Downtown Odessa

DOWNTOWN ODESSA, INC Minutes for July 13, 2021 Council Chambers Board Members present: John Herriage, William Vaughan, Lonnie Lawrence, Alma Gomez, Denise Swanner, Mark Matta and Sondra Eoff Absent: Shawn Rodriguez and Cruz Castillo Others present: Randi Pineda, Alexa Moulakis, Devin Sanchez and Magaly Nieto Invocation: Mark Matta gave the invocation. Board Chairman William Vaughan lead the meeting. The meeting started a 12:00 p.m. Downtown Odessa, Inc: 1. Approval of minutes – June 8, 2021 – Motion was made by Board member Herriage and seconded by Board member Lawrence to approve. The motion was approved by the following vote: Aye: Herriage, Vaughan, Lawrence, Gomez, Swanner and Matta Nay: None 2. Review of June 2021 Financials – Alexa went over the financials. Motion was made by Board member Herriage and seconded by Board member Lawerence to approve. The motion was approved by the following vote: Aye: Herriage, Vaughan, Lawrence, Gomez, Swanner and Matta Nay: None 3. New Business: a. Consider adding a DOI staff member as signatory on SouthWest Bank account – Board member Herriage motioned to add Alexa to the checking account Board member Gomez seconded, all approved. 4. Old Business: a. Prospective updates to the grant program – Per Alexa ODC looking to do changes to the grant program. She was not able to meet with them due to conflicting schedules but they will be meeting. The changes are a little bit more extreme than what was previously discussed. They want to do an affidavit of lien. Want to get those from every vendor when submitting for reimbursement. Per Alexa the form is intended for a contractor to fill out if they are looking to place a lien on work that they have done and have not been paid for. She believes this will leave a bad impression on applicants. She thinks the optics of it may scare people away so we really need to consider weather we want to add that to the program. 5. Event Update: a. Recap of events: i. Hot Summer Nights – Hot summer nights has continued every Friday in the Summer. They have gone really well. We have seen increased attendance in the theatre vs the park. Although transitioning back to the park next year will be the only option we have. The last concert of the Season 7-30-21, we had to do a change of venues so that will return to the park. We will end the season at the park. ii. Downtown Independence Day Celebration – It was a much smaller scale event than what a normal Fandango would be but it did go really well. I had a lot of participants reach out to me, really good turnout as far as the concert and the car show, we did get feedback regarding the lack of fireworks. It wasn’t our intention to do away with the fireworks permanently but next year going forward we are going to do a bigger and better Fandango. We really did see success on the event that we were able to put on. b. Winter Events: i. Parade of Lights – Per Alexa, we need to do this the Community wants us to do it. Play committee has discussed rate increases that will help us bring in more revenue that will turn into prize fees, so we will not need as much sponsorship or outside support for it. With the increase fees entry money will cover the majority of the prize money. ii. Ice Rink – Alexa discussed how this was a big expense. It cost us around 45k and we lost money on this, around 30k. Per Board member Lawrence his vote would be to use the funds to a bigger and better Fandango. Everyone is in agreement not to do the ice rink. iii. Teddy Bear Tea – Per Alexa this was an upscale breakfast with Santa that was held at the Marriott. MCH was a sponsor and we did make a profit from this because of MCH sponsorship to purchase all the bears. This was a really good turn out. It was elegant and special. We will put a tentative hold pending on sponsorship. iv. New Years Eve – Sale out event in 2019, was held at the Marriott. Alexa has already been in contact with Patrick at the hotel, they are not going to be doing anything for new years but would love to assist us with our event. The 2019 event included: plated dinner, VIP hour before dinner, Comedian, DJ w/dancing and a fancy count down to midnight w/champagne toast and logo flutes from our sponsor. They asked if it was profitable, per Alexa we broke even. Suggested maybe go up in price since the event sold out. They all agreed to do the event again but will need to get together again to discuss how much to charge, how we need to do it, and get with the hotel to see what we can do different to help us not go over budget.  c. Future Outside/Partner Events i. Solstice Live! Country Festival – July 24 This is put on by an outside promoter, it is not a City event it is not a DOI event we are just assisting with logistics. We are excited about having them downtown. ii. Basin Pride – August 7 – Relocating from Mckinney Park to Noel Hertiage Plaza, really excited about them relocating their event downtown and bringing people downtown. iii. Rocktober Fest – October 2nd – This event is put on by West Texas Radio Group same folks that did Taco’s and Tequila. This will be a fall version of Tacos and Tequila but instead of tequila it will be with beer, they will feature a rock performance a Tom Petty tribute band music through out the day. Similar set up to Taco’s and Tequila in 2019. iv. Night of Light Downtown – October 31st – Still waiting to hear from Crossroads weather or not they want to partner with us on this event. Right now, we would already be in the planning phase so it’s not looking good. I will wait to hear from them before determining weather or not they will be partnering with us or if we will be doing something by ourselves. We really do not have the budget to do something as big, but we can still do something. We can formulate a plan for Halloween once we know what Crossroad is going to be doing. 6. Director’s Report: a. Grants Update: i. Reimbursed/Complete – LCA (façade) ii. Compiling documents for reimbursement – Ambler Law (façade and infrastructure) iii. Under construction – PediCardio of West Texas (façade and infrastructure) iv. Under construction – ICON Tavern (façade and infrastructure) v. Under construction – The House (infrastructure) vi. Awaiting Resubmit of Paperwork – Gifts R Us (façade) - She might have changed her mind on resubmitting, so this might not go thru vii. Awaiting Paperwork – Par II companies (façade) viii. Potential future applicants 1. Dr. Pill - 2. Dr. Kurra – meeting with Dr. Kurr, not sure if she will go thur with it. 7. Downtown Odessa Inc Executive Director Update Per Mr. Herriage they have two really good candidates for the Executive Director for DOI. Michael, Sondra, William and himself interviewed Meg yesterday and have another interview Monday at 10:am. Meg was really awesome, we really like her the other candidate has a really good resume aswell. Hopefully by the next board meeting we can say we have hired someone.