City plans refresh of economic development strategy; councilmembers seek clearer goals and data before consultant solicitation

City economic development staff on Sept. 24 outlined a planned refresh of the city's economic development strategic framework for fiscal year 2026 that will incorporate a small-business ecosystem assessment and an international strategy, and highlighted performance reporting tools used to track program outcomes.

Economic Development Director Brenda Hicks Sorensen said the refresh will include a target-industry deep dive, a supply-chain gap analysis and a site-identification study. She said staff had previously solicited a small-business ecosystem assessment earlier in the year but canceled the solicitation and decided it would be more strategic to include that work within the broader framework refresh.

Why it matters: The strategic framework guides city programs and budget priorities for business attraction, small-business support, workforce and placemaking. Staff pointed to prior work under the framework that led to ARPA-funded small-business programs, facade grants and other initiatives; they also noted the department's public performance dashboard used to report program metrics.

Committee concerns and requested clarifications: Multiple council members said they support a refresh but asked staff for clearer, shorter-term deliverables and for cost and scope estimates before issuing a new solicitation. Chair Villagran asked staff to brief newly seated council members so everyone has shared expectations about the refresh and its goals. The chair said she wanted staff to return next month with "the clear goals in terms of what this would cost and how this program would be spent." Councilmembers also emphasized the need to measure outcomes (changes in revenue, employment and other impacts) rather than event counts and called for better data on where procurement and program dollars flow across neighborhoods.

Staff timeline: Sorensen and staff expect to issue a solicitation soon for consultant services to lead data collection, stakeholder engagement and analysis; staff said preliminary findings and stakeholder engagement would take place in spring, with final reports and a fully developed work plan in 2027. Staff emphasized the need to align the refresh with other city plans and departments and to ensure recommendations are actionable and tied to performance measures.

No committee action was taken on the refresh at the Sept. 24 meeting; the item was a briefing. Committee members asked staff to return with clarified goals, budget estimates and a plan to brief council colleagues before the solicitation moves forward.