Peoria Standard

City of Chillicothe Marketing and Tourism Commission met July 12.

Here is the minutes provided by the Commission:

Members Present: Dan Collwell, Lowell Bennett, Kevin Yates, Nancie Cassidy, Joe Harper, Amanda Oedewaldt, Nat Zich, Michele Pollack, Bianca Williams

Members Absent: Paresh Patel, Tiffany Moore, Carrie McIntyre, Karen Moewe,

Others Present: Mayor Don White

The meeting was called to order at 3:30 p.m.

Director Parker opened up the meeting with explanation as to why the meeting was pushed back one week. She also stated that at the last meeting it was decided that the M & T regular scheduled meetings will be held on the 1" Wednesday of every month from 3:30 to 4:30 pm. Here at City hall in the Council Chambers. Everyone was still ok with that set date and time. Director Parker asked for approval of the prior meeting. Minutes were approved to receive and file.

Director Parker informed the committee of a grant that the City is going after that will hire a consultant for the 4" Street corridor revitalization project. $20,000 was the amount applied for through the Tri County Regional Planning Commission. She also talked about the high school leadership class. Mr. Chapman from the high school sent an email to her asking if there were projects in the City that his leadership class could take on when school starts. He sent a list of things they already had planned and was looking for more suggestions. A number of things were mentioned for the kids to help with. Everyone was encouraged to send a list to Mr. Chapman if they had a project to submit.

Next were city wide events. The city's website specifically on calendar of events is where everyone is asked to look before planning an event. This will help with overlapping of events and allow all to participate in each others events and help promote them via Social media.

Mayor White stated that by ordinance this group is supposed to put together an annual plan. He suggested that we come up with ideas of what would be in that plan. He asked if there were items that we want to keep like the billboard on Rt. 6. He also stated that a dollar figure should go with each of those items so that a budget could be created. Some of the ideas mentioned to help attract people to Chillicothe were:

Continuing 

o Route 6 Billboard; Rachael email M&T Members with outline of the program 

o An additional billboard?

o Downtown Thursday 

o Semi Annual Train Ride/Dinner

New

o Tenderloin Throw Down

o Coupon Book-like Lacon's (Sample shared with everyone) 

o Food Basket with Coupons

o "Antique Day"

0 "Second Saturday" 

o Winter Wonderland; Christmas trees in City Park\ 

o Farmers' Market

o Train Enthusiasts; Welcome Center 

o Balloon Festival (Q) Three Sisters; or maybe a kite festival?

Consensus was to do something in the fall possibly prior to Spoon River Drive. Amanda Suggested it be something that involves all the businesses not just restaurants. Each of those items would need a dollar amount attached to them so that a budget can be put together. Some were not sure of what the M & T budget was or is. The amount the M & T fund is based on funds collected from the hotel motel tax, but a budget figure is pulled out annually based on past dollars that were put into this fund. Director Parker will come to next meeting with that budgeted figure.

Joe talked about the Facebook pages that he created for the Downtown Thursday’s and Shopping and Tourism of Chillicothe he was just informing the committee that these two sights exist and everyone should go to the pages and like them and share them.

There being no further business the meeting was adjourned at 4:31 p.m.

http://www.cityofchillicotheil.com/071217.pdf