Advisory board declines immediate buy-in for Placer AI-style market-data tool, recommends targeted research

Grand Island — The Economic Development Advisory Board reviewed a presentation on commercial market-data products that estimate foot traffic from aggregated phone-location data and decided not to recommend immediate purchase.

Members described the vendor’s capabilities — mapping where visitors originate and how long people spend at plazas and parks — but repeatedly raised questions about cost and municipal benefit. "I'm a hard no on it," Speaker 2 said of buying a multi-year subscription, adding, "I'm tracked enough." Speaker 7 said the board sees potential business-level value but "at this time, we don't feel that it's a benefit to our town." Speaker 1 said lower-cost modules or one-off snapshots might be more justifiable.

Board members said the product could help measure tourism and park use or support grant-funded baseline studies, but cautioned that municipal spending for marketing and business attraction is tightly limited under town rules. Speaker 5 urged the board to define specific use cases before recommending expenditure, noting potential partnerships with the Chamber of Commerce to share costs and data.

The board asked members to research lower-cost alternatives such as Streetscape/Streetlight, consider short-term snapshot projects instead of multi-year subscriptions, and to compare vendor outputs against existing traffic counts (Speaker 7 suggested requesting the vendor’s numbers for Staley Road for side-by-side comparison).

Next steps: board members will compile vendor comparisons and usage scenarios for the town board and consider a pilot or shared regional subscription only if a clear municipal use and legal spending pathway exist.