Mr. Lewis. Mr. Abrine. Mr. Farmer. Mr. Scary. Mr. Zimp. Ms. Watkins. We have more. Mr. Lewis. Mr. Farmer. Mr. Lewis. Mr. Farmer. Mr. Scary. Mr. Zimp. Ms. Watkins here. We have more. We have more spots. Do I have motion to adopt the idea to move the brief issue? Was that Mr. Zant moving or Mr. Dishman. Oh, Mr. Bryan, thank you. In the second. I second. Thank you, Mr. Scary. All right. Mr. Dishman. Mr. Durro Bryan. Mr. Scary. Mr. Zimp. I miss. Ms. Watkins. I miss. Mr. Farmer, the motion. Ms. Watkins. Aye. Mr. Farmer, the motion to adopt the agenda is on the floor. Would you like to vote? Aye. Thank you, sir. Mr. Lewis. Aye. Motion carries. Thank you all for coming. We're really excited to have you here. Before we go ahead and heading into everything this evening, I wanted to at least introduce Mr. Will Koffer, who is here from PPRPC. He is with a planning and engineering firm based out of Charlottesville, and also they have an office enrichment. And they work mainly with local municipalities and also have done some national work as well. And they focus on strategy sessions, projects, and etc. Thank you for being here. Thank you. Hello everybody, thanks for having me here this evening. I look forward to chatting with you all about strategic plan and vision and mission and looking forward. I just introduced myself a little bit more. I am from the area with Patrick Henry High School. So I'm member of the Smith pig and all these other places we're talking about growing up. And yes, as Kelly was saying, we knew how localities with planning, efforts, conference plans, smaller year plans, and development plans, outdoor recreation, food systems, civil engineering. And so a wide variety of different projects. So we're happy to help out here with you all this evening. Do you have a PowerPoint? You have the slides as well. It's going to be more of a prop more than anything. Not intended to get too much focus but really to get it give us some structure as we work with the agenda. Speaking of which we'll go ahead and jump into it right away. We have a lot of ground to cover here this evening. Do you want to do the introductions? Just to get to know you all a little bit better, first and by person, just to see what it is you're hoping to get from the process and what you hope to see on the backside of this effort. I'm going to do a quick orientation of strategic plans and really trying to define visions, organizations and how to lay out the strategies and benefits of doing so. We did have to survey ahead of time. Thank you all for taking that. Great results in that. And we'll review those, a question at a time and see what you all think. We'll talk about assets and challenges that the ADA faces. We'll do forward. The real hope for this evening is if we can get some raw material that would go into some visioning and goal statements. We'll talk about next steps. And I'll lay out some drafts for staff to present back to you all, give you a good starting point, and then get you a plan. We'll do it in four words. Sir, I'd like to hear any questions before we get started. I'm sorry. I'm going to put the name tags on the table. That way you can see that. Oh, yeah. I see that. Yeah, that would be great. Actually. Right. Oh. OK. I'll find it. I could be the mayor today for maybe a minute. Found it. Got it. I don't want to see it. I asked. Well, make sure there's no one down here. There. There. So, I did want to go through introduction to your interview myself. I'll also say we're a few different hats, so I have been faculty at UVA for past 12 years. So I've got some fellow WACO over here. And then also work with VCU and I'm director of their Laney's Education program. So we train Virginia's planning commissioners and DZA members. Have big five planning commissioner training classes where on the 100th and 14th edition planning commissioners training and then we're starting the 46th edition. You know anybody? We're going to get training and local governments. Great. All right, so catch your names now. But really just wanting to learn a little bit more from each one of you individually of your experience with Ashlands, with the EPA as well. And then what you hope to get out of the process. So we're going to be talking about vision and mission and identifying actions and focus and how to move forward. So what is it really here? So you're looking at me, so I guess I'll just just look at that. I ain't looking straight at everyone's direction. I was shuffling over and I had five months experience with the EDM. How can I get them up? I'll live in Ashland right on this road right here for about a two and a half years. I was also a commercial weapon vendor for 35 and over the years with my primary territory being in Ashland in half. So I have experienced with a lot of businesses around here. And I guess what I like to get out of this, I like to improve the vulnerability of Ashland, I guess it's improving some and getting new business to come and probably improve the existing ones. I'm Denise Watkins, and I'm also five months on the EVA. So just started. I'm Denise Watkins, and I'm also five months old in the ADA. So, just started. I moved to Ashland July 1st of 2022, so I've not quite been to years here yet. I came for a new job with the College of Randall-Macon. And so during that time in order to try and make people I took the community leadership academy that Ashland offers and make people, I took the community leadership academy that has some offers and learned that we can volunteer from that experience. So here I am. I think what I would like to see in the process is I think it's a great little town. I really like it a lot. Is the development of the businesses, especially like in this historic area? What can we do to support what's there? And is there any possibility for growth, but not growth like big, but like contained and what works for the town? You don't want to change it. Keep the same characteristics. I'm Randy Lewis on the chair. I've been with the EDA group. I did it under the sink. It's not over. And I grew up around here. I've been running my own Macon. We've been 15 years up in Fairfax, 20 in Charlottesville, raised our kids. And came back here about eight years ago. And loved the town of Ashland, loved to be with the walk everywhere by the town. And loved to see that. Ashland. Flurs, but also keep that unique feeling. I'm hard to say. I couldn't help but I wanted to meet. There's a longer than I thought. I lived out in the evening of 86, and then in 2000 I started working in the National and I was a little sort of national. And so I've always been in a Western camp over County and North of the National and now I live here also. I'd like to see, how did you see art again, you know, revitalizing what's here that figure needs to go or you begun on the tracks and stuff. So one of the businesses, and retail, and they're all systems. Right into retail. For AIS, Director of the Community Development, I've been here for about 15 years, and I'm working with the ADA for development. On my favorite part of the job, we get to look all the employees who are going to be going to be running the house. We did a strategic committee session while I was at six, eight years ago. You remember it's been a while. And out of that came some areas that helped us focus our efforts and our work. It was really helpful for staff to have the process being able to give you a look before we were able to kind of focus our staff efforts. I'm going over that as opposed to, we can't be everything to everyone. I mean, that's what I'm saying. I mean, over the years, we've kind of been getting towards that, so I look forward to this being focused on us, but also now that the town council has a strategic plan in place, and that's been updated. I'm actually being kind of moved to this, to hours until it coordinated those two efforts so that we're all kind of working towards this equal. Wait, this one. So then three or four years, we'll then be in, within an over 26 years, mostly in that lead there. We've done two periods, five ahead and there's a couple. six years mostly in Matley, there are moved up here five and there's a couple. Don't live in the town a little bit outside of the town. We saw the bus in the other state, and it's on tracks, kind of some such. I think my interest is making sure the EAA is alive with the town once the area to be with to look at talent, needs to be, so that we're in lots of stuff with what they want, and what the citizens who live here want, which is not going to be easy. Sorry. Diversity in terms of, they got me. I think it's pretty good. Yeah, I'm sure. Because you can't rely just on the college. There's a lot of people living here. Right. Not because we're at colleges, because I live with here, because I don't want to live in the city or the little short part. But there's a lot of national trends too that can play into that as well. They don't want to drop the show. So, you know, the area is so nice. But people will work here. I think that's more than that. Great. That was, I'm Helen Crimney. I am in business development in New York, I started in, in the August, a flash now. And I knew, very new, to the economic development of the EBA process and strategy session. I'm so eager and excited to be here so that I can learn that. I act as the town liaison for the EBA and essentially the businesses in town. So I'm really excited about this session and hopes that there's just a common goal in vision. I love a plan and a plan gets me a very focused task or set of tasks to begin to work on. So it just makes my job a lot easier if I know in which direction. And what I really love about this EA just makes my job a lot easier if I know in which direction. And what I really love about this EA is it's truly a partnership with the town. And it's like one big support system of everybody kind of locking arms and wanting to like, best for the town. And there's no real separate agenda. So that's been really exciting to see I guess is the encouraging to see that it is truly one big partnership. Right. Right. It's not always the case. So I've heard. This is the only experience I have though. So to me it is. I think I like to think that this is how it all works all through. Yeah, a lot of places not the case of all of this. Yes. Yes. All right. It's a primary, yes, job farmer. So I've been with the ADA for about three, four years. Before coming here, I worked with the Virginia Resources Authority and just developed an interest in economic development and local governments. Looking in over for 12 years in the Adley area and I was just hoping to help the town and an area of growth and development that, like you have said, that you can help with the attractiveness of residents and businesses to allow us to keep in its characteristics and working with the town more as a tool or a form of the town that is as supportive for it. Sure. Thanks. kind of is that support for the short. Nice. So, so my name is Jack and I have been on committee since I've just looked up 2015, some nine years. Okay. On-wise, I can't