CEDC Governance and Nominating Committee

1. 0:02Thanks, Kat. Good morning, Andy.
2. 0:06Morning.
3. 0:06Thank you for waiting. We uh were we're kicking off the governance and nominating committee meeting for the CEDC September 17th. Good morning, everyone.
4. 0:16Sorry for the delay.
5. 0:18Um I think we have some minutes to review. We have a couple things of business, but really the most important thing is that we're meeting uh candidates for our open board member position. So, we'll just get right into it. Thank you so much for being here this morning.
6. 0:36Do you want this recorded now? Right.
7. 0:40Yeah, this is recorded. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So, we we really appreciate you taking the time and your interest in uh being on the board of the CEDC. I'm sure you're familiar with the organization from being a pillar of the community.
8. 1:02But we'd love to hear from you if you want to just we we have your resume, but if you just kind of want to give us your elevator speech, tell us about you and
9. 1:13Yeah. I mean, uh, pretty broadly, I'm Catkill, born and raised. Uh, I worked a lot primarily the last, you know, 10 years over here in Columbia County. Um, all through, uh, Key Bank and other financial services. I was bankry county for a short stint there as well. Um, you know, just uh really like the um hometown feel that Catsville, Hudson, and Columbia County really have. um been more and more involved in the community as the manager over at Keybank and ultimately met a business client that had a lot of passion for uh this organization told me that I should throw my hat in the ring here and uh that that's ultimately what brings me here today. It's simple as it is.
10. 1:55And then we could just get started if anyone has questions or you could also start with questions about the organization that you have.
11. 2:03No, feel feel free to go. I I I will say I'm a little bit more blinded than I um you know, I expected here today. You know, one being the only one here, but uh also, you know, um don't have much expectation of what was going to happen here today. So, just being full-on honesty. Um so, happy to answer whatever questions and uh I'll probably get some as we uh get further down here.
12. 2:25Yeah, I'll get the ball rolling. just in general um just your your thoughts on Columbia County economy, what are our strengths? What are our challenges? Broad picture, there's no right or wrong answers. Just uh so your philosophy
13. 2:45overall um economy, there's certainly a lot of money moving to Columbia County over the last, you know, we'll we'll say last decade here. um you know that that presents you know opportunities and challenges as both exist. Um you know I I believe economy's kind of heading in the right direction. Um that being said, I also noticed that you know the um pillars of community what I look at is very small business. Um it's more and more of a struggle for them.
14. 3:14Um when we're comparing when somebody moves in you know we'll say from the city or something with a large amount of money and you know ultimately getting more of the property and the exposure compared to um you know the smaller businesses. Uh that's something that I've always had a passion for as a small business. So I grew up with my stepfather owning a local flooring store. Um you know and I watched you know the Home Depot come around and what's going on.
15. 3:42What ultimately led to being success was the support of the community and them tying together and it was still being able to uh compete with the bigger box stores the bigger you know more money. Uh so ultimately that's always kind of been my position when I'm looking at economy is how are the small businesses doing? How are the local mom and pop stores? how are the local contractors, uh, landscapers, uh, ultimately when I'm thinking business and small business, that's who I'm really caring about.
16. 4:06So, um, you know, I I I see it hit or miss. I I really do. And, uh, I think we all know that day-to-day expenses are much more expensive. Uh, everything is more expensive. um inflation, you know, we uh we're at an interesting time um where I think more than anything businesses need support from organizations like this. So, uh economy, I I can go on either side of the t the coin on uh what's improving and what's not improving. Um but ultimately, we just have to recognize the opportunities and the challenges and facing from there.
17. 4:43Good. Well, you'll get a a large dose of small business this group.
18. 4:51I mean, as a branch manager, do you feel that you see a lot on as like a frontline person of how the economy is going locally? And
19. 5:01Oh, yeah. I mean, any type in the financial industry. So, whether so as a branch manager, I primarily dealing with only business clients. Okay. Um, but then I also have a staff of seven that is working personally and ultimately, you know, the economy is going to affect everything we do on a day-to-day basis. You know, before I was here, we're talking about the Feds increasing rates again, you know.
