Jovan Agee
The Opportunity Zone Expo Podcast
California’s Deputy Treasurer: Right Man, Right Time, Right Place for OZ Success
Transcription
Jack: Welcome back everyone to the OZExpo Podcast. I'm your host, Jack Heald. And I am delighted today to be joined by Jovan Agee who is the Deputy Treasurer for the state of California and his purview is housing and economic development. Jovan welcome to the OZExpo Podcast.
Jovan: Yeah, thank you Jack, for having me on. And even a greater thanks for pronouncing my last name correctly.
Jack: Well, I had a little help there. Alright. Hey, sometimes it's easy, sometimes it's a little more challenging. We always start off this show by finding out about who we're talking to. Who is Jovan Agee, where'd you come from and how did you get to where you are today? Talk about that. Give us a little history and career path.
Jovan: Wow. You know -- who I am? I just think that I'm in an average person. I think constantly about the needs of myself and my family and others that I come in contact with on a daily basis, whether or not that I know them. I'm an extremely caring person. I care greatly about the state of society and the state of humanity. I think constantly about, “what is my role in history in the present, and then what am I doing to create history and shape the future for the better?”
Jack: Ok.
Jovan: I don't really consider myself to be humanitarian.
Jack: I'm sorry man. I never get answers this good. I'm serious. This is really good stuff. You've already triggered a bunch of questions. One, why are you that way? What is happening? How is it that you are that kind of person?
Jovan: Yeah, I grew up in a family that was very conscious about community. My grandmother cofounded a Pentecostal church in the late forties, in the city of Madera, California. My grandfather was active in labor. He was very active in the neighborhood and helping people who weren't as fortunate to have some of the things that his family had. And service. Before I even knew what the word was or what it meant, it was something that I was exposed to. And I think when you live a life understanding that your purpose on this earth is more than just to benefit yourself, I think it's just part of my DNA.
Jack: That's good stuff. There was some deep stuff there. I just want to know more. Family history of service connected to the community. Probably sounds like it's founded in faith, which we'll talk about later. Talk about your career. You went to a Cal State Sacramento.
Jovan: I did. So that was an interesting career path. I was very much a jock growing up. I would consider myself a student athlete. I did well in sports, but I also did pretty well academically. I was an honor roll student for most of my high school and collegiate years. I played high school basketball. Ultimately, I played a multitude of sports, but ended up kind of honing in on basketball, ended up playing junior college basketball at Fresno City College. I grew up in Fresno and then ended up trying a brief stint semiprofessionally, in a Pro-Am League in Los Angeles before deciding to re-enroll in school and finish my degree. I finished up my degree at SAC State even though I did not start there, after a brief stint of trying my luck at a similar professional rank of basketball.
Jack: Sac State, is that what you call it in California?
Jovan: Correct. Cal State University of Sacramento abbreviation is Sac State to us.
Jack: I'm in Arizona, I don’t know the inside lingo.
Jovan: I apologize.
Jack: I noticed in my research that you actually worked for Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson. There's a little bit of overlap there between the basketball Kevin Johnson and me, but I live in Phoenix; he was a pretty important part of the life of Phoenix there for a while.
Jovan: Yup. Yup.
Jack: What'd you do in the city of Sacramento?
Jovan: I was senior advisor for Kevin Johnson, his second term as mayor, and did a lot with him in his aspirations in the city. Also worked very closely with him and some of his community efforts in the neighborhood that he grew up in a ballpark. I had a chance to work very closely with them both and you know, kind of his public life side but then also on some of his personal endeavors to build a community in which he grew up in.
Jack: Talk about this community building thing because I know that dovetails with the Opportunity Zone program. But let's kind of set the Opportunity Zone aside. Let's press pause on that for a moment and just talk about this: it looks like -- as best as I can tell-- you’ve spent most of your life involved in community-building types of activities. What does that look like?
Jovan: You know, I think for me it really just looks like, what can you do to help someone close to you? I mean, I think sometimes we overcomplicate these things, as if we have to drive some far-off place to go help somebody somewhere. Versus, really, what do we do to build people in close proximity? And then in planting those seeds, they then go back to their respective communities and the community, then, is inherently built.
Because you're helping to build people through motivation socially, whether it's through spiritual strength, but definitely economic strength is also an important component. And for me it can take on a whole host of things that can come anywhere from just being present in the community and having young people be able to touch, feel and interact with me.
Who they look at is some politician does something somewhere that they have no clue, but he just seems like a cool guy, too. I'm actually kind of “pull up your bootstraps” and doing some of the hard work to bring conversations around changes in the educational system to a faith-based entity or you know, working with the local workforce development center to figure out how can they secure more financing that they can expand programming. For me, it can be as simple as saying a kind word to a person, being present, you know. Helping a young person in terms of mentoring or tutoring to something more sophisticated: how do you help an operation that has been doing well maybe for a few decades continue to do their work because they need funding.
Jack: Looks like earlier in your career you were with the United Domestic Workers Union and it looks like you grew that under your leadership. Is that something we can talk about?
Jovan: Yeah, we sure can. That was an important part of my career. I would say two things really helped shaped the political person I am today. One was definitely my time in sports, in basketball, playing the position of point guard, which forces you to be what we would call kind of in the professional world, a manager you know, an executive. A point guard gives you all those skills in terms of how do you organize and manage people and get people moving in the same direction and feeling good about it.
The point guard to do that in my professional life in my political career with, I'll call it my government affairs career, I'll have spent 16 years in this space in August. I spent the first 10 years in this world working for a labor union known as the United Domestic Workers, which is a statewide local of the American Federation of State County Municipal Employees.
That represents about 80,000 home care providers in the state of California. The local was actually founded by Cesar Chavez in 1977. There's a tremendous amount of history with that local that I worked for. And I started out working for that local and around 2004, I started out as an entry-level kind of legislative person helping them kind of prepare their lobbyist to do their work.
And then just through the course of hard work, favor and timing, I was actually promoted to be the political director and actually ran the department about a year and a half later at the age of 25. I became the youngest political director in the history of AFSCME at 25 years old. It was a tremendous learning experience. I mean, it tested me to really see what I can do.
But when I became the director of the department it was literally the department of one. A lot of the staff had moved on. And I was the secretary of the policy analyst, I was a political consultant. It was a great learning experience.
And I went from being a department of one, having the title, having an operational budget of about $300,000 to eight-and-a-half years later, having a department of about 11 people that I grew, had an operational budget of $2.4 million and had offices across the state in addition to building our political war chest. It's very much one of those romantic aspects of my career was kind of like the good old days where I was young, didn't even really know what my limits were or understood them and I just did what I felt was right. And you know, the fruits of my labor are now part of someone's history. I hope.
