Everyone, I hope everybody had a safe and enjoyable, independent stay weekend. I deal with my family. My name is Natalie Fanny Gonzalez on the chair of the committee. And I'm here with my colleagues, Marilyn Balkon and Evan Glass. We're going to kick off the meeting. It's a very exciting session. Two things. We're going to work on the bill 1124. Finance, economic development fund, make office vacancy extinct. I love the name. Move program. This is one of the issues that resulted in the office market series that we had a few months ago. And I want to thank the leadership of council member Evan Glass Taking ownership of this particular item and bringing us here today Then after this item we have a second one on the RESJ impacts on local economic development spending Which is also a very promising one so with that we, we're going to ask our council staff, Mr. Ali, to please kick us off. Thank you. Good morning, thank you very much. Yeah, so I guess the plan would just be to work through the packet and then when we get to the bill section, work through section by section for each decision point. So just starting off with the background here, this is Bill 1124 as the committee chair mentioned. It was introduced on April 16th by the members of the Econ committee. And it has been co-sponsored by Council Vice President Stewart and Council members, Lutki, Mink, Alvernos, Katz, and Council President Freedson as well. There was a public hearing on June 25th. And this bill would basically codify a program that does currently exist but is not in law. It was introduced as a pilot program in 2014 and it provides us a grant for businesses that relocate to Montgomery County from elsewhere. The bill would effectively codify the program, establishing the grant program under the EDF where currently resides. And it would support eligible businesses relocating, locating or expanding into the county with a grant towards their rent. This would also codify incentives for new businesses relocating to the county, provided under the program and then it also sets eligibility criteria for how businesses qualifying to the program As the committee chair mentioned this is following on the heels of Long and detailed discussions about the office market in the county You can see in the chart on page two that the Office of Aconcy has increased. There was as a result of the pandemic, an acceleration in office vacancy or the growth in office vacancy. And so the committee has looked for some solutions. The current vacancy rate is 18.1% according to co-star and I just want to draw a distinction between co-star and another estimate of the vacancy rate provided by CBRE because this was mentioned during the quarterly indicators meeting last week or a few weeks ago. Basically CBRE is more of an investor's take on the market so it excludes large owner-occupied buildings from the inventory that they measure. So it's more of a market sentiment because those are the buildings that could be leased. But from a land use perspective, it's important to account for the whole inventory. Because the whole inventory generates jobs and economic activity. And so from that perspective, when you include the fully occupied owner occupied buildings, the vacancy rate does go down or is 18.1 compared to 21.9%. So worth noting that that higher number, as estimated by CBRE, is also higher in the rest of the region. So DCD and Fairfax, for example, also have higher vacancy rate measures according to CBRE. for example, also have higher vacancy rate measures according to CBRE. So moving on to the proposed bill updates in general, the bill as introduced would remove the 20,000 square foot cap to qualify for the program which currently exists. It would also increase the maximum award to $150,000 from the current $80,000 cap. And it would increase the eligibility to include existing businesses located in the county seeking to expand their office space within the county. As I mentioned, there was a public hearing on June 25th. All public testimony, including the written testimony that was submitted to the council indicated support for the bill, although some did suggest some amendments. Suggestions included allowing eligibility for tenants extending existing leases in specific submarkets, requiring recipients of the move program to utilize local vendors and businesses, expand eligibility to non-office base and increasing deadline requirements from 90 to 180 days. eligibility to non-office space and increasing deadline requirements from 90 to 180 days. So with that, we can start moving through each of the sections unless there's any other questions or comments. Councilmember Blas. Thank you Madam Chair. Mr. Arlee, thank you for your work on this topic. And I just want to thank my colleagues that this legislation introduced by all of us on this committee really is the result of the deep dive that we've undertaken over the last year and a half that this committee has existed where we recognize programs that are working data that need improvements and brainstorming on ways to help our local economy in all the different ways. And so just want to thank everybody from the executive team, from MCEDC and Council staff for the series of conversations. Clearly this Council has been doing a lot over the last few months with regard to economic development, but this particular program is one that has a 10 year track record of working. We want to make sure that our business community can rely on it. And it is a sign that we are dissatisfied with the very high vacancy rates. And so we're working towards lowering those. So thank you, Madam Chair. Without it, we're going to continue with the staff. Thank you. Great. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Council Members. Good morning. The first issue for your consideration that we've noted in the staff report and we're at page four of the staff memorandum issue number one building class. This is really a clarifying amendment for your consideration for the definition of the term office space, currently defined as a real estate location in a class A or class B property building, least in occupied by business for commercial purpose, that is not retail restaurant independent financial or insurance agent or broker establishments. So the proposed clarifying amendment would be simply to delete from that definition the reference to class A or class B. The point being that these are, as I understand it, kind of terms of art they're used in the real estate industry but they are not precisely defined. So the Office of the County Attorney as well as some of the public speakers asked for either those terms to be clearly defined or removed council staff suggests removing them since there doesn't seem to be a clear definition out there and it also doesn't seem to be necessary for your definition of office space. Two things that are that. Number one, I understand your point completely and I saw that on page seven of the packet when the county executive staff responded to this question number two, or the answer question number two, you do say that, I mean, the target is definitely class A and B buildings period. It's usually that's the need to be on the bill, that's what you're saying. But that's what the practice is. I wonder if what proof this with the amendment that staff is suggesting, where can that be? I mean, there has to be a place where that is clear because I don't want to see staff, you know, the folks administering this program to one day say, what do you know? It's not on the law. Like, I don't want to have those issues happening. So I'm wondering where work in that be clear, if we're gonna proceed with your amendments suggestion. Do you follow me? I'm just concerned here. And I see that can executive team, would you like to respond to this? I will appreciate it if you do. So yes, Laurie Bad with Montgomery County Economic Development Corporation. This is something that actually you can define class A and B office space and class C office space. So the reason that this was called out in the original 2014 when it was set up is because you can actually drill down to vacancy rates within class A, class B, and class C office space. Class C office space is generally older properties, rents are lower, and vacancy rates are much lower in class C office space than you'll find in the more expensive newer class A and B office spaces. So that was why class A AMB was called out initially. And again, because of the class C office, vacancy rates were so much lower when compared to AMB, it was again an effort to try to help those people who were moving into the AMB spaces. And it just made sense at that time. I would imagine it's the same. I did not look at the vacancy rates broken down by class type for the office buildings, but that's why it had been specifically called out. Oh, I completely understand the history. That, yeah. I just, I'm just asking if you're in agreement with staff, if we accept class AMB on this bill, if that will be okay, because just because of the, I don't want to see in practice that people are going to forget and just avoid. The explanation just gave us. Thank you so much, Chair Femme, because LS Ken Hartman, and Espada, Assistant Chief Administrative Officer for the record. We have a little concern about removing class A and B. I think there is certainly incentive we all have to make sure those buildings are viable. Class C is a little nebulous, and I'll turn to my team for more information, but Class C can range all the way down to space and office space and trailers. And we don't want to do that. So how we retain some sort of definition of office space, I know I understand the concerns to have raised, but I suggest maybe we can work on that. The definition, may we work on that angle? How can we create a definition from class A and B? I will like for staff to respond. No, I mean, I was going to make the same point that you made, Madam Chair, you know, this sounds like something that staff going back to the drawing board and working with the executive staff to develop clear definitions potentially if that's amenable to the committee. So that way we don't eliminate A and B from the bill, but we define it. Well, I believe that. Yeah, I mean, I think there's maybe a solution, but whether or not it's in the legislation, even if it's in regulation, in the legislation, even if it's in like regulation, even if the definition is still not legally enforceable, I think that's fine as long as it's just called out, but, you know, one broker's class A is another broker's class B, and so I think it's important to avoid a strict definition anywhere, even as long as it's called out that, you know, generally as long as brokers consider it to be class A or class B, that that's an application the team would consider approving because they still have to take in the application. But I think trying to come up with a stricter definition is going to be tough, but maybe calling out in regulation that way gives the guidance that it's going to be class A or B. I think it might be how, I mean, executive staff mentioned that they are clearly defined. So I think that potentially executive branch might be able to propose definitions that we could work with and go from there. And where will that go? Let's say that, you know, this executive works on the definition. What would you place it? I would recommend that it go in the bill itself. So maybe we should definitely, the committee should see it before maybe through a memo, before it gets to full cancel. So we can approve it. Maybe we don't need to come back and say yes, but it also depends on what you guys come up with. So why don't you work on the definition before our next economic development committee meeting. And then in that next meeting That we shouldn't take too long we should review it and then once we approve it and fall in agreement Then we can send it to full council along with the rest of the package Councilmember class Thank you madam chair. I appreciate this this discussion. I want to drill down a little bit more Because there was an assertion that class C is such a wide class. Where is that definition? Sorry, Jean Smith, Montgomery County Business Center Manager. I mean, for the length of the program, the application has always said that we use co-stars definition for class A, B, and C. As Mr. Lee pointed out, I mean certainly brokers can use different definitions, but the program since its inception has said co-star is the gold standard for the program, not because it is necessarily the gold standard, but because it was a definition we could use, it's available software that others can use to check. Certainly it is open to interpretation, but that is what we've been using, whether we put that in the bill, whether we put that in the regulation, we would need to rely on a third party to define class A, B, and C because the county does not define them. Okay, so I'm hearing a disconnect of sort. If we've relied on co-star, which includes class A, B, and C at the original legislation or not the original program to find it as A and B, then did we not provide for C over the last decade? That is correct. Okay. No, no, no, keep going. I was going to say when the Department of Economic Development created this under Mr. Legett, they explicitly excluded the class C per Miss Boyer's comments. It is not the type of class that was supposed to showing the highest vacancy rates. It was also not the class that the county at that time wanted to subsidize in terms of a county grant. They wanted to drive businesses towards class A and B because it's the higher quality and it's also the businesses they were looking to attract. So it was an explicit decision by the Department of Economic Development not to include a class in it. Thank you. So on one hand we rely on co-star and it seems like we will have to rely on co-star or I'd request that we get that co-star definition to better understand. Two more additional points. One, if Class C is already is out there, and because of its affordability, it already has a very low vacancy rate, then it does not one can infer, it will not be utilized very much in this program because there's not a lot of market for it, based on numbers, right? What we're trying to do, I'm seeing disagreement, so explain to me. I believe that companies, if they signed a lease in a class C space and were eligible for move, I believe that they would apply through the program just to go into class C space, and they could still get the up to $150,000 if they meet all of the other criteria. So let me just correct what we said. Not saying that C would not be utilized, but based on numbers and the data there is less class C space available. That's correct. Yes. That's correct. I'm making a data-driven statement, right? Thus, one couldn't infer that it would be utilized less. Yes. Also, class C buildings are tend to be smaller owner occupied office buildings, so yes, they're unlikely to receive a move grant or apply for one. That's the point. The point of legislation is to break down barriers to expand the program and have it be utilized by those that need to use it regardless of the office classification. We know that a lot of the businesses we are working with nationally and