Loading...
11-09-10 Workshop Meeting MinutesWORKSHOP MEETING NOVEMBER 9, 2010 A Workshop Meeting of the City Commission of the City of Delray Beach, Florida, was called to order by Mayor Nelson S. McDuffie in the First Floor Conference Room at City Hall at G:00 p.m., on Tuesday, November 9, 2010. Roll call showed: Present - Commissioner Gary P. Eliopouios Commissioner Fred B. Fetzer Commissioner Adam Frankel Commissioner Angeleta E. Gray Mayor Nelson S. McDuffie Absent - None Also present were - David T. Harden, City Manager Brian Shutt, City Attorney Chevelle D. Nubia, City Clerk Mayor Nelson S. McDuffie called the workshop meeting to order and announced that it had been called fox the purpose of considering the following Items. WORKSHOP MEETING AGENDA 1. CHAMBER OF COMMERCE MARKETING. GRANT RE(?UEST Mr. Greg Weiss, Economic Development Committee (EDC) for the Delray Beach Chamber of Commerce, stated the addition to the addendum for the request is on the dais. This request t comes on Behalf of the Chamber of Commerce through the Economic Development Committee. They are a group of private sector local business people that represent each of Delray Beach's business districts. The community is the economic development driver of the Chamber of Commerce. Any initiative for development comes through the committee. The EDC is committed to long term growth and the economic viability of Delray Beach and also committed to bringing higher tax based businesses to Delray Beach in the effort to create higher sales and property tax revenue for the city. He discussed goals regarding tourism. The EDC and Destination Delray hold monthly meetings, focus groups and economic development events which are 100°/a volunteer based, a.ll from the private sector. Mr. Weiss referenced BusinessDelray.Org and discussed awareness, marketing districts and incentives as well as efforts that have been done by the Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA) and the city. From the tourism. standpoint, the EDC believes tourism is crucial to the economic growth of Delray Beach. Through Destination Delray, the EDC has identified key areas of untapped tourism dollars that will substantially benefit all of Delray. Though there are many subsections of tourism, the EDC feels that corporate tourism has cross over and cross pollination potential oa both the tourism side and business relocation. It will showcase Delray as a place to start or relocate a business. He continued to reiterate their beliefs regarding partnership and stated they are asking for a strategic investment from. the city. Mr. Weiss discussed the aspects of their proposal Commissioner Fetzer stated he would like to hear from staff regarding this grant request. Mr. David T. Harden, City Manager, discussed the city's normal grant cycle as well as concerns with the request. Mr. Eliopoulos thanked Mr. Weiss for the presentation and discussed the budget. He feels tourism will help Delray Beach. However, he would need more information to make sure others are on board with this. Mrs. Gray stated timing in this economy is difficult with everyone and thinks we are duplicating the efforts of the Downtown Marketing Cooperative (DMC), Downtown Development Authority (DDA) and the CRA. She stated she would like to be fair to everyone. Mr. Frankel thanked Mr, Weiss for the presentation and feels BusinessDelray.org is the best website. He stated all requests of this nature should be done in the appropriate time frame. Mr. Fetzer stated this is an area he is very concerned about and spoke regarding the timing of the request. He stated we still have budget issues that are up in the air. Tn addition, he mentioned duplication of efforts and overlap. He stated we need to think through long term strategies and would life Commission to consider some level of funding to support this. Mr. Eliopoulos stated he does not feel we will have duplication if there is proper communication. However, he stated he is looping at other things we are trying to work out such as relocation ;of the Chamber of Commerce; we map be providing some monies for this. We have to put qur priorities together. He believes in this and feels there is value here. He would like to see more input from other organizations. Mrs. Gray stated it is important that Commission stay focused on what their goals are and should stick to them. She stated if Commission comes up with dollars for this organization we should also look at the requests from other organizations. Mayor McDuffie stated he spoke with Mr. Weiss about this in regards to timing and budget. He is in favor of the direction this document is heading us in but it needs to be cleaned up a little bit. We should articulate the issues the