Letter to Editor

Dear Editor:

My name is Jake Hellner. Katie wrote an article recently about attracting businesses to downtown Osawatomie and it caught my attention. I would love to help.

There was another piece written about the owner of the Coach Light store and how she invited people in to pitch and brainstorm ideas and one of her ideas that I thought was amazing was to have all local downtown businesses to have sidewalk sales during the festivals. We should take it a step further and make it a regular Saturday thing.

Maybe the city government can get involved and offer some incentive programs to lure new businesses here.

I always thought a good idea would be to have some sort of night festival downtown and all of the local businesses would stay open until midnight. They could offer giveaways, special promotions, a BBQ, live music, activities for the kids, maybe a late night car show, etc.

There are several buildings vacant and it’s a shame to see them empty. We need to stress keeping local businesses here and not taking it to Paola or Johnson County or anywhere else for that matter. Focus on supporting the businesses we have first and then luring new ones.

Perhaps contact Somerset Ridge Vineyard and Winery in Louisburg and offering them some sort of reduced rent/tax incentive to open a small retail sore. The owner Cindy Reynolds can be reached at 913-491-0038.

Maybe even a small crafts/scrapbook supply store. These are growing very fast in popularity and it appeals to nearly every female alive. The local dollar stores care some of this stuff but their stock is very limited.

I would love to see all of the downtown buildings full. That is my hope and dream for the small town of Osawatomie, KS.

Thank you,

Jake Hellner

Short URL: http://osawatominews.com/?p=376

Posted by admin on Sep 22 2010. Filed under News and Updates. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry