity.

Yeah, yeah, it is a lot, I think.

Um Courtney is a planner, since she has um kind of a year by year that you've started to build out in terms of what you plan on tackling.

Um I would be curious what your thoughts are.

Um I guess you're asking about what is in the plan now and if there's room to add more to the plan, is that what you're asking?

Not to the plan, to the kind of things we would hope to prioritize.

Okay.

Um I think, yeah, for the whole belonging involvement plan, I'm prioritizing all of the things that are like priority one and in process slash ongoing and updating a lot of things.

So as far as your like work plan, I think I'll leave it to you all to decide what you would like to prioritize.

But um those things are kind of that are already in the works.

I'm kind of already really really committed to getting those things followed through upon this year.

So I think as a follow-up on that, um, Courtney, I'm stoked to see you in the in this position.

Um I'm not sure how long you've been in the position.

It sounds like it's pretty fresh.

Um, but I'm curious as you're as you're mapping it out as you guys are working together.

Um what success in year one looks like.

If there are any like kind of key goals or objectives that that you're targeting for your first year in the position.

Yeah, so um for me, success would look like making sure that our equity indicators dashboard is updated through the end of the year.

I know that some of the data is a little out of date.

And then as far as like I said, the actual recommendations within the plan, prioritizing those things that are priority one within each of the issue areas and the things that are already in process, making sure that people are aware that these things are actually happening and updating that on our website and through communication channels.

Any other questions?

Okay, we're good for questions.

Do we have any discussion about the belonging in Bozeman work plan that we want to talk about?

I guess just to put it on the record of what my wish list would be.

I know that's probably none of this is doable in the next two years, but just to kind of um lift up some of the goals that I saw in there.

Um I really like the general vision of living wage jobs and community spaces.

I know there was some conversations about a library potentially at West, so um, those would be um interesting ways to elevate those ones.

Um goal six of community safety and civic health, talked about know your rights um and bystander intervention trainings, which would be I think really relevant for workers and immigration that that we've seen.

Um goal three of community resilience.

Um talked about an equitable uh urban tree canopy, and so that's more maybe urban parks, but that's something to keep an eye on that there was an equity component to that in certain neighborhoods are losing a lot more trees than others.

Um I think goal four of housing, um talked about landlord education about how to accept housing choice vouchers.

Um I know that the valley we've lost a housing choice vouchers over the last decade.

Um, while the nation has increased, so maybe that would be something in the housing plan that could potentially be a priority in the next couple years, um, just to see if we can maintain a voucher rate.

And um I guess also given that this plan was um established as a response to the murder of George Florin in 2020.

Um I think if there's any conversation about adding a mill levy um to for public safety or for police staffing, that conversation would be good to have either in this board or just the wider community.

Um there's been some ongoing public comments about police accountability.

Um so having that conversation as community would be good, I think to do.

And yeah, I'll just leave it at that, I guess.

Thank you.

Any other discussion by anyone on the board?

No.

Okay.

Well, I'm just gonna let people know how they can get public comment once again.

We do ask that you please state your name, state if you're resident of a city, please state if you're a property owner, and please limit your comments to three minutes.

Do we have any public comment in regards to the 2026-2027 economic vitality work plan?

Do we have any public comments online?

I show no public comments online, Chair.

All right, thank you so much.

Well, we do have some motion language that is before us.

They are asking for us to um make a motion to approve the work plan.

So we will need someone to make a motion to that effect.

Uh I move to approve the belonging Bozeman elements of the 2026-2027 economic vitality board work plan.

Is there a second?

A second.

All right.

Any unreadiness?

All right, Brent, we're gonna go ahead and call for the question, please.

Okay.

So Mike.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Uh Andrew.

Yes.

I'm sorry, who's the seconder?

I didn't see the second.

Okay, Al.

Yes.

Uh Kelsey.

Uh proved.

Yes.

Uh Natsuki.

Uh yes.

Danielle.

Yes.

And Nathan?

Yes.

And Daisy.

Yes.

All right, motion.

Passes unanimously.

Thank you.

Motion carries.

Thank you so much for your work and for being here today.

I also just wanted to say thank you for the historical narrative that you collected and put with the this uh work plan.

It was just beautifully written.

And I could definitely tell that you put a lot of thought and effort, and I hope that it's widely distributed.

I think that it's so important for people to know the history uh Bozeman, the diversity that's always been here, and to have a historical account of that was amazing.

So thank you for that.

I really really appreciated that work.

Thank you.

Kudos to Extreme History Project Project for that.

Thank you.

Thank you for being here again.

All right, Brent, are you ready?

I'm ready.

I'm going to move out from behind these computer screens for my part.

Okay.

All right.

Well, good evening, Chair and Commissioner, our board of uh economic vitality board members, excuse me.

Um tonight we're going to follow up on your decision, your adoption last month of the economic vitality uh portion of the work plan.

