Follow-up meeting to Kingston candidates tour of 10/26 Arts District

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A meeting was held on 10/26 in which current Common Council members, County legislators, mayoral candidates, and candidates for the first two positions were invited to hear a presentation from with a core group of the Midtown Arts District committee and take a tour of some of the existing arts related businesses.

Here is a quick summary of that meeting from Richard.

Attending: Ruth Ann Frank, Anne Bailey, Renée Darmstadt, Kevin Godbey, Kitty McCullough, Richard Frumess, Ray Curran

Two impressions regarding the candidates emerged from the tour. 1) How enthusiastic they were about the Arts District and 2) How uninformed they seemed to be about the elements of the District and the progress that has been made in its development over the last few years.

All of this points to the need to 1) build on what we have done and 2) to continually update our elected officials of both potential and accomplishments of the District.

We decided on the following steps:

  1.  An e-mail to the Common Council members signed by our core group and the Ten Broeck/Cornell Business Alliance urging them to maintain Gregg Swanzey in his role as Economic Development Director and at a salary comparable to his duties and work load. Kitty will write a first draft.
  2.  An e-mail to all committee members updating them about the tour and including the most recent map of the district as drawn by Ray and a link to Kitty’s Power Point presentation. Richard will write a first draft.
  3. An e-mail to the Common Council members thanking those who attended and assuring those who couldn’t that we would have a follow up tour.
    • The e-mail will include Ray’s map and a link to Kitty’s Power Point.
    • There will also be a short paragraph describing the businesses that were on the tour
    • Lastly, a statement welcoming them to contact any of us whether to ask questions or to revisit our facilities.
  4. One or more of us to attend the November 10 (7 pm) Common Council meeting to speak about the Arts District and to hand out info folders to those who hadn’t gotten them.
  5. A decision that those business in our core group and business alliance who will have tables at the Dec. 10 Made in Kingston event at the Lace Mill will be grouped together along with a table for the Arts District itself.