Main Street Advisory Board Meeting

CITY OF BASTROP MAIN STREET ADVISORY BOARD Minutes of the March 14, 2018 Regular Meeting Main Street Advisory Board chair Dick Smith called the meeting to order at 5:30 p.m. Attending were members Michelle Adams, Steve Bridges, Jeanette Condray, Shanda Hernandez, Jennifer Long and Terry Moore. Members absent were Sandra Grawunder and Naseem Khonsari. Also attending were BMSP Director Sarah O’ Brien, Bonnie Coffey, chair of the Economic Vitality Committee, City Council member Bill Ennis and Candace McClendon. New Board member: Dick welcomed newly appointed Position 7 member Sandra Grawunder to the Board. Sandra is owner of “ Caledonia Cottage Quilts & More” at 922 Main Street and currently a member of the Design Committee. She was appointed by City Council, upon recommendation of the Board, to complete the term (expiring in 2020) of Shanda Hernandez who recently resigned. Director’ s report: Sarah updated the Board on several business changes in the Main Street Program Area: Bastrop Beer Company, a craft beer shop relocating from Cedar Park, has opened at 1008 Main Street. The Main Street Café will begin featuring “ take out” salads in addition to its usual “ eat in” menu. Viejo’ s Tacos y Tequila has discontinued daily restaurant service in favor of catering services. Viejo’ s building, at 912 Main Street, is for sale but may be reserved in the meantime for catered events. Sarah previewed the upcoming Breakfast Bites ( April 20, 8:15 - 10 a.m.)—a free presentation by social media and tourism expert Sheila Scarborough on “ Building the Bastrop Marketing Layer Cake.” The cake” layers include individual business initiatives, cross- promotion amount businesses and organizations and the digital marketing initiatives by Downtown Bastrop, Visit Bastrop, and Explore Bastrop County. Bastrop’ s second annual “ Imagine the Possibilities Tour”— a coproduction of Downtown Bastrop, the City of Bastrop, the Bastrop Chamber of Commerce and BEDC— will occur on May 17 from 3 to 6 p.m.. The local tour— presenting available downtown commercial properties brokers and developers-- to potential buyers and lessors— is part of a statewide promotion during National Preservation Month and keys off of DowntownTX. org, a Texas Historic Commission on-line inventory of historic property listings. Tour participants will be invited to attend the 6:30 p.m. kick off of Bastrop’ s first destination music festival ( running from May 17-20). Deluxe Corporation— producers of the “ Small Business Revolution” completion and series— is offering a day- long Small Business Seminar for Bastrop business operators on April 23. The seminar is free but limited to two seats per business. Morning workshops will include “ Customer Experience and Journey Mapping”, “ Does Google Love Your Business?”, “ Using Email to Drive Revenue” and “ Social Media for Small Businesses”. Afternoon workshops will be “ Marketing Your Business and Identifying Your Customer” and “ Budgeting for Your Business”. Sarah reported that, on March 13, the City tapped Go Collaborative— an Austin based design and planning firm focused on creative placemaking, community engagement and master planning— to facilitate a Cultural Arts Master Plan required by the City’ s Comprehensive Plan. The selection was facilitated by an across- the-arts review committee. Go Collaborative’ s approach involves extensive community involvement, beginning late this summer; final recommendations toward enhancing Bastrop as an “ Arts Community” are expected in December. Other updates: Sarah alerted Board members to the May 1 (5:30-7:30 p.m.) “ Bastrop Business Bash” celebrating local businesses. The free event will occur at the Bastrop Convention Center and is tagged a MyBastrop “ Shop Local” event. For reservations, visit EventLeaf. com/ BastropBusinessBash. Sarah presented a Beautification Action List for downtown Bastrop at a recent City Budget Workshop. To finance FY18 and FY19 projects, the plan anticipates requesting a $50,000 grant from BEDC, use of $20, 000 in downtown special event revenues plus a grant from CARTS. Visit Bastrop, BEDC and the City are exploring development on an online customer service training program, in conjunction with Cygnet Strategies. The program will be Bastrop focused and targeted at front line personnel of local bars, hotels, retailers, etc. Each participant who completes the series and passes a certification exam would be eligible for some form of recognition. Committee Activities: Design Committee: new wayfinding signage— to point visitors to downtown parking lots— have been produced and are being installed. The signs are bright yellow with a blue “ P” and directional arrow( s). Organization Committee: with the shift in the service year for each City committee, the annual BMSP planning initiative will shift as well, from January to September, after the City budget priorities are established. The shift will allow BMSP committees a better context for its planning. Promotion Committee: plans are progressing for the second annual Table on Main, scheduled for April 29. The event features locally sourced food, prepared by Main Street Program Area establishments. Tickets, at $100 per person, are available on line; net proceeds go to support downtown beautification initiatives. The Committee is also contemplating ways to inject new life into the monthly ArtWalk. Committee leadership: Committee chairs were reminded of their responsibility to work with Sarah to confirm meeting dates and locations and to pull together committee agendas and packets. Committee leadership is additionally responsible for providing all committee members timely notice of an upcoming meeting and its agenda, for generating recaps after each meeting and for coordinating committee efforts to recruit/ renew membership ranks. The next MSAB meeting has been tentatively scheduled for April 11, at 5:30 p.m. With no further business to come before the Board, the meeting adjourned at 6:34 p.m.