Gardiner Economic Development Committee
Gardiner City Hall Council Chambers
Tuesday, July 9th, 2002, 8:00 a.m.
Minutes
Attending: Norman Temple, Anne Davis, Geri Robbins-Doyle, Glenna Nowell, Kim Greenleaf, Patricia Rideout, Randy Clark, Francis Grey, Chris Paszyc, Rebecca Colwell (Chair)
1) Approval of Minutes from Previous Meeting
Geri Robbins motioned; Anne Davis seconded, to approve the minutes as presented. Motion passed unanimously.
2) Economic Development Director's Report
Chris reported that construction would begin Thursday on the Downtown sidewalk and streetlight project, starting near the Canton Village and the State Office building and working backwards towards the rest of the downtown. Part of what we are paying is $10,000 for traffic control. The Public Works director received a shipment of hardware for the 92 streetlights. Bids on the Façade Improvement package for A1 Diner, Casey & Godfrey, Greenhouse Games, MacDonald's Bakery, Johnson Hall, and the Arcade Building were due later the same day. Blue Marble Geographics moved into the Manson & Church building over the weekend. An open house is being discussed for early to mid September, when further work is completed. Cobbossee Leasing closed last week on its purchase of the Walker
Building. Dunkin Donuts is supposed to open on the 15th, but it may not be that soon. The parking lots are getting repaved and expanded. For the waterfront, right now the City has $300,000 in place. The SHIP grant brought almost $100,000 of that. Phase I of the III-phase project includes expanded docks. The ultimate plan is for a full marina facility. Chris reported that he was contacted by Maine & Company about a party looking for a site to build a distribution facility that would be bigger than Pine State that could take from 3 to 6 lots at the Libby Hill Business Park. The Housing Assessment study has begun as well.
3) Loan Applications
a) Concepts Hair
The committee discussed the merits of Concepts Hair's application. It was noted that the loan would be for inventory for expansion of the gift products side of the business. Tina Albert has been a customer in good standing with Gardiner Savings for many years. Property in Litchfield and product inventory are available collateral.
Glenna Nowell motioned, Randy Clark seconded, to recommend the City Council approve the loan for $5,000 at prime minus 1% with a general security interest in the business assets. Motion passed unanimously.
4) Other Business
Becky and Chris discussed the City Finances Workshop they attended with the City Council. Chris passed out financial projections and tax increment financing (TIF) scenarios developed by the City auditing firm RKO. The City Council has been pondering a change in approach to how TIF s are executed. The group agreed a TIF workshop with the City Council is needed in the near future. Chris noted that a blanket downtown TIF district proposal is being prepared as well. As an example, if the whole downtown were valued at $40 million and $1 million worth of improvements were made in a given year, all that would be sheltered from the State's determination of what goes to SAD 11 and the revenues from those improvements could be directed toward the $70,000 annual debt service for the downtown.
Saco is the only community that has done a downtown TIF district, but ours would be structured differently than theirs. The committee noted that we have money available to lend that we could promote awareness of more, however a balance should be maintained between lending everything we have out and keeping some in reserve in case we need it to help catch a "big fish."
5) Regular Review of RLF Accounts
Randy Clark noted that Keith Mansir is coming off the account report sheet. All other loans were current or within acceptable payment schedules.
6) Schedule Next Meeting
Scheduled for August 13th at 8 a.m.
Respectfully submitted,
Christopher Paszyc
Director
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