internationally are interested in B, A, and trophy. They're not really coming here looking for C, but we have a large population that are just trying to get a foothold somewhere. And if they start at C and then move up to the other classes, that's a success. And so quite frankly, I support the staff recommendation to literally tear down the walls of classification so that we can include class C based on the co-star definition. And if that needs to be codified, written in here, that it's based on co-star definition and if that needs to be codified written in here that it's based on co-star I'm fine with that but I'm comfortable because I think a move into Class C as a toll hold into the business community is a win for this program and our goals You guys remember welcome Thank you. So I think that when we think about this program and some of the testimony and some of the decision points that we have to make, it's one tool, one tool in the toolbox and there are other programs for other community, for other business owners that may fit to your point of expanding support to all businesses to break down barriers to entry. So I think that it's important to really focus on what is the immediate goal of this specific program. And I think it's A and B. I wouldn't be opposed to opening it up to see but in terms of data. We just don't know how many applications and what the what amount of money that's going to be right so while there isn't a fiscal impact specifically to this at some point we're going to be right. So while there isn't a fiscal impact specifically to this, at some point we're going to have to look at what happens if we get flooded with class C applications, and we end up, we have finite amount of money. So that's just my concern. And do we have any anecdotal idea of how many would this open the floodgate or are we talking about one or two class C compared to 87 A and B? I can provide that. So class A and B comprise over 90% of our opposite inventory of the class C that's approximately maybe 8%. A lot of that is small, less than 10,000 square foot owner occupied space. So it is unlikely, in my view, just based on the pure amount of office space, that there are a lot of buildings that are purely class C open for lease, for which a lot of businesses could potentially lease and apply and use up this program. I think a lot of those spaces that maybe would be considered class C that somebody could potentially lease that are cheaper might be considered class B by another broker. So I personally a staff perspective recommend that maybe removing the class reference altogether is probably enough to continue to for this program to operate in the spirit that you're intending it to. Joe okay with just in not having come back with the finishing? Yeah I think that my concern would be opening the floodgates. If we feel that that's not going to happen, I appreciate Council Member Glass's statement of breaking down barriers. I think that we need to watch that. Let's do some. Okay. Can I enter? Yeah. So I will say based on the conversation, if everybody here agrees. At the end of the day, we need to come back. I will say in a year to see how this program is going. I will say for now, if everybody's okay, follow the advice of council staff and in eliminate class A and, as they're suggesting. Okay? And we continue running the program as he has been running. And then in a year, we evaluate, you know, who has applied, how much money we have left, where are people moving in, a class A, a class B? And I do think that in a year, we should have at least try to have or own the finish of class A, class B. And I do think that in a year we should have at least try to have our own definition of class A and B and see if it actually matches what with co-stories saying or not. Maybe they are sung as you're saying. So now folks may see a building that is class B as class A and vice versa. Or maybe a building that is actually A and vice versa. Oh, maybe a building that is actually Class C, C and N, that's Class B. Who knows? That's what we're talking about here. So maybe keeping an eye on that as you're, you know, working on this program and see if in a year we can come up with a definition if needed. I do based on what Council Member Glass said, I do want to see those vacant spaces that are near transit that may be class C, they are a target. So maybe there are some exceptions in class C because they are near distance to a transit station, being purple line or metro, red line or BRT as well. We don't need to come out with an app, but maybe in a year we can think about those terms. I'm thinking in my own district, we don't have wheat, no, had glamour, they have forest glint. Lots of businesses there that are not really class A and B, but they're, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no we can see if we should add them or not. Is that clear? Will that be in agreement with the executive team and council staff? Yes, we can definitely collect data. We can definitely bring it back. And as noted earlier, the bill requires an executive regulation. And so certainly if you can come back. Yeah, I had to come back. It leaves during, say, fiscal 26 budget discussion, that with the data they would like to see something Bill requires an executive regulation and so certainly if you have to come back. Yeah, he has to come back. Yeah, he has to come back. Yeah, he has to come back. Yeah, he has to come back. Yeah, he has to come back. Yeah, he has to come back. Yeah, he has to come back. Yeah, he has to come back. Yeah, he has to come back. Yeah, he has to come back. Yeah, he has to come back. Let me ask you about time, the time frame, because let's say that the council approves this bill at the end of July. So when do you start kicking it off? Because I want to know how many months do we have between you kick it off until the next budget? Yeah, I would say undetermined because we have'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. regulation so we'll need to draft that regulation and partnership with Montgomery County Economic Fund Corporation and with Department of Finance among others it will need to be posted on the register for at least 30 days or a month for public comment and then it will come back to the council for approval and since it's met the one it needs to be approved before it can be inactive. So the bill will become effective three months after it's signed by the county executive. Therefore, that would provide a window to work on the regulations. So what thinking FY27, really? 26. It's budgeted. There is money in the FY25 budget. This just puts the parameters around it and make sure, because it's law, that it's in future budgets. Yes. But we still want to see you guys come back in a year, at least as soon as it gets implemented. And to give us all that data that I just mentioned. And Chair Franny, as I was pointing out there, there is a program. The law will go into effect and change the program on its effective date until then there's a program. But once that, we'll start working on the regs. And as I think as we all know, regs take longer than we expect, depending on how many comments we receive, but we'll try to get that back to you well before the bill becomes effective. Great. Any other comments from colleagues? Okay. Do you have a question? Yes, go ahead. Just not a question. Thank you. My name is Dr. Ressavik Elang, Program Manager. We have a small size data that I can share basically in terms of, you know, when we open this class A, class B, what we get ourselves into, there was an application actually last year where a trailer on the parking lot of church as an example applied for the program and we're opening ourselves for this kind of thing. So again, I understand we should come back a year later and do the analysis, but those kind of applications could come to so. Make sure that Mr. Ali has that data, please. Thank you so much for that comment. Without we're gonna move on. Okay, thank you. So yeah, I guess we'll work on that. Or we'll take, I would just gonna recommend, by the way, reporting requirements, in addition to just potentially requesting the class of each building, maybe getting the rent that was signed at the time of lease to know how far the subsidy went. That might be a good way to understand the distribution of these awards and how far they're going and sort of independent of the class mix. A better measure I think. Sure. I apologize, Madam Chair. Just to close the loop on our issue number one, the definition itself, so the first sentence of the definition of office space will read office space is a real estate location in a property building, leased and occupied by a business for commercial purpose, et cetera. So that will be the wording of the amendment you've approved. Yes. Also just noting there is, I don't know if it comprehensively addresses all of the reporting items you want, but there is on page four of the bill starting at line 56. There is an annual reporting process built in. Yes, the only thing that I don't see here when I read it was the issue of class senior transit if that's possible, maybe I'm just thinking too loud. But it doesn't have to be on the bill. It's something that I think I don't think should be. So I think the suggestion was going to be the regulation would address it in some way, which I think is probably the best vehicle to do so. Maybe we're not with this specificity that you're referring to, but you know once we look at the co-star definition and some other mitigating factors, but we are deciding not to specify a or b. I Thought that was the decision point. Yes. I just wanted to clarify the class, the near transit component. I think that that mixes apples and oranges and that this is one tool in the toolbox. We have other tools for transit related properties. So it's just getting the data. I'm not saying it should be on the bill at all. At all. It's just getting the data and see maybe in the future. So I work clear, right? So we're basically adopting what Castle Staff said. Do you do have a typo here? Should be office space. It's a real, you put the bracket before stage so I just want to make sure that's correct that's why I'm so tempted to do it without pointing out the okay on my part but yes we will correct that so literally we're just taking out the words class A or class B sounds good thank you not problem thank you for your work let Let's move on. Okay. So, this issue number two is the issue of craft alcohol production. The move program currently explicitly allows craft alcohol production companies to be eligible for grant. While supporting craft alcohol production is important for economic development generally, it may not necessarily not necessary to call this out in the bill. Any use that attempts to occupy an office space could or should be eligible, there is a slight clarification in item number four about the specific type of entity, but as for the use, it would make sense that if any use is allowed in the office building and that user is seeking a grant for the move program that they should be eligible. And so the idea here would be to strike craft alcohol production in order to allow for any light manufacturing or production use in the building. The caveat is that in the location where most office buildings are, which is the CR, CR, and CRT zones, the only light manufacturing use that's allowed is craft alcohol production. So, expanding the definition of that in those zones is something that you may want to consider having a broader discussion about, but for now, just to sort of unshackle this a little bit. Council staff would suggest removing the reference to craft alcohol production specifically, but it may be worth hearing also from the administrators of the program. I agree completely, but does the administration have any comments? This doesn't shut the door. I mean, you're crap alcohol, so if we can, if they can occupy space and gene. Sure. I think the, this kind of rubs into the issue we were just talking about. It depends on how we want to define office space now, because we still will need to figure out where office space is located based on this and not every space that will allow craft alcohol will be labeled as office. And so not having to open that up again since we just discussed it, at some point in time when we're administering the program, we will need to determine is this an office building or not, and there are plenty of buildings where Kraft alcohol goes that is not necessarily an office building. Yeah, just to clarify, I think what we were considering, and maybe we need to clarify the language would be that it's an office building, and then if an Kraft alcohol production user wanted to enter an office building, the office building criteria is first, not the craft alcohol producer. I apologize, that's correct. We understand each other. However, if we'll pick any of the several local breweries I've been to, they're not in an office building and they would not qualify for this program if they opened up if it's not an office building. But there's my understanding is that. That's correct. So yeah, so part of the craft alcohol production was that the program also allows for flex, what's defined as flex space, class A or B flex space, if there is a lab or production component. So that was specifically originally targeted for life sciences companies who might be going into what's considered Flex Space and they put a wet lab space in that Flex type of property. The craft alcohol, we saw some of those going into like on Stone Street in Rockville. There were craft alcohol production facilities that we'd go in there into a flex spitten in more of an industrial zone in a flex space. So it was not office at all, but the program was allowing for that flex space if it had a lab component. So the craft alcohol production was added because some of those craft alcohol production facilities were going into ARB FlexSpace and opening a tasting room which was we considered retail use. So we would carve out the retail square footage of that Flex facility and provide a move grant based on the production portion, the lab portion of that flex space. So, Mr. Smith is correct, that they weren't in office buildings. It was in this more nebulous kind of a flex use building with the production facility there. So again, retail still was not qualified, so we carved out any tasting room component of the property, but then would allow for a move grant for the production side of that facility. So it really kind of expanded from the office space to that flex usage and a flex air bee space. Do you oppose what staff is recommending here? Or are you okay with it, that's? We don't oppose, I mean, but I think it's still worthwhile to consider allowing that flex usage if it has that lab or production facility, no matter what the end user is, whether they're craft alcohol, life sciences, high tech, whatever they might be, but as long as it's still flexible in that regard, I think it works. Yeah, I think opposed to probably too strong of a word, but we want to just highlight that if you delete this specific call out that not ever there will be some craft alcohol production areas that will no longer qualify. So, Moeismas Board, just pointed out