20. 5:18So, um, ultimately, uh, we're looking on the personal side and how to take advantages of, uh, you know, deposit rates and going further. Um, also planning long-term futures on how, you know, these rates aren't going to stay here forever. Um, when's a good time to borrow money versus use your own. So, uh, I think I get a good sense of the pulse of how the community is feeling, but at the same time only with the ones I see.
21. 5:48I will throw out there whoever's throw on the air conditioning. Thank you.
22. 5:56Wasn't sure if it was the temperature or the question.
23. 5:59Her name is Nancy Cost. Thank goes on with the charge is the lowest fine.
24. 6:09Are you currently serving on any other boards?
25. 6:11I am not. Um I was on um some boards in Catskill about 5 years ago. I really um was making life-changing decisions on where I was going to live. So I uh took time off from that board and this was the first opportunity board that I decided to recommit myself to. from another uh famous banker Jamie Diamond has been running around talking about what he sees as a huge problem for American economy which is small businesses and the coincidence of the number of people that are retiring over the next 10 to 20 years and I think we've already started to see the beginning of that here in Columbia County have kind of a wave of companies that have either sold or closed basically because there wasn't really a succession plan in place and the uh how do you think an organization like EDC can try to stem the tide and turn that around and support more business support the businesses and the business owners so that there's more planning and it's less likely to go south when they decide to retire.
26. 7:09Yeah. So I I mean I'd love to have a fantastic answer for you on that. Uh ultimately I don't look at this time. Uh I have enough information about the day-to-day proc or the month process what you guys do to answer that. I can all uh certainly say that you know that's not unique to just this but you know the um meetings I typically are holding or even the clients I'm seeing are older and older and I'm seeing less and less of the younger um you know I get to the point where I can't really consider myself younger and younger uh so uh you know ultimately it's getting in contact with them right most of the things is networking finding out the right people to talk to and you know bridg ing the gap of where we can be su or helpful to them as far as the success successing succession planning.
27. 7:57Um it's something I see a lot as well. Something I'm always talking to business owners about is what are the next plans after this. Um but ultimately how the organization helps uh I have to say I'm not in position at this point to give a good example to say how how that would work. That's I was hoping silver wish I did.
28. 8:24Thank you.
29. 8:29Brief. These are a few expectations of CEDC board members, just so you know.
30. 8:34Be a little helpful a couple weeks ago.
31. 8:41And it boils down to study up, show up, speak up, and Annie up. uh studying you need to read and understand our bylaws, policies, strategic plan and other key documents all of which are available on on the website. Uh and all of which guide our decision making uh show up, participate of course I should say thank you for showing up. That's that's nice to see. Nice to see you.
32. 9:09Um, you also need to participate on in addition to being on board participate on uh one committee um finance loan governance and nominating committee. That's what this is. Uh and some of those meetings meet monthly, others meet u sporadically. uh but you need to prepare and uh for and and attend those meetings uh along with the the monthly board meetings. Most of the meetings are on weekdays uh at 8:30 a.m. uh 9:00 as an anomaly but sometimes it is a different hour but typically it's 8:30.
33. 9:53Uh speak up means ask questions, express your opinions, uh offer your ideas and suggestions uh and uh promote CEDC among the contacts we have in the community. Anti-D means uh to join CEDC as a dues paying member. Uh the organization is represented by board members. Uh makes an annual due d investment ranging from $100 to $2,500 depending on its size. Uh and key bank may already be a member. If they're not we'll gladly help you figure out the the level for that. Uh and those those investments are are on an annual basis.
34. 10:38So u please give these expectations some thought and uh and let us know whether you can um adhere to all these boundaries and expectations.
35. 10:55Yeah. Uh I mean pretty straightforward there. Study up, show up, speak up. Very easy. The adding up we I guess we got to talk about that one, right? Uh, but there's always uh Roman certainly whether that's through me or you back I'm sure that wouldn't be a problem.
36. 11:12Do you have any questions for us or do do you want I mean Jonathan maybe you could just give the elevator speech of you know who the CEDC is because
37. 11:20Sure. Sure. That was going to be my question.
