We are officially into summer.  Afternoon rain showers almost every day for the last week and, as I’m writing this, I’m keeping an eye out for reports on the tropical storm churning across the Gulf.

Fortunately, Saturday turned out to be a great day.  We started out with “A Walk In The Park” at Sims Park.  It was an opportunity for members of the public to walk around the park, look over the changes in the park, and make suggestions regarding what they would like to see added.

The most recent addition to the park is the brand new video display board.  Installation was finished on Friday and our resident geek, Bryan Weed, got things fired up for Saturday morning.

If you click on the picture, you can get a better idea  of what it looks like.

The board can be used to display camera feeds during concerts and other special events.  It can also be operated as a scrolling events calendar.  The initial loop includes a promotion for next weekend’s Rap River Run.

I’ll go out on a limb and predict that it will be a very popular addition.

There will be plenty of content for the events calendar.  We have something going on almost every weekend between now and Labor Day!  There are three jazz nights scheduled for this summer.  The first one will be on June 18th.  There are movies in the park each month.  The June movie is “Minions” and will be shown on June 25th following Summertime in the City which starts at 5pm.

We’ll still have the large events, like Main Street Blast, on July 1st and 2nd which will include the obligatory fireworks on the 2nd.

I’m most excited though about the frequency and variety of smaller events like Saturday’s walk, the movies, and the jazz nights.  Small events give you plenty of reasons to pop downtown, have coffee, spoil yourself with a dish of ice cream, or enjoy a meal at one of our restaurants either before or after checking out what’s going on in the park.

Some of us have been kicking around the idea of a family friendly bike ride around town each weekend.  Brad, from the bike shop on Congress (just north of Main) and I started talking about this a week or two ago while having coffee at the Main & Bank Cafe.  I’m game.  If you are interested, let one of us know.  We’re talking about a slow ride, featuring safe residential roads and our new multi-use path.

Speaking of the Main & Bank Cafe, they have adjusted their weekend hours, opening at 9am.  This makes it convenient for me to pop over on Sundays when the first service ends at 9:30.  I’m always happy to talk about our city over a cup of coffee, so feel free to come by and join me.  (Disclaimer:  I’ve got a pancake breakfast on the 12th, so I won’t be at the coffee shop next week.)

I look forward to seeing you around town.

 

Rob Marlowe, Mayor