# Economic Development Committee of the Whole - November 11, 2014 > Auto-transcribed civic record · November 11, 2014 - **Permalink**: https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/meeting/3503 - **Source video**: https://lfucg.granicus.com/player/clip/3503?view_id=14&redirect=true - **Date**: 2014-11-11 - **Last revised**: July 15, 2026 - **Length**: 2,617 words > ⚠️ **Auto-generated content.** Audio from the official Granicus video was auto-transcribed with OpenAI's open-source Whisper large-v3-turbo model, run locally by The Lexington Times. Structured facts were extracted with GPT-4o; the narrative summary was written by Anthropic Claude. Verbatim wording may contain errors. See [methodology](https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/about/methodology) or [report a correction](mailto:editor@lexingtonky.news). --- ## Meeting Overview The Economic Development Committee of the Whole met on November 11, 2014, at 1:00 p.m., with Beard presiding. The committee addressed four agenda items during the session, taking four motions to a vote. The meeting included three public comments and featured two informational presentations on economic development topics. The committee approved the Committee Summary from August 19, 2014, and heard progress updates on Commerce Lexington's activities. Members also received information on Economic Development Collaboration Efforts. One set of items referred to the committee was deferred to a future meeting. ## Attendance The following individuals were present at the meeting on November 11, 2014: * Beard * Stinnett * Gorton * Ellinger * Kay * Ford * Akers * Lawless * Farmer * Scutchfield * Myers * Mossotti * Clarke * Henson * Lane No absences or late arrivals were recorded. ## Votes and Decisions The following motions were voted on during the November 11, 2014 meeting: **Approval of Committee Summary** [timestamp: 0:04:06] A motion to approve the committee summary from August 19, 2014 was made by Clarke and seconded by Ellinger. The motion passed unanimously by voice vote. **Removal of Local Food Coordinator Presentation** [timestamp: 0:19:23] Vice Mayor Gorton moved to remove the Local Food Coordinator presentation from the agenda. The motion passed by voice vote. **Removal of Agricultural Impact Committee** [timestamp: 0:19:55] Vice Mayor Gorton moved to remove the Agricultural Impact Committee from the agenda. The motion passed by voice vote. **Adjournment** [timestamp: 0:20:30] Beard moved to adjourn the meeting. The motion passed by voice vote. ## Public Comment Three speakers addressed the meeting with remarks focused on economic development achievements and collaborative efforts. **Councilman Myers** [timestamp: 0:13:46] praised Commerce Lexington for its excellent performance and expressed satisfaction with the return on investment from their funding. He noted that the results are clearly paying off. **Bob Quick** [timestamp: 0:14:17] highlighted that Commerce Lexington was named one of the top four chambers in the United States in August 2014. He emphasized the close competition involved in achieving this recognition and underscored its significance. **Kevin Atkins** [timestamp: 0:15:20] described ongoing collaboration among economic development partner agencies. He referenced specific initiatives including the Bluegrass Farm to Table initiative and regional economic development groups, emphasizing cross-county cooperation efforts. ## Committee Summary August 19, 2014 [timestamp: 00:04:06] The committee reviewed and unanimously approved the summary from the August 19, 2014 meeting. Key speakers Clarke and Ellinger presented the summary, which covered three main areas of discussion and action items from that previous meeting. The summary included updates on food coordination efforts, downtown development initiatives, and economic impact reports. All committee members voted to approve the summary without objection, indicating consensus on the accuracy and completeness of the August 19 meeting record. **Outcome:** The Committee Summary August 19, 2014 was approved unanimously. ## Commerce Lexington Progress Report Bob Quick presented the Q1 FY 2015 results for Commerce Lexington [timestamp: 0:04:36]. The presentation highlighted significant economic development achievements during the period. **Key Results** The organization reported 762 new jobs created through business recruitment efforts, accompanied by $68.6 million in capital investment. Additionally, retention and expansion activities generated over 700 jobs for the community. **Program Performance** Beyond job creation and capital investment, the report noted strong performance in workforce development initiatives and entrepreneurial support programs, though specific metrics for these areas were not detailed in the presentation. **Outcome** This agenda item was presented for informational purposes, with no formal action or debate recorded. ## Economic Development Collaboration Efforts [timestamp: 00:15:20] Kevin Atkins presented an overview of three ongoing collaboration groups focused on economic development coordination across agencies and counties. **Collaboration Groups** The presentation covered the following initiatives: - **Economic Development Partner Agencies** — A collaborative group bringing together