Um tonight you adopted the belonging embossement portion.

We're not going to be presenting a public art portion.

We don't have anyone, any staff person working on that right now.

So we're going to go back to um to the adopted portion of the economic vitality and housing work plan for the next two years, and the discussion really revolves around where does the economic vitality board want to be involved in some of these projects.

Um so I'm just gonna move to that now.

So I'm not sure if I can get them all in one screen, but I'm gonna I'm gonna try.

Flop around a little bit.

Okay.

So this is the memo that I sent out to you guys earlier in the packet.

So I can get, you know, some of them on the screen for for economic development, and then I we will see all of them for housing.

So tonight's discussion amongst the board is about where on this two-year work plan would you like to be involved.

I'd just like to make a few comments about um some sort of some sideboards uh for for the work that that you see in front of you.

So this two-year work plan is aspirational, and it is also dependent upon an approved budget.

Um we have plenty of aspiration, but we don't yet have an approved budget.

And so um just be mindful that some of these items in our economic vitality work plan uh include larger ticket items like uh uh 2023 economic vitality strategy update, for example, um, which is about a hundred thousand dollar investment, but we we have not had an improved budget.

So I just want you to be mindful of some of the things that that are um that have uh budgetary implications, and we'll have to see how that plays out over the course of the deliberations by the city commission.

But with that in mind, um I'd like to just start by with our first year and um and just you know, sort of and share, you can facilitate the conversation obviously about how the board would like to be involved in some of these projects, um, where their interests lie, where their expertise lie, and and how they can be how they can be um supportive of this work.

Thank you so much.

Yes, we have such uh a wide array of expert expertise uh on this board, which I'm really really excited about.

And Brett has asked us to um kind of talk about how we as a board would like to talk about some of these um items that he has for year one and year two.

And so there's a myriad amount of uh things that we can uh talk about and I'm thinking that for the next three to four months, we will spend some time hopefully delving into this.

Uh we have a lot of people that have some experience in economics.

So I'm excited about that.

And um I think Brett, were you thinking that we as a committee would just go ahead and and talk about these things as an agenda item in the next couple months, or what were you thinking in terms of time frame?

Let's see.

So much of the work that you see on the year one work plan is already underway.

And so, for example, traded sector business development, workforce development, child care, the work of the innovation campus, the data gathering market update.

Those are pro those some of those are work products that we do on a yearly basis.

Um of the work is just ongoing uh from a planning perspective.

Um the child care work is also in our proposed budget uh that is yet to be adopted, as I mentioned earlier.

And so much of the work that you see here is um either at some level of underway.

Um given our staff levels at the moment, with we have three staff members to provide service to all these different areas, uh, both in housing, urban renewal, which isn't even a part of this discussion, and um our economic vitality work.

So this work just continues.

What we just need to be mindful of is what what our staff capacity is, what the budget implications are, and um and where your areas of interest lie.

And so for example, I'm just going to use this as a quick example because I know we have a few economists on our on our board, which I'm very grateful for.

Um perhaps there's some interest in the market update.

That's a yearly effort that we um that we do to try to demonstrate what the market conditions are for our community in a variety of different areas.

Well, maybe there are areas that we're not thinking about, for example.

Maybe there are some things that uh you would like to see from your own experience that you'd like to see in that report that we haven't thought of.

Um so using that as an example, you know, maybe there's some interest in helping us select our um consultant for the for that work, um, perhaps based on your experience.

Maybe there's interest in the um helping us on the child care side when we when we move forward working with get Greater Gallanton United way on the portal.

So I guess what I'm suggesting is we're open to having board involvement at any level.

Um but we have to recognize, first of all, you meet once a month uh as a bo as a body.

Uh and so that is limiting in and of itself.

Um, we're several months into the new year already, and so as I mentioned, some work's underway.

And so I I'm just trying to get an interest in, I'm sorry, I'm trying to get a sense of what where your interests lie because uh we feel like if you're not engaged in some of the activities of our work, then you'll lose interest in in being on this board.

And so we don't want that to happen.

So we we just wanted to have an open dialogue about where on our list do you see yourself having input and how can we ensure that we make that happen.

Yeah, I think it's a wonderful opportunity.

This is definitely a different opportunity than we've had before.

And these are all areas that we definitely want to make sure that our opinions are considered.

So maybe we just go down the line and see of these.

Do any of you have any interest in providing some help?

We're still figuring out what that would look like.

Uh it could be a myriad of things.

And Brett, I don't know if you have uh for year one.

Any do you have any ideas of which is most important?

Or have you numbered them?

No, I purposely pardon me.

Yes, go ahead.

I'm sorry to interrupt.

Uh Chair, I have not there in there in no order of of importance or priority.

Um there are some items on here, as I mentioned, that are somewhat aspirational because given our staffing, we have to oftentimes we are all working on housing.

That is that is our that is our commission priority, that is our departmental priority, it is our organizational priority.

