 Contents, January 2003 1 DDC Welcomes New Board Members, Executive 2 The Parking Space 3 DDC Making the Link with BIA Members DDC Welcomes New Board Members, Executive The Downtown Development Commission held the annual election of its Board of Management in late November, 2002. Six of the total twelve Board positions become available each year and each director serves a two year term. Elected to the Board for the first time were Bill Mahoney, Regal Realty; David Hiscock, Trapnell's; and Dan Hickey of Wildland Tours. Returning for another term were Robert Seymour, The Outfitters; and Neil Hardy, Hardy Appraisals. The rest of the Board is comprised of past chairman Phonse Miller, Gallery Shoes; Charles Cook, AP Parking Garage; Peter House, Patterson Palmer; Cyril Clancy, Timothy's World Coffee; Nycki Temple, Hempware and Anita Carroll, Posie Row. Councillor Art Puddister remains as the Council representative. At its first meeting in January, Bill Mahoney was elected chairman, Anita Carroll, vice chair and Charlie Cook was re-elected to the position of Treasurer. Leaving the Board in 2003 are David Templeton, R.A. Templeton's, Barry Walsh, Jungle Jim's and Charlie Oliver, Martek Morgan Finch. By Phonse Miller High cost of employee, owner meter parking A perceived lack of parking remains a deterrent to visiting the downtown. This is a problem that faces downtowns all across North America as all day parkers battle customers for on street meter spaces. Incredibly, some of the all day parkers are the owners or employees of downtown stores and it is costing small business a fortune in lost revenue. The U.S. based Downtown Research and Development Centre has put the cost of staff parking at $150-300 per day in lost retail sales per day. According to this report "Based on this calculation, the cost per year to downtown retailers is a loss of $45,000-90,000 when business owners and downtown employees park in prime downtown spaces. (based on three cars per business). If you park in front of your own store, you take a space from your customers and from the customers of your neighboring businesses. You force customers to park further away and contribute to the perception that "there's no parking downtown." The DDC will be taking a bold step to tackle this problem by requesting that the City enforce the two hour maximum on downtown meters Look for alternate parking, and insist that your employees do not park on meters, it's worth it. DDC Making the Link with BIA Members The DDC is currently updating and expanding its website and would like to include as many links as possible to BIA members. With your participation, the DDC hopes to create a one stop website for information about downtown and the hundreds of goods and services that are available. The Commission is encouraging all members regardless of your business type to forward your web address to the DDC for inclusion on the site. There is no cost associated with this feature but participation will be restricted to BIA members in good standing. Please call 579-4139 to register your business or email sjddc@nf.aibn.com. |
