Okay, welcome everybody. Uh, welcome to the April 2nd, 2025 Oakdale Economic Development Commission. This is our regular meeting. Um, let's have a uh call roll. Um, I'm Jeff Bates. Uh, here. Tony Jenkins here. Frank Orello. Frank. Yes. Stacy Penn. Robert here. And Ping Vang is not here tonight. Okay. Um All right. Let's do the pledge of allegiance. Frank, would you lead us, please? Sure. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you, Frank. All right. Uh the agenda is been handed out in front of us here. Uh can we have a motion to approve the agenda as presented? I'll make a motion. Okay. And second. I'll second. All in favor? I I. Anybody opposed? Okay. Motion carries. All right. For the minutes. Um any discussions or corrections? I have one uh myself. I know. I saw on the uh staff lays and updates. Second paragraph. Uh that first sentence was incomplete. So, I've already talked to Max about this and he'll update that. Any other corrections? Okay, you have a moment to review. All right. Uh a motion to approve the minutes with the corrections that I stated to the page two of the or the second paragraph of the staff lays and updates. Motion so moved. A second. Okay. And all in favor? I I Okay. Uh motion carries. Okay. Now, uh we move on to the open forum. Are there any members of the audience of the public that would like to speak? And right now I see no members of the audience. I'll close the open form then. All right. Um for our business, old business, uh we have the Economic Development Commission 2025 work plan. Max, can you speak to that? Sure thing. Good evening, folks. Give me just a moment to get the presentation up here. Um, so as a reminder, the economic development commission and other city commissions are required to prepare an annual work plan that outlines the priorities, goals, and activities that the commission wishes to focus on for the year. Uh, generally staff prepares a draft based on the upcoming projects for the year and what we've been hearing from our commissioners and then the commission will provides additional input and adjust the goals and priorities. The 2025 draft plan is located in your packet and will be shown on the screen in a few moments as well. Um, last November we did take a look at the initial draft of the work plan. Now, given that we've had the appreciation dinner and the opportunity to chat with the city council. Um, I want to open back up the work plan to any additional adjustments, ideas that you might have. Um, we want to make this open and if you do have ideas, we're very much looking for things that the EDC can focus on. So, I'll have these up on the screen and it's in your packet as well towards the beginning. Um, so here we just have the first few goals of the plan. Highlights include continuing the Bria program, participating in business visits and other business development events, advising staff on how best to market the city for economic development, and assisting with redevelopment efforts and area plans. Towards the bottom of it, we have additional goals which include collaborating with other local economic development groups on projects and programs, promoting resources and tools related to economic development, participating in city studies, including the upcoming 12th and Geneva study, participating in trainings, and integrating educational topics from guest agencies and organizations. Um, so this is the draft work plan. And with that, if there's any other ideas at all, I'd be happy to adjust that going forward. What are the next steps? So, formal adoption is no not required at this point anymore. Um, we would just look to make any adjustments and otherwise send it back to the city council for consideration. Okay. Uh, do you need a um any kind of a decision tonight on this? Um, I don't need a formal decision. Again, if there's just any out there ideas, anyone wants to float, please feel free. You can also email me or call me at a later date as well. I think the idea is to still have the 12 for the BR the business retention expansion 12 visits. Again, is there a recommended amount of people? I know you go on them frequently, right? Is there a recommended amount of people that need to go on there or ideal three, four? What's a typical amount that go on? Usually there's about four people. Yeah, we we try to have one representative of the business community who's not a part of the city um or can be a part of a city commission obviously, but um less we would want to make sure as visits restart that some folks who haven't gotten to go yet get a chance. Um, so once we start those visits up, we would um, email folks, do do Last time what we did was a random drawing and just reached out to see uh, based on who we drew and if they said yes, we invited them along. So I I think we would look to do that again. I was able to go on one a while ago now and it was very u interesting. I think it was the um home home furniture opening when that first opened up and that was interesting to hear about and then it was there was also one for one of the local motel hotels. Uh we got to talk with the general manager at that one. Learned a lot. He was looking at that time he was looking forward to the gold line uh just to even bring in workers for him for his place. So could see a lot of things coming together. It's really interesting and fun