I don't see Councilwoman Sanchez yet. She will resume her place back in line, but Councilman Green is up next.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. People have made different references to a business attraction plan or a plan to attract businesses, et cetera. Is there a written business plan to attract businesses to the City of Philadelphia?
No. And, so, how do we decide what is prioritized on a year-over-year basis, on a month-to-month basis, and on a day-by-day basis?
I am sorry. I didn't hear it right. I probably shouldn't have given such a simple answer, because it's probably a little more complicated than that. There are, for example -- I apologize for repeating myself. There is this idea about attracting businesses that are in the suburbs to open up offices in the City. That is a very specific strategy that I described earlier in testimony. We have got a list of about, I think about 20 businesses that are, kind of, natural candidates, given the kind of business they are and where their, sort of, replenishment of talent is likely to be, 232 mostly from younger people.
Technology is an important one, because those are -- that is the industry that is most reliant on young talent. It's a little bit different when you start to get in to other sectors. Like, for instance, a farmer is a little bit different. Some businesses, they rely less on talent, they rely a little bit more on actually, in a way, sort of taking from each other, and they are doing it at generally higher levels and people are more used to long-term -- long distance commuting. So, not as good a version there. There is, however, a story there and that is that they do, however, a lot of the farmers, rely on the research that is being done. They are taking --
-- what they are 233 doing themselves. The question is about what the Commerce Department is doing --
On a year-over-year basis. So, for these -- So, somebody 6 identified 20 businesses. 7
We did that jointly 11 with PIDC. We said we think this is a good 12 idea. We think it has some play. We 13 identified businesses and we are methodically 14 going through and talking to them. Going out 15 visiting them, saying this is something you 16 ought to be thinking about. 17
You said PIDC is 18 primarily our business attraction arm. What 19 mandate have they been given? 20
What mandate have they been given? What do they do when they are not with you visiting these 20 234 companies?
Oh, sorry. Okay. I didn't understand what you said. They're -- They get -- First of all. I mean, they are --
Not from a transactional perspective providing funding. Business attraction.
They now have a Vice President, Ann Nevans, who, within the last year, has been -- John has made, I think her title is Vice President for Marketing and Attraction. They are actively out there pursuing things like industrial clients to occupy both some of the property that they own, the industrial lands that they own, but also looking for other opportunities that may not involve the land.
There is separate attraction for the Navy Yard. Is that that person's responsibility?
No, actually, that is probably more vested -- I mean, she works with them, but I think that is more vested in 235 the Navy Yard's Manager, Will Aggett. I mean, I think they have to work together with regularity, but I think we spend more time.
So, what direction do they have from the City as to -- this person that has been appointed by John for this purpose, what plan have they been given by the City in terms of who to go after, who to attract, why we want particular industries and other things? Is there anything in writing from the City to the PIDC or this person that says here is our one-year, two-year, three-year, four-year goal for your business attraction efforts? These are the industries we want you to focus on, and this is why?
The answer is, no. 18 There is not a plan in writing. There is an active conversation pretty much every day.
But, if you don't start with something in writing, how do you measure any kind of accomplishment against a goal and the dollars that are being spent to achieve that goal? 236
Well, I will give you an example of something that we do and you can sort of take it as you like. For instance, on hotels, we have very specific goals about attracting new hotels to town for very specific purposes and we've defined what size hotels, what type hotels we want to do. We're actively talking to hotel operators, we're actively talking to developers trying to get those particular projects to happen.
We actually do it jointly. Ann has been managing the data flow.
Ann Nevans of PIDC. She manages the data flow, but, we actively do this together.
So, a lot of Ann's time, at this moment, is spent on attracting hotels?
I think a significant piece of it, because it's an important issue 237 for us to be able to augment the capacity of the Convention Center by doing two things. We need another, you know, sort of headquarter hotel, kind of in the Loew's kind of category. At least that. So, we have been focusing on that. In fact, there is --
Is there any written plan in writing with respect to hotels?
No. We just, between us, we know that that is exactly what we have got --
So, would you please provide to the Chair what the measurable -- what the goals are you have for hotels.
Do you have any other industries or business types that you have specific goals set for attracting them into the City?
I would like to know what industries those are before we get anything in writing. What industries do you have specific goals for that are not writing?
I think the technology industry, this is what I was referring to. It's not the sole one, but it's an important one. Probably the most important one.
So, what is our unwritten goal with respect to a broad category of technology industry? What does that mean?
I would like to get at least three or four of these companies to commit to having gateway offices in Philadelphia.
A gateway office is where they might stay in a suburban location for the time being, or possibly forever, but 239 they will open up a facility in the City so that they have a way of attracting younger talent into their operation. These are people who don't necessarily want to be commuting to the suburbs, and our belief is that if they do this and this thing has staying power, these offices will grow here. So, people will want to stay in them.
So, next year, your goal is by this time next year to have three or four opening?
-- either have done it or actively committed to doing it.
It is gonna vary from firm to firm. We do not have a specific goal on that. I mean, certainly we don't want just a telephone and a data port. What we see in talking to some of the companies is that they are aware of the issue 240 and they also have key staff members who are commuting now from the City who actually would prefer to be back in the City themselves. So, we think there is a way of populating these offices from their internal ranks that exist now, as well as from new talent that they are gonna have to bring in to replenish people who are leaving.
And if they don't move their headquarters or their main operations, of course the only taxes that would be paid will be wage taxes of the employees in the City?
Well, that's right, and to the extent that an employee already lives in the City, the differential is small, because they are already paying a wage tax at a different rate.
Right. So, in terms of the costs of this program, for example, you said that there are 20 companies that are gonna visit this year.
Or you have already visited some. PIDC is bringing two or three people to all these meetings. I don't know how many people are going from your office.
Okay. So, between four to six people are going to each of these meetings, places a year, at least three 10 quarters of a day getting out, meeting -- 11
What is the cost of 16 all that compared to the three or four 17 gateway offices with potential employees? I 18 am asking this for a specific reason, because 19 I think if we put all of this on paper, we 20 might change our goals and re-prioritize, based on where we are gonna get the biggest bang for our dollar.
Well, you might be right, but I would also offer one other 242 thought, that you may not be able to write out a convincing return on investment of dollars spent, time spent, versus, let's say, the size of an office that somebody opens, but, but, you start a kind of set of Dominoes falling about the culture of the City and what kind of businesses want to be here.
I don't know that either, but nobody knows that unless somebody tries to put it in writing, and the goal doesn't have to be a dollar for dollar return on investment. The goal stated in the plan can be the beginning of a Dominoe effect that will lead to these companies moving in or other things, and still it is important to have a plan in writing so that we can measure what your efforts are against the goals that you have set. Are there any other industries, other than technology, where you have a specific goal?
I think there is an opportunity to get more distribution facilities in the City. 243
You raised some really powerful points, and I kind of remember last year, this line of questioning being asked, and I understand we were in, in past years, an economic crisis. I get it. We were trying not to bleed, and stop the bleeding. It was almost a triage of effect, but now that we are beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel, there are certain assets and goals that we need to start to market, start to plan around. Not to say that you are not, but we are anxious. Councilman Clarke came in here with 244 a shovel. We believe that, you know, Philly's time has come. We may start seeing those ground-breakings again. But, in prior administrations, going as far as back to Green's father, and also Rizzo, had a group called the Traveling Reps. They used to go around and target industries in different Cities and they would take a team of hit men, I don't mean it literally, but they would go after these firms to -- they would go to High Point North Carolina. In the last administration, we went to Korea and we went out there for, I think it was days. We met with 50 different 15 companies over there from ice cream 16 manufacturers, and only one bid, one. It was 17 called Rotem, (ph). They are now on Delaware Avenue, and they higher over 300 people. We just did a tour. And so, when Councilman Green and Councilman Oh and others start talking about, we want to see a vision that we can help you with, it is just our anxiousness to get out of this recession, start putting more dollars 245 in our coffers so that we don't have to talk about raising people's taxes and other ways. So, you know, you have to kiss a lot of frogs to find the prince and princesses of deals and we are about to -- we are ready to kiss some frogs.
I think that is a fair point. I think the one thing that I have also learned from my architectural practice is that 80 percent of the commissions you are gonna get come from clients you already have. So, business expansion, business retention, in my book, is equally, if not more important, than the ones that you don't, that are kind of the cold calls. It's not saying you don't make the cold calls, because you do. By the way, speaking of Rotem, I think that was a very important thing that you did, it didn't come up in the questions from Councilman Oh, on that trip I made to Korea, probably the most important day spent was a day traveling across the country to go to Rotem, see what they were doing, with a very 246 specific goal of, we need them to stay in business longer than what it takes to make our rail cars. That is partly a matter of communications, keeping them happy about being in the City of Philadelphia, trying to solve problems that come up and maintaining good relations. So, I have actually been down there three times over the last two years just talking to them as their leadership changes. Got to know somebody in Korea who is now lease stationed here in the United States on kind of a longer term basis, happens to be a Lehigh graduate, which doesn't hurt.
We are glad you went three times. It took us one time to bring Rotem, and I think one of the freshman, one the freshman three last year said, "if it ain't measured, it ain't managed. We want to see it in writing". I am gonna recognize Councilwoman Sanchez now.
Thank you. I am assuming Commerce is gonna come back on a 247 call back, so I will leave some of the other questions I had around employment. But yesterday, as you know, I had a very disheartening conversation with our Personnel Director in the Civil Service Commission. So, I wanted to ask the question, how many of the employees at the Commerce Department are exempt and how many are civil service?
I know there is several employees that speak Spanish. One of the things -- or other languages also. Sorry. One of the things that the Mayor signed in his Executive Order was about increasing diversity in the workforce, particularly the City workforce. I was very disheartened that there were 237 civil service job description revisions and not -- only three departments 248 requested the creation of bilingual positions. So, I wanted to know, one, how many people do you that speak different languages, and if those opportunities for civil service revisions or exempt hires, does the department look at them?
The answer to the last question is, absolutely we look at it. As you know, we have had -- because you mentioned it earlier, we have a pretty successful program with Vista volunteers, who are obviously multilingual, getting out to some of the immigrant business communities and making people feel comfortable, solving their problems. We really like how that program has gone, and what we recently decided, we don't have that many openings that come up in our ranks, but when they do, particularly on things like the Office Of Business Service, we absolutely will now look at multilingual capacity as a key element here, because I don't know how much longer we get to rely on 249 Vista volunteers to do this. We will take advantage of it as long it keeps coming, but you know, there's no surety that it's forever. We really like how this program's gone. So, I think, from us anyway, you are gonna be seeing more and more requirement for multilingual, just because it makes sense, particularly in the neighborhoods.
Thank you. That's very important. I think our numbers are still at about five percent for the City. Latinos represent 12 percent. Then when you add the Asian community just like, you know, the passion and that Councilman Blondell Reynolds-Brown and Wilson have about contracting opportunities, I have them about the workforce. I do appreciate the fact that, in your case, your testimony included some of those diversity numbers. But, as people look to hire, you know, I have been told by department heads that the Personnel Department has been unwilling to do it. 250 They testified yesterday that it does not cost more and the Civil Service Commission testified that they have approved all of the requests. So, I expect to see more of that.
Okay. I think, you know, for us, given that a large part of the population is exempt, we can just do that. It is very important to us. By the way, I would be happy to -- I don't know the numbers off of the top of my head, but I would be happy to get you a roster of who is multilingual now, if you like.
