Residents and businesses call for better outreach; DDA proposes survey to measure event impact

Several speakers, including a person who said they live in Prairie Run north of town, said many residents and even nearby downtown residents are not aware of recurring events like the Renaissance Fair or Mother's Day activities. One resident said, "Prior to me being a business manager here, the only downtown event that I knew about was all that. I didn't know about the Renaissance Fair. I didn't know about Mother's Day Day School going on around here."

To address awareness and to quantify event impacts, staff proposed a business and community survey with questions about whether events drove higher sales, increased customer traffic, parking/access problems and overall satisfaction. Speaker 3 proposed surveying approximately 20 community members and repeating outreach over a 2–3 year period to gauge progress; board members expressed support for measuring outcomes before scaling initiatives further.