there may be some life science errors that will not qualify because it's just office space now. I was just going to, I mean, yes, I think currently the bill does allow for the flex. I mean, we haven't called out flex warehousing uses here in item issue one. I would point out that a lot of what are considered Flex Office Buildings are also considered Class B Office Buildings like on Park Lawn Drive in Rockville. Those are also Class B with a Flex Warehouse component that could be eligible for a move grant and suitable for a life science user or craft alcohol production user. So I think we're kind of conflating some of the terms here a little bit. It seems that you know you could expand this to flex uses generally or limit it to expanding it to more than just office space to buildings that are not classified office at all that are flex also but then limiting the use of into that flex to be wet lab or craft alcohol production. That's one approach. The other approach is focusing exclusively on office buildings, allowing for any use that would be eligible in an office building. As you move, Bill. Thank you. So I'm a little confused about why just eliminating the reference would change the eligibility for some of those. Or is it because of the change eliminating class A and class B at the same time that we're eliminating craft alcohol production? So again we haven't, we read the packet when it came out and haven't had much discussion. My understanding as well has just occurred as we are only focused solely on office space now based on how the bill defines it. And office space will have to be defined somewhere. And I'm just going to be frank, we'll use co-star again to define where office space is located. And so if it is, if what co-star pulls up is class B flex, not class B office, then it will not qualify. So what's our pulls up is class B flex, not class B office, then it will not qualify. Okay, so I think that that is a concern because I wouldn't want it to, I wouldn't want to eliminate anyone who is currently eligible for the move grant. We want to make sure that that industry is still currently available after the bill. So I think whatever magic has to happen in the definition, I think that's important to do that. But I also think that we, I agree with staff and that we need to have a broader discussion on light manufacturing and flex space and looking at is there another tool that we need for that industry or do we need to look at zoning because I think that that when we look at the diversity of jobs in Montgomery County we should be looking at light manufacturing. Thank you for that and I do agree at some point in light industry zone that's actually under the PHP committee, where I also serve. We're gonna have to follow up on when that discussion is gonna happen and we can have a joint econ PHP, talking about like industry zones and flex zones. But as of today for this bill, only into words leaving it as it is. But let's cancel number glass. So I appreciate Councillor Romero-Balcom's comments and the chairs, right? This will require some additional conversation. But I think there are two important questions or items to raise. One, with regard to the last decade under this program, it's been referenced that grants have been provided. Do you have any more information about that for the craft alcohol production specifically? Unfortunately, I don't have the list of all the grant awardees. I don't know if anyone from executive staff might have that, but there have been a three or four craft production facilities since that language was added who have been awarded move grants. Mr. Smith, we can certainly get that data. I think we don't. Rather than off the cuff, we'd rather actually describe it as a major attack. Extremely relevant, right? Because we're trying to figure out, make sure that we understand who's utilized this program. But let's go back 10 years and let's understand the context when the move program was created and why this item was added. I was not on the council 10 years ago, but I was 10 years ago, very active in the efforts to reform our liquor laws here in Montgomery County. And they coincided and I will infer again that it was because of our interest to spur wineries, distilleries and breweries specifically that this was included to jumpstart that market. And so to see how much it's been utilized I think is important. But to the broader point, do we need this specific line item? Or are we more interested in supporting the light industrial buildings, which I think we would probably would, which might not even be under the move program? It might be captured in another program that we have here in the county and Mr. Hartman a spot and wants to make a comment on that. Thank you so much, Councillor Member Glass, and committee members. What you're hearing from the team here is, we have concerns that this might end an eligibility that currently exists, and we're hearing, it sounds like from you, there's concern of the same, and what we'll do, what we'll to do, who will serve. And I think our suggestion would be, let's leave this language here. And then we can evaluate this at a later date to do who will serve. And I think our suggestion would be, let's leave this language here. And then we can evaluate this at a later date in a broader discussion of light manufacturing. I mean, if I could just add, I don't, I mean, I think that's a perfectly fine resolution. From my perspective, I don't think that the craft alcohol language adds or takes away anything. Because I think that legally, I think there would still be qualified, but I also defer to the implementing agency in the sense that if they have concerns about it, I don't think there's any harm in leaving it in. And I know that silver wrench in true spite have been part of this program. So, and I know that because former council member Hans Riemer led this in my chief of staff worked for him, and that's how I know this. So, with that, I council member Sales. Yes, so wait a minute. You still have the mic. Oh, no, but I'll just add to you before turning it over to Council Member Re sales. So silver branch is in a commercial building and shoe respite is in an industrial zone just to make it clear. Yes, and I was thinking about true respite and some of our other craft brewery, light manufacturing facilities. I don't believe true respite is still in operation, correct? And so it would be good to know which craft breweries did receive this grant, who's still in operation? And whether it makes sense to revisit breweries as a recipient of the move grant. Just want to make sure that people aren't expanding well beyond their means and aren't able to sustain. I believe there was mention of callback provisions within the legislation. Or was it within the packet? Can you clarify? So if we're giving grants out to these businesses that are expanding and they don't last past, I don't know how long it's been since they received versus how long after they received the grant they stayed in business before they shut down. So I just want to make sure that we're giving money to businesses to help sustain their longevity within the county to help them grow, but they're not growing well beyond their means to sustain their growth. Well we do have clawback requirements, I would defer to them to explain I think if they've you know lived beyond the life of the lease that the grant was used towards then I'm not sure if there's any monitoring beyond that but maybe worth asking. And I think the clawback And I think the claw back provisions you're speaking to, council member sales. It's a good point. I think that they are referenced in the bill, but they are referenced in terms of, as a, it's a larger issue of any use of EDF funds that's inappropriate and being able to claw those back. And this was an existing provision of law that's inappropriate and being able to applaud those back. And this was an existing provision of law that's actually like just being moved to a different section. So it already exists and this bill would not change any of the substance. Okay. So I don't want to eliminate, you know, a particular type of business. And I know that when Hans Riemer introduced this legislation, he specifically called out and specified the breweries because he wanted to ensure as they were growing that they could access this sort of grant to grow their business. But it looks like we specifically did not allow this for the tasting room or the retail space. So I think it's fine to leave the language as is to not change the original intention of the bill. We don't want to eliminate anyone. We want as many people to take advantage of the bill, but we just want to monitor the accelerated growth of this bill and ensure that we're supporting these businesses to make sure that they can sustain that added space. So that's all. Excellent, so one more. I just wanted to talk just briefly about the retail component. And is there a, so right now, you just carve out the production component and that's the square foot is used for the move grant. Could there be a scenario where, and in most, I would assume all of the situations that we've had, the production is the larger part and the retail is a smaller part. Could there be a scenario where it's a large retail and the production is a smaller component, and then we'd have to think, okay, is this really a production facility with a little retail or is that a retail facility with a little production to get the grant? Certainly, the scenario could exist. I mean, I think the way the grant has been operating in a way that looks like a continued operate is its bicycle foot, is the total grant. So should the production not be great and the retail section be the largest portion of the business decision, how they want to operate, they would still receive some funding. It just wouldn't be the same amount as they said if they were more focused on production. I mean, I guess to tangent a little bit, the intent has always been to fill class A and B office or just office based generally. And so similar to many economic development theories, like focus on our strategic industries, those that are going in offices, which retail is not. It's still an important industry, but it's not one of the strategic ones. I mean, that's been the intent, which is why retail was excluded. And I think given the council member, as people have mentioned, like Chair Remer from the Fed Committee, as well as other council members. I mean this was expanded during the program because Kind of craft up all production was important, but they I think so wanted to honor the fact that retail wasn't allowed under the program I Think if your question is should we go broader with retail? I think that's okay. Thank you Okay, thank you. Okay, thanks So I think we are Okay Okay, thank you. Okay, thanks. So I think we are okay. I just want to clarify and just point out like staff, you know, this is not something that we're necessarily like, you know, care particularly about. It's fine to keep it, but this question of, you know, craft alcohol production in any space plus office is eligible for move versus just office but any use is an interesting one but I think the, you know, if it's really three to four craft alcohol and I've seen the list of recipients I don't think it's more than that but there's nearly 200 recipients of the award overall. There is maybe a question that might be worth addressing now, but how much are you really losing if, indeed, this language precludes breweries in a flex space that's not also listed as an office space, Class B, for example? So I know firsthand that there was a brewery, sorry, yeah, there was a brewery in downtown Silver Spring that left last year. And spoke with the property owner. Used to live across the street from it. And it was a loss for many of us. And I was asked about financial incentives for another DC region beer producer to come into that space to utilize it in a very similar way. And they asked what financial incentives we offered. When we looked into it further, they told us that they would not be producing beer. They would be producing it at one of their other locations and they simply wanted to use this as a as a restaurant and as a bar thus not fitting this category and so I share that real story to to say that There is interest in this program if it does continue to Allow for support for breweries and distilleries. It is a legitimate question about going back to the previous point about how much total funding there is and how much gets used for all of these other purposes. But if there's more than nearly 200 grants that will provide it over the last decade and a handful have been utilized for this, it doesn't seem like there are that many. We're going to stay with what we said. We're going to leave it as it is. And a year from now, when we come back and evaluate how the program has done with these new changes, we shall see, besides that, as I mentioned before, I'm going to ask my colleague, Council President Friedzen, who chairs the PHP committee. Where when can we schedule a session on the light, in those zones, in manufacturing, so we can talk about those issues separate from this bill? We're going to move on. Next, it's my amendment. Go ahead. No, you go ahead. Thank you, Madam Chair. Your amendment were at issue number three of this staff memorandum page number five. And this relates to the definition of business under the bill, which is currently not defined. But the proposal would be to define business in a way that clarifies that it could be a for-profit or nonprofit entity. And the proposal is to do this by borrowing from an existing definition under chapter 20 for private employer, which means any for-profit or non-profit corporation are firm that is not owned, primarily funded or controlled by a government agency. So the proposal would be to use that definition for the definition of business under the bill. Beautiful. Why am I pushing forward for this? Non-profit or businesses is just a different structure and we want them to occupy class A and B and I'm gonna go back to that conversation but we want them to use or office spaces is just a different structure with that and hoping my colleagues can agree. So can move this one forward. So I agree in concept, right? I absolutely grew through non-profits or businesses. They should be allowed every advantage that the private sector. My view is I think that the term private employer is more confusing than business because I think that I I'm not stuck on it, but I do think that having the term business means private employer as defined under I think that that's a more confusing term than what it is for one. Although I also know that most people are never ever going to read the bill. So I think the focus would be on the marketing, the actual application to really push that out. So, I forgot to mention one thing. Non-profits have actually qualified and received money. It's already happening. It's just not on the bill for some strange reason. So it's just putting on the bill and continuing to allow, in letting the larger world, the non-profit industry know that they do qualify. That's what it is. Any questions or comments? Councilmember? Yes. Well, I'm glad you shared that