Record your attendance by pushing the appropriate button.

If you're not here, don't worry about pushing your button.

Charles.

All right.

Next up, we do have a quorum.

Next up is approval of minutes from the Tuesday, October 14th, 2025 meeting.

Any questions or comments?

Well, I guess we entertain a motion.

I'll make a motion to approve as presented.

So questions or comments on the minutes as presented.

If not, please record your vote on whether or not to approve the minutes.

Minutes are approved.

We'll move into new business.

Owned by Kevin and Tanya Lyles and the amount of $4,220 and 80 cents.

I'm sorry, make a motion to forward the full council.

Second.

Any questions or comments on this lien?

Because I mentioned it is a demolition that we did for building a house that burned and nothing was ever done to it.

Anything from anybody in in council chambers?

If not, um please record your vote on whether or not to forward the full council.

We'll move into pending items.

I have nothing under pending.

So moving to other business before Mr.

Young presents.

Do we have any other business from the committee?

All right, so we'll listen to the NAIDC report from Mr.

Mark Young from Jonesville Chamber of Commerce, Jonesville Unlimited, and various other entities.

Oh let's see if I can get this to work.

Okay, April, it is showing on my screen, but not there.

Do I need to do something different?

How's everybody doing?

Charles had his caffeine today.

Something.

Something.

Oh there we go.

Well, there we go.

That's not on my screen.

Still.

Oh, here we go.

Thank you.

Uh good afternoon.

It's great to see everybody and appreciate you taking the time to allow me to visit with you today about our economic development and our efforts from all of our economic development partners.

We'll talk a little bit about infrastructure, the importance of infrastructure.

This is the third quarter report that I'm providing.

I have a couple of slides from the second quarter as well that I think are important to mention.

And so this is one of those.

Back in the summer, we held a groundbreaking for a water line extension in the Craighead Technology Park South.

The Arkansas Economic Development Commission this past year had a pilot program that allocated 10 million dollars toward site development across the entire state.

We put together an application and were awarded two million dollars of that total 10 million dollars.

So we received a large portion of that.

We celebrated that particular day.

So 25 million dollars this coming year and then 25 million dollars the next.

We have are putting together an application for sewer service to this same piece of property, which the deadline for application is November 7th.

So we're about 90% complete with that particular project, and we'll be submitting that next week and looking forward to that.

The process has changed a little bit in that if we're a semifinalist, we'll know that in December, and then in February, I'm sorry, in January, there'll be a team of site developers, site location consultants that will actually come and look at the project, look at the site to determine whether or not it's one of the top projects in the state.

So we're looking forward to hopefully making the semifinalist list and then having them for a site visit in January.

So we'll keep you posted on the progress there, but very important for this particular piece of property and for the industrial park.

Part of the reason this is incredibly important.

When you look at our industrial park and you see all the companies that are already in the Craig A Technology Park, in large part, one of the reasons they're there is because of the infrastructure that we don't see.

We drive by it every day, and we don't see the water lines, sewer lines, electric lines that are there.

Having that capacity and quality of utility service sets us apart really from a lot of places across the state of Arkansas.

So we're developing that 612 acres to do the same, and really appreciate your continued support in our efforts to do that.

Also wanted to note the celebration at the Jonesboro Municipal Airport.

Having the new terminal, the grant from EDA of $5 million for a total of $6 million project is incredibly important.

Think all of us, when we think about economic development and economic growth, air service certainly has a role to play in that.

All of the infrastructure improvements, the strengthening of the runways, the new terminal, all of that goes to strengthen our economic development efforts in our community.

So I applaud you for all of your work in this particular effort, and we're encouraged, look forward to seeing that project through to completion.

This past year the legislature was in session, and there were about 12 different economic development pieces of legislation that were passed.

I'm not going to talk about all 12 of them today, so you don't have to sweat that.

But I do want to mention two of them that I think are extremely important.

One of them is Act 882, which is the modernization on automation incentive.