And so consequently, we have to pull everyone together to work on those things.

So we haven't really done traded sector or workforce development in a few years, you know, any with any kind of real effort because we've all been putting effort into these other areas um on our work plan.

So as we we but we have a new staff member, Brian Geyer, who who is our uh new manager, and he is already hit the ground running and is adding enormous amount of capacity to our to our team, and that's we're grateful for that.

So maybe we'll be able to get back to traded sector business development or workforce development.

In the workforce development side, we're really focusing on quantum, quantum computing, and what MSU is doing through um Susie Taylor there uh trying to build a quantum workforce.

Um that is a really important part of our future, and we think that uh you have to start early with quantum literacy in order to kind of get that, get people interested and aware of what that even means.

And I'm still learning.

Um so for example, that's one example.

The traded sector business development, that's really about uh supporting businesses that are bringing new money into our community.

Um oftentimes local.

We only we don't recruit businesses, so we focus on supporting local businesses who have an outsized economic impact on bringing new dollars, new jobs to grow our economy.

So that might be uh but that's sort of a day-to-day thing.

We do that every day.

That's table stakes for for our for our office.

Um so I'm gonna stop because I could go on, but I think you guys get a flavor of what we're trying to accomplish.

We're trying to engage you.

We're trying to find out where your areas of interest are, and then we'd like to um involve you in that work.

Do any of you have any questions or does anything kind of look interesting to you?

Yeah, okay.

Two things.

Um, I think to the extent that workforce development overlaps with that disability community liaison.

I would love to hear an update from them, maybe six months after they place someone on um ways that the city can support that position and and any outcomes it's had.

I've always just suspected that there's huge untapped potential that we have a barrier to access when it comes to people and with disabilities who are being entrepreneurs or working.

And I think the pandemic proved to us that we actually can make really significant technological changes to the workforce that can be hugely enabling to get those people involved.

And in terms of data gathering, I recall when we had a presentation on equal pay last year.

And yeah, I'd be interested in seeing that.

All right.

Thank you.

I think I think we have such an affordable issue here for our essential workers.

So to me, like we need to make sure that our essential workers can work here before we think about these higher paid jobs.

Like, can we make our essential workers higher paid?

But I don't think it's I think you already have your direct.

This is your work plan, and so you already have your direction from the city.

So I'm not saying I don't think it's appropriate for me to say not to work on that.

Um, but so given that I would say I'm interested in the economic vitality strategy update so we can have that conversation about what does a traded sector look like in light of some of the comments about the MSU Innovation Campus.

What does that do to our community, the vitality book community when we say traded sector?

So I would like to have that conversation, and I think that maybe the appropriate vessel for us is to do it in the economic vitality strategy update.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Um and I would love to see perhaps exploring how the traded sector business development side and the workforce development side can be integrated.

Because if we want to be creating jobs for Bozeman kids and Bozeman folks right now, the more we can be simultaneously thinking about how do we build up and draw in these uh traded sector businesses at the same time as how do we prepare uh Bozeman folks and Bozeman students to step into those higher paying jobs so that it really creates opportunity for people here in the community.

Thank you.

That's good.

At the risk of just chiming in on everything on this list, which I think would not be very helpful to you guys.

Um it would be great to continue to get updates on what's happening with child care.

Okay.

Um we we got I think two really great presentations on on that issue last year.

You know, we've we're we're learning that that that child care is kind of starting to eclipse housing as one of the largest costs that families face.

And you know, to Kelsey's point, we want to um you know create jobs in Bozeman that allow those and Bozemanites to be part of this community and thrive.

And um, you know, the same goes for for young families that are trying to lay down roots here.

So we'd love to stay apprised on progress there.

Thank you.

That's that's great.

We'll do that.

I would like to be involved in your trade at sector business development.

Okay.

Uh however that looks like I'm curious.

Okay.

Well, yeah, that's great.

Um maybe you and I can talk about that offline and we can talk through that.

Okay.

Um yeah, I guess from from my side, uh I think uh as I guess you mentioned as kind of research is up on campus, we really like to kind of think that like data drives a lot of decision making.

So I think um I would say like the intersection of how the data gathering interacts with all the other elements.

I think uh perhaps the committee could be, you know, um look and hear from the people who involved in this date in the data gathering processes before they kind of take place, perhaps if we had feedback as to wait like certain variables or certain things that we would like to see that might help us make better decisions with more with you know better data.

So I mean, potentially that might not be of interest to it to everyone.

I recognize not everyone loves uh data that from my side.

I think that could be an avenue for thank you for that.

That aligns nicely with with how I think we were thinking of it.

And then you'll see when Brian um comes up and talks about the housing.

There's also some data updates in that space that I think we could use some support on as well.

I want you guys to be able to see the other portion of the I mean it it kind of does go it overlaps to it to a large degree.

And I would love to help with uh child care.

I worked with children for over 14 years and have overseen um child care before.

