UPDATED: bloomingdale meeting at big bear cafe

well, i went to the meeting at the big bear cafe this evening, and i could write a lot about it, but i'm kind of tired, and just wanted to get a few pictures up and a brief summary. perhaps tomorrow i'll update this. i just wanted to get a few big facts across now.

1) we need to support our local businesses. more so now than ever, if you really want a certain coffee place, store, grocery, or any other business to stay in bloomingdale, you have to stop just talking about it and put your money where your mouth is.

these stores require our patronage to survive. this is one of the basic tenets of capitalism folks. businesses have to make money to exist. if we don't spend our money at these places, they will fold, and then all the complaining about how "we don't have the stores i want" will be a bunch of sour grapes, because you can't complain when a business closes if you never shopped there.

2) there is money out there to be had by the businesses of bloomingdale and eckington. they just need to go out and get it. councilmember brown talked a lot about how, as chair of the committee on economic development, he's working to do what he can to funnel funds towards small businesses for things like start-up costs, façade improvements, and small loans. the north capitol main streets group appears to be working towards incorporation as a non-profit entity so that they can take advantage of these funds and disperse them to businesses and property owners in the community. here's hoping that becomes the case.

3) councilmember thomas showed up as well (i thanked him for coming, and he told me "i'm supposed to be here, this is ward 5"), and he and councilmember brown talked a LOT about how important their efforts were in relation to each other when it comes to getting legislation passed. made it sound at times like they were joined at the hip.

councilmember brown did promise that he would take things away from the meeting, and get back together with the community down the line in order to get things moving forward. he wants to be held accountable along with members of the neighborhoods in the near future, making sure that we're all moving forwards towards achieving the goals we all have for the future of the neighborhood.

some apologies for the photos below. you can see both councilmembers and ANC 5C03 commissioner stu davenport in these photos (which are not the clearest that i've ever taken). other members of the ANC were in attendance, as well as other neighborhood bloggers and listserv regulars. i'm sure they'll have more to say about the meeting in the coming days, and i will as well.

overall, it was a good meeting. we are all getting a sense of where the neighborhood has to go moving forward in order to see the changes we want in bloomingdale.






UPDATE: i promised a little more information, and here it is. we were provided with a rough agenda (which said "topics to be addressed" at the top of the page), as well as the copy of an message that had been posted to the eckington listserv in recent days that discussed how we'd like to the the neighborhoods develop. the topics included (and i'm paraphrasing here):

1. larger themes (organic vs. corporate growth)
2. locations of improvememt (north capitol from seaton to florida and 1st from seaton to rhode island)
3. types of business we want to see (included restaurants, hardware store, yoga studio, theater or rehearsal space, multi-use space (a la busboys and poets)
4. wayts to get city support for business
5. next steps

it was quickly affirmed that everyone wanted to see more local investment, and less corporate chains, etc. once that was clear, ideas starting flying in from all quarters. talk of a rehearsal space for shakespeare theater, or a pet groomer/vet were two of the first clear ideas. the idea of a theme for the area was brought up, yet all in the room were clearly not on board with that idea. when councilmember brown finally showed up (he was late due to council debate on the trinidad police checkpoints), he spent a lot of time discussing how this was something that can't be done overnight, and how it will involve the work of the executive branch, the legislative branch, business, and people in the neighborhood.

i don't want to dive into the politics of the meeting right now, that might be fodder for a future post. suffice it to say, when all was done, it seems to me like stu davenport is probably going to be coordinating something in the near future get people together to discuss how to bring desired businesses to the area. a steering committee of some sort seems like a logical next step.