multiple agencies working on economic development - **Bluegrass Farm to Table working group** — A focused effort on farm-to-table economic development initiatives - **Regional economic development network** — A broader network supporting economic development across multiple counties **Focus Areas** The discussion emphasized the importance of cross-agency and cross-county coordination in advancing economic development efforts. These collaboration groups were presented as mechanisms to align resources and strategies across different jurisdictions and organizational boundaries. **Outcome** This agenda item was presented for informational purposes, providing the meeting participants with an update on the status and structure of existing economic development collaboration efforts. ## Items Referred to Committee [timestamp: 19:23] Vice Mayor Gorton led discussion on this agenda item, which addressed the removal of two items from the meeting agenda. The committee considered removing the following items: - Local Food Coordinator presentation - Agricultural Impact Committee Both items were removed from the agenda via voice vote. The outcome of this agenda item was deferred. --- ## Decisions - **Motion** — passed: Approval of the committee summary from August 19, 2014 - **Motion** — passed: Motion to remove the Local Food Coordinator presentation from the agenda - **Motion** — passed: Motion to remove the Agricultural Impact Committee from the agenda - **Motion** — passed: Motion to adjourn the meeting --- ## Full transcript The ¶¶ ¶¶ ¶¶ Thank you. ¶¶ ¶¶ If I might interrupt for a second. People are still trickling in, but we do have a quorum at this point, and we'd like to get started. First on the agenda is the committee's summary of August 19, 2014. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Okay. I just hit the wrong button. So if Mr. Quick is available for the podium to talk a little bit about the progress report. I am glad to thank you. My name is Bob Quick. I'm with Commerce Lexington. Glad to be here today. And especially the best way to start today off is to say happy Veterans Day, to honor our military families and their friends and the communities that support. And I'll touch on a little cool statistic at the very end, touching on our military. We've got a PowerPoint. There we go. So here's a collage of pictures, and from a ground, or from ribbon cuttings to political interactions with our elected officials, and the top left one we're very proud of, being named top four chamber in the United States back in August. So just been a hectic quarter and a good start to quarter one of the 2015 fiscal year. Also, I would like to, on behalf of Commerce Selecting, to acknowledge all of our outgoing LFUCG County Council members, Chuck, Julian, Harry, Linda, George. Thank you. It's been a great, great team we've been on, and we're going to miss you, but we're always there to support you and work with you. I've got five minutes, so I'm going to probably race a little bit here if that's okay. If you look at our impact report, we've had some good business recruitment work, but I want to highlight what is solidly locked in. Announcements, Xerox, 400 new jobs, $1 million in capital investment. Consequence management, 62 new jobs, $8.6 million in capital investment. And then Toyota with their 300 new jobs. Jobs are moving down from Erlanger. and Jenna and her team have been putting in mega hours working with Toyota officials. We're recruiting them to Lexington, Fayette County. The families are going to be moved, and our whole goal is to make that a smooth transition for those families. So 300 jobs that we're going to be keeping in the region, very important for us. On the business retention expansion front, You can see we've had 38 meetings with local companies that meet our strategic targets. 14 companies plan to expand operations in Lexington. We anticipate over 700 new jobs, 20 men in capital investment, and wages ranging from about $21,000 to $150,000. And as you know, these projects are typically very involved, and so we have a number of different areas we're working with them on from real estate, workforce development, government relations. But it takes a full package of services to help these companies. And then a couple events we have hosted for July, that we have hosted in July and September. And again, those are our connectivity events where we bring people together to work together, get to know each other, and hopefully that will help us to build clusters and build groups. The business development, the Lexington Jobs Fund, it's going well. We have worked with the mayor's office. Mayor Gray has worked with us, Kevin and Wes Holbrook, and we have been meeting with manufacturing technology and SBIR companies, that's small business innovation research companies, and our whole goal is to make sure we get this package out in front of everybody we can, and we have had some very good response. We've sent the information out to our consultants, and that's generating about 10 responses back. But we do have a couple working through the pipeline on that. So again, a very strategic move, good move for our county. Next, entrepreneurial support. We did something unique, a little bit different, and it turned out to be a huge success. We co-hosted