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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2020-05-12Historic Downtown Bowmanville Business Centre (BIA) Board of Management Meeting Minutes Tuesday May 12, 2020; 6:30pm Virtual Meeting due to COVID-19 pandemic Present: Edgar Lucas, Chair Laura Holmes, Secretary Gerri Lucas, Treasurer Justin Barry Cathy Holmes Ron Hooper Erin Kemp Absent: Carrie Hooper Delegations Present: Ron Albright, Engineering MOC The meeting was called to order by the Chair. 1. Presentation by Delegations Ron Albright has been in contact with counterparts throughout Durham Region about issues that have been raised by area BIAS, particularly related to the reopening of businesses. Whitby and Port Perry are concerned about having narrow sidewalks and the possibility of having lineups of people outside the stores on the sidewalks — either for curbside picks ups or when number of people entering stores are limited. Port Perry has proposed closing Queen St to traffic, with the exception of deliveries, and making it a pedestrian zone. Whitby is looking at designating certain areas. Some areas are implementing reduced parking times, such as 10-15 minute parking limits to allow for quick curbside pick up access. Some areas are implementing one-way streets to provide more space for pedestrians and line ups. There is also a lot of discussion in some areas about expanding outdoor seating for restaurants and sidewalk -type sales. Clarington is willing to work with the BIA to come up with solutions that will work here. There was some discussion on taking a wait and see approach versus having a plan in place that could be implemented quickly. Both Mr. Albright and the Board agree that it is difficult to anticipate what and where the issues may be. There are certain areas of sidewalk, particularly the south side between Temperance and Division, that are quite narrow. Under normal circumstances parking is a premium in the downtown. Since the mandated closure of most businesses there have been few, if any, cars parked in the downtown. This stands to reason that the bulk of cars parking are not residential tenants, but instead are the commercial tenants, employees, and some shoppers. Commercial tenants and employees need to be discouraged from using the street parking at all times so that there is access for customers. Mr. Albright suggests that some consideration be given to a 'Stop Shop and Go' parking approach versus longer time limit parking approach. Clarington is willing and able to create temporary bylaws related to parking and other restrictions. Historic Downtown Bowmanville 2 May 2020 Business Centre (BIA) Engineering department will be responsible for approving sidewalk markings for physical distancing — example footprints or duct -tape marks. They will be able to expedite approval for distancing markings. Leaving the road open to traffic and using parking spaces for queues of people may have some safety considerations. Mr. Albright will put together some ideas and share them with the BIA. 2. Adoption of Minutes Moved by R. Hooper, seconded by J. Barry THAT the minutes of the meeting of April 14, 2020 be approved as circulated. CARRIED 3. Business Arising from Previous Minutes (a) Spring Street Pole Banners Spring banners have been ordered and should arrive soon. Due to ongoing restrictions the support staff cannot work in close contact to remove/install banners. James Printing and Signs can do the removal/install and submitted a quote. Moved by G. Lucas, seconded by C. Holmes THAT James Printing and Signs be contracted to remove the winter banners and install the spring banners as soon as possible. CARRIED (b) Durham Tourism Shop Local project L. Holmes provided an update on the project that is a partnership between Durham Tourism and the regions BIAS. Both Bowmanville and Newcastle have been represented at the weekly meetings, but Orono has not. All businesses in the Bowmanville BIA were sent a link to an online form to self -submit their business for inclusion on the website. At this time it is unclear how many businesses from Bowmanville submitted as the information is still being uploaded to the site. BIAS that have paid staff (like Oshawa, Whitby, Port Perry, etc) submitted listings for every business in their BIA which means they have better representation than Clarington's BIAS will. Since Orono did not participate, a member of the Durham Tourism team researched the businesses in Orono and added them. The planned launch date was delayed, as the information to upload was more sizeable than expected. Durham Tourism now anticipates launching the website, downtownsofdurham.ca, following the long weekend. There will also be a coordinated marketing campaign to drive traffic to the new website. A video encouraging people to shop local was created and included shots of the downtowns and small business owners. Some regions, like the City of Oshawa, are getting behind the project and are sending out postcards announcing the website to every household. Historic Downtown Bowmanville 3 May 2020 Business Centre (BIA) Requests will be made for CBOT and Clarington Tourism to support and market this campaign upon launch. (c) Updates from task force meetings with Mayor Foster The Chair reported that meetings involve updates from local elected MPs and MPP. Lots of focus has been on making it easier for businesses to get access to the $40 000 loan program and the rent relief program for commercial properties. Information about these programs can be found on the federal