Chairman Chas Stevens called the meeting to order at 6:00 pm on February 10, 2025.
Kevin Sluka conducted roll call and the following Board Members were present:
Present: Natalia Kleyman, Kevin Sluka, Chas Stevens, Andrianna Popowych, Tania Althoff, Chris Edwards, Conlyn Chan (virtual), Beth Akkaway (virtual)
Missing: RanD Pitts, Rick St
CHAIRMAN REMARKS
Spring is just about here, the weather is looking better and we’re looking forward to the lineup of events coming!
APPROVAL OF MEETING MINUTES
Chas made a motion to approve the meeting minutes from February, Natalia asked that the approval of minutes be moved to the end of the meeting to give her a chance to review. Minutes deferred and then approved.
COMMITTEE REPORTS
- Infrastructure & Art (Kevin)
PSE&G on schedule to pave after the St Patrick’s Day parade and prior to the Tour of Somerville. NJ American Water is also going to be working in the district, and hopefully paved by the Tour of Somerville as well. No update on Division Street.
- Promotions
KPI-Down from January on Facebook and Instagram. Interactions and views are still on trend. Number of accounts reached down 37% on Facebook, due to less ads. Also, no influencers during this month which would also contribute to these numbers.
We’ve shifted from “The Weekend in Somerville” titled email to “The Somerville Insider”, This makes more sense for businesses to have their promotions out weeks in advance rather than days. Also doing a reel every Thursday, of what’s happening in Somerville that weekend.
We sold 250 tickets to the Chocolate Walk and nearly all showed up. Wanted to keep it limited to not overwhelm the businesses. We did hear that many businesses did end up selling out. Doing a low cost ticketed event on a Thursday evening helped boost activity in town during a quiet month. We had a few misunderstandings for this first time event, however, guests seemed to enjoy themselves and we now know how to advise the businesses better for next year. Survey results from the event also proved it to be successful.
We’ll be walking in the St Patrick’s Day parade this weekend as the platinum level sponsor, all board members welcomed to walk with us. We have a banner made!
We’ll be doing an Easter micro-event. Details to be determined.
Nashville Themed Girls Night Out is scheduled for May 15th and Country Band Big Hix have been scheduled to perform along with a line dancing instructor. More details to come.
International Street Fair (June 1st) vendor applications are live.
Signature event logos are going to get a facelift.
- Finance (Chas)
Application for a $50,000 grant from Main Street America was sent in, the application went live before anticipated. This would be for the Division Street and Giardina walkways to be refreshed. Motion to retroactively approve the resolution for the grant to be submitted, Conlyn motioned to approve and Kevin seconded.
February financial reports emailed.
- Economic Vitality
Milkshake Factory confirmed for the Edge Property.
Nearly done with our headshot project with Mondlock Moments. We were able to provide headshots for 30+ businesses.
March mixer is next week at Cafe Picasso from 6pm-8pm.
Website updates include providing vacant properties, an updated business listing, and more.
DIRECTOR’S REPORT
Virtual board training next week with Main Street America, important to attend.
Organization- Interested in a downtown museum concept. Would like to partner with the school art department, no updates on that. Could potentially apply for the cultural arts grant, meeting with the county this week about it. More to come.
Tour of Somerville is coming along, meetings are now bi-weekly. Our contribution for sponsorship would be “in kind” in terms of our billboard graphics, TapInto ads, NJ.com, and reaching out to national outlets to promote the event. Hoping this would equate to the $10,000 level sponsorship, and if not writing a check for the remainder. If we’re not comfortable with $10,000, potentially $5,000 level sponsorship.
Design- We had our kick-off meeting with Arterial to discuss the Giardina and Division Street projects. Some challenges around fire and accessibility. We’ll be scheduling a walk through with Arterial to determine next steps and including the fire department, ect.
ABS contract increased a bit, due to asking them to start a 4 day schedule earlier.
NEW ITEMS/UPDATE
Li-Ching, founder of the Cultural Center for Creativity Exchange. She does the Asian Culture celebration at the Bridgewater Commons Mall. Li-Ching is interested in participating in the International Street Fair, and will connect with the office staff post meeting.
ADJOURNMENT
Meeting adjourned at 7:00pm, next meeting April 14th at 6pm