a fam tour, familiarization tour, with the Kentucky Cabinet for Economic Development to showcase Lexington's growing gaming development. So we had seven companies that are based in Lexington. We showed them off. We had 100 participants. It was a cool, cool event. but let me tell you what was really invaluable for us people, the decision makers, site consultants. So this was the first tour we did of this nature, and it went very well. We showcased so many aspects from quality of life to the gaming industry itself. A real nice reflection on Lexington. And then on the community and minority business development, 61 clients served, including minority women-owned businesses and existing companies. And Access Loan Program, here's another key feature of when we work with all the banks that work with us. The Access Loan Program has about 1.2, over 1.2 million in loans pending. So, again, that helps small businesses. These are the ones that oftentimes have the biggest struggle to get loans, get capital, and so that has gone well. And then the final item down under our Minority Business Accelerator Program, we call it the MBA program. To date, MBA companies have won over 4.1 million in public and private contracts. The idea was let's take a handful of companies, let's really build as much support for those companies as we can, help bring business to them and let them grow, and we'll keep doing that over a period of time until we've developed a good cluster. Also, all these things are super active. I'm skimming. There's just lots more stuff going on underneath, but here's a very critical area, job force, workforce, skill development and Billy Peebler with the Business and Education Network has got to got a lot of things going on but here's two key ones partnering with a Fayette County Public Schools we are trying to increase the percentage of students that are involved in the career and technical education programs and I'll let you read on more into that but that's an essential thing we have to do to trans transition us and the the workforce that we're providing to our companies and the final thing workforce study that's going on we hope to have some things to come out on that January of 2015. Very critical key data is what we're trying to pull now that will guide our efforts. As you also know, we have the metrics is down on the left, the items we measure. We've been doing this for many years. We have the goals in the middle. So these would be the annual goals. And then the Q1, how it matches up. If clients served as any indication, the strengthening economy, and if we continue to have those numbers, you'll see we will really push, we'll have a very strong client served this coming year. We'll blow away that 1,000 number, and that's good. That's a good sign. And then you can see some of the other factors. So again, Q1 is just first quarter, but it matches up well. One area we're doing exceedingly well, thank you Toyota, is the capital investment, 68 million versus the goal of 75 million. So some of these, when you have it out, you know, just an extraordinary success, it can do it. But we'll, As you know, we'll be working very hard with you to make sure that we get as many good numbers as we can. And participation has been really good. So it's been a very strong quarter. Something that we hope all of you will participate in next Monday, it will be the kickoff event of our Global Entrepreneurship Week. It goes from November 17th to the 23rd. But next Monday at 10 a.m. at Commerce Lexington, we'll be announcing four new tech companies relocating to Lexington. And as you know, this is going to be our SBIR kickoff, which is, again, small business innovation and research. We've done exceedingly well. The clusters are forming, and you can see just the progress we've made with the partnership. It's something to be very excited about, but we are very excited. We hope that you can join us at 10 o'clock. You being there sends a very powerful message with the private sector. I'm telling you, people notice it, and we get a lot of good media attention out of it as well. So this was our 2014 marketing calendar. We're winding down the year. I point this out just to say we've been very aggressive, and we're very pinpoint in where we go so that we don't waste money, but that where we hit that we have some good outcomes. And one other item we're adding is we're going to be in Atlanta December 3rd for the Kentucky United. That's where we go out and we sell Kentucky. And again, the good thing is when you sell Kentucky, Lexington does very, very well. But I just put that up there for your reference. And then we always try to keep this in front of the community rankings and accolades for 2014. So today being Veterans Day, very fitting. We have a new ranking that's not up there but one that we would like to boast about. But we were just named by Wallet Hub as the 12th best place in the United States for veterans to find jobs. So pat yourself on the back. I think that speaks very highly of this community and the region. And with that, if you have any questions, more than happy to answer, we have our economic development team here. And whether it's during the meeting or after, anytime you call, our office is your office. We're happy to sit down with you. Council Councilman