city has with this request back to the Economic Development Committee in writing. He stated it would be very shortsighted of us not to recognize that we need to kick start econotxzic development in the city of Delray. On the other hand, we have to negotiate with two unions fox $1,000,000.00 out of what they choose to work with us on. Our budget plans were made on the fact that we pick up $2,000,000.00. He stated he would like to know where we are on that right now. He stated economic development is crucial to the community. Timing is poor right now; however, once we find out where we stand maybe we can refocus. Mayor McDuffie commended everyone who worked on this. He asked that we keep working on this. Cathy Balestriexe mentioned Destination Delray and stated they are different from the DDA or DMC since Destination Delray's initiative is much broader and the plan is to market nationwide and internationally to over 2.S rnil].ion people expecting to increase the amount of tourism and focus on corporate tourism as a big part of that. Ms. Balestriere stated they are working with very big organizations to do this for a very small amount of money. The DDA's focus is more localized. She stated Destination Delray will be able to calculate heads in beds regarding hotels and put value to this. Mr. Weiss stated all of the comments in the memo prepared by Mr. Robert Barcinski will be responded to efficiently. He stated he appreciates the Commission's time tonight. 2 November 9, 2010 Mrs. Gray asked how the incubator aspect of the proposal will affect the incubator efforts of the TED Center.: Mx. Francisco Perez-Azua stated he spoke to Mr. Seabron Smith about this and there is a difference in talking about an incubator and incubation. He stated the economic development .efforts of the chamber and his job is incubation: to bring in companies and help start up companies and career opportunities into Delray Beach. He stated they axe not trying to undo or go against what the TED Center is doing. Mr. Frankel asked about Destination Delray's efforts in bringing convention business to the hotels. Mrs. Gray asked if the EDC wilt be open to a loan versus a grant. Mr. Weiss stated he will take that question back to the commtttee and asked that this be included in the Commission's comments to them. Mr. Eliopoulos asked if this was discussed as far as the amount that the EDC requested from the city. 2. EMPLOYEE FORUM PRESENTATION Mr. Richard Reade provided an overview of the Employee Forum stating this is on the city's Intranet. He'stated it was modeled after a Dell program that Mr. Harden learned about at a leadership conference. Our employees have the suggestions and work on the programs so who better to come up with ideas and suggestions. He stated the software package was provided at no cost to the city. This is an opportunity for people to ask questions or provide comments. He stated people can also post anonymously and Mr. Harden felt this feature was important so they would have the opportunity to still now speak directly to Department Heads, the City Manager and Assistant City Managers as well as cross departmental lines. He stated there are 6- $main forum topics and employees are being trained to use the forum. In addition, computers are being utilized in common areas for employees who normally do not use computers. He discussed the monitoring of the site anal posting replies. 1VIr. Reade reiterated that this is a new tool that we are utilizing and it is an appoxtunity for people to have conversations that they have not had before. This is a documented opportunity for it to be heard and viewed and we are trying to change the way we do business through this tool. It was the consensus of the Commission that this is wondeYful, a great idea and a great tool for feedback from employees. 3. LEGISLATIVE PRIORITIES FOR 2011 AND FEDERAL APPROPRIATION REQUESTS Mr. Douglas Smith, Assistant City Manager, stated staff wanted to bring this before Commission £or an earlier discussion this year to receive any input they may have on federal and state issues coming up for the next year. Over the last several years, staff has put together a state legislative document and summarized this in a handout format and these would be updated as we receive more information about the upcoming session. We typically get a lot of information from the Florida League of Cities and they will set their legislative priorities at their conference later this month. In addition, we are mentioning the federal appropriation requests and these are generally due in February or March. 