So do you think beaver might be your spirit animal or are you seeing beavers a lot or maybe one moved into your neighborhood and you're just wondering, you know, what the meaning might be if it has a message for you? Well, keep listening because we're going to explore beaver as a spirit animal and what this unique animal signifies and what it might be trying to tell you. Okay, so first of all beaver is a rodent. It belongs to the same family as mice, rats, squirrels, and so forth. But unlike most rodents, it is adapted to live in an aquatic environment and in particular, what's known as a riparian environment, which means it's a river or a stream habitat. So it has a lot of adaptations to help it to survive in that, you know, watery environment. We'll talk about those, you know, throughout this video. Alright, so first thing that most people think of when they see a beaver or think about beavers is just busy as a beaver and that is one of its primary spirit animal meanings is industry industriousness, diligence, the willingness and ability to take action and to build and create, you know, what it is that you want to see happen. So beavers will of course cut down the trees, they'll chew them down and they will not only use the tree bark and the little twigs as food, but they will actually dam up the stream and create a pond and, you know, with the tree branches, they build not only the dam, but they build what's known as a lodge, which is their nest or home in the middle of the pond that they create by creating the dam. Okay, so that takes a lot of work and also we're looking at industry or we're also looking at ingenuity and there's also, if you look at the beavers teeth, those also reflect that spirit animal meaning. Teeth are very prominent in a beaver. They, you know, if you've ever seen like the cartoon beavers, Bucky the beaver, whatever, they have, I've always had this great big teeth out in front. If you get close to a beaver and take a look, you'll notice that those teeth are bright orange. So that is due to a large amount of iron in the beavers tooth enamel. So these teeth are adapted not just to be big and massive to cut down these, you know, gnaw away these trees, but also to be extremely, extremely hard. So quite a few symbolic meanings that we can glean from the teeth of the beaver. And one of these is decisiveness, the ability to break down ideas and to make a decision based on those ideas to see, you know, to actually cut into the core of a situation, cut into the core of an idea. It's really like almost like hyper focus in a very active way, right? Decisiveness. And that decisiveness is also echoed. Echoed at the other end of the beaver, they've got this tail that is flat, unlike almost any other, I don't think of, I know of any other creature that has a flat tail that's horizontal like that, in addition to using that as a rudder. And they also actually use it to prop themselves up sometimes when they're sitting, but they'll slap the surface of the water with that flat tail, sound the alarm. Again, decisiveness and decisive action in an emergency situation. So all these are pretty positive things. The teeth of a beaver also can speak to, you know, being a sort of cutting, right? If you think of a cutting remark, so maybe a little bit more on the shadow side of beaver would be kind of speaking forcefully or speaking in a cutting way. So if you have a lot of beaver energy, you know, watch the way you speak to people. A lot of people with a lot of beaver energy will speak sort of in a sharp or rough way. They may or may, you know, a lot of times they're not really necessarily meaning to be harsh, but it can come across that way. So something to keep in mind if you're working with beaver type people, just keep in mind that they aren't always as harsh as they come across. On the other hand, if you are a beaver type of person, just you might want to consider modulating either your volume or just the remarks that you make and maybe bringing, learning a few lessons in tact can be very helpful to a beaver person. Okay, so hand in hand with industry is the idea of wealth creation. And beaver has a lot of things about beaver that really connect with that idea of wealth and abundance and luxury. First of all, just, you know, the its ability to build stuff and, you know, just kind of wealth accumulation is big. There's some of the dams beavers will work on and they'll work on it over generations, which we'll get to in a little bit. But they can be, you know, these dams can get very, very, very large. And so that's looking at, you know, just kind of infrastructure, the infrastructure behind creating wealth. And just as a side note, as we're talking about wealth beavers, and the other thing that another thing that beavers are really well known for is their fur back in the 19th century. They were actually very extensively hunted to their detriment really to in North America to send the beaver furs back to Europe to be made into ladies hats and all sorts of stuff like that. So, but very, very luxurious, soft, soft fur. And we'll talk a little bit more about the fur in a little bit. Interestingly, beavers, like I think I mentioned that they will work on these dams over generations. And they are one of the very, very, very few species that horde food that will share that food. They share it within the family unit. So this is wealth accumulation and also kind of wealth between within the family wealth, family money and generational wealth. And you can actually expand that into you know, the side effects of this wealth creation on the part of the beaver, it expands into its entire community because as the beaver builds its own structures for wealth creation, it creates an entire environment, creates this pond environment, right, which is tends to be a very ecologically rich environment. And a lot of species will actually depend on beaver in order to, you know, have the sort of environment or the sort of habitat that they need. So it really, you know, beaver isn't just working for its own benefit, it inadvertently as a side benefit, benefits many, many other species. It is considered a keystone species because of this. So this is a really, really important lesson in regards to your life purpose. Because there's a lot of, and many, many people kind of struggle with the idea of kind of following your own thing. It's really easy to feel guilty to doing something else or be feeling guilty about maybe earning money doing what you want to do. And the beaver is really showing us that when we're truly in alignment with with the work that we're doing, you know, in the world, if it's really in alignment with us, it will benefit everybody else around us as well.  And just really just, you know, just showing us that as you build your business, you're going to be benefiting a lot more than just you and your own family. Assuming that this business is truly in alignment with your spiritual purpose. Now, the flip side, of course, is there's a lot of flip side. So this, this animal, I'm going to say it again, is a wonderful animal for anybody in business or entrepreneurs, because it shows us both the positive, very positive, very positive and extremely negative sides, right?  Let's speak a little bit about that because there are sometimes people don't like beavers moving into the neighborhood, because they will, you know, really, really paint the trees and clear it out. And if you've ever been in an area where beavers have gone through, it's, it's kind of devastating looking. And so, and so that's why it's so important if you've got a lot of beaver energy to really be aware of, like, and I really aligned with spirit because it's really easy to get that wealth creation bug. You know, that's, that's, that's the dark side of this industry kind of thing, right? We've all seen it. I don't think I have to expound on that too much. But again, when you are in alignment, keep in mind that the beaver, its favorite trees to grow aren't the fast growing trees. Aspen, especially is one of their favorites. And the thing about Aspen, it does grow very quickly. And so when you, you know, clear cut an area of Aspen, things will start growing back pretty quickly. And, you know, it's like the first tree that grows back. So a beaver in its correct environment, although it may at times look devastating, it's actually, you know, it's, it fits in that environment. And it does some really good things for the environment. But again, it's got to be in the right place, right? In the right context. Okay, so let's take a look at the dam itself. And the dam is something that blocks the flow of water, dams it up. So here we're speaking to water is the element that really speaks to the emotions that symbolizes emotions. So we're looking at stopping the flow of emotions, or regulating the emotions, right? So there's, there's both things here. There's a lot of things that can be going on emotionally with with a beaver totem or a spirit animal, right? You know, if you're getting that the beaver speaking to the emotions, it could be blocks and the emotions, right? Could be a stuck second chakra, like, you know, your sacral chakra, look, if we were showing up, there may be issues with that sacral chakra. sacral chakra, of course, regulates emotions, and it also regulates creativity. Okay, so if there's issues with creativity and issues, you know, that there are, because beavers and amazingly remember, we have ingenuity and, and, you know, industry, those are all very creative things. Beaver is a huge second chakra animal. But if so, so looking at blocked emotions can actually really affect that. We're also looking at, you know, the ability to regulate because you're regulating the dam, right? So there's a difference between totally blocking and regulation, learning to regulate the emotions and let things flow without actually blocking. That can be a very huge challenge for beaver people, you know, the, the being able to actually express the emotions, knowing how to do that and learning how to do that in a way that's appropriate, learning, you know, to have that vulnerability, to be able to express the emotions and feel, you know, safe and being able to do express them effectively to others without, you know, being cutting or forceful, you know, that, that, that self control of emotions. And it can also talk to regulation, the ability to regulate things. So whether or not it's emotions, it's kind of the ability to, that kind of stewardship, right? Stewardship is another great big, great big meaning associated with beaver and points to not just the the water flow, but the whole environmental thing, which we'll get to in a little bit. All right, so another huge symbolic meaning of beaver is protection. So if you look at the beaver lodge itself, it's definitely, you know, all this energy that the beaver is expanding to cut the trees and build the dam and so forth. It's all to protect the family. Okay. So protection isn't a big thing. The family is another big one. Let's talk about protection first. In addition to the lodge itself, we have several physical characteristics about the beaver that point to protection being a big deal for this totem. The the nose and ear bells, it can actually, like it's got, you can think of beaver as having its own personal protective equipment, PPE, you know, which if you think of a little construction worker, right, a construction worker is going to have the, the ear plugs or that your, you know, sound muffs, they may have a respirator, they may have safety goggles and beavers got all this stuff built in. So they've got nostrils and ears, even that they can actually close while they're swimming to keep the water out. And then they've got a really well developed, nictitating membrane or third eyelid. It's this clear membrane that closes over the eyes so that the beaver can actually swim. It's like having goggles that they can see, although they don't really rely on their sight that much. But they do sort of have these little safety goggles. And finally, the lips being able to close kind of behind those front teeth that helps to keep them from inhaling water when they're swimming or carrying things in their, in their mouths. So related to that idea of flow and also of wealth and of protection is the idea of like fiscal responsibility. So beaver person is probably going to be either very, very fiscally responsible, responsible with their money. Or it could kind of flip. And there could be a lot of profit leaks going on. There could be a lot of, you know, not controlling the money very well, because that would be sort of like that energy, just kind of the shadow side of it or off balance, right? If it's sometimes things manifest in either extreme. Okay, so if you're beaver, a person, you may already be really good with money, or you may really need help with money. Or if you think you're really good with money, it can't figure out why, you know, things aren't as good as you think they should be. Look for the profit leaks. Look for places that you might be spending or losing money without even realizing it, you know, beavers always can be plugging the the leaks or repairing the dam. So there's a lot of sense of monitoring and staying on top of things, especially finances. Beaver has suddenly come forward for you. One of the things to consider is to just go take a moment, take a couple hours and go over your finances with a fine tooth to come see if something, anything in there is not not the way it should be or see what can be improved or what can be fixed. So another huge meaning symbolic meaning of beaver is family. And we already talked about the whole generation and wealth building and, and, you know, building things as a family. Beavers are monogamous. So it will be male and female beaver that, you know, raise the litters together. It's like this nuclear family idea, right? That's a very beaver thing, although they do will often have an extended family. The young may stay with them for a little while before they go off and start their own families. So they will always create the lodge and the moat that the dam so that they have are able to protect that family before they even start it. The young will often actually stay and help raise the next litter. So very close families. And the young often will settle pretty closely to the parents. They're probably not going to go very far. So we're looking at, you know, extended families, we're looking at if, if you're a beaver person, a family or community will be very important to you. If you don't have a lot of blood family around, if maybe there's, you know, either you've lost your family, don't have a very large family, or maybe you're just, you know, not, not really connecting with your actual blood family. You're going to want to find some sort of surrogate family, spiritual family, whatever it is, you know, find your church, find your friend group, find your tribes, tribe of some sort.  So this idea of fraternity is really big beaver energy. In hand in hand with that, beavers are really very territorial animal. So they do maintain and they defend their territories, you know, can be pretty fierce. Territory is a very big thing for beavers. They do not like intruders, they can get aggressive, they can even get violent. So if you're a beaver person, watch your need for space for one. You probably, you know, you'll want to really be aware of what's yours, what somebody else is, a lot of beaver people, they'll be very cognizant of like the boundaries, who owns what, what's mine, what's yours, right? This is not the kind of totem that is really into just openly sharing everything, right? It does not mean that they're not big hearted and generous at times, but it means that they want to know where the boundaries are, and they definitely will protect what's theirs. So if you are the kind of person that seems to share everything and beavers coming forward to you, it could be a lesson about boundaries about learning your own autonomy and maybe, you know, sticking up for yourself, sticking up for your boundaries, being able to hear again, the idea of expressing your emotions, being able to speak your truth, if you just really need the space, being able to even recognize that you may need space, you know, that that you have a right to your own possessions, to your own money, to your own space, to your own body, whatever it is, right? And being able to express that, stick up for yourself and defend it if necessary. Okay, so that said, beavers can be really good neighbors, right? So territory holding beaver, we'll get to know what's neighbors are we less aggressive towards neighbors, if it knows it's neighbors, right? So that old adage, good fences make good neighbors. It's a great one for beaver people. And again, it kind of points to this whole idea of community, and knowing where you're going, your place in the community. And again, like beaver people, like things that benefit the community, they can be really, really generous. Like, if you look at a lot of the 19th century industrialists and stuff, whatever you think of them, that they a lot of them did actually, if you look at like the Carnegie Mellon Library, Andrew Carnegie, giving lots of money for philanthropy. So philanthropy, again, there's that wealth building and stuff, beaver, beaver totem, beaver animal or beaver people, excuse me, can be great philanthropists looking out for their community. So