20210513 - CBDAC Minutes

Central Business District Advisory Committee  (CBDAC)

May 13th 2021 Minutes

present: Pamela Perron, Max Viola, Jordan Kaufman, Anastasia Bamberg, Steve Aspero, Jacqueline Luthcke, Kathryn Schmidt, Capt. Lyons, William White, Stacey Tsapatsaris

Council Update

• The budget passed. Supporting documentation was not available to the public due to COVID. 
• Contract approved for ELKs Club.
• Village opted out of cannabis growing and sales, but can’t forbid delivery.
• 5G passed--due in part to a statute that indicates municipalities can’t forbid wireless infrastructure. 100 new telephone poles will be installed.
• Glenwood Road will become one way. Studies are being done to see how it will affect neighboring roads. Bryden Court residents asked for an ordinance prohibiting  right turns from Maple.
• Dining Corrals and Grab and Go were extended thru Oct 31
• Balloons will be allowed during the pedestrian mall hours. Preferably reusable balloons.
• Pedestrian mall will be every weekend July 10 through Sept 5. Not sure about Labor Day.

Discussion on how to help retailers succeed

• Could we advise the store owners on how they can merchandise better during the pedestrian mall?
• We need professionals to do this.
• The Chamber of Commerce has formed a subcommittee.
• Need to curate performers who will bring supporters into town.
• Do we need to get the landlords to support hiring a consultant? Landlords are not intrinsically invested in how to turn a business around. The Chamber would be better to advise us of who needs help.
• We need to engage a consultant who is enthusiastic and a true believer in the pedestrian mall. 
• Jeanne shared a video that contained suggestions for making the CBD more vibrant--connecting people and place.

Landlord’s Group

• Ridgewood Commercial Property Owners Facebook group has been created.  Stacey will invite landlords to join.
• Landlords and the Village manager will be invited to a CBDAC meeting to discuss the permitting process.

Parking

• Chamber says the kiosks are not user friendly and the Park Mobile app has security issues.
• NJ has been slow to adopt new technologies.
• Pam asked Heather to report on how people are utilizing new parking availability (overnight parking, etc.)
• Need to talk to the Council about getting approval for pedestrian mall volunteers to park for free. Could we have a special zone in park mobile?

Website

• Kathyrn, Jordan and Stacey met with website vendor Bower.
• The website project transaction was between the Village administration (not CBDAC) and the vendor. Bower will provide training on how to edit the site. The contract was to be paid in installments.
• The data that the CBDAC contributed was not utilized in the website. We can fix this but it's not going to be done overnight.
• The site is built in Wordpress and will be hosted on the Village’s servers. Dylan would be the administrator and control access to others so that they could edit/maintain the content.
• The Village’s IT resources are limited. There is no budget for website development or communication.  E-notices are opt in so they do not cover all residents. It would be useful to have a list of possible communication platforms (Facebook groups, etc.) and a protocol about how we should be communicating. Look at the budget line items from peer towns (Summit, Montclair, Westfield.)
• Website and other marketing efforts could be covered by the business improvement district/SID. We should investigate starting a community foundation.

Other

• Invite the CFO of Milburn to talk about their SID. Need to put together a budget.
• For now, we will keep meeting via Zoom.