CRA planner Sue provided the board an annual update Nov. 11 on downtown directory kiosks and business activity, reporting what staff described as 45 new business tax receipt (BTR) entries from September to September. She said duplicates (for example, separate BTRs for a restaurant’s alcohol license, retail sales and the restaurant itself) reduced the count; after removing duplicates staff identified roughly 40 new openings and acknowledged that closures are difficult to capture because businesses are not required to notify the city.

"For the open ones, we can actually run a business tax receipt report," the planner said, explaining the methodology and the need to remove duplicates. She also noted nine vacancies are listed on the CRA website and that one listing is a recently launched space that could represent six rentable units depending on how the space is leased.

Board member Stoeckle called the figures "good benchmarking" and encouraged an annual report to track progress year over year. Stoeckle suggested the visitor center's counters could provide a proxy for downtown foot traffic; staff said that data might be available for extrapolation.

Member Nelson moved to approve the CRA goals and performance measures with a request that staff attempt to track open and closed businesses and, if possible, visitor numbers at the visitor center; the motion passed unanimously.

What happens next: The CRA will publish legislated performance measures on its website tied to the FY2026 budget and staff will explore feasible methods to track business openings/closures and visitation data.