or next year but even though it's small to some people whether it's 10,000 or 30,000 or whatever that number is there's still some people who are in The Gap and I know Mr campen said something about businesses and I'd like for you to probably explain what you're talking about there but um it seems to me like we need people to have a smaller um number because some people just don't have that money they don't have the to to get to that match maybe it's somebody who does have a small business I just just for example I throw let's say when we had the roasted record coming or some other thing coming on Colorado maybe they just wanted just that extra amount to help them with a decent uh minimal uh landcaping plan but they just don't have it and uh maybe even 5,000 is too much I don't know if we could go down or have different categories or levels or something other than this um you know the big number the 25 and then the five because I think that there's some small people who are not still not able to take advantage of it because even at that they can't come up with their 50% and then there are other people who if they had to come up with 10,000 or 25,000 or whatever it is they could come up with it easily and and possibly qualify for this grant so what I guess what I'm trying to say is that there are people who over the years when we've seen the grant happen is that people who probably could have paid for something anyway are able to get it because they can always quickly come up or able some way to come up with their 50% but then there's somebody who might have a smaller level business who's still not able to come up with you know all of 2,000 or 3,000 or 5,000 or whatever that number is and uh can you explain again how how we can make sure that we're not losing anybody in the Gap and that we're getting you know those really small people so there's actually no minimum requirement to apply for this this grant program there's just a maximum that we can allocate per application so say if someone comes in and only had is paying $5,000 worth of improvements we would match them at 2500 2500 yeah so the our ma small thing they can still come in with something all right that's fine I I looked at the um language where is the language I was looking at the language somebody else can make a comment while I'm looking back at the language because this is what we're going to be using Okay commission Clark I commissioner Clark if I can just because she does bring bring up a good point and panal perhaps you can respond to it it is difficult for some of these businesses to front the $5,000 that is that correct do you find that to be the case um I think they um I don't think the match is an issue uh because they do uh appreciate that the C is matching uh their project so we haven't had any concerns about oh we can't provide the match that's not the problem it's just no no not on our part saying that the business own said well I don't have the $5,000 and you know to expand while I have to wait for you to reimburse me do you find that yeah we haven't had that issue where somebody complained that I don't have the money up front to pay um that hasn't been an issue it's it's really just the eligibility requirement that yeah I think when that problem arises it's when we add a condition of irrigation that they weren't expecting that additional expense or we want them to add another large shade tree that adds another $5,000 that they weren't expecting I think that's the only problems we've had so commission Clark have you had business to say to you I just can't I can't I can't come up with the $3,000 if I can if I can respond briefly to that too I don't think anybody has affirmatively come into City Hall and said I don't have the money what we observed over the years and I don't know in the last couple years how it's been because I haven't paying as close attention but there were sever several years that we didn't get $50,000 in applications and it was surmised that the reason why people are not applying is because they have to pay upfront the money that you're describing commissioner rich and as a result there is nobody coming and knocking on the door and saying hey I filled out the application but I can't do it because I don't have the matching funds you don't actually get that verbal communication where they express that they don't have the financial wherewithal to do it but the fact that we aren't inundated with every single business in downtown Stewart asking for free money tells you by itself that part of the reason why is because there's a Buy in up front that makes it more expensive than they can buy in because otherwise why wouldn't everybody be knocking down the door but I don't know if the last three or four years have you guys had more applications than funding or less so we only have $50,000 up for grabs and we don't give it all away and now we're going to have $25,000 more but the reason that we didn't give it all away was because we literally didn't get $50,000 in applications and Madam chair unless we're going to Institute a program where we check their tax returns how are we going to determine if they can afford it or not right now it doesn't matter if your business makes $20 million a year or $20,000 every business is eligible yeah so so I think we'll just make it I mean again I think this is a nice simple program the CRA staff can can administer it nice and simply let's keep it simple and let's keep it simple without trying to micromanage the program Mark wants to say something um go ahead yeah thanks