Always good to go.

I think we're sorry, maybe one day my wife was laughing.

All right, we'll go ahead and get started now.

We got a few people still trickling in, but it is five o'clock.

So welcome to the Tuesday, November 25th meeting of the City Council Conference.

Today we have two items on the agenda.

The first being a discussion regarding entering into a contract with the Cleveland County Economic Development Coalition.

I believe we have presentation from you.

Okay, excellent.

I'll turn it over to you, Ms.

Walker.

Thank you.

All right.

We've got two items on your agenda this evening related to economic development.

The first one is as Councilmember Peacock said is the uh Cleveland County Economic Development Coalition proposed contract.

As I was preparing for this, I realized when we last presented this in June, we've had four new council members since.

So I've got a little bit of history in here that might be a repeat for some of you.

In 1996, the city, the chamber, and OU joined together to create the Norman Economic Development Coalition.

You can see the scope of services there, engaging in industrial and business solicitation activities on behalf of the city, chamber, and OU, acting as our economic development office, stimulating, encouraging, and promoting opportunities related to OU and partnerships with their faculty and jobs for students and faculties.

Make recommendations to further other mission, and then provide a plan of economic development to the participating parties.

Each entity in the beginning provided $75,000 in funding annually and had board representation.

Annual audits and budgets were to be furnished to OU city in the chamber, and NEDC was forbidden from using any of that funding to engage in political activity.

You'll see there it was defined to include not just supporting or opposing a candidate or a political party, but also supporting or opposing a state or local question.

It was amended, I think four times over the years, but hasn't really been amended since 2009 and not substantively even longer than that.

In 1997, it was amended to provide for quarterly activity in the form of a summary instead of just providing meeting minutes, uh, financial reports uh to the city, university, and chamber, and then they changed the uh renewal provision so that it was an automatic renewal and less terminated, subject to the appropriation of funds.

2004, a one-page amendment to increase the funding to 100,000 from each participant.

In 2008, that went up to 125,000.

And then in 2009, the Moore Norman Technology Center joined as a participating entity.

The termination language uh that had previously previously been in the contract was removed, and the contract is just automatically removed renewed uh subject to council and the other parties' appropriation of the funding.

So when you add all that up, since 1996, the city has contributed just over three million dollars to NEDC for its operations.

In addition to that, in 2022, council approved a sub-recient agreement uh with NEDC where we provided ARPA funding and uh the amount of one million dollars for their incubator program development.

You can see that at the old Copelands uh location uh just uh east of Sprouts, and that's under construction currently.

Uh we were advised um uh several months ago uh that the uh NEDC was going to be expanded and replaced by the Cleveland County Economic Development Coalition.

Technically, NEDC still exists, but the Cleveland County Economic Development Coalition is a registered trade name for NEDC.

The mission has been expanded to elevate the economy of Cleveland County as a whole, not just Norman.

Um and they've presented a proposed contract.

We talked with council about this in June, and there was not a consensus to move forward with the contract as it was.

And so uh we've been working on that and and um trying to determine what direction to go.

So the scope in this new contract, as I said, it's much broader for Cleveland County, not just Norman, but it is pretty similar.

It's been modernized a little bit, talks a little bit more about marketing and using site selectors and things like that that weren't in the original contract.

Um it does not say that they act as the city's economic development office essentially, but they would still continue to do those similar type activities for every participant within the uh organization.

Um still looking for collaboration and partnerships with the private sector, other cities and Cleveland County, um, and then would make reports and recommendations to the city as it deems necessary.

The term of that contract was uh to begin July 1st of 2025 and go through June 30th, and then it would be renewed automatically, subject to an appropriation of funds.

The termination provisions back in uh this version, and so there would be a 90-day option for the city to terminate before the end of the fiscal year, so it would not automatically renew.

Um you recall I said in the original contract we had a prohibition about using the funding for political activities.

This contract is a little bit different, it just prohibits using that funding to support or oppose a candidate or a political party.

It's silent on the question of uh other advocacy in that realm.

Uh the board membership is historically the city manager served on the board.

The contract says he would continue to do that and serve on the nominating committee.

The bylaws, which I was able to get a copy of a portion of says the city manager or his professional employee designate would serve.

Um the funding for cities is one dollar per capita.

Um if you have 15% of the population in Cleveland County.

So basically Norman and Moore would be funding at $1 per capita.

For us, that's $130,000 forty-six dollars as of July 1st, 2023.

There is no obligation in the current contract to provide in the current proposed contract to provide reports of activities or finances, including audit and budget information.

So when we talked about it in June, I went back over the minutes and these were the concerns that were expressed then uh concerns over lack of financial documentation.

Uh council members wanted to see the audits, wanted those quarterly reports to compete continue and expressed a need for transparency and accountability.

Uh, there was a concern expressed about funding equity.

We've contributed since 1996.

Would we have the same our vote have the same weight as people who are just now joining?

Uh and the way that's written now in their by laws is founding directors.

Is anyone with an annual investment of at least 125,000, and or in the case of municipalities representing at least 15% of the population base, more and Norman, an investment of one dollar per capita of their respective population.

And so right now it includes the county, more Norman uh would not doesn't include City of Norman yet, but proposed to uh OU chamber more and then other investors who are investing at that 125,000 dollar level.

They have added to the board significantly.

So uh Lawrence McKinney told me there's more than 20 board members currently.

Um we also had concerns or heard concerns about uh incubator funding equity.

We we contributed a million dollars to that incubator project with our ARPA funds.

The county also contributed a million dollars.

So how does that work?

Um our funds were conditioned on expenditure on a business incubator program located in a qualified census tract and included preferences for minority-owned businesses, and we did that because those were automatic qualifiers for ARPA dollars, so that doesn't change.

Um that would still be a requirement.

Um startup 405, it's what's gonna go into that location.

They've got about a four to five million dollar budget for acquisition, construction, and furniture fixtures, furniture and fixtures.

Um the city and county ARPA funds have been used already for acquisition of building and construction.

They're doing a capital campaign to get money for the rest of it.

All in all, they're trying to raise, I think about seven million dollars.

From their ARPA report, their final report uh they provided after spending all the funds that we gave in our agreement.

Um they they included this in every report.

Uh so this will go to the audit for ARPA funds and and will be analyzed for compliance.

Uh startup 405 will give preference on priority acceptance into the incubator program for women, minorities, Native Americans, and veteran-owned startups, all disproportionately impacted by COVID-19.

And additionally, they've set aside space for students of Norman Public Schools, Moore Norman Technology Center, and the OU Innovation Hub.

Catholic real quick.

Um does that mean the incubator is going to be open to more than just Norman.

It could be, uh, but keep in mind once they're in the incubator, they're Norman.

You know, they're they're growing their business in Norman.

There's nothing that prohibited them from growing a business that starts somewhere else.

Right.

I think just from my perspective, at least it was, you know, it was intended to be an incubator for Norman residents.

We didn't, I mean, we obviously weren't anticipating the larger scope.

Sure.

So that wasn't really covered in the agreement specifically.

But I think to that point, if other cities wanted to contribute to the incubator and have access to it, I'm not opposed to that, but again, we Norman Norman stood it up for Norman residents.

If more residents want to use it, more needs to contribute.

And since they do have that expanded scope now, I think their capital campaign is also expanded accordingly, so there should be some effort to get contributions from other uh cities and organizations outside of Norman.

Um the concerns with the political activity prohibition.

We've got a statute.

We're always really careful about this.

And when you read the statute, you might think, well, that's not really what it says.

Uh public funds can't be used to influence the outcome of a measure which is referred to by voters by means of initiative or referendum.

You'll notice with the city's materials, we don't take a position even on a water rate increase that council sends to the voters.

And that's really more because of this AG opinion, which says you don't really have anything authorizing the use of public funds for that.

And generally you shouldn't use them to promote a specific election result.

Um there there might be the AG acknowledges there might be some little fact-based situation where that might be justified, but but they haven't had a question on it yet, so that hasn't really been fleshed out what that would what that would look like.

But that's why we've always exercised caution.

You know, when we do a room tax increase, I send a memo to to Dan Shem and the Norman Arts Council and say, please don't use the funding you get from us to promote this, just provide factual information because of this this concern, and that's consistent with how OML advises cities as well.

Um everyone takes a careful stance on it because it it's not only a um it's not just a legal issue, it's a potential criminal charge as well.

So uh Catherine, along that note, what new council members will experience potentially in April with your first ballot measure charter amendments, potentially adding RVs to the hotel bed tax ordinance, et cetera, is historically the mayors uh go out into the public and raise money for the vote yes campaign on the question.

And city resources, all we're allowed to do is educate on what the question means.

So when we go out and meet with rotary clubs and church groups, and and all of those, usually, I mean about 50 of them by the time council adopts the ordinance until election day.

We're not allowed to say you really need to vote yes on this because we're only allowed to say, here's the question before you, here's what will happen if this passes, this is what the deliverables are, and we keep it super vanilla.

Private money, um, you know, whether it's the chamber of commerce out there, they can say we need to vote yes on this because this is just great for us, and that's what they get to do with those private donations.

Um the other concern was the per capita contribution from other participating municipalities.

Uh, it's based on population one dollar per person.

Non-municipal participants have to contribute at least 125,000 annually, which got me thinking about the county, which has about 300,000, 300,000 in population.

Daryl was able to confirm they did contribute uh $300,000 based on their per capita rate.

So they're not just doing that minimum 125.

Um, I brought all of these concerns to the director of NEDC.

We had a phone conversation or CCEDC, I'll get used to it eventually.

Um, we had a conversation um a couple of months ago that didn't really wasn't really productive, just no, I'm not really interested in changing the contract.

I've reached out to him again, and I got some uh answers that he asks that I share with you.

He's out of town this week, and then in addition to just having I think a planned holiday out of town, he um has a family member you know in the hospital, so he's he was writing this uh from the hospital, I believe.

Thank you.

I should have some blank seats.

You'll see in here that he he's he's taken a pretty strong stance, I think that that's they he is not open to changes in the contract, political activities.

That was a no.

Um he kind of compared it to or tried to distinguish it from uh dedicated funding like hotel motel tax.

That's not really why we can are concerned about that.

It's it's public funds, whether it's a dedicated sales tax or general fund money.

Um we talked about the making sure we get some credit for our longstanding support of the organization, and and he talked about how you know we've it's been underfunded for so long, and this is going to be a new organization, and so um they're not really gonna look at your historical pattern of participation.

Um, and then uh not agreeing, they do not agree to file an annual budget or annual audit with the city.

Um they believe it's you know it's presented to the board, and that's enough.

And um, so that was in a no, and then um I asked about uh if there was any willingness to follow the open meeting act and open records act, at least it pertains to their public funding.

Um, and uh they do not um they they do not agree that they should be subject to that.

And we've had some discussions about that before, but um, I think you'll get up real quick.

Yeah, I mean, not to cut in or anything like that, but just some concerns for sure, especially here what you just said, also very disheartening as well, and everything, just some things that I wrote even previously when they you know he did come and speak at our retreat and everything like that, you know, to us and stuff, and kind of proposed some grand ideas.

Some of my concerns before I would even be able to even think about voting to join this, even to me is due to it was in the language originally.

I personally want to see every audit in quarterly report that they gave us because by that contract it was in there, and I know that people try to get it through open records to no avail.

So that usually means you know, in our world that somebody's hiding something, you know, if you don't want to release that when it was part of the contract.

Um I want to know also when was the last time that they've met, because when they met just this week, there was a lot of discussion that they might have not had a meeting for several years, even that they everybody met together and everything like that from their last minutes was from 2023 or whatever.

Oh my god.

That they eDAB oh you're that's right.

Oh, that's okay.

But then also with this group here.

I mean, we're paying in that much money, and we're also taking that away from our city accounts and everything like that.

We're not letting any other city agency or anybody else run an agency in our town, even our shelters or anything else operate without coming in here with an audit in the annual budget and a review panel and everything else, just for the accountability or citizens that money is well spent and that there's no outside business also with the money that we've already invested to the tuna 3.125 million dollars.

I'd like to see a true layout, financial layout of what a return on investment is.

What did you specifically contribute?

What especially did only your opinion influence bring into our town to get our 3.12 million back?

I know you claim that you've given us back a billion, two billion dollars, but a lot of your dealings are things that were deals that were already in place naturally that you just put your name to.

So far, uh I just want to make sure I have one thing clear.

We as citizens of Norman are paying one dollar per head to this proposal.

Okay, that's the new one, and then the as citizens of the county were also paying another dollar.

So two, yeah.

Just checking.

Question customer agreement.

Um sorry I was late.

Uh did this response uh response to possible contract changes were we sent that earlier for no?

I just got it today.

Okay.

Uh so I well, I would definitely need time to digest these answers, of which I'm already finding things that I don't agree with.

But um right.

Yeah, no action scheduled, so take all the time meeting before council member Dixon and Councilmember Bruce.

Go ahead.

I'll save my thought.

I was just gonna say I see the contract with C C E D C much like a contract with a paving contractor.

Um we give them money to economic development for us, just like we would give a paving contractor money to paper street to a plumbing contractor to fix this uh to build a bathroom that we've recently done.

We don't ask we don't ask those contractors for audits, we don't ask them for open meetings act.

Um we don't ask them for really all kind of the things that we're trying to ask C C E D C for.

Um so I just find it weird that we ask this contractor for all of these things, but we don't ask Arroyo's contract uh concrete.

Um where do they spend their funds?

What do they do with them?

Um you know, and if how how deep are in are we going to get into political involvement?

Are we going to prevent Sherry Jackson from Norman Music Fest from posting about her likes and dislikes of presidents?

Um I mean, how deep are we going to get into that?

I also look at we're asking for one dollar per resident.

Um spent $18 and 46 cents per person in Norman for the animal shelter, spend six dollars and twenty-two cents per person for the homeless shelter.

I'm asking one dollar per person for economic development.

Um I mean, if you guys don't want Norman to grow, that's fine, but you need to say so.

You need to raise your hand and say I want to spend more money on homeless than I do on what I see spending one dollar for economic development.

It's part of the holistic package of eliminating minimizing homelessness of bringing good jobs to Norman.

Like they don't bring retail jobs, they're only bringing jobs that are jobs above the current median.

Our current median has just been going down, down, down, down, down.

And it seems like some of us want that, and that's fine, but raise your hand and say, I'm all for that.

I think it's ridiculous that we're only spending one dollar per person in Norman for economic development.

It is 100% part of the holistic part of eliminating and minimizing homelessness.

So I mean let's see here.

Um the city of Broken Arrow, they spend what is it, 400 grand to their um I can come back to it in a little bit.

But I I just see this.

If we're trying to get rid and minimize homelessness, this is cheap.

But if you don't want to, just raise your hand.

You said about you have time to think.

What do you mean by that?

I mean, I I'm trying to get my situational awareness.

So the result of tonight will be so there is not an action item on your agenda tonight to approve or disapprove the contract.

It's a conversation from which uh we'll take your direction and bring you back an action item or not.

So uh we currently do not have a contract.

We are currently not participating in the Cleveland County Economic Development Coalition.

Uh the invitation exists, and it is your invitation to accept or decline.

So we really have no representative that are as driving um driving development as it relates to uh business, certain types of jobs, and growing the revenue for uh sales tax out of that, and uh okay.

So this organization's been forming this for almost 30 years, I guess.

Roughly 100,000 a year and kept that the same for 30 years.

And I guess there's a re return on ROI for I guess they can link back that RO ROI by activity.

What business came in during those 30 years where they contribute to that business coming into our community?

I mean, that's how I take it when I correct.

I mean somebody has to do it and they have to do it well.

Otherwise, you're otherwise your.

I mean, we have a lot of wants, have a lot of needs, and we have our our funding bucketized depending on what's going on.

We use general fund for a lot of things associated with sales tax.

And if someone's not doing this mission well, we're only hurting ourselves.

Now then the question is is it fair and reasonable?

Before I get there, but let me go back to odds.

A hundred thousand dollar contract, you want to audit a hundred thousand dollar contract, unless we give the them funds to spend their substantial funds related to funds received from the feds or the state.

I I imagine there's some type of strings that relate to those funds related to capital programs and investment programs and stuff of that nature, where there's probably our audit requirements in those.

The ARPA dollars did come with single audit requirements that the feds traced where every dollar was sent to a sub-recipient like the economic development coalition, they were required to hire an uh an auditor to conduct the single audit on the expenditure of those dollars.

And once that criteria has been reached, the reporting is done, thankfully.

So I feel like you know the county and these other cities are represented.

And so warm Norman's not represented in an entity that is attracting industry to a county.

I would like to have suit at that table.

So I feel like we don't have a seat at the table, we're not looked at to extend we probably should be looked at.

Uh Councilmember Gantt's very answer question room.

I am very, very definitely pro-business for Norman.

I'm very, very definitely pro-chamber for Norman and everything.

What I'm not, as if with pavement companies and everything like that.

I am very not contract breaking person.

If you put it in writing that you're going to do X, Y, and Z, just like the contract company would make with us to pay the road.

We're going to do X, Y, and Z, use this material, build this road.

This person said, hey, we're going in a contract for X amount of money, we're going to provide audits, quarterly reports, returns, all this stuff like that.

If we haven't received that, then we haven't fulfilled the contract.

And now you literally want me to sign a new contract with you in good faith, bringing more people to the table and everything, and then saying, you know what?

Also, we want to take that contract part out about no audits, no everything else that would never supply you anyways.

Which for a person like me in business, that to me seems that there's probably a reason I want to look at it at least, and just make sure that the accountability is there, especially now if we're asking all of our surrounding neighbors to join us in this effort and then make it a true success story.

Because the last thing I want is another library situation where a contract gets us in a bad spot.

I like I couldn't again I couldn't agree more, but the requirements on the on the previous contract were the were their audit requirements.

Yes.

Yeah.

And what level of audit was required.

It wasn't a requirement that we audit them, it was a requirement that they supply us with their annual audits and their financial reports.

For the whole business, just not our little niche of a hundred thousand dollars.

For the whole business because it was all public funds coming from OU, well, not all OU and the city, and then change chamber funding.

And that's we do that with other agencies that perform services for us.

Uh we have those requirements and other other agreements with agencies that perform services for us.

Unlike the concrete company that provides us invoices, we don't have that kind of documentation in the services contract.

So I think that's where you know there's there's was some need over the years for some level of reporting or documentation.

I was gonna ask, what is our contract with the homeless shelter when food and shelter was running it?

Was it 100k or less?

It was I think it was a month, was it a written on a monthly basis?

A month to month basis.

Okay.

Um well, I would just say that we have audited folks.

We're working with contractors and whatnot and changed our behavior based on those findings, whether there's some folks in this community that agree with that audit or not.

Um I think public dollars uh demand public oversight and accountability for how that's being spent.

I know our second item on the agenda is talking about a norm and economic development authority, and I think that could provide another potential avenue of exploring um what we might do for economic development.

And I'm not I it rubs me wrong to think that Norman could be paying twice.

Um so there was like no distinction between Norman's uh per capita rate and the county's per capita rate.

No, it was just based on population, only one dollar per person.

Yeah, uh, it's could be paid out of Cleveland County's general fund, just like ours would be being paid out of our general fund.

Yeah.

Um given the level of investment and our history with it.

I feel like Norman shouldn't be under you know, like paying two dollars.

But I assume that would also account for the other entities in this coalition, like more or whoever else has decided.

I don't think South OKC is particularly interested.

I know there's some other cities that are not interested.

Um, and they also are skeptical on the rate of return.

Um I like that we don't have an action item and we can kind of mull over some of what it was presented to us in this response to possible contract changes, but also uh what our second agenda item might provide if we choose to go a different route.

So if I can real quick on page two of this handout, um this was the first time I became aware of this, but um Mr.

McKinney says that on December 31st, 2025, all investors of record will be considered founding partners.

So I don't know if if the door closes for us to be a founding partner at the end of this year or if there will be other opportunities, uh, but it sounds like that might be the the cutoff to at least be considered a founding partner, which which gets you a board member and then a uh spot on the nominating committee.

Yeah, well, I'm still interested in what those audits say for the ARPA money.

Um I would prefer that if we did enter something that we're very clear on what obligations have been fulfilled, um what we're really paying, uh, and not some kind of weird double rates, which I'm very opposed to.

Um I think Norman is really expensive to live in, and so thinking about our county adding to that expense, not just from our general fund, but their general fund.

I I just don't see that going over well, particularly in my ward customer dicks.

We're talking about spending $130,000 a year on economic development.

Broken arrow spends $400,000 a year at a minimum.

They have five people in their economic development.

That's not including the five full-time people they have working for the city doing economic development.

Their median income is $87,137.

Norman's is $68,076.

We're getting crushed.

The broken arrow net worth is $269,000, $87,000 a person.

Ours is $93,938.

They are easily spending over a million dollars a year on economic development.

They're spending money on getting good jobs for their residents.

We're arguing over $130,000.

Edmund spends $800,000 on economic development.

We're arguing about $130,000.

Our median income levels have gone have just been going down.

We're going the wrong way.

Ward one, ward five, one, ward seven, ward eight.

Good evening, council members.

Can you anybody want to meet with me to talk about this?

I responded and said, sure, I'll meet with you.

I'll meet with anybody.

I will meet with anybody, and I have.

We like to talk about we will, but I actually do.

I met with them, I looked at their audits.

There was their auditors saw nothing out of bounds with their books.

I don't know if any of the other people on this email met with him.

I know I did.

Um but if you didn't meet with him after an email on October 17th.

I just kind of find it disingenuous to be upset about not being able to see an audit when you can see it for yourself.

And if you've seen it uh and and you saw a different version of it than I did, then I'd be more than happy to listen.

But I this is we're getting kicked, we're getting our butts kicked in median income, and it just we have to do something.

But 130,000.

I mean, well, dollar a person, 1860, 1846 a person for the animal shelter, 622 a person for the homeless shelter.

We're asking for a dollar a person for to bring above median income companies here.

This just okay.

Customer no fire.

I'm sorry.

So I scored it's all good, man.

Uh it's interesting to me that apparently they have the audits and their auditor says it's good, and they're contractually obligated to hand those audits over to us, but they won't.

I'm with you on the the amount if it was 400,000.

If they gave me a tangible return that they could prove, I'd be all for it.

But until they hand those audits over, especially now that I know they do have them.

I I can't do that.

Let me just ask a question.

Um does it have to be an audit?

Can it be a financial summary of where they spent the city of Norman's dollars?

I don't need to see where they spent Moore's dollars for Lexington.

Um they could just give us a loose paper trail of where our 130,000 went to, it brought in this company, it went to this campaign effort, whatever it would might be.

Um plus Fed funds.

I just think, I don't know.

I am not denying.

Um I understand where council member Jackson's coming from, and I don't think that anybody here is really arguing that the need for economic development.

I personally um I think it's a worthwhile investment.

Uh I think the question is do we do we take that effort in house and do it for Norman, or do we engage with Cleveland County and do it for all of Cleveland County?

I don't know that I have the right answer to that, but I don't think that I would argue at all that economic development is needed, that we're falling behind in terms of wages, um, other cities are passing us by, and we can only lean on being you know, the home of the university of Oklahoma and the county seat for so long, we've got to invest in ourselves, no one else is going to, no one's gonna come save us.

So um where that investment goes, I think is a that's the question.

So I believe it's council member Hinkle, then Gansbury, then Grant.

Maybe it was Grant thing.

So just go round table.

Yeah, yes, thank you.

Okay, um, on any of the vendors or financial companies that we do things with, uh, do we I think I asked this before, but do we require a statement of condition when we're evaluating whether we're gonna proceed with them as a vendor or as part of like a bidding process or quote process?

Um, depending on the nature of what it is they're going to deliver, um we may require bonding, which is usually a pretty good indicator.

If you're able to bond your project for a billion dollars, there's some fiscal punch behind your signature that goes a long way.

So as our contractual relationship with um a contractor goes up, and we see they've got bonding capacity to bond for the job, that's typically how that measurement happens.

I think we did do um we required some financial statements in recent requests for proposals for certain services, like um the mobile unit service that I think we just said caravans, maybe um we had some requirements in there about their financial statements and things to audits and those kind of things.

And in the pool of funds that this comes from, when we look at it at that meeting, all of it comes this comes from that same fund as well.

All of those other entities that are asking for money are required are providing their financials to us.

Yes.

Um this is really for our new council members.

But can you kind of recap how um site selection works for the larger manufacturing plants and things like that, and where um Norman really hasn't had that to provide?

Typically, um when uh a company is hoping to relocate or expand their contact is with the state's um uh department of commerce, and every state has a department of commerce uh that serves similar purpose coast to coast.

Um they will send over a request for property profiles that meet X criteria.

Um it's easier for that site selector to reach out to 50 states than it is to reach out to 10,000 cities or 5,000 counties or 3,000 coalitions.

The state will send out a notice.

Hey, what what the your typically they prefer to address coalitions and and not respond to 500 cities or 77 counties.

They would prefer fewer respondents to have to address like these coalitions.

Do you guys have any property that meets this profile?

Norman in years past had uh more to sell.

The Saxon Industrial Park when it was new, had a lot more acreage uh to build upon.

And in University North Park, uh, there's an industrial component to it.

We recognize where Emmy Labs is.

There were a handful of parcels established for technical manufacturing or light industrial uses.

The investments that were made by the Norman Economic Development Coalition were in uh real property acquisition, and they own acreage in the Saxon Industrial Park, and they own uh three or four parcels in University North Park up against the fence of uh Max Westheimer, and the vision is uh industry that is airport-centric, uh, the opportunity for a future uh through the fence development to be able to get your product or service from outside the fence of the airport inside and sell or serve uh on that side of the fence.

That's where those properties seem to have value.

Um there's there's only about 90 acres left in the Saxon Industrial Park.

Uh we see calls for hey, we have 400 contiguous acres.

City of Norman doesn't have anything like that.

Um, in our comprehensive uh land use plan update, the aim process, we did not add an acre for industrial type uh development.

So we're selling from what we have left in inventory, and sometimes that fits somebody's need.

Um we we've had uh conversation with existing businesses in uh Saxon Industrial Park where they're in a couple of different buildings and they'd like to build one bigger building and maybe bring up their Texas investment and keep it all here because the guy who owns the company lives in Norman, so that would be great for us.

Uh, but when they're trying to respond to those larger requests for the bigger uh industrial footprint, uh there's a request for what do you have with rail?

We really don't have anything with rail service to it.

There's some of that in Noble, there may be some of that in more, and I think that's where the board was thinking we need to expand this and look regionally so we can actually get those jobs.

We recognize if the job is in Moore or Norman or in Noble, um a bunch of those folks are likely to live and shop in Norman.

They just go to work up the street one way or the other.

So I think that was the logic, and we just know we don't have a whole lot of real estate um to participate.

The land owned by the economic development coalition, they own it fee title, there's not a bunch of debt on it.

So when a business comes, they may say, okay, in order for us to bring this industry here, you need to sell us that real estate for a dollar.

An economic development coalition with that on our belt, they can say, Yep, sold dollar.

We would have a real tough time making a deal like that if we paid, you know, uh 10 bucks a square foot to sell it for annual.

Um, we would get looked at and frowned upon, but through the coalition, that's kind of the value they add is the ability to make deals that we really don't essentially we're paying to play now with the county where larger sites are potentially available, but also using the real estate that the economic development coalition owns as leverage for future fees.

Correct.

Currently on their balance sheet, there's about 12 million dollars in real estate, and all of that's inside Norman's city limits.

Um so obviously they'll work to continue to fill up all of that because it doesn't do any good land on their balance sheet.

They need to convert it into a performing asset, like an ongoing business concern.

Thank you.

Councilman Grant.

Um, just to speak to the October 17th email.

I did not receive one, so I have not had any contact with Lawrence.

Um, I am in agreement with Councilmember Nofire that if there has Warren's claims in number three, that what did they say?

Uh better yet, we have a trusted relationships and partnerships throughout the state and nation.

Oh, our audits have always been clean and unqualified.

I don't see the problem in turning them over to the city.

Um, I would, and I feel like if they did that, we could fact check what he says in number two.

And Marahoman, we all got these just now.

Um, but I think what caught my eye, and I would like to have verified is the claim that in just the last three years we've had an economic impact of one billion spent.

10 million on downtown Norman improvements, paid over 200,000 for studies, such as the National Weather Museum, Mountain Biking, Rock Creek Entertainment District, Equestrian Venue, etc.

COVID, the charge on the original downtown business improvement district, kept the city out of and avoided an imminent multi-million dollar lawsuit and helped secure a 53 million state high school anchored in Norman using a 20 million dollar grant with champions.

You know, if I feel like you could prove that if you were willing to be transparent and break down how that uh works out.

Um yeah, I think it will be interesting to have another.

I'm open to having another conversation about this once I've had a chance to go over these responses and dig into some things.

And I would just recommend to my fellow colleagues that you can email Catherine and get the history of all the NEDC contracts that we have had.

Um I think it would be interesting to learn the history and how it's been modified over the years, and then bring that historical context to the conversation when next we have it.

Councilman Bruce.

Well, if I understood you right now, you mentioned about the contract that hardly touched for years and years and years, and you know, 30 years, and quite the history associated with this trying to business development for the area, and uh you think man, that's a long relationship.

And uh, you know, when I think about a business, and I don't know what what type of information is maybe proprietary that he's worried about as far as being released, uh proprietary related to would affect him business wise.

I don't know, but that would be my concern if I had a business releasing my my records.

As I read this, I understand you have a seat, and if you're saying a seat, and you had access to those records, you and 20 other people, and so if there was something to miss, I imagine those people on that board, the the no what do we call the seat on the um the oversight hey, I must just talk about this and then let's give appropriate guidance to our technology development.

I know entity.

Uh I can see the hissons about about that.

I I as far as if it if there was insight that could be gained for me conducting business in the future competitively against other entities.

I can see that.

The the board makeup, the current board chair is uh local bank president.

Um he lives in those financial statements on a regular basis.

He's never had uh a concern either.

Um from a financial perspective, when you measure health.

Um, if you look at a balance sheet, which is which measures your assets minus your liabilities, and the difference is your equity or in city business, that's fund balance.

And in the in the case of the economic development coalition, the balance sheet is uh primarily consisting of two major asset groups, real estate and cash.

Uh very little debt.

Um, so that leaves you with a whole bunch of equity in what is owned primarily in Norman.

So I wish my financial statements look like that.

It would be amazing.

Um but yeah, there it's it's I think more of a matter of concern for where that information goes once released.

I've met with the auditors, I've consulted with those auditors when they were working on getting the books cleaned up when there was a period for about a year and a half.

The economic development coalition did not have a CEO, and they had board members who really not much happened other than going through a process to hire a CEO and now go uh get us all caught up, get us current, and they were you know working on audits from three periods ago, and then COVID happens.

And not much activity happened or a whole lot of auditors to be seen during uh about a three-year window of COVID, and I think now their financials are current through uh fiscal year 2024, which is they're working on 25, 26 right now, just like I know some customers, you know, they like to have managerial accounting data related to how much everything did you spend on on me related to accomplishments.

That's a different level then.

Sometimes people get competitive batteries that way as well.

I don't know the level of audits that that we're looking at here.

Uh has all has OU already have an agreement with them back in June, or have they already finalized everyone except for Norman?

That's my understanding.

So we're we're not represented.

Okay.

So even if the state is helping us, you know, as far as I'm an Indian, I'm gonna come to the state, I'm gonna interface with the appropriate State Department.

I want to come to Oklahoma, what do you have?

I feel like 100,000, 100,000, 103,000 basic capital per person is not not that much for additional cheerleader, you know, that's going to help draw people, sell, market, recruit, promote, you know, this is what OEU brings, this is what Norm brings the community brings to increase that average salary that we're looking for for Norman.

Uh you know, I want to see a tech center here.

That's what I always say.

I got OEO over here.

Why is it not a tech center right here?

Uh I think that entity can help do that.

At least I I would I would assume after 30 years of experience, and that's what they promote, they can help us get there to that higher salary to pay for those needs and wants that we rely on from that tax base.

And uh, two one of the points that was identified in terms of the um 53 million dollar investment in the uh Oklahoma Aviation Academy.

Uh, there was um an OU regent who kind of threw out the idea of an aviation academy geared towards filling 700 vacant jobs at Tinker Air Force Base now.

How can we quickly get young folks certified to go fill those jobs?

That conversation um was heard by Norman Public Schools who said instead of doing it at the college level, could we pull it down and do it at the high school level?

And the regent was more than gracious to say, if you guys think you can make that happen, run with it.

And there was ARPA money out there at the state level.

The application for 20 million in state funding in conversations, uh, it was determined that if you walk in and say, we want 20 million dollars for the Norman Aviation Academy, the answer would be no.

If you walk in and say, we'd like 20 million dollars for the Oklahoma Aviation Academy, the answer would be yes.

So cities stepped out of the conversation, and the economic development coalition took the application through the state as the Oklahoma Aviation Academy to be matched by local Norman public schools bonds to get from the 20 million ARPA up to the 53 million dollars that's under construction right now.

So that's that I know that story behind that particular uh element in the in the letter.

And I'm glad there was someone there to look strategically and said, hey, look, there's a need for AMP license, and let's get these folks started early, whether that's college level or lower in the company, you know, go through the process of master AMPs, and that fills that need that there is a need out there all over this country for those.

So I'm glad someone's there to think about that and how do we craft that to benefit our community?

Council McGansburg looking back at the council retreat notes that I took from the day of and like that when we first met with this gentleman.

I did meet with him that day that of a retreat and asked for a discussion and never really got much correspondence back necessarily or anything like that.

But another thing that he was kind of mentioning, and I'm all for economic development, one dollar's not enough, all that good stuff like that.

I personally have a hiccup with the leadership of the organization as a whole, not the business, but the leadership and how they operate a business, is where my hiccup is.

And the last part of his presentation that he brought to us that day, and like I said, that was literally my first one of my first days on the job, so I still was new and learning too on that.

Was we all know who's set in my seat before me in some of the things that were worrisome to this town about that seat beforehand and everything like that.

And when I start seeing him bring in how he does want the grand plan is to grow this, and if you grow technically, you get more land, you get more money, you get more resources, bigger, better for everybody at the end of the day.

True.

But he started also about maybe bringing in outside corporations into this at a pay rate where if this company brings in a 10 million dollar contract to us, they get X for that.

But if you bring them 500, you get X for that.

And I see that as pay to play.

And so if you have money, we can help you out.

If you're the little man, sometimes we might not have as much.

And I think just and I'm with Peacock.

I don't need an audit.

Just if some people are seeing this thing at the 20 people, why can't we all just get it sent to council and all look at it and just say, yeah, it is what they said it was and be done and over with, you know, and that would but you know when we have people in our town asking to at least know some of the knowledge out of it?

I feel that within my seat in my ward, I owe it to my constituents to give them the knowledge.

That way, when we do hopefully say yes in the future on this project and get back in this and get back to doing business again, people, especially in election year, feel more comfortable with us as their leadership.

I think some of the questions are also, and maybe you already discussed them, but um yeah, what are the actual results of 30 years?

And uh it's probably hard to measure that against the previous 30 years, you'd be going back to the 60s.

Um like being a member of the coalition for 30 years, is there something comparative that can be shown to us that shows because we've been a member of this, Norman's job growth, Norman's salaries and things like that, average pay grew since 1996, and it can be correlated directly to efforts of NEDC over time?

Um, or is it the same as some other town that doesn't is not part of an NEDC, and they have the same growth and jobs and same salaries growth?

Is there anything like that that we could see that could show us um that?

I mean we can cite you know different companies that might have come here over the last 30 years or even recently.

Um but I think that's part of what we're wondering, is especially since uh thing about broken arrow in Edmund hiring economic development staff people.

Um the question about is it is there value in being a part of this coalition or us having our own person that is just focused on Norman that's part of city staff?

Um so those questions about um if we stay in this coalition, what is the benefit to Norman?

Um since we've put 30 years into it, um, and other communities are just coming into it.

You know, how is the is there any an equity thing there about like the incubator I've mentioned how it's in Norman we gave a million dollars to it, the county gave a million dollars, but more didn't give any money to that, and noble didn't.

And does a startup business from Noble would they get a sp a spot in the incubator over a Norman business?

Um, even though the community they're from didn't contribute, or I don't even know that it I'm not saying it even should be that way that oh, we gave a million dollars, so only Norman businesses should get an opportunity.

I don't I don't think that, but uh just wondering though that you know we gave a contribution, others didn't they get they get the same benefit as us though from that.

We briefly talked about that and okay, shared the same length and then the county.

Um the per cap are they paying 300,000?

Okay, so they're paying a dollar for every person in the county.

Okay, that was a question I had been wondering at for a while and wasn't clear on.

So okay.

Um I'd say too, even if we didn't their founding partners date, which I believe is December 31st, is what that's uh 2025, and then we're no longer grandfathered in.

Um, I would just say that if the county's paying per capita, and technically Norman's a part of the county, then like the other entities that I know have not signed on.

Um it seems like those decisions will be made by the county uh on behalf of those entities.

Uh, is there a full list of who actually is signed on?

Because as I understand it, there are communities that are not interested.

The website has not been updated, so I don't have the latest list.

I know that more has signed on uh in Cleveland County, but I'm not sure of any others.

I'm trying to I think so.

Oh, you and more Norman.

Well, yeah, and the same veteran parties.

So the agreement said I don't know that we know all of these haven't signed on, but Lexington, Moore, Noble, Norman, Slaughterville, South of KC, and unincorporated Cleveland County.

I think it's nice that Lawrence response.

Um, I would like to know who actually is going to be a part of this, and if if they aren't, are they also in the similar situation of we're all still paying through the county?

And so it'll be up to the county uh working on behalf of those that are not a part at the municipal level would be my thought on that.

Um yeah, that's it.

Council Bruce and Analytics.

Well, I'm just thinking about more.

I'm thinking, oh boy.

So you know, I'm just thinking from uh standpoint of you know my past background about what I want to see the table just to because I I I I want I want to be equally represented and equally heard and give my fair share of marketing and a chance to compete for work.

Good work.

I'd love to see normal opportunities here by not participating.

Your voice, I feel like your voice is less than could be, could be, you know, not a chance to speak, not a chance to say, hey, I got the I have this opportunity, you know.

So I don't know.

For I'm just thinking my mind, we got I don't know how much the high school is.

I don't I whether it's four million and twenty, I don't I know I I I don't, but you know, let's say it's four million thousand or return of four million, I think that's great.

Yeah, so opportunities like that, it's just you think someone's got to be doing that business and doing it well for the city of Norman.

Councilmember Dixon.

I was just gonna ask Councilmember Grant.

They've said a couple times the you know communities not participating in the CCEDC deal.

Who are those communities?

I don't feel like saying for sure whether there are or not.

In September, I heard of some, and that's why I'd like to know for sure who is on board and who is still gonna say no.

There was a presentation at one of the conferences.

I think our city manager spoke, and so other communities were in the room, but they expressed deep skepticism about the C C E D C.

So yeah, I would like to know who's gonna be a part of it.

But at this point, we don't know of any that have said no.

I mean, I've heard of him too.

I don't want to speak on behalf of other cities other than say what I already know.

And who knows, maybe they have signed on, and I don't think it would hurt to know where they stand.

I agree with you from their own mouth though, because like I don't represent some of these other places.

I just you brought it up a couple times.

I'll just do it some more fire.

Something's been bugging me.

A stat uh counselor dixon made was that over the past five whatever time frame you referenced, our average wage has gone down, our average annual income has gone down.

If we've been with them for 30 years, what are they doing?

Just a thought, and then one other thing.

Uh we're still part of Cleveland County, even if this doesn't get renewed, and they have about 10 to 12 million dollars worth of property, and mostly within the city of Norman.

They're not gonna let that sit.

Even as residents of Cleveland County and as participants in that route, we would still get the benefit of it.

Just thoughts.

Councilbury.

I somehow would like to find a way to salvage you know, and sadly Lawrence wasn't able to be here tonight due to other arrangements and everything like that to answer some questions that we might be able to get instant answers to tonight that we're kicking around the table right now and everything like that.

But I would like somebody to you know, mayor board member of the board that they have and everything to try to organize before this December 31st deadline with how many lack of meetings we have between now and then to really dive into this.

It can't that seems like a handcuffed time frame a little bit, you know, and everything.

But just sit down and say, hey, look, really have concerns about X, Y, and C real is what a bull.

We know trust you're doing great things, and it has a potential to grow greater.

But we need a compromise on XYZ, at least a conversation rather than just a piece of paper that says, Nope, not going to do it.

That's it, you know, and everything.

To me, that breaks down our mediation process, you know, where everybody could come to the table together, and we can help go recruit and invite other towns into this willfully and hoping to make money for everybody and everything like that.

If we all feel we're pulling on the same rope rather than feeling like maybe somebody's pulling on a dip rope than what we're pulling on.

And I feel like that's okay.

I would definitely like to see if that's maybe a chance that that can happen, you know.

Just to try to give some answers and just maybe see if we can have a conversation.

And not necessarily with us as a whole, just as a representative of Norm.

Is UConn and Mustang and Edmund and Midwest City and Del City, are they part of a coalition of economic development?

Do they all have their own individual person?

Is the person in Edmund and Broken Arrow that have recently been hired?

Are they performing this function?

Is it some other type of economic development that's not related to this?

So it's not the same.

Um because I'm wondering, yeah, is Broken Arrows and especially since they're the fourth largest city.

Um what is there?

Do they have a coalition of the Tulsa County or their coalition is through their uh chamber of commerce?

Uh so they they both what we've seen just in the in the bigger cities that we've looked at, uh Edmund and Broken Arrow, they both have internal staff and they participate in the coalition.

So they're they're they're kind of pushing both.

The way Norman has been set up for years and years and years is uh Mrs.

Sarah Kaplan in my office, she focuses on retail, and she's keeping storefronts full on Main Street and Campus Corner and you know in the mall and that kind of thing.

That's her full focus.

The coalition does not look at retail at all.

And since we're sales tax driven, it is important to keep our eyes on who's coming and who's leaving in the retail world.

Um the the bodies we saw in the job descriptions at Broken Arrow, they are doing similar functions in terms of meeting with property owners, knowing what's always available uh to be marketed, whether it's owned by a coalition or owned by a private property owner who says, Yeah, I'd love to sell this and you know build an industrial park kind of a thing.

They've just got more eyes and more hands on the rope.

I mean, uh but I'll check with the smaller cities out there too.

Be helpful to know how they're what those positions are doing if it's like we have that position and they work with the county and economic development coalition.

Um on behalf of Norman.

Um, then I'd that'd be good to know if that's what they do or not.

Um council grant.

Yeah, I would just say that I would be happy to come back to another study session between now and December 31st.

Uh maybe Lawrence would like to join us or not.

Um I'm open to discussing that.

Um, I would just say that because it's 608 and we have another agenda item.

I'd love to get into number two before we break.

Yeah.

Any other questions about that one?

Directions clear.

Appreciate you, council.

All right.

Item number two is a discussion regarding the Norman Economic Development Afford.

Okay, took a trip down memory lane for this one.

Um this goes back to 2011 when uh council identified through a new committee called Baca, you may be familiar with.

Uh the creation of a public trust authority to facilitate potential economic development incentives, identified that as a priority.

It was identified by priority at the retreat that year as well.

And we had a lot of meetings, a rule of three, a delay, a public forum.

Uh ultimately resulting in a resolution approving this trust indenture for the Norman Economic Development Authority and accepting the beneficial interest therein in June of 2012.

At that time, one of the pieces that council was talking about, including within the trust indenture was an advisory board.

We went back and forth on trustees.

Should they be council members?

Should they be other people with with specific qualifications?

Then we settled on an advisory board, and then part of that delay at the end was to pull the advisory board out of the trusted indenture and make it a separate board of the city by ordinance so we could work more on the on the purpose of that board.

Um so that's what ultimately we did.

That's the economic development advisory board.

Uh I think you mentioned uh Councilmember Gainesbury, they met Monday.

They meet on an as-needed basis to evaluate uh potential projects uh after we're having worked their way through a list that was initially given to them by council for for work.

Um we also worked on an economic development incentives policy, and so that that policy and the um creation of EDAB was done in tandem uh because council wanted that policy to help inform EDAB and the trustees of this Norman Economic Development Trust Authority, which ended up being council members, um, in their decision making related to uh farming development proposals passing out this policy.

Um extra light reading.

Um that was all approved and put into place in 2013.

EDAB has met uh met a lot in those initial years, as I said, had a list of assignments from council.

They were the first to look at this parking authority and really do a deep dive into that.

Um and they met Monday on a on a proposal that will uh make its way to council uh for some economic development incentives.

But the NEDA was created really like our other public trust discussion with parking and transit is as to serve as a vehicle for long-term contracts, long-term uh investments, debt issuance.

Uh they can hold property for uh economic development purposes.

Um public trust can do a lot of things that cities can't do just because we're we are uh limited with our financial spending to the current fiscal year, and so we use public trust to obligate ourselves beyond the the fiscal year, and that is completely uh permissible under Oklahoma law.

And one important aspect of that, it protects your general fund.

Yes, yeah, it keeps those funds separate.

Um and that trust should be operating at all times for the benefit of its beneficiary, which is the city.

Um historically, though we haven't really had a reason to use this trust.

So it's been sitting on the shelf all these years, so we don't have a funding source dedicated for economic development incentives.

Um, really, when we started doing this, uh NEDC was uh had purchased the property in University North Park, uh and there were some tax increments uh within that uh TIFF district for those projects, and so we were trying to find a way to distinguish because the Norman Tax Increment Finance Authority, a different public trust, is really for tax increment projects only.

And so we thought, well, you know, if we end up with a project that requires some other funding beyond that, we need a trust in place to really kind of facilitate that.

And so uh NEDA was was created.

Uh if a project is submitted, and we and we have had some discussions about projects over the years, but but honestly, not many.

And this this policy that you'll see is really aimed at um recruiting very targeted industries.

So we were looking really more at jobs, although it does allow for sales tax rebates, and there's some language in there to accommodate retail.

It probably needs some updating.

Um it's it's old, it's not really been tested.

It could probably use another look, but um if we were to get a proposal under that policy, it gets submitted to the cities, likely through the city manager.

Um then EDAB would take the the proposal and look at it and determine whether or not using the policy as a guide, whether or not they thought it should be recommended to the city or to NEDA.

Um, and then we would bring it to you all as trustees of NEDA or a city council members.

It really doesn't require any DA unless it's a long-term financing deal to review the proposal and determine whether or not to enter into a performance agreement.

We'll draft and negotiate that agreement based on feedback from both EDAB and council and then bring it back to you all for a vote.

Um so it's all the everything's there, the pieces are there for NEDA, but we've just never really had funding or a project that required it.

Um I noticed on the other slide, uh, maybe one back, it talked about whole property for ED purposes, and I think with some of the things that we're talking about, especially on Gray Street and potentially with the RTA.

Um, that's I don't know if that has overlap in those two uh cases, and if there might be a reason to like resurrect this and be intentional with those opportunities.

Yeah, that's a great example of of two things that would make a lot of sense for the economic development authority in terms of property, certainly the RTA property that we need for stations and and things is something that you guys have been working on and staff has been working on for a long time.

Um, and then of course, you know, Gray Street redevelopment if that if that comes to your fruition, having that property within that trust authority makes some sense.

Um the trust authority um, you know, without a funding source, it really is going to be more useful for uh long-term agreements, long-term debt that's pledging a certain revenue beyond TIFF revenue.

And so it doesn't have to be an NEDA, but but that would make some sense as part of an effort to try and resurrect it, as you say.

I guess my other question about it too is putting it under the NEDA.

Would that give council and by extension our constituents more say over what we want to see develops through it?

Yes, council serves as the trustees of any DA.

So much like your meeting tonight where the agenda says you'll be meeting as the NUA, the City of Norman, the NMA.

I think we still put a TIFF authority on there just in case it would your agendas would work like that as well.

So you all of those things would be heard in a public meeting, uh, just like they are now for any of our other trust authorities, and you all would have the input on those projects and those those priorities.

Okay.

Um I'll just say for the gray street, I'm not saying it has to be all bullet market rate, but there is a demand in Ward 4 for housing that is obtainable.

Um so I could see a way to incentivize pockets of affordability in some of these projects that may come online in the future.

And you'll see in that trust indenture, like all of our trust indentures, they are written very broadly to accommodate the lawful things that a public trust can do.

Um and sometimes I'll get feedback that says, well, why are we saying we can do that?

That's I can't even imagine having a project that would require that.

But we write them that way so that it's set up and the structures in place, so that if something comes down the pipe that we didn't envision, we've got the the powers and the and the ability to do that through the trust adventure.

Okay.

So one of the questions that's come up about um funding the coalition, that 130,000, is what if we just funded the Nita with that per year instead?

Um couple of well do we deposit money in a fund that would over time provide you with flexibility to do a deal, uh to provide an incentive to land um uh job creator of your choosing, or if you hire a body to go out and start hustling the industrial real estate available, that would probably be the lion's share of the 130,000.

You might have 30 or 40,000 a year available to build up over time to be able to provide incentives.

Um, and to the point about industrial, it didn't sound like we had a lot of options that are new, so we're working with available real estate, but we're also working on incremental development.

So I could see, like in a uh situation like Gray Street, you could incentivize mixed use, which is something we really want to see, but we've watched developers um struggle to bring that online, and James Garner is one particular stretch that I'm thinking about where in the future it can be converted uh into retail or restaurants or whatever, but currently it's housing.

Um so just thinking about incremental business development too.

It's not doesn't have to be all one big project.

Correct, the opportunity to uh take advantage of the tools in your toolbox, including uh tax increment financing districts or smaller subsets of that, like uh sales tax sharing for particular retailer you're trying to secure when you're thinking about developer incentives or developer assistance and financing to make that project pencil for uh mixed use that has affordable units in it that or has commercial on the bottom that might not want to set up given the current conditions of the market.

Exactly.

Um tax increment financing probably gets you enough money to move a project at a pace that would you'd you'd appreciate uh this isn't you know, this amount of money is not gonna get buckies, right?

Correct.

But um if there it could help an existing commercial space in Norman that wants to make public improvements to make that existing commercial space more viable going forward.

Absolutely what they're looking at on the space.

Okay, yeah, but like that's potentially if you have any small businesses could 130,000 a year.

Uh if you had a a uh strip mall that was just largely underperforming, um, and you determined the type of user that would really breathe life into it.

If there's a food desert and you found a grocery uh customer, your ability to say, look, we'll we'll share with you half of the sales tax you generate from your store in order to help you cover the cost of getting set up tenant improvements, buy down your rent uh over time.

And those are absolutely deals at your disposal.

Councilmember Bruce is I'm good.

You clarify, you know, the aperture on this is small compared to the aperture on the other one.

Yeah.

Okay.

Any other questions about this?

Um I mean that's oh yeah, cancer just in terms of dedicated funding sources.

What would be the process to assigning a dedicated funding source to this and what would those options be?

I mean, obviously sales tax, but you probably tax out of there.

Yeah.

TIFF, probably not an option.

No, we'd use the TIFF authority for TIFF revenues.

Um I think back in the back in the day in 2011, there was discussion about a small percentage of sales tax uh being proposed that just never really got off the ground.

But um it could be just an annual budget appropriation from the city to the trust authority as absent a special additional source of funding.

Thank you.

Okay.

Um so next Tuesday too soon, the 9th, maybe.

Um, yeah, we'll work on the 9th or the 15th, I think is the date after that, 16th.

Is it our council meeting is on the 13th?

Correct.

The council meetings on the 9th or 9th.

That's yeah, that's just I'll just come to the case.

We'll just do a ball.

Tuesday after shows.

Absolutely.

That may be a little soon, but we can the week after pre-council conference.

And if there's desire to move forward, we'll we'll put it in.

We'll hustle it and make it up and move on.

Okay, any final comment, questions, anything from anybody?

Okay.

Thank you, Steph.

Thank you, everybody's uh so I was the draft.

Good, good.

No weird others.

So you didn't get to finish your tells me that one last slide.

I actually did.

Oh my god.

She says any slide that ends a conversation with the last slide.