believe that. And the neat thing about that is I've sort of seen the town develop as it has to partnership the EDA and partnerships with the Main Street or other marketing group and local businesses is just sort of developed very nicely out from a small town in South Carolina originally and frankly this little town is punching way above its weight and I think that's something for the town to be very proud of. You know, perhaps such a small sort of village and to have like what three or four thriving restaurants and a place you can go see live music and just a lot of cool stuff that they when people discover it, they're quite surprised by. And I remember when I started, I still feel the same way. I, you know, one of my focuses is to make it such that, I don't know if we can save every little business, not to show if it's all role to save every little business, but I think to make it such that we provide an environment where they can thrive and that they don't happen to provide services or the products that people want, that people are clamoring to take their place, you know, that they, that they, we get the best of the best so far as what communities looking for and what they want, you know, and providing the services and products that they want in this community, you know, there were sort of good people, a lot of other communities. But where do Nick, I think, and that I can't reason my wife and I moved here is, you know, we came from New Hampshire where there's villages and frankly we're looking for a place that you could live and walk and get coffee and find someplace to eat and chill like you're in a community but feel like you're near enough to other things where you can try other things, but then come back and feel secure and you have some elbow room around you and your neighbors and they know you and you can go down and get a cup of coffee and a good bite to eat as well. I think the second time we've heard walkability. That's important. Okay. Were you here for the last strategic plan? I was. How did that go? I think I think George comments from a right-home point that from that discussion we came out with a vision, you know, I think, folks said that they're looking for amounts of meeting with the vision and focus. And I believe that things like the Opal Garden then was sort of a direct result of some of those discussions that we had, and so far, it's focused on our energies. Investing, as I've ever called, we talked about investing in properties and really sort of got some confidence about that idea. I think that that lead in. Are there any things that came out of that? And I know for my take, so I don't want them to filter these things. I can't. No. I bet you they end up in similar places. Yeah. Well, they're good to reveal at the end. Yeah. Yeah. Kill them all. Yeah. I'm a killer mother with them. It's hard to believe you. It's been at least the past nine years. Yeah. It was fairly early on in my tenure. I think it was seven or eight years ago. There was a period, all of the world of the Baltimore students. So we decided at that time, I will tell you this, and I won't say what the three things are. We'll be decided that they did not want a thick plan. After they had numerous work sessions, they decided they had three focused areas. So these are areas that we wanted to concentrate on. You feel like follow through on those three areas? Oh, absolutely. Don't test back, I remember. All right, thank you for all of that. That is helpful for us because the big part of what makes organization successful is the why you're here a part of, you know, it's nice outside. It's probably a lot of nights when you're here. So you're sacrificing something to be here and your time and your energy. So it's helpful for the process to really understand what that is with that motivation is. In terms of strategic planning and planning organizations, I do have the honor of working with VEZO, running their certified zoning administrator for a brand, and we do teach folks, some of these principles about running an organization, studying mission and vision and the value of that. Certainly as a planner, I would be a very poor planner if I said that visioning tools didn't matter. In fact, I would say every great organization has a plan. I cannot think of an example of one that's great, and doesn't have a plan. And really, if you've got Starbucks, if you've got Capital One in your wallet, if you've got Amazon on your phone, any of these organizations out there using private sector examples, but if it goes for anything, they all have a vision, they all have a plan of some sort, and then they follow through on that plan. So most organizations, when they put the resources, when they put the focus in, the question isn't, do we have to follow this plan? Sometimes that comes up, if I'm working with a community, they'll say, I don't really like the comp plan here. Do we have to do this in my response as well? That's a wrong question. The right question is, why is it in your plan if you don't want to do it? So what specifically does you're trying to do and giving you a path to get there? Now, as they say, a vision without tactics, about strategies is just day-reaming, and strategies without a vision is a good way to waste time. So of really having both of those in place so that you can find a way to move forward and achieve what it is you're trying to accomplish. I think that's especially true for groups when you have volunteers on a board because the tendency, and I don't know and I don't know what your tendencies are, we just met. I want to assume anything, but the tendencies with organizations is that they want to do a lot. And there's always this idea of we should do more, we should do more, we should take on more, we should do more things and passionate. They want to really help their community or serve that mission. But keep in mind that more things you add on that's you're distributing your focus even more. And the definition of focus is to choose a small number of things and to focus on it. I've heard it's talking to a colleague of mine and he said, I'm trying to focus on too many things. I'm like that. That doesn't work. There's no, you can't focus on many things if you focus on a few. So really the organizations out there that find success are the ones that have a focused vision. And anything they ask, everything that they're doing should come back to that mission or that vision statement. If they're doing something outside of that, then they're not serving the function of the organization. So you get really a good mission, a good plan, and one that restricts you, not one that provides you, that opens you up, that's going to restrict you, it's going to keep you from doing certain actions, because it's all about that, but that's all about that. I mean, kind of the classics here, Peter Drucker of every agency, every policy, every program, every activity should be confronted with those main questions of what is our mission? Is it still the right mission and is it still worth doing? So what is our mission part? There's a few rules of thumb here. One I'd like to call the 3 AM phone call. So let's say, and he called the niece three o'clock in the morning and said, what's the mission and be the VDA? Is it a real thing? Yes, I just read it the other day. Oh, you just read it, okay. Well, I have my body. I have my body. But that's good. Okay, awesome. So that's good. I would have grabbed my mind. Yeah. Kelly, I think made us. Okay, you can have an excellent answer. So, yeah, so something that you can, you can rattle off right away. That's memorable. Something also that is motivating to you to innovate into you, especially in a volunteer role. Life gets busy, a lot of things are on your plates, I'm sure. And also, we're human, so we're not always 100% motivated all the time. So trying to find something in there that energizes us, that keeps us going, even in those times when we're not as engaged. That's the big key to successes being your best even when you're not motivated because you're not always motivated. Really trying to find tune and that. And really just hit on a lot of those main ones there. Also, if you're looking to bring in recruit new leadership, have volunteers in order to have partnerships with your businesses and with your other stakeholders, really having that clear energizing mission or vision in hand. Because that's how you're going to get people to buy in the organization. That's how you get people to one or partner with you. And that's how you grow organizations, having that in place. And again, if there's an organization that doesn't have some sort of mission driven approach that's successful, I haven't found one yet, but there might be one that accidentally found success. But all the research shows shows top 500 businesses in the country are all vision-based organizations. Now, it depends what book you pick up, kind of the terminology might switch one more the other, so I think it kind of depends on what your terminology is, But really that vision statement is that big idea. It's something that's bigger than the organization. It's something that you should strive for. Maybe you never achieve it, but that's your long-term vision. That's your North Star. That should rarely change. If you haven't done a strategic plan in eight years or so, then that might be worth revisiting there. But you should always be working towards that. It should be something that energizes you. It should be something that drives you. It should be something that really will give an example up here in a second, but that really keeps you motivated and can drive everything here. The mission statement, that is kind of the half. That's the statement of, this is how we make that vision happen. Mission statement is a little bit more, that's a little bit longer. I would say a good vision statement is one that's short. It's working, I was a chair of the Virginia Association of Metropolitan Planning and Organizations. We needed to work on that name a little bit. But we did this strategic plan and looked at the old vision and it was two paragraphs long. So way too long. So short, one sentence to be clear. The mission though, maybe that's more suitable there of how are we going to make this happen. Mission statements can change more frequently, because ideally as you're moving towards that vision, you're moving towards it so you're making progress, where you are today is ahead of where you were two years ago, five years ago, or 10 years ago. So as you're moving towards that vision, your mission is going to change slightly because you are progressing and exactly how you're going to get there might change as it go along. So just a few, just one example. And I don't know if it's the greatest example. Anyone shop on Amazon want to ever buy something on your phone late at night and then buy the next day? I have a video for three times. Yeah. But I really did not need that model of this prime or whatever that is. So, but Amazon does have, there's no doubt whether you like them or not, there's no doubt they are