Jack: That's good. Now, help me understand what type of work this is. Home care domestic workers, what is that?
Jovan: In the health care spectrum you essentially have -- on the entry end of it -- what are known in California as in-home support services workers or home care or home care aide. And in California they had the opportunity to unionize either whether they're public or private sector employees. And the public sector's side of in-home support services workers are essentially administered by the counties in California.
Jack: Gotcha. These are part of the social services program, right?
Jovan: Correct. Personal care attendants, folks that do cleaning, bathing helps with medicine, food prep transportation to doctor's visits, all those things.
Jack: Right. In other words, real “rubber meets the road” kind of work.
Jovan: That's right, front line folks.
Jack: Good stuff. But let's move forward now. You were appointed to the treasurer's office, when was that? Early this year?
Jovan: Yeah. My first stint at an appointment was last March under the previous treasurer, John Chang, who I’ve had a relationship with now for over a decade. He appointed me to be his deputy for legislative affairs to help him finish out his term. And then I was fortunate enough to receive another call from another friend, our current treasurer, Fiona Ma, who I've known for almost going on 13 years now. And she called and asked if I would essentially ground her housing and economic development vision and strategy in her office. And that's when I was appointed with her on January 7 of this year.
Jack: Now was the Opportunity Zone at that point an intrinsic part of the plan?
Jovan: Yeah. You know, Opportunity Zones were starting to kind of be at somewhat of a buzz and I think that with the emergence of Gavin Newsome being our next anticipated governor people really felt that housing was going to move to the forefront in terms of priorities in the state under the previous governor. That was not a high-level priority. And although Opportunity Zones were things that people knew about or were talking about, they weren't something that people were kind of gravitating towards just because there was no real energy and attention being given to it at the state level. And all of that changed when we got a new governor and then on top of the treasurer who has made it their priority.
Jack: I wanted to ask about Opportunity Zones. I want to ask about your work as a deputy treasurer in a moment. But first I want to talk about the difference between working at the state level and working at smaller, more local levels. How has that changed how you work?
Jovan: Like many things, everything can be both a gift and a curse. And you know, one of the things I love about working at the local government level is just the intimacy you have with “real people”. Right? I have memories of sitting in city council chambers for the city of Sacramento on a Tuesday night and we're hearing about light, right? We're hearing about mattresses in fields, right? We're hearing about shopping carts in fields, right? Just things that you never hear about it state level.
With that being said, the difficulty and the challenges with that kind of dialogue with the local government level is that sometimes what we will call kind of the bigger issues sometimes don't get the necessary attention or time that they need. Right? Because some of the smaller -- with career kind of bureaucrats -- me some of the lesser, more mundane issues sometimes draw those things out.
That's always the balance that you have with local government and you don't sometimes have some of the same time restrictions like you'd have at the state level. Contrast that to the state level. We have our budget hearings, our state legislative hearings and you don't get the very rubber meets the road issues. They're very high level of testimonies. Often, they're usually very scripted. They're usually associations or organizations that are bringing these people to the halls of the legislature.
And then you also have at your disposal the ability to cut off testimony. At the state level, when testimony starts to run a little bit too long -- they usually started at three minutes -- then the chair will say, “Okay, we're cutting testimony down to a minute.” And then they have the ability to say, “Hey, this hearing is running long, we're going to cut off testimony. Please submit your testimony in written form.” You don't necessarily have that at local government level.
There'll be times we'd be at City Hall until 11 p.m., 11:30, p.m., midnight from a city council meeting that started at 6 p.m. in the afternoon. It's a very different world, but it was very beneficial for me to have both experiences because it's the reality of society. I got to be able to see all the various perspectives and how, and I think what I was best probably suited to be positioned to do.
Jack: Let's jump to the present day. You are now the Deputy Treasurer, State of California Housing and Economic Development and we've got this extraordinary federal government program, the Opportunity Zone program. What is your day-to-day work? And I'm not asking for an agenda every day, but what's the day-to-day stuff that you are seeing come through your office that's helping to advance affordable housing in general and the Opportunity Zones in particular?
Jovan: Yeah, I think that we're definitely at the same of course, when we think this is an extraordinary tool. But I would say before I answer the question, what are the challenges I think that we face in California is that not everyone is of that same mindset, that this isn't even an extraordinary tool. Right? And I think that for us in the Treasurer's Office who truly believe that it is, it's first trying to overcome some of those mindsets of the fear, the danger of what infusing private dollars into distressed communities actually means. Right? And that's just a fundamental impediment that sometimes we have to overcome to even have the conversations we want to have. And you know, and in terms of tools in this office, I oversee six of what we call boards, commissions and authorities. We have 16 in total.
I oversee six of them. I oversee six that have incentives for Housing and Economic Development. One deals with the debt limit allocation committee that deals with bonding for development projects. It deals with the debt side and how to bring in finances to alleviate the debt side of development projects. I deal with the tax credit allocation committee that does exactly what the name says.
It provides a tax credits that then can be sold for money to be infused into development projects. I oversee the California Pollution Control Financing Authority, which two of its most popular products are: We have a loan loss reserve accounts that that helps financial institutions be more willing to take on riskier loans. It's a way to help some of your smaller startup businesses get access to capital because our loan loss reserve provides a backstop.
Then the second program that authority has is a brownfield assessment and remediation grant and loan fund. Some of the largest impediments to development is actually getting the ground prepared, the soil prepared so that it's palatable for residences.
We put on top of it with no toxins. And this is the way that developers can actually come get resources to help take care of that cost for them as an incentive to develop on that property.
In addition to that, I oversee AEATFA, which is the Alternative Energy and Advanced Transportation Financing Authority. Their biggest product is we have a sales tax exclusion, and one of the biggest users thus far of it has been Tesla which is one of the largest employers in the state.
What that incentive does is for businesses that want to come into the state or expand in the state and they're doing things around advanced manufacturing whether they're buying equipment, expanding the use of equipment, they can fill out an application and if approved, they will get a certificate, they can take that certificate to a vendor and their sales tax will be waived.
Jack: Gotcha.
Jovan: That has been an amazing incentive. And what we've actually seen is that we've leveraged anywhere from $1 to trigger $16 to $18 into the economy. So that's an amazing economic development tool we have in the States. And then, in addition, there are two other authorities that I oversee of which are inactive. We're going to reactivate them this year. One is the healthy food financing investment council. The mission of that council is to eradicate food deserts. And we're going to look…
Jack: What, “food deserts?”