Thank you, Councilwoman. The Chair now recognizes Councilwoman Brown.
Thank you very much. Deputy Mayor, note that I appreciate your leadership and affirmation of what Councilwoman Sanchez has just stated, because it always, always, always, in my view, starts with leadership. So, know that we appreciate you fully recognizing it and looking for 251 opportunities to move towards that end. I had asked, I believe, it was the City Rep, how are new ideas vetted in your department when Philadelphia citizens, business people come with out-of-the-box, non-traditional, potentially revenue generating opportunities for business; how are they vetted amongst your team?
It is gonna sound boring, but we meet as senior staff every week, formally meet every week. Part of it is obviously just to go over ongoing operations and any sort of internal mechanics. But, the point of it also is to look at new things that come in front of us; new development ideas, businesses that -- or opportunities that sort of popped up that we hadn't thought about before, and to, I think first, assess, is there some potential reality here. As I mentioned earlier, an awful lot of things come in front of us that we, for one reason or another, reckon are probably not very real. Possibly all well intentioned, 252 but sometimes not very real.
So, you have to sort of first get past that hurdle. Once something is real, there is considerable machinery that we can put in place, both from Commerce and from our partnership with PIDC primarily to act on something. If it is a real estate development deal, very frequently they need some kind of public support. Usually in the form of loans, which is most of the money that we have at the moment, and diminishing quickly, but nevertheless, those kind of facilities are out there. Very rarely is it in the form of grants these days because that money is just drying up real quick. But, sometimes it is also in the form of advice or help that we can give. I will give you an example the Office Of Business Services probably handles thousands of requests every year, almost exclusively from small business. I think, of that, probably mostly neighborhood oriented business. 253
I might, if I may, say that based on my experience with that office this past year, it is clear that the nuts and bolts have been tightened and in terms of access and the deliverables that you provide to small businesses. So, know that we appreciate that. The outreach has deepened enormously.
Thank you. I feel very good, Kevin does as well, very good about the Office Of Business Services, what it is able to do. I wish there was better word out there that it was providing these services. All of us occasionally get requests from an individual business that just says, I am having a problem. It could happen because you run into somebody who says, I have got a business and I know somebody is having a problem, you know, and sometimes the problems are solvable and we will do that. Sometimes they are not realistically solvable. Like, I really don't want to pay my taxes. Well, I can't solve that one for you. 254
We get similar types of approaches from small businesses. So, to know that there is a one-stop shop is huge. The bell has rung. Circling back, I am gonna speak about L&I and health and the interface with the Office Of Business Services, because those offices still continue and appear to be hurdles for small business owners.
You are quite welcome. The Chair now recognizes Councilman Johnson.
Just a couple questions regarding the Mayor's Youth Employment Program. So, I kind of want to get an idea what the program would look like 255 for this upcoming year. If you could provide me also an organizational chart so I can see how the Mayor's Youth Program is actually funded. I would think, I am used to working with the Philadelphia Youth network in the past and I am trying to put it altogether. Every stakeholder that actually contributes to the Mayor's Youth Employment Program and what that program would look like this upcoming year.
Well, we have worked with and coordinated some of our activities with Philadelphia Youth Network as they run the Work Ready Program, which is really involving with large corporations, and smaller companies too, around the City providing work opportunities for youth, both in the after-school program on a year-round basis, and in particular, during the summer months. The Mayor's Youth Employment Program is designed to augment that by focusing really on the neighborhoods and focusing on smaller businesses that we have interaction with 256 through our commercial quarter managers, through our relationships with business associations in the smaller end. It will, essentially, be something that we manage and control through the Commerce Department, through a relationship that we will have with CDCs, who will then market the program. It will, you know -- It's the first year that we are trying to do this. So it's kind of a more work in progress. We anticipate putting out the applications in early May, determining how much volume we get at that point in time and then dictating how many students we will be able to support over that period of time.
