Kay MacIntosh, Economic Development and Marketing Coordinator for Chestertown, introduced plans for a reinvigorated Main Street program to the town council during Tuesday’s meeting.
The program was designed as a model and tested nationally in the 1970s to counter the erosion of small town identities and economies due to the national shift in economic centers from towns to malls.
Seeing success in its original model, individual states developed their own Main Street programs.
“Main Street-style transformation is a combination of art and science: communities first need to learn about the local economy, its primary drivers, and its regional context (the science), but they also need to convey that special sense of place through storytelling, preserving the older and historic structures that set it apart, broad and inclusive civic engagement, and marketing (the art),” state mainstreet.org.
Chestertown launched its own Main Street program in 2008. Meeting some initial success, it fell dormant because of a lack of volunteers.
Macintosh has been attending the quarterly meetings of the state Main Street group and, with Kristen Owen, President of the Downtown Business Association, last summer’s national conference.
“I was more convinced than ever the Mains Street Program would be a great thing for Chestertown especially because of the deep wells of civic engagement we have,” Macintosh said.
Macintosh said that she talked with various groups within the community to make sure that there were no overlapping missions and received positive feedback from people wanting to see the program succeed. Many responded by volunteering for Main Street committees.
“I hit gold when local businessman Paul Heckles stepped up to become the new president,” she said. Heckles and his family are owners of Twigs and Teacups, and he has just finished two years as Chestertown Rotary President.
“We looked at the past documents and endeavors of the program, and we’re not starting from zero, ” Heckles said. “We are studying how to synergize with other groups like the DCA and A and E District and make sure we’re not duplicating any efforts.”
For more about the Mains Street Approach go here.
A complete list of volunteers follows:
Paul Heckles, President
Bryan Matthews, Vice President
Renee Bench, Secretary
Jeff Weber, Treasurer
ORGANIZATION COMMITTEE
Lani Seikaly, chair
Paul Heckles
Barbara Jorgenson
Megan Bramble Owings
Toby Tobriner
Jeff Weber
ECONOMIC VITALITY COMMITTEE
Richard Keaveney, chair
David Bowman
Mark Kamon
Terwana Brown
Jeff Grotsky
Kristen Owen
Marjorie Adams
Bryan Matthews
Nina Johnson
DESIGN COMMITTEE
Ellen Hurst, chair
Carolyne Grotsky
Barton Ross
Joe Karlik
Barbara Slocum
Jodi Bortz
Michael Bourne
Kate Markoski
PROMOTION COMMITTEE
Liddy Campbell, chair
Andy Goddard
Jenn Baker
Ben Ford
Mike O’Connor
Renee Bench
Bernadette Bowman
Greg Waddell
Francoise Sullivan
Neyah White
Carolyn Brown
The following video is of Kay Macintosh and Paul Heckles. It is about 5 minutes in length.
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