For years, the state of Arkansas used to have an incentive that would encourage existing businesses to continue to invest in modernization, and that incentive went away several years ago.

And so a group of people back this previous summer recommended that two summers ago recommended that that be looked at.

This was one of the bills that was passed, and so it will encourage our existing companies to modernize and automate where appropriate.

Our existing companies oftentimes compete within their own footprint or their own companies, if you will, for additional volume here in Jonesboro.

So this will help them do that and be more successful as we continue to move forward in the future.

The second project you've heard a little bit about, you'll hear a lot more about, and that is uh Senate joint resolution 15, which allows for economic development districts to be created in communities.

Um this will be actually on the ballot in November of 2026, so it's a constitutional amendment, so it will require the vote of the people.

So over the next year, you're gonna hear a lot more about this and its importance.

It allows communities to provide additional incentives and provide some additional support to economic development projects, which we think is critical.

Similar to a program that's in Texas right now, this will increase competitiveness across the state of Arkansas and give another tool to communities like ours to be successful, and we're encouraged by that.

We hope to have a couple of different occasions to bring in some folks to talk about this measure and we'll coordinate with you all to be part of that so that we all better understand what the capability and the capacity of Senate joint resolution 15 will be and how we can benefit from it.

Initiated by one of our existing industries, we're having conversations with the city right now about continuing jet service expansion to Craighead Technology Park.

Um one of the challenges that we face out there is that we did a study not that long ago, and there are 37 different start and stop times.

So to coordinate and make sure that we have the right schedules, et cetera, is a challenge, but we're working with staff of the city to evaluate that and see what's possible.

Anything that we can do as a community to remove barriers for work is a good thing.

Having that service to the industrial park, we think will be very positive for the companies that are out there.

So we're going to continue to look at that and work with the city to see what's possible and see how we can work together to make that happen.

More on that in just a minute, too.

We've talked a lot about talent attraction and the importance of talent attraction and talent retention.

The International Economic Development Council is the largest economic development group in the world.

And Jonesboro Unlimited received a bronze award for our talent attraction campaign, Always Jonesboro, recently at their annual conference.

I'm happy and proud of Bethanya Barray Harrison and the work that she's doing along those in that effort.

If you've not been familiar with Always Jonesborough, I would encourage you to look at it on the web, so always Jonesworld.com.

There's a great cost of living calculator that our HR professionals use to help them in their recruitment efforts.

There's a lot of additional information there as well about our community.

In addition, there's both Facebook and Instagram and other social media feeds that promotes great jobs in our community, promotes quality of life amenities, and helps people know what's going on in the community.

So again, if you've not checked that out, I strongly encourage you to do that.

We're excited about the things that are happening with Always Jones World.

One of our efforts too this summer was our intern edition 2025.

We have companies here in Jones World that have interns from across the country that do summer internships here.

And oftentimes those students will go to work and then they'll go back to wherever they're staying, right?

Their apartment or whatever, and then they get up and they go to work the next day.

We wanted to make sure that all of those interns saw Jonesboro beyond just a place to work.

We wanted to make sure that they saw Jonesboro as a place that they could see themselves living.

So we hosted them for a day, did a lot of fun things in the community, also gave them a lot of information, got them to sign on to Always Jonesboro so that even when they went back to their colleges and universities across the country, they would still be looking at what's going on in our community and following that with interest.

And our hope and desire is as they become seniors and graduate that many of our companies will be extending an offer for them to work at their places of business and come back to Jonesboro because of their good experience here.

We had a blast doing this.

We've done this a number of years now, and it continues to be successful for us.

One of the things I'm most excited about in workforce development is the Crest Center, career readiness education and skills training.

You all probably followed that story of the hired grant that was received by Arkansas State University.

It's a collaboration between A State, ASU Newport, and Arkansas Northeastern College.

During my career time, it's probably the largest investment in workforce development that I've ever seen across the state of Arkansas.