So I would love to help really think about how we can get more affordable child care and also see if we could provide child care for meetings for the city commission.

Um I think that would be a wonderful step.

I think a lot of people would actually consider serving if they knew that there is child care availability or a stipend for child care for city commissioners.

I would love to see that developed.

And even for advisory boards for us to start considering that, uh, especially because we meet at 6 o'clock and people are just getting off work.

And uh I've really been thinking about how we can expand and create a more equitable experience for people and get a more wider range of opinions.

And I think having child care uh would be just instrumental in that.

So I would love to have a discussion about that and help with that.

Fantastic.

Um while we're on child care, uh it's great to hear uh the interest in that in that um in that work.

It's it's fundamental to economic development.

So I'm glad to hear that that this board sees the value in that work.

At the moment, all the city is doing is supporting Greater Gallagher and United Way in their work um on child care.

And Torres Brols has um presented recently to the City Commission about the portal that we've that that they and we have all kind of collectively put together, and that has been our to date has been our effort at providing really just providing a platform where for the first time parents can can see um what's out there in one glance availability, uh location, um licensure, and a variety of of other bits of data.

So as that evolves and develops, um I would love some input from from all of you.

So thank you.

Well, did it has everyone commented, I think, right?

Did everyone comment it?

Okay.

Well, I think I have a really good sense of of where your interests lie and what in some of the areas that you would like to like to be involved in.

And of course, belonging in Bozeman, there's other areas where you'll be involved in, and as Brian will will talk about now in the housing space, there will be plenty of opportunity uh for this body to be involved.

So I'm just gonna pull up housing now if you're ready to transition to to that.

Okay.

So I'd uh introduce Brian Geyer up to the to the podium.

Thanks, Brian.

Hello everybody.

Uh Brian Geyer, I'm the uh community housing manager here at uh the city of Bozeman.

Uh yeah, these are my this has uh sort of our two-year housing plan.

Um a lot of these things you can see are kind of off and running last night.

Uh the city adopted the cash and loo provision, which was really just the output of the affordable housing ordinance, and so it was mostly just adopting a um a calculation effectively.

Uh that so that piece is sort of already underway.

Um I think you know, for the purposes of this group, um, there is a lot of work to be done around the community development block grant.

And so I'll kind of give you a little bit of background on that.

Um Bozeman eclipsed the 50,000 person threshold in the most recent census, it became what is known as an entitlement community, which means that the federal government, rather than sending funds to the state of Montana, which then a city like Bozeman could apply for through the city of Montana.

Funds now flow directly from HUD to the city of Bozeman.

And so uh this is sort of a first-time thing for us.

And uh the community development block grant is under my purview.

And um there are there's a lot of structure that needs to be created around the grant to really effectively utilize these funds and make sure that they are being distributed out to the community in the most effective way possible.

Um as you can imagine, federal funds frequently come with a lot of strings attached.

And so I'm still sorting out uh precisely uh how many strings there are, and to kind of give you an idea.

There is a um I was telling Chairperson Rogers that uh there is a timeliness requirement, for example, with our uh CDBG funds, which means we can never have more than a year and a half worth of funding in-house.

And really, this is just an intent on the federal government's part to get these dollars out into the community as fast as possible to get them and serve the people that are intended to be served by CDBG, which is uh low and moderate income folks.

Um we have a pretty tight uh timeline on our first project out of the gate, which is uh the family promise water connection.

And I think it's pretty illustrative of just how complex uh these dollars can be.

Um initially came up with a plan for utilizing these funds.

We have a deadline of August 1st to use about 150,000 worth of these uh funds in order to stay in compliance with the CDBG uh timeliness uh guidelines.

Um original kind of thought was to uh connect family promise uh what to water and sewer so that they can fully utilize their transitional housing facility.

Uh the transitional housing uh facility at Family Promise Runs serves families who, but for the transitional housing would be unhoused.

And so we started to go down that road, and it became apparent to us uh again, this is the first time out of the gate using these dollars, that there were uh it was a little more complicated than we might have first uh originally uh thought.

And so we had to really scale uh our effort back a little bit because of all of the guidelines that surround these dollars.

So uh our first kind of usage of these dollars uh will be to run a water line directly to uh the family promise facility so that they are connected to city water, and this sort of um uh sets the stage for uh the city of Bozeman then to connect uh the sewer uh to the family promise facility so they can they have three units, three transitional housing units right now that they can't actually use because they don't have the water and sewer capacity to use those three facilities.

Also, they have plans to expand their operation and they can't do that without being on city water and sewer.

Um again uh naivete being what it is, uh we thought we could connect water and sewer.

The the easiest plan was to just kind of connect to the infrastructure of the business park that sort of exists around the uh current family promise facility.

Um you can't do that.

Uh there's a proportionality requirement as well with the CDBG grant, which means that you have to be uh serving low and moderate income individuals in proportion to the dollars that are that are spent.