and provincial websites. Councillor Hooper reported that there has not been good buy -in from landlords to the rent relief program. Tenants are very concerned that landlords are not planning to apply for the program and wish that the program had provided funds direct to the tenants to pay rent. There is no information specific to Clarington or the Municipality's plans to be shared. (d) Durham Region BIAS Letter of request on behalf of 8 Durham Region BIAS. Notice of Motion appeared at April 29, 2020 Regional Council meeting. The motion was put on record by Rick Kerr, Ward 4 Oshawa, on March 25, 2020 and seconded by Chris Leahy of Whitby. The Secretary sent an email that included a letter requesting support, as well as a copy of the March 23, 2020 letter sent to the Regional Chair, to the Mayor and Councillors on April 20, 2020 and a follow-up reminder email that the request was appearing was sent on April 28, 2020. The Motion was referred back to staff. Report expected in June. Councillor Hooper believes the motion may appear on the May 27 agenda but was not sure about the date. (e) Update on OBIAA weekly meetings Councillor Hooper reported that he has been sitting in on weekly teleconferences with OBIAA since the start of the pandemic. Updates from the OBIAA calls are shared by Councillor Hooper at the weekly task force meetings with Mayor Foster. Updates are also distributed to Sheila Hall at CBOT. Normally OBIAA resources are restricted to paid members, but open sharing is being permitted at this time so Newcastle and Orono are also benefitting from our membership. All Executive Board members are permitted to join the best practices calls. Last week's call had 86 people. There has been lots of discussion around recovery programs, PPE, curbside delivery, planning all -member meetings/AGMs, and impact on small businesses. There are also lots of good ideas being shared, like the online marketplace that Belleville created. The OBIAA must give a report on how successful the Digital Main Street program was. Those businesses with existing DMS grants have been given an extension on the May 31 deadline to use funds which was just announced today. OBIAA has been petitioning the government to renew the program. Historic Downtown Bowmanville 4 May 2020 Business Centre (BIA) Councillor Hooper reported that his participation in these calls has led to the realization that many opportunities are being missed by the BIAs in Clarington by not having paid dedicated staff. (f) Planning for Recovery following COVID-19 Restrictions Locating PPE is extraordinarily difficult. If possible, it should be recommended that businesses shop local for these supplies. Sunspace, Ell -Rod, and James Printing and Signs have social distancing items and barriers. CBOT has created a page for local PPE sources. Consideration should be given to sourcing hand sanitizer, gloves, wipes, etc. in anticipation of future festivals or to help local businesses. There may be ways to partner with larger companies to access some of these supplies. Consideration should be given to having signs made to encourage physical distancing. With no information on when the province will begin lifting restrictions it is difficult to understand the impacts and what actions will need to be taken. 4. Correspondence Correspondence was received from i. June Gallagher, Deputy Clerk MOC, regarding JC-008-20 Moved by C. Holmes, seconded by G. Lucas THAT the correspondence be received for information. CARRIED S. Treasurer's Report The Treasurer presented the following: i. $65 000 in current account, $125 000 invested with Edward Jones ii. Vendor refunds issued in April $18 000, May $3200 iii. Finance is looking into HST implications of vendor refunds iv. Metroland invoice outstanding but cannot be paid until audit books are returned V. Audit from 2019 is ongoing The Treasurer wanted direction on how the support staff should be handled given that there is no work and they are typically paid quarterly. Moved by J. Barry, seconded by R. Hooper THAT the Treasurer's Report be adopted as presented. THAT the Treasurer contact the Municipality regarding options related to support staff. CARRIED 6. Directors' Reports Historic Downtown Bowmanville 5 May 2020 Business Centre (BIA) (a) Council Liaison — R. Hooper: Reported that consideration is being given at Council for post -pandemic planning. Clarington has deferred property tax late fee penalties. There have been concerns raised about the new cannabis shop in downtown Bowmanville and about the proximity to daycare centres and youth centres. Staff are reviewing. Decorative lighting will be changed over to LED in the downtown. Staff are looking into the status of the previous request for garbage cans in downtown. (b) Events — C. Holmes: Reported that vendor refunds have been issued for Food Truck Friday and Summerfest following the cancellation of those events. A decision on the fate of BluesBERRY in August has not been made yet. Even if large events are allowed to proceed according to provincial regulations by that date, there are concerns that the crowds may not be comfortable to attend and business owners and vendors may be reluctant to participate. Rotary Club of Bowmanville has written to the Mayor about hosting Ribfest on the date of BluesBERRY. While the proposed donation to the Hospital Foundation is noble, the issue of two large events on the same day has already been raised with the Director of Operations. Rotary previously scheduled the original date for Ribfest on the same date as Food Truck Friday and