Old Orchard Business District Advisory Commission

Old Orchard Special Business District Advisory Commission MEETING MINUTES APPROVED MEETING DATE: Tuesday, January 12, 2016 LOCATION: City Hall CALLED TO ORDER: 8:02 AM MEETING ADJOURNED: 9:00 AM NEXT MEETING: Tuesday, February 9, 2016 NAME PRESENT ABSENT Joe Fichter, Chair X Dave Sanders, Vice Chair X Angel Venegoni X Claire Winkler X Mary Jane Armstrong X Greg Gunderson X Steve Scheipeter X Holland Saltsman X Vacancy Kathy Hart, Council Liaison X Mara Perry, City Liaison X Also in attendance: Fran Sudekum – Administrative Support Bill Kunz – Hwy 61 Roadhouse APPROVAL OF MINUTES Motion to approve the November minutes was made by Angel Venegoni, seconded by Mary Jane Armstrong, motion was unanimously approved. SPECIAL ACTIVITIES PERMIT - Freeze BBQ Bill Kunz, Hwy 61 Roadhouse is planning a large event on January 30 th and 31st. The 6th Annual Freeze Que, a two-day barbeque competition. Bill currently has 36 teams signed up coming in out of town. He has requested street closures for the event to help address parking for all team’s trailers and support vehicles and patrons. He has spoken with all those impacted by the proposed street closures except for Big Sky and the apartments. The Commission members had no issues with the street closures as long as all the businesses and their patrons could still get to them. BUDGET REVIEW Mara Perry handed out two budget documents for review; current figures and a start for next year’s figures. She will bring updated and more detailed budget information for the February meeting. A discussion was held to help clarify categories within the budget. Items discussed included: changes in lighting figures for adjusted amounts now going to correct districts, professional services for grant writing, phase II potential items, and the new contributions from Bethesda’s non-exemption portion. The February Commission meeting will be totally devoted to discussing and finalizing the budget. OLD ORCHARD MERCHANTS & BUSINESS ASSOCIATION (OOMBA)  Holiday Open House &Tree Lighting event and Cookie Walk event: o Good weather helped this year to bring in more people.  o Costs incurred for both events included: graphics, W-K Times ad, and support personnel. o Santa and Mrs. Claus were free and brought quite a bit with them to be part of the Open House happenings in Gazebo Park. They do accept donations to their organization. A motion was made by Angel Venegoni to look at the budget and donate an amount of $500 to no more than $750 to the “Claus’s” charity organization. Motion was seconded by Steve Scheipeter, and unanimously approved. Mara will look at the numbers and bring this item back to the February budget meeting. o There was some discussion to going back to having the Cookie Walk the same day Santa’s mailbox arrives and have the tree lighting on that day and possibly do away with the “open house” aspect. o Planning should start earlier next year. o Budget should be allocated for the holiday event whatever it looks like.  2016 Gazebo Series o Joe Schwab of Euclid Records has agreed to be a part of the planning again this year. He will be meeting with Joe Fichter and Claire Winkler this month. o Joe Fichter approached the Farmers’ Market Manager, Angela Foley, to be the MC for this season; no answer yet. CITY UPDATE  Jimmy John’s is opening in Yorkshire Plaza.  Edgewood Phase II: going to ARB in February.  Webster University Interdisciplinary Sciences: getting permits this month, open fall of 2017  Gas Station Updates o Big Bend & Murdoch: should be open very soon o Big Bend & Laclede: progressing very fast o Big Bend & Elm: now open  Webster Chamber Heart of the Community Awards: Citizen of the Year is Joe Fichter and Heart of Gold Recipient is Gerry Welch.  Gregg Gunderson has left Webster University for another position; hopefully his seat on the Commission will be replaced with another Webster University representative. NEXT MONTH  Budget ADJOURNED  Meeting adjourned at 9:00 AM. NEXT MEETING  The next meeting will be held on February 9, 2016 at 8:00 AM – City Hall.