they've already taken advantage of the legislation. They've already qualified. I don't think it's necessarily important to make it explicit. The same way we're not specifying the types of businesses that should occupy the office space. I mean, if they've already taken advantage of it, the people who want the resources will seek them out and take advantage of the program. I don't think we have to explicitly state it. The problem is that if we do what we said here, private employer, people will know, because right now it says businesses and many nonprofits that have no idea they qualify. Do we know how many nonprofits have taken advantage or have applied? Have received any funding to expand? Similar to the craft alcohol production, we certainly can pull that. I'm sure the number is quite larger than the craft alcohol production. Okay. And again, rather get you accurate data than the CRAP alcohol production. Okay. And again, rather get you accurate data than try to pull it here from the cuff. Yes, and while I have the floor real quick, I'll just say, like, we completely agree. Businesses are businesses, whether they are structured as a nonprofit or as a for-profit. And so that's, as I was just talking with my colleague here, like, we non-profit has been turned down because they're a non-profit business. They've been turned down. If they've been turned down, it's been because of other application issues or qualification. Sorry. But do you oppose the amendment? No. Just to make it clear. Correct. No, no. I can't. That's the one. That's the one. I'm going to be clear that we agree with you. Businesses or businesses where the support for employment? So private employers should be the way issue we reflected. Go ahead. Madam Chair, just to speak to council member Balcombs' point, I mean, since you, since the proposal is to cross reference the definition of private employer, another way to do it that would be equally effective would just be to say, business means any for profit or nonprofit corporation or firm that is not owned primarily, funded or controlled by the government, not cross referencing the private employer where it accomplish the same thing and then people don't have to turn to different parts of the code to figure it out. Yes, that would satisfy. Thanks. I agree. That would be fine. I agree. No, I'll get moving on. Thank you. What's next? Thank you. What's next? Great. So item four gets into eligible uses. So OCA, the Office of County Attorney noted two definitions, not for legal concerns, but just for policy concerns of like, what are they and why were they excluded from the program. So they are independent financial or insurance agent or broker establishments and then a sole proprietorship that primarily sells products underwritten by a third party. Those are currently not allowed under the move program. Digging into it a little bit it seems like this was to preempt any you know potentially bad faith users or applications of the program like some person who maybe sells one good in one year and then uses the same space under a different business same to sell similar or different good, but it doesn't actually use more new space. I think there's a question of do we already have safeguards protecting against that just through the application review process? What's the threat of that many businesses applying to the program? If Council staff would recommend removing this language unless there are good reasons to keep it, but yeah, like I said, the application process might be a good enough safeguard, but worth asking. Before going to the kind executive staff, I know Councilman., okay, can you, can't, too, do you have an opinion on this? No, and I mean, the council staff gave us a heads up about this and this happened back in the Department of Economic Development days, so there's not a lot of literature of why this was selected and why it was added other than, and this is somewhat theory is that there was a glut of applications around this and the intent was to focus more on the strategic industries again as opposed to just class B condos that are also rather proliferating around the county in terms of office space that's available. So again, that's theory. We're not opposed to eliminating this. And again, similar to what the Chair has already recommended, we can certainly come back with data. And if we have a lot of applications that are around a particular industry that may or may not be the focus of the program, then we certainly can amend the regulations in a future point. Well, thank you, Madam Chair. Are there ways to get around, or what are our ways of auditing these applicants to see who's changing the purpose or aim of their business after they receive the grant? Do we track and monitor that at all? We do track and monitor but the way the grant program is designed and the way it has been offered it will just be continued to work is that it's by right once you have an executed lease and meet the requirements the grant will be issued based on the dollars per square foot up to the maximum allowed by the bill based on the assigned lease. As discussed in the executive's memo from the fall and as well as discussed earlier, certainly we can implement the program with potential clawbacks or potential, and we always review and have the opportunity to follow up with this. Oh, okay. But there's nothing that restricts them from changing their business after they've signed, they've signed the lease, the economic activity impact that we've asked for and that we're subsidizing, is did you sign a lease in the county for office space? And once they've done that, we'll track them, but we do not worry whether they've changed the business or they've decided to be a different business. Okay, because I remember right before Because I remember right before the MCDC was privatized and the person overseeing this program or overseeing the MCDC for the county was, you know, there was like just one point of contact for MCDC. I don't know how the money was funneled into this particular business to... It probably wasn't the move grant, but I'm just thinking of the money that was funneled to a business unbeknownst to anyone. And if we can have, if there's an instance that a business to receive this. So, I mean, short answer is no. Okay. I don't see how that would happen. This specific language that we're discussing right now was really, as Mr. Smith said, we believe was, for instance, if I'm an amway salesperson today. That's what I was thinking. I signed three-year lease. I could get my grant for that space. And then three years from now, I decide to be an AVEON representative. I could lease now space under my new business entity as an AVEON representative and get another move grant because it's a new business signing the first. So I believe that's what this language was intending to stop from happening. But I don't think that we have over the life of the program or the 10 years. I don't really think that we've seen of any instances where anyone has tried to do that. And there are multiple folks on staff who look at these applications. So it's a very, very small percentage of how somebody could illegally get, or yes, be a bad actor. But the difference also is this program is a one-time grant program. So you get one shot, one bite at the apple, and once you've gotten your move grant, then you're not, although there are some provisions for later on. Yeah, but no, it's much more difficult with a program like this to be a bad actor in this space. Okay, that's what I was asking. Thank you. Council Member Sales, we take the issue raised very seriously, while applications do come into the business center, the Department of Finance, excuse the agreements, so there are opportunities to go around and check. And trust me, the throughout county government, our entire procurement system has been restructured afterwards. The incident that you referenced. Thank you. It's a number of last. Interesting conversation. An observation, it seems to me that the prohibition for my reading is, you know, basically do you have to have a storefront or do you choose to have a storefront? The businesses that are listed, you know, independent financial or insurance broker or real estate, you have to have a presence in our community if you really want to succeed in that way. And the purpose of what we're trying to do is get businesses to come here that have no other option. Or sorry, I mean, we're free as that. That have many other options. And so that's my take on this. Do you have to or do you choose to sign a lease here? Two other points the I'm just reading the pack. I'm looking at the packet here. The the question about the restriction on sole proprietorship that primarily sells products underwritten by a third party. prior to ship that primarily sells products underwritten by a third party. A few examples have been given, but is that a different way of just saying franchises in general? Would that capture all franchises? I'm not, honestly, I'm not sure, but it was, franchises more than likely would go into a retail space. So, I mean, most of your franchises are retailers. So they wouldn't necessarily be going into the office space to begin with. So there was never any discussion or conversation about franchises as eligible or not. It's more about the multi-level marketing types of businesses that we discussed previously. That makes sense. I appreciate that response. And then going back to the line of conversation about safe guarding and appreciate Mr. Hartman's comments about the due diligence that procurement and the executive branch. And I know I'm CEDC does as well. But what if there were a scenario in which a building owner were to create a shell company to then lease out space within what happens under that scenario? So that's an area. I was going to say we have seen that a couple times where it was in this and so those have been denied because thanks to Mr. Buckelo's due diligence and as Mr. Harbin mentioned, like just as review, it was clear that that had occurred and they were denied because it's not. An owner is precluded from this business. There's been even in the current bill, it's still precluded. They need to be leasing space, not owning space. Sure. I appreciate that. I'm glad to hear that the due diligence has been done and that the funding goes to just uses. So thank you for that. I yield back. Councillor Mabell could. Thank you. Just a point about the brokers, various brokers. It'll be interesting because once the class C is eligible and the brokers are eligible, that's where we might see a proliferation of applications. And so I think that's important to monitor from that perspective. I think that we'll see that jump of those two changes happening at the same time. So we, and going back to what is the ultimate goal of this? And if the ultimate goal is to activate space then that's good and okay but if it's more targeted on A and B I think we just have to really look at where the money is going from that perspective I think is important. And just as the note of franchise there are a lot of franchises in the business services area, so those would be eligible for this. So I think I hear the committee agreeing to eliminate the restriction, right? Okay, clear, perfect. We're moving on. Councilor Staff. Thank you. So item number five is increasing the deadline requirement. Right now you have to have a sign lease within 90 days of your application to the Move program and both the executive staff and their November memo and some of the testimony recommended increasing that to 180 days. And that's just a recognition of, you know recognition of some businesses maybe signing their lease as well in advance of three months because they're moving from out of state. And so they've been starting that site selection process much earlier. And so this would just increase the flexibility of the program. That objection? Okay, let's move on. I have a bad objection. Okay, let's move on. Moving on to eligibility for expanding businesses. So just the note here is that there may not necessarily be a vote or a decision point before you, but you may choose to incorporate any of these things into the bill or also provide guidance for how these things pan out when they are drafted into executive regulation. Basically, Council staff asked executive staff what they were thinking about in terms of the parameters for expanding businesses, and whether they would be different or treated differently than new businesses moving to the county. So the first question we asked was should there be a minimum amount of space in order to qualify for a grant towards expansion? They are recommending 500 square feet, or they're thinking that they would recommend that within their regulations. And that would just reduce the number of applications and just manage the workload for staff there. While also less than 500 square feet may not necessarily be meaningful in moving the needle on opposite vacancy. Are there any questions? Councillor Mellan. I just have a question. Is there a minimum for the initial move grant? No, there's not. Do we really need to have a minimum? So as noted to Council staff when we provided these, we have put out a marker simply for discussion today because we know the regulation to help speed the regulation later on. So I don't want to again get out so far ahead, but again we again finance and business center when we discuss decided that some minimum for expansion because there will be more opportunities for businesses to apply for than for move, as it was originally intended for new businesses, that we wanted to at least create some for, for that's noted in our comments, to reduce the applications for 200 square feet, but also to make it more meaningful in terms of the impact of the vacant. From the top of your head, do you remember the last applications? I was in the last couple of years, what has been the minimum? 