Summerfest. As a result, the BIA went to great pains to reschedule the event dates to avoid conflict. It is unconscionable that they would take the BIA's event date again. The City of Toronto announced today the cancellation of all large events until at least the end of August. Using this as guidance, both BluesBERRY and Ribfest may not be able to proceed anyway. It may be prudent for BluesBERRY to be cancelled. (c) Membership Relations —J. Barry: Reported that Tranquility Hair has closed resulting from the purchase of 7 King St E building by the new owners. Kings Key Pub signage has been removed but their social media channels do not indicate that they have closed. Endivine Grill opened for curbside pick up and delivery recently. (d) Streetscape — G. Lucas: Reported that summer flowers are arriving in June and the watering contractor is secured. A price quote has been requested for winter baskets. The horticulture volunteers have not been in contact about the flower planters to date. (e) Communications— (vacant): L. Holmes reported that informational emails continue to be distributed to members as they become available. Often this is several per day. (f) Website — L. Holmes: Historic Downtown Bowmanville 6 May 2020 Business Centre (BIA) Reported that vendor application forms have been disabled for most upcoming events. Event cancellation notifications have been posted on individual event pages. The Instagram page is receiving lots of appreciation from business owners for the posts and daily updates on the story feature. Updating the Instagram is a tremendous amount of work and it is not sustainable to continue indefinitely as a volunteer. (g) Media Relations — C. Hooper: No Report. 7. New Business (a) Proposal for Downtown Bowmanville Gift Certificate Contest G. Lucas presented a contest that the Trenton BIA is offering to encourage support of local business. Trenton asked followers on Facebook to email a photo of themselves holding a homemade sign with the name of the downtown business they missed the most. They would then be entered to win $200 to their favorite downtown store. Emailing of contest entry photos would require a new email to be set-up. It was suggested that the contest could be run much more efficiently by operating it exclusively on social media, thereby eliminating the need to create and monitor an email account. By hosting the contest on social media, the followers/contest entrants would be doing all the work. Entrants could be asked to post their photo and tag Historic Downtown Bowmanville. This is easily done on both Instagram and Facebook. Hashtag is an option, but this works better on Instagram than on Facebook. The contest could also be used to build up the follower base on both accounts. Since the demographics of Instagram and Facebook users are different, it was suggested to run a contest on each platform with a separate prize. Moved by G. Lucas, seconded by L. Holmes THAT two $100 gift certificates to shop in downtown Bowmanville be offered as prizes for a social media contest, one on Instagram and one on Facebook. CARRIED (b) Proposal for Durham Region Online Marketplace L. Holmes presented a proposal that has been brought forward by the Executive Directors of the Oshawa and Whitby BIAS to the other Durham Region BIAS. Based on the model of online marketplace that was created by the Downtown Belleville BIA, Oshawa and Whitby want to create the same type of multi -seller e-commerce website for the businesses located in the BIAS in Durham. The online marketplace would allow businesses that do not have an online store to sell product and restaurants and other businesses could redirect to own website or ordering sites like Skip The Dishes and Uber Eats. The hope is that the marketplace can be linked to the new DowntownsofDurham.ca website since there is going to be a big marketing push behind that initiative. Discussions with Durham Tourism about this have been initiated. There is a cost associated with development of the marketplace Historic Downtown Bowmanville 7 May 2020 Business Centre (BIA) and for the payment processing. Oshawa and Whitby BIAS have already committed to this project and plan to start development this week. Cost sharing amount will depend on the number of BIAs that commit to the project. There could be great benefit to the businesses in downtown Bowmanville by the BIA participating. Moved by G. Lucas, seconded by J. Barry THAT the BIA is willing to commit up to $1000 towards the project. CARRIED (c) Clarington's #SpreadLove Campaign Last month an email was sent to BIA members reminding them of the importance of regularly updating store windows to deter vandalism and to showcase product and offerings to vehicle and pedestrian traffic. Included with this email was the press release from Clarington about the #SpreadLove campaign. Business owners were encouraged to place rainbows or other messages of support in their windows. It was heartwarming to see all the businesses that participated in this initiative. Participating businesses were featured on the Instagram account posts. Many members of the community were seen stopping to view the messages and some took photos. 8. Date of Next Meeting The next meeting of the Board of Management is scheduled to be held on Tuesday June 9, 2020 commencing at 6:30pm in Clarington Meeting Room 1-C, unless COVID-19 restrictions are still in place in which case the meeting will be held virtually. 9. Adjournment Moved by G. Lucas, seconded by C. Holmes THAT the meeting adjourn. CARRIED The meeting adjourned at 9:14pm.