successful. So what's their mission? Their vision. So their vision is to be Earth's most customer-centric company. What customers can find and discover anything they might want to buy online. That's a pretty big statement of the most customer-centric company Earths. Not the country's Earth centric company Earths, not the country's Earths, planet Earth, that's big, that's a big vision. But it's kind of bigger, it's a big idea, it's something, there's two elements here, it has to be ambitious but achievable too. If you have a vision that's just way out there in the stratosphere, people might kind of scoff and laugh at it. That was a rural county, I don't give names away, but their comprehensive plan, their vision was, this small rural county, they said, we're going to be the most sustainable community in the world. It was not a small rural Smaller than I thought. I remember reading it kind of a kind of, did a little bit of a spit tape when I was drinking water here. I love what our heart is on that. Probably that's ambitious. It kind of missed the achievable part. So what is it that they can do, but it needs to push you right beyond to your limits of what you can achieve. Their mission of how they get there, that is we strive to offer our customers the lowest possible prices, so that's how they become customer-centric and the best available selection. That's how they become customer-centric and the utmost convenience, so as we talk about, have they achieved that mission? I would say, according to all my purchases at midnight last night, yes. They definitely did. A bunch of stuff I don't need. So it was very convenient. It's customer-centric. Maybe they're still working on that one. But I think a good example of a good mission and vision there. Ameen High, achievable though, as we can see. Again, we're not gonna come out this evening with the vision statement, I should say that. That should not happen. That should be a slow process. I think tonight we're gonna get information for you all and we get all the ingredients in place and then it's all about mixing those ingredients together, and the right combinations to come up with what that mission and vision is really, which we are. But tonight is really pulling that together. Getting the ideas down is the first step. Getting down to the actual specific word smithing. That's usually the role of a couple people just to get something on paper and then you start to discuss it as a group. If you try to create some sort of vision statement from scratch, everyone together around the table right now, it's going to take a super long time and you're probably not going to get there. So it's probably not getting something started first. So we're not going to worry about having a final statement. We're not going to get an award-smithing, but we do want to get the ingredients on the table. So that was a general overview. From the survey, it seems like everyone was an agreement that a strategic plan is a useful thing. And that there was a need for it. And speaking of the survey, we're going to jump straight into that. Quick pause though. Any questions? or I'm not going to be rattling talking this whole time, I promise. This is just the setup part. So the survey, thank you for taking the time to fill out the survey. Thank you, everyone. Yeah. God, all your years in there. The first question was, when you think about the EDA, what three words come to mind, consistent with what you all just said an hour out of the table. So we had, I did the thing that cool planners do and made it into a word cloud, because it makes it kind of schnazi. But we have grants. We heard growth around the table, community. That's going to one thing. I kind of wrote as a note, focus on community here. All of you were saying that. Business, welcoming, service, open revitalization. Use the data too. Any surprises here? I'm not sure. Sir, sounds pretty consistent. So I think kind of what comes to mind, this is kind of the beginnings of our ingredients, as we look forward. What is the EDA's most significant value? We had a lot of options here. It seemed like highest importance, but really got a lot of selections on there with revitalization and redevelopment. It was like, I think all of you, yes, seven. All of you selected that as highest importance. So kind of up next is attracting businesses. Those, I don't know, I mean, really all of you put that as important at least, but that was up here encouraging growth. Again, introductions, growth, growth, growth. So we can solve a lot of that. Kind of as we're moving down here a little bit, we had supporting town policies. There was another one we heard here. We're still kind of gauging it down. Job creation, workforce, increased tax revenue is still in the ballpark and then business education and training. Got some importance but that kind of is showing up lower on the list here. So just looking at this one, any, what are some of your reactions to that, how your fellow board members responded? I guess that's the broad thing with those three of the highest, the most mentioned, I guess. I'm not a scientist. Most rich, I guess. Okay. Martin, you said you were going to sit up three minutes, and you had some problems with the lab. You thought that, okay. Okay. We want some Christ. I might say that I appreciate that business education and training wasn't something that you all wanted to take on. And like I mentioned earlier, being everything to everyone, I think we have other organizations who are already going that. But we wanted to make sure that they threw it out there as you could tell you wanted to do it. I like it. It's important, but someone else is really important. Yeah. And that is diamond and rough type of response there because organizations always want to, how we should do that, we should do that, and just kind of stay within those borders. So that's a good response there. What's your reason to town? Should the EDA concentrate its efforts? That's when we had up there kind of near the top for, I mean really it's those four. We have downtown and higher quality. Those four of you said most important. We had also three of you said important, then a little bit of a flip on those. We have the RAP 1 corridor and then the RAP 54, both important on that one, Randolph-Macon industrial areas, you know, still important, but kind of least important in these areas. So this one there seems to be kind of those four areas are all seen as important. I'm going to really like to give you some prizes there. I was kind of surprised that downtown got four most important. Okay. Why are we? This gives up to a relapse but to the last one we had, we did this strategic session because we were spending so much time and effort in the downtown and we wanted to do something else. And so from this it looks like we're coming back to maybe we spent so much time somewhere else. Oh, I'm going to come back. Yeah, we've got 54 quarters. Pretty well covered, with regards to riding really good restaurants and hotels for people to move to. I think we can kind of apologize to them. Well, as I recall, so to your point, a lot has changed since the last strategic discussion up there. We had no pinaera, we had no pinaena. No tick play. No pinaena. Yeah. As I recall, the last discussion, I don't know, so I hesitate because it's full of the Alpacart. But you know, we were very focused. As I recall that last discussion, we were the focal points of that discussion was the fact that our revenues come from that corridor. And that,. And that we get a lot of bang for the buck. And that provides tax relief to the town. And so it's a fact that we have such good grants for restaurants and hotels. And where are they situated? No, they're up there. As I recall, that was sort of became part one of the things from the last one. But I do think also, I think folks like me, for instance, want to make sure that downtown is well taken care of because we see it as an attraction and that it may not, monetarily, he had the same horsepower as the corridor does. So I think at that time, the group sort of turned more towards that sort of tax. Yeah, I think they were getting bored and basically what they were doing, replacing people's signs in downtown, you know, in little projects and they wanted to do something bigger. Yeah. And is that a thought when downtown action started? I can't believe that. So that was probably the whole thing. I was one of the four. And my heart was in downtown using the draw dash. I mean, I think it complements all over the 54 restaurants and all the two. But the draw, I think, to ask them to mean a small town, the easy-to-estory downtown. Well, the draw for us, but the draw off the interstate. Well, the interstate, no. And I think what people come in from the rich, we know, will come to the downtown. Yeah. They will come all the way up here to the open area. Yeah. They will come to the historic downtown. Yeah. So that was so that was so the you know what people are waiting up is like you know we want certainly what downtown to be attractive in a draw or anybody. Personally, I would like to see, not like Caritan, but I'd like to see some of the commercial office move out and have more people's and more of the better restaurants and stuff like that. That's my personal opinion. I was just going to add on to what Shalam said. I think it's the thoughts when I was filling out the survey. And I think with the work out community, and we talked about attracting this workplace in residential work that I think that抗in is still the biggest draw not just from a business firm for getting people to come in here. Post-doc in Walt, did they? I didn't. I didn't. And that's part of it too, that the downtown for me was the walkability. You know, my husband and I like walking into downtown and having dinner, having drinks, listening to music on the tracks. And I think that's the draw that's more supporting the local residents as well versus the 54th So that we're just not an ex-deficient state. We're sure. The dashlight is going to just not to pick up the light from the whole termata. If you ever get out of the understanding, not in common, then go inside the termata. And then exit what you ask. That's an ex-deficient state. That's right. The whole thing that you ask from us to be the other ex-deficient state. Yeah. That's definitely a shift. That's definitely a shift, which is not a bad thing at all. But I was trying to think this through, like, say we have $50,000, and we spend $50,000 on making sure that we get an X-mount tax revenue out of $54 because it's a hotel or a restaurant, versus we spend $50,000 down here in downtown to make it pretty. Which one would you, which way would you do? And last time the answer was, we'll put up there because we'll take that support, with the tax revenue and support stuff from here. So just to try to crystallize that decision, that's what we're suggesting. It has to be balanced with it too. So it's not always going to come down down. We'll rate it, right? We just have to figure out what, because percentage, we want to allocate it