General notes: Now that the holidays are over, we anticipate a little calm before the storm of the beginning of the budget process. The next few weeks should be a good time to tie up loose ends and start thinking about goals for 2015. With that in mind, it’s probably a good time to inform you of the future of Main Street.
When Jennifer started with us in September, Sheri Stuart (Main Street Director, State of Oregon) came up to Sandy to sit in on a meeting with the 3 remaining Sandy Main Street executive committee members (George Hoyt, Julie Snell from CCB and Counselor Coleman) to try to determine the future of Main Street. All three board members had previously expressed a desire to formally step away from the organization due to general burnout caused by the contentiousness involved in the EID process. However, since an executive board is a necessity in the non-profit model, the staff of Sandy Main Street was tasked with finding 7-9 new executive board members to steer the organization for the intermediate future.
I developed a list of 25 different potential candidates based on their interest in community involvement and their passion for seeing Sandy grow. I have reached out to almost all of them now, and I am sad to say that only one has expressed a desire to serve. In discussing the organization with my fellow Sandyites, there did not seem to be any shortage of praise for Sandy Main Street and our efforts – quite the contrary. However, the most common reason given for declining to serve has been that these people, bless their hearts, simply don’t have the time to serve due to their service with and for other Sandy non-profits. Almost everyone I spoke to was an active board/committee member from AntFarm, Kiwanis, the Historical Museum, VFW, the Chamber of Commerce, the Action Center, the Ford Family Foundation, Guide Dogs for the Blind, loads of different sub-groups associated with either the OTSD or private schools in the district, and a million different churches in Sandy and in the surrounding area. Throw in family and work responsibilities, and….well, it’s amazing to me how much this community gets done in its spare time.
Unfortunately for us, this means that staff will most likely recommend that the City of Sandy dissolve Sandy Main Street at the end of the biennium due to lack of a functioning executive committee. Ms. Stuart is in agreement with this, having stated last time I spoke to her that “now is probably not the right time to try to revive SMS”. Titus Tomlinson, the person who manages the RARE program (AmeriCorps program that I got Aubrey and Jennifer from) reluctantly agrees as well. The plan is to keep the portions of the program that are popular by transferring First Fridays and the Trick or Treat Trail to the Sandy Area Chamber of Commerce and the Christmas Tree Lighting Ceremony to direct control by the City. The rest of the work that SMS was responsible for (new business assistance, filling vacant properties, etc.) will continue through the office of Economic Development. Perhaps in a couple of years, with the bitterness of the EID process completely past us, we can try to re-launch the program.
This was not an easy decision to come by, as I am a big believer in the Main Street model. I have seen this program transform the downtown core of cities and revitalize struggling communities. But this model requires robust public involvement to work correctly, and we are nowhere near having the appropriate amount of volunteers to run SMS effectively. And quite frankly, the City of Sandy has gotten really good at downtown revitalization (Main Streets are starting to use façade programs like ours very successfully, but ours has been around for so long time and has been so successful that we are running out of buildings to upgrade!), making a Main Street program somewhat moot.
This is, of course, just an “executive summary” of the story as I have glossed over some of the detail in the interest of time. If you would like a more detailed version of the story, just give me a call…
Commercial Properties (vacancies, new businesses, etc.):
One World Chinese Buffet: The Chinese buffet has been open for business for about a month now. I can report that the quality level of this restaurant has definitely increased. Better variety of dishes and noticeably higher quality — this is definitely an upgrade for Sandy’s restaurant community.
O’Reilly’s Auto Parts: I delivered the certificate of occupancy to the store manager in person during the final days of December, and he tells me that the store will be open for business on Saturday, 3 January and that dealing with the City throughout this process has been quite painless. Terre tells me that the inspection process went very smoothly with this company, and no major problems were identified. It certainly helps that corporate chains like O’Reilly’s have the resources to dedicate teams to do nothing but open brand new stores.
Legends of Lore/Artistic Impressions: I ran into Jonathan Soriakoff from Legends of Lore card shop last week, and can proudly report that he is already expanding. Artistic Impressions (the photography studio next to Grant’s shop) will be moving out of the building in January, presumably to become a home business. This has opened their ground floor space up, and Jonathan has already signed the lease to move in. The size of his shop will increase by a factor of 3, and he will now have a much more retail-friendly layout complete with storage and a back office. He is a bit nervous about the increase in rent, but fairly confident in the market capacity of his store and of his product (Magic the Gathering and Pokemon cards mostly). Gonna be fun to see how this plays out – I personally think this could be a potential gold mine if he does it right.
