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 Hake began by thanking the city of Lincoln for its support of the
Lincoln Balloon Festival. She said this year was by far the largest
turnout in the history of the festival. She noted that on Saturday
alone, the Alliance/Chamber has calculated there were between 18,000
and 20,000 people at the Logan County Airport for the Saturday night
launch and glow. She said to put it in perspective, there has always
been a “Plan B” for parking at the airport, but it has never been
used. This year, the plan had to be put into action because the
parking available at the airport was not enough.
She singled out Jeff Hoinacki and said she appreciated all of his
work from crewing the Darth Vader special shape balloon to helping
with communication with the pilot of the balloon. She explained that
Darth Vader’s pilot was from Belgium, and there was a language
barrier that had to be overcome.
Hoinacki said he also wanted to thank Jim Phelan and Jim Ireland for
their help with the pilot. He explained that coming from Belgium,
the pilot arrived with only his balloon. Arrangements had to be made
for a transport and chase vehicle and other accommodations. Phelan
and Ireland stepped up and made sure the pilot had what he needed.
Staffing changes
Hake said the staff at the Alliance was in place and doing well. The
Alliance is losing one person, Johnathon Butcher. She said Butcher
had always been a temporary employee, but had stayed longer than
expected and had done some great things at the office. He is now
moving on, and the Alliance is currently looking for his
replacement.
Development Council
Hake said that the Development Council is now in place. Members of
that council are Greg Basford as the chairman, David Lanterman, Seth
Goodman, Julie Tarter, Keith Snyder, Clay Johnson, and Damon Priddy.
She said there was one seat vacant on the council that should be
filled by an appointee of the city council.
The role of the Development Council will be retention and
recruitment. The first goal is to keep the businesses that are
currently in Lincoln, in Lincoln. The second goal is to bring new
business to town.
 The group has begun identifying key areas that need their attention
in Lincoln. Hake said in the many areas the group is studying they
are finding a very big, common stumbling block. There is the lack of
a quality employment pool. Hake said that the council is working to
unite the various workforce programs, and start bringing together
the resources that are available.
The Development Council has formed a Workforce Committee and will
