At their last City Coucil meeting, the Lakeport Council, among other business, unanimously approved to continue a contract with an out of state business consultant (Retail Coach) the city brought in July 2019 to try and bring businesses into Lakeport.
Retail Coach was brought into Lakeport to conduct an assessment of the city and provide targeted data to help sustain and enhance existing businesses while also recruiting new ones.
According to a staff report for the February 16 meeting, a number of the project phases were completed before COVID-19 but the pandemic limited Retail Coach’s ability to start recruiting in new businesses. These included a market analysis, determining retail opportunities, and marketing and branding. However it isn’t clear how exactly they have helped with marketing and branding, nor which workshops have been planned for 2021, all part of the scope of work, but undefined. We asked, we did not receive these answers.
As a result of the pandemic, a lot of the work planned went unfinished due to, among other delays, retail trade shows cancellations in 2020, and the inability for the consultants to travel to meet with stakeholders more regularly due to restrictions in air travel, although their contract only called for them to conduct local workshops and meetings periodically in Lake County.
They were paid $30,000 at the conclusion of their first year primarily to drum up interest in the area by courting retailers to plug in some of the vacancies in the retail area. Business people are fond of the term “deliverables” which translates to a return on investment, i.e. results. So what did we get for our $30,000? By the way, we should mention that the consultant’s contract has been extended this year for another $25,000 which city officials seem to think is a good risk to take given economic development is imperative, especially in a post COVID-19 climate, and also given reserve funding levels are currently on the upswing.
Our $30,000 bought us a slew of demographic data, what city officials refer to as a “Gap Opportunity Analysis” designed to pinpoint the city’s needs. This data includes, among other valuable kernels of information, daytime population figures including growth projections based on the census, demographic data, income numbers, and a breakdown of retailer earnings in the city. City Manager Kevin Ingram called it “a game changer” in his pitch to extend the contract to the council at the meeting, but we don’t completely share in his enthusiasm.
For one thing, the council’s approval means the consultants are handed another $25,000 to try and improve on the deliverables after what amounts to a lost 2020 year due to the pandemic.
For another, even though the multi-year agreement has been extended, we didn’t see a huge return on investment (another business term) on the first year of the initial contract, other than a “best fit” list of 27 potential retailers which Retail Coach has apparently been courting since they began doing business with the city, two of which reportedly have previously said no in response to inquiries about setting shop in the city (ALDI market and Target), and GIS (cell phone) data from Safeway which by now could be considered mostly outdated.
In sum, we would categorize the deliverables pertaining to the city’s Retail Coach as only mildly successful. The Gap Analysis was completed a month after the consultants were brought on board, so the balance of that year brought little tangible results, including no retailers to take over the empty Kmart space, for example, something Ingram said at the recent council meeting was the city’s “main priority,” along with working with the existing business community. It is not exactly clear how much work, if any, they have done consulting with the local community and retailers since 2019.
There are some good news on the horizon however. Mayor Kenneth Parlet pointed out that due to some recent successful investments and as a result of bigger retailers such as Bruno’s and Safeway performing well in 2020 despite COVID, the projected downturn in the general fund revenue was not as dire as city officials initially thought it would be, allowing for infrastructure projects and repairs. Regrettably, there were very few folks logged in to the zoom meeting where this was all discussed, we urge residents to get involved in these important financial decisions in the future and to give their input so we can get more feedback on decisions which affect us all.
—The Editorial Board, Lake County Record Bee