38. 11:22Yeah, there's many levels of understanding about us. Yeah, a little bit. No, the invitation was good enough. The uh I'll hand one of these. talk to this
39. 11:31right
40. 11:32the um so CEDC is a you know is organized as a LDC which gives us certain powers to do certain things um and we also so CEDC is the main entity um and most of our grant management goes through CDC however we also organize and manage the Hudson Industrial Development Agency and the Columbia County Industrial Development Agency both of those entities are the organizations you go to if you're a business that's expanding has a development project and you'd like economic incentives. So, we manage those two and the economic incentives are kind of the product and then we uh also work with the county and administer the county's land bank which is kind of nent at this point but what the vision is is that it will be a mechanism that allows the county to acquire property that they want to use for development purposes especially housing.
41. 12:27So, there's about seven of us. We've got about a $13 million budget. Uh we have a healthy balance sheet, which we're going to keep healthy. And uh that's who we are. You know, we do a lot of engagement. Um and one of the products that we're probably most well known for in the business community, both in Hudson and countywide, is Martha and Steve's loan program. We uh run a great um loan program where we've got our own uh loan kind of criteria requirements as well as uh an SBA loan. So, and we're one of the biggest um lenders for the SBA. You probably already get their stats. I'm sure
42. 13:00we're the seventh largest.
43. 13:03I don't know if you've met Steve and Martha.
44. 13:05I don't do not believe so. This is Steve and Martha. Why don't you stand introduce yourself?
45. 13:10Yeah, I'm Martha Lane and um as as Jonathan said, I administer our loan fund. We have two separate funds. One is the CEDC loan fund, revolving loan fund, and the other is the SBA microloan fund. So, we only make microloans. We're not doing 7A or 504. We refer them to banks or person.
46. 13:30And I'm Steve Andenberg and I joined in 2023 working with Marshall.
47. 13:35Welcome.
48. 13:35All right.
49. 13:37And Lisa and Cat are not just wandering in here. They work there as well. The uh believe it or not, Cat is not only our IT specialist right now, but also our bookkeeper. Soarity volunteer. and Lisa is the uh administrative supervisor for the IDAS. So the uh one of the big uh elements of our work uh in running the IDAS is compliance with state requirements for not only how you put the deals together but then the reporting requirements whether or not the project uh leads whether they're meeting their commitments to uh the agency. So Lisa organizes most of our and most of our compliance activities.
50. 14:19Chief of people and and all of our so that's who we are and there's one other uh there's one on the way and Mike Tucker who I'm sure you've probably met already
51. 14:30is our is our former CEO who continued on with us and is leading our housing efforts right there
52. 14:38uh when we mentioned through the participant at least one committee can we go through what those uh committees were kind of was fast there
53. 14:45finance
54. 14:46finance governance and nominating
55. 14:48governance and nominating
56. 14:50loan He wouldn't be eligible.
57. 15:01And uh that process there is that something assigned or uh join like as far as who's outlaw committee, how does that work?
58. 15:10Yeah, we'll determine that jointly. You'll have the opportunity to to request
59. 15:19the guitar player. Obviously, the loan committee is very important.
60. 15:28It's kind of a the one of the
61. 15:30that's the one that my ears would put up for. Obviously, um you know, the audit would be the one that makes me hold my breath a little bit there. So, you know,
62. 15:38two meetings.
63. 15:39Interesting.
64. 15:40Yeah.
65. 15:42I mean, as far as the meetings itself, though, you bring that up at 8:30. I mean, that just works so well for me. I mean, I'm I'll be here regardless right around the streets. So, as far as weekdays, that that is very simple. Um, I don't know when the off times are, when those vary. Um, but, uh, I I live a pretty simple life in that aspect. I have no kids. I got one dog. I got a wife that, uh, you know, likes to be home with me. But, um, as far as availability on the show up, I I pretty much nailed those expectations. Not quite sure on
66. 16:15your your branch can run without you,
67. 16:18you know. Um it will regardless. You know, uh the the show must go on as as says. Uh today, you know, there's a little bit of a staffing crisis over there. But um ultimately, you know, you hire the right people and uh you know, we all have to put shoulders to elbows together when uh the time gets tough and get through. You know, I'll be back shortly, guys. Good.
