December 8, 2025 Meeting Minutes
6:00 PM – In-Person Somerville Civic Center
Chairman Chas Stevens called the meeting to order at 6:00 pm on December 8, 2025.
Kevin Sluka conducted roll call and the following Board Members were present:
Board Members Present: Natalia Kleyman, Kevin Sluka, Rick St. Pierre, Tania Althoff, Chas Stevens, Conlyn Chan
Board Members Virtual: RanD Pitts
Board Members Absent: N/A
Professional Staff Present: Becky Pollard, Dana Kessel
CHAIRPERSON REMARKS
Chas Stevens called the meeting to order.
EXECUTIVE SESSION
The Board entered Executive Session at the beginning of the meeting to discuss candidates for new Board Trustees for 2026.
The Board accepted the recommendations of the Nominating Committee. All candidates will be notified of the Board’s decision by email.
The Board returned to open session following Executive Session and announced that the candidates would receive an email the following day.
APPROVAL OF MEETING MINUTES
Motion to approve the November minutes was made, seconded, and unanimously approved.
COMMITTEE REPORTS
a. Finance
i. The Board was informed that the reserve account was moved from a traditional checking account to a money market account, increasing the interest rate from approximately 0% to 3.5%. This change represents a significant increase in interest income.
ii. Additional savings of approximately $4,000–$5,000 annually were realized by relocating storage from a private garage to the former police headquarters building.
iii. No other significant issues were reported.
iv. Grant Updates
- A two-month extension was approved for the NJEDA grant. Final plans from Arterial are expected by mid-January and remain within the grant period.
- The Main Street Transformation grant timeline remains on track, with expenditures required by May.
- The organization did not qualify for the T-Mobile Placemaking Grant, primarily due to the project not being shovel-ready. Staff will explore costs to achieve shovel-ready status for future funding opportunities.
- The Board is awaiting a decision on the LAP grant for a proposed mural project.
b. Design/Infrastructure
i. Dog Waste Stations: A walkthrough is planned for January to identify appropriate locations, prioritizing attachment to existing posts. Vendor selection will follow design review.
ii. Cleaning and Gardening RFP: The Design and Infrastructure Committee reviewed a draft RFP and agreed on a timeline for feedback and release.
b. Promotions
i. Social media KPIs (October 2025): Presented by Leah Horowitz
- Instagram reached 37.2K accounts; 326K views (64% of views from followers, 36% of views from non-followers; 5.5% from ads); 7K interactions (86% interactions from followers, 14% interactions from non-followers); Total Followers: 19,396; 531 follows, 135 unfollows (+396)
- Facebook: Note – Meta has disabled Accounts Reached as a primary Insight, so that data will no longer be available. 496.4K views; 28.5% of all views from followers, 71.5% of all views from non-followers; 3.9K interactions (54% interactions from followers,46% interactions from non-followers); Total Followers: 22,666 (+.7%)
- Email open rates: ~39.6%; click rate 2.2% ; very low unsubscribe rate.
- Placer Data
- Visits (The extrapolated number of visits to the property): 285.9K
- Visits / sq ft (The number of visits to the property by its size (square footage)): .09
- Size / sq ft (The property’s square footage is based on the polygon’s size when individual properties are analyzed, and Gross Leasable Areas (GLA) when shopping centers are examined): 3.3M
- Visitors (The extrapolated number of individual visitors, or people in your selected audience group, who visited the property): 149.8K
- Visit Frequency (The average number of visits per person in the selected audience group in the selected date range. This helps you understand how often people are returning to a location): 1.91
- Avg. Dwell Time (The average amount of time spent by people in your selected audience group at the property during a visit): 76 Mins
- Panel Visits (The number of visits generated by panel devices (the unique number of mobile devices that visited the location examined)): 18.1K
- YoY (The percent change in visits during the report’s date range relative to the same period in the previous year): +1.3%
- YoY2 (The percent change in visits during the report’s date range relative to the same period two years ago): +8.6%
- Yo3Y (The percent change in visits during the report’s date range relative to the same period three years ago): 2.5%
- Peak Visiting Time (The average time the most amount of visitors were in Downtown Somerville): 7:00pm
ii. January Candlelight Concert ticket sales are strong, with the first concert nearly sold out. Valentine’s Chocolate event planning is underway for Thursday, February 12, with outreach ongoing to secure sufficient participating businesses. The Annual Stakeholders Meeting is scheduled for Monday, January 12, 2026.
iii. Upcoming Events
- Candlelight Concerts (Jan 24 & Feb 14, 2026): Fundraiser with Fever; United Reform Church venue.
- Annual Stakeholders Meeting is scheduled for Monday, January 12, 2026 at Dafina’s from 6-9pm.
- Continuation of Tavern Talks and History on the Green discussions for the next summer.
c. Economic Vitality
i. Closings: None to report.
ii. Openings: No new ones to report.
d. Director’s Report
i. Small Business Saturday foot traffic increased 6% year over year, outperforming national trends. Jubilee attendance increased approximately 11% compared to the prior year.
ii. Resource constraints were noted when attempting to activate multiple downtown areas simultaneously; future programming adjustments will be evaluated.
iii. Strategic initiatives related to business development, education, and grants were noted as progressing positively.
iv. The mobile app has entered testing, with a planned public release aligned with the Annual Stakeholders Meeting.
v. A draft Board of Trustees Handbook was distributed; legal review has been completed. Board members were asked to provide feedback prior to finalization for the January Stakeholders Meeting. Board training was discussed, noting the need for updated, in-person governance training reflecting the organization’s multiple operational roles.
NEW BUSINESS
N/A
PUBLIC COMMENTS
No public comments were made.
ACTION ITEMS
- Conduct a site walk-through in January with Kevin and team to identify exact locations for dog waste stations and avoid installing new posts
- Collect design and infrastructure committee recommendations on the cleaning/gardening RFP and update the RFP according to the committee timeline (responses due by the 18th)
- Continue mobile app testing with the current testers, report back any glitches or requested fixes within the next couple of weeks, and target app store availability for January 12th.
- Finalize the draft Board of Trustees handbook by collecting comments and producing a final printed version for the January stakeholders meeting (target to collect comments by December 31)
- Post the PSCG meeting video to the website so businesses can view the recording and notification plan
FINAL REMARKS AND ADJOURNMENT
Motion to adjourn was made, seconded, and unanimously approved. Meeting adjourned at 7:01 pm. Next meeting is scheduled for January 12, 2025, at 6:00 PM.