All Ways Towing: Last month – This company has submitted plans for its new facility over by Fred Meyer and has gone through design review. Our planning director gave them 6 action items that we are requiring to be completed prior to approval, and these are to be included in a new updated building permit. They need to submit a revised plan, apply for a building permit, and complete improvements. We are now waiting for the submittal of the revised plan and the new building permit.
This month – There was one meeting between Tracy and the principals of this company in late December. We are still waiting for the submittal of the revised plan and the new building permit. Nothing else on this project has moved forward.
Jody Argue property: This project continues along at a normal pace. Roofing is complete; crews now focusing on on-site parking/landscaping. Façade grant phase has not started yet. Ms. Argue seems satisfied with project progress to this point, and doesn’t seem to have any major grievances with current project requirements. Win-win.
Old La Milpa property (Maiden): Two of the three lots that made up the old La Milpa factory have been dedicated to Hans Wipper’s “JJ Jump”-type business. Hans has signed a letter of intent to lease the property, and Mike is currently configuring it for him. Mike has also stated that there has been some level of interest in the other lot as well, although nothing has solidified yet. Watch this space…
Beaverbrooke Dental: As a follow up to last month’s entry on Beaverbrooke Dental, we had an opportunity to meet with them to discuss the parking situation in more detail. We had several options laid out for them, the first of which was to talk with Ernie at AEC about possibly purchasing some of the spaces in his parking lot that AEC employees (for some strange reason) are not using. Much to our surprise, Ernie beat us to the punch and offered them 8 parking spaces in his private lot for their exclusive use. I have thanked Ernie immensely for being a good neighbor and corporate citizen for taking it upon himself to help craft a solution, and Dr. Claggett and the BB staff are very happy with this solution. Problem solved. Thanks Ernie!
As for SandyNet Fiber, we are currently crafting a quote for them that Scott Brown is fairly confident he will have complete by January 2. It’s probably a 50-50 chance that we sign them considering that cable TV has to be part of the package (their ceiling TVs), but they have expressed a willingness to work with us because of our approachability and “business-friendliness” regarding the parking matter and probably wouldn’t have considered us at all earlier. It’s funny what you can get started by chatting with your dentist about business while getting a cavity filled. J
Tamale Factory: This restaurant was actually closed down for a couple of business days in December by the Clackamas County health inspector. Upon inquiry into the matter, apparently the check Mr. Paez wrote for his health inspection bounced due to a bank error. He offered to pay cash to settle the issue, and this approach must have worked because we got a call shortly after this from Ms. Leben stating that the matter had been cleared up and Tamale Factory was approved to open for business again.
Sandy Main Street: The Christmas Tree Lighting Ceremony will be the last Sandy Main Street event held until April of 2015. If you would like an update on what Sandy Main Street is planning for the next 6 months, give me a call at 503-489-2159.
Project work: We are currently scheduling the 3rd annual presentation to Professor Jim Hough’s (former city manager of Banks and Warrenton, retired) Public Works Management class in the MPA program at PSU. Over the past two years, the PW management team has been very gracious to donate an evening to our future city managers and department heads in the MPA program to discuss topics like street and road management, GIS, water and sewer systems, and the like. Last year, after a Mike Walker presentation on the Bull Run Intertie and tank construction project, the evening was opened up to student questions. Every single question we got was about our fiber to the home project, which was interesting because a) we never mentioned fiber, and b) Jim never mentioned fiber. Ever. 1 solid hour of questions about fiber. We were absolutely stunned.
So this year we have decided to go with the flow and present about FTTH, its impacts on Public Works and how PW and IT work together to make gigabit fiber happen. Joe Knapp has graciously agreed to go with us and give the IT perspective, and I anticipate a very fun evening hanging out with the next generation of local government leaders. Mayor King/Councilor Pietzold – the class is at 6:40 on February 24th at the Urban Center on PSU campus. If you would like to join us, Mike, Thomas, Joe and I will be catching a MAX train down there about 5:00pm that afternoon. If you have the time, we would love for you to join us and give the kids the council perspective on this project.
Conferences/training: Next scheduled conference is the OCCMA NW Manager’s Conference in late March at the Portland Red Lion.