68. 16:42That is the one good thing about uh that particular branch. It's the third busiest key bank in the country. Um so
69. 16:49it is and uh ultimately it is a just a product of how many banks got bought up into that location. But um it is an anomaly for the size of a bank in today's uh certainly small town. Um yeah, we we well transactionally had clients big cities and uh so with that though I also have the largest staff in the country. So uh while right now I'm down four people, it's still better than most banks are operating on. So still nine people over there. We'll still be all right.
70. 17:22Great.
71. 17:24Well, we should uh if you have a crisis you're dealing with, we should let you go see.
72. 17:29There's a crisis. I'm just not going to think about it until you walk.
73. 17:34Uh it is a u you know I've been a manager there eight years and right now it is the hardest I've ever seen to find people. um whether the applicants that are coming in you know the pure number uh compared to the I hate to say quality of the applicants that are showing up but um you know I'm really a lot of times saying like hey we're applying for a full-time job and they're like well I can work 28 hours a week and I'm like why are why are we here guys? So, uh, you know, for our lowest level job to find people right now,
74. 18:06challenging,
75. 18:08it it's odd, you know,
76. 18:10when I look at it, they make double what I made when I started as a teller and still hard to find where I'm thinking like this should be a slam dunk, easy to find,
77. 18:19you know, any single parents, any uh any kids that don't have a career direction yet. Um, you know, that that's what ultimately got me into banking was I was working in uh sales in the flooring industry. you know, a stepfather's business. And I sold a job to the president of Bank Green County, you make a good banker. So, I I started and I thought, well, at the very least, even if I hate banking, I get to speak with small business owners and find different avenues of uh making money. And it is very eye opening to see how many different industries there really are and uh avenues you can take. So, that's ultimately why I stopped at banking for as long as I've had so far.
78. 18:58Lorie, even though it's a formality, we'll have someone contact you uh confirming uh your invitation to to join the board. Um I appreciate
79. 19:08You don't really like to keep people in suspense.
80. 19:10Absolutely.
81. 19:11Absolutely.
82. 19:12Um if there are any follow-up questions you have, you can direct them to Rachel uh and she'd be glad to get you the information that you need. Um we'll back in touch very soon.
83. 19:25And that's a good followup question. If I do have a followup question, how do I reach Rachel?
84. 19:29Yeah, good idea. Um, do I have a card?
85. 19:36No regard to that. I have your email. I will reach out to you.
86. 19:42I also switch that email if we can. Can I I got to be honest. I do not check my personal email all that. Let's switch that over.
87. 19:49Yeah, I got some cards after the meeting. I will reach out.
88. 19:53I'll search through the emails like all right, what time? I know it's usually 8:30.
89. 19:59Thank you so much.
90. 20:02Well, thank you so much for your time.
91. 20:04Appreciate it.
92. 20:06Just pass the
93. 20:09for everybody.
94. 20:11So nice to meet you. It
95. 20:12was a pleasure meeting everybody. What's the name on the screen? Andy. Andy. Pleasure.
96. 20:17Yeah. Nice to meet
97. 20:18Nice to meet you.
98. 20:20Thanks for having the wake up, guys. I feel like all right,
99. 20:45you know.
100. 20:51Yeah. actually
101. 21:07everybody see.
102. 21:19Sorry guys, we got we we went ahead. There were three candidates that we're talking to today. So, we went ahead with the first one. Now, you're both here. Thanks for waiting for us.
103. 21:32Rachel, I just want to let you know I have to sign off because I have the appellet division at um 10:30.
104. 21:40I'm leaving now to get up there.
105. 21:42Thanks for the head.
106. 21:43Tell them to go pound salt.
107. 21:44Yeah, that's probably not good to be late. So, all right.
108. 21:47See you. So, um, now, yeah, we've got two of you at the same time, but, um, if you just want to introduce yourselves to us and then, um, we'll introduce ourselves to you and get you start. John Perry, Clever Property Management, Clever Construction Management. John, good to see you again.
