The New Britain Borough Community & Business Committee’s Report to New Britain Borough Council February 14, 2012
The committee has met twice. Once in January and once in February.
The NBBCBC is a committee of the borough comprised of business professionals, residents and borough officials working together to create an environment that attracts targeted businesses, promotes our current businesses, enhances the quality of life for residents and, hopefully, improves the tax base.
Committee members are David Holewinski, Bob Belchic, David Joss, Development Manager, Federal Realty Investment Trust, Chris Forlano, Duck Deli, Debbie Byrne, Byrne Sewing, Dave Fermier, Bucks-Mont Party Rental, Jackie D’Agostino, Lorraine Moxey, Donna vonLipsey and Marie Esher Coia.
Marie Esher Coia was voted chair and Donna vonLipsey acting secretary at the first meeting.
We had wide-ranging discussions at both meetings and we are still in the discussion phase.
Lynn Bush, Executive Director, Bucks County Planning Commission attended our second meeting and was very informative. We asked her to prepare a Market Profile for New Britain similar to the one she gave us as an example. Ms. Bush gave us a lead on a possible grant.
John Davis, Doylestown Borough’s manager will attend our second meeting where he will discuss Doylestown Borough’s revitalization efforts.
One of the committee’s tasks is to work to promote our current borough businesses so they can continue to be viable and prosper which will maintain stability and decrease the possibility of more vacant properties. One way is to expose our residents to what businesses are in the borough. This could be done through the newsletter. Currently the newsletters is twice a year and is mailed to owner/occupied properties in the borough not to businesses unless they own the property. We have a list of about 110 businesses that have applied for sign permits but most of them do not get a newsletter unless they own the building. We would like to send them the newsletter. In each newsletter we want to include a story about a borough business. We would like to sell advertising, only of our borough businesses, at cost to help pay for the newsletters and to promote businesses. We would like to increase the frequency of the newsletter to four times a year. A more frequent newsletter would give us a platform to promote our businesses and also give residents more timely information about what is going on in the borough.
Respectfully submitted,
Marie Esher Coia, Chair
NBBCBC
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