Economic development Q2 presentation and upcoming events

1:19:33Um So the next item was eleven fifteen, time certain about economic development presentation. Um Mr. Cronin. Um Thanks for being here. If you could do this in like two minutes, that would be great. I I like it. So many people waiting out here, so I I just don't want to have I don't want to delay what we have going off of public comment.

1:19:51Well we're gonna do this in breakneck speed. It is good news. It's not uh about cell towers right now. We're just gonna talk about some really good things about Q2. Um it's hard to believe that that has been uh so long ago, but that was the groundbreaking. Working for uh Moffitt Cancer Center that was back in Q two. And from a recruitment standpoint, I can tell you that um uh we're starting to see a little bit of a stall or a pause right now in the economy. And a lot of it has to do with delays uh and

1:20:22inflation. So a lot of our big companies and big projects are actually looking at MA opportunities rather than doing greenfield and that's something we need to keep an eye on. Um

1:20:34mergers and acquisitions.

1:20:35Mergers, I'm sorry, yes, mergers and acquisitions. It's cheaper to pr to to buy an existing building than to wait for uh permitting and everything else and the cost of materials. So we're starting to see a a shift and usually that shift is a little bit closer to election time. Uh this is well in advance for us.

1:20:56Uh we're still out visiting companies and it's a busy time for events as f for us as well as organizations. Uh we had an economic development forecast earlier in the quarter. Our Grow Pasco was successfully attended uh over a hundred participants and over twenty-five speakers. Uh we also had a new Netfest, which was at Tampa Sporting Clays, uh something a little different for us. This number becomes very important to us as we continue to market Pasco as

1:21:26a place to do business. This is earned media. We're almost at a million dollars of earned media value. That means people that are telling our story, not us telling our story. Website hits still continue over 25,000, uh almost 25,000 this last quarter. Um social media is up. Most of that is our startups and small business looking for assistance. And we're up to eighty-five investors, the newest of which is Ajax. Three important

1:21:56dates coming up. Pasco fifty, uh that is a uh event that works with the HR professionals, although we would welcome anyone who can provide uh good comment and uh uh be part of that conversation. Pasco Industrial update, very similar to the old meet the project update, except this is gonna be about all the different product that we have that's underway in Pasco County. And then annual wards will be back at the IPAC again this year on the seventh

1:22:26of September. And I'm gonna cruise right through into the penny just to to keep it going.

1:22:37Maybe. One second. It's a little too quick for you today.

1:22:42Mm-hmm.

1:22:46Okay. Uh as I mentioned before, ready sites continue to do well. Um go back to the first slide.

1:22:56Why does the legislature have to do?

1:22:59Can you get me back to the home screen? Thank you.

1:23:02I just want to mention that last time we were here reporting, we had an international group visiting from Belize. Uh since then we've had a lot of other activity that's international. We also had our our first Trade and Tourism Day that was held on that same day. And uh we hosted our um Workforce Connect Biz Blast also was last quarter. I'm gonna continue on Let me get to the end.

1:23:32Do we have a copy of this bill?

1:23:33Yes, you do in your packet, so you can you can read it at your leisure. I did want to touch base on um quarter three. Just because it was so um uh exciting. We had a trade mission to the UK where we had Uh three mayors. Four commissioners and three counties. I know people are are adding this up in their head. Um those are three counties that participated. So it's Pasco, Penellas, and Hillsboro. Uh we went to London, had a

1:24:03number of meetings, not just for the delegates, but also business meetings. We had 14 uh business meetings that hopefully will be projects coming back this way. We also uh met with the Bureau of the Bayonet Point. British American Business Chamber of Commerce. Our commissioners, our Chair Jack Mariano and Commissioner Starkey both attended and participated. Following that, we had a foreign direct investment mission to Germany where we brought back 10 projects there. And also our

1:24:34Smart Start and the County's commercial kitchen at the Stalling Center over in Dade City was recognized not once but twice this last quarter for our food kitchen and commercial kitchen at the incubator at SmartStart. And then lastly,

1:24:49they won a NACO award.

1:24:51Yes.

1:24:51They're getting an award at NACO.

1:24:52Yeah, you got Regional Planning Council and NACO as well, too. And then uh Turner Arbor, our own staff member who runs our Workforce Connect program, was just recently um uh awarded the Workforce Professional of the Year for the Florida Economic Development Council. And I think we're gonna do something a little later for him.

1:25:11We're gonna do a resolution for him. So if we could let's cover we'll cover more stuff next meeting when we bring Turner up to recognize him as well.

1:25:18Very, very good. Because he's he's a very young man and it's a quite an honor for a young person to have this early in his career. Great young man. So with that I'll stop, see if there's any questions, and then if not, we'll get back to the