We will -- Everybody. I mean, everybody and anybody can get the applications. So, while we target our outreach business, one of our main kind of ways of reaching out to small businesses are through our relationship with the CDCs. It will be everybody. It will be a 257 public document. You can go and you can take an application. We will share with Council, we have had some conversations with them and so forth. You can then distribute it to your constituencies and so forth. We will work with the schools, make sure that there are schools that if we want to target any particular neighborhoods. Again, we looked at whether or not we want to target the high crime areas. One of the things that the purpose of this was, to mitigate some of the challenges that we were having with our youth, the flash mobs over the last year.
Give them an opportunity to do something that is an alternative to this bad behavior, and that is partly -- that is jobs. So, we also recognize in that work is that some of the areas that are more prone to having more problems are the same areas that have the high crime rates, the districts that the police department has identified. So, we might target groups in there or business 258 associations or CDCs in there. There are schools in there. Get the word out and so forth.
Thank you, Kevin. If you can, as a follow-up to this, just give me a preliminary summary on what the program is gonna look like to rule out, specifically for my myself, but the other parties conversations. So, this has the Commerce Department -- The Commerce Department has nothing to do with administrating the Philadelphia Youth Network Program?
No, we are not involved in that. That is a separate nonprofit organization that does it on its own, gets its own funding and so forth.
Mark Edwards does have something to do with it. He apologizes. He had a board meeting at 3:00, so he couldn't stay for the rest of this. But I would be happy to have him get back to you as well.
Just so -- Mark works in conjunction with the Commerce 259 Department; correct, Alan?
Yes. And it is primarily through my participation on the Board.
Your participation on the Board. Okay. I mentioned this before in the past, as it relates to youth violence and the vitality of this City, and for the record, I am gonna be aggressively pushing for ravish, this administration, the next administration, all future administrations, to begin looking at youth employment as a priority for the City of Philadelphia, ravish flash mobs. We talk about reentry on the adult level, but we don't look at the young people who, once they graduate, because they do graduate contrary to popular belief sometimes. It's a myth that all young people are not graduating from high school. Once they can't find a certain type of employment, if they decide not to go to college or just some money, maybe a job so they can save money for books to go to college. I think if 260 we want to ever move forward, particularly as a City, we are going to have to start investing in our young people, making sure the resources are there for them. I grew up as a young man under Mayor Good. My first job was with anti-graffiti. It kept me out of trouble during the summertime. I was so proud to get my Work Ready ID and it kind of helped me become the young man I am today.
I just want to say, you know, primarily for the record, an issue I am very, very passionate about. I want to see how the dots can be connected. Whether it is the Mayor's Youth Program, I applaud him for stepping up and carving out some funding to address it, but from a long-term perspective, I do want to do a 261 follow-up to see how do we get our young people employed in the City of Philadelphia. I think it would go a great way toward addressing the issue of youth violence that we see. Thank you.
If I may, I want to make sure you understand that we lump youth all in kind of, like, one big category. That is high school youth, to year old. We also 10 have the out of school youth, so I just 11 combined them altogether. Out of school 12 could be combined the ages of 18 to 20, 22. 13
Yeah, College Intern 15 Program. That is exactly right, but -- so 16 these -- Some of the folks that we might be 17 targeting are indeed out of high school or out of high school age, put it that way.
I will wrap up on this one component. What is often underlooked and what is often under-utilized or rather under-supported, is the 18 to 23 year olds. They are the ones that aren't 24 allowed to have the basketball leagues. They 262 are the ones who aren't allowed to primarily engage in a variety of different activities that are primarily geared -- they are excluded because most of the activities in our rec centers are geared towards the younger ones. So, keep up with the good work in terms of the to 24, but youth in general, I want 9 to continue to see those areas supported. I 10 will, however I can be supportive, I will 11 be. Thank you. 12
Councilman brought 14 in a group of young men between that age 15 demographic into the caucus room, and they 16 had some very interesting perspectives on the 17 City life and as we know it, and we really 18 need to reach out to that at-risk population. Business Services Unit, you still have that, correct?
