The Brookings City Council met on Tuesday, June 11, 2024, at 5:30 PM for a study session and 6:00 PM for the regular meeting. The study session focused on a proposal to transfer city funds from the Brookings Economic Development Corporation (BEDC) to the Brookings Community Child Care Collaborative (BCCC) to support child care. The regular meeting covered consent agenda items, public hearings, contracts, and resolutions. Key actions included approval of a real estate transfer for a national retailer, an amendment to a TIF district developer agreement, and several zoning and land use approvals.
Next Meeting: Study session June 25, 2024, 5:30 PM; Regular meeting June 25, 2024, 6:00 PM.
I call this meeting to order. Please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. Okay. Will the clerk please take attendance? All council members are present, Mr. Mayor. Thank you. Item three is approval agenda. Entertain a motion to approve the agenda. So moved. Second. Please call the roll. Hi, Neemeyer. Hi. Rasmussen. Specker. Hi. Tilton Byrne. Hi. Wendell. Hi. Avery. All right. All right. Item four, community child care collaborative efforts. Presentation and recommendation recommendation to transfer city funds from the Brookings Economic Development Corporation to the Brookings Community Child Care Collaborative to support child care. Presenting this item will be Senator Tim Reed, also known as the director of the Brookings Economic Development. CEO and Boys Girl Club of the Northern Plains. She's the executive director for our local boys and girls club, the facility that you have here. Talk about the uh initiatives itself and the values that it brings to the or the values that the support organizations partnerships together bring. And then we'll talk a little bit about the timeline, what we have going on there. And then we'll talk more about the partnerships. And that's the value or the assets that the collaboratives, two primary partners bring to the table. This started with a 2019 workforce survey report that reported how the child care crisis was impacting businesses. The Brookings Child Care Survey was then done in 2020, and that identified the current care services that are available. This led to the formation of the Brookings Early Care and Education Collaboratives, sometimes referred to as a BECEC, to guide the efforts in determining actual child care needs and shortages, and then it also put together the supply plan, and that supply plan identified the need for 495 zero to five-year-old slots in Brookings specifically. And that's over 900 child care slots that were needed in the county. At that time, Brookings City Council set aside $580,000 for child care capacity expansion opportunities. The following year, BDC proposed an 80-slot child care facility that included renovating an existing business space and establishing an unidentified entrepreneur to manage the care facility. It was also during this time the Brookings School District initiated plans to include early learning classrooms to the elementary school building projects. It was during this time the Brookings Child Care Collaborative formed in the early fall of 2023 to explore solutions that can leverage our community's unique opportunities. Through continued conversations, the BCC identified a community-based solution where both the school district and the boys and girls club will offer continuous care. And we'll talk a little bit more about that. It's gonna be pretty important as we go through this. Continuous care for approximately 360 children in the zero to five-year-old range. That continuous care will be offered to parents from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. Specifically, the Boys and Girls Club of Brookings will add 130 zero to three child slots. And if you remember originally, we thought that we could do 80 child care slots, and so this does increase the capacity. So now we'll talk just a little bit about the objectives, and we're gonna get into more detail.