to see this. Do we ever run around back with any of those visits? Like a like you said like maybe like a year after, you know, to see like if somebody like that was excited with the goal line to follow up with them at the end of this year once it's been active and see how what impact it's had or anything. Just curious. Yeah, I can speak to that. Um, Commissioner, we have recently tried to really explore uh that option if you I actually gave you a phone call if you recall. um to follow up on your visit to CCF Bank. Um we've been calling some of our firstear participants, asking them questions if there's anything the city can still do, how business is going, um inviting further discussion if they wish to have it, and we look to continue to do that. Um we're exploring some contract options right now for the Bria program and uh exploring different opportunities by which we could follow up on old businesses and really highlight the retention component of business retention. Is there a formal um plan when a new business comes into Oakdale? Um does anybody from the city you know step up and say hey welcome to the city and you know like offer we've been cutting or anything or is it do they have to come to the city? Yeah. Um thanks commissioner. Uh we have a program that I actually operate where we drop off business welcome folders and offer up our contact information to new businesses that open. It can be a little tricky to find new businesses sometimes just given especially if it's in an industrial area. We might not know when someone moves in. We usually rely on certificate of occupancy uh certificates which many businesses do get when they move in. Uh you're required to but the reality is not everyone does and it can be hard to track that. We don't require a registration of businesses like some other cities may. So, um, when it becomes on our radar, we will reach out and then if they want further discussion, we can refer them to the city council to see if they want a ribbon cutting or a groundbreaking of some sort. All right. Any more discussion on the um economic development commission um 2025 work plan? All right. The next item up, we've already started working on uh talking about the business retention expansion and attraction program, the Bria program. Um, uh, year two report. Max, you have that? Yep. Thank you, vice chair. Uh, next up, we have the Bria report for the second year of the program. Over the last year, city staff, elected officials, chamber, and EDC members attended 12 visits uh with local businesses and now nonprofits in the community as well. As a result, um, St. Paul area Chamber staff have prepared a report which summarizes what we heard from businesses on the second year of visits. The presentation summarizes the report, identifies different trends that we heard, and then concludes with recommendations on how to support Oakdale businesses as a city. With that, I'm excited to walk through these findings, and please feel free to stop me with questions throughout. Uh just a reminder and introduction to new members. The BRIA program has four primary goals including express appreciation to businesses and build relationships, connect businesses with resources to help them grow, understand real estate and workforce needs, and understand how our policies impact the business climate of Oakdale. As stated earlier and as we've talked about a bit, uh each visit is usually attended by an elected official, city staff members, usually one or two, uh chamber staff and EDC commissioners. Uh with the program, we wanted to ensure that we visit a diverse array of businesses. So some priorities for business selection we used included bipok or womenowned businesses, legacy employers and geographic diversity. Uh generally we were able to reach many sectors across the 12 businesses including quite a bit of retail, restaurants and services. So more health care than last time. Uh distribution services, science, entertainment, nonprofits and real estate. So here we can see the businesses we located on uh on this map. Something we ran into the first year at Bria was we found that a lot of the businesses were really focused on the south side of Oakdale. Uh just given that there's so much commercial land along the 10th Street corridor and some other parts of the city. So we tried to spread it out a bit this year and I think we did succeed in that. um were able to make it up to North Oakdale as long as well as portions along 34th Street. In general, we did follow a survey approach to each visit, asking questions about business details, facilities information, workforce issues, transportation and transit insights, and general satisfaction with the city. Um, also each each visit includes a facility tour and group photos and then sharing photos later on social media and any questions that came out of it. Uh, myself or Andy will reach out to the business afterwards and make sure we can connect them with resources they need or help walk them through a permit, etc. The next several slides uh, combine photos of each visit with some key takeaways from the report. Generally, most businesses were retailers or restaurants, though we were able to visit more industries this year than last year. The oldest business we visited was Marcus Theaters, which opened in 1935, though the Oakdale location didn't open till 