They're deploying about 88 million dollars total.

Arkansas State received a little over 10 million dollars as part of this project.

And the first cohort class actually started in August with 35 people studying in food technology and high speed automation.

There's also a still education component, steel manufacturing component to this as well.

And the board in September approved the initial phase, phase one of constructing a facility.

So you'll be hearing and seeing more about this.

But it allows our workforce a great opportunity to have a ladder, if you will, to work on.

And so if you're interested in any of those items I mentioned, you have the capability of getting certificate of proficiencies, associates degrees, bachelor's degrees, and beyond.

So very happy and appreciate Chancellor Shields and his leadership in putting this program together and excited about what the future has.

You'll be hearing a lot more about this in the very near future.

This past year, we um just two weeks ago, I'm sorry, we hosted our Tech Stars Externship, which is an externship for public school teachers.

We had 30 teachers participate.

You can see a comment that someone made about a couple of the companies that they visited, uh, Nestle and NISPAC.

One of the things that we have found is a tremendous influence for students are their teachers, and we wanted teachers to be able to articulate the kinds of careers that are available right here in our community and and how they can how the students can engage in that.

So we've done this for a number of years now.

We've had 194 educators go through the program.

Um excited about that and excited for that to continue.

I'm gonna play if this works.

I'm gonna play a short video for you to kind of get a flavor of some of the things that the teachers are able to see and day.

We get great response from our educators about the program.

Some of them want to come back year after year.

We typically don't allow that.

Um glad that we're able to support them and glad that they're able to then take that message back into the classroom and encourage their students about all the opportunities that are right here in Jonesboro.

A couple of years ago, you may remember that we worked on a project with the National Sherm Foundation.

We're working on a second project with them now called Keeping It Local Employers Driving Good Jobs in Rural Arkansas.

There are two communities that are participating in Arkansas, Jonesboro and El Dorado.

We've identified 10 local employers who are participating, and really it's focused on providing them additional resources and skills related to skills-based hiring and how they can continue to enhance and improve what they're doing in terms of attraction and retention of workers.

We're off to a great start in September.

We had our training session.

Now each of those employers are putting together their own action plans that they're going to be implementing in their places of business.

So I mentioned transportation earlier, transportation is one of those, and sometimes we often hear that that's an impediment to work.

Second thing is child care.

There are a lot of people who have a challenge identifying and seeking good child care.

And then the third area is in upskilling.

So those 10 employers will be working with us to identify a project that we can implement locally, and we're looking forward to that.

If you have suggestions or ideas, feel free to reach out to me.

I'm happy to hear about those and interested in what you think too.

But glad that we're part of this project and happy that SHERM had a good experience with us the first go around, uh, and they wanted to work with us again.

Also wanted to give a shout out to Shelley Randall, she's our director of workforce development.

Um she was actually highlighted in the Sherm Foundation's report that just came out.

And so she's got a quote in that particular project.

This is really about from our first project, which we did for the internship.

So the uh Get to Know Jones Borough Internship Edition was was part of this too.

So it's good to get that national recognition and for people to see some good things going on in our community.

Um, a new initiative that is coming up, so two things in the near future that you'll be seeing more about.

Um, there's an event called Here to Hire, which is a career fair on March the 12th.

It will be hosted at Nettleton Public Schools, and we hope to have about 40 different uh companies that will be represented there.

Um this will be targeting seniors who are going to go directly into the workplace.

So those those individuals will be provided some information to get them prepared to have those conversations.

After that, there'll be separate interviews that will be held.

So companies will be holding those interviews both on campus and then at their places of business as well.

Those individuals who hire are hired.

We're gonna have a signing day celebration on April 9th to celebrate them and what they are doing and what they mean to our workforce.

So I'm excited about that project, something that we've got a task force that's working on right now.

The other thing that I'll mention is it's gonna be inclusive of many different types of businesses and industry, so we're really looking forward to that and thinking it'll be a great event.