109. 22:14Um, was uh, approached by Brian Mahoney. uh was asked if I would be interested in um coming on to the board, spoke with Jim. Thrilled to be here. Um my family business had been here uh before we started Clever and we launched in 2019. Um and then a couple months later the world shut down, but it worked out really well for property management because it was lacking here in Hudson and it was the number one move to address in the country during COVID. So we kind of went from there and uh happy to be here.
110. 22:48Good. Jonathan Miller, New York flight in Northway Financial. Uh Rachel, when we met a while back, asked me to come out and check out the economic development corporation. I know a lot of you and have met you in other circumstances. Uh I live in Chadam. I work out of Leam and Delmare and also down here in Hudson. Um do financial planning. I'm also like business development and economic development in general. I'm like fascinated with I came up here from Brooklyn in 2021. Um this area and all the exciting things that are going on here.
111. 23:25Um I don't know yesterday I was at the abode uh in Lebanon which I never been to before and I thought I knew what was going on at that road and kind of one more thing that blew me away. There's just so much going on at lump county. I feel like I enjoy getting to know and adding value and connecting people in different businesses.
112. 23:52So maybe I think Jonathan want
113. 23:54Yeah, let's start with Jonathan just tell you you probably know a little bit about the CEDC. Not there's a lot of layers of it. So
114. 24:01Sure. Sure. Absolutely. U first I'll tell you a little bit about the organization then I'll introduce you to the team. So CEDC is a local development corporation just profile of the county and snapshot of what we do and essentially we are the county's uh lead economic development agency. So, we work closely with the county implementing programs for the county, but we also administer the Hudson Industrial Development Agency and the Columbia County Industrial Development Agency, which are the organizations you would go to as a developer or a businessman and you were trying to expand your business and you needed some benefits to support and drive project.
115. 24:39Um, and then last but not least is the land bank. The land bank is another entity that we administer for the county that is nasonent starting up, but it's a mechanism that hopefully will enable us to build more housing throughout the county. Um, it's it it uh legally allows us to take property and do things with it. Um, so that's who we are. About $1.3 million budget every year. There about seven of us right now. And I'll ask everybody, the most of the team is here, so they'll introduce themselves.
116. 25:07Then last but not least or maybe first our the product that we're probably most well known for our small business loans. We have a variety of different loans and Martha Lane manages that program. So turn it over to Martha.
117. 25:19Hi Jonathan. I'm on the board of the Columbia County Chamber and Jonathan is a very active member. We've met on several occasions. Uh yeah uh I administer our loan fund. We have two separate funds. One is the CEDC revolving loan fund. The other is the SBA microloan uh fund. And uh we have roughly 180 loans in our portfolio. We make loans in both Columbia County and Green counties. And uh our sweet spot is very small loans, typically $50,000 or less.
118. 25:52And I'm Steve Vandenberg. I joined the organization in 2023 and I worked with Martha on our loan program. And Cat and Lisa. Lisa manages the uh IDA administration and Cat is our bookkeeper, manager of our accounting. You guys want to introduce yourselves?
119. 26:08Mr. Bush, nice to meet you.
120. 26:11Cat Laden.
121. 26:13So that's who we are. So what we're looking for is people who actively want to support the governance structure to build processes and strategy around what we're doing. So hopefully both those areas interest you. Well,
122. 26:27yeah, it's funny that you say that. um in my firm um process and procedure I utter these words on a daily basis. Um it's how we've grown um from the small actually started Brian Mahoney was our first client was Columbia Memorial Hospital with seven units and um after we're in our sixth year of full operation we have just under 300 units under management and um collect around 5 million in in rent roll and um you don't get there without operations process and procedure.
123. 27:03uh before this in another lifetime I work for Morgan Stanley in their operations division downtown and um it's just something that's ingrained. So when you mention that those are buzzwords so I'd be happy to lend um we've started several companies since Clever Property Management with that kind of in the the backdrop. So any of that um you know I've started consulting with younger people who are starting to get into the entrepreneur side of business and saying hey look this is what I did this is what I didn't do um so any of this I'd be happy to lend very good for doing on your own and making money off of what you do
124. 27:43helping others grow before we get into the intense questioning from from our panelist
125. 27:50I just want to let you know you can relax uh this is not a competition.
