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CEC MINUTES 12-7-2020 ' I CITY OF SOUTHLAKE TEXAS COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT COMMITTEE MEETING MINUTES: December 7th, 2020 LOCATION: VIA VIRTUAL MEETING TIME: 6:00 P.M. COMMITTEE MEMBERS PRESENT: Place 1 — Sherry Berman, Chair Place 2 —Vandana Tanneru Place 4 — Vamsi Alla Place 5 — Roja Kasarla Place 6 — Shayne Forsyth Place 7 — Muhammad lqbal COMMITTEE MEMBERS NOT PRESENT: Place 3 —Vacant STAFF PRESENT: Lauren E. LaNeave, Assistant to the City Manager Jerod Potts, Policy & Strategic Initiative Principal Planner Daniel Cortez, Director of Economic Development & Tourism CITY COUNCIL MEMBERS PRESENT: N/A OTHERS PRESENT: N/A REGULAR AGENDA 1. Call to order. Meeting called to order at 6:01 by Sherry Berman, Chair. 2. Approve November 2, 2020 CEC meeting minutes. Muhammad made a motion to approve the minutes as written. Vandana provided a second. Approved (5-0). Roja arrived after the vote. 3. Discussion: Meeting Minutes: Community Engagement Committee Meeting— December rh. 2020 Page 1 of 4 a. Southlake Economic Update and Business Grant Program. Daniel provided an update on the City's Economic recovery efforts since the COVID- 19 pandemic. Daniel spoke to financial and economic indicators such as sales tax, residential building permits, hotel occupancy tax, etc. The situation was dire with Town Square being almost in the vacant middle of the day. The taskforce was started and set forth 6 strategic goals. Unemployment: Not necessarily represent people working in Southlake but living in Southlake. In April it was around 14% in U.S.A., 13% in Texas and 8% in Southlake. It came down to about 4.2% in October timeframe. It was 3% in Southlake in February. The unemployment bump in September could be to the airline industry employment in Southlake. For Texas the dependence on oil and energy could explain higher unemployment numbers. The DFW area is more diversified and is not as dependent on oil and energy sector. Sales Tax: The City feels good about this as the overall impact has been less. We saw a slowdown in March, April, May but the rest of the months were fine. 60-70% of sales tax comes from outside folks. The residents in Southlake started making more purchases offsetting the decline. April saw about 19% YOY decline but the impact for the whole year is not much. In June we saw a spike and it could be attributed to cabin fever. Anecdotally, we could observe lines outside stores line Bath and Body Works. YOY we are 2% better than last year. The community came together for us and the business owners operated well. The sales tax goes to our general fund that takes care of the roads, staff salaries, etc. The annual sales tax total is $28 million for the general fund. Hotel Occupancy Tax: The impact here is higher. April and May were not great for the hotel industry. Revenue for hotels is slowly increasing month over month since June. It is going to be a slow crawl to get the revenues to be on par. Residential Building Permits: Stands at 79 in 2020. Been reducing since 2015 when it was 272.The permits increased from 2010-2015 due to capital being available. The permit count reduced from 2015-2020 and this can be attributed to lack of land and not to be seen as an indicator of any recession. We may see a spike in 2021. Commercial Building Permits: Fairly level at 20 in 2020 and this is steady for the period from 2015-2020. The forecast is to see reduction in the next 5-10 years as there is not much land to build. This is only for new commercial building permits. We have a new section on the City's website, the Business resource center. This will be a single go to place for local businesses to look up information like business grants etc. The gift card purchase push seems to have helped. The landlords worked with the businesses to come up with an arrangement to Meeting Minutes: Community Engagement Committee Meeting— December 7"', 2020 Page 2 of 4 accommodate businesses that saw reduction in revenue. Harkins unfortunately didn't make it and we hope that a good entertainment business with replace it. Daniel also spoke to the launch of the Southlake Business Relief Grant Program. Grants up to $10,000. This is not CARES Act funding. The funds are from the general fund. This is geared towards to local businesses and not towards national chains. Application period opened December 3 and closes January 15. Three priority tiers and grant awards begin February 2021 for business operations. Can't be used for personal or residential expenses. The Committee asked the amount of money in the general fund, which was about $28 million in FY 2021. The Committee asked how the City knows who will receive the grant money. Daniel noted that there are details provided on the application, but staff has been answering calls from people with specific questions. Daniel noted that if not all money was awarded the City would likely open the grant up if funds were left over. The Committee asked about the best way to communicate to businesses in terms of resources from the City, and where the most encouraging feedback has come from. Daniel noted that a year ago this likely would have been word of mouth, but now businesses have gravitated towards social media. b. Waste Wizard Testing and Communication. Lauren spoke about the Waste Wizard tool. The primary purpose is to provide even better customer service. The tool is a widget that will allow for residents to search through the site how to dispose of certain waste items, and what can be recycled. The tool gives the City analytics, so we know what people are searching for the most. The tool will also provide us information about what people have searched for that is not available on the website. The impact of wishful recycling is that it takes 5 times more to process that trash through recycling than to put in regular trash. Lauren noted that this project is linked to a master plan recommendation in the Health & Wellness Master Plan. The Committee asked when the tool would go online, which Lauren noted is planned to be January 2021. The Committee asked if the tool would be mobile-friendly. Lauren noted it would be, but it can be viewed through a mobile application that can be downloaded. The Committee asked if there was a way to advertise this kind of program on the recycle bins themselves or somewhere that the messaging would be prevalent. The Committee noted that "Recycling Right" as a program name was short and intuitive. Lauren noted the CEC communication plan identifies proper recycling and waste disposal habits as a communication and engagement campaign. The Committee noted they were excited about this program because people do not know what to recycle. There may be opportunities to work with OMC on putting out an informational video. Meeting Minutes: Community Engagement Committee Meeting— December 7�`', 2020 Page 3 of 4 4. Consider: a. Annual Report Update. Lauren provided an update on the timeline for the CEC report and the annual engagement plan. b. Development Update. Jerod provided a quick update about how there will not be another SPIN meeting until 2021. 5. Discuss future agenda items. 6. Adjournment. Sherry adjourned the meeting at 7:37. ATTEST: Y ,id amsi Alla, Secretary �4 Meeting Minutes: Community Engagement Committee Meeting— December 7"', 2020 Page 4 of 4