that leads into the next couple of topics that I do want to cover in terms of beaver meaning, one of which is the stewardship, the responsibility. And if you look at, you know, the whole focus on family, you know, beaver energy really does have a lot to do with this, the stewardship holding things together. Responsibility, and it really does extend into the community, the civic responsibility, financial responsibility, responsibility for family, you know, the wanting to be the provider. And also definitely a huge point environmental responsibility. We've been talking about beaver representing the power to change the environment, the power to create the environment that you want to create. Okay, because beaver is this real creator animal. And it's very, very much like we mentioned a keystone creature in the environment. It does have its destructive capacity to really be destructive. But when it's in the right place in the environment, it's extremely beneficial, right? So beaver energy has a lot of power. If you've got a lot of beaver energy, you can really you have huge power to change your own life circumstances. But beyond that, you've got huge power to change the life circumstances of everybody around you. And so there is where that responsibility comes in. Because if you've got a lot of this energy, there's a lot of responsibility there. So to be really, really aware of that will really, really help. Because, you know, the, the last couple centuries, we've seen a huge amount of beaver energy in, in the world. And, you know, it can really this, the whole consumerism materialistic mindset, that's, that's really kind of this negative aspect of, of the beaver that's when it's out of whack, when that's out of balance, right? So I'm just going to kind of sum up the beaver spirit animal meanings. And I actually see this as an animal that reflects a lot of masculine energy, both the positive and the negative, negative expressions of, of masculine energy. And like I said, again, it's, it's sort of like this whole cycle that we're just coming out of right now, moving more into a more feminine kind of way of being on the earth. But we've come out of this huge kind of masculine cycle, right? And the beaver really, if I could pick one animal to symbolize that whole kind of masculine energy that we're just kind of transitioning out of it would be the beaver. Again, both positive and negative, because I think it's really easy to look at, you know, that masculine energy and get really down on it. And let's talk about that part first, because I want to end on a positive note. Okay, so negative shadow aspects of beaver workaholism is one, okay, that goes without saying, and with that the associated stress, right? So all that stuff that that we're experiencing, you know, that is tied up in this beaver totem, financial excess, you know, or this consumerism, materialism, overconsumption, you know, really just more and more and more and more. And with it, the environmental degradation that goes with it, being overly controlling, territorial aggression.  And but then we look at the positive side, and there's so much positive care too. Okay, so it's really, really important when we're looking at this beaver energy, and also masculine energy in general, not to throw the baby out with the bath water. There's so much amazingness wrapped up in this and, you know, industriousness, industry, the ability to work and work hard to build something that's worth building, right? We're all building a new, we are really right now looking at building a new society based on, you know, what we've learned from this whole cycle of this whole masculine cycle that we're coming out of is what we just mentioned, these negative qualities, but you know, building what's worth building. So let's, you know, we're looking at building a new society, we need that kind of beaver energy, because we're going to need to kind of build a new paradigm, build something like this, you know, those 40 earth that we're talking about wanting to build, we need this energy for that, as well as long as we stay very aware of what it is that we really want to build, there's that decisiveness, can we be decisive about what is it that we really need and want, not the stuff that we've been told, or led to believe we need it, okay, not operating out of fear, or, you know, it's others, let's think about how we can create wealth as a, you know, if we can look at the family of humanity, instead of just, you know, the families of this particular nation or this particular family, we can start seeing humanity itself as a family. There you go, I mean, we can start providing and protecting for all of humanity. And what an amazing world we can build, right, when we start thinking about that, and not just humanity, but our fellow creatures on this planet, providing and protecting for all of us being able, you know, there's that idea of the beaver being able to provide for and share the wealth with more than just itself individually. So that wealth creation, luxury, being able to live a beautiful life and not just like, here's something that speaks to like the idea of sustainable living, it does not mean that you have to be, you know, shivering in the dark, right, you can have a really good life and still live in harmony with the earth, right, in harmony with our environment, you know, environment, again, is one of these really positive aspects of beaver regulation and being able to regulate our own behavior, being able to be self aware and control our emotional reactions to things so that we can, you know, move forward in a way that that is stable and responsible. Okay, so stewardship, responsibility, all these things, these are all very, very positive aspects of not just the beaver animal, but actually the masculine archetype as well. So I hope that you have found this video on beaver helpful. If you, oh, just a couple words on interpreting this, because this is a lot, there's a lot of symbolism tied up in beaver. It's what I encourage you to do is just, you know, once you're aware of all this stuff, then it's time to let your intuition speak to you. What is it about beaver that's, you know, if a beaver is coming forward for you, what is it about the beaver that's really calling? Is it, is it maybe a particular part of its body and look into the meaning of that? Or is it a particular habit that it's had, has or behavior?  So if you're interested in additional resources or would like to request a personal session, I'm leaving links below. Thank you so much for, if you've gotten this far, I think you're probably pretty devoted to learning. So thank you so much for sticking with this and would love to have you subscribe if you feel so inclined, also appreciate your likes and your comments. If there's something about beaver that you are aware of that I didn't cover in this, I would absolutely adore it if you would leave those insights below it there, it could help a lot of other people. So again, thank you so much.


Development Committee to order, and for those of you all who don't know, this is a new committee that has been formulated specifically to address community development issues, and this particular topic that we're going to be covering today actually started out in the Economic and Community Development Committee and now has moved to the Community Development Committee, and we have two new, I'm a new person, new chair, and we have Mr. Howard DeVall, and we have Mr. Will Brennan. So I look forward to working with you guys. Erica, will you note that we are all duly present? I am going to turn it over to, unless there's something else we need to cover, because we don't have any minutes to read or anything. First meeting. This is a project that has really been dear to me because I have dealt with the food and security issues for several, several years. For those of y'all that remember my city days, but City Council did allocate $300,000 of our ARPA funds towards food and security, and our Food Policy Council has been working since how many years have y'all been working? Yeah. But we started in 2017, summer of 2017. So the start of 2017, I know that this concept came up in about 2018, and that was 2023, and I think that, I think that we are as close as we've ever done, and I want to thank the Food Policy Committee for all of your hard work, and I'm going to turn it over to Ms. Aisha Driggers, the Director of the Office of Business Opportunities, to go over the RFP that we'll be putting out, and I hope that's the right, that's the right, yeah, just to go over that so that we can make sure we are all clear on what it is that we're looking for and see if you all have any input. Yes, so thank you, Councilwoman Herbert. We have been working diligently with procurement and Ashley's group with the Food Policy Committee to come up with the best procurement method for this project. We decided the request for proposal was the route that we would pursue, and the idea is to identify an organization whose mission is to provide healthy, affordable food directly in neighborhoods with limited food access. That was really important, and some of the possible solutions include a mobile food market, but we also wanted to offer alternative solutions as an option. So we included food stores or other business solutions as long as their intent is to provide fresh produce, canned goods, baked goods, and meat or any combination thereof. Thank you, and I just wanted to add food stores, that is compliments of our dear friend, Joe, and I remember, Will, do you remember I argued and said there is no such thing as a food store, and then I looked it up in Wikipedia and it had food store. So that was another time that I said, Mr. Teller, you're right, but we want to make sure we honor that and some of his great ideas, too. And so our target area primarily for this first initiative is the 29203 and 29204 area code. Again, the market will provide fresh produce, processed goods, and some shelf-stable items for sale to local customers. Ideally, the products will be provided by local farmers and be brought to a centralized location where it will be sorted and packed based on custom orders if that's what the proposal lists. Other business solutions are encouraged, as we said, in addition to the mobile food market, but they must all meet the goal of providing healthy, affordable foods to the targeted communities. We did include some exclusions on this RFP. No alcohol or tobacco products can be sold in the business. We have to make sure we list that. And then this project is for new initiatives. So any existing business that responds to this RFP must provide plans for expansion of their additional services. So if they're an existing business, the idea that this is a new initiative for them to offer an additional service than what they currently provide. And so just for my clarity, that means that if you already, you think you have a unique grocery store or food store right now, if you apply for these funds, you must intend to do something totally different or additional, but not for your ordinary expenses that are ongoing now. Correct. For example, if they decide they wanted to do a mobile market as an extension of their existing food store or grocery store, then that would be eligible. I've listed the selection process for this RFP. This is our typical procurement process. We evaluate the technical responses. We do interviews, if necessary. Then the highest rank responsive and responsible proposal is then selected. And then we go into the negotiation phase of this process. I have listed a tentative timeline. We might