I wanted to write a note to express how lovely our city looks with all the flowers and hanging baskets. The Parks and Recreation department has done a bang-up job this season.
I also wish to express my disapppointment with the downtown merchants. We had visitors from out of town this past weekend and wanted to share our lovely downtown with them. To our dismay, when we arrived downtown to walk around all the quaint shops, they were closed. The exception was a few retaurants. This was Saturday around 5 p.m. Our visitors could not get over how lovely the downtown core was, but were extremely disappointed that “the sidewalks were pretty much rolled up,” as they wanted to check out the shops and make some purchases.
Maybe I am off the mark here, but would you not think the merchants would want to cater to the tourists and perhaps stay open a little later through the summer months and add some revenue to their business?
We saw other people also walking around looking in shop windows. We overheard a young couple with their visitors in tow wondering the same thing, why no shops open on a Saturday evening?
There was a musician playing at the lunch box stage during this time; had some shops been open, this could have drawn more people to stop and listen and maybe purchase some of his CDs – all in all a win situation for everyone.
Kim Crockett