So we couldn't simply connect uh the business part to water and sewer and then um have that benefit family promise because that would have triggered the proportionality requirements for the CDBG grant.

And as you can imagine, the business park wasn't necessarily 100% low and moderate income individuals.

It was actually a pretty small portion of people uh in that business park who are low and moderate income individuals.

And so we had to pair back our uh project so that we could stay within the guidelines of CDBG.

Um the good news is that we are moving forward with that project.

That water line will uh we we were putting out an RFQ for that, and we we should uh be able to move forward with that late summer uh this year if all things go well.

Um that I think just illustrates the level of kind of complexity around the CDBG grant and and federal dollars in general.

So really the next step for the CDBG grant.

Um I want this to be more than uh a grant that comes from HUD and goes out to the community.

I think we can be more intentional about that.

And when you look at some of our peer communities, Missoula uh for example, they utilize these CDBG grants in really highly leveraged ways.

And I really would look to this committee to help create a structure around CDBG, a vision for how we're going to use these CDB CDBG dollars to benefit our community, what are our top priorities so that we can um align those priorities with the funding decisions when we make uh when we put out an RFQ to the community on, okay, we have these dollars that we have to spend by now.

Um, those funding decisions, I would love to tap into the skill set of this board to help make those funding decisions, review those applications, score uh proposals, and then advise on our priorities.

Obviously, that'll go to the uh commission, so it'll be recommendations, but really help to create the infrastructure around the CDBG grant that allows us to utilize it in a way that maximum that maximizes the benefit to the community.

Um there's also some components of CDBG that we want to explore.

For example, there is a section, it's called Section 108, is a loan portion of the CDBG grant, which actually allows you to loan out dollars at five times the uh amount of your grant.

And so last year our CDBG grant came in at about 350,000.

Uh using the Section 108 program, we could loan out five times that amount, which comes out to about 1.7 million.

And then you start to think about the things that you could do to benefit housing infrastructure with 1.7 million dollars.

That's a that's a lot more.

Those are highly leveraged dollars at that point.

But to get to the point where you can utilize Section 108, you've got to create a committee structure, and you've got to create funding guidelines, and you've got to create sort of an internal city of Bozeman policy on how are we going to utilize CDBG.

And so I really do think this committee is well situated, the expertise is here to create that infrastructure around CDBG.

So as a community, we can uh really maximize the benefit of the grant.

Um like I said, I just don't want to be in a position where we are simply taking funds from HUD and pumping them right back out into the community without being very deliberate about it.

So I think that there's some meat there for this committee to really help create that sort of that vision, some of the guidelines, some of our top priorities, how do we want to utilize CDBG and then make recommendations on how we want to use those funds?

So I would um that's something that I would really appreciate the help of the EV board and helping to uh to outline for for the city of Bozeman.

Um year two, as I mentioned, uh the there's a housing needs assessment update.

I could really use some assistance in sort of putting that um uh out to the uh to the broader community, creating an RFQ, scoring those uh proposals and and and deciding what uh consulting firm we want to utilize for the housing needs assessment.

That'll be uh next year.

Um there's also an affordable housing ordinance for sale provision, which is something that was discussed at the commission meeting last night.

We have a really um robust cash in lieu affordable housing uh ordinance that really deals well with the rental side of housing.

Uh it's it's kind of an ill-fitting suit on the for for sale side of housing.

And so I'd like to put some thought and some intention behind what does a for sale provision look like?

What do we want to prioritize?

Be it the actual building of units or a payment of a cash in lieu, kind of what line do we want to walk on that?

I think there's uh a lot of assistance that we could utilize uh again the expertise of this board to kind of iron out what that for sale provision looks like.

So those are some of uh my priorities.

That's how I see uh this group kind of fitting in.

And yeah, happy to take any questions that you guys have.

Hi, thanks.

Uh yeah, I guess I'm uh I'm uh interested in the C D BG uh stuff.

Um I guess I'm first wondering kind of the internal process that you go through and you trying to decide how to spend that how to spend those dollars, and then how would you envision the board kind of helping with that?

Is it the type of thing where you said three different ideas and then you came to the board and you were like, okay, what is your input on these three ideas, or is it more like here's you know, because I'm it's kind of a tricky thing, obviously, when you kind of we don't meet that often, like, or is it more gonna be like here's our like final proposal?

Do you have any kind of edges around this to think about?

So to kind of again give you a little more context.

I sort of inherited uh a few months into this job, so I I sort of inherited this this initial project, and really um the motivating factor behind this first project was A, I hate the thought of family promise having units for tran for families in need of transitional housing and them not being able to use it.

That is the world I come from, that is unacceptable to me.

So that was that's our driving force on this first project.

Um, but I I'll be honest with you.

The other factor is we have to get these dollars out the door by August 1st.

And the process of finding engineers, finding a construction, like finding all those things takes several months.