Jovan: In California, that's what we call places where there is no grocery store.
Jack: Oh, okay.
Jovan: Or any place where you can’t buy healthy food within a particular radius. You know, if within a five-mile radius from where you're standing, there are no healthy food options, then you are in a food desert.
Jack: Gotcha. Okay.
Jovan: So yeah, it's one of those kinds of California-specific terms. And then lastly the California Transportation Financing Authority and that authority looks to finance infrastructure to make development conducive. Making sure that we have roads, sewer, transportation, infrastructure to compliment whatever development happens in those communities. I'm saying all that to say for us it's not really about “what do we need to do that is new to align ourselves with Opportunity Zone?” The question for us is now “how do we become more strategic with our investments to further leverage the Opportunity Zone assets that are out there?”
Jack: Yeah, I see that. The couple that just spring to mind are these food deserts. I've talked to an awful lot of people both on the finance side as well as developers. And my constant question is about business development, using Opportunity Zone funds. Everybody can see how to develop real estate, but how do we develop businesses?
Jovan: Yeah.
Jack: Seems like that would be the food too, and I realize that grocery is an extremely low margin business, but it's also a very stable business. It seems like that would be quite an opportunity for Opportunity Zone development. I've had another question I wanted to ask you about: the agency that oversees the loan loss reserves.
Jovan: Yeah, the agency is called the California Pollution Control.
Jack: That's what I thought you said, pollution control financing.
Jovan: Well, what happened was the authority was created a couple of decades ago and it's already kind of expanded. It outgrew its name. We're currently in the process of trying to figure out how to rebrand it.
Jack: Okay, that makes sense. Alright, we've got the Opportunity Zone program. The Treasury Department there in California has got a bunch of different agencies that are tasked with leveraging both our authority and your budget to maximize development in California. I saw in my research that affordable housing is a particular passion of yours. What do you want to say to these folks who are looking at Opportunity Zone development about affordable housing in the state of California?
Jovan: Yeah, I mean it's critical that we have it, but I think we have to broaden the way we think about it. While I think there's this mad rush to build it, I believe that concurrently we have to be having conversations about wealth building, because I think we will be shooting ourselves in the foot if we are overly concerned about trying to build affordable housing, but not paying attention to what the value of a dollar means in our households. Because if we don't also concern ourselves with that, then we will never have enough affordable housing to provide. And I think it's two things we have to be thinking about is how do we sort of build affordable housing to meet our current needs, but then how do we ensure that people have the type of income and wealth in their homes to buy whatever inventory they desire that's on the market.
Jack: I agree with the question that you ask. How do we change people's thinking about the value of a dollar -- affordable housing -- so they actually are able to afford it, to buy it?
Jovan: That's a multifaceted problem we have to tackle it. And I think that I'll touch on a couple of light things, but then bring it back. I think some of the things that we can more immediately do, I think we really have to revisit our educational system in this country. I think that our marketplace is changing, our economy has changed but our educational system is not. And what is happening is that we are actually failing our youth and we're not preparing them for the opportunities that are out there. And it's unfortunate, but when you look at some of where this country have come from, some of them decided actually to drop out or opt out from our educational system.
Jack: Right
Jovan: And we just have to do something about that. Right? I think we need more of a market- based educational system. I would say it starts there. And I think that if we were to do that, then when you teach entrepreneurialism, inherently you're kind of teaching wealth in a way because it teaches you how to deal with money differently when you're an entrepreneur versus an employee.
Jack: Oh yeah.
Jovan: So that, I think in-and-of itself, will help with some wealth building principals. But I think more directly in terms of our office. What we can do is we have various programs. We have college savings accounts options. We have our Cal-savers, which is a retirement program. One of the things we're going to be looking at doing is trying to figure out --through our scoring system for our bonding in our tax credits – “How do we incentivize development projects that have some of these supportive kinds of environments that are helping their resident?”
Jack: Yeah.
Jovan: You know, some of this stuff is there, we just have to figure out how to kind of help catalyze some of the best practices. And then in other areas where we know things aren't working, how do we change some of those realities from a financing body standpoint?
Jack: Yeah. I can't help any on the financing body side, but we've got a megaphone here, right into the Opportunity Zone industry. Talk to those folks. What do you want to tell them? This is California. For the Opportunity Zone, California is probably… Well, if it's not ground zero, it's within spitting distance from ground zero for this program. There's a reason why most of these folks are looking at your state.
Jovan: I would say foremost, tell us what you want, tell us what you need. I mean, California is a place that there is never a lack of abundance of lobbyists and advocates and people that are making sure their voices are heard.
And normally individuals in the development and investments space are accustomed to engage in government that way. But in California, because of some of the things, some of the policies that need to happen to try to conform state law to align with it federal a lot, I think it's extremely important for their voices to be heard at an audible level, higher than we've probably ever heard before. I would say that number one. Number two, I would say that in addition to the investors looking for the big returns if possible, if there can be some consideration for the smaller stuff.
And I say that because one of the comments you made earlier about businesses, those are going to be some of your harder entities to attract to the Qualified Opportunity Fund because the returns just aren't there, like you'll see on a transit-oriented development project or a luxury condo or a hotel.
And for those who have a philanthropic heart, I'm not saying to abandon the larger investments, but if they can also make room in their portfolios for some of the smaller stuff, it’s going to have a huge social impact that may not always show up kind of on the balance sheet.
Jack: Well, I can tell you I've been pleasantly surprised in the conversations I've had, the number of people who bring up impact investing unbidden. It seems to be pretty much top of line, I would say.
You know, one out of every two people I talk to, they're very aware of impact investing. And of course, people want to want a good return on their dollar.
I have a sense, I've got an intuition that there's a sea of change that we're going through that may not be obvious right now. I think we've reached a time, maybe a tipping point where the impact that our investing makes has become a whole lot more important than it used to be.
And I think this program definitely gives us the opportunity to get there.
Jovan: I agree with that. I think I'll add to that -- and it's not specifically directed to Opportunity Zone -- but I think it provides the backdrop in the context in which Opportunity Zones is living and breathing. I think we're living at a time in history where people are just scrambling for solutions.
And I think that there's been this period where people are tired of the status quo. People are tired of the status quo, whether it's their political affiliations, their governmental affiliations, their religious affiliations, and people want to associate themselves from a time standpoint, from a monetary investment standpoint, from things, for things and people that are actually doing something that are true to their mission statement. On people who are -- I believe -- are tired of rhetoric. They're tired of politics and business. Tired of the finger pointing, the blame game, people actually want to see changes.
And I just think we're living in a very interesting time because while I get a sense that that's the sentiment, we're also living in a time where we have wealth in amounts we've never seen before.
Jack: That's right.
Jovan: You actually have people who have the means to do something about how they're feeling. And I just think we're in a special moment. I believe that, I believe that trend line is still going up in terms of where, where else were we going? I don't think the trend line is coming back down yet. And I just think we're living in a very fascinating time in history.
Jack: All right. I've got a quote that I pulled off your Twitter timeline. I want to hear you talk more about. "I've hated poverty my whole life. I hate what it looks and feels like given what I see today. I feel a sense of urgency to do more, to disrupt it. The teachings of self-determination are needed now more than ever." That is Jovan Agee from last summer. Talk about that.
Jovan: Yeah. You know, I grew up, I was born in Madera, California. I was raised in Fresno, California, which is essentially the heartland of the state. That's where a lot of our food is generated from. It goes around the world and you know, it's really what I feel is a microcosm of this state. You see extreme wealth and you see extreme poverty. And unfortunately I was raised in kind of the lower social- economic end of that spectrum. And I also had the privilege -- because I was gifted in sports -- to be able to affiliate and associate myself with people from the parts of the city who had other greater means that were closer to the upper end of the socioeconomic spectrum.
I was exposed to a wide range of people and money and economies that probably most people just aren't. But I was exposed at a very young age. And one of the things that sort of became very much an emotional thing for me is just really getting tired of things. Some of the things that I experienced myself firsthand. I'm an only child and only grandchild was raised by a single mother.
Jack: Only grandchild? Oh no.
Jovan: Yeah,
Jack: As a grandfather, I am both pleased and sad for you. It's greater to have grandkids but it is great to have a whole bunch.
Jovan: That background gives you all you need to know when you grew up with a bunch of adults, right? I was pretty much a grown kid; I grew up around a bunch of adults. My vocabulary was very much advanced. My thinking was advanced because you grew up around adults, right? I grew up in that environment. I didn't know my father growing up, I didn't even identify my father until literally September of last year through ancestry.com test. He passed away in 1989. I never had the chance to meet him. But I've experienced what poverty looks like firsthand from a multitude of reasons, whether it's job instability from my mother, housing instability. A lot of the things that I'm talking about, speaking from a place of firsthand perspective.
Jack: Personal for you.
Jovan: Exactly. It's very personal. And you know, I've seen it myself. I felt in myself. I smelled it myself. I've seen others in my peer groups of friends who were experiencing the same thing. And although I did not have siblings, I had a band of buddies that I grew up with who to today, we're still extremely close and we just thought very differently for people our age. And I still look back and it was like, I wonder where we got the mindset. I can remember when we were 13 years old us talking about what we're going to do when we grow up and what our obligation was going to be to our communities. Because growing up, we felt like no one cared. I mean, we literally felt like we would go to parks, we play basketball, and we were on courts that had cracks in the concrete. A full court, but only one backboard. Or it would have a rim and no net.
And when you live in those conditions, this isn't an excuse, but you see why sometimes people behave the way they behave as if they don't care. And I think that is a very dangerous place to get to. When you see crime, you see drugs, you see behaviors. But I think it speaks to something that is lost in the soul and in the spirit. When you grew up in environments like that, I'm very fortunate. I believe that I was able to overcome those things and maybe it was because of exposure, right? Maybe sports and academics allowed me to see other places and be around other places. I wasn't forced to solely be kind of in that depressed and distressed environment all the time. I just, I don't like it. I don't. When I go to places today and I see it, it brings back memories of things that I don't want to think about in terms of what streets look like, what people are doing. What businesses look like in some of these communities. No sidewalks, in some instances, no sewage systems in some of these incidents. I mean there are people living in communities right here in California that if you were to visit them, you would think you were in a third-world country.
Jack: Right.
Jovan: And there's something fundamentally wrong with that when you're talking about a state that has a $209 billion budget. There's something fundamentally wrong with that. And I believe that if there's nothing else that I can do on my time here on this earth, I can make sure that people in places that I interact with on a daily basis, don't forget about the people, like the ones I grew up with.
Jack: Preach it, brother. I'm going to make a suggestion: I think it was more than, I think it was more than education. As I read through your Twitter feed, I see a strong faith. You seem to have a sense of the transcendent?
Jovan: Very much, very much. I believe that I believe that. All of us our destined to do what we are purposed to do by our creator, whoever that may be. I grew up in the Christian tradition. As I stated, my grandmother was Pentecostal. I believe in Jesus Christ, but I believe that we all are children of God. I do not look at any other religion or religious belief as negative or those who may not even be of belief, but just may believe in source or have a positive energy. But for me, I have no doubt in my mind that I was destined to be here. I was destined to do what I'm doing, and I believe that it was not because of Jovan.
While I'm here there's a lot of dumb things that I could have did that could have ultimately changed the course of why I'm here today. But I believe that the God that I believe in had a greater purpose for me. And I think that's also who I am obligated to. When I'm in these spaces and I speak with a certain level of freedom and conviction is because I believe that I was put here to do it and I believe if I don't do it in the same opportunity I was given to be here will be taken away from me.
Jack: Yeah. Wow. I just keep getting more and more interesting, engaging people to get to talk to. This may be my favorite conversation so far.
We have reached that point in the conversation where I need to wind it up. I'm going to ask you; do you have any last words for us? What do you want to leave us with today?
Jovan: You know, I just want to leave you with all the intensity that I may bring. You know, all the clarity of thought that I may bring, all the confidence that you may hear my voice. I am extremely appreciative and humble every time that someone like yourself find value in hearing from me. And I just want to make sure that you know that I'm appreciative and I'm humbled and that audience knows that as well.
Jack: Well, thanks so much. For the folks in the Opportunity Zone world, who wants to take advantage of what the Treasurer's Department offers to Opportunity Zone investors and developers, what's the best way to get started there?
Jovan: Yeah. I would advise them, feel free to reach out to me. My email is jovan.agee@treasurer.ca.gov. And I can be sure to try to if you're a developer or try to connect you with fund if you're a financer looking for a project, I can work on that as well. And then I always try to encourage people to follow me on Twitter. I like to act on impulse. If you're following my Twitter feed, but integrating certain of information. My Twitter handle is at @jovanagee.
Jack: And I can testify: after reading through your Twitter feed, it is worth following. I appreciate it. Thank you. And I want to remind our listeners that the information that Jovan has given us here will also be printed on the podcast website. So, don't wreck the car trying to write it down. On behalf of Jovan Agee, I am Jack Heald for the OZExpo Podcasts. Thank you for listening to us. Be sure to press that subscribe button so you're always updated. We've got lots more of these coming. And we will talk to you next time.
Announcer: This podcast is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal, tax or investment advice. For specific recommendations, please consult with your financial, legal, or tax professional.
Jovan: Yeah, thank you Jack, for having me on. And even a greater thanks for pronouncing my last name correctly.
Jack: Well, I had a little help there. Alright. Hey, sometimes it's easy, sometimes it's a little more challenging. We always start off this show by finding out about who we're talking to. Who is Jovan Agee, where'd you come from and how did you get to where you are today? Talk about that. Give us a little history and career path.
Jovan: Wow. You know -- who I am? I just think that I'm in an average person. I think constantly about the needs of myself and my family and others that I come in contact with on a daily basis, whether or not that I know them. I'm an extremely caring person. I care greatly about the state of society and the state of humanity. I think constantly about, “what is my role in history in the present, and then what am I doing to create history and shape the future for the better?”
Jack: Ok.
Jovan: I don't really consider myself to be humanitarian.
Jack: I'm sorry man. I never get answers this good. I'm serious. This is really good stuff. You've already triggered a bunch of questions. One, why are you that way? What is happening? How is it that you are that kind of person?
Jovan: Yeah, I grew up in a family that was very conscious about community. My grandmother cofounded a Pentecostal church in the late forties, in the city of Madera, California. My grandfather was active in labor. He was very active in the neighborhood and helping people who weren't as fortunate to have some of the things that his family had. And service. Before I even knew what the word was or what it meant, it was something that I was exposed to. And I think when you live a life understanding that your purpose on this earth is more than just to benefit yourself, I think it's just part of my DNA.
Jack: That's good stuff. There was some deep stuff there. I just want to know more. Family history of service connected to the community. Probably sounds like it's founded in faith, which we'll talk about later. Talk about your career. You went to a Cal State Sacramento.
Jovan: I did. So that was an interesting career path. I was very much a jock growing up. I would consider myself a student athlete. I did well in sports, but I also did pretty well academically. I was an honor roll student for most of my high school and collegiate years. I played high school basketball. Ultimately, I played a multitude of sports, but ended up kind of honing in on basketball, ended up playing junior college basketball at Fresno City College. I grew up in Fresno and then ended up trying a brief stint semiprofessionally, in a Pro-Am League in Los Angeles before deciding to re-enroll in school and finish my degree. I finished up my degree at SAC State even though I did not start there, after a brief stint of trying my luck at a similar professional rank of basketball.
Jack: Sac State, is that what you call it in California?
Jovan: Correct. Cal State University of Sacramento abbreviation is Sac State to us.
Jack: I'm in Arizona, I don’t know the inside lingo.
Jovan: I apologize.
Jack: I noticed in my research that you actually worked for Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson. There's a little bit of overlap there between the basketball Kevin Johnson and me, but I live in Phoenix; he was a pretty important part of the life of Phoenix there for a while.
Jovan: Yup. Yup.
Jack: What'd you do in the city of Sacramento?
Jovan: I was senior advisor for Kevin Johnson, his second term as mayor, and did a lot with him in his aspirations in the city. Also worked very closely with him and some of his community efforts in the neighborhood that he grew up in a ballpark. I had a chance to work very closely with them both and you know, kind of his public life side but then also on some of his personal endeavors to build a community in which he grew up in.
Jack: Talk about this community building thing because I know that dovetails with the Opportunity Zone program. But let's kind of set the Opportunity Zone aside. Let's press pause on that for a moment and just talk about this: it looks like -- as best as I can tell-- you’ve spent most of your life involved in community-building types of activities. What does that look like?
Jovan: You know, I think for me it really just looks like, what can you do to help someone close to you? I mean, I think sometimes we overcomplicate these things, as if we have to drive some far-off place to go help somebody somewhere. Versus, really, what do we do to build people in close proximity? And then in planting those seeds, they then go back to their respective communities and the community, then, is inherently built.
Because you're helping to build people through motivation socially, whether it's through spiritual strength, but definitely economic strength is also an important component. And for me it can take on a whole host of things that can come anywhere from just being present in the community and having young people be able to touch, feel and interact with me.
Who they look at is some politician does something somewhere that they have no clue, but he just seems like a cool guy, too. I'm actually kind of “pull up your bootstraps” and doing some of the hard work to bring conversations around changes in the educational system to a faith-based entity or you know, working with the local workforce development center to figure out how can they secure more financing that they can expand programming. For me, it can be as simple as saying a kind word to a person, being present, you know. Helping a young person in terms of mentoring or tutoring to something more sophisticated: how do you help an operation that has been doing well maybe for a few decades continue to do their work because they need funding.
Jack: Looks like earlier in your career you were with the United Domestic Workers Union and it looks like you grew that under your leadership. Is that something we can talk about?
Jovan: Yeah, we sure can. That was an important part of my career. I would say two things really helped shaped the political person I am today. One was definitely my time in sports, in basketball, playing the position of point guard, which forces you to be what we would call kind of in the professional world, a manager you know, an executive. A point guard gives you all those skills in terms of how do you organize and manage people and get people moving in the same direction and feeling good about it.
The point guard to do that in my professional life in my political career with, I'll call it my government affairs career, I'll have spent 16 years in this space in August. I spent the first 10 years in this world working for a labor union known as the United Domestic Workers, which is a statewide local of the American Federation of State County Municipal Employees.
That represents about 80,000 home care providers in the state of California. The local was actually founded by Cesar Chavez in 1977. There's a tremendous amount of history with that local that I worked for. And I started out working for that local and around 2004, I started out as an entry-level kind of legislative person helping them kind of prepare their lobbyist to do their work.
And then just through the course of hard work, favor and timing, I was actually promoted to be the political director and actually ran the department about a year and a half later at the age of 25. I became the youngest political director in the history of AFSCME at 25 years old. It was a tremendous learning experience. I mean, it tested me to really see what I can do.
But when I became the director of the department it was literally the department of one. A lot of the staff had moved on. And I was the secretary of the policy analyst, I was a political consultant. It was a great learning experience.
And I went from being a department of one, having the title, having an operational budget of about $300,000 to eight-and-a-half years later, having a department of about 11 people that I grew, had an operational budget of $2.4 million and had offices across the state in addition to building our political war chest. It's very much one of those romantic aspects of my career was kind of like the good old days where I was young, didn't even really know what my limits were or understood them and I just did what I felt was right. And you know, the fruits of my labor are now part of someone's history. I hope.
Jack: That's good. Now, help me understand what type of work this is. Home care domestic workers, what is that?
Jovan: In the health care spectrum you essentially have -- on the entry end of it -- what are known in California as in-home support services workers or home care or home care aide. And in California they had the opportunity to unionize either whether they're public or private sector employees. And the public sector's side of in-home support services workers are essentially administered by the counties in California.
Jack: Gotcha. These are part of the social services program, right?
Jovan: Correct. Personal care attendants, folks that do cleaning, bathing helps with medicine, food prep transportation to doctor's visits, all those things.
Jack: Right. In other words, real “rubber meets the road” kind of work.
Jovan: That's right, front line folks.
Jack: Good stuff. But let's move forward now. You were appointed to the treasurer's office, when was that? Early this year?
Jovan: Yeah. My first stint at an appointment was last March under the previous treasurer, John Chang, who I’ve had a relationship with now for over a decade. He appointed me to be his deputy for legislative affairs to help him finish out his term. And then I was fortunate enough to receive another call from another friend, our current treasurer, Fiona Ma, who I've known for almost going on 13 years now. And she called and asked if I would essentially ground her housing and economic development vision and strategy in her office. And that's when I was appointed with her on January 7 of this year.
Jack: Now was the Opportunity Zone at that point an intrinsic part of the plan?
Jovan: Yeah. You know, Opportunity Zones were starting to kind of be at somewhat of a buzz and I think that with the emergence of Gavin Newsome being our next anticipated governor people really felt that housing was going to move to the forefront in terms of priorities in the state under the previous governor. That was not a high-level priority. And although Opportunity Zones were things that people knew about or were talking about, they weren't something that people were kind of gravitating towards just because there was no real energy and attention being given to it at the state level. And all of that changed when we got a new governor and then on top of the treasurer who has made it their priority.
Jack: I wanted to ask about Opportunity Zones. I want to ask about your work as a deputy treasurer in a moment. But first I want to talk about the difference between working at the state level and working at smaller, more local levels. How has that changed how you work?
Jovan: Like many things, everything can be both a gift and a curse. And you know, one of the things I love about working at the local government level is just the intimacy you have with “real people”. Right? I have memories of sitting in city council chambers for the city of Sacramento on a Tuesday night and we're hearing about light, right? We're hearing about mattresses in fields, right? We're hearing about shopping carts in fields, right? Just things that you never hear about it state level.
With that being said, the difficulty and the challenges with that kind of dialogue with the local government level is that sometimes what we will call kind of the bigger issues sometimes don't get the necessary attention or time that they need. Right? Because some of the smaller -- with career kind of bureaucrats -- me some of the lesser, more mundane issues sometimes draw those things out.
That's always the balance that you have with local government and you don't sometimes have some of the same time restrictions like you'd have at the state level. Contrast that to the state level. We have our budget hearings, our state legislative hearings and you don't get the very rubber meets the road issues. They're very high level of testimonies. Often, they're usually very scripted. They're usually associations or organizations that are bringing these people to the halls of the legislature.
And then you also have at your disposal the ability to cut off testimony. At the state level, when testimony starts to run a little bit too long -- they usually started at three minutes -- then the chair will say, “Okay, we're cutting testimony down to a minute.” And then they have the ability to say, “Hey, this hearing is running long, we're going to cut off testimony. Please submit your testimony in written form.” You don't necessarily have that at local government level.
There'll be times we'd be at City Hall until 11 p.m., 11:30, p.m., midnight from a city council meeting that started at 6 p.m. in the afternoon. It's a very different world, but it was very beneficial for me to have both experiences because it's the reality of society. I got to be able to see all the various perspectives and how, and I think what I was best probably suited to be positioned to do.
Jack: Let's jump to the present day. You are now the Deputy Treasurer, State of California Housing and Economic Development and we've got this extraordinary federal government program, the Opportunity Zone program. What is your day-to-day work? And I'm not asking for an agenda every day, but what's the day-to-day stuff that you are seeing come through your office that's helping to advance affordable housing in general and the Opportunity Zones in particular?
Jovan: Yeah, I think that we're definitely at the same of course, when we think this is an extraordinary tool. But I would say before I answer the question, what are the challenges I think that we face in California is that not everyone is of that same mindset, that this isn't even an extraordinary tool. Right? And I think that for us in the Treasurer's Office who truly believe that it is, it's first trying to overcome some of those mindsets of the fear, the danger of what infusing private dollars into distressed communities actually means. Right? And that's just a fundamental impediment that sometimes we have to overcome to even have the conversations we want to have. And you know, and in terms of tools in this office, I oversee six of what we call boards, commissions and authorities. We have 16 in total.
I oversee six of them. I oversee six that have incentives for Housing and Economic Development. One deals with the debt limit allocation committee that deals with bonding for development projects. It deals with the debt side and how to bring in finances to alleviate the debt side of development projects. I deal with the tax credit allocation committee that does exactly what the name says.
It provides a tax credits that then can be sold for money to be infused into development projects. I oversee the California Pollution Control Financing Authority, which two of its most popular products are: We have a loan loss reserve accounts that that helps financial institutions be more willing to take on riskier loans. It's a way to help some of your smaller startup businesses get access to capital because our loan loss reserve provides a backstop.
Then the second program that authority has is a brownfield assessment and remediation grant and loan fund. Some of the largest impediments to development is actually getting the ground prepared, the soil prepared so that it's palatable for residences.
We put on top of it with no toxins. And this is the way that developers can actually come get resources to help take care of that cost for them as an incentive to develop on that property.
In addition to that, I oversee AEATFA, which is the Alternative Energy and Advanced Transportation Financing Authority. Their biggest product is we have a sales tax exclusion, and one of the biggest users thus far of it has been Tesla which is one of the largest employers in the state.
What that incentive does is for businesses that want to come into the state or expand in the state and they're doing things around advanced manufacturing whether they're buying equipment, expanding the use of equipment, they can fill out an application and if approved, they will get a certificate, they can take that certificate to a vendor and their sales tax will be waived.
Jack: Gotcha.
Jovan: That has been an amazing incentive. And what we've actually seen is that we've leveraged anywhere from $1 to trigger $16 to $18 into the economy. So that's an amazing economic development tool we have in the States. And then, in addition, there are two other authorities that I oversee of which are inactive. We're going to reactivate them this year. One is the healthy food financing investment council. The mission of that council is to eradicate food deserts. And we're going to look…
Jack: What, “food deserts?”
Jovan: In California, that's what we call places where there is no grocery store.
Jack: Oh, okay.
Jovan: Or any place where you can’t buy healthy food within a particular radius. You know, if within a five-mile radius from where you're standing, there are no healthy food options, then you are in a food desert.
Jack: Gotcha. Okay.
Jovan: So yeah, it's one of those kinds of California-specific terms. And then lastly the California Transportation Financing Authority and that authority looks to finance infrastructure to make development conducive. Making sure that we have roads, sewer, transportation, infrastructure to compliment whatever development happens in those communities. I'm saying all that to say for us it's not really about “what do we need to do that is new to align ourselves with Opportunity Zone?” The question for us is now “how do we become more strategic with our investments to further leverage the Opportunity Zone assets that are out there?”
Jack: Yeah, I see that. The couple that just spring to mind are these food deserts. I've talked to an awful lot of people both on the finance side as well as developers. And my constant question is about business development, using Opportunity Zone funds. Everybody can see how to develop real estate, but how do we develop businesses?
Jovan: Yeah.
Jack: Seems like that would be the food too, and I realize that grocery is an extremely low margin business, but it's also a very stable business. It seems like that would be quite an opportunity for Opportunity Zone development. I've had another question I wanted to ask you about: the agency that oversees the loan loss reserves.
Jovan: Yeah, the agency is called the California Pollution Control.
Jack: That's what I thought you said, pollution control financing.
Jovan: Well, what happened was the authority was created a couple of decades ago and it's already kind of expanded. It outgrew its name. We're currently in the process of trying to figure out how to rebrand it.
Jack: Okay, that makes sense. Alright, we've got the Opportunity Zone program. The Treasury Department there in California has got a bunch of different agencies that are tasked with leveraging both our authority and your budget to maximize development in California. I saw in my research that affordable housing is a particular passion of yours. What do you want to say to these folks who are looking at Opportunity Zone development about affordable housing in the state of California?
Jovan: Yeah, I mean it's critical that we have it, but I think we have to broaden the way we think about it. While I think there's this mad rush to build it, I believe that concurrently we have to be having conversations about wealth building, because I think we will be shooting ourselves in the foot if we are overly concerned about trying to build affordable housing, but not paying attention to what the value of a dollar means in our households. Because if we don't also concern ourselves with that, then we will never have enough affordable housing to provide. And I think it's two things we have to be thinking about is how do we sort of build affordable housing to meet our current needs, but then how do we ensure that people have the type of income and wealth in their homes to buy whatever inventory they desire that's on the market.
Jack: I agree with the question that you ask. How do we change people's thinking about the value of a dollar -- affordable housing -- so they actually are able to afford it, to buy it?
Jovan: That's a multifaceted problem we have to tackle it. And I think that I'll touch on a couple of light things, but then bring it back. I think some of the things that we can more immediately do, I think we really have to revisit our educational system in this country. I think that our marketplace is changing, our economy has changed but our educational system is not. And what is happening is that we are actually failing our youth and we're not preparing them for the opportunities that are out there. And it's unfortunate, but when you look at some of where this country have come from, some of them decided actually to drop out or opt out from our educational system.
Jack: Right
Jovan: And we just have to do something about that. Right? I think we need more of a market- based educational system. I would say it starts there. And I think that if we were to do that, then when you teach entrepreneurialism, inherently you're kind of teaching wealth in a way because it teaches you how to deal with money differently when you're an entrepreneur versus an employee.
Jack: Oh yeah.
Jovan: So that, I think in-and-of itself, will help with some wealth building principals. But I think more directly in terms of our office. What we can do is we have various programs. We have college savings accounts options. We have our Cal-savers, which is a retirement program. One of the things we're going to be looking at doing is trying to figure out --through our scoring system for our bonding in our tax credits – “How do we incentivize development projects that have some of these supportive kinds of environments that are helping their resident?”
Jack: Yeah.
Jovan: You know, some of this stuff is there, we just have to figure out how to kind of help catalyze some of the best practices. And then in other areas where we know things aren't working, how do we change some of those realities from a financing body standpoint?
Jack: Yeah. I can't help any on the financing body side, but we've got a megaphone here, right into the Opportunity Zone industry. Talk to those folks. What do you want to tell them? This is California. For the Opportunity Zone, California is probably… Well, if it's not ground zero, it's within spitting distance from ground zero for this program. There's a reason why most of these folks are looking at your state.
Jovan: I would say foremost, tell us what you want, tell us what you need. I mean, California is a place that there is never a lack of abundance of lobbyists and advocates and people that are making sure their voices are heard.
And normally individuals in the development and investments space are accustomed to engage in government that way. But in California, because of some of the things, some of the policies that need to happen to try to conform state law to align with it federal a lot, I think it's extremely important for their voices to be heard at an audible level, higher than we've probably ever heard before. I would say that number one. Number two, I would say that in addition to the investors looking for the big returns if possible, if there can be some consideration for the smaller stuff.
And I say that because one of the comments you made earlier about businesses, those are going to be some of your harder entities to attract to the Qualified Opportunity Fund because the returns just aren't there, like you'll see on a transit-oriented development project or a luxury condo or a hotel.
And for those who have a philanthropic heart, I'm not saying to abandon the larger investments, but if they can also make room in their portfolios for some of the smaller stuff, it’s going to have a huge social impact that may not always show up kind of on the balance sheet.
Jack: Well, I can tell you I've been pleasantly surprised in the conversations I've had, the number of people who bring up impact investing unbidden. It seems to be pretty much top of line, I would say.
You know, one out of every two people I talk to, they're very aware of impact investing. And of course, people want to want a good return on their dollar.
I have a sense, I've got an intuition that there's a sea of change that we're going through that may not be obvious right now. I think we've reached a time, maybe a tipping point where the impact that our investing makes has become a whole lot more important than it used to be.
And I think this program definitely gives us the opportunity to get there.
Jovan: I agree with that. I think I'll add to that -- and it's not specifically directed to Opportunity Zone -- but I think it provides the backdrop in the context in which Opportunity Zones is living and breathing. I think we're living at a time in history where people are just scrambling for solutions.
And I think that there's been this period where people are tired of the status quo. People are tired of the status quo, whether it's their political affiliations, their governmental affiliations, their religious affiliations, and people want to associate themselves from a time standpoint, from a monetary investment standpoint, from things, for things and people that are actually doing something that are true to their mission statement. On people who are -- I believe -- are tired of rhetoric. They're tired of politics and business. Tired of the finger pointing, the blame game, people actually want to see changes.
And I just think we're living in a very interesting time because while I get a sense that that's the sentiment, we're also living in a time where we have wealth in amounts we've never seen before.
Jack: That's right.