Another thing that I mentioned probably about six months ago to you guys, uh we've been awarded an EDA grant for the jumpstart partnership.

We started phase one, which is to create a centralized website for entrepreneurs so that all those resources are at their fingertips in one particular location, which we believe is important.

And at the first of the year, we'll be starting, and it may not be on Fridays, but we're gonna have a coffee so that those individuals who are entrepreneurs can come together and they can meet each other, but that more importantly, they can meet some resources as well that can support them in their efforts and get them connected.

Long term, we also have hope to have an angel network that can help with some uh early funding for those companies as well.

So all those things are yet to come, those two last items are.

I did want to share with you a couple of statistics.

You know, I love statistics, and um the first one is our civilian labor force.

We've talked a lot in here about the importance of making sure that our labor force continues to grow.

Um, and you can see this is from the Federal Reserve, that goes all the way back to 1990, all the way to as current as we've got, which is August 2025.

Um, so you can see that between August 2020 and currently we've grown just under 9%, which is good, and you can kind of see the trend, right?

So it's moving the right direction from lower left to upper right.

We want to see that continue to be the case, and that's where a lot of our efforts in retention and talent attraction go to as well.

Equally important, if not more so, is also the trend of those individuals employed in our community.

So when you look at these statistics, um in August of 2020, there were 49,725 people employed uh in Craig County.

Today that's 55,456, so it's 11% increase roughly over that period of time from August 2020 to August 2025.

So we've had really good job growth over that period of time, very steady job growth, which is healthy and encouraged, and we're pleased with that and hope that that trend continues.

Again, you see sort of the historical data there, lower left to upper right, that's the trend we want to continue to see.

And a lot of what you do is reflected in here, and a lot of what our efforts are are reflected in these numbers as well.

Lastly, I'm gonna ask for your help in just a second.

So we are currently working on our new um five-year strategic plan.

Vision First Advisors, which is a consulting firm that is assisting us with this effort, uh, is in the process of helping us.

And the pyramid on your right continues to remind me of all the things that all of us do that are extremely important workforce, infrastructure leadership, existing industry, and the recruitment efforts.

All of these go hand in hand.

You can't be successful in one and expect or not be successful in one and then be successful in another one.

So it's important that we continue to lay the foundation uh for success in the future, and with your partnership, we certainly hope to do that.

Lastly, I'll just mention that um we're as part of that process planning process, we're conducting a community survey.

If you've not participated yet, it is not too late.

So the QR code actually works, so I'd encourage you to take a look at that.

And I'm leaving uh digital copy of this for April so that she can send this to you as well.

Um but the deadline is um October 30th, so deadline is approaching.

We've had well over 500 people respond already, so we're getting good feedback.

Takes about 10 minutes, but it's important that we get people's feedback about what they want to see and what they want Jonesboro to look like.

This gives us an opportunity to ask those questions and get some great feedback.

So I would encourage each of you to participate as well.

Um, the city has sent that out on social media, and we very much appreciate that.

There was an article in the newspaper, we've sent it out to all of the chamber members, etc.

So it's been pretty widely distributed.

But if you've not had a chance to respond, please do so.

Lastly, I just want to thank you for your partnership and your continued support of what we do.

Um nothing that is accomplished in the community can be done in isolation.

We appreciate and value what you do for us and what you mean for us, and with that I'd be happy to answer any questions you might have.

I got about 10 questions.

Yes, sir.

You go right ahead, Dr.

Coleman.

One again before David gets started.

Um on a serious basis, yes, sir.

This the airport itself, seriously.

Is that going to be an extension where we can get large aircraft into Dallasville?

It it should be.

Um, so the the length of the runway and the strength of the runway, it's really probably more important for the strength of the runway.

And I say more important, we've got the length already.

Um having that strength on the taxiways and the runways are important.

Um, so we should be able to accommodate larger aircraft.

