Pirate Night, Caribou Cares on the horizon
What a thrill it was to take a drive out to the Lister-Knowlton VFW Post 8389 and see such an amazing collection of Harley-Davidson motorcycles! The VFW provided a spaghetti dinner for the Maine HOGs who traveled up Interstate 95 and U.S. Route 1 to get to Caribou on Thursday. The dinner was paid in part with a $1,000 donation
from the Caribou Area Chamber of Commerce as promised in the proposal made two years ago to bring the HOGs to our area.
A lot of work went into the planning and carrying out of this year’s HOGs Rally. Many phone calls were traded back and forth between this office and Corey and Ann Zahares, the Maine State HOG Rally planners. The Chamber also provided the welcome booklet to all the riders as well as ice for the daily events. Cary Medical Center donated the use of tents and water and Paradis’ Shop ‘N Save also donated water. The Parks and Rec department was kind enough to retrieve the tents and water from Cary and set those up at the Caribou Inn & Convention Center.
The welcome booklet was made possible in part thanks to advertising from the state’s Harley-Davidson dealers including Plourde and Plourde’s here in Caribou and several other local advertisers. Thanks also go to Pepsi for providing the Chamber with two banners to welcome the riders to Caribou!
The weather created some problems on Friday in particular, but as a whole, the 2013 Maine HOG Rally was a great thing for Caribou. Lodging in the area was full and I am sure that many of our businesses got a little boost from the swelled population over the weekend.
In other activities, planning for the upcoming Thursdays on Sweden continued as well as planning for the Aug. 8-12 Caribou Cares About Kids celebration. As for Thursdays, the next event is July 25. Even more vendors are on board and the theme is Pirate Night! I think you will like the band that is playing too.
As for Caribou Cares About Kids celebration, the Chamber will again hold its annual tie-dye event on Thursday, Aug. 8 from 10 in the morning until 2 p.m. Tim the Tune Man will be there to entertain and the Aroostook Republican will again have a hotdog barbecue just outside the Caribou Wellness Center entrance. That should be a fun day. I need a catchy name for the event. Have any ideas? Call me!
The Chamber is also involved in the registration process for the parade to be held on Friday night. If you would like to be a part of the parade, please either go to our website at cariboumaine.net and click the Popular Forms link for the parade registration, or call me at the number listed at the end of this column.
The Chamber is also lining up the judges to judge entries in the parade and that will be fun! We hope to have a brochure with the CCAK’s events very shortly. The brochure will be distributed around town as soon as it is available.
County Quick Stop on the Presque Isle Road will soon be celebrating its 15th anniversary with a big event. The Chamber will be happy to be a part of the events of their special day. Keep an ear open next week on our Facebook page for more details.
When you are in my position, wading into politics is usually not a good idea. And so I try to stay far from those types of topics because I like being employed. But occasionally, an issue arises that directly affects the Chamber’s members and as their director, it is my responsibility to be their voice. And the issue is this:
We have a couple of streams that seem to be flowing in opposite directions. The city and the Chamber are very much active and interested in building our business base here in our area. As such, the downtown area is a vital part of that attention. Meanwhile, flowing in the other direction, there is a move from another committee that has deemed it a good idea to privatize or sell our downtown parking lots. Bid notices have already gone out on them to which the City Council will vote on their next meeting on Monday, Aug. 12.
On the short side, this makes some financial sense as it costs the city upwards of $50,000 to maintain the parking lots. On the long side, this makes no sense at all in light of where the city and the downtown revitalization committee’s goals being to bring more business to the downtown area.
There are two other issues that are greatly involved here. First, those businesses that we do have already established downtown many times live on the margins. Adding a parking lot expense to their bottom line will force several of them to consider closing. I have heard this from them directly because they are my members.
The second is that the city is actively attempting to replace the deep hole left by the emptying of the ATX building that resulted when ATX was purchased by CCH. Since I was a large part of the ATX history, it is fixed in my memory bank how trying it was to keep our ATX employees from parking on the street tying up those Sweden Street parking spots. Many would attempt to do so because the parking lots were full.
Say we are successful in getting another business to again use that building. The same will be true. And, the biggest challenge is that selling the lots does not guarantee they will remain parking lots the public can use.
On behalf of my members, the city selling its parking lots is not a good idea, could threaten the livelihood of the businesses we already have downtown and is counterintuitive to the stated goals of the city and its Chamber.
Whew! Sorry about that, but my members are the biggest part of my existence.
Have a great week and I will see you Thursday night downtown where Thursday Nights on Sweden will fill the parking lots! (whistling innocently …)
Executive Director William Tasker may be reached in the CACC office at 498-6156 or e-mail him at cacc@cariboumaine.net.