80, 80 square foot ages and 80 has been the minimum oh boy and they have qualified right okay well I want to honestly I don't think we should put them in but I think for the expansion, I think I like a minimum only because, I mean, what if they expand by 50 feet? Is that an expansion? And at least could be written that includes part of the hallway now. So I do like a minimum, because this is for expansion and the point is that this will really open the floodgates for funding. I agree. I'm looking at the current structure that the the tiered number of square feet size, I think it's on page eight of the packet and staff should be doing, I think, other things. Focusing on bigger businesses and bigger expansions. I think 500 is reasonable, but if there's any suggestions from executive staff or the people actually overseeing the applications and knowing that we're going to see an increase hopefully a significant increase in applicants. I just want to make sure time spent processing these applications and the money allocated towards these grants is done as efficiently as possible. So. 500 is their suggestion. Councilmember Glass. I think there should be some minimum right as a benchmark, as something that worked towards for success and measured growth. I'm curious about the 80 square feet, right? Can you share what kind of business that is, or what are the types of businesses that are on the lower end of that square footage? Yeah, these are very small businesses. Start out there, usually moving into shared office space. Very small businesses. Okay. So keep it. Great. Okay. All right, we're gonna keep the 500 square feet minimum. I'm gonna do a time check. We need to be down with this item, body 11. I'm just at the latest. Got it. Let's move on. I'm sorry, I'm just a clarify. So the 500 is the idea that this would be in regulation down the line. Yes. Okay. That's what we're talking about. Yeah, this is just a discussion of what could come down in advance, but there's no specific vote or anything to codify here. Just thank you. I just want to reiterate what council staff executive staff told us also before that. So question two is just should there be any criteria regarding the business type number of jobs or any other characteristics for expanding businesses. They're thinking no, but they do want to clarify that none of the retail space for craft alcohol production counts towards the grant. And so to the extent that we're keeping that language in, we would just add this qualifier as they recommended it here, which is breweries, citeries, disillateries, and wineries are eligible for the square footage dedicated to production. That would eliminate the retail. With that objection. The square. What is the minimum lease term for a business receiving grant towards expansion? They're recommending 36 months or they're thinking of that which would be the same as what is currently in the move program for new businesses. We also ask, what subsidies should they receive should it be different or less or more than what move recipients should receive. Answer was no, although they do provide some clarification on how they would treat the award, which I'll get to. Question five we asked was how many times can a business qualify for a grant towards expansion? They're recommending basically a limit of up to three applications. So if you're a new business and you apply for a move, then you apply for that and want fiscal year in the next fiscal year, you could apply for an expand grant and third year, you could apply for an expand grant again and then you would have basically graduated out of the program. You could also apply for an expand grant once in the up to three more times, but you'd be limited to doing it once a fiscal year and you'd basically get move or expand up to three times. The comments on this before we move on? So I think that the next two points are we have to look at them together, right? So is there a minimum timeframe between each move? And so for instance, if we give someone a move grant for three year lease, would they be eligible before that three year lease is up for the expansion? And then if so, how many expansions? So I would tend to say if there are three-year lease, three-year lease, three-year lease, if they're expanding by a minimum of 500 feet every time, square feet every time, why not? The flip side is if they're expanding every year, and we're giving them that funding every year, then that's a different story. So I think those two are pretty much combined. I would say if it's every three years, they're expanding. I don't see a need for a limit because that's we want them to expand. Because when they expand, they're going to be looking, they're not only looking in Montgomery County, they're looking other places when they expand. And so I don't think we ever want to let them go. If this program is in existence, nine years from now, 12 years from now, and they continue to expand, because somebody else is going to offer them money to move. So those are my thoughts. So, remember, so I wanted to make the same point. I don't think we should put a cap on the ability for business to access the grant for three lifetime awards because we are trying to bring businesses back into office space and if they are continuing to grow their business, employ from within, I don't know if we want to structure it after the three awards to specify any other criteria but I wouldn't want to cap continued growth because of the region and how many options exist. I would say on this that it's one of those items that we're going to have to evaluate later on and see how much money we have left. If we can afford subset, I see businesses later on more than three times. I don't know the answer But I'm saying when I'm saying it's not doing the caps as it was suggested and see what happens in the future If we need to add those caps in a year or two is that an agreement so don't put that in all right moving on Thank you I mean we can maybe revisit that when there are executive regulations come to just to understand that if we need to. No, what I said is that we're going to revise it in a year or two after. Oh, sorry. That's what I said. No, thank you. Question seven is should there be limits on receiving awards grants for other EDF programs? And basically like if you're eligible for a move award, should that be from receiving any other awards within the EDF, whether that's the jobs initiatives, SBIR, any of the other programs that are in the EDF? And I think executive staff is recommending, know that there shouldn't be a limit with the justification being that all the different programs are intended to incentivize a different type of activity. And so if you are eligible for multiple, then you should receive multiple kind of as a package. You have a better best idea. Understood. So point eight is just some additional considerations they provided. So they are recommending a tier system for how they'll provide the subsidy. So the more space you lease, the more subsidy you would get towards your rent. If you lease less than 7,500 square feet, you'd get $8 a square foot up to 60,000. Then between 7,500 and 10,000 square feet, you'd get 10 bucks a square foot up to 100,000. Greater than 10,000 square feet, you'd get 10 bucks a square foot up to 100,000. Greater than 10,000 square feet. You'd get 12 and a half dollars a square foot up to 150,000, which is the new cap that's introduced in this bill. And the strategic industries would always be eligible for a $15 a square foot up to $150,000. Any comments on this one? Council member Glass. Any comments on this one? Councillor Emberglass. Not on this one, but I just want to go back to the point, the previous point number seven in the packet, and that's regarding all the EDF programs in general. I appreciate the chair saying that we're going to come back frequently to look at all of this and perhaps a year from now or as we prepare for next budget, so nine months from now, we take a look at all of these programs during one session because as we continue adding programs, there are more menu options and I think before we then start applying the budget, specifically to various programs, we'll see how the usage and the interest has been. That's definitely the plan. But on this item eight, we all in agreement. I think we are. Okay, moving on. Great. So item seven generally was just increasing eligibility to non office space. This was raised in some of the public testimony. Council staff has provided some office vacancy data and retail vacancy data just to illustrate that there is a vacancy issue among office buildings, much less so amongst retail buildings. There's just a 6% vacancy rate amongst retail. Generally, I think 8 to 10% is considered healthy so that there's enough space to return over. And we know that, for example, light industrial is constrained here in this county, and so we would not recommend increasing the eligibility to non-offices. I think the most important point here to raise is the 6% vacancy rate for retail. I know that we get emails all the time asking about this one shop or why someone moved or store closed or restaurant and All of them have sentimental value to each of us in our own neighborhood sometimes, you know the chef just wanted a retire Right known nefarious Right? No nefarious understory there. But 6% vacancy rate and retail is exceptionally good. And again, the purpose of the bill is to reduce the office vacancy rate. And so I accept and I hear we all accept the staff recommendation there. No change. Okay, without discussion, glad? Finally, the last point was also raised in public testimony. I think it was suggested that recipients that of the move program should utilize local moving services when they move. A worthwhile suggestion, I think that there would be questions about how it would be administered, you know, is there a comprehensive list of all the moving companies? Does that add a little more enforcement from the EDF? Does it also add enforcement on the side of the business as an additional requirement that makes a little more burdensome? There's also just a question of how many more Montgomery County businesses could this potentially help if some already use Montgomery County businesses? And what's the economic impact truly of making this a requirement? Staff would suggest considering not incorporating this unless you think that it's not very ornous to administer. There's what I, the person who this, actually had a conversation with me afterwards. And I totally see his point and I embrace it because all he wants to do is ensure that, you know, the money stays in Montgomery County. And we all agree on that. The question is, as Mr. Ali mentions, how to enforce that. That's, that's the complication. If you have been implementing this program, do you have any thoughts or suggestions? We do want to make sure that when people are coming in here, they use our local businesses to have them move. I have no idea if when you approve the program, you could at least provide a list of local businesses who are doing many of these services like a local company that actually, especially as it's in moving, folks. If there's any way to do that, but it's putting more. Sure. So first I'll say we agree with Council staff that this is a stricter requirement. The first thing I'll say is not every business will need to utilize a mover, especially now that we've expanded the program. And so there will be plenty of businesses that can apply for this, that never utilize a mover. And so obviously we would not exclude them from the program because they didn't use a mover. And so the businesses that do need a mover will have a harder cliff to climb. So to speak, they'll have to prove that they had a local mover. We don't, I mean, as we've said in other settings, there's no master database of all the businesses in the county. So we don't even have, like, I don't know the universe. We can do our best to find the universe, but that may change. And certainly we could make it a requirement for disbursement that you've had to show that you have a bill from a local mover. If you utilized one, if that would be the committee or the council's intent here. But again, we agree, at least executive staff, I don't know if MCDC disagrees, but we agree with council staff that this is a requirement we don't think needs to be in the bill. Good morning, Bill Tomkins, Montgomery County Economic Development Corporation. Well we have somebody good experts here, there's no need for me to talk. But in terms of attraction efforts, it would not be a good idea for businesses coming into the market because it would be very restrictive. So we're I think in concert. I'd read any comments. I wanted to set a comment because we are targeting larger businesses. We've already said we're looking at businesses to expand at a minimum of 500 square feet. And so if we are asking local businesses to stay here, this would be an opportunity for us to further support small local businesses. Keep money here and Googling moving companies, commercial moving companies in Montgomery County turned up thousands of options. And so I don't think it's onerous or a barrier to accessing this grant. We're already putting in enough time to provide resources to companies. Why should we support companies who are using businesses outside of Montgomery County to move to another business within Montgomery County when we have so many businesses here. I don't know if we want to give them maybe more percentage points on the, legislate on the approval or, you know, we do it in procurement. If people are using a local business here, we give them a higher consideration. So I just, I thought it was a good suggestion to help smaller businesses who may not necessarily grow but could benefit from the trickle down effect of this money that we're giving out. So yes, we agree that keeping money in Montgomery County is a great goal. I think the, happy to come back with more information, I think the reality is, is how do you define a business, a moving business that is in Montgomery County? Like headquartered in Montgomery County. And I think that, we could do it that way, we could, we could have an office location in the county, even if they're not heard. I still, Office location in Montgomery, actual office space in Montgomery County, not just a PO box. So thank you Council Member Seales for these points. I think earlier as mentioned that we need the Econ committee will come back maybe as part of the budget to look at the University of Programs out there. For this program we are subsidizing leases so that the money is going from us to a local landlord. Moving expenses might be something that we consider within that broader context of companies seeking to relocate or stay here. Maybe it's a separate initiative that we look at. But I would recommend for this program which is subsidizing leases that we just keep it simple on subsidizing leases without a lot of extra. Can we add, I know we haven't gotten to the regulations to the application who they're using to move them and just track and monitor if they're utilizing businesses outside of Montgomery County, outside of this data Maryland to better understand any adjustments we need to make in the future since we'll be evaluating this legislation in a year. Yes, we can add that if they utilize a mover, yes, no. So, thank you. I think that's a great suggestion. As a survey type of a knee, who do you use and we can collect that data? Maybe they're already using local businesses. Cancel number glass. I very much appreciate the spirit in which the suggestion was made, right? To keep public funds within the Montgomery County business ecosystem. A lot of the goal, absolutely. But, you know, Mr. Smith, I think, hit the nail on the head when he said, we don't even have a comprehensive list of all the businesses in Montgomery County, something we have lamented over the last 18 months. I know he and his team and the executive team and DPS and others are working on that as well. But it's a very hard barrier to cross at this point. And the gentleman who made this recommendation in public testimony, actually was not even focusing on the moving aspect. I spoke with him before and after as well, the public testimony. He works for a local technology company and wants businesses to, you know, use his internet services, right? And so it starts becoming very expansive very quickly as to which businesses should we allow or not allow. You know, an argument can be made if you have flowers in your office. Maybe you should use a local florist