02-25-26 EDC Agenda Packet - Laserfiche WebLink

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ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT COMMISSION – JANUARY 28, 2026 5 Discussion ensued regarding when the Chamber meetings are held. The next meeting will be on March 11th and will be held in Shoreview. Senior Planner Fransen said we can lean into promoting that with businesses and sharing the information with the attendees of our business event. Commissioner Bonine said they do a great job. They have bigger wallet share and more reach than we do. He said after the chamber meetings they can carve out 20 minutes for the Arden Hills businesses to touch base. Commissioner Daniels said the last one was held at Bethel. She said there were about 35 people in attendance. There were 20 minutes held for networking beforehand. Arden Hills can do something specific to them. Commissioner Bonine said he hosted one with about 20 people. That is not a lot of people, considering it represents 5 or 6 surrounding cities. The businesses have to drive it. To promote something within the city, recruiting to businesses can be built but the businesses may not come. He thinks the businesses have to want it. It’s wasted effort, if they don’t. We have to define what the EDC wants to do. We have to be careful not to get caught up with planning events that may not apply to what our mission is. There may be other committees that can do the walk or the bike rodeo. What is the EDC? What are we trying to do? D. EDC Work Plan Chair Murchie said any of these things have to be tied to the work plan. If we plan an event, we have to know how we will bridge residents and businesses. We have great ideas. We need to consider if we do an event how to get people from all of the businesses, up and down County Road E and Lexington, in the door. If we can get these ideas in the work plan and structure, it in a way that we can stay on track. We all love our city, and we want to make it exciting, but we have to make sure there is value for the businesses and that’s something they want. Commissioner Bonine said he wants to make sure our efforts are aligned. He’s here to support the mission but we need to make sure it’s appreciated and wanted. If the businesses don’t want it, it’s not worth our time. We have twelve meetings, a couple of them will probably be used to support the 75th Anniversary. It looks like we have a busy year, but it will take time. We realized the visits weren’t the best way to contact the businesses due to distance. It could be another few meetings before we figure out a better inventory of the businesses in the community. We still don’t have a good process to define who our audience is. Senior Planner Fransen said this group has tremendous ideas. She thinks it’s the blend between resident and business owner perspectives. We can keep narrowing in on how we can bring businesses and residents together to create that community. The last discussion we reviewed a tentative drafted work plan. There were comments about the business license and registration process. This is the City’s method of identifying what businesses are here. The EDC is the connector between the city and the businesses. She provided a visual for what the process is for the business license and registration. She noted the different ways that new businesses may be discovered by the city to let them know about the licensing/registration process. If the EDC wants to supplement this process by suggesting changes to the form. They can make those recommendations. The EDC can keep an eye open for new businesses. The EDC can make it part