Jovan: You actually have people who have the means to do something about how they're feeling. And I just think we're in a special moment. I believe that, I believe that trend line is still going up in terms of where, where else were we going? I don't think the trend line is coming back down yet. And I just think we're living in a very fascinating time in history.
Jack: All right. I've got a quote that I pulled off your Twitter timeline. I want to hear you talk more about. "I've hated poverty my whole life. I hate what it looks and feels like given what I see today. I feel a sense of urgency to do more, to disrupt it. The teachings of self-determination are needed now more than ever." That is Jovan Agee from last summer. Talk about that.
Jovan: Yeah. You know, I grew up, I was born in Madera, California. I was raised in Fresno, California, which is essentially the heartland of the state. That's where a lot of our food is generated from. It goes around the world and you know, it's really what I feel is a microcosm of this state. You see extreme wealth and you see extreme poverty. And unfortunately I was raised in kind of the lower social- economic end of that spectrum. And I also had the privilege -- because I was gifted in sports -- to be able to affiliate and associate myself with people from the parts of the city who had other greater means that were closer to the upper end of the socioeconomic spectrum.
I was exposed to a wide range of people and money and economies that probably most people just aren't. But I was exposed at a very young age. And one of the things that sort of became very much an emotional thing for me is just really getting tired of things. Some of the things that I experienced myself firsthand. I'm an only child and only grandchild was raised by a single mother.
Jack: Only grandchild? Oh no.
Jovan: Yeah,
Jack: As a grandfather, I am both pleased and sad for you. It's greater to have grandkids but it is great to have a whole bunch.
Jovan: That background gives you all you need to know when you grew up with a bunch of adults, right? I was pretty much a grown kid; I grew up around a bunch of adults. My vocabulary was very much advanced. My thinking was advanced because you grew up around adults, right? I grew up in that environment. I didn't know my father growing up, I didn't even identify my father until literally September of last year through ancestry.com test. He passed away in 1989. I never had the chance to meet him. But I've experienced what poverty looks like firsthand from a multitude of reasons, whether it's job instability from my mother, housing instability. A lot of the things that I'm talking about, speaking from a place of firsthand perspective.
Jack: Personal for you.
Jovan: Exactly. It's very personal. And you know, I've seen it myself. I felt in myself. I smelled it myself. I've seen others in my peer groups of friends who were experiencing the same thing. And although I did not have siblings, I had a band of buddies that I grew up with who to today, we're still extremely close and we just thought very differently for people our age. And I still look back and it was like, I wonder where we got the mindset. I can remember when we were 13 years old us talking about what we're going to do when we grow up and what our obligation was going to be to our communities. Because growing up, we felt like no one cared. I mean, we literally felt like we would go to parks, we play basketball, and we were on courts that had cracks in the concrete. A full court, but only one backboard. Or it would have a rim and no net.
And when you live in those conditions, this isn't an excuse, but you see why sometimes people behave the way they behave as if they don't care. And I think that is a very dangerous place to get to. When you see crime, you see drugs, you see behaviors. But I think it speaks to something that is lost in the soul and in the spirit. When you grew up in environments like that, I'm very fortunate. I believe that I was able to overcome those things and maybe it was because of exposure, right? Maybe sports and academics allowed me to see other places and be around other places. I wasn't forced to solely be kind of in that depressed and distressed environment all the time. I just, I don't like it. I don't. When I go to places today and I see it, it brings back memories of things that I don't want to think about in terms of what streets look like, what people are doing. What businesses look like in some of these communities. No sidewalks, in some instances, no sewage systems in some of these incidents. I mean there are people living in communities right here in California that if you were to visit them, you would think you were in a third-world country.
Jack: Right.
Jovan: And there's something fundamentally wrong with that when you're talking about a state that has a $209 billion budget. There's something fundamentally wrong with that. And I believe that if there's nothing else that I can do on my time here on this earth, I can make sure that people in places that I interact with on a daily basis, don't forget about the people, like the ones I grew up with.
Jack: Preach it, brother. I'm going to make a suggestion: I think it was more than, I think it was more than education. As I read through your Twitter feed, I see a strong faith. You seem to have a sense of the transcendent?
Jovan: Very much, very much. I believe that I believe that. All of us our destined to do what we are purposed to do by our creator, whoever that may be. I grew up in the Christian tradition. As I stated, my grandmother was Pentecostal. I believe in Jesus Christ, but I believe that we all are children of God. I do not look at any other religion or religious belief as negative or those who may not even be of belief, but just may believe in source or have a positive energy. But for me, I have no doubt in my mind that I was destined to be here. I was destined to do what I'm doing, and I believe that it was not because of Jovan.
While I'm here there's a lot of dumb things that I could have did that could have ultimately changed the course of why I'm here today. But I believe that the God that I believe in had a greater purpose for me. And I think that's also who I am obligated to. When I'm in these spaces and I speak with a certain level of freedom and conviction is because I believe that I was put here to do it and I believe if I don't do it in the same opportunity I was given to be here will be taken away from me.
Jack: Yeah. Wow. I just keep getting more and more interesting, engaging people to get to talk to. This may be my favorite conversation so far.
We have reached that point in the conversation where I need to wind it up. I'm going to ask you; do you have any last words for us? What do you want to leave us with today?
Jovan: You know, I just want to leave you with all the intensity that I may bring. You know, all the clarity of thought that I may bring, all the confidence that you may hear my voice. I am extremely appreciative and humble every time that someone like yourself find value in hearing from me. And I just want to make sure that you know that I'm appreciative and I'm humbled and that audience knows that as well.
Jack: Well, thanks so much. For the folks in the Opportunity Zone world, who wants to take advantage of what the Treasurer's Department offers to Opportunity Zone investors and developers, what's the best way to get started there?
Jovan: Yeah. I would advise them, feel free to reach out to me. My email is jovan.agee@treasurer.ca.gov. And I can be sure to try to if you're a developer or try to connect you with fund if you're a financer looking for a project, I can work on that as well. And then I always try to encourage people to follow me on Twitter. I like to act on impulse. If you're following my Twitter feed, but integrating certain of information. My Twitter handle is at @jovanagee.
Jack: And I can testify: after reading through your Twitter feed, it is worth following. I appreciate it. Thank you. And I want to remind our listeners that the information that Jovan has given us here will also be printed on the podcast website. So, don't wreck the car trying to write it down. On behalf of Jovan Agee, I am Jack Heald for the OZExpo Podcasts. Thank you for listening to us. Be sure to press that subscribe button so you're always updated. We've got lots more of these coming. And we will talk to you next time.
Announcer: This podcast is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal, tax or investment advice. For specific recommendations, please consult with your financial, legal, or tax professional.
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