East Bay Economic Development Alliance > Action Items > Business Development > Business Development Focus Group
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Business Development Communications Portal The Portal includes more documents, discussion points and Projects. It requires login (same as membership) and an assignment to this group. If you would like to participate in this focus group and the communications portal, please notify Keith Sutton. Board of Directors' Retreat Discussion, April 10, 2009
Business Development lead by Nicole Taylor Business Development Workplan and Candidate Projects Business Development Focus Group Comments:1. CalBIS - RFI process: California Business Investment Services -leads provided by the State to Regional ED groups including the East Bay EDA – hampered by the lack of State staff (4 or so for the entire State) so they can’t do much followup/provide info; no State ED agency since Gov Davis did away with CA Trade & Commerce Agency in 2003 http://www.labor.ca.gov/calBIS/ a. Many cities submit, but few seem to be chosen (often due to the request for very large sites/buildings that are not available in the Bay Area) b. EDA to share stories or examples of successful submissions from East Bay cities so those who have been unsuccessful can get help with the process c. Provide more frequent info of project status (look for a way to put this data up on the Website for the EDD Council ) 2. Capital resources for business, particularly small to mid-size businessesB. IDB program expanded by the Stimulus bill: EDA will send out new parameters and keep membership abreast of developments (a significant expansion for technology companies (users) and what can be included (use of funds) http://www.treasurer.ca.gov/cidfac/ *New Definitions need to be clarified/tested *Bill must be drafted & passed that will match CA IDB project definitions with the new Stimulus definitions *Extensive marketing needed to re-educate all to the new program guidelines C. SCIP (The California Communities, Statewide Community Infrastructure Program (“SCIP”) a financing program that allows businesses to finance the cost of development fees over a number of years; all EDA cities should be encouraged to become part of the program https://www.psacommunities.org/fs/apps/?app=10 *SCIP is a financing program that enables developers to pay most impact fees and finance public improvements through an acquisition agreement that qualify under the 1913/1915 Act (excluding school fees) via tax-exempt bond issuance proceeds. *As most local agencies require developers to pay impact fees prior to obtaining a permit, SCIP can be used to directly prepay these fees or, alternatively, to reimburse the developer after fee payment. The program can be used to enable developers to pay for, or be reimbursed for, all eligible impact fees or for a single impact fee. Moreover, the program may alleviate the need for a fee deferral program by providing the local agency with necessary funds and eliminating the risk of nonpayment by the developer.
RLFs are not available throughout the East Bay as only about half of the Cities have them *Stimulus bill relaxing the criteria for eligible projects/beneficiaries of local RLFs- the EDA and CDBG (primary sources of RLF dollars): need informed parties to provide the contact info/for communication to other East Bay cities *EDA to distribute information about Revolving Loan Fund Program to all cities (Regional Director Darryl VanNess (sp?) is located in Seattle), as they are relaxing their requirements; cities who currently have the program can request to use the funds city-wide and not just on targeted populations/communities *Work on a regional revolving loan fund program that would cover both counties; *Grant applications for Stimulus funds to capitalize the fund like the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act) http://www.eda.gov/xp/EDAPublic/NewsEvents/PressReleases/PRWashington031109.xml 1.
Investment Policy Guidelines: 2.
Funding Priorities: *Contract with an company to manage the fund and hold the funds on behalf of the region; or *Use the EDA non-profit as the grant recipient *Connect with existing service providers that can expand financing resources *SAFE-BIDCO or some similar organization(s) http://www.safe-bidco.com/ Stopwaste.org has a region-wide revolving loan fund for waste-based businesses. We need to identify other opportunities like this for the businesses and the membership The 2009-2010 Business Resource
Guide project has added/updated info on a number of resources,
including Green Resources, and these resources are also available
on our website at:
http://www.eastbayeda.org/business_resources_incentives/index.asp#Financial%20Contacts 3. Technology transfer is an issue region-wideA. EDA needs to share with the membership the work that Bob Sakai is doing with the labs B. We need to identify how organizations, entities, municipalities can get better access to technology resources *One of the Candidate Projects was an Alternative Energy Business Park located adjacent to the Labs (so that lab security was not an issue, and to make the point of contact/connections clearer) 4. Leveraging connections to Obama administrationa. EDA should inform the membership about the communications we have with Stephen Chu, Van Jones, and other East Bay people who are now part o the administration – what are they communication to us and what are we informing them about.
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