And you're surprised like that.

Good afternoon, everyone.

Uh, welcome to the February eighteenth, twenty twenty-six Oakland Planning Commission meeting.

I will call the meeting to order and we can do the roll call.

All right.

Uh, Commissioner Maurice Rob is absent today.

Um, Commissioner Alex Randolph.

Here, Commissioner Owen Lee.

Here, Commissioner Josie Aaron's.

Here, Vice Chair Natalie Sanibal.

Here.

You chair Jennifer Wank.

Here.

You have a quorum.

Thank you.

Uh, we'll move on to Commission Business.

Do we have any agenda discussion?

No agenda discussion.

Do we have a director's report?

No director's report.

Okay, and it looks like we have an informational report that was continued from the January seventh agenda meeting.

So that will go right to item number one.

Yes, and I feel bad because I just told the presenter.

Oh, you've got a bit of time because of open form, but over the form is layer.

So now of course she's sitting in the middle of a row.

So I apologize for that.

So we have uh Christy Johnson here from EWD.

I believe you're a deputy director, Deputy Director of Economic and Workforce Development Department, with a presentation on activation regarding the downtown, and before she gets going, uh, she's got a nice presentation.

I will note this is something that the planning commission asked for.

You had noted that there's been a trend of up proposed updates to regulations that affect the downtown, and you were curious about other initiatives the city has worked on in concert with relaxation of alcoholic beverage regulations in the downtown adoption of the DOSP.

And so this presentation is intended to complement the regulations you are now becoming familiar with.

They're new to all of us, of course.

And I also have asked Laura Kaminsky, the strategic planning manager, to be here as well in case you have questions about the connection between the economic development initiatives that Christy will be presenting and the recently adopted regulations for which you provided recommendations to city council.

And with that, Christy, welcome.

Thank you so much.

And hopefully you can hear me all right.

Alright, so for the next 15 minutes, I get to walk you through our.

I'm sorry, can you please state your full name for the list?

Sure, thank you.

Like a rookie.

Christy Johnston Limon, Deputy Director of Economic and Workforce Development.

And thank you for inviting us here today to talk about this strategy.

So I'll spend about 15 minutes giving you an overview of the economic development action plan, which is the city's five-year strategy to address many of the economic opportunities and challenges that you all probably have talked about before here, including five goals and actions that the city intends to take, and then go out into a deeper dive into our Oakland business community, who they are, where they're located, and more importantly, how the City of Oakland and the planning and building department can partner to further support both retaining and expanding our business community here in Oakland.

And then I believe we also have some time for question and answer.

Alright, so with that, this is the overall economic development action plan.

I actually brought three hard copies, which we just picked up from the printer last week.

If you or the public are interested, there's also copies of the slides there if you'd like to follow along.

What we tried to do was develop a five-year vision for how we wanted to develop Oakland's economy in a way that is equitable and that aligns with the Systies City's existing policies.

Our role at EWD, primarily my role in the business development division, is to sustain, attract, and retain and grow businesses here in Oakland and increase their investment.

But we also have many other roles that we play as part of the entire department, including building relationships with our business community, connecting businesses with the city and community resources to help them navigate Oakland so that they can thrive.

We permit special events that help activate our communities, including film permits and our cannabis and mobile food vending and other special activities that are what make our community really vibrant.

We also manage the workforce development board, which many cities do not, mostly counties do that function, but I believe it really allows us to integrate our workforce and economic development work in one place.

We also attract an administer grants and funding.

We provide real property asset management services through licensing and leasing of city owned property, as well as attract private investment, such as the partnership with Samuel Merritt University here downtown.

We also work with our artists and our culturalists to strengthen the creative economy.

And I can't read that last part.

Here we go.

You know what?

I have it right here.

I always come prepared.