Could I have the Director of the Business Services Unit come 263 up, please.
Now, over the different administrations, Business Services has meant different things to different mayors. Can you tell us under the Nutter administration what Business Services means?
Yeah. Strategically we look at serving, as Deputy Mayor Greenberg said earlier, as kind of like a concierge service for business owners to help them navigate the resources of the City. Although we may not be able to have direct impact on the outcome of our interaction with Business Services, I like to think that we have a very positive impact on the actual process that 264 they go to in terms of obtaining some of those resources.
So, how many -- Well, give me a definition of your staff size; how many people you have on your staff.
I have seven business service managers that are split up through the City, geographically assigned, and we have four vistas that I am happy to report are actually not just bilingual, but some of them are multilingual.
Impressive. Do you still receive calls? Are you the point of contact when someone in our respective office wants to start a business; is that the first point of contact we should go?
Does everybody in this chamber -- Have you given your number, contact number to everyone?
Not only we have given the information, but we have had kind of brief information about our client service 265 hot-line as well as our website, our business portal.
I know we've had 1,800 and -- well, roughly 2,000 business contacts throughout last year.
I don't want you to say about. If it ain't measured, it ain't managed. It is important that we know if you have 2,000 people call you last year, that is, approximately, three calls a day, and what were they requesting? Did they want start up? How many wanted tax information, 266 how many -- and that is a good indicator about the state of business in our City. So, that is an important portal that you recognize.
That is an excellent question. I will give you the exact answer. The number of calls for business start-ups was percent. I am gonna focus on the big 9 ones. 20 percent comes in in terms of L&I 10 licensing; zoning permits, as you can 11 imagine. And then about 14 percent is, to 12 your point, financing or incentives. 13
So, out of the 14 financing and incentives, where were they 15 referred to? 16
Oh, a number of different 17 places. What we try to do is have a very 18 meaningful dialogue with them in terms of 19 where are they in the process of actually 20 obtaining capital and then based on how they 21 answer those questions, we may direct them to 22 a number of resources. PIDC of course is one 23 that -- 24
Oh. Again, and this is not a gotcha moment, I don't want it, but I want to, and I want my colleagues to know that if 2,000 come through the door, if 200 wind up referred to PIDC, then X represents the number of actual taxpayers that your efforts have recruited or assisted through the system. And that is a statistic we all want to know, and by district.
Well, specifically there are 13 new businesses created as a result of our interaction with them, but what I can't answer is how many of those came to us only for financing, only went to PIDC and resulted in a new business being only --
Let me get this right. Last fiscal year, you started 13 businesses? 268
Could you provide a list of those businesses? What was the general size of those businesses? Do you know? Because if it is Rotem, I am impressed. If it is mom and pop convenience store, I am not. So, I mean, you can provide that to the Chair, but we want to keep a record of those kinds of interactions, activities, and then the end gain is results of businesses that are started by that. All right?
The Chair now recognizes -- Thank you for that. The Chair now recognizes Councilman Green.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. When we last spoke, we were talking about what specific industries we have goals set for not in writing, and I think the last one you mentioned was 269 distribution and there is no specific goal with respect to distribution. What other industries are you -- do you have -- Are you trying to, you know, spending efforts attracting, and what is the goal?
We specifically are interested in commercialization of bioscience research that's occurring at our universities. Again, I don't have a number. I would like to.
So, what does that mean in terms of what you are trying to -- What are you trying to achieve with your efforts in that area?
We are trying to get the translational research that is done at universities to commercialize in Philadelphia, and there are a number of issues associated with doing that. One of the key ones has to do with when these -- when this research is at a position to be commercialized, very frequently the venture capital to do it is elsewhere, or people decide on their own that they think they want 270 to move to a place where there is more venture capital.
