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2014-07-10 Edmonds Downtown Alliance (BID) MinutesMinutes from Edmonds Downtown BID board meeting July 10, 2014 at ECA at 8am. Attendance: Pam, Robert, David, Cadence, Sally, Jordana, Mary Kay, Natalie Pascale, Kim, Juliana, Paul, Cindy, Shane, Sarah, Scott, Clayton, Greg, Joe, Andy C., Bob, and John Dewhirst. Meeting called to order at 8:02 am. Minutes from June 10: There was some clarification to the minutes from the last meeting. The minutes were approved. President's report: Pam met with Cynthia Byrne regarding the City's Strategic Action Plan. She has been hired by the city to determine who will take the lead for each action item of the strategic plan and oversee completion of as many as possible. Pam let her know that the BID will be the primary lead on action itemla.6 which is "Design Storefronts". The board agreed to add this to our 2015 work plan. Rollout of the brand: Would like to present at a city council meeting in August. Pam has asked for volunteers to help with this. Treasurers report: $22,251.45 in expenses $52,527.06 in revenue $27,472.94 still to be collected in 2014. The BID has approx. $86,410 in the "bank", with about $50,000 due to Turnstyle. City update: Sarah reported that 13 businesses were sent to collections on June 19. No payments have been made yet. Last week 16 businesses were sent delinquency letters, they have approx. 30 days to pay before being sent to collections. The Finance Dept. received a couple of letters from disgruntled business owners and we want to address them. Pam, Jordana, and Natalie have offered to meet with the businesses who have written letters. Scott was unable to locate a write-off policy for the city. He will draft one. Shane is working on rewriting development codes for the city and will be asking for the BID's input. She reported on the status of the Post Office building. Permits have been approved; it is set to be a mixed use building with underground parking, commercial on the first floor and residential on the upper floors. No plans have been submitted for the front lot. There was a report on the signs that still need to be installed. The grant the City received was for the signs but did not include installation of the signs. The City has sent out a request to bid for installation. There is room on the signs for our logo. Clayton could design a bracket if he received a logo. The committee will ask Turnstyle if that is included in our branding package. 2 candidates are up for Stephens' position. Selection should be made soon. There is a new video on tourism on the city website. 2014 Work plan committees: Branding -No update. They are scheduled for a meeting the Turnstyle on July 15. We should be getting our final logo, colors and illustrations. Cadence will be the lead on the committee that will be working on the website and categories and gathering the information from each individual business. Regarding obtaining a URL's: Edmonds Downtown is available. Other possible URL's for future use or to keep in reserve are: HelloEd and Edmonds Alliance. A motion was made to "approve the committee moving forward with the Edmonds Downtown as our primary URL for the website and inquiring about obtaining the 4 dot.com endings". The committee will also ask Turnstyle to look into the cost of acquiring HelloEd and Edmonds Alliance for the future. The motion was passed. Professional Business Resources: Juliana has been looking into different speakers, she looking into the cost of renting the theater. It was suggested that we look into getting a speaker that can talk to business owners about how to use our new website to their advantage. Appearance and Environment: Umbrella project: Cost would be approx. $20-40 each incl. printing. This makes sense to bring it out with the brand rollout. Cost of project $5,000-6,000. Crosswalks: They would be a great visual and a great safety feature. There are 15-17 crosswalks within the BID. Original quote was $1000 per crosswalks. Pam will continue to research with the City to find out what the cities schedule for re striping and if we would be able to piggyback our funds. Project cost approx. $17,000. 3 Hr. Parking Poles: 138 poles within the BID cost of $800-900 per 10. Project cost $10,000-12,000. Art would add to the cost. Business and Civic Collaboration: Cadence, Paul and Pam discussed holding a summit. We would invite the different organizations such as the Chamber, DEMA, EDC, the Port, EdCC, the different city directors. Paul is the Project manager. They would like to host the summit in September. We would like to bring use it to roll out our new brand. Non-profit committee: They received a copy of the Service agreement for W. Seattle. They are looking at whether it is something we need now or can we look into it for future. Assessment and Evaluation: No report. Small Program Grants: Bob Groeschell presented how a 3-tier process would work for engaging members with grants and projects. The application process would be very simple. They would have to be in line with our mission. Tier 1- Less than $250, very informal Tier 2- Midrange grants Tier 3- Partnership to leverage funds. Scott recommends that we require a follow-up report. They would report how the project worked. Action Item: Cadence will send out the small grant application so we can look at it and make recommendations by the end of July. Public comments: Bob Groeschell commented on the Post office development project. He wanted us to know that after phase 2 is completed it will be the largest building in the downtown core. He reported that there are no specifics for maintaining view corridors, no accommodations for parking. We as a group need to look at the future picture of the Edmonds downtown. What is the vision or look that we want for the downtown. The American Institute of Architects has grants available where they come in and help communities plan out their cities. Andy Cline wanted to know if DEMA and BID had any promotions planned for the 4th quarter. A Local First is included in our work plan for 2014. With the roll -out of the brand and the summit we will be discussing this further. Clayton appreciated the comments from Bob G. regarding the zoning and vision for the downtown. The meeting was adjourned at 9:34 am. Our next meeting is Aug 14 at the ECA room 225 at Sam.