Economic Development Subcommittee
Meeting Minutes
November 1, 2005

Dan Packer welcomed everyone to the meeting and asked them to sign in with their name, phone number and email address. He announced that all of the committee meetings will be public and public comments will be taken at each meeting. He also stated that people were free to make comments at any time during the meetings.

The Committee will be made up of a limited number of people and hes gonna have seven subcommittees. Steve Perry, Anthony Patton, Alden McDonald has already accepted to chair a subcommittee and the other subcommittee chairs will be announced at the meeting next Tuesday. It was suggested that additional subcommittees be added such as Sports, Aerospace and New Business.

Dan Packer stated the Mayor wanted to put together a commission with locals to give feedback directly to the President. There are several other commissions forming around the state including the Louisiana Recovery Authority that the Governor recently formed. The Mayor and the Governor are communicating with each other and a liaison from each group attend the meetings of the other group to foster communication amongst the groups.

Camille Terk mentioned she has received many offers of help from a variety of sources. The Harvard School of Business has offered 100 of their MBAs to work on a specific economic development project in January. It was suggested by Alden McDonald that they work on the new business ventures that could come to New Orleans such as call center hubs, or insurance hubs or things that have never been pursued for this area. There are Tulane alumni and MBAs who would also be a great resource for the subcommittees as well.

The Economic Development Committee will meet on Tuesdays at 10:00 a.m. in the future to review the subcommittees work. The meeting next week will be run by a facilitator to review process and concentrate on how to get to the actionable items and end results. We will develop an action plan with real steps. The following Tuesday the ULI economic development experts will share their knowledge and expertise with the committee.

Bill Hines stated that we need to focus on retention of old business as well as attracting new businesses to New Orleans. He also stated that we need to fix the permit processes that have made it so hard to do business in New Orleans for so long. It was recommended that we explore the best practices in Houston, Atlanta and Chicago to get permit solutions for New Orleans. Bill Hines will discuss the permitting issue with Gary Solomon who is chairing the Government Efficiency Committee.

Anthony Patton made a presentation on a Bed and Business proposal and the state of small businesses in New Orleans.

Public comments were taken from the audience.

The meeting was adjourned by Bill Hines at 12:24 p.m.