3 November 9, 2010 This past year we requested money for beach renourishment and we are waiting on more information for this and we also requested Federal Highway funding. Mr. Smith explained the federal request cycle. He stated in 2011 we will submit our federal request for our beach infill project which is a total project cost of approximately $9.$ nullion and a federal request of X3.3 million. Mr. Frankel stated he would like whatever can be done regarding Federal Highway. Mrs. Gray mentioned sidewalks and bicycle paths especially in regards to children in the neighborhood being able to walk and ride their bicycles safely. Mr. Eliopoulos stated he would like something added regarding the beach, reclaimed water and Federal Highway. Mr. Fetzer complimented Mr. Smith on putting this together and stated this is a great jab at presenting this. He sees nothing that conflicts with what he supports and he is in favor of these. He mentioned the signage on Federal Highway. Mayor McDuffie discussed his meeting with Senator Nelson last year and the highway funding. Mr. Eliopoulos stated he would like to add downtown train to the Iist. Mayor McDuffie stated there is discussion going on in the Metropolitan Planr~ig Organization (MPO) regarding the downtown train. He echoed great job to everyone on this and stated we always have pamphlets with information to give to our representatives and senators. He stated we will have work to do in Washington this year as far as building new relationships as a result of the electron. Mx. Smith stated Mr. Reade helped as well with the state and federal issues and thanked him fox his help. He asked Commission to let him know if they need any additional information. Mayor McDuffie stated last year staff did a great job on the pain clinic issue. 4. FORMAT FOR ANNUAL CITIZEN'S ROUNDTABLE MEETING Mr. Smith stated staff wanted to receive Commission input regarding the format for the Annual Citizen's Roundtable that will take place on January 2S, 2011. He discussed the past year's format utilizing the small group discussions (the "Peter Black" format). Staff recommends that we use the same format for this year. The first half of the meeting would still be standard presentations. Mr. Smith stated one adjustment we would need to mare is a stricter ending time. He stated he attached some sample questions and we could inquire from the Alliance for Innovation., if they would be available to facilitate again. He discussed the infrastructure questions for the roundtable. Mr. Frankel stated it worked well, however, when you move people, you Iose them. He feels we should move the meeting time to 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. Mrs. Gray agrees with the change of the meeting time to 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. 4 November 9, 20I0 __ __ Mr. Eliopoulos stated he agrees that once people have to move, they leave. He discussed past formats. He stated he did not get enough out of last year. He prefers the roundtable forzxaat. The city manager stated we could possibly look at having the entire zxaeeting in the gyre. Mayor McDuffie mentioned changing the time. He discussed last year's small group discussions and stated people were speaking to each other who had never met before. In that aspect, the small group venue was great. Mr. Eliopoulos stated he does not hear feedback from citizens regarding the meetings. He often hears negative comments. Mr, Fetzer discussed the issue of going back to the open mics. He stated he agrees with staying with the small groups but there are too many questions. He would rather we ask a fewer number of questions and thoroughly discuss those. We have to make it meaningful and worthwhile for people to invest their time into this. It needs to move along and be held in the gYm- Mayor McDu£fie stated we tried to accomplish too much and burned the people out. Mr. Frankel stated we could send out the questions and asked people to email them in Mr. Fetzer stated he is willing to suggest a meeting time of 6:30 p.m. as a compromise. Mr. Smith stated we could save at least 20 minutes by staying in one spot. Mayor McDuffie adjourned the Workshop Meeting at 7:3G p.m. ~. . City Clerk The undersigned is the City Clerk of the City of Delray Beach, Florida, and the information provided herein is the Minutes of the Workshop Meeting of the City Commission held on Tuesday, November 9, 2010, which Minutes were formally approved and adopted by the City Commission on November 16, 2fl10. ~~ \~V City Clerk 5 November 9, 2010 NOTE TO READER: If the Minutes you have received are nat completed as indicated above, this means they are not the official Minutes o£ the City Commission. They will become the official Minutes only after review and approval, which may involve amendments, additions or deletions to the Minutes as set forth above. 6 November 9, 2010