126. 27:57We We have three magazines. I think we're interviewing three people.
127. 28:02I knew that. I was talking to him walked up. I texted Mahoney. I'm like, "Get me, dude." I was like, "What is this?" And he's like, "You're not competing."
128. 28:12Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
129. 28:15So, we're glad you're here. Yeah.
130. 28:17That's great.
131. 28:19Um,
132. 28:20back to the question.
133. 28:22Introduce yourself. questions from the committee.
134. 28:25Well, I'm I'm Rick Cummings. Um I own a propane gas company, local Moulder and Gas, and I've been on the board now seven years, I believe. So, um good to have you guys in.
135. 28:40I'm Tara Gay. I own an auction house down the block public sale. I've been on the board for several years. I'm the vice chair.
136. 28:48Rachel Bean. Um I I'm not sure how long, but how many years? Several. Yeah, five.
137. 28:56Five.
138. 28:57I think it's more than
139. 28:58I think it's five. I don't know. The the years during co went by quickly. Um I live in Germantown. I'm a former advertising New York City branding person. Now I'm a real estate license up here.
140. 29:11My name is Jim Calvin. I'm the chairman of the board publication and I have a I'm a consultant here in the communications field and it's nice to see. Yeah. Same. Thank you.
141. 29:23And I'm Christine Hens. I'm an associate broker with Coldwell Banker Village Green out of Catskill and I live in Takana and I've been here for about 20 years.
142. 29:35So um any question? Let's get started.
143. 29:39Well, I'll start with my boiler plate. Yeah, thank you.
144. 29:44And I I I with with applicants, I like to just get an overall view of of of what you think of the e the economy in Columbia County. It its strengths and it does have a lot of strengths and also its challenges. Um there is no right or wrong answer. Just curious at your take on where you think we are and maybe where we should go or what we should change or keep the same.
145. 30:10Um, I feel like I don't have a very full picture of the economy in Columbia County. There's a lot to learn. Um, my stent kind of is being both out in the world for work, but also just as a resident here is that housing is too expensive that uh so many people that work in different businesses are coming from far away, which is a huge problem. Um, I think there's a lot of amazing stuff and amazing development. I keep kind of stumbling on like new projects and new things I didn't know about that amaze me.
146. 30:43And there's just feels like there's a ton of potential, but then there's also um the housing issue. Um I personally for me like uh sustainability and climate stuff. There's some amazing projects going on that inspire me, but also like that is a big issue. Um, and then also I don't know this area like it's it's an aging population and um how do we like that's the same with the housing but like the the demographics are this is one of the oldest counties in uh New York State and where's the future if that comes to younger people to be here
147. 31:25and and all those questions too you is are faced by this group and have been discussed And uh that's what we try to solve best we can.
148. 31:35Yeah. I mean we being in property management, we're on the front lines of this conversation. Um you know, we've been there watching the rents go up. It's easy to say the housing is expensive and it's easy to say like, you know, we're driving out the working class. Um but there's a cost that's associated with owning these buildings that a lot of people aren't seeing. Um, insurance for these things are going through the roof. Taxes are being reassessed.
149. 32:02There's a lot of quiet money that's being uh eaten up by all of these other expense, fuel expenses, overhead, heating, electrical, um, all these things that some of the landlords are carrying on their own. And I know you guys see some of this in realy. Um, it's just it's becoming so expensive to operate.
150. 32:24Then when you talk about financing and you talk about a lot of these buildings were bought like 10 15 years ago on low interest loans and those loans are going to reset and they're going to jump from like a 3 or 4% to a 6 or 7% 8% that double jump. Their rents may not be able to carry that debt. They haven't wisely been paying down debt in the last 10 to 15 years.
151. 32:49So you're seeing a lot of this start to stack and pile up. Uh, and unfortunately, you know, it's easy to say rents are too damn high, but when you really look closely on why those rents are going up, there's a lot of truth to why they're going up.