So, what specifically is your goal with respect to the problem you just defined? What is your --
Two goals. One is to, as I mentioned earlier, to address the gap in funding availability by creating a fund here that could be used to help support these businesses through the sort of difficult transition from their start up to their venture capital world, and the second one -- and in terms of specifics, no, I don't have a specific number in mind. I would be very happy to see just a couple of these things happen because they haven't been happening. They go elsewhere.
Actually, the biggest group of investments from, I think it is Benjamin Franklin, funds that they are making are not in the technology space but in the life sciences space and some of -- and generally those businesses start in the sciences center. 271
And then when they get to their next stage of funding is when they move out of the City.
So, the foundational capital has been available in the City for the life sciences phase.
Thank you for your courtesy, Council. Chair now recognizes Councilwoman Brown. 272
Two final items. I would like to go back to your very early testimony where you talked about the explosion of young talent in our City and the strategic activities you have underway to not only capture their attention, but hopefully hold on to them, because it is smart, and to the extent that we can be successful with that, it is certainly great for the City. So, I wanted to say thank you for that recognition of what it potentially means for our City. My final question is around the chambers in the City. In my early years here there was a budget line item, if I remember, for funding of the African-American Chamber, the Hispanic Chamber, Northeast Chamber, the Asian Chamber, and this year I could not find that in the budget detail. So, are any of the chambers still funded by the Commerce Department, and if yes, how does this compare to previous years?
The answer is, yes, 273 to the African-American Chamber, the Hispanic Chamber, and the Asian American Chamber. The funding for them has gone down somewhat over the years because the funding for the department has gone down some, but they are still -- They still receive significant money. Not all the same money, obviously.
What are the expectations tied to that funding by the department?
Well, that is a good question. A lot of these organizations need to -- they have gone through the same thing that we and everybody else has gone through in the last couple years. This is very much about survival for many organizations, and so I think a lot of attention has been focused on, do we have a viable operation here. Can we, now talking as one of the chambers, deliver the services to our members. There have been particular issues that 274 were raised by some of them that we can participate and work on. One of the ones, for example, that's come up I think more through the African-American Chamber, although it may apply to a number of organizations or a number of communities, is the problem with general contracting and bonding, the availability of bonding. We are working with PIDC to explore whether we can create a fund that would make the bonding facility easier, for example.
Yeah. I, actually, am optimistic about that. I think there is a real opportunity here.
If I may, Councilwoman, you should know that each one of those; African-American, Hispanic and Asian, each have a contract with us. In those contracts, it is explicit about what goals and objectives we are looking to get out of them. As an example, there is language in there, goals and objectives around referring 275 a number of firms to get registered with the City of Philadelphia --
-- through the certification process. So then, we don't register, we don't certify anymore. But from certified to getting them into our registry, there is specific numbers in there. There is specific numbers around technical and outreach activities that they have to do. A certain number of loan referrals and things of that nature. So, there are very specific items in each one of those contracts. The Asian one is a little bit different because it is a little more organizational development, because the Asian one has not -- was not yet as fully operational as we would have liked. So, our role there is to help build their capacity so that they can then build the capacity of the Asian business community. So, it's a little bit different there, but still some objectives around getting the organization to the point where it can be self-sustained. 276
Of course. Is that budget, those funding items are found in the budget detail? Because I couldn't find them.
Should be, but we will find them and point them out to you.
You are welcome, Madam Council Person. We are gonna go to Councilman Green, but while we are doing that, I want to put this out there so we can get an answer. There is a program by which new businesses that are foreign can come here and with a million dollars worth of investment get a green card, and I understand that that program -- I want to get some statistics as to whether or not that has been utilized and to what extent. If you could get someone up here to answer that question. I now will recognize Councilman Green for his 277 questions.