around. Sure. And it's not surprising the downtown of, when we're doing introductions, most of you around. Sure. And it's not surprising the downtown of when we're doing introductions, most of you all said community. So if that's a shift, I mean, this makes sense. You want to see that in your results of this is what you're tending towards. If I was seeing that your responses here were very different than that, then I might start kind of probing and kind of challenging some ideas, but so far the narrative seems to make a lot of sense here. We were talking about during the conference planning process, we looked at the different land uses, and one thing that was surprising to the planning commission was the downtown area was was was it like 1% of the town's land mass just the when we think about Ashland when I think about Ashland I think about downtown here and yet that that is that is just a tiny piece of the town as a whole a hole here. But there's something you said though that if that's your focus, you can do more than that or you can extend that downtown and kind of take that character and the thing that really, really the comp plan that came up a lot of that's what defines us. So if that's the end that defines you, how can you, when you grow that, how can you improve that, how can you build off of that? Well, and I think one thing that I'm going to say, oh, I forgot. No, I think. One thing I think is really important to note is with those street skate projects that are coming up. So you'll notice in a lot of towns there's like an entrance or there's you know there's like a big gateway to downtown and so that's one initiative that the town has taken on to really try to create a downtown a gateway essentially like a all-science lead to downtown Ashley because if you think of downtown I think most people just think of the railroad tracks. They don't really think of the route, you know, 54 corridor. So we have a lot of traffic coming in off of 95. So by expanding that with the streetscape projects and the art conditions and the different things like that. I think that that's an opportunity of support also to try to increase awareness that way. Yeah, I had a friend to do a Dr. Rod here. He said, come stop my ash. I mean he got some of our food liars and said, you know, he lost interest in the tradition to turn around with that. And so the goal there is to create something that's like, you know, welcome Vashlox, so that it really showcases and then part of on England Street is changing the facade of it so that it looks a little more historically downtown in the sand concrete and the planters so it kind of creates that more of a downtown field which is already on railroad but also now it's sending down to the floor so you know we got a lot of we go out of traffic off the people stopping traffic is stacked up. They stopped to eat or they go to the hotels, but they don't know here. They don't really drive anymore. Drive past the physical area. These are four areas that you all thought were important. So hospitality downtown, roughly to four, about one. If you're looking at the four of those, I mean, does anyone of those, like if we could pick a top two of one or two areas, as you all would really like to focus on, sounds like a lot of folks are saying downtown, but the other three are. I'm a reputable Governor from 54 Ward, House of Tyler, from the state. Right. Yeah, okay. You're 54 and House of Tyler, I'm facing this. That's what you're saying. Okay. Unless we want to have a hotel, I'll turn it on in a restaurant. I guess to the other question is, is downtown, we need to expand. It's hard to do that. I do need this way, this way, it can't be really the neighborhood. It can't be heard that the American commercial business is some retail and home care will do something that they would call this question around. He wants to give up those leases. I think it's driven in part by where the supply isn't so, is what is available, you know, either downtown or 54 or root one, and what could be made better, you know, so, and more attractive. I mean, there's plenty of areas, I'm sure we've all think of the areas that, gosh, I wish that looked better, or, you know, I wish there was more modern business and more, you know, and so, I think, my view is that we could be fairly flexible, depend upon where best opportunities are live. But I think we have two different types of visitors. We want it on 54 that want fast food and going somewhere else, we've got them staying on 54, and that four east of root one, and not clog up our streets, and change the atmosphere of the national. I mean, think about it, even if you had 20% of those people come into action, it would only talk of our streets. We just wouldn't. Getting people to bridge bread and stuff and say, no, actually, it's an escape. That's great. We need nice restaurants on 54, east of the world. So people can have nice meals with us and then move on. More they stay in one of the hotels because they're going to have an event somewhere and move on. But if you have all those people, you know, a little laugh, so we're going to set up. All right. We'll be training every week. Training every week, oh my god. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right And I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm need for a plan as well, that question. What makes EDA different? I, again, a lot of common themes that are consistent. We're here and here, so we're focused agenda, believe that partnership with the town, supporting the town's vision here, which is unique, I would say, through EDA. Anything else on that? What makes you different? We're missing anything on that list? Well, I also sell the Hanoi recounting the DA, One is that there's no political pence or political factor during this. There's no hard number for the nine years I've enjoyed it. I've never filmed. And I owed it up that. And that's helpful. And then once we talked about the closeness with the town. I mean, everyone has a very common goal to work hand in glove with the town, try to accomplish the goals. And that's really, it seems to me, the overwhelming power that's the right answer. Yes. We're all about this. Look at that. This is what we're about. And I think so. I don't know if you have missed me. We're originally the IDA in gestural development party. We changed. I don't know. That's right. Because we didn't score a bestial very high. That's the because we didn't score a bestial very high. That's a good reason why. All right, so the next one up, your response is we had... How would you rate the need for a strategic plan? So the five was urgent need, desperate. On the other end, one was really no need at all. That's both here. What was that? Number one is why it's so filled up here. Yeah, yeah. And everyone is good out. So, looked like everyone's kind of over there on the, feel like there's a need. So that seems to be consensus there. These surveys always reveal more consensus than people realize sometimes. What are some of the EDA's strengths? It's relationship again with the town, commitment to improve the town, scenes and pretty clear themes here, collaborate with the town, support, support of attitude, season team, strength, here at the EDA. Not just the town, but the EDA group. It's important because we want to, what we're going to do is, then if I want some of those strikes, what are some of the weaknesses, there's possible opportunities and threats. We're going to build on the strengths, we want to mitigate, if you want to overcome the weaknesses, take advantage of opportunities and mitigate some of those threats. I think we have a really diverse, professional background. There's people that come to the group really has the very diverse set of qualities that they bring to the discussion. For instance, with Sean being new and some of the questions his insight and experience as a commercial winner, he asks some really fantastic questions when we're discussing grants. We have a job with this, and I'm not turning it in. So we just have a professional, is that really, have a better skillset? The previous chair set up a subcommittee system where we do tackle the grants in a smaller group so that we can present their findings for the agenda. So the main meetings are drawn out to the long discussions that have to, that we make it on the positive. that we make it on close. So that's all. So it's subcommittees. And we like that. So we move on with business. Absolutely. But then also I feel uncomfortable that if you have a question about the subcommittee recommendation or application that you have a comfortable amount to bring that up immediately The meeting after this question. Yes. I want to speak. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Well, we have one. Sorry. Do you still have the subcommittee? Yes. Please. So a great application to be reviewed by the subcommittee first before it brought to you. And the subcommittee? The same people at your house? It's not the same people. No, it's just always the next three. Sometimes more calm. Is it the same people? Is it folks from this table or do you have other folks who just just asked us? Any other strengths you think of? It is important. David Long going in the home town. I'm going in. Yes. The town now that's committed to having fun going revenue for the E.D. I think the basis. That's it. And by the way, the county is very, very jealous of that. Where there's a world there's a way. Yeah, I think. Yeah. And I'm like, how do we do that? Yeah. Great. Yeah, that's a big one. I'd say the EDA's day's focus on transmission. I've seen grants that I would personally say, oh man, that should absolutely go. But this board's a known, it doesn't, it doesn't fit there, our narrow focus. I appreciate that. It's easy to make some things real clear. But this board's done a really good job. Yeah, they do a really good job of, if they don't award one for something, they don't go back. They use that kind of almost, I mean, they have a regret, but they really stick to what they want to see and what they believe should be included. They don't falter on that. So next up we talked about what are some of our challenges or threats at lack of the different opinions, although you all seem pretty cohesive in what you're thinking. Kind of revenue, we talked about a little bit, that's certainly a big strength, but revenue is always a challenge, really funds. Most every organization, that's going to be what they bring up, because there's always a need for more funds because that's what makes everything possible here. So really on the fun side. I'll come in again. I feel like the greatest threat we have is the number of high end homes. I think that every time out there are things that I would like to see in this app and it comes down to that. And a lot of times, like a grocery store says, can't come. You don't have a certain, you don't have a threshold that hits that lets us come. Right. You're saying we need more high income. We need more homes. Let me just say this is what the business will tell us. What I hear is because we spoke