Myers thank you mr. chair thank you mr. quick for coming in today with your presentation and you guys are doing a fantastic job I'm so happy that we've invested the money we have with you guys and it's paying off could you though go back and talk about the award the other award we won do you say for the number one chamber for the Chamber of Commerce the top four top four So in August, we competed with three other chambers in the United States in the large chamber category, which I initially said that's not fair. We're not up there with those big mega chambers. It didn't do any good. We still had to compete with them, and we were named one of the top four. We went to Cincinnati for the Association of Chamber of Commerce Executives, and they only announced we compete head-to-head. They only announced the number one chamber. They don't announce second, third, and fourth, But what they did tell us was that in the history of the award, it's never been so close. Okay. And we know we did well. Danny Murphy was with me. But it was really where I got to show everybody what this, we talked about all of our regional efforts. We talked about our partnership. And I want to tell you something. People talk about it, but very few do what we're able to do here. And that's where we really do come together and work together. And nationally, we're known for that. So it was, we're very happy, to say the least. And we've gotten a lot of national accolades for that. Sure. You've got a great team. We appreciate your work. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you very much. Thank you, Bob. Kevin, are you doing your thing for us? whatsoever that may be. It's interesting phraseology. Well, thank you, Mr. Chair. The Chair invited me to come in today and talk a little bit about the collaboration efforts that we have currently going on within the government when it comes to our economic development partnerships. So the first group that meets is what we call our economic development partner agencies, and you can see them all. there those are the ones that you all year in and year out fund at some level to help us assist the there's an in the bottom right you will see the the new logo that for for Ashton Wright's food coordinator position the Bluegrass Farm to table and she's now part of that that working group as well this is a group that works well together we all actually enjoy working on these projects together and I think Jenna can tell you when we meet and we try to do that about quarterly it is a good effort for everybody to update each other on what projects are going on within their group as well as something may come up that then there is a very natural collaboration that can go and help some of the projects move a little bit better move forward again back to the bluegrass farm to table Ashton couldn't be here today but this is the group that she meets with almost monthly and they bring a lot of power and I mean power as far as their reach into the communities the good thing about this group it's not only a Lexington based group but it is a regional group she has partnerships outside the county lines that work closely with our ag community here and And she's done a great job at outreach, and this is also a group that works extremely well together. And the final group is one that Jenna has led for some time, but not one I don't think we talk about a lot typically here. And it is a regional group of folks involved in economic development in the counties that surround Lexington, as well as some of the utility folks. this is a meeting that gets together and basically is a check-in to see what everybody has available what projects they may have working and it's just a good collaboration on helping each other be better as far as a region so those efforts are ongoing constantly jenna may have something she wants to add about the bluegrass alliance but these are all three groups that meet periodically on different time frames. But just to let you all know, there is a lot of work going on across county lines and also within groups in the community that there is a large effort going on. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Kevin. Council, any questions? It's the world's record up there on the clock. I stayed under the five minutes. Let's look under the committee referrals, and we might see if anything needs to come off. Vice Mayor Gordon. Thank you, Mr. Chair. We have already heard from the local food coordinator, the second from the last issue, so I move to remove that from the list. Done. Any others? Do you want us to vote? Well, I thought we'd vote in a mass group, but maybe this is a mass group. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? And then I have one more that I don't want to remove. I'm hoping someone will pick it up. I've been working on the details of the Agricultural Impact Committee, and actually this committee voted it out of committee. So I guess it could come out of committee since we voted it out. There's just some details that are being worked on. So I move to remove that from this list. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Thank you, Mr. Chair. Any others from the rest of the council? If not, I'll entertain. Motion adjourned. That's what I entertain. You guys enjoy yourself. I'm sorry.