152. 33:02Then there's, as John was saying, that people coming from downstate, upstate, right, during CO that thrust the rents through the roof. We're seeing that start to come back down to earth. You know, it was Hudson was starting to get close to the 3,000 a month rent in the apartments, which I know is crazy to some people who have been here a long time. I know. I know. I was here when people would say, "I just need running water." Like, that's they 650 a month.
153. 33:32Um, but you know, we saw it getting near that 3,000 mark and that's kind of leveled off. Um, we've also seen the regression of people leaving and going back down state. Um, you know, that big push to get out of the city after COVID kind of burned off. Um, some people came back. Some people were just like, "Ah, this really isn't my thing. I don't want to be upstate." Um, so we're seeing some of that regression now.
154. 33:59And we saw it in the home sales all over Columbia County. you started seeing these beautiful homes in Gant and um Valatia and all these homes that were redone out in um the areas in the different county parts of the county just started popping up 1 million, 2 million, 3 million and you're like where the hell were these homes, you know, 10 years ago and people bought them, they came up, they renovated them, they dumped a ton of money into it.
155. 34:23A lot of our local contractors were were able to make a lot of money off of that. Uh and then those people were like, "Okay, we're done." they sold them and they beat F feet and they probably went down state or if you really want to get into it headed way south um to beat the tax burden.
156. 34:39So, um what we're seeing in in the local economy is just that you know your restaurants on Warren Street are like what are we doing? Um one of our clients is the the folks that own Mexican radio and they for years kind of like well are we doing this? Are we not doing this? Is there work staff? Is there not work staff?
157. 34:58and you look down Orange Street, the the chocolate factory, you know, all these different places. They're putting all this beautiful money into these restorations, but then the work staff isn't there. And everybody used to say, "Oh, it's all right. They live out." But that's pushing now.
158. 35:13We have clients that are um um Oh, man. The town just blanked. Um give me a second. My cheat sheet. Um, we have clients that own here in Hudson and have out in Filmont and Filmont's now starting to grow. So, it's like pretty soon the people that were able to afford those areas, it's going to continue to push. Where does that stop? I don't know.
159. 35:41Um, I know I've met with the gentleman who is doing the um the um Habitat for Humanity and they're trying to build homes here in the county and they're doing a great job, but he was telling me about how their costs continue to go up and we're just seeing it.
160. 35:57You know, the fuel cost, it goes right into all of our supplies or anything, petroleum, roofing, anything that goes into construction. It's just the cost is growing. So, the cost to build is growing, the cost development. And so, companies, entities like this where you're able to like offset some of that cost all important.
161. 36:17So, the second assignment on our housing dashboards.
162. 36:23I I'll take the nomination. So now you have to solve the problem.
163. 36:29Your incorporation has some grants in Filmont, right? I I feel like in 2025.
164. 36:34Yes, we've got some work in Filmont. There's some IDA. There's the um something restor Hopkins house restoration.
165. 36:41Yeah, the spring. Yeah, we were on that project and it um we we got to the point with spring where we were like the the numbers had to be like a certain way and we was like this is beyond this is a big lift and the building had sat vacant while they were doing a lot of homework for a while and um it just got to the point I was like you know what this is this is going to be this is going to be too much and I think they ended up settling with Lagonia.
166. 37:05Yes, they they went with Lagonia. They've started some work and they've also found an operating partner for a restaurant. Yeah. So, that helps. Yeah. But you put your finger on a big dynamic right now that I think the ideas have to think very carefully about and that is two years ago all the deals came in. Everybody had their property closed, their investment stack lined up. They were ready to roll. They were waiting on us. They were pushing pushing.
167. 37:27And now it's the opposite. Now people are applying for benefits before they've even secured the property. So it's a bigger lag period for us to figure out how to manage because that means much more risk.
168. 37:40So So we'll keep you busy.
169. 37:42Yeah. Happy to help questions. Do you have questions for us? Any questions?
170. 37:52I I feel I'd like to know a little bit more about what the board members do. I mean I I understand that SBA loan
171. 37:59That's a perfect segue. That's right. Great job.