have a few adjustments just because I think initially we're going to try to get it out maybe last week, but we wanted to make sure we had this meeting first. But for the most part, the proposal is ready to go out. So we do anticipate getting that out within the next few days. So I've listed the advertisement of the RFP and the pre-proposal meeting this month. And then next month we'll have the RFP responses due. Just a quick question. So how much time will they have between the advertisement and the responses being due? I believe we're going to do 30 days for that. Now typically, when we have a pre-proposal meeting, some additional questions may come out of that meeting, and we may have to extend that deadline based on the responses that we get, but currently it's going to be 30 days. Then we'll have the evaluation committee meet. And then as I said before, if we need to do interviews, we'll interview. If there's any additional questions we may have based off the proposal, we can schedule interviews and then do the vendor selection negotiation all in February. Like I said, that might extend maybe into the first week of March depending on, you know, if everything flows smoothly and we keep the deadlines as they are. And then we anticipate council approval in April just because you know it is a process. We do have to make sure the agreements are approved by legal and all of that before we can go to council for approval for the project. I have listed a budget, just a kind of an estimate of what we anticipate things may cost if we go the mobile market way. Pricing has definitely increased from when the Food Policy Committee initially identified the vehicle cost. So with the purchase and the wrapping that may be around 80,000, then the point of sale system, which is how they sell the products, about $5,000 for a year to purchase it, and then the monthly fee for that, then storage facility and equipment to sort the products and things like that, about around $35,000 and initial operating expenses at $150,000 for a total of about $270,000. Again, that is an estimate, you know, pricing changes. I mean, right now we're going through a lot of price increases right now, but that is a current estimate of what we anticipate. Excuse me, would this go to if it's a private person or business that wants to get into this business, would we provide them with the vehicle and all of that? They would purchase the vehicle with the funding from this proposal. So they would use the 300,000 that's our money to purchase that and then they would own the vehicle? Yes, yes. We have some issues with that now. We would go and join the They're not who owns the vehicle. Right, well currently the way we have it is they would purchase the vehicle, but we could, I guess we could put in an agreement that this is pending successful completion of intent. Oh, yeah, I would think we'd need a clawback of some sort on that $300,000. Keep somebody from going in and out of business quickly. Yeah, and especially even if it's just on the vehicle portion. I know that back in our long days, we were very reluctant to do loans on vehicles because they could actually do that financing through a finance company, but also because it's very hard to find the vehicles. The other question I had was do they have the opportunity, let's say they have a partnership with a particular organization that has a storage facility. We're not preventing them from partnering with someone in saving funds or no, absolutely not. And they can include that in their proposal on ways that they have been able to kind of stretch the funding because they have this partnership that allows them to not have to spend, you know, the leasing fee over a year. That would definitely be encouraged. Yeah, the only thing I see is I'm with the gentleman about purchasing the vehicle, all right, because someone could literally purchase the vehicle and we not see them six months later. Trying to find some ways to maybe put more onus or that they lease directly or purchase directly. That brings up a great point. You know, what are the metrics for us to gauge if this is successful? Who's going to look at the operation one year or two years down the line, get community feedback that yes, this is meeting the food desert that are out there. So I know our committee has a research and evaluation subcommittee. So I know it was proposed that that group look at coming up with an evaluation framework to measure success. So if that sounds all right with you, I know that group meets next week. We certainly can take that back to that group and try to come up with an evaluation framework. I know the RFP, we're looking at the next few days, but maybe try to have something before that RFP selection process is finalized so we can provide that back to applicants on, you know, some measurable outcomes. Well, and let them know that there are expectations. Yeah, I think that's a great addition. Yeah. And we would want like to ensure consistency of service, not someone who's operating one month and then, you know, next month. So we do have to, and I'm hoping that the food policy council with the level of expertise that you all have can help and also help the business, you know, in implementing, but to make sure that that we're hands on in doing whatever we can do knowledge wise or support services wise to be successful. Yes, Mr. Devall. Does the RFP set any minimum experience necessary in order to make a proposal? Yes, I think we did a minimum of one year experience in there currently and we asked for examples of success in the past five years. I believe it's what's in our three or five years, three to five years. And that would be in the food service industry. Right. Providing healthy food options to the community. Okay. And maybe this is a question for the food policy committee