2000. The newest was Central Bark, which opened in 2022. Um, Pace was our largest employer with at the time 220 full-time employees. Uh though Canvas Health was similarly large with 140 in Oakdale and 320 overall with the Oakdale office being their primary location. And then game related, which is a trading card and board game store in the northern end of the city, was our smallest at just two employees or three. So during the visits, we asked about facility investment plans. We're happy to report that 10 of the 12 businesses were planning on general improvements, including expansions, remodels, and facade improvements. For workforce matters, in the first year of Bria, we heard from businesses that they were having trouble with filling open positions, especially lower skill positions. Uh generally we heard this as well from the second year of the program not hearing many differences in that though some businesses also reported finding it hard to recruit for some higher skill positions as well. Uh most businesses were still planning to expand their work workforce and it's worth noting as well that for the majority of businesses we interviewed mo they reported that most of their employees come from relatively close distances uh including cities like St. Paul and Woodbury. transportation. Uh for those results, we heard uh results that were pretty similar to the first year. Generally, most businesses liked the convenience of highway access in Oakdale with easy access to 694, 94, and 36. Um felt that many communities don't have that much access to primary arterial roads like that. Uh, most business owners said that their employees arrived by personal vehicles, but did think that more customers and employees could arrive via transit if it were more accessible and showed some interest in the new gold line. We did ask each business what they liked most about being in Oakdale. We heard a few general themes, including its central location, proximity to big employers, and the uh small town feel of the community. Other themes that we heard included the city being generally easy to work with uh relatively low tax rate and praised the public safety departments. And here we just have a graph showing that uh based aggregating them based on what we heard from each business. Again, the central location was the most popular followed by public safety and the community feel. During visits, we also asked businesses what we could do to improve. Uh most of the comments we heard were actually keep doing what you're doing. Uh but we do want to focus on where we can improve. Generally, we heard a lot of businesses uh mention that we need to improve our brand and reputation uh which we're looking to explore more in depth and we did highlight in the EDC work plan. Other feedback included better business support, not overregulating, um improving traffic, and partnering with other organizations on workforce resources. So there you can see the desired improvements mapped out um again with many saying uh keep doing what you're doing followed by business support and branding. So based on the feedback from businesses, uh the St. Paul Chamber staff did prepare several recommendations for the city. These included partnering with other organizations for workforce development purposes, improving transit stops and pedestrian infrastructure to allow for greater connectivity to businesses for customers and employees. partnering with organizations offering property enhancement incentives and streamlining uh permitting and zoning processes to support business which is a major component of what we're working on with the zoning code update project which we did bring to EDC last year as well and then last enhancing the city's identity by marketing itself as a destination uh which again is identified in the work plan and staff is interested in pursuing. So that concludes the B Bria presentation for the second year of the program. And as a reminder, the full report with more details is located in the packet as well. I'd highly recommend a read if you're interested. With that, I'd be happy to answer any questions about the Bria program. And as we prepare for future possible business visits, if you have any ideas for businesses to reach out to or you might have a connection with, be happy to hear that. I have a question on the key takeaway page. you had um one of the takeaways was needs better business support. That's one of the bullet points. Yeah, I was looking through the packet and I agree that that's a bit general. Um whether or not that could uh be partnering with an organization on support programs or if that's just being more readily available for businesses to contact us. It's it's a bit general admittedly. So, there's ideas on that. We'd be happy to listen. That would be kind of my guess, right? Like if they've have some startup companies and they're looking for some maybe some financial assistance or maybe before they're even open, like a business plan, sitting down with somebody from the city like to be able to provide some financial guidance would that would be kind of my guess at what that would mean. Like I said, it's pretty broad, but um because you see that in some of the other cities, I think they have programs where business owners can go meet with somebody from the city and discuss what their you know plan is and they'll help them go through a business plan a little bit. Maybe something probably something like that have um options available. So, you know, being an IT guy, I look for how can I support myself in different work environments, working from home, hybrid work. Okay, if I got to go into the office, the office is here. What kind of connections do I need? What kind of support can I get for when things go wrong? What happens if power goes out? I mean, all kinds of options. Here's some things to think about. You know, you have to build your own business. You have to decide how your thing works, but here's some things that we can either point you to or provide. Right. Actually, um, is the St. chamber going to take the lead on that again for this year or Yeah. Um I would need to check with the city council. Um we're exploring some different contract options. So my goal is to keep the EDC up to date as we look into that more. Um I think one of Yeah, I maybe already a question is how about a followup? So, we've been on year two now. Um, has any followup been done for the one first few that we um went to visit? Say how how's how's it been since our last visit? Any updates? Thought of anything, you know, because they say, you know, what can you do? Well, nothing. Well, they may have just been caught off guard, not thinking about it. Um, now that you've had a year working with this, um, anything that you thought of since then? Yeah. Um, as I mentioned a bit earlier, we built in a um, new system where we're checking in with these businesses um, a year after. Um, we recently did it with the first year and we're working on doing it with the second year or we will do it with the second year businesses after some more time has passed. Yes. Okay. Um, now that we are getting further along, if we're looking at future business visit opportunities, I mean, some of these very large employers or just businesses where there a lot might have changed in two years, that could be an opportunity to revisit or at least offer it up. And I can kind of speak to that too because we were like one of the first visits and he had reached out with an email but then also just you know or you know because if it is catches you off guard give me give him a call or email you know if if you think of something down the road. So um obviously a little bit smaller less employees in Oakdale um in our in our branch but u certainly if there's changes or anything uh is very welcoming right just to know that you don't need to respond like right now but give them a call or email down the road. So, I'm guessing you guys will eventually get to, like you said, year two as you go on. So, um, if you're looking for ideas, um, one I thought of was maybe some of our restaurants like Sergeant Peppers or the Boore. um just you know that they're kind of a staple in our community but also been you know in existence for a long time so there could be some needs that yeah we'd be happy to look into those could be another one I think we did do beers tube and sergeant peppers in the first year though it was uh either right as I had started with the city or just before so late 2022 22 or early 2023 because that'll also provide a good gauge for employment and what what they've seen over the 20 years that they've been here for needs too and usually provide some pretty good feedback those businesses that have been here a while and there's a new restaurant down by you Frank isn't there again a newer restaurant restaurant by the out in the shopping center in front of my building there there's a muddy cow and it is excellent place. Nice hamburgers. It's cheap. $8.99 hamburgers and they're delicious, too. It's a good place. It's They They remodeled the inside and not had nice floors and cleaned and painted and it's really in good shape. Nice place. Buddy cow. There's a one of those um in Still Water. There's several of them. There's one in St. Paul, too. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. go visit my mother-in-law out there in Still Water and once in a while we stop off there and you're right, those are really good burgers. Excellent. I go over there for lunch a lot with customer. Atmosphere is great. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Neat and clean and cheap. $8.99 hamburgers. How can you beat that? Commercial. All right. All right. Any other um any other questions or comments about Bria? All right. Uh new business then. Um we'll get to updates and all that after after our new business election of chair and vice chair. Every year we do this. Uh in your packets at the um end of the packet you'll have a ballot. have a pen. Uh, Max, I'll make sure I stay on the narrow path here for uh the proper language to use here. Then I can help us walk through the election process. Uh, just with Robert's rules, we do have to stick to it pretty close. And I'll be looking at the second to last page if anyone wants to follow along. For this first phase, um, we're going to be nominating candidates for the chairperson and vice chair positions. Um so the motion is written out on that second to last page uh written as motion to nominate commissioner X for the position of chairperson or vice chairperson. So we can open it up then to see uh who would like to who would like to run. Okay. Um any motions for let's go with the commission um with the