as opposed to a national retailer. Another lotable goal, but it becomes very a big list and we don't have any list right now. And so I think there's other ways, right? We could look into this as has been noted over the next nine months as we gather more information because there is a large ecosystem. And as long as we continue working to connect, but I know that's what the small business team does, that's what MCEDC does. And let's also remember that's what our chambers do. A plug for our chambers and that is exactly where I had this conversation at the Silver Spring, Greater Silver Spring Chamber because that's where the business owner executive made this recommendation from. So thank you. I think we'll in agreement. I think we're done with this item. Any, thank you so much everyone for being here. It's 11.02. Thank you so much everyone for being here is 1102 and as so close to our goal and if do you have any? I was just going to say just to clarify the recommendation of the full committee enactment with as amended yes as amendment yes yes thank you thank you so much and now we're going to move on to our next item and the final item for the day, our ESJ impacts on local economic development spending. So those were here for that item. Please come forward. And we're going to focus and try to get this done in a reasonable manner. If you can please kick us off. Thank you, Madam Chair. So members of the Econ committee had expressed an interest in a better understanding the racial equity and social justice impacts of the economic development spending that you approve as a council and review through this committee. Questions about what data do we collect and what are the outcomes and how do we measure them and define them and some really this committee. You know, questions about what data do we collect and what are the outcomes and how do we measure them and define them and some really big questions. And so we figured it'd be helpful to maybe provide a starting discussion about how to understand some of these issues, what information we have, what we could maybe be doing better or stronger, what we're limited in doing, and then also just sort of thinking in a bigger sense and a larger sense about how to improve outcomes in addition to just having better information about RISJ and DEI and diversity within economic development locally. So the first topic, I'm just gonna go through the pack and I'll turn it over to our steam panel of experts, but as far as demographic data collection goes, there are a list of data points that are collected as part of the EDF programs that's provided in the packet on a circle. To think the circle numbers have seemed to have fallen off, I apologize, but it's the second slide, the first attachment. The Department of Finance does not track demographic data related to business owners or employees for recipients of the Economic Development Fund Grant and Loan Program. That's the EDF GLP, that's a discretionary program. That's also the largest fund within the EDF. However, it does request demographic data applications for some of the other programs, including Move, SBIR, the cybersecurity investor incentive supplement program and the micro loan fund. Applicants volunteer this information. That's how it's framed in the application. There may be a question about how that framing could be stronger if at all to solicit that information, but it can't be required and there may be some legal concerns with requiring some of that information. However, of the data that has been collected, which I believe data started being collected in April of last year, so it's not the entire sort of time span of the EDF overall, but of the data that they've collected they can present on that and that's also in the packet. Yeah, so basically the given legal concerns the committee may want more information regarding how the questions will be asked or framed that would maximize responses which would ensure reliability in the information as well. Because if you have a small sample size, it's hard to make inferences about how effectively the program's being distributed across racial and ethnic groups. And you may also just want a better understanding of what are those limitations? What are the legal concerns to the extent that they're relatively new? What's the new sort of landscape that we have before us in terms of getting this information and evaluating it? And to the extent that applications for the jobs initiative are underway, to the extent that the Move program will be amended, are there opportunities to better collect this data or do it differently than we have been, or is it just doing more of what's been going on currently. However, sort of pivoting to this larger discussion, and pleased to be joined by OLO here as well, but there are some best practices for improving RESJ outcomes overall, and it's important to point out that from a statistical standpoint, the even distribution of EDF economic development spending with respect to the racial distribution of the population within Montgomery County is not necessarily a great measure of improving or meeting our racial equity and social justice goals. That's sort of a numerical reflection potentially, but as the OLO report points out, there are these really longstanding, historic, historically driven structural inequities in the economy. So, we're not starting from an even playing field where ensuring just even distribution of economic development spending will improve those longstanding inequities. The OLO report does provide a detailed overview of that history and how the economy has led to the sort of inequities that are inherent in it today. And they also suggest applying an RISJ lens to policy making. So in addition to just collecting information, when the policies are being conceived and discussed in forums like this that questions about RESJ are front and center thinking about how the program will be, will have its impacts and how to make sure that those impacts are helping to reverse some of these longstanding inequities. OLO also, the report rather also provides some sick best practices for advancing RESJ and local economic development and this includes potentially expanding the definition of strategic industries to account for industries that have more diverse ownership. But throughout all of this, I think the two main points that staff have hoped to pull out of all of this is that there's really two different aspects of improving RISJ outcomes in the economic development. There's reversing those longstanding historical inequity and improving diversity and equity throughout the economy. And there's also the one approach, which is identifying the types of industries or sectors of the economy that have more diverse participation and ownership and focusing on supporting those businesses. I think the handbook, which from OLO, which they can speak to, clearly points out that that's an important aspect of any strategy. But that first point about improving those outcomes throughout the economy requires more than just the approach of finding diverse participation where it is and supporting those businesses and people up at that level. So with all that in mind, I can turn it over first to the Department of Finance and then to OLO and they can speak through their attachments that they've provided. So. Good morning, pleasure to be with you here today. My name is Dennis Hetman. I'm a fiscal manager with the Department of Finance. And we just have a handful of slides for you. We're going to take a couple of piece and run through sort of the data that we collect with respect to the programs. It's important to distinguish at the outset the difference between the economic development grant and loan program that we affectionately refer to as the EDF GLP and the economic development fund or the EDF. The EDF encompasses the EDF GLP and all the additional sub-programs. They are contained under that umbrella of the EDF. The EDF GLP has- Excuse me, Mr. Heman. Do you say that you have slides? Yes, actually. Can we? Why are they not showing? There are some technical difficulties deploying it, but, why are they not showing? There were some technical difficulties deploying, but the slides are exactly the attachment to staff report. So we're just going to refer to that. And I apologize for folks watching. Just please click on the staff report on the website so you can access them. Thank you. Please continue. Certainly. So the EDFGLP has never asked for demographic or resj metrics. It was designed in a specific context for the largest international corporations that are typically publicly owned by shareholders and intrinsically diverse by nature. They fall into the key industry sectors identified in the county's economic development strategic plan. These are the mariats and the AstraZeneca's over the world. The goal of the EDF GLP is to provide companies that have the potential of generating significant fiscal impact to the county with a commensurate, significant financial incentive. Such that county, you know, will have additional tax-based revenue to assist in the delivery of essential services and programs. There are other sub-programs of the EDF, such as micro-lone, impact assistance, and the small business assistance program. Those are more strategically targeted to assist in the retention and growth of small and minority-owned businesses. So the data collected, and I believe this is circle three in the packet for EDFGLP, it includes the variables that you might expect, but also the necessary components to calculate the multiplier for our dollars distributed to arrive at a cumulative fiscal impact. So that typically will involve capital expenditure, new real property tax, new personal property tax, new personal property tax. The jobs retained, the new jobs, what is the state incentive? That can vary between anywhere, twice ours to 10 times ours. And then also the other jurisdictions competing offers that we are up against. And then we arrive at our annual fiscal impact to the county. It's a proprietary formula, It is multivariant and it's calculation, but it has served us well over the years to understand the leverage we're getting for our dollars. And with that, Nadia is going to share with us some of the more specifically honed sub-programmed data that we do collect. Thank you. Nadia Khan with the Department of Finance. So we have a number of programs that are in the Economic Development Fund for which we do collect demographic data. And those were mentioned in the packet, the Move Program, the SBIR, STTR Matching Program and the Microloan. We had included in the packet examples of the categories or the types of demographic data that we request for those programs through our application process and those focus on gender, race, ethnicity and veteran status. We also ask for the formal certifications that companies can apply for where it makes sense for those programs. My colleague, Mr. Bickala, has analyzed the data that's come back from these programs since April of last year. So we have data for a little over a year. I believe that information was included in the packet and we can kind of answer some questions on that if that is of interest. But we do believe that this data is helpful to the county in getting a better sense of who is actually accessing these funds. Finance is very much open to collecting that data across all of the programs in the portfolio. And we've already begun doing that. And we're looking at incorporating those questions into the applications that we're working on currently, whether that's through the revised move program, as well as the three new programs that are coming online through the Jobs Act. So we're open to doing that through the EDF GLP program, as well as the three new programs that are coming online through the Jobs Act. So, and we're open to doing that through the EDF GLP program as well, but for some of the reasons that my colleague, Mr. Hetman mentioned, those companies tend to be larger. Sometimes they're publicly owned. They can be international conglomerates. So those categories don't always map as well onto that program, but having said that we're absolutely open to having this best practice of incorporating demographics more broadly and more formally across the whole portfolio. And I just say very quickly that since we're going to come back in a few months about the EDF programs all of them so we can revise and that data should be part of that conversation. That's all thank you. Thank you. And I wanted to do a little bit of a deep dive on the job creation fund, which is a new application that we're setting up through the Jobs Act. And there are just a couple points to that application that I wanted to point out in the section where we are going to be asking the applicants to provide demographic data. We are looking at adding just a little bit of framing language to it to let applicants know that the questions are voluntary, but to also let them know, give them a sense of why we're asking the questions. We're looking at some language like these questions are entirely optional and help to inform the county's efforts to promote equitable and inclusive business support to residents and hope that that framing language just maybe encourages more participation or helps companies understand, you know, why in the world we're asking these questions. So we're looking at doing that and we're also exploring including a business questionnaire as part of our application process. We are thinking about some open-ended questions to learn more about the kinds of challenges or barriers that might be impacting the businesses that are being targeted in that particular fund, which is looking at our target industries. And we're hoping that for our companies that are willing to share some of that information with us, when we can take that information and the demographic information and put it together, we can get a little bit more granular in understanding what's happening in Montgomery County in our target industries and potentially down the road as we look at improving the economic outcomes of our fund but also the res J impacts. We have a little bit more data in hand that can be helpful to our policymakers. And we also hope to be able to use the information shared to better connect applicants beyond just receiving a grant to kind of integrate them a little bit more into our business ecosystem as we have staff across the county that have a whole lot of resources beyond just beyond just the grants. And we're open to any questions from this panel. If there's anything in particular that you want to know, we can certainly work that into our application and, you know, happy to have that conversation. Another point on ResJ, as I mentioned, our county does a lot of work with small and minority businesses across a lot of departments and functions, and there are always opportunities to better promote and communicate about our incentive programs within those different groups. And so we are kind of collaborating across the Business Center and Finance Department to just evaluate the current list of incentives that we share on our website and making sure that that list is accurate and communicates as clearly as we can and we're kind of