to you. They're saying we need more homes. At one point, it was 4 over 450. Now I imagine this over 7 because of the prices have gone. And so I think I've reached a lot at the dice that I want to see a comment here. You can't tell a comment come, they have their admission. But they're going to say, well, there doesn't make sense to come here because there's a system of homes that need our model. They're not going to see for as the bit of the bit of the thing. Let's see that in my experience. Yeah, that's interesting, because I've made a few years back. Someone came and made a presentation about the fact that hard meat and home price is lower than a lot of communities. But it just like has also shifted for the last couple of years, quite a bit, just by holding neighborhoods that have been growing up. I understand. It may have. Well, we affected because of the high number of nails. And that's one has a high number of nails. And nor is it 50%? He's not 50% of his nails. That's a high number. That's what I'm saying. Here's the entire thing. Much slower in the game. And the new love, that's not in it. Of course you got a couple people at 60. I was going to say there's one of the 16. Some 30s. It's kind of monopony about a few people, I guess. Well, that buys up, I know know with having looked for a home and not wanting one of these high-end new homes wanting something smaller or less expensive. It was hard because of the one person that quickly would grab it off the market before you could even. So it. Yeah. Is the third rail author? Probably will be again one day. Oh, I'm sorry. What is that? Third rail. Oh, then yes. In fact, the Ashley Museum has a speaker in temper, former president of R.A.P. if you'll be talking about the future of rail and he said, you know, it could be controversial because in his opinion, a third rail is inevitable. I don't think it's all for Dave Reuves. That could really change the dynamic of the community part of it, the kind of of how it's done. Whenever, I keep getting it because when people say third rail, that has other means to do. The third rail is the third rail. Well, it's a little rail. A third rail. Exactly. Literally, at big. Yeah, that's right. That's right. And I guess, you know, we set up a strength earlier, but I think it's also looming, depending upon the cast of the committee, the consistency, I think, maintain that consistency. Because I think some part of our credibility comes through the consistency. And I, you know, in my looking at the matrixes and the forms that fill out, there can be there can be, there's some subjectivity in there. I think it's just the fact that we don't choose to exercise that subjectivity. It's great, but, you know, maybe a different group of people might, not pick up on that so much. Sure, sure. Well, that's part of, one of the great things that happen to plan is you can instill your culture and your values and your ideas into the plan Then it becomes part of the organization And it's not just you as a person who when you leave you take with you those values and here's someone who comes in you have Something that's systemized that's formalized Another that's systemized, that's formalized. Another press. I can throw some more in there, kind of a post-production, but certainly with looking at some demographic trends, it would be pretty interesting housing. It's definitely an issue. We did a housing conference at housing study for the city of Harrisonburg and a few other places around the state. And there's some pretty common trends, a couple things you were saying too much to go into right now. But I think more and more studies showing how housing is an economic development strategy. It's not a separate thing. The rooftops, I remember, when I was in Louisa, we were talking with Walmart when they eventually went to Zion Crossroads and they could not stop saying rooftops. We were looking at the rooftops and we're not sure about this and we had to do a lot of work on our end of mapping that out and saying, hey, 64, when you say, this is just a drive, it's not a circle, that takes you pretty far and then there's all these rooftops out here you're not counting for. So making sure that they're counting for that and that accessibility. Can you explain a lot of the information about how the EDA and how they potentially could go into the man they're not separate anymore, especially looking at 50% of the population as Sean was saying is a rental interplay. So I mean I don't know how the EDA, how, yeah. I would argue there are two sides at the same point. We can't really separate them out. Because the other thing with rooftops, it's not just buying power and customers, it's also employees. Sometimes it's hard to bring someone in because the folks that they want to hire don't live there. And that's a whole other equation that they're looking at. But yeah, I mean, it's really, I mean, I would argue more economic development plans should also be La Zai housing plans because anyone who buys a good or service come from somewhere and everyone who works at those places has to live somewhere. So that commonly pops up as very quickly in any discussion with any locality. When they're talking about bringing in businesses and economic development, it doesn't take long to get to the housing topic. And that's also a really hard thing to solve that's extremely complicated. But there are strategies as with many things, it's not just a, here's this one strategy that we can employ to solve this problem. It's what's our package strategy and how do we employ that together package to try to achieve that? So I don't feel like the town and the VA and you guys correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't feel like that's been a collaborative effort. And again, I wouldn't have thought, I guess, I think I do think of them as two separate entities or projects. So if there are ways that the town and the EPADA worked together for that initiative. I don't know if that's something that the EDA wants to discuss. Or if it's just again, it's more just being learning. I'm sure. Well, the work differences again between town and the county is very focused on the fact that I'm just trying to relate to the county. The county is very focused on the fact that they can't dictate that some of us don't sell their land to a certain person. And so, and without sort of the infrastructure, without sort of enhancing the community in one way or the other, you're going to get a bunch of big boxes, cement boxes, warehouses. And so they're called by A-lane down infrastructure for water or electricity. So we get higher-end businesses or whatever. And so I'm trying to light that to the town, into housing. So for instance, if we sort of build in, I'm just going to have, if we have great options for internet, several different options for internet. And there's a competitive market. Well, it might draw in more builders. It might draw in more high-end homes. it might draw in more builders, it might draw in more high-end home, it might draw in more, you know, whatever it might be, such that, you know, so we could have a part in providing the infrastructure, funding the infrastructure for the high-end. So maybe sort of the building looks like that, and the federal government. No, that's helpful, thank you. Yeah, and as mentioned, as mentioned, we do outdoor recreation planning across the country. So we're federal consultants. We work. It's rural. Recreation economies for rural communities. And what all these countries, as people, is we'll come then and come up with a plan of how do you build outdoor recreation economy plans for them, how do you build that local economy for outdoor recreation and people always kind of scratch your head and say why are we talking about housing, why are we talking about transportation, like these are all separate things, it's always known. This is all the same thing. You need all these to happen together to make to really achieve what those goals are. So yeah, it's almost like a conference plan in and of itself. It's just, it has to be seen, conference. And add to that housing. Oh, sure. Oh, sure. Yeah, I'm not sure. It's confident it's not an appropriate for a council to come. But it could potentially be for EDA, whereas you designate certain areas that are already high in places that you'd like to see build. The development comes first, and then you have a plan for how housing comes in second. Currently, what happens? Housing goes in. There's already a plan for development and then how will people come into the house? But I don't want the development, there was already a team, yeah. And if there could be a reversal of that, I think you'd see, let's push it. I did. Development-facing plans. And it might be hopefully businesses say, oh, I'm not ready because you don't have the workforce, but if you have this infrastructure plan, maybe I will come because you're then a willing department. That's a for sure. I don't think that that's like symbionic of the town in the media because we're separate. I don't think that's okay. We had a terms of describing a future of what we're looking for, the ADA's future, and really I think most responded that consider changes in tweaks, but no one really indicated a huge major pectonic shifts in the organization. So again, I think good feedback there and good way forward. Do you want to get to a couple activities here? This might be a very close to last slide. What could the EDA do regarding regular activities? So we did get a head start on actions here. So that's a good start on some ideas. We're going to dive a little bit more into that. We're, you We'll close here. So I want to jump to the next slide here. But we'll just add a good start. If anyone wanted to jump on any of those comments, you can make space for it. Otherwise we're going to jump right over. So with, we already talked about, we've asked us some challenges here, so we're going to jump onto the vision side. Just going off, is this the official mission statement here? It's good. This came out of the web. Because more of a purpose. The purpose statement, not. I think it's the same. I mean, I don't think it's a purpose statement. But I think on the purpose side, I think good language here is a means to consider requests for approval. Text that far away. Minister's loans, grants bonds. But we are going to talk to this question now. It's just an interesting time. So answering this question a little bit already, there's just a slight fine tune of it as we're going to have it just in. And on the eye chart of one or two, one or two, type of question. But really, what energizes you, inspires you here? Building off of that. We're in walkability. I think we know community. That's our focus, not just bringing in business and jobs. I guess when you think about Ashland and think about why you're here in your efforts. A lot of folks talk about growth, helping businesses, the community, if I could try to take a little bit deeper on that, why that growth, why helping those businesses? That sounds like a pretty obvious answer to that, but