Ada prepares to “Boogie on Main Street” this summer

ADA — This July, Ada residents will be treated to a “Boogie on Main Street,” an outdoor event to help          promote shopping at local businesses.
“Our buy local campaign is a division or a small sect of what is becoming a movement for experience Ada,” said Matt Brown, president of the Ada Chamber of Commerce. “The idea behind the movement is to continue to facilitate and generate a buzz for shopping locally, supporting local business and giving people a reason to come to Ada.”
Brown, along with the help of fellow Chamber member Dustin Brooks, were on hand to inform council about the event, which will take place Friday, July 13. According to Brown, a disc jockey for Ohio Northern University’s radio station, WONB, Richard Gainey has volunteered his services.
“What happens is you have a DJ and you have it in the central part of town, a central hub where it’s down on Main Street, and the music, if you do it right on a Friday night, you try to get a lot of people from the community out to the event,” Brown said. “At that event, if (council) were to partner with me representing Chamber, if I could then partner with the local downtown businesses and vendors and tell them, ‘Look, this is a great opportunity for us to do something related and tied to the Moonlight Madness, which we haven’t done at a high level of success for the last couple of years.’
Brown also added that they would like to see all downtown businesses come up with their own “Friday the 13th” special to help promote local buying.
An exact location or central hub for the event is still in the works, Brown said, but a few ideas have been proposed, such as the historic downtown depot.
“We first proposed idea of the depot, but we had a couple committee members that said it has been frowned upon in the past by no particular individuals for use of the depot space,” he said. “We said quickly, if we can’t use the depot space, where can we hold it?”
While the depot is still not out of the question, Brown and the Chamber had also proposed the idea of possibly using Councilwoman Cathy Cole’s lot at Cole Motors.
“(Cole) was kind enough to say ‘Let me think about it with my liability policy,’ and I understand all that,” Brown said.
No decision on a location was made at the council meeting, but it was sent to the buildings and grounds committee for discussion.
Brown didn’t expect a decision right then but just wanted to put it on the council’s radar. He said it just needed to be somewhere central where the community could get together.
“It’s simply a place where the community can congregate, we can connect, we can have a good time, and also that if it’s central, it will give people a reason to walk up and down Main Street and stay downtown for the event,” Brown said. “It’s just a nice little place where people can stop, they can chat and they can listen to music.
In other action, council:
– Approved the second reading of an ordinance mandating the removal of animal excrement or feces on public property and certain private property.
– Approved the first reading of an ordinance amending the storm sewer rates of the village beginning with the August billing session.
– Approved a resolution setting forth the services to be provided by the village upon annexation of a certain territory to Ada.
– Learned the Ada Police Department’s bicycle rodeo will be June 2 from 10 a.m. to noon in the village parking lot behind the station.
– Was informed the APD’s golf cart inspections are $25.

By TY THAXTON
Times staff writer

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Posted by Kenton Times on May 2, 2012. Filed under Local News,Recent Headlines. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry