So we'll go ahead and get started.

Welcome to the city council special meeting for Tuesday, October 27th, 2026.

We have two items on the agenda.

The first one is a discussion updating on updating the ordinance for the economic development advisory board.

And you know, it's something we've been discussing for a number of months, really for a long time, but specifically for a number of months, um, partly with the mall uh incentive proposal, and then um not being the county economic development coalition.

So this is just a continuation of that discussion.

So we last talked about this at the business and community affairs meeting October 2nd, I believe it was, um, or October 1st.

Uh, most of you were there, so so you'll remember this.

Uh, but our current current ordinance says that the EDEB has seven members.

Uh, four of those have to have required expertise,

uh,

suitable and appropriate knowledge and/or experience in the areas of economics, business, finance, law, policy analysis, and community development.

And we also have the NEDC executive director or his ear designee serving in a non-voting ex officio capacity.

We talked about this in October coming from your retreat over the summer.

We talked about ward-specific appointments, so eight members uh for one for each ward plus an at-large member.

Uh

of those, we discussed how many should have expertise, and we settled on seven of those uh appointments, and then we expanded, talked about expanding expertise uh to include small business ownership or other relevant experience, just recognizing there may be some experience, some candidate who's got this great experience that may not fit into one of the categories in the ordinance, but we want to give you all the freedom to consider that person.

Um we also added language in their uh duties and powers section to include the uh review of the economic and risk analyses that was added with the adoption of the TIFF ordinance.

Um, and so we were left really with one issue.

I rewatched the meeting again today just to make sure I wasn't missing anything, and I think this is the only issue remaining, and it was whether we wanted to have nine members and wait for uh current members to roll off for their terms to expire to get up to that representation for each ward.

Uh

that would be in October of 2027 before we would get all nine members appointed representing each ward.

Um, or council members still had a suggestion to go immediately to 11 members so that we could appoint someone for each ward that's currently unrepresented, and then once those uh two members that expire in August of 2027 roll off, those terms would go away and we would be back down to nine members.

And so I've drafted two options for you.

Option one is nine members.

Um you can see the addition in both of these options in two three eighteen A.

Uh, we've added that experience we talked

about.

B requires uh ward representation.

Uh

we've updated the

uh

ex-officio member uh from NEDC to the Cleveland County Economic Development Coalition, and then uh in two-three twenty, you can see where we added the economic risk analysis.

But the biggest issue is in the composition.

So in 2 318a, that's nine members in option one.

At least seven would have that required experience.

Um you can see in the section six of the ordinance.

This is not codified, but it talks about how with the expiration of terms or vacancies occurring that you would be appointing members who aren't currently represented.

Of course, with the increase from seven to nine, you'd appoint two immediately upon the ordinance's effectiveness,

um,

which will be 30 days after adoption.

And then in option two, we have that 11 member, excuse me, that 11 member option.

Um the suggestion originally was to include that in section six of the ordinance, but it needs to be codified because it will be uh an appointed position by council.

So I've added that into section two-three eighteen A in option two, um, where it says 11 members.

Then I put at the end effective August 4th, 2027, with the expiration of two terms or of terms for two members, that membership would be reduced to nine total members.

That would enable you to have order representation immediately upon the effective date of the ordinance and an appointment of those members.

Um, but then it would reduce it back down to nine as the two current the two uh terms that expire in 2027 uh expire basically they would roll off.

Um right now, and this is why it's a little funky.

Right now, out of seven members, we have four from ward three, one from ward four, one from ward six, and one from ward eight.

Those two terms that will expire.

Um there's actually three terms expiring in August.

Two of those are from ward uh three.

So that will kind of solve the some of the problem of over overrepresentation there, and that would allow you with the two additional appointments.

Um whether you go to nine or to eleven, you'll have two additional appointments you'll grab two of those wards, and then in August, you could grab the other two, or you could grab them immediately with the uh increase to 11 members.

Councilmember Stewart.

Uh yeah, so obviously I prefer option two just because I'm the one that suggested it, I guess, in the beginning, and the the reason why I favor it is

if

we're gonna be asking this board to be doing stuff pretty quickly.

I just think it's more important to have some kind of representation now as opposed to in August.

Um, you know, I don't want to get in a situation where we appoint two people now, they're kind of handling some stuff, they're going through whatever their duties are, and then we appoint two more people in August, and they have to kind of get up to speed.