And so we are really up against it with this.

And so we kind of had to move forward with this initial project without sort of some of the supports, some of the structures that I would like in place for future decisions.

You can use it in a whole lot of ways.

And uh I was mentioning to Chair Rogers before this meeting, there's gonna be some education that's necessary because this is it is a complicated program.

Um so I want to I want to educate this group so that you can help me sort of create and refine some of those goals for CDBG so we don't find ourselves in a position where, man, we got another deadline coming up and we've got to get these dollars out the door.

What's a what's a shovel ready project that I can spend money on so that I don't uh run afoul of this timeliness guideline.

I'd like to be a little more deliberate about that and really kind of put in place a structure where we can solicit um uh we can solicit proposals from the community that meet some of those larger goals that this this uh committee would sort of define, solicit those and and do and and sort of put a little more intention behind the the usage of these dollars.

And that's where I would kind of see you guys chiming in and saying, okay, this is what we think the top three priorities for C D BG should be, um, be it transitional housing, be it housing infrastructure.

Um and and again, that'll take some education.

Uh, we'll probably use some of the lean summer months for this board to take a little time to do a uh C D BG 101 session.

I apologize in advance.

It's it's pretty dry material, but uh it's something that I I will need you guys to be educated on so that we we can really utilize these dollars because these dollars can be transformative.

Um, you know, for example, uh in Missoula, there was a a LITEC project that had a pretty significant funding gap.

They were able to utilize CDBG dollars to put in some of the infrastructure, water, sewer, et cetera, and that got that project over the finish line.

And so if we can insert CDBG into some of those housing projects, you can't use CDBG for vertical construction, but you can use it for infrastructure, and that might be the place where this commit this committee says that's a priority of ours, getting those projects over the finish line.

Let's see what that really looks like.

And so that's kind of where I would see uh this this committee engaging with uh CDBG.

Thank you.

Any other questions?

Um slightly more of a comment, but in that process of being able to support you as best we can for the CDBG, that is something I'm quite excited about.

One of the things that will be helpful, especially for those of us where my expertise is in policy design, uh, but it's not necessarily in peer housing policy.

So the more you can present us what are some of the menu of options, what are some of the things that other places are doing, and let us then use that to build these criteria.

I think that's gonna be a really useful thing for us to have in uh this process.

Yeah, that's that's the kind of feedback that I'm looking for.

Really um, my expertise, I I do have familiarity with funding with federal funding dollars, but really I I want to lean on this committee.

I I know you guys are are experts in your are in your uh respective fields, and I want to use the talent that's on this this committee to create a structure that allows us to really uh build this program out because it can be like I mentioned, it's this is this can be a transformative uh program and really get a lot of projects over the finish line.

And so, yes, uh we will again I have an eight-one deadline for the current project.

And once that project is sort of off and running, and I can give it to our engineering and public works department to kind of finish that actual, I will have a lot more bandwidth to come in front of you, say, here's how peer communities are utilizing CDBG, here's some of their like structure that they have uh associated with C D BG, here's kind of my recommendation for what we're gonna do, and that that would be kind of the next step, and then obviously educating you on on the ins and outs of C D BGs.

So I I do hope to take some of your time in the spring and summer uh to do some uh education sessions.

Great, looking forward to it.

Yeah, would you be able to provide any update on the Fowler Housing Project?

Would you be able to provide any update on the Fowler Housing Project?

I know that the city commission had mentioned hoping to kind of have an good idea by the end of March.

So I was wondering if you had any update on what that might look like or if it might be a good idea.

Yeah, board.

Yeah, uh the Fowler Housing Project is moving forward.

We are um in the midst of our consensus building uh effort.

In fact, we had uh three one-on-one meetings uh today, gathering feedback from people in the world of construction, which was uh very informative.

Uh we also had two meetings with folks.

We've had a really challenging time finding um prospective homeowners to come in and chat with us about housing uh for an hour.

That's a hard um that's a hard sell because they may not actually be able to avail themselves of this housing because it's probably at least two years out before these the these go vertical.

And so to ask somebody to come in, talk about their challenges in the housing market, what they're looking for as a potential homeowner, what are some of the barriers to homeownership that they're experiencing to gather that feedback uh but also say this doesn't really put you at the front of the line for the Fowler Housing Project is kind of a tough sell.

So we've been having a hard time identifying those folks.

Um fortunately this week we were able to uh to find several people who were willing to just kind of volunteer their time and have a conversation about you know what has kept them out of the housing market, what are the barriers, and and that has been really um I don't want to speak for David as well.

But the uh we've come out of those one-on-one sessions.

Um sometimes, you know, it's just been so illuminating to hear um the difference in perspective that a current homeowner has versus a prospective homeowner.

And that is exactly the sort of feedback that this consensus project or this consensus process was designed to elicit.

And so we're coming away with a much firmer understanding of what do those prospective homeowners, what are they looking for, you know, in terms of design in terms of location, um access to amenities, et cetera.