chairperson first. I'll make a motion to elect uh Commissioner Jeff Bates for the position of chairperson uh for the 2025 period of one calendar year from today April third. All right. For this next uh next term. All right. Um do I need to accept or anything? I can just say or so we do have to go through a election process. Um so we're looking for nominations at the moment. All right. It's just nominations right now. Okay. Yep. All right. I'll um I'll nominate um for the vice chair. Motion to nominate the board member commissioner Tony Jenkins uh for the position of vice chairperson. Are you okay with that being so new on the board? Are you okay? Okay. All right. Okay. With me? All right. Uh, okay. When there are no new motions, um, someone make a motion that the nominations close. Make nomination. Okay. And a second. Second that. Okay. All right. Motion to close the nominations. Uh, or we have the motion to close the nominations for a chairperson and vice chairperson. All right. All right. Now, using the ballot provided, uh, write your choice, your name, uh, write in the choice of names for those positions nominated, and then pass the ballots over to Max. Please spell his last name, B A T E S. How you spell your last name? Right there boss. Jenkins. Got it. Okay. Oh, I wanted to be chair. I'm kidding. Okay. Give your mind back. No, I'm kidding. We have a We have a vote countdown here. Okay. Max will tabulate the results right now. Gary, do you have any music queue up for us? Like Jeopardy. All right, commissioners. The results are in and Jeff Bates has been elected as chair of the EDC and Tony Jenkins has been elected as vice chair of the EDC. We do still have one step left. We do need a formal motion to elect each member. Uh the template of which is item five on the election process sheet. So for example, the motion would be uh for chair motion to elect Commissioner Bates for the position of chairperson of the EDC for a period of one year commencing with the April 2nd meeting. So we need a motion for the first one. A motion to read it out. Motion to elect Jeff Bates for the position of Jeff. Did you make the motion? She's reading it. I'm reading it. Oh, okay. Yeah. You have to be They have to be specific on this one. The period for one calendar year commencing today on April 2nd. Need a second. 2025. We need a second for that. Second. Thank you. All right. Um, I guess I'll motion to elect board member commissioner um, Tony Jenkins for the position of vice chairperson of the economic development commission for a period of one calendar year commencing with the current meeting of April 2nd, 2025. Um, all in favor, wait, do we got a vote for each one? So moved. I move that we Okay. Yes. So moved. All right. Need a second. All right. Um, so for the uh um I guess we'll do this one at a time for the chairperson. All in favor? I Okay, that's passed. And then for the vice chairperson, all in favor? I. That's passed as well. All right, Max. How do we do? Perfectly good. So, we are good to continue. Election is complete. All right. All right, speaking as chair personnel. All right. Um, staff leazison and updates. Max, you're up again. Yep. I do have a good chunk of updates for you. I won't try to keep us here too long. I know we had the dinner beforehand. For one, if you recall at the last EDC meeting, um, I introduced the 12th and Geneva redevelopment study. In this study, uh we we will be looking at the land use and transportation and perhaps redevelopment opportunities in the area around Geneva and Highway 120, 10th Street and 14th Street. So during that meeting, I mentioned we were exploring using an intensive two-day workshop approach rather than a traditional 6 to9 monthlong study. So, I'm excited to let you all know that we will be pursuing the workshop approach in partnership with the Urban Land Institute. And as a part of the workshop, we will have a public reception for the project where we'll invite input on the study area. And I do want to formally invite the entire EDC to it. Um, while the exact start time has not yet been determined, the reception will be held on the evening of April 28th uh at the Oakdale Discovery Center. So, I will send out final information on this once I'm able to confirm it. Ideally, later this week or early next week. Um, so please let me know if you have any questions regarding that study and I'd love to see you all there. Where is that going to be again? It'll be at the Oakdale Discovery Center. Um, and I'll send out more formal information as well once I can formalize the exact start time. Yep. Additionally, a few other things. I want to note that the gold line opened up a few weeks ago on March 22nd and the opening ceremony was well attended and I do believe I saw a few of you there. So, from an economic development perspective, I do want to highlight just how much development has occurred as a result of the gold line. Something that was brought up in the mayor's speech at the event. For example, uh since the Helmo station transit oriented development district was created, we've had more than 600 multifamily units approved, a new coffee shop, plans for a new park, and more opportunities in the way. So, another thing, we are seeing an extraordinary amount of development interest in the last few months. We've we had we even had a special council workshop