champion down there. What about like prep prepared foods? I mean, that's a big barrier. A lot of times is great. We get wonderful fresh food. But then the preparation of that, is that something that if somebody wants to get creative on a response to this, to have a prepared food, healthy food offering, is that up for debate in these responses? Like a veggie food truck? Right. So, I mean, getting the foods one thing, but you know, yeah. I don't think there's anything that would exclude that at a minimum. They have to provide the produce and those types of things. But in addition to that, I don't think there's anything. Now, the only thing with there may be some additional dehead requirements for prepared food that we need to consider if we if we allow them to do that labeling and things like that. But that is a good idea. Where they have the prepaid, prep, preprepared salads. And I'll just like to go back. If there's any outcome measures or any specific evaluation measures you all want to see, please, please let Aisha or myself know so that we can provide that information over to that research and evaluation committee. I know we looked at the low country treat grocery before the COVID. And we're impressed with that. Can you have a description of how that operates? I don't have all of those details, but I can get that. I just kind of wanted to provide you kind of a visual. Sometimes it's hard for people to visualize. How are you going to a bit of bus to provide a mobile market? But here's a good example of it. But we can definitely get some additional information on that. And I don't know if they've opened back to their regular schedule since COVID. They shut down at some point during COVID. Yeah, probably. Facility wise, through Parks and Rack or any other facility, do we have a DHEC certified kitchen that the city owns that could possibly be a part of the access to prepared foods? I'm thinking maybe one of our larger park facilities. Well, I think with the conversation of the new farmers market on Bluff Road in the kitchen there, that's something to consider access. Definitely. Along those questions, are we still working towards a commercial kitchen? There are no funds allocated for a commercial kitchen right now. That's still a concept that staff would love to see happen. We've certainly talked about it at the Bellfield Center. There's really dual conversations. One's a teaching kitchen to bring community members in to teach, and then the other is a commercial kitchen where you would let small business have a site they could rent that perhaps their product for sale. So those are really two different options. And I think the Joneses are looking at opening a commercial kitchen on North Lane Street, but it's not there just yet. And I know DER kitchen I believe is still operational on North Lane, which is a commercial kitchen option. That's all I have now for the food and security solutions initiative. We'll definitely incorporate the evaluation in there and the rest of the feedback. Ms. Sandra, did you have anything that you wanted to add? And since Ms. Sandra wasn't in the mic, she says that she's just happy to see this project going forward after several years. Gentlemen, y'all have anything? So moving forward, is this on the agenda? This is we need to be on that. Do we have a list of people that have expressed interest in this since we've been working on it for five years? We have several individuals have informed us that they would like to apply. I have been getting texts and calls from people since January when Ashley Witt is the RFP going to be released soon. So we do think that we will have a good bit of interest in this. So this may be the start of maybe future opportunities to help additional food and security solutions come in. Well, can we talk about that for a minute? I mean, what are some future opportunities? You know, there's brick and mortar in every neighborhood that maybe don't have the offerings that meet these healthy food and prepared foods. We always talked about a tax discount, but some sort of revenue stream to them for them to carve out some square footage in their establishment for these healthy food offerings. I mean, what's in the some future offerings that the policy committees come up with? I know one of the things we did want to come to you all with, we know soon y'all will have budget discussions. And so we did want to come with you all. We're working on a kind of a one pager now to come up with some priority solutions that when we we did those food gatherings back in 2019, 2020, we redid those last summer. So we had a kind of a shift in some of those policy priorities, especially with the onset of COVID. So we heard a lot of entrepreneurship and merging that with food access. So we did talk about something maybe, you know, this is one time $300,000. Maybe we can, you know, secure funding for this on an annual basis. Also, Councilman Brenner, we did talk about, you know, maybe it's a tax incentive, maybe it's something else to help entrepreneurs.  I know in some locations they do a tax incentive. I know in Greenville this past year, they they removed, I think it's some business expense that if you are like a food business or certain types of businesses in certain areas, some of the lower affluent areas across the city, they reduce some of those business fees. So there are some things, you know, we can look at creatively to do. I know also, you know, looking at kind of the agriculture side, how can we get kind of more of that urban ag into the city is something that has popped up within the committee as well. So those are kind of some things we've had discussion. Actually at our meeting just this past week, kind of some policy recommendations we hope to kind of bring to you all to kind of look at can we move on or those this year going into next year. And we had discussed the Greenville rebate program. Staff is looking into that to see pros and cons. Did that come to this committee or the other committee that was spun off? You you're the one that brought it up council. Yes, sir. And that is what we were just discussing where it will land. And I guess based on this discussion, this would probably be the better place for it to be because it would be along with full policy council and some of their recommendations. So this Wilson, you are correct. And it should probably come to this committee. I believe that what they've done in Greenville is to target areas that within a certain area if you're a grocer, is that an edism? It's a grocery store in a certain area. They rebate the business license. They make them pay the business license and then rebate it. All right, I think that is all we had on the agenda today. We'll have something. Well, I mean, thank you for the presentation. Madam Chairwoman, can we just take a minute to talk about the goals of this new committee now that it's formed? Right. I would like to know as well. Because I'd like to talk about topics of town and gown I think I've mentioned to you. I think it would be a good fit for this committee to really study. For those who aren't familiar, explain town and gown. That is the ongoing relationships between municipality, county, local governments, and higher education and education institutions. So how does USC Benedict Allen, all of our wonderful universities, Midlands Tech, how can they fit into the fabric of our quality of life here in the city? The ultimate goal is to keep the talent that comes through our education outlets and have them want to stay. We want them to fall in love in Columbia and stay in Columbia. So that is the goal of town and gown and just how in sync we can get with our universities. I know that there is some serious commitments by many of the universities to be a part of that. And the great thing about our universities, they're all over our city. They're all over our county. So no community goes untouched by the footprint of our universities and colleges, which is wonderful. So just to start that topic in the future, I think this is a good home for that. I hope you agree. I agree. And one of the things that we have discussed as well is housing inventory. And the five year, we wanted to develop a five year plan, but it covers both properties that are commercial as well as residential, that maybe we can develop a plan on infill or something to help with our affordable housing crisis as well. I think we ought to assume all the power we have. We can into this committee control community development. It's a large organization. And then, of course, community development in that department as well. So Mr. DeVall, did you have anything in particular? You wanted to make sure? All the community development programs, though, this would be a good opportunity to have a council committee that could provide oversight for them. Maybe we could get some of the required reports to be given to this committee rather than that full council instead of a half hour at the full council. Use our time. And I agree with that, too. Because we discussed earlier, I think maybe at our retreat, but making sure that each of our departments are really working in line with the goals that we've set.  So I think that this is an opportunity to make sure that I think we've done a good job, for instance, with our homeless ARPA funds and allocating it to non congruent housing, because that was the need that we saw, you know, in council. So I would like for us to use this opportunity, too, to make sure that that we're working hand in hand and no spending the funds in the direction that that council would like for it to go. I think community development itself, the whole organization of community development is confusing for the elected officials because it is not run like a normal city department because it has federal requirements in it and part of the employees are federally funded and part of them are locally funded. And so for this committee to get a whole of an understanding of how that works, I might help the council as a whole understand the relationship between our community development programs. And there's several, there's many of them, with how they operate according to federal rules and tie that with the desire of the council to move a certain program in a certain direction. I agree. What is community development is the contact point for our neighborhood associations, correct? Yes. I think growing and engaging those neighborhood associations would be a fantastic path forward just to see our Columbia council neighborhoods grow, our local neighborhood associations grow, working with Ms. Leisha with messaging is something that we could look at. That's the interesting point. I won't go, well, because I remember the days back when we used to have, we have three community liaisons. And so I think that is worth, you know, just looking at making sure we're all understand the structure who's on first, the purpose of a lot of these positions. Because a lot, I think that's the thing too, sometimes people don't understand the purpose of some of the positions. So I think that'd be great. So maybe we'll start with that just getting an organizational overview at our next meeting. This one was time sensitive. So that's why we wanted to get this one done. And I appreciate you all meeting on a not regular meeting time just to make sure we got that done. And what is the regular meeting time? Yes. And that one shouldn't. My preference would be to post it ahead of that. Yeah, we don't, yeah, we wouldn't suggest holding it up for anything else for the good of the group. And we are adjourned.


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