And um it has been an absolutely worthwhile effort to take a step back from you know the bricks and sticks of the Fowler project and really take a pause and say let's gather the feedback that allows us to create uh a project that really meets the needs of the community.

And I think that this pause and this effort to build consensus is getting us there.

The next step will be some group discussions where we bring people together with maybe some contrasting views on what what housing should look like on that Fowler property, and then from there, uh part three will be some design charrettez where we have uh professionals in the industry, architects, uh construction teams uh sitting in rooms alongside prospective home buyers and current homeowners uh talking about you know how can we all come to a consensus on a project design that really does meet the needs of the community.

It's something that people can be proud of.

It's something that we, as the city of Bozeman can point to as this is success in housing.

This is what successful housing looks like.

And so while it is a long process, I think it's absolutely worthwhile to go through the effort of building uh consensus around it.

Um that's kind of where we're at.

Um we are wrapping up phase one of consensus if it to be a little more concise.

We're wrapping up phase one and about to go into phase two.

Cool.

And do you need or want any input from this board?

Do you see that coming from?

On that project is pretty uh the effort on that is pretty outlined.

I think I don't at the moment see a space for this committee aside from I I know a few of you have been interviewed in one-on-one sessions for consensus, and I would certainly think that a few of you uh would be involved in the group sessions and design charettes.

Um, but I don't think a more formal role for the EV board really exists at this moment.

That is not to say down the road, once we get through the consensus piece um that there might be some space for um you know running some uh designs or things by you and and kind of having discussions about what those what the product actually looks like.

But as of right now, I don't see a lot of space for EV board on Fowler.

Yep.

Thanks, Brian.

I'm curious with C D BG and the Family Promise project if the proportionality rule prevented you guys from spending the amount of money that we wanted to spend.

And if so, like how much?

Yeah, yeah, that's a great question.

So the interesting thing is the proportionality rule actually would have minimize the amount of dollars that we could spend on the project because it would have had to be proportional to the number of low and moderate income folks who were utilizing the business park.

And so that wouldn't that amount of money was so insignificant it wouldn't have even gotten us close to meeting the timeliness requirement.

So it also would have opened the door to what's called a substantial amendment.

Um you've probably worked with uh federal funds enough.

Uh a substantial amendment in the eyes of HUD is a six-month process with uh a significant number of public meetings, public notices.

It really would have delayed the process so far that we would have missed our guideline, our deadline.

Um scaling that project back and focusing mainly only on the water line to Family Promise actually allowed us to use a larger portion of our funds uh for the project because 100% of the folks at Family Promise are LMI.

And so it was actually uh a pretty uh smart strategic decision that we pulled that process back, uh scaled back the project, and the scope of the project is now just waterline to family promise, and that allows us to use uh the full amount of funding that we need to use to meet our timeliness deadline.

So Chairman, I'm gonna add in detail.

Thank you, Brian.

I just wanted the board to know that we're also as part of this Fowler, excuse me, as part of this family promise, people start with that, right?

As part of the family promise work, um our goal in the housing uh team is to open up and unlock existing non-used non-used um units for family promise, and hopefully they can build more.

But there's an old other piece of this that is not our focus but is a critical path issue, which is annexation and zoning of that property.

So, and we you know, um if you know about annexation and zoning, it is a quite a long process.

It requires um a lot of uh buy-in by the property owners, in which case there are many in this little business genesis business park.

And so while we are while one right side of our brain is focused on getting the this water line built in order to serve family promise the way we've described, the left side of our brain has to also do this annexation and zoning piece.

And so um I'm only telling you that because it's a little bit more involved than just spending 150 grand on a water pipe.

Yep.

Thank you so much for coming today and sharing with us.

We look forward to seeing you.

I look forward to uh getting into the weeds about CDBG with all of you.

Sounds good, thank you.

All right, we will uh allow time for public comment.

We do ask for people to please state your name.

Please state if you're a resident of the city, please state if you're a property owner, and please limit your public comment to three minutes.

Uh Daniel Cardi, Bozeman resident, property owner since 1998 on 200 block of North Third.

I'm speaking tonight to comment on agenda item item F1, which includes a discussion of the EVB's interests and involvement in the economic development component of the EVB's work plan.

Specifically, I suggest the economic development component be renamed economic vitality because the EVB's founding resolution, 5329, is more about economic vitality and less about economic development.

By definition, economic vitality and economic development are not the same thing.

Economic vitality is a broader, more sustainable state of a thriving, resilient community, emphasizing diversity, quality of life, and long-term viability.

Economic vitality focuses on the overall well-being and vibrancy of a community.

Economic development is narrower and focuses on structural improvements, such as job creation, tax-based growth, and business attraction.

Economic development is the intentional process of growing and diversifying communities' economy.

Arguably, economic development is only one part of the more holistic concept of economic vitality.

