Downtown Lakeland Partnership, Inc.- General Membership Meeting Minutes

Wednesday, January 7, 2009 - Lakeland Police Department Community Room

Kevin Jones called the meeting to order at 8:02 am.

Treasurer’s Report:  We have $41,428.15 available.  Financial report was approved and filed as presented.

Program:  Dr. Bill Hatton introduced Lana Schwartzwelder of St. Jospeh’s Catholic School.  Lana presented the new plans for Southside Baptist Church which was purchased by St. Joseph’s.  A power point presentation focused on all of the new additions and expansions that St. Joseph’s has in store for the property which is a welcome additional to the historic district.  Lana is a Lakeland native and looks forward to working in our beautiful downtown area.

Plandowntownlakeland.com followed with a presentation by Tamara Sakagawa.  This is yet another great way that the City of Lakeland is preparing our area for the future.  This is a partnership between the City of Lakeland, LDDA, Downtown CRA and the Glatting Jackson Consulting Team.  The goal is two fold….to create an updated, collective vision for future development downtown and to provide a process to achieve the vision by updating the downtown CRA plan. I’m sure there will much more to look forward to with the blog and planned meetings that are currently under way.

LPD Report:  Lt. Link spoke to us about the problem at Mr. McHugh’s establishments on New Year’s Eve.  Apparently, once the streets were closed, he would not allow pedestrians access to the street/sidewalk if they had to go thru his property, without paying a cover charge.  Obviously the city streets and sidewalks are open to the public and he is not allowed to charge for this.  To that end,  Lt. Link said that street closures will not be approved if this continues.  More to follow…..

Committee Reports

Programs:  Bill is working on some great upcoming programs for our membership.  If anyone has some good ideas…please contact him or Jean Bunch

Events: Refer to the bottom of your agenda for the latest event schedule.

Advertising/PR:  Julie mentioned that the newsletter is well on it’s way to being finished, and the website will be undergoing a facelift over the next few months.  All events will be listed and the site will be much more user friendly.

Membership:  We have 148 members

Downtown at Dusk: Dates TBD

Annual Luncheon:  We are set for October 7, 2009 in Sikes Hall.

CSX: Special session is under way at this time.  We are still working with Paula Dockery in attempting to shed light on this most important topic for downtown Lakeland and what an abuse of the taxpayers money this is.  Julie will keep us posted with the most up to date reports as they happen.  Julie asked that we contact our state representatives and share out thoughts with them.

LDDA: No report

Executive Directors Report:  See CSX report.

President’s Report:  Kevin thanked Julie and her volunteers for a great set of holiday events in December.  He announced that Mid-Florida is the new title sponsor for Mayfaire By the Lake.  Mid-Florida has wanted to do this for quite sometime, and with the loss of Volvo, the door was opened to them.

New business:  Lynn Schindler announced the Historic Home Workshop on March 7; Jim Malless will lead another Historic Downtown Walking Tour on February 21.

With no other business to discuss, the meeting was adjourned at 9:09.