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ORANGE COUNTY <br />AGRICULTURAL PRESERVATION BOARD <br /> <br />MEETING SUMMARY--APPROVED <br />May 20th, 2015 <br /> <br />Environment & Agricultural Center – Conference Room <br />306 Revere Road, Hillsborough, NC <br />7:30 p.m. <br /> <br />MEMBERS PRESENT: Vaughn Compton, Howard McAdams, Renee McPherson (Chair), <br />Ashley Parker, Noah Ranells, Joe Thompson, Richal Vanhook, and Kim Woods (Vice-Chair) <br /> <br />MEMBERS ABSENT/EXCUSED: Amanda Scherle (excused) <br /> <br />GUESTS: Mike Ortosky <br /> <br />STAFF: David Stancil, Director, DEAPR and Peter Sandbeck, Cultural Resources <br />Coordinator, DEAPR <br /> <br /> <br />1. Call to Order: Chair McPherson called the meeting to order at 7:32 PM. <br /> <br />2. Vice-Chair Comments: None <br /> <br />3. Consideration of Additions to Agenda: No additions <br /> <br />4. Meeting Summary / Minutes – March 18th, 2015 (Attachment 1): Woods moved to <br />accept the minutes/summary; seconded by Compton; motion carried. <br /> <br />5. Introduction of Guest: Chair McPherson and David Stancil introduced Mike Ortosky, <br />Agriculture Economic Development Coordinator. Mr. Ortosky provided members with a <br />detailed PowerPoint program outlining new approaches for creating economic <br />development opportunities around agriculture and food systems. He articulated main <br />goals, such as bringing in new ag-related businesses from outside the county as well as <br />providing incentives and support for existing local entrepreneurs and locally incubated <br />businesses. He sees a need to create and publicize an attractive environment in Orange <br />County for residents, producers, businesses, and agribusinesses, to allow the county to <br />become a regional leader in ag and food system development. The challenge is to fully <br />support all aspects of the existing food system and existing growers while generating new <br />growers and producers. We need to facilitate the local consumption of locally produced <br />food. A main focus will be on attracting and growing businesses that can <br />generate/aggregate that other 80% of the value-added component of the ag markets. This <br />could be accomplished via “innovation clusters” and the Triangle region seems like an <br />ideal place for this to happen. He sees an opportunity to design/implement a food overlay <br />ATTACHMENT 1