earlier this year where we just talked through developments. So, as a result, if you're interested in keeping up with it, I'd encourage you to keep checking the development map and even consider looking at planning commission packets to see as the public hearings roll in what those plans look like and what'll be up for consideration. Uh, one more thing, the zoning code update, which we brought to you guys last year. Um, the code draft, the entire draft, hundreds of pages, is currently written and under legal review. We expect to have the legal review done by the end of the month and then we'll hopefully begin sharing the final draft with council um at the end of the month ideally. So with that I would open the room to any questions with community development or anything else I can answer. is the uh majority of the development apartment. We have some commercial interest. The majority is residential in nature, but we're still getting some commercial interest. What kind of industry is the commercial? Is it like soft I don't know what to call it? soft commercial like hardware store, auto store, that type of thing or Yeah, we we have some uh one opportunity for multi-tenant commercial and then um there are some other projects where I'm just not sure if it's public information at this point. Okay. Yeah, sure. Do you know if there's any the uh daycare is going to go ahead on Helmo? The one uh next to my office? Yeah, the the one next to your office does have all its formal approvals in place and they could start construction. Um they were coming up on the expiration of their permits and did extend it just with financing conditions right now. Any other questions for Max? Okay, let's move on to uh commissioner updates. Um, so let's start with Bob. I don't have anything traditional. Okay. Uh, I have one just one update regarding the gold line. I was there. I was all the ones that Max talked to and uh I was there with uh some friends and and my family and we um rode the gold line all the way down to St. Paul and back and this was that was a very pleasant unexpected experience. It was really nice. And now, of course, we're imagining is um uh the the cost to ride $2 one way and $2 the next way. And thinking about it drops you off right near where the Saints ball field is. So, think of this called the Saints game. Instead of paying $30 to park down there and all that traffic have to mess with, you go park at the um end of the line up here for $2, get a free ride. Okay, it's really just park for free, but get $2 ride, $2 back, and you spend just as much time walking around. then you don't have to worry about finding finding your car. It's all back out here. So, opportunities uh we just see that as being a huge thing. So, we're kind of looking for it. Farmers market's right there, too. You know, the St. Paul farmer market. I like our farmer market that we have here in the summer. Know there's another one that we can go to. Sure. Let's bring that out. Make everybody aware of that. That's just a nice option. Chair, I would note as well that there will be parking available in Oakdale at Helmo station eventually as well. So you can don't have to travel quite as far. Yeah. And that's um that's under construction. You can see all the dirt be moved around. What's expected finish date on that? Do we know? That I'm not sure of, but I can get back to you. Okay. There's a small uh small hard surface that's in now. Oh, all right. Good. How often do the buses run? every I think during the weekday it's every 10 minutes and during the week on week nights and weekends it's 15 minutes. They have I think four or five buses running on that route. So it's just a just a handful of stops. So it goes pretty quick. And I noticed too on the way back when there's nobody at the bus stop and and nobody is ringing the cord, you know, went right on through. And they told us that it has the ability to um uh change the lights. So it gets close to the stop lights. Chang it for my I wish I had that button going right through. So it um it has some features that are are really nice. So last Thursday, my two sisters and I, they all live in Oakdale here. So we took a ride on the bus picked it up 11 o'clock in the morning and I mean it was a fun easy ride. I mean it was just really nice and I know you guys did it last Saturday but I had to work so I couldn't make it but Oh sure. Yeah. And and it's you know free and all that but um my goodness those buses are double buses. I What do they hold? 80 people. 30, 80, 60 people. Something like that. Yeah. God, are there going to be that many people riding those buses every 10 minutes? I just I question it. Not sure. I'm not sure about the viability long term. I mean, there's I don't know. That's all people going back to work downtown. That probably will happen more then. It's going to take a while to rebuild that. It will trans transit. And I think too uh just as people realized, hey, that bus is there. It's this type of transportation, people started saying, I could use it. You know, just like what I just did with hey, the Saints game, the farmers market. But where did you pick the bus up at? We went to the uh uh the wood wood lane station in Woodbury. So at the end of the line, that's where all the festivities were happening. So that's why we started there. So, what's the bus cost going to