City council approves one-year data mining agreement with Placer Labs for economic development

Wednesday, Aug. 7, the Susanville City Council unanimously (Councilmember Russ Brown was absent) approved and authorized the mayor to sign Resolution No. 24-6342 — a one-year, $16,000 software subscription contract with Placer Labs, Inc. for data mining services related to the joint economic development efforts between the city and the Susanville Indian Rancheria.

According to the Placer Lab order form, the city will gain, “access, via Placer’s Platform, to reports, including visits, trade areas, customer journey, customer insights, dwell times and visitation by hour/day. Actionable insights include foot traffic counts and dwell time; true trade areas displaying frequent-visitors-density by home and work locations; customers’ demographics, interests and time spent at relevant locations; where customers are coming from and going to, and the routes they take; benchmarking of foot traffic, market share, audiences and other key metrics; competitive insights; and void analysis reports.”

According to the order form, the city “may not provide access to any third-party agents acting on its behalf (including any consultants, contractors or other agents of customer) without prior written consent from Placer. Any such approved access may be subject to an additional fee pursuant to a written amendment to this order form.”

The Susanville Indian Rancheria, which has agreed to pay half of the city’s economic development costs and work jointly with the city on economic development, did not sign the Placer Lab order form, but it will pay its $8,000 share of the cost.

According to the staff report, prepared by Susanville Economic Development Director Tamara Spade, “Placer Labs, Inc., software subscription will track, analyze and provide insights into Susanville’s Economic Development trends. This data will help assess the economic impact on Susanville’s sales tax revenue and optimize advertising strategies by targeting the right channels and locations. Additionally, monitoring traffic patterns will aid in planning infrastructure improvements and enhancing visitor’s experiences. Placer Labs, Inc., will be instrumental in driving economic growth and making strategic business decisions. This will be a collaboration between the city of Susanville and Susanville Indian Rancheria for a one-year subscription for $16,000 split between the organizations each paying $8,000.”

Spade appeared at the council meeting via Zoom to explain the project to the councilmembers.

Councilmember Curtis Bortle asked Spade to describe “what kind of data we’re aggregating here.”

Spade said the Placer data the city can utilize goes back at least three years and maybe even more.

“If we want to look at McDonalds on Main Street, how many people are coming in and going out, where they’re coming from to get there, how long they’re staying in Susanville, where they’re going after they leave McDonalds … This would be a great tool to look at what the fair did this year.”

Susanville Mayor Mendy Schuster pressed the issue and asked for more specific information regarding the data being collected and used.

“I think it’s probably like following their cellphones and tracking the location of where you’re going and coming from, and I think it would be the GIS from using our cellphones.” Spade said.

Shuster also asked about the confidentiality clause in the order form, and she wondered what information could be shared with the public.

“We’re not sharing their personal information,” Spade said.

Councilmember Dawn Miller asked Spade if she’d gotten a demonstration of the Placer product.

Using the casino as an example, Spade said, “They’re getting 20,000 a month coming to the casino, but from the casino they’re also eating and buying gas on Main Street at specific places. We can use that data, but it’s not telling us specifically who it’s coming from …What they showed us when they were demonstrating it, is people were coming all the way from the Fresno/Bakersfield area to come to the casino. Sacramento, and there were clusters from the most populated areas and where they were coming from. So, we can go look at employment — are people coming from Reno to work in Susanville, things like that for workforce development and where are we targeting our workforce?”

Shuster wondered what was different from the council’s $50,000 expenditure for similar data a few years ago, “And as far as the council goes, we got nothing back on it because it was confidential information. Whatever the problem, I don’t know, but it was like throwing away $50,000 … I might be in favor of it for a short time, a year at absolutely the most right now because of what I went through before, and the citizens were very upset about that.”

Spade said she did get a demonstration of the program, and, “It’s good information, and I’ve used this prior in my career. We used a lot, even for marketing purposes. It kind of would give us an idea of where we should be marketing, where are the most people coming from, and who are we not reaching.”

Miller asked about getting monthly or quarterly reports, “So we can see that we’re getting some bang for our bucks.”

“Yeah. Absolutely. We can do that,” Spade said.