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Some downtown merchants ask for make up of Main Street Board
to include more restaurant, retail shop owners
Main Street Board of Directors to address petition at meeting on Feb. 20
By Brandi Hart
McKinneyUpdate.com editor
Created at 10:30 p.m. on Feb. 19, 2009
About 30 downtown McKinney business and property owners have signed a petition that is asking for the make up of the Main Street Board of Directors to be changed to include a majority of board members to be retail shop owners and/or restaurant owners.
Tom Meredith, owner of The Pantry Restaurant gave the petition to city staff on Feb. 16, and the petition was addressed to City Manager Frank Ragan and all members of the McKinney City Council. The council were given copies of the petition at the Feb. 16 council workshop meeting. Meredith said on Feb. 16 that he is not asking to abolish the Main Street Department but wants the city to have better and fewer events, such as three, in downtown. He also wants the Main Street Board to be more representative of downtown merchant and restaurant owners.
The Main Street Board is currently comprised of the following members:
- One downtown property owner representative, who is currently represented by Sharla Bush who co-owns the Ritz building where Sharla's Cosmetics is located.
- One representative from the Chamber of Commerce, who is currently represented by Chamber board member John Rattan, who owns The Body Shop on State Highway 5.
- One representative from the McKinney Convention and Visitors Bureau, which is represented by MCVB Executive Director Diann Bayes.
- Two representatives from the city staff, which includes CoCo Good, Director of the city's Communication and Marketing Department and Jennifer Cox, Assistant Planning Director.
- Five or more representatives from the community at-large, which means anyone in McKinney and not just in the downtown area, which includes Jan Temples from Home on the Range; which is a retail store in downtown; Linda McNeff, who owns Arabella's, a retail store in downtown, who also signed the petition;
Karen Klassen, who owns Spoon's Cafe in downtown; Clyde Geer, who owns United Country McKinney Brokers in downtown; and Johnny Galyean, who works at Square One Mortgage in downtown McKinney.
- Three representatives appointed by the McKinney City Council, who are Edna Brown, a community at-large member who is retired; Amoret Cain, who is a community at-large member; and Candi Maloley, who owns Petals and Vines, a retail shop in downtown McKinney.
The Main Street Board currently only has five members who own or work at retail shops and restaurant owners out of the 13 board members. Meredith doesn't feel that is enough representation of what he feels is downtown McKinney- retail shop and restaurants, he said.
"There isn't anyone on that board that I don't get along with. You have to have a majority of board members who know what is going on in downtown to support it," Meredith said.
Examples of three well downtown done events would include Oktoberfest, Red, White and Boom, or the Fourth of the July event, and Dickens of a Christmas, Meredith said. He liked the car show that was included at the city's first Red, White and Boom event held last Fourth of July weekend in downtown, Meredith said. However, he didn't like the Red, White and Boom parade because he felt it didn't have enough participants, and referred to it as, "the worst parade he has ever seen," he said. Meredith was also concerned about how many hours the two full-time Main Street staff members spent working on the events held at Craig Ranch for Red, White and Boom when they are supposed to be focused on downtown McKinney, he said.
About 20 people volunteered and paid money to participate in the parade, which included downtown business owners, local elected officials and civic groups. Meredith did not participate in the parade, but watched the parade, along with hundreds of residents and many downtown business owners and property owners.
The parade was open to the public to participate in, and of course all elected officials. The city promoted the parade and times in press releases sent to council members and McKinney and area newspaper, online, TV, and radio media and promoted the parade and how people could participate in it on the city's Web site; its cable TV channel on Time Warner Cable channel 16; Main Street's Web site, and on posters and postcards that were displayed in shops in downtown and businesses throughout McKinney.
The event was partially held in Craig Ranch and David Craig, president of Craig International, spent thousands of dollars to be the title sponsor of the city's first Red, White, and Boom Fourth of July event, which included having events for all of McKinney residents and the general public in Craig Ranch, as well as downtown McKinney.
Better lighting in public parking lots on the south, east and north sides of the square and more signage to alert people of the public parking in the public lot where the new city hall will be located at 210 S. McDonald St., Meredith said.
Main Street Board member Linda McNeff, downtown property and business owner Don Day, his daughter, Lisa Day, who owns Reigning Cats and Dogs in downtown, Rick Wells, partner of Rick's Chophouse, Brad Pyle, who works at Sauce, which is a pizzeria and is affiliated with Rick's Chophouse, Nathen Barton of Posy Lane, Barry Tate of The Londoner, Bonnie Shaw of Orisons, and Kim Loyd of Mom and Popcorn Co. are just some of the people who signed the petition.
Main Street Board member Karen Klassen said on Feb. 18 that she needed to read the petition before commenting on it. Main Street Board member Johnny Galyean said on Feb. 17 that he respected Meredith as a property owner and did not want to comment on the petition until he read it.
One hundred of the Main Street Department's budget is paid for through the city's general fund, and the budget covers all personnel salaries and benefits. The rest of the Main Street budget is created by Main Street staff, such as Main Street Program Director Ty Lake who solicits financial sponsorships for events and soliciting fund for marketing downtown from downtown business owners.
The Main Street Board will discuss the issue at its meeting at 8:30 a.m. on Fri., Feb. 20 at the council chambers at the McKinney City Hall, 222 N. Tennessee St.
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