And I suspect when whether it's private craft or commercial craft, that's something that we're all interested in is being able to have larger aircraft come in here, and that's something that we short certainly will be working toward.

You might have already answered this question, but I guess I have to answer just to make sure I'm hearing it correctly.

Yes, sir.

You know, you're putting in the the pipelines and that, which is actually wonderful, because I think it's a wonderful idea.

But also while that ground is being vacated, are there Ethernet lines and underground lines?

And I guess the reason why I talk more about underground lines, I'm not sure why Jonesboro has not gotten more into underground utilities when it comes to lights and stuff like that, especially because of the I I did not answer that question.

That would be a question for Citywater and Light, but I'd be happy to visit with them about.

I do know that's in some areas.

Um, and obviously there are parts of the United States that do that because extremely wind conditions, et cetera, that's you know, you don't want to have that interruption of power.

And I guess uh the other question, and hope you hope that everybody's listening to this take this as a positive statement, not a racial statement.

But most of the committees that are going out recruiting uh there's not a lot of minorities, or there might not even be in the minorities at all on those committees because a lot of these big companies, most of their oversee employ uh heads are of minorities.

So I'm wondering when you're gonna put David McLean on a committee.

Well, he can come on.

Absolutely.

So we need all the help we can get.

Thank you, Dr.

Cullen.

That's it.

Other questions?

I mark I do have a couple of questions.

Yes, sir.

Um, and I appreciate you guys taking time to be here and speak to us.

Um I think one of the biggest things I I've I heard and uh got me excited, Berk.

I don't know if you saw me sit up a little bit when you said it was that angel network.

Yes, sir.

Um I was curious where we are or how close are y'all to making that happen.

Early stages.

Um the the um grant that we have is a three-year grant, so we're at the very beginning of that process.

Uh creating an angel network will happen probably three-fourths of the way through that process, um, but something that we're interested in.

You all know this.

Um oftentimes startup companies have a hard time initially with some uh uh initial funding, and having uh the ability to do that in partnership with our financial institutions, private investors, etc.

is something that I think is important and something we can do to better support our entrepreneurs here.

We're very interested in that.

Well, I'm I'm excited about that.

That that makes me feel good because I do believe that you know the site developments are important, but at the same time, you know, we saw today, I don't know if you saw the news that you know Amazon is laying off you know, 30,000 people because of AI.

So if you know some of these companies adopt something similar, then what do we have to fall back on?

You know, I don't want to see us get I know the industrials are backbone, you know, but at the same time I'm I'm glad to see we're introducing um the angel network to help our entrepreneurs and help them get started.

I do think that's uh that's also the backbone of our our country as a whole.

Um, and so I want to see us continue to invest there and even leveraging you know university um in the you know saw that someone just got an NIH grant for three million.

Yeah, so how are we leveraging that relationship and maybe saying how do we turn that into an opportunity uh for you know a startup business?

Are we doing that or is that something we're okay?

And one of the things that we've um hope to put together in the entrepreneurial part of what we're doing, um you all probably are familiar, there are resources and assets that are already in place that some people know about and some people don't know about.

So when you think about the garage, the shop, and the lab, there are actually labs at Arkansas State University for researchers to use currently, um, and to make sure that more people know about each of those resources and getting them plugged in as part of that process and helping them make sure that they can achieve their full potential is something that we want to do.

So to your point, um being able to leverage that and then being able to help those individuals as they come out with products that can be commercialized is certainly important.

The other thing that you commented on that I agree a hundred percent with, one of the things that really benefits our community, I think all of us will agree, is the diversity of our economic base that's here.

So we're not solely relying on any one type of business or industry.

And to your point, um, any time there's a down economy, the good thing about our community is typically if we're down in one area, we're up in another area, so we don't see that cyclical nature that some other communities unfortunately see.

Um, and I think that's based on good strategy that was started years ago that we still benefit from today, uh, and having that diverse nature of economy, I think is going to be important for us to move forward.