considering ways that we might even improve the organization so that our staff members that are engaged with our small and minority business community have better and stronger and clearer tools to talk to our whole business community about what kinds of resources are out there. So that's another piece that we're working on. And then the last thing I wanted to mention is kind of echoing a little bit of what Mr. Ali suggested, which is the programs that are in our fund were inherently designed to facilitate certain kinds of economic outcomes. And while there's certainly a role for racial equity and social justice, as we've been speaking to, the programs were not necessarily designed to kind of get at some of the deeper structural barriers to access that we know are, hurting certain members of our community from being able to access the same levels of business success or business growth. Having said that, the county is involved in efforts in that space to kind of encourage entrepreneurship and and do a lot of things quite frankly to help reduce barriers to access for our economic kind of goals that we that we want to see across all of our communities. And so with that I wanted to turn it over to Mr. Hartman-Aspada, who wanted to share a little bit more about how we look at incentives as one piece of this broader kind of collection of things that the county does to really uplift our small and minority business community. Thank you so much. As Ms. Con point out that led to is economic development is more than the grant programs that we offer. It is a multi-pronged and Effort between many different organizations And this council has made significant investments in our incubators The new funding for the Henry Jackson Foundation and event innovation labs are coming on you've made significant investments in workforce in the workforce ecosystem. The University of Shady Grove, Montgomery College, workforce Montgomery, and now the new BioHub concept from Maryland Tech Council that which you funded, add to that the significant support that the business center add to that the significant support that the business center provides to small businesses, many, many minority owned businesses. They are seeking to start and grow and thrive. And now we have additional grant tools that the Council has provided to help entrepreneurs take ideas to market. And I point all this out just to stress, there are, we recognize there are disparities in some industries and as we attract the big companies to stay in Gromangame County, we are actively thinking and we know you are actively with us in concern with how do we get more folks trained to take the jobs in those industries. And how do we get the folks who want to then start their own business into our innovation ecosystem, maybe into an incubator, maybe provide them with a grant, help them start the business and then add to that tapestry that we're already well underway in stitching together here in Montgomery County. But I just want to just stress from us, there are grant programs and as the race in the packet, we get significant participation by minority business owners. But we do need to, and we'll talk more in the future, doubling down on that innovation and workforce ecosystems that then encourage people to train and then start businesses in the industries where we may not see the sort of diversity we're looking for, given our county population. Beautiful. I think we're going to go to all of now. Yeah. Thank you. January, Pena, performance management, and analyst and the Office of Legislative Oversight. So we were invited here today to share information and resources for developing economic development policies that advanced racial equity and social justice. So Dr. Bonnard, sorry, Dr. Bonnard Tompkins and I prepared a memo to aid in the discussion. I think it starts on circle seven of the packets. So I'm just going to walk through this. Um, so we start the memo, um, with the definition of racial equity in social justice. Um, so in all, although we define racial equity in social justice or RISJ as a process and a goal, um, RISJ, RISJ is a process that focuses on centering the needs, leadership and power of black, indigenous and other people of color or BIPOC, and low income communities with a goal of eliminating racial and social inequities. And achieving AriaJ requires understanding policies, programs, and practices through a AriaJ lens. And this involves seeing, thinking, and working differently to address the racial and social inequities that cause racial and social disparities. So in the memo, we provide a recommended framework for applying a RISJ lens to the development of new policies and also to the review of existing policies based on our four years of studying RISJ in OLO. And the framework consists of six sets of prompts that can be used to apply in RISJ lens to policies in anyISJ lens to policies in any area, including in economic development. So the key points to consider for applying RISJ lens to this framework are equitable community engagement or to what extent the policy reflects expertise and centers and needs of BIPOC and low income or low wealth community members. The context of the historical and contemporary racial inequities that drive racial disparities in the policy area, desirigated data on racial and social disparities that the policy is expected to diminish. How the policy aligns with best practices for advancing RISJ, what the anticipated RISJ impact of the policy will be, and how the policy will be implemented to advance RISJ, what the anticipated RISJ impact of the policy will be, and how the policy will be implemented to advance RISJ. So we recently published RISJ policy handbook for land use, housing, and economic development that can serve as a helpful resource for answering many of the questions that are necessary to apply RISJ lands to new and existing policies. In particular, the handbook provides a reference for understanding historical and contemporary racial inequities, current racial disparities, and best practices to advance ARIAJ in land use housing and economic development. So in the memo, we summarized information that is included in the policy handbook, specifically as it pertains to local economic development. So starting with racial and social inequities in local economic development. So before we explain those, we first explain just distinction between racial inequities and racial disparities within the memo. And so basically racial inequities are racial biases at the individual institutional and structural level, which have been embedded over time through policies and practices that were designed to privilege or oppress people by race and by wealth. And so racial inequities drive racial disparities, which are the observed differences and outcomes that we see by race and ethnicity. And racial inequities have created a status quo where white people often stand to benefit from policy decisions while BIPOC often stand to be harm, which makes that intentional pause to apply to RIS Shaylens, especially important. So in the policy handbook, we describe three historic drivers of racial and social inequities in the economy. The first one is a theft of BIPOC land and labor from the colonial area to the end of slavery. The second is the exploitation of BIPOC communities. And the third is the exclusion of BIPOC from wealth-building opportunities. So in the memo, we include Char A from the policy handbook, which describes in more detail what the drivers of these racial inequities were historically, or several examples of them. In the RASJ policy handbook, we also note contemporary racial inequities and several aspects of the economy. So for economic development specifically, we note that racial inequities persist first through inequities and governmental approaches that strengthen local economies that often focus on using incentives and strategies to recruit larger businesses that have revenue or employment benefits that often do not extend to BIPOC communities. In the second, contemporary inequities that we noted, and we'll go ahead and on my development, are those inequities faced by BIPOC entrepreneurs in launching and building profitable businesses due to barriers such as lower levels of asset ownership and lack of access to mainstream financial services and capital, technical assistance, potential contracts, and exposure to entrepreneurial and peer networks. And next, we summarize a few racial disparities in local autonomy development. And in the memo, we highlight a few data points that we actually included in recent RISJ impact statements. That include racial disparities in local business ownership and revenue, racial disparities and county procurement, including in contracts awarded to businesses and the rate at which businesses were awarded contracts for proposals that were submitted, and then also racial disparities in award amounts among recent awardees of the move program. And so finally in the memo, we summarize the best practices that we include in the RISJ policy handbook for advancing RISJ and local economic development. And we note that generally equitable economic development policies focus on delivering good jobs and business opportunities to under-invested communities, which typically have high concentrations of biopock community members due to structural racism and residential segregation. But the six best practices that we identify are investing in the green sector new economy, organizing economic development strategy around development and deployment of talent, targeted hiring, targeted contracting, targeting under-advesa communities, and evaluating shovel ready economic development projects for equity. So that's what we've prepared but we're happy to take any questions. Thank you so much for the comments and I would like to thank Councilmember Sales because she was really the person who had the idea and that we should have this session. And it's crucial, it's vital and I want to say that. So with that, I'm gonna please take a break. Thank you Madam Chair. Thank you to Balaal. Thank you to the Executive Staff and of course, OLO for creating this session and allowing this conversation with all the data collected. I regularly reference the OLO statements regarding RESJ to improve the policy making that we have. And so going back to the data discussed on circle 7, how did we determine which programs we collect demographic data from? I guess that's for the MCDC. Or is that the executive's death? Is that the executive's death? Okay. Yeah, so EDFGLP the larger and the most, it's been around the longest as well. That the res-J metrics were not part of that. And that was not the context. But the smaller ones like micro-loan and move, they have been integrated. We recently had some alterations to those through legislation where that was codified that that will be the case. And then going forward with the jobs initiative and the strategic and innovation funds, these will all be a part of that and structured in the application as well. Okay, so the largest fund will also start collecting demographic information or we just resigning that minority businesses won't Play a significant role in accessing those funds and therefore we're not going to collect demographic data No, we're absolutely open-minded to that and integrating it across the breadth of all of the programs. We should we should and just looking at the criteria that was included, let me find the page number. Yes, on circle 9, just thinking about how the Office of Racial Equity and Social Justice applies the RISJ lens to policies and policy making. I'm the six prompts that are shared on circle nine. Are these questions asked implicitly to the businesses or prior to a bill being introduced, are we asking these questions of the bill introduced or the policies that are being recommended? Is that happening within the executive branch? of the bill introduced or the policies that are being recommended, is that happening within the executive branch? The questions for demographic information, they're more binary. They're in terms of offering that data. However, as we align these and configure them going forward, we can absolutely integrate these wonderful suggestions to have that as part of the submission as well. Yes, I'm just thinking about the question, you know, making it more so voluntarily asking about the racial equity and a particular applicant. If they're already offering that information, did we want to change the language that was mentioned in collecting this information? Again, something we're entirely open-minded to and as we structure the newer programs, we can retroactively go back to the ones in existence and fold that in as well. Okay, because I'm just thinking if, you know, we already include the information on the smaller programs there. It looks like based on the data we've collected that they're answering the questions. I think if we explicitly state this is voluntary, we're going to get less people to respond to the questions. And so I'm just wondering why that was suggested or why you think that's going to increase or improve data collection. improve data collection? I think historically we've had the questions be voluntary because of potential legal concerns that applicants might feel like denials were made based on that information. So we want to be very clear that they can provide it on a voluntary basis. I believe we're kind of looking into that internally and just confirming that that is the guidance as we're formalizing our applications and have this opportunity through some of the legislative changes we're making and some of the other programs. So we can absolutely come back on kind of the final language of what we you know what we're advised on from kind of the legal team as well but I can say we've made it voluntary in the past for that reason. And the other part of your question was, was it about the other questions? Yes, the initial questions applying the RISJ lens to the policies, but I think we are open to having those discussions kind of more formally as we're evaluating any legislative changes in the EDF. Absolutely, and Councilmember Sales and Seconded Chumkin. For executive legislation, our Office of Racial Equity and Social Justice does do a review for us and we make adjustments accordingly. Council legislation like the legislation we just reviewed. The OLO does that for you and does a really good job. If you recall when we went through the grant program, a preparation that was put forward for the jobs and the innovation and the founders grants, we went through those together, the recommendations together, and made adjustments to the program so that we can be more intentional about racial equity. So those are very helpful. They're sent by OLO or within the executive branch by racial equity and social justice. It is a tool we rely on for any policy change. Okay, I just want to advise against adding the voluntary language to a question that we're already asking people can fill it out if they want to or not. And we will still yield more information about who's actually accessing these programs as we expand this question across our applications. And then can I add? Yes, please. So when we initially started, we run this question