Tuesday’s regular meeting of the Jefferson Economic Development Corporation (JEDCO) focused on bringing all the board members up to speed on the proposed Comprehensive Strategic Planning Project and clarification on what kinds of projects the board can fund.
“Item 6 is a Review of previous board discussions of the Comprehensive Strategic Planning Project we’ve been working on for almost a year now and should have been almost done with except for COVID stopped it,” said Board President Doug Thompson. “This is a project in partnership with Texas A&M.”
“This is Texas Target Communities and they will be working with us,” said Board Secretary Robin Moore. “Dr. Cooper came and spoke to us and gave us an overview of what they do and what their program is and I have sort of a summary he sent us. Last year we thought we were pretty close to signing a contract with them and we went to city council to ask their permission to move forward with this. Lately I’ve been speaking with them on moving forward and they’ve sent some guidelines. Phase 1 is the core group doing their thing and Phase 2 is Texas Target Communities working behind the scenes developing ideas drawn from the community.
“We start gathering 8-12 people from the community to be involved in this step of developing a 20-year plan for Jefferson and Marion County,” said Thompson. “So we get ideas on priorities and we narrow those down.”
“From this core group it branches out into the community,” said Moore. “So people who are interested in city parks they would be a committee.”
“So how do they charge for this?” as Board Member Dr. Bruce Bradley.
“There was an up to $50,000 fee,” answered Thompson, “but that included travel for their students and that probably won’t be a part, so it should be less than that.”
“We’ll present it again to city council,” said Moore. “The way we left it with the JEDCO Board was the creation of a resolution. It was in the minutes, but we never did it, to enter into a contract [with Texas A&M].”
“This creates a 20 year plan but is broken down into 5 year segments,” said Thompson. “And then they can also help with finding funding.”
“Anyone who wants to get involved can get involved,” said Moore. “It’ll be available where they can all take part in the discussion. Then you’ve got community buy-in. If they complain because ‘so and so’ is not being done, then here’s their chance. Its community and economic development. They go hand in hand.”
“There was something similar to this done 20 years ago, but it was never activated. It just sat there,” said Thompson.
The Board also chose to create a dedicated email address for JEDCO business.
“With deaths and illnesses or when a board member is taken suddenly out of the picture, we can lose continuity,” said Thompson. “We get a lot of mail that’s generic JEDCO or past presidents or treasurers. so I propose we create a JEDCO email address and give access to officers.”
“I think we could get a little more buttoned up with JEDCO@cityhallofjefferson.com,” said Jefferson Mayor Rob Baker. “It’s also the fact if you’re using your personal email and there’s ever a legal problem, it opens up your entire email to be turned over. I think this would be good for continuity and transparency.”
The meeting then moved over to what JEDCO can and cannot do.
“There is a 248page document the 2020 Texas Municipal League Economic Development Handbook. For this next topic I’m giving you some homework,” said Thompson. “This is a few pages out of it. We’re going to review it. It does give the differences in the types of taxes. We’re a type B and there’s been a misconception that JEDCO funds can only be spent on projects that create jobs. It gives us a pretty good overview of what we can do.
“So there are three different ways we can participate,” Thompson continued. “So I wanted you to take this as homework and review this before the next meeting.
“This particular board has done a very good job of being fortunate enough of being in the right place at the right time and be able to ramrod those projects through. But there were some boards in the past that were more reactionary and didn’t meet on a monthly basis, etc. I’d like to assign everyone the project of being proactive and looking for monthly projects.
“You’ll notice red cars more when you’re looking for red cars. So I’d like every board member to bring one project to the city over the course of a year. That’s 7 projects we could look at.”
Thompson brought up JEDCO’s lack of land to offer to prospective projects.
“What we don’t have an economic development land anymore,” he said. “But what [the city] does have is scattered land. We’re going to try and identify any properties the city has obtained and are maintaining without any potential for development and acquiring those from the City.”
The board chose to start looking at these types of properties and see how they can be developed by creating a sub-committee chaired by former Jefferson Mayor Bubba Haggard.
Future meetings will be held at the Jefferson Visitors Center due to Council chambers being used in April and May for elections.
The next meeting will be 5:30p April 13. The Herald/Jimplecute will be live for that meeting.