We can't put all of our eggs in one basket to your point, and I think that's something we need to continue to think of.

Thank you.

I do have one other question.

Yes, sir.

I'm it's not so much a question, but it's almost a statement.

Um the things I talk to the city about constantly about advertising, making sure the whole community sees and knows.

Um I've watched uh your presentation twice, and I think it's really really well.

Um only issue that I would have with it is that is it is it your presentation being produced for all people in Jonesville being able to see part of that presentation.

Uh I I talked about that because I've talked to a lot of uh community people that I know and about the change and some of the things that I think that you're doing wonderful as a group, not just one person.

But I think at the same time, I think the advisment advertisement type needs to be a little stronger.

Uh you know, I don't I'm not sure how much money we you could put into this, but you know, a lot of the posts, boards, the bulletin boards and stuff like that.

Uh because I think Jonesboro is growing faster than most people think it's growing.

And I think there's a lot of people gonna be left behind because of that because they don't know where you're going.

But I think a lot of these bulletin posters all over Jonesville, instead of putting all the politicians up there, maybe we can put all of those Dr.

Coleman.

One of the I I agree with you.

I think something that we can all uh do more of and be better at is telling our story collectively, you know, as a as a community.

That's not just about us as our organization, but that's our community as well.

Um, for those who have not been to Jonesboro Unlimited's website, I encourage you to do that.

There's a lot of really good information there.

There are some videos that we've produced called Here and Invested that highlight people in our community who chose to move here, tells their story, and helps tell us that.

We all know we're bombarded every single day with information, right?

And um, whether it's social media, etc.

We have to continue to look for ways to get our message out to everybody, and we'll keep doing that with your help.

So I'm not sure if the Jonesville bullet a bulletin, I call it the bulletin boards, have that, but I know in a lot of states that I've lived in, they had a lot of electronic stuff so they could actually show those videos, you know, that might be something that you might want to want to check into.

Um I'm sure I'm sure uh Brian Richardson can help you with that and get all that taken care of, yeah.

Yeah, uh again, uh telling the story, not for people in our community and people outside our community, it's something we work on every single day.

We spend a lot of time talking to site location consultants and people who may never have been to Jonesboro before.

So I appreciate your comments.

It's something we'll continue to focus on and work on.

Thank you.

Hey, Mark, I do have one quick question.

Um it may be too early to tell, but um, with the ridge athletic center under construction, have you been able to see uh pick up in recruitment efforts or attention to Jonesboro from businesses and individuals?

I have um so especially people in in Arkansas and the surrounding area, um, all of the things that we've invested in, I say we, right?

Um, whether it's the shooting sports complex, whether it's the Ridge Athletic Center, whether it's the Viking Trails, right?

We keep adding to that list.

Um, it continues to enhance what I'll call is our brand.

It continues to enhance Jonesboro.

And when I go places, you know, whether that's across Arkansas or West Tennessee, or I hear more and more of that.

So that buzz is out there.

I certainly think when the Ridge Athletic Center comes online, um we'll see an influx of folks who want to come see it and want to come participate, and all the things that they have from a programming standpoint, I think will really help our community in a big way.

So I'm really excited about it.

That's a great question.

Any other questions for Mr.

Young?

Um the only thing I have curious, and Brian, I guess you guys can talk with Mark.

I would love to see you do this full presentation to the council, just so in case everybody else has questions.

Happy to do that.

I think that'd be good.

Yep, happy to do that.

Okay, and I'm gonna I want to give this to April if that's okay.

Thank you so much.

Appreciate y'all.

Thanks, Mark.

Sorry to put that.

All right.

Um, any other business from the committee?

If not, we'll move into item number seven public comments.

Is the public a chance to comment on something that hasn't already been discussed on today's agenda?

Any takers?

All right, we'll move into item eight adjournment.

So moved.

Is there a second?

All right.

All in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

We stand adjourned.

Thank you.