Recapping the AEDC Board Meeting 👀

[Music]

[Applause]

Do we have anyone who would like to make any public comments?

Hey guys, welcome back to the channel. Let's recap the last AEDC board meeting. A lot of good questions here from how much money the AEDC is holding to their relationship with the range. Let's get into it.

Yes. I'd like to know, we get a report of how much money the AEDC has on cash, where that money is, and what interest rate we're making off that.

Yes.

No, neither. They have a council meeting. That being said, can we have a standard time? I know I serve on a couple of other boards when we have a set time every other month, whatever that may be. Y'all seem to go, I know it's y'all's community, it's not our, but it's hard for the public to keep up when you're meeting. I think other people want to come but then they're like, it's normally at 11 and then we were talking, no it's not at 11 tomorrow, it's two. Then this one's running into the city council meeting. I mean it's just something for us thought. I think that is a concern for citizens.

Well, you know, we talked about videotaping things, moving to city hall. Nice, where you would have available to you, not have this. I know it's convenient to staff because you staff here, but I think the citizens that work want can't come to this. Let's videotape it. So, they can't, there is more concern with the ADC now. So being public needs to be, I know you're audio taping these but I'm that teacher that needs to see your faces and greet your faces sometimes to know what's going on. Thank you for your help.

Yes.

Mike Fischer.

I've got a suggestion for once. Instead of dressing somebody down, I'm going to, I kind of had this epiphany and I'm hoping I ask you about questions. I wouldn't be wasting your time. The MLA Team Development Corporation is here to create jobs, right? Everybody kind of sees the knots. We're here to create high paying jobs, right? And so I think instead of maybe a new incentive plan to not, maybe the land deals, you know, because a lot of that's fallen through and had a lot of problems recently with some of the land stuff. I think a great accountability idea is to use their payroll taxes. So you take a copy of their payroll taxes. You're going to know if they're employed here and how much they're making. And the more they make, you have some sort of ceiling that you work into that and say, 'We're going to reimburse you.' So then you have your accountability reports and you don't have to wait on those because a lot of times I think they drag their feet on that. Companies drag their feet. So if you, and then that would incentivize them to have high paying jobs because if you're giving them money back based on the payroll taxes, then you knock out two things. Do you get accountability, local employees, and hopefully high paying jobs? And I think that would be a decent idea to explore to see if that would create more success with the high paying jobs. And I know there's a company, I won't name names, but it was a former employee that quit his job being a programmer, went back to school and became an attorney at about 40 years old. He worked at a local company that they used the loophole that they said you have to have so many new employees. They fired all their employees and rehired him and then they met the requirement. So they didn't really do anything and then it took all AEDC money to build a new building and he's pretty credible guy. But I won't name names. It's not, I think they sold to somebody else but if anybody wants to know the name of the company, I'll share it with you. But I think the payroll tax idea would close loopholes such as this new employee thing that they used.

[Music]

Yeah. Before John Adair gives his comment, let me play this clip to add some context to what he's asking about. Matthew Garner, executive director of the range. Do you want to get partnered back up with the AEDC? Do you feel it'll be beneficial or is it best to just say, 'Okay, let's avoid them and do it on our own?'

So there's actually a requirement for a lot of federal funding to be partnered with an economic development corporation. And so without having that partner, this area is potentially losing out on funding.

I was wanting to ask, I know what was it about a year ago, we had this whole deal with the 750,000 that came up with the range and everything. And in April, I got to interview Matt Garner when Laura Street had her press conference over there and he was doing an interview with News Channel 7 and telling them how important it is for the range to be partnered up with an EDC. And with everything that's gone on with that 750,000 and the unlawful transfer and all that, I want to know, and I think a lot of Amarillo wants to know, is the Amarillo EDC still in bed with the range? Are we still paying them dues? Are we still giving them money or have they been cut off?

Will we be making any more for next year?

Okay, that's good. So, we're still in bed with them because that 750 was paid, but everybody here has no intent of continuing relationships with them. Is that kind of what we're saying?

Okay. Awesome. Thank you.

So, there you have it. Sounds like the relationship between the AEDC and the range has come to an end, at least for this year's budget cycle. Trust that this channel will be keeping an eye on it.

Anybody?

Yes. I just wanted to say publicly, I want to say thank you to all of you who are serving on a fire board member and I wanted to publicly say I know each and every single one of you. I respect your business acumen. I'm very excited for this new board. One thing I did want to bring to your attention. And Brian was a part of this. We went through an executive search back in my time and that's when we enlisted the help of Jorgensson. Was that the name of it? Jorgensson. Yeah. Todd Jorgensson. And I just want to let you guys know, Brian knows this, but the other four, I was so utterly impressed with the type of people that he brought to the table. We interviewed I think four to five people and each one of them stood out. And I was very impressed with all of them. So if you hear this chattering out there from really from people inside Amarillo telling you no one wants to come to Amarillo, this is a, you know, everybody runs from us and there's no good talent out there. I think Brian would agree with me. We were very pleasantly surprised of real superstars they literally brought to the table. So, I hope that I would encourage you guys when you get to that point to possibly when you put out your RFP or RFQ for a firm to help you look for your next president. I would highly encourage you looking again at Todd Jorgensson. Again, I can't say enough about the type of people they brought to the table and just know that you're probably going to get a lot of good people apply again. And so I think the AEDC, especially with all five of you guys up here, are in really good hands. So, thank you again for serving and know that things aren't dire. You know, things aren't horrible. Thank you.