Minutes: December 2014 meeting

[Christel Manning]

The Economic Development group met on Monday, Dec. 8, 2014, from 6 – 7:30 pm at 333 Front Street. Present: Christel Manning, Ihsan Khatib, Lee Cruz, Kathleen Flynn, Frank Alvarado, Natalie Coe, Diane Panasci, Ben Berkovitz, Pamela Soto, Steve Fontana, Thomas Burwell, Lisa Fitch.

 

1. Ben made a presentation about the Mill River Trail proposal. The trail would run along the Mill River starting in East Rock Park and ending at Criscuolo Park in Fair Haven. The organizers have been working with a various people in the East Rock area to make this happen. They are in conversations with Karen Gilvarg and others in City Planning; they have support from some of the companies located adjacent to the proposed trail; they are looking into state and private sources of funding; and they have begun to do the physical work of clearing some of parts of the trail. The trail would bring more people into Fair Haven, and could potentially be extended along River street to end at Quinnipiac River Park. Check out their website (millrivertrail.com) for more info. How we can show support: Vote for this idea on See Click Fix (you can find the link to SCF on their website). Sign up to volunteer.

 

2. Riverfest Planning. This will be our 5^th year!! The date will be the first Sunday in May as in past years, and Lisa said we can use the marina site again. Some possible changes: Lisa expects the old barge building may be moved by then, and it would be nice to have the festival in that spot adjacent to the river (instead of in front of the restaurant). Kevin Anastasio in on board, provided that we can help him reduce costs for police and porta potties. It may be possible to close off Front Street between Chatham and Pine streets. We need to make sure that beer can be sold at the event; we could sell tickets for 4 samples and then people could buy the beer.

Action steps

--Lisa (perhaps with Lee) will talk to Kevin about providing food.

--Lisa will talk to her cousin about getting Channel 8 coverage again (we’ll need some special angle to make it interesting . . . perhaps we can have the reporter sitting in a canoe, or get one of the brewers to come and talk about making beer).

--Christel will contact QRWA about bringing canoes. They got real tired out last time, so we will get volunteers (e.g., New Haven park rangers, Land Trust, and others who may be certified).

--Christel will contact the magician.

--Carlos will contact the breweries and the bands.

--Lee will contact Becky at the Parks department about certified canoe persons.

 

3. Main Street program. The city is working with a program called CT Main Streets to revitalize various neighborhoods, including the Grand Avenue business area. Lee pitched his idea for a walking/dining tour as a tie-in to this program. People could buy tickets for the tour at Riverfest, and it would start when Riverfest ends, say Sunday at 4 pm. Lee would take people to Grand Vin to taste some wine and then go back down Grand Ave to various restaurants for samples (we would negotiate with various local businesses about who participates and how).  The tour would end at Blatchley Ave, and Lee would encourage folks to walk back and stop at various places that will offer specials that night. Everybody loved the tour idea. The benefit of piggy-backing this on Riverfest is there will already be many people there, plus it may let us tap into Main Street program funds to pay for things like porta-potties. The downside is that people may want to go home after partying all afternoon, esp. since Monday is a work day. We will vote on whether or not to combine the two events at our next meeting.