By Keri Luiz
Assistant Editor

Members of the Economic Development Board will review and provide input Wednesday on the city’s business website prior to its Sept. 3 City Council presentation and subsequent launch.

The new site was recommended in the Business Development Action Plan that was adopted in November 2011.

The purpose is “to have a better vehicle to provide information for existing businesses, especially those businesses we are looking to attract, or looking to relocate,” Economic Development Manager Mario Giuliani said Monday. “On the site is a lot of demographic data and information that would be of particular interest to various business types.”

The yet-to-be-approved version of the website is currently viewable at http://benicia.beta.edsuite.com.

The site’s creator, EDSuite, is a company based in Kilgore, Texas, that specializes in creating economic development websites for cities around the country.

Giuliani said EDSuite was hired after a request for proposals process, and “the city entered a contract with them in January 2012 after the City Council approved a contract in December 2011.” The contract is for $35,100.

The new site, when launched, will replace the existing BeniciaBusiness.com. “My plan is to give a Council presentation (Sept. 3), and at the conclusion of that presentation, (for) Mayor (Elizabeth Patterson) to essentially initiate having it go live,” Giuliani said. “She’d press a button and it would go from the old site to the new.”

In other business, the EDB may have a new member join its ranks Wednesday if the Council approves him today.

One of the items on the Council’s agenda is the confirmation of the mayor’s appointment of Chad Coester to the EDB, and “it is certainly possible should he be appointed on Tuesday that he could attend on Wednesday,” Giuliani said.

According to his application, Coester has been a resident of Benicia for more than nine years. He is the director of Safeway’s specialty and international food business for its 1,500 stores nationwide.

If appointed, Coester would fill a spot that was vacated when former EDB Chair Kimble Goodman resigned earlier this year and Vice Chair Ron Myska moved up to take the gavel.

Also Wednesday, should the board choose it can hear updates on: the Arsenal; the Business Retention, Expansion and Attraction Committee; meetings of the Tourism Committee; commercial and industrial vacancies; Wolf Communications; and Benicia Main Street.

If You Go
The Economic Development Board will meet at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday in the Commission Room at City Hall, 250 East L St.

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