Madam chair the um my comment on this as a business person myself and and having property is that what I think I've seen is that nobody's coming forward for these grants unless they're planning on doing the work anyway and so that's what they're doing and using this income this money to supplement what they're doing and I'm not sure that's what the purpose of this program was was the purpose of this program just to help business people pay what they were going to do anyway or is the purpose to have some sort of targeted effort with this money to to actually make improvements within the CRA in my opinion it kind of goes to what what Tom said earlier is that I think a lot of the money is just going to help people uh who were already going to spend it anyway and and as soon as we start putting any kind of restrictions on it now you got to hire a landscape architect maybe and you've got some additional engineering costs or other costs that you got and it just raises the cost on their project and they say well I bother I don't need it that much I if you're going to give it to me as extra I'll take it but you know if it's if I got to really you know if I'm going to incur some additional costs and it's going to make my program more difficult why mess with it and and I think that's what I have a problem with is that and that's the same thing especially if it's small amounts of money I mean when we had the paint up program back in the day um you know that was it was an effort that people did paint because they could get the money and and and they made an effort and so we got a lot of properties painted that probably would have stayed that way for a long time I'm just saying I I think to some degree I don't disagree with what we're talking about in terms of how to split this up the way it is now but I think we're wasting money because I think that we're spending money giving people money that they were already to spend on their on the first place you could be right on some of it but I believe it gives them the uh the blight that we do have and that you do see in the city that incentive to want to be you know more less blight full and and want to update their place and and I do believe it's a great incentive to get them to do it quicker How would how would we augment one more one more thing I want to say I want to ask um what is the average a person spends is it more than 10,000 yeah we do do you see people coming that want to spend 20 30,000 yeah we do have a list where they're spending more of their private money making more of an investment and the 10,000 match is really just small compared to what they're investing on private property I would like I have a $21,000 dumpster so that gives you an idea what some of the stuff costs I mean that to to put a dumpster back there for the restaurant it was $21,000 so that's what I'm getting at ,000 what to put that in that's what it cost me to put that Improvement on my property a dumpster so I'm just saying you know a lot of this stuff if if they offered me $10,000 with a $10,000 match if I wasn't going to do that I'm not going to go out and spend $21,000 on a on something just because the city gave me 10 grand I don't I don't see um dumpsters as being something we pay for no that was just my my point point is that these things are expensive when people are doing these improvements to do something for 10 grand anymore or or 15 grand you know you can't do it anymore I mean panel knows it's just too expensive I was thinking just the opposite of what you were thinking I was thinking that uh that incentive that if we even made it larger could we get some some uh better bigger buildings uh to come to make more impr yeah that was disc if you want to increase the amount maybe for architectural if it's a more of an architectural investment I think that's worth giving a little bit more but um you know maybe it's a specific type of improvements not just overall exactly because I think that's more visible and um it'll it'll add character to the existing I think one day we might need to we might need to talk about that have this conversation commissioner Collins so there's a few different kind of threads that are floating floating around one would be if there is issue with this how would you remedy and this is kind of just discussion I'm throwing this out there I'm not trying to really make a defined Point how would you make this better if The Upfront expense is an issue would you just go ahead and prepay it out what would be how would you mitigate that liability if it all not even worth talking about yeah everything that all grants are usually reimbursement bases because they have to demonstrate that they completed the war right do you do it in pieces could you do half and half you could do a draw schedule just like the banks do on construction if you wanted to depending on what I mean we would only reimburse for the portion that you completed so like if they really needed the money up front and they received a grant for $10,000 for instance and they they could submit receipts and uh reimbursement package for dispersement uh for $5,000 we could pay that and then we could pay the 5,000 upon completion of the remaining of Mike's comment would that maybe open the door to more people applying so that we use all of what we're sched we we work I mean I we really work with the applicant on some of these details and we give extensions when it when it's needed so those are that's not really the issue discre it's more just a lack of awareness of the program it's it's just that there's always so many people out there that want to do improvements in every one time right and if you look at business owners if you make it larger so that say someone downtown will want to redo all their windows or whatever it is they got a building worth how many millions of dollars do they really need a couple thousand dollars from the city so I think this program is for the small business owner not necessarily a owner of a piece of property but the small small business owner so that he can improve his business so that the so that the outside looks better and so we get a benefit and at the same time he gets a benefit by increasing his business and I think if we leave it that way it's fine if we start to go all over the place we're going to make a mess out of it but just uh one more is I like the idea of parceling this out that you you two had discussed as well my one of the comments that you had made uh board member Camp Penney was sort of driving everything towards drought tolerant plants so I wanted to offer potentially why not include irrigation or some you know if irrigation is kind of the issue um drought tolerant plants are not always the most attractive and Lush and tropical uh as a plant guy you know so maybe having irrigation be included within that or some portion of it uh for people that may not want to go all drought tolerant you know or it's not really appropriate for where they're they're at yeah you know a shady your spot or it really depends Case by case bases like everything in downtown is so urbanized that it's really hard for them to even put any landscaping and then ask for irrigation like now if we go on us one yeah I mean they they could do uh you know major landscape improvements and we could require them to do uh irrigation what I'm saying is including uh the cost of irrigation within even the Landscaping yeah up to some percentage of it you know well we don't require the irrigation but if they want to spend money on irrigation that could be part of the program is that what you're saying basically so to commissioner McDonald's point you know if you're using drought tolerant plants that shouldn't there should be no requirement to right do irrigation but if you are and it's still required maybe we help cover the cost of that as well within yeah so I think with the burp they could still probably do minor Landscaping improvements and still apply under the burp but if they're going to be doing major improvements um then we should probably require irrigation as part of the landscape Improvement program so for that program we could require them to do irrigation but if they're just doing some minor you know drought tolerant they could probably fall under the burp program because they would probably making other improvements also so you already have internally a way to navigate that without having to make any change to the program well we're GNA have to bring back the amendments to the program to the board for approval because right now irrigation is I'm not irrigation Landscaping is required as part of the birth program got so we have an application for resurfacing uh project and and they don't meet the minimum uh Point requirement because they have to do landscaping so we're not able to bring that application forward um so we're running into a lot of these you know um applications we can't bring it because they don't they're not eligible needs to change than defitely M commissioner uh uh today what do you need from us say do you need just recommendations and you'll bring it back or do you need a moot any motions today I think we we got good recommendations uh we'll make the Amendments and bring both programs together one will be the new Landscaping program with irrigation requirement uh with the maximum um $5,000 and for the burp we're probably just going to revert back to how the program was and it was successful and that's the direction I feel like I'm getting from the board and and your map that shows the area the outlined area you're going how how are you going to um you're just going to have this up on the city's website or you going to send out a Target letter to these businesses we we send out notices to all the businesses about the program so they're getting notices every year okay and plus we have our neighborhood services department um and if we feel like a a property owner could use some improvements we'll have them deliver the notice hand deliver the notice to them have you ever had like a coffee time or something to invite the businesses to to tell them about the um to have a little open house once or twice a year or whenever the application cycle season starts to just make sure that we're doing all everything education of all the C programs that's that's a good point we could do something like that we could invite the business owners and residents and inform them about different programs that's offered by the CRA or even if um Commissioners or mayor having coffee with the mayor or something we could attend those meetings and were you volunteering is that were you we have done that were you volunteering to host it I can host one of those okay we'll continue to educate thank you needs to go tell Rosewood records to get an awning out front I wonder um in in with the money that we're talking about that that some spend and maybe they're they're not they're not uh applying for this in the last three years have we spent the 50,000 every year we have okay good good good news what we we don't need a motion then no all right well then this meeting ised right e