If you are searching the past for answers, just look to the Evansville Observer for research. Up at the top of the banner is the "blog search" feature. In the blank space near the "search this blog" type "sortis." Or click on the post for the result which is the 2-28-2006 economic developemnt minutes.
You can see that the correct answer to the question is $5,000. That is the budgeted amount the city has for the Sortis study. In order to contract for any more services, a supplemental appropriation would have to be passed through the Evansville Common Council.
What is "branding?" I am not sure. It might be-----Evansville, Wisconsin----Home of The Evansville Observer.
That would be a catchy identity that would be remembered nationwide. Other catchy phrases could be used, but I will leave others to think of them.
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I think there are a couple of things going on here which easily get combined, but need to remain separate. Sortis provides services to companies and a few municipalities to assist with "branding". As a part of this service, they offer a grant research and writing service to help off-set the cost of their branding services. To date, the Economic Development Committee has paid Sortis $4,000 to research any and all grants that Evansville may qualify for, not just for branding. This has been done and a presentation of their findings was made to the Committee.
ReplyDeleteFrom the presentation, it was determined that there is some interest in a project that one of the grants would fund...a study to determine the spending habits of Evansville residents. To over-simplify: this would be useful for current businesses in town to learn where their competition is and how much they are losing to the competition, and it would also benefit potential new businesses by showing where and how people are spending money that could otherwise be spent here in town. As an example...off the top of my head...maybe we would find that lots of people in Evansville go to the movies 3 times a week and spend together X thousands of dollars...we could take this information and use it to entice a movie theater to open in Evansville to capture some of that spending.
The spending study would be done by a different organization from Sortis. It was proposed that the UW Extension offers such a study for a price. The price is determined by the extent of the study. I believe the range of cost is between $11-19,000. Sortis would stay involved to apply for a grant to off-set some of the cost of the study. I believe the grant in focus has a "matching funds" component.
So there are two separate but related things going on with two separate organizations, Sortis and the UW Extension. It's also in the early stages of figuring out the details and costs etc. No final decisions have been made nor have commitments to contract for these services been established.
I encourage any and all who are interested in this to attend the next Economic Development meeting where further discussion of these two services will take place. The next meeting is scheduled for April 25th at 6pm.
Karen Aikman
Economic Development Committee, Stand-in Chair.
bill---
ReplyDeleteThanks for the explanation. I am a little surprised to hear that "Tax increment" from TIF 5 might be used, precisely since there is so little of it relative to what is on the pro forma of Ehlers and Associates spreadsheet plan. I have no question as to the necessity of the "branding" as I was part of the original focus group almost 10 years ago at the Masonic Temple that decided on "The Grove" as the identity to promote. This was rejected by city elders and it was also rejected for the intermediate school despite being the favorite of the students.
So--it is a necessary step. I just wonder about whether the money should come from TIF increment or rather someplace else. Once we start paying for operating expenses out of TIF increment it is a slippery slope...
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