172. 38:11This just a just a quick summary of what's expected of you as a as a board member. Uh and the uh it sums up to you need to study up, you need to show up, you need to speak up, and you need to hand up. Uh and that applies to just about any organization that that you uh would be serving.
173. 38:39Uh reading, understanding our bylaws, our strategic plan, uh our uh all the uh rules and regulations that apply to uh to our organization. Uh make sure you understand that and all it's available uh on the website. You do a great job of the website. It's it's complete. It's uh easy to use. So, if you haven't visited that recently, please do.
174. 39:06Uh showing up means to the board meetings. The board meetings typically are the last
175. 39:17Tuesday. The full board's the last Tuesday.
176. 39:19Last Tuesday,
177. 39:20Unless it's a holiday and then it may go early at 8:30. Uh and those those meetings typ typically last 45 minutes to an hour 15 minutes once in a great while. There's a major issue that extends that. But um uh we don't keep you here all day.
178. 39:38Uh in addition, you're expected to serve on at least one committee. Uh the committees um help you again are audit, finance, governance, and nominating committee, which is this one, and loan. And we'll work with you to consider your your interests where you would like to uh to serve. Um and uh we can certainly use your help in any of them.
179. 40:10Um some of those committees like the loan committee meet monthly, others meet every other month. Um but uh being uh not only a member of attending uh those meetings but uh speaking of offering your opinion, sharing your experience as you both have already done today uh is very helpful.
180. 40:34So uh and and uh as you become become more familiar with CDC uh we want you to share uh information about CDC to the contacts you have in the community.
181. 40:54And lastly is antie up. Uh each member uh of the board uh pays an annual investment for a membership. That might be $100. It might be $2,500 depending upon the size of your business and we'll work with you to figure out what that is. But that's an annual investment on the part of each board member.
182. 41:15Why do we do that? Uh because we're trying to express to the board of supervisors, the county board of supervisors is uh our primary source of funding. Um but we need to at least make an effort to balance uh that public funding with private funding. This truly is intended to be a public private partnership and uh and we need to to prove that every year uh by contributing monetarily to the CC questions about that. That's pretty straightforward. Anything that scares you off?
183. 41:55No. Put another zero after the number that scares everybody.
184. 42:09Okay. Any more questions?
185. 42:12So, we'll be back in contact with you shortly. Great to everybody to serve our board. If there are any questions in the in the meantime.
186. 42:24Yeah. Thank you so much for your time and great.
187. 42:27Thank you. Thanks. Thank you very much.
188. 42:52Thanks. Nice to meet you. That's why I hate having oil.
189. 42:55I know. I was like
190. 43:01Yeah. Yeah.
191. 43:03We went up 3%. Everybody else went up big.
192. 43:07Oh, researching. That's really
193. 43:10Yes, I've been researching.
194. 43:12Yes.
195. 43:14Oh, you're a new
196. 43:15I need a new furnace.
197. 43:19That's a big bathtub.
198. 43:22Okay. Motion to approve the minutes. Second.
199. 43:26Thank you.
200. 43:27All those in favor? Anyone opposed? So carried.
201. 43:31Okay. Now we need to
202. 43:34motion going to executive session personnel matters.
203. 43:38Second.
204. 43:39Second.
205. 43:40All those in favor? I
206. 43:42Okay.
207. 43:47Okay. So after interviewing three candidates, um I'll take a a a motion to approve all three candidates for board membership to be presented to the full board.
208. 44:03John Perry, Jonathan Miller, and Reef Bush.
209. 44:07So moved.
210. 44:08Second.
211. 44:10All those in favor?
212. 44:12Anyone opposed? So carried. Great. Very exciting. We finish one of these. You want to read?
213. 44:22Yeah. If you can just have me obscene. Okay. Okay. We can
214. 44:32motion.
215. 44:33Second. All
216. 44:36in favor.
217. 44:38I move.
218. 44:40Thanks. Get your syrup and I'll

Timestamps link to the corresponding moment on YouTube. Auto-transcribed, contains speech-recognition errors. Not an official record.