by the Office of Racial Equity and Social Justice and OCA. And we started collecting option. We made it optional. But this time as well, we run it by OCA. And we've been told that we can require basically before we do the disbursement so we can include that. So it'll come back before us. Before these questions are added to the applications. They are on the application now as optional, but we can require before me. That is not good. No, no, no, I'm not asking you to require. I'm sorry, I forgot your name, but she said that there will be added language to the questions that are already asked explicitly stating that they are voluntary. And currently, it's not there. I believe all of our applications have language before them that say the questions are voluntary. The language I was adding was just explaining why we're collecting this data that it has to do with making sure that our programming is supportive and inclusive. Just to, just some businesses might see that and say, I don't know if I want to answer this. I don't know how the information will be used and they might not, you know, understand that the county is very invested in this racial equity social justice piece so just a little bit of language to help them understand why we're asking but all of our applications currently that collect demographic data state that the questions are provided you know the information is provided on a voluntary basis. Okay do we have any consideration about any goals for any of the businesses that access these funds? What are we doing with this information? We're really trying to advance racial equity and social justice. Are we encouraging businesses who we see don't have a diverse makeup internally? Are we asking them about their goals to promote develop or recruit diverse staff? Currently we don't ask that kind of information in any of our EDF programs. A company might provide that as we're working with them, particularly through the EDF GLP program, which tends to be a little bit more expansive as we're getting information from them, but certainly from the other programs in the portfolio. Our applications are pretty tailored to the kinds of information that we require to be able to disperse the grant. The job creation fund that I mentioned is the first program that we're looking at kind of proactively asking some questions and we're considering a question on maybe diversity and hiring to try to get a little bit of that information but it's not been our practice so far in the way the funds administered to ask applicants about that. Because it's great that we're collecting this information, we'll get more information about who's accessing our funds. But if we continue to see trends where our diverse businesses are still not accessing the funds. And we know we have diverse businesses here who are across sectors creating jobs here, growing their businesses here, but not accessing the funds. Like, what are we doing as the executive team to further advance racial equity and social justice across the board. Like what goals are we setting as a county to? I'm not just have legislation on the book for, you know, having the legislation here, but how we actively working with our economy, our businesses too. So Council Member Seals, thank you so much for this line of questioning. It's very important. My friend here, Bill Tompkins, can I'm sure add on. But collecting this data is very vital as you point out to refining programs coming back to you saying, maybe we need a shift over here, we need to make some changes. It's something that's on our radar. I know it's on your radar as these programs get deployed and we collect the data and our data is showing that we lack certain types of businesses. Then we ask ourselves questions, what are the barriers to entry in this field? Let's take bio-health, for example. What are the barriers of entry for minority-owned businesses to get into bio-health, to get started, to hire employees who are talented, to make sure that they're taking advantage of our job training programs that serve a very diverse population. So what you're advocating for and we hear you and we agree is a continuous improvement system where we're collecting the data and then we're using it. We're not just letting it sit. Yes, to reevaluate. I'm talking about an issue. I hear you will. Bill can jump in but I think your point is well made and that is something that we intend to use and we intend to be ready for conversations with you. Are we deploying our programs and are they serving our population? It may be recommendations on currently existing programs and how we can further advance RESJ. And hopefully when we have this discussion in a year or so since we're collecting more information, we'll have some recommendations from the executive office about, okay. Go ahead, Mr. Tonkins. We probably should have coordinated it a little bit differently. MCEDC, actually I don't like her for Montgomery County Economic Development Corporation, actually introduced for ourselves an equity action plan at the beginning of 2023. And I have a 20 slide show that we should have brought, had we thought about it to talk about the different components of it. Let me also mention that Had we thought about it to talk about the different components of it. Let me also mention that back in 2023, we for every program that we market on behalf of the county, we put together an outreach program for underserved business communities with specific targets to ensure that there is active participation primarily by using media targeted for underserved communities. And we've been very aggressive with that. We hope to continue it. We're working through, as you know, some of our budget challenges, but we think that's very important. But there are actually three goals as part of our equity action plan that is in process. Now, if I can just read those to you very quickly. One is the institutionalized MCDC's racial lens culture for all of our practices and programs, which includes all of the programs for the county that we participate in. Two, to strengthen the entrepreneurial ecosystem for underserved communities via capacity building and increasing access to capital. And the third, which is in process, is to work to make sure that we're coordinating with Montgomery County departments around how we develop metrics and reporting. So the timing is very good, so there is quite, there has been quite a bit of activity. And I don't, I think the county executives offices under selling itself in terms of the work that it currently does while it may not be formal. We have always worked on collecting data whenever we can and talking about what the target and focus of the programs are, whether they're from the Economic Development Fund or other items that are being introduced. And you're forgetting to say one thing that is also important that you are doing already. It's the program is a program to actually focus on building talent and starting with your own folks. I know you MCDC has a program with NCPS on coding. One thing we can. Yeah, and I know because my childrenC has a program with NCPS on coding. One more weekend. Yeah, and I know because my children are part of it. So it's a mom, that's why I know. And that's another great example. And at some point, when you guys come back next year before the budget on the EDF programs, when you talk about the demographics, also please emphasize the work that you're doing targeting the young, the future workforce because they're going to be the ones you know applying to all these grants and it's a great thing that the county is doing that I think we need to highlight even more and I'm sorry to interrupt council member ourselves. Just to finish that point. we couldn't be bigger fans in the Department of Finance of iterative feedback loops in analytics and metrics and data. We do it across everything that we do. However, the lens for this has largely been what is the fiscal impact to the county, where the jobs retained, where the jobs growing, what are the headquarters coming here, what is that fiscal impact that is a distinct calculation? What I think going forward, we can include, is now folding in these metrics into that, and then also seeing what they're telling us, and then adjusting accordingly. Definitely, I mean, that would also be helpful to see along with the racial equity makeup of the people accessing the programs. How many are staying in the county and how many jobs are they creating across the board? I mean, all I think all of that information is helpful in re-evaluating programs and how we can improve the equity of who is accessing and benefiting from these programs and who's not because those are the people that we created the RISJ legislation for and we want to make sure that we're not just collecting data but we're using it to inform better policy making as we move forward. Thank you. Thank you. Consolidate last. Thank you. Appreciate the conversation. And just want to lift up some of the data points that were included in this, particularly tying it back to the last conversation regarding the Move Act. And I think it was glossed over, but just want to elevate that according to the data in this packet, the recipients of the Move Act have been 36% black, 27% white, 21% Asian, and 15% Latino. On the face, that's great. And it shows the diversity of the applicants and the disbursement of those funds. And then further in the packet, it says that, quote, while black owned businesses comprise the majority of the recent awardees for the move program and aggregate, they receive nearly half the award amount of white and Asian-owned businesses. So I'll posit the question to whoever wants to answer that as to why that is the case. It's because of the size of the businesses. Unfortunately, Black owned businesses are significantly smaller inside, so you're automatically going to have an issue there. Sure. Thank you for stating that. I assume that was the case. I have a few other questions. I can ask them offline, but again, I appreciate Council Member Sales for wanting to have this conversation with this committee. The road map and the recommendations, a firm, a firm what I know, and that is we're working hard to get it right. And it's not always easy and the end result are not always what we hope they might be, but it's not for lack of trying, it's not for lack of resources. But these types of conversations that are data driven will help us reform, inform so that we can reform some of our policies and regulations to continue being better. And as long as we are committed to these reviews, I'm confident that our business community will see those benefits and specifically the communities of color that currently have businesses or hope to have businesses in Montgomery County. So thank you to my colleagues. Yes, I remember Balkan. Thank you. Thank you for the presentation and the work that you're doing. I think it's great to have this focus and this focused attention. So appreciate that. A couple of things. One, I do think that we ask the chair, I think we should get a briefing on the current status of what legally is allowed. The courts right now have, there's been a lot of activity in is allowed. The courts right now have, there's been a lot of activity in the courts, and I think that we're going to see how that plays out in lower courts, and so I think that that, as we are trying to continue our efforts in reaching minority-owned businesses. I think having a briefing on what the county is legally allowed to do at this point in time. And I know that that's a moving target, but I think that that would help. And I think it would also help the public to have an understanding of where our hands are tied and what we can and can't do from a legal perspective. I think that's important. I also think that, you know, I say a lot, we have really fantastic programs in the county, but not everyone knows about these programs. And I think that communication just continues to be the key to make sure that everyone is aware of these programs and deleting the barriers. In the move, the prior conversation, and when we're talking about PLACI and eliminating brokers in eligibility. I think that that will increase applications. So I think that's important to communicate that. I really appreciate OLO's memo just really looking at how we can advance RESJ policies. I appreciate that. And I think that a couple of the things that stood out for me there. One is talent pipeline. I think that's the key. I think we hear that from businesses all the time. That is their number one issue of what keeps them up at night. And I think that our continued work with the college, USG, WorkSource Montgomery, I think that, and MCPS for that matter. I think that that is really important and continuing to look through that. RISJ lends when we do that. And I think that that's, you know, we do a lot of these things already. It's just a matter of are we are we providing the same resources for everyone in our community, and are we providing additional resources for those members of our community that need that extra help. So, thank you. That was great. And we're gonna follow up both line to schedule couple of these briefings that we just talked about today. As you heard from the committee and as you all know, from the entire county council and the county executive too, we're very embedded in making sure that we, the area community thrives and that includes people of color. And I'm very thankful to Council Member Sales again for raising this issue and really pushing for this work session. And we're gonna have more coming up. And which will also again include the issue of talent as has been addressed. I mentioned the example of McKayt MNC, EDC and MCPS, but there's so many other agencies, even federal agencies. And again, I know because of my children, the Army has a program on life sciences targeting middle and high school girls and on, um, in teaching them about coding and high tech. And the interesting thing is that they actually paint the kids to be there. Okay and that's only in its here, post it here in Montgomery County. And I knew about that program because my kids told me about it. So again MCPS is key to ensure that families and and black and Latino families especially, I'm gonna just gonna say it, know about these opportunities to really build the next generation of entrepreneurs and business owners that are working on the life science, because that goes side by side by our goal of making Montgomery County a number one place in the nation on life sciences. And with that, I'm gonna remind folks that we're gonna have an incubator tour in September. And that really, it's impact in this work because we wanna make sure that the next generation of businesses that are gonna be using incubators and getting funds from programs that we have in the county, that we're doing the right thing in placing the right requirements to ensure that these problems are successful. So that was happening in September. So stay tuned. And with that is 1154. I was able to get you guys out of here by noon. Before noon actually, we're gonna have a PHP session at 130 and a TNI also session at 130 PM. So it's gonna be a long day for us. Thank you so much for coming and we are adjourned.