be for regular timeout? Uh, I a buck a person. $2. $2 a person. $2 a trip. And I think that's a timed period. So, um, it took I timed it. It took 35 minutes to get from St. Paul, this the last stop in St. Paul back to the Wood Wooddale station, Woodlane Station. And it cost $2 for that trip. And I think the Well, I mean, it will. And they said that the $2 is good for three hours. So you could pay two hours, go down, get something real quick, and come back. I suppose heck of a deal. I hope it works. I really do. Cuz we got a lot of money tied up in this a lot of money in this bus ride. Private lanes. I mean, no cars, no bikes, no pedestrians, just the bus. That's it. We've gotten some good press on it, so that's good. Did you go You wrote on I have not yet. be a family outing. All right. Um, that's all I have for an update. I have nothing. Um, have nothing either. There's the Oakdale Chamber lunch tomorrow. There is. And I'll mention that. Um, tomorrow we have the Oakdale Chamber and it's going to be at Oak Marsh Golf Course. Starts at 11:15ish. Good time to get there. And I have as a guest speaker, Major General Charles Kemper. He's a good customer, good friend of mine. And I've got him. He's going to be the guest speaker and talk about they the uh the guard had just been deployed to the Middle East. And so they were out there. They got back last December. They were over there for nine months. So he's going to talk about it. And of course, being a major general, he's pretty well organized. and I've seen the itinerary and he's got it all written out and he knows what he's doing. It's going to be a good program. So, if you you all got it, you're free to come. Should all be there. You should be there. You going to be there? Mhm. Okay. All right. All right. Thanks. All right. Uh, next on the list is the uh council uh leaison update. Who's that? That'd be you, dude. Thank you, Mr. chair. Nice to see you all wearing a different hat than the last time I saw you. You're in luck because Max um hit on about half of the things on my list. So, we shortened it down quite a bit. Gold Lion was there on Saturday as well. Um wrote it on Friday. I think they had a special ride for policy makers that it's impressive. I encourage you to try it. Um I'd also just on the business retention expansion program, Max talked about it. But I would encourage all of you on the uh on the economic development commission to particip participate in that as well. Um really pushing to strengthen the rel I am personally really pushing to strengthen the relationship between the city and our local business community. So more participation we have the better. Uh just a couple of things uh the council's worked on. You guys haven't met since November and I've only been on the council since January, but we've covered a lot of area in that time. And just a couple things I'll mention. Uh we looked at the park plan, updated park plan for the city and that was really about looking at um the needs of the parks and funding dollars available and prioritizing where we're going to spend those dollars in what order. So that was interesting. A bike and pedestrian plan. We talked a little bit about that at dinner. Um and then also uh you might recall the Willowbrook development is building like crazy up there, but we're working on uh the park plans for for Willowbrook as well. Um, last couple thing just uh just commercials for City of Oakdale. Uh, the EcoFare will be held on April 26th at Castle Elementary. That might be an interesting um event for you to attend. Um, the Arbor Day tree giveaway, the Oakdale giveaway 200 trees. The registration for that started yesterday and it filled in two hours. You had to register in advance for your tree and within two hours they had had filled that. So, that has been closed. Um and lastly, um we had a presentation from the Summerfest folks last at our last meeting. Um would encourage you to consider volunteering for Summerfest. They're they're in need of coordinators, workers, not so much ideas, but they are in need of people to help out with that festival and it's important to our community. So, I'd encourage you all to if you can to um participate in that. And if you're interested in that, you can reach out to me or to city staff and they'll put you in touch with the Summerfest folks. Um, other than that, that's all I have. You have any questions for me? There was an article in last Sunday's paper, I believe, about Pete Gratsky's tree giveaway. See that? Yes. A nice article. It was a great article. Yeah, very nice article. I was surprised to see it, but it was very nice to see picture of our mayor there, I think, pitching a tree in the back of a car. Two hours of closed. Yeah, I was surprised because I think I was told it would take about two days to fill up those 200 registrations in guess it was two hours. Um, if you're interested, you can still get on a waiting list because I know a number of people register I think historically and then they never they don't uh show up or they cancel and you might still have a tree available. So, but anything else? Thank you all. Good to see you again. Thanks, Gary. Okay, last item on the agenda is adjournment. Nothing else. Can I have a get a motion to adjurnn? So moved. Second. All in favor? Okay. Anybody opposed? All right. Motion carries. Meetings adjourned.