if you can, dig a little bit deeper, think of the exact intention here. So first question though, was in terms of growth and marketability of what specifically, what's the outcome of growth? Why is that important? Growth. I think of it as quality of life. Quality of life, supporting quality of life. Quality of life, supporting quality of life. And I think we're going on that. I think having visited some other small towns and lived in other small towns. When you see the marketability of people, it comes when there's a little more growth than what we have in our downtown that we have that so adorable and a couple of restaurants and everything. But if it were a little bit larger, like that was the first thing my husband and I said, it reminded us of the college town my son was in in Florida. Or like, but it's just a couple blocks too short. You know, it was just a little, just a tiny bit bigger. It would be the same field, which we're planning to drive there. This fall, the visit, he's not there, but we like the town. So we're going to go back and spend the weekend. Thank you, another thing with you talked about growth or quality of life, probably like restaurants or entertainer or something to do, but also parks or trails coming in some outdoor recreation. That type of quality of life you have growth in other areas where you're just providing revenue from town to continue to support the quality of life in other ways. So I think there's multiple layers to the ground. But they're all for the same sort of common goal, which is that service to the residents or the quality of life. With my grandchildren in my age, I want them to be answering the same question and not changing that question to, can we predict when this time will fall? Based off the habitual. And there are towns and Virginians that they have predicted when they wouldn't capsize. Sure. Based off of the industry. Because to me, that's the growth of these. Just enough enough to sustain. And I try to go crazy. I try to be a city. I'm not trying to go crazy. I'm not trying to be a city. I'm not trying to be a city. But they come around and they got to stay here. They're going to stay here for a while. Every college, everyone goes to college. You stay in that area. And hopefully we keep up to you. And they want to work in. And they have some friends. They want to. they only work in, and they have some friends. They only work in. I think that the sustainability idea, you know, is a quality of life, yes. I mean, again, I apologize, these down the common sense. I am trying to, I'm kind of picking at certain areas, because just because trying to get down to kind of the root here of like what's what's down here so so it's that sustainability of there are a lot of towns out there but in a lot of meetings where we're having that conversation I mean you've been sustainable long-term when When you say sustainable, you mean people staying around, right? Yeah. For me, that brings into focus the root 54 urban between here and Rauwanda, because I'm just sort of thinking about what's available that could be upgraded or not available, but what could be really upgraded, you know, and so far, is expanding the town to be more like more of a college town, and keeping the character. And keeping the character of West downtown, and so for me, the root would be, oh gosh, if I could wave a magic wire, how could we enhance between here and root wire? Yes. I agree. And when we talk about quality of life, quality of life to whom, you're like, you're like, you mean, you mean, so you all have visitors. Some of them don't go this side of round one. Some of them stay over there. We have residents, we have business owners, we have people who work here, but they live somewhere else. That people kind of stumble into town. They get people who grew up, but they live somewhere else. People kind of stumble into town. They get people who grew up here, they live somewhere else. When we think about customers for a business, the customers, the people that buy and purchase their products, goods and services, for communities, their customers is everywhere. You know, it could be anyone who's, you could say, if you live or work here in business, you're a shareholder in the community. You bought into the community in some way, you own it, and some little sliver up there. So I'm trying to hone in on customer, who work, who are you? I'm going to talk about quality of life, talk about community. Is it all these groups, are there some groups, I'm not trying to mean this inside of everything, negative way, some groups more important to you than others. There's a panel of residents. Okay. That's my belief. Okay. Since I am born. Yeah, but is we need those other groups to help our quality of life right? Yeah. Because if they don't come and support our restaurant and our shops, then they're not going to be there for us to walk. Well, I'm just thinking about your comment, but you know, we won't let folks stay on that side of the road. But there is a little bit of a conflict in all this, because if we're saying we want to do more to support the downtown, and your question is for whom. And basically we're saying, well we don't want them to come down here and spend, all those people to come down here and spend the shops and so on and so forth, we want to enhance them basically for us. But is there enough economic power amongst us living living this town to support a thriving downtown? And if we say and we lost money, we don't invest in that to make it even more pretty or enhanced. Well, we are already here. So. We also have a lot of new elements to the west of us. A lot of new elements to the west of us, a lot of new developers. And to make Ashland attractive to those people not to go to Richmond, but to come to Ashland to e-dine and say, it's been money. I mean, that's, and we have a huge kind of, a new population just to west of us. Everyone who made sure that this is the place, first place they'd like to come as opposed to when we were. What about students? Because students always better probably getting them to crawl to the street. Yeah, the students don't. The problem walking across the street, I was at a student meeting today. It was something for the Ashe Museum. And they said, you know, the Ashe Museum being on the office of the side of the track and across the road was very difficult for students to deal with. They're not going to do. Talk to them about parking on campus. We have parking. You just don't want to use it. Yeah. So anyway, it would be great to have the students. Thank you. The students are going to Penaera. They are going to the Mexican-American-American-American-American-American places. So they're going to where they want to go. But I think the campus are running up my awesome place. It's very easy to let this day go. Which is the bottom. Yeah, that's their community. And also they give the car a rich one, right? Right. I mean, really, there's nothing here for them That's their community. But also they give the car a bit of Richmond, right? I mean, really, there's nothing here for them. I mean, I don't know how to help people. But that's an apology, I think. You know, that's not there. Our restaurants are not there. Because that's the next thing. The next thing. But maybe the staff, you know, the employees, that might staff that don't live in Aslan. But you know, the employees, that might staff that don't live in Ashland. But you know, to do. And you know, you want to go home. Yeah, I've seen some, you know, that I'll see in town eating. So that's nice if there's a way to have the shops that they'll stay after looking shop here rather than drive to Richmond or whatever under way. But I also think it would be great if it's a, or if it doesn't have to be a focus, but there's an opportunity to capitalize on the events that the college has. So when those events come into town, because those are the ones with the checkbooks and the credit cards. And so it's finding and promoting those events and then getting those people from there to downtown or to wherever, instead of them picking up their kids and going to Richmond. Sure. And even things like I'll see the South or feel full of, you know, a weekend ornament, you know. So you've got all those families coming in and all those teams that are stuck for the whole weekend You know to try and get them downtown to be you're talking like the 5% I mean what I understand you from for you understand better is the You know our hotel's gonna huge amount of overflow from the Virginia There's this a group That represent is a calm maybe Chamber of Commerce or something. Yes, and that they coordinate through the region to disperse people, you know, there could be something like the strikers field going on and we get a lot of overflow. So if we could get those people standing on the hotel to figure out, you know, you should come down here and check us out. Well, I think that's marketing and what the hotel is also. Or in whatever brochures they're getting. Yeah, and around Virginia Commonwealth, we could still bring in some of those people too. We see that Latin lot in our, out to our rack, where all this communities will say what we have these events have, oh, we have the big race, where we have, I think Brunswick County has the, there's a Brunswick stew festival. I claim that they're the originator of Brunswick Steel, but I know if you can be the niece of argue against that. But we can't just set a universe. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so we can. But yeah, that's great. The events are great. How do you cap what? It's one thing to bring people in. I didn't really do much for you unless you find some strategies to capitalize on that. Going on to capture him. Okay. Okay, actual blacks, the retail shopping. Yes. So, the white one out, we got a little more, we got a warrant, and we got a call back for this. Different, you walk around, it's not a big town, but you walk around and there's just tons of retail, it's this store and you get that. The restaurant does, downtown, downtown. There's a train store, a horse store, a use book store. It's kind of too good. It's too expensive. It's just, it's not, it's not, it's not, it's not, it's not, it's not, it's not, it's not, it's not, it's not, it's not, it's I don't know if you have to walk around. This is not a shop. Please. It's not the part of your motivation, correct me from Ron, but is to get the retail and the business there, not just for the tax dollars, but also to build the activity downtown. Well, to do with it. And maybe suggest all the people who live outside the town and the rest of the East. Who can be the most. Or come here or come here. We're coming here to eat, we're going to drink, we're going to go to our show. Right. We're doing something else. This is to come. So cute things for a little birthday, gifts for people at Reef House. I was just in a town this past weekend in South Portland, Carolina. It's tiny, it's a little coastal town, and my daughter and I spent hours walking, and we didn't even get in all the shops. There were so many and all walkable, everything was walkable. Right? That's what since maybe some, I think a lot of those places, like Cunjell, Carl, even Lombon and Foster, they're all, I believe, Homer, Archivide. Someone said in, or it's not, it's not. That's right, Winnie Curse. That's right, that's right. Yeah, someone said in, to have them get offices elsewhere, but it's not right now. We're driving. Yeah. Yeah. You have all drugs. You're going to be in the hospital. Down. You got to go that way. It's just a skull that's not going to be there. It's going to be there. Right? This is the value of that. The value of that retail. I mean, there's value with tax dollars, just value with jobs and salaries. As part of that convenience for, did like, you can't keep going back to residents. We talk about community, what does community mean? What's happening? And then, I think we'll focus more on residents. And then, with retail, this is economic value, but also just the convenience of residence. Seems like that's kind of built it into the quality of life we're talking about. I think we'll bring more people here. We're doing tours. Yeah, yeah. We had a little place you can have some lunch, have some coffee, whatever, after a drink, and head to the shop. I'm not a lunch, I you got to train so I'm going to say that it isn't on the list of times. But are you building in parking with all that? We're not going there. That's a whole nother. It's a whole nother day. So I guess I'm curious to that point, so capacity issues regarding, do we have some understanding like, you know, are the restaurants fully reserved most nights are, you know, are the parking lots filled most times or most times in the weekend, or, you know, so how much space do we have to have to grow, you know, as far as, you know, the slots they're available? I mean, if all the restaurants of all book, all the parking lots are all full, then we should be thinking about this issue and so far perhaps buildings are encouraging more capacity, you know, more building more slots. I was going to ask a related question, which is about that. Do we know the occupancy rate or the average daily rate of the hotels, you know, they 80% will be denied. Do we know any of that? Yeah, we do keep track of that somewhat. I don't know what I'm going to talk about my head. I'm going to talk to Claylee, but Richard Reed for his and Tranks that for us as well. And the hotels that you would send your family to have pretty high. No, that was an example where Charlottesville wanted more hotels, but everything. The industry was just, didn't seem interested. They had this huge demand for hotels, tiny supply for it. The city actually did their own study. And that study, they showed that supply demand got there and then they released it out to the hospitality industry and then the years after that it had something like pending with Hills County. So they have to kind of put on a high end. The rain for the problem, the warning sureless vote is probably $250. I just checked and looked at going to the libraries up there. I mean I'm just going to draw back. So the team is going to the industry. I'm just going to work that important. We do very well at it. Yeah, stay in winter. But the Nora said something interesting. So she said the hotel is that you would want your family's stay here. So that means that we have properties out there. You wouldn't want your family's stay here. So that means that we have properties out there and you wouldn't want your family to stay in. So but that's an opportunity. I wish you liked your family. Right. I'm just saying that there's another subset out there where that's sort of an opportunity because those are properties that could be opportunities for us to figure out ways to be developed. Well, we have a grant to help you do that. Exactly. Yeah. Speaking of we have a grant to help and do that, at the end of this, once we've figured out our plea and what you all will need to do is go back and look at your full of grants and see which ones of those kind of fit into what you decided you want to focus on, and maybe something maybe there isn't a great there is something that you want to work on. That brings up something I was thinking of. We have mission and we have vision. Do we have goals that we should be reviewing certain times of the year to see where we are with our mission? Yeah, a good structure to have your vision statement, your mission, and then a handful of goals. So it's usually three or five, and then under those goals you should have some actions in place. So what investments can you make? What programs can you create? You already have grant programs here. But really what activities can you employ to support the goals or support the issue? As you can see, you have production, say, your recording, see where we are, and how many of them? I'm a big believer in that. I wish more would look at it. Do other EDAs do that? Do we know? I mean, it's a mixed bag of, I mean, that's a question of organizations in general. Some will make a plan and then let it look at it again. Some will have a plan at all. And again, kind of the idea of goals or a vision without the action side of it is a day-dreaming year. So having that structure in place, I'm a huge believer in regularly reviewing that. I think the plan can serve as the agenda for your board meetings. When you can go down the goals and check through what's our progress, I like the idea of getting the plan into the spreadsheets and just updating it on a regular basis, what have we been doing? Again, everything that you do should be part of those goals, should be part of that vision, should be part of that plan. If you're doing something outside of that plan, you've got two options, either stop doing that or update the plan. And so yeah, it's really intended to be there to keep you structured to get the most out of the resources. Especially number one threat, all of those end-to-date money and resources. So way around that is you can increase resources, even increase efficiency. You do that for the vision and action. Well, thank you, Efficiency. I'm just going to give you time to to think about seven-oh-pool experience. And one final thing, if you all want to make sense. We just need to think that you have enough that you need. Oh, sure. Yeah. So it did pass out some little sticking notes here. And pens, you have an already got one. Does anyone not have? I don't have. So one little exercise that we like to do in terms of visioning is imagining a headline. So with this, I guess the local paper, is it going to be a problem for this thing? You can pay as well after you go to the canary. OK, well, the local newspaper, of just a bit of a thought exercise here. So imagining you can look forward and see future headlines to newspapers and you're looking five years out and there's a very positive news story on the EDA. So there's a press release comes out front page headline on the local paper and it says something that brings you great joy that your work and efforts here with the ADA. The question, the exercise here is what is that headline? When we see headlines, we've all seen headlines, especially these days on social media, they're very short, usually alarming the way they're written. But you get the drift. Short, quick statement there. So what is that headline? We're thinking something that you would see on a newspaper, social media. In example, about 10 years ago, we did this process not in the A with the town. And our headline was, the Apple Garden Man is torn down and developed into something. So the, are you able to open the door? He'll open the door. When I first found the guy that asked me on here, I said, only if we can buy the apple garden and the character took his 10 years. Yeah. Yeah. So I had a line like that. So looking for three different points here. Number one is just a headwind. So just a headline, first step. Next one up is just a, you know, a sentence, just some quick description of what happened there. So here's a headline. This is what happened. It can be really free, what was the impact. So we're getting back to the why this is important, and then what made that possible. And these don't have to be paragraph right now, just be quick statements under each one. If you have multiple headlines of mine, that's great. And right, lots of headlines, but really one good head on the bathroom. I'm going to get you a little bit more. I'm going to get you a little bit more. I'm going to get you a little bit more. I'm going to get you a little bit more. I'm going to get you a little bit more. I'm going to get you a little bit more. I'm going to get you a little bit more. I'm going to get you a little bit more. I'm going to get you a little bit more. I'm going to go to the top. Okay. I'm just going to get these don't ball my. Read it. But all right. Go ahead and get started. If not that, then that's the no worries on it. I think Sean might go to the first one finish. So I'm going to go with that. We're starting. Good. What's your headline? Ask them both at best small town in Virginia. What made that happen? We made that the idiot made that happen. A combination of a revitalization of the community. I don't know. Well, I have a worry that you can tell me that's a bit too much. That's okay. Anything else on that one? I think I would go along very good with it. I consider something similar saying you're one of the best downtown in downtown America, how they have that list of things. I said mixed use housing comes to Ashland. I mean, say, Miss Ueshausen. Having seen in other places, you know, where there's, you know, the residential and then the dining and the retail and that. Like, grocery, beverage, that, you think? Yeah, I've kind of seen that in some places back in Maryland where. So a friend's name. Yeah, or even like the condo kind of. is back in Maryland where. So a friend's name. Or. Yeah, or even like the condo kind of. You know, I think people in time we're going to be going. I know we are going smaller rather than we have a big area. And you hit an age where you don't need as much space. And you're glad to do that. And that might be a population to try and draw into a walkable town. But within that area you also have the coffee shops, the retail, the boutiques, the restaurants, the wine bar, you know, whatever. And all I said was along the route 54-4. Oh, oh yeah, okay. That's where it happens. With 100% occupancy. Thank you, you're welcome. So what happened to make that? It's called billionaires road. I said the EDA in the town working collaboratively with developers. I should have included the support of the town as well. Like another, the RAP2 for focus too. Right. That's it kind of. The Ashland I-95 exit rated number one in driver satisfaction. Survey results by Gallipal, rated number one in convenience, cleanliness, and hospitality. Count focused on its entrance and support of the businesses. We get a lot of revenue from that sector. Yeah. From the extrusion. And I kind of focus on things that I want to see. And the quality and the behavior. First, quality