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Home My WebLink About2002-07-02 Business and Economic Development Committee Minutes � BUSINESS AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT COMMITTEE TUESDAY, 7ULY 2, 2002 Meeting Minutes Councilors Attending: Frank Farrington, )oseph Baldacci, John Rohman, David Nealley, Gerry Palmer Staff Attending: Ed Barrett, Jonathan Daniels, Rebecca Hupp, Mike Dyer, Norm Heitmann, T.J. Martzial, Peter D'Errico Others Attending: Ken Buckley Meeting convened at 5:01 p.m. 1. Consent Agenda a. Approval of license agreement between the City of Bangor and the Penobscot Theater Company/Maine Shakespeare Festival — Licensee � wishes to occupy and use a portion of the City's property to stage and present the Maine Shakespeare Festival July 14, 2002 through August 18, 2002. b. Residential Rehabilitation Loan 72 Fruit Street, single family house. c. Residential Rehabilitation Loan 4 Knox Avenue, single family house. The consent agenda was approved by the committee. 2. Bass Park Report. Mike Dyer updated the committee on the progress of the Bangor State Fair preparations. They have been working with the Police and Fire Departments to host all EMS workers throughout the state to come to the fair free of charge on the final day, Sunday, August 4t". This is in recognition of the things they do for everyone around the state everyday. Mayor Crowley and a representative from the Police Department, and the Fire Department will cut the ribbon on opening day, July 26. Starting Monday, )uly 8th, fair presale passes are available and an unlimited ride wristband available for any day of the week; this is a good way to put between $30-50k in the bank before the fair opens. The Bangor Daily News is our cosponsor, and will be advertising this. The presale passes have gone up from $12 to $15 this year, so the BDN will run their ad for a $2 off coupon to be � used at the gate. � Rohman asked how the coupon procedure works. The BDN is offering $7,500 as an advertising donation. The Fair still makes $1 more than last year on every presale pass sold. Dyer said an additional concert has been added, WHMX, Contemporary Hot Mix Christian radio, is bringing in Rebecca St. James for a concert, and they are guaranteeing the artist's fee of $10, 000. It is a paid concert, however, if ticket sales do not meet the artist's fee, then WHMX will cover it. Starting Monday, the Legends of ProWrestling tickets will also go on sale. The Creedance Clearwater Revisited show sold over 2700 tickets, $80,000 worth last Wednesday. An agreement was worked out so that we made an additional $5,100 in rent. On July 4t", Dyer said that for the first time since he has been at Bass Park, they have a concert, Diamond Rio starting at 6 p.m. This is not doing as well as promoters had hoped, 750 tickets so far. Rohman asked about Billboard Magazine, and how Brad Paisley was doing. Dyer � said that he's still high on the charts, and that he has almost 2300 tickets sold, and that he is paid for. 3. Bangor International Airport Report. Rebecca Hupp presented the Lease Agreement for Mars Computer. They want to rent the old Duty Free Shop space. Rohman wanted to know if they would be renting movies, and Hupp said this was not their intent. Daniels asked how long the space had been vacant. Hupp said that it had been since ]uly 2000, when Duty Free was the last tenant. This was approved by the committee to go to full Council. Hupp discussed the Travel Agent Reception, and said it was very well received, with good media coverge, and that they would be doing this again ne� year. Hupp noted that they had a press conference last week announcing St. John service from Bangor on Boston-Maine Airways. Hupp thanked Farrington, Palmer and Tremble for being there, and Farrington for speaking. She said that Congressman Baldacci sent a letter that was read at the event. She said that on July 8t", that they will be doing the inaugural flight for the Bangor to Albany • service. The St. John service inaugural flight will be toward the end of the month. • Daniels commended Hupp and her staff for the Travel Agent reception and the work that they did. He said that about 40-50 travel agents attended the event. WABI did a live spot at 5:30 p.m. Commissioner John Melrose was out there talking about Maine and the tying in of Bangor International Airport. Hupp talked about the authorization to enter into agreement with developer of T-hanger. This is subject to approval by the City Solicitor and City Manager. This was approved to move to full council. Palmer noted that he saw Rebecca Hupp live on the Charlie Horn show, and that she presented a great pitch for the airport. Hupp said that she had been on television 4 out 5 days last week, spreading the good news of the airport. Palmer asked about the recent pilot inebriation problem at another airport, and wondered how this situation would be handled at BGR. Hupp said that either a member of the airport staff, or a law enforcement officer � would notice this and report it. 4. Daniels presented the recommendation for a Marketing Communications firm. He said that in response to their RFQ, they received proposals from six firms. Daniels requested live presentations from two of the firms. The committee decided that both firms should be hired with very specific criteria and scope of services. Packard Design Services of Bangor would do the consulting and development of a theme, the marketing message itself, and all printed collateral material and development of such collateral material. BFT would handle all electronic media and electronic alternative media such as video, cd rom, as well as the development of the City's new website. Both firms are agreeable to working together. These two firms combined with the City's staff should provide the best marketing and advertising team in the state. Palmer wanted to know how the money would break out between Packard Design and BFT. Daniels said that Packard Design would get paid on a project by project basis, and that in the initial phase more of the funds would go to them. The website development will be fairly substantial. We won't move forward on the website development or the electronic media until we have developed the theme and marketing message first. � � J.W. Sewall and WBRC are two firms that Packard Design has worked on. Daniels said that one of the reasons why we split up the firms was that BFT had more expertise in website development and came in with an actual design in a short period of time. The committee felt that Packard Design had more experience in developing the theme/message and had a better feel of what Bangor was all about. They have recently done some award winning work for the City of Bangor that appeared in the Maine Biz newspaper. Nealley asked who the other firms were. Daniels replied that Mark Wellman, Katz Design of Sorrento, and JMac Productions of Glenburn. Nealley asked if there would be more correlation between the website and the government channel, and if the government channel was digital. Nealley asked about the meetings being broadcast on the website. Barrett said that our website is run by Prexar and that we could look into the feasability and expense of this. Daniels said that we also own cityofbangor.org and cityofbangor.com, which we can implement or cross reference these domain names which we own for the next three years. � Palmer said that Nealley's point of looking at the use of the web for broadcasting, and video clips, is one that we should really look into. He noted that the level of participants at committee meetings is not like it used to be and that we need to find other avenues to reach the public. Barrett said that he had hoped we would be able to take action on this contract award by July 1�, in order to use $40-50,000 in variant funds from last year's budget. In the order on the agenda, we'll try to carry the funds forward to pay for some of these upfront costs, without cutting down on the expenses that we have for our marketing package. Daniels said that we should be able to get all of our development costs out of the way upfront. The motion was approved to forward to the council. The committee moved and approved to go into executive session. 5. Executive Session — Land Disposition — Grotto Bay Realty Trust. . 6. Discussion and Possible Action on Executive Session — Proposed Development on Telcom Drive. � . 7. Executive Session — Negotiations — Waterfront Development. 8. Discussion and Possible Action on Executive Session — Developer Status for Olympia Equity Investors Authorize that Olympia Equity Investor be granted tentative developer status for a period of 90 days. Meeting adjourned at 6:10 p.m. � �