Where is this all headed?

To paraphrase resolution 5329.

The purpose of the EVB is to cultivate policies that enhance the economic vitality of Bozeman and to make recommendations that promote a strong and diverse economy.

In resolution 5329, examples of economic vitality that should be part of the EVB's work plan are public art and the annual beautification awards.

Again, to paraphrase, paraphrase resolution 5029, 5329.

The economic vitality board with will advise the commission on policies related to the development and implementation of a public art program.

And the city recognizes public art as an indication of Bozman's economic and community vitality.

The board will also assist the city in conducting the city's annual beautification awards.

In conclusion, I ask again that the economic development component of the EVB's work plan be renamed economic vitality.

And I ask that public art and beautification awards be added to the 26-27 EVB's work plan.

Thank you.

Thank you so much, Mr.

Gardy.

We appreciate you staying and providing your public comment.

Thank you again.

All right.

Well, that was all for our discussion.

Before we adjourn, do we have any anything that you would like to share with the group?

Brad, do you have any other announcements you would like to share?

Anything upcoming?

I have one announcement that I'm very excited about to share with the board, which is that Jesse Di Tommaso will be back in the office on June, excuse me, on March 23rd.

I am super happy about that.

She's an integral part of our team, and she's been on maternity leave, uh, and we're happy that she has been.

But we're glad to see her here very soon.

Wonderful.

I'm glad to see her too.

And some of you haven't had an opportunity to meet her, but uh, we're glad that she will be coming back from maternity leave.

That's wonderful.

Anyone else have anything to add?

Yes, Commissioner Fisher.

I just have a couple quick little updates.

Um at last night's commission meeting, uh, we did two things that are relevant to this board.

First, we approved the 20 uh the commission's uh larger 2020 uh where are we at 26, 20, 26, 27 um uh priorities.

And there's several that will we'll find some uh there's a nexus here with this board.

One is to kind of advance Bozeman as a safe and welcoming place for all.

Um that's one of our big kind of top-line goals.

There's also uh you know um bridge the affordability gap.

And within that, there's there's a there's obviously a housing component, but there's also a jobs component and child care was definitely called out as a as a as a pro as a subpriority.

And then working with the school board and other partners to make sure Bozeman is a is an uh affordable and attractive place for families, I think is another place where your expertise will be helpful.

And then the other big action we did last night was we um you're going to have to make some more room on this on this dias because we added a um we invited ASMSU to um um not nominate uh an MSU student to serve on all of our big advisory, all of our advisory boards, our top five, and plus the um historic preservation board as an ex officio as a non-voting member.

So um they'll have a process to to nominate someone, the city commission will then um um approve it, they would join but not be a voting member for um you know participation discussion and so forth.

They would serve from November through to the following numbers.

So fall semester, spring semester, summer, and then and then either be renewed or you would have a new person.

Wonderful, that's exciting.

I think it's exciting.

It'll just bring some new fresh, some new voices in.

And it helps deepen that um MSU you know relationship, and and there's a lot of students, and there's a lot of issues I think that are um that they could they can bring some um insight on this as a city.

Definitely.

Well, thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you all.

Oh, yes, you have one other.

I just want the record to reflect that when you call for public comment, there was no public comment online.

Oh, thank you.

Sometimes I do forget to ask you if there's anyone online waiting for public comment.

All right, I want to think if oh, did you have something that you wanted to share?

Yes, please.

Um, just to finish up our discussion.

Um, it was great to hear from the economic development department, the housing um and the belonging Bozeman.

I do think it's a shame that public art is not part of our purview anymore, um, given that that was a founding piece of this board.

Um I do think economic vitality is different than economic development and public art is a piece of that.

So I know that staff doesn't have the capacity, but I hope that would come up as soon as it is available.

Um I do think that's an important part of our city.

Um and then for the beautification boards, which again is in our founding resolution.

Um I know that HPAB does really nice annual awards for some of the um renovations or new developments.

Um so maybe we could think about partnering with them, having a few beautification awards kind of um highlighted as well.

So maybe that's something, assuming that they usually do that in November, maybe that's something we can kind of also push, put some of it towards.

Thanks.

Thank you.

For some of our new board members, I haven't had an opportunity to get to know you, so I will be reaching out.

Hopefully, we can have lunch or coffee or whatever seems good to you.

So I will be reaching out.

Hopefully, we can get to know each other and connect.

And I can answer any questions, and if I can't answer them, I will point to Brett and ask you to ask him.

All right, thank you so much.

Thanks everyone.

This is really great work.

And um, I will call this meeting to adjournment then.

Do you want to do you want to take the uh the honors?

I know you just like to do it, though.

All right, meeting adjunctive.

So, yeah.

Yeah, so I put what we need.

Yes.

Isn't that very taste?

Yeah, I mean anything hold with money.

Yes.

Yes.

I don't know why I said it.

Oh, weird like that.