and property of 54. And that can be the most new year. And then the quality and the behavior, the quality of property of property of property of property of property of property of property of property of property of property of property of property of property of property of property of property of property of property of property of property of property of property of property of property of property of property of property of property of property of property of property of property of property of property of property of property of property of property of property of property of property of property of property of property of property of property of property of property of property of property of property of property of property of property of property of property of property of I just... Good, the headlines. Oh, God. Nor did you make a headline? I did it. I did, you did this exercise the other day, and I couldn't stop making headlines. Oh, okay. I have one of your ears, and hopefully from these headlines, you can figure out how to strategically design your efforts. Yeah. And it helps for mid-summer exercises. A lot of things. One is feeds into goals, vision, and also feeds into that action side. What falls under those goals. Specific strategies. This story goes in over here, but it was a nationalism, four-star routine property. What happened is the Patrick Henry and his soul that we developed as highly routine for Joe. And what is the impact that brings two isolated and prestige to the town, and how did it happen? It's we made a hotel ramp on to people to re-developing? Okay, let's go on. Kelly? Okay, you've got a couple over there, which is great. The ACT-A-A-LAND EPA, the Wors Outdoor Recreation Grant to the invite shop will be the license review retailers of the fall line. And the way that I put that happened was just partnerships, strategic R&B that actually has more variety and purposes that the impact actually has more varieties of work, residents and tourists, and also what made it possible and it's the strategic planning of the EDA and the forward thinking of the board. And that's like what I did to those days I've been about and I think about the EDA and the work that they've done in the past is they have thought about what they wanted and they have implemented those grants and incentives to push in that direction. For instance, the round one grant, you know, wanting can say the one thing about that, the outdoor recreation, what they wanted, so how we just got to get it. Oh yeah. Here's also the outdoor recreation technical assistance grant with EPA. Okay. And there's no cost to it. It's technical assistance, as much as you can. But also it builds partnerships with state and federal grant providers. So that's a continuous program goes out each year. Thank you. I put Ashley BDA partners in the town to purchase the old Diane Hill property. Will be by glass. I don't know what. No, I don't know. The hey, it looks better in a variety setting. Yeah, the Diane Hill property. The one that's going to be there. One's having TV, lead, next to Caremonty. The vacant lot. Yeah. I couldn't see her in the back. The vacant lot. Yeah, man, my sister used to have rehearsals there. There was a hole in the wall. I used to stick hot wheels cars into this hole. My mom always said, when they tear that down, they're going to find a bunch of hot wheels. I have to ask if they're down. One of the things I think, and I wasn't here for this, but I've loved your story about how the town and the ADA worked to purchase the help of work. So I would love to see them all be able to find those properties and create more opportunities like that in town. That's a one of our standards that we have for a well-bought land and water. Yeah, and I think one of the things that I think about in going out and sharing grants is if we don't figure out something the money will dry up eventually. So before we get too far down, we've got a pretty big bucket. So we're a decent enough bucket. So how do we take that money to make more money? I always heard this thing like, difference between rich people and middle class people is rich people make every dollar, make more money for them. And middle class, they just spend it and they make it and spend it and they so how do we make this money make more money? I'm a little class I'm sure. I get money and I just think so. Yeah so that's my thought and then actually Ashley D.A. brings all these to the corner of Route 1 and to the other. Okay. Those are all great. Oh my gosh, so far. That's all you got. Those are good ones. Right, first one was Ashley NDA Lawyers in Midway. It's a big company to relocate. What happened outside of the downtown and primary streets, so it's not, it's within town limits, but it's not in the direction. In the street. Okay. It's a new large tax revenue stream, job growth, rise in population, as in the what is the impact. What made it possible, kind of thinking like it's building upon the E.U.s role, which is in the town group every year, so it makes it attractive place for businesses to come into. Also working with this company, like to build a grant funding and then a shared vision of the town called teens are sort of working together. And then as we're going around another one pop to my head that route one through Ashland in the No Wases in a long highway desert. Oh, I'm up there. That's a good one. You were with them down, right? It's all for a play. It's a big, huge one. All right. That's all right. All right. All right. So pretty much video to Denise's. I said, headlines developer, committee to develop development on Route 54. I was thinking about around the college, like a Chapel Hill or some shops and and apartments and stuff like that. Ashton and ZDA partnered to make it attractive. What happened? Attracting locals and visitors for a shopping, eating, and living. We made a possible collaboration between various town groups, including the EDA and the Ministry of Health. All right. I love that actually. If you wouldn't mind, I was going to post them up. You didn't know all of that. I know it's 720 here. I wanted to touch on next steps. We'll do a dash. Four pages of notes, as well as the survey responses, as well as these. And what we'll do is working with staff, it starts to put together some draft statements, which would include visioning, mission, goal, action, structure, and start to get the beginning of the strategic plan started to build off of it starts to react to. It's hard to sit around and really craft something together. The best approach I've seen is starting to get together some draft materials so you have something to respond to. And you know, yes this is good or, that's terrible or it's getting close. Let's keep working that direction. So that would be our next steps of getting all of this documented, drafted, getting into actual statements in a structured place. Then working with staff, you all as a group, continuing to work from that and form the plan as we go forward. And happy to answer any questions. If anything else comes to mind, please let me know. If you're anything like me, you'll get some brilliant headline or other ideas coming to mind on the drive home and want to get that back out there. If you send out the staff, we'll include that into the notes as well. They'll buy that. If you have reports or stories of how other college towns have adapted to this new world. That would be kind of important because what you have is you have students moving off campus and competing for people for the house for the small houses just like you had said. And you know that's there's a negative impact there for the same thing with Airbnb's and towns and cities that just raises the prices. And I'm not sure we can get the same we can benefit from the rental of the house as opposed to our family. Is there something someone has done? You can approach the column to say, only students that have my IRGPA can move off campus. That would be something. Right, all they have to IR GPA can move off campus. That would be something. Right, all they have to stay on four years unless they have to stay on four years. Unless they get special permission. So that is, we're just gonna stay up. Now that's that. We're gonna roll the floor, roll the floor, roll the floor, roll the floor, we're gonna go to the floor. So we've had students get approved this year to move on for next year. They can't find a place to live. So now they're back when we need a room. Probably don't have. There's a lot going on this year. So if we build that thing on Route 54, there's been some big ups. Yeah, it's like you wouldn't want your family to be in, but that's the answer to the way. I will say Kelly, too, I don't know if you all have business and loss, business and loss of licensing. It's a misery licensing. You have that misery. I don't know that we have that, my. Yeah, so I've had access to that, and that's easy enough. I mean, I've got it once. That takes like 10 minutes. So I can pull basically like 100 pages of business profiles of, you know, market housing market data, kind of a lot of data sets that employers look at in the market, so I can pull all that and it doesn't take long. I can just set it off and fold our account over. So get some data on that, look at some case studies, some other places, we'll get the notes down. But with the vision and goals, what I like to do as an approach is provide a few options. This is what we heard. Here's a few different ideas of what that does visioning statements might be. You all can review those and it gives you an option to work off of. If one's a little bit off, then here's a few different ones. Commonly, what happens is here are three mission ideas that ends up being a hybrid of those coming together. So, that they're different enough that we have different ideas here, but it gives you kind of to choose your own adventure approach. Before my pleas, I would encourage you to take those to leave. The Army, of course, visits to Florida and even they've got a hotel and a plan that they're going to visit. A housing and a bunch of warehouses. It's very interesting. And then they're doing it again and happily. I have a third at the VA. And the VA, I think, I'm another event. Yeah. It's June 3rd. June 3rd. June 3rd. Sixth class. So what else is the focus? There's two. There might be no word. An athlete that we haven't defined it to. It's all over. I'll let it. OK. Perfect. Thank you all. Thank you. I think I can tell you. Also, that's why this is the, what are you journeying or? You can't enter it and still talk about it. So, talking to me, well, you're in. Okay, I do want to say that even though it's on the agenda, tell about the treasures for you. What do you want me to do? Yes. So it's Treasury's report here. The yellow 3.239.4941 is available minus due to grants. The second page that you get printed, it's just the $7100.00 and went to the Treasury and $750.00 that's out there. And that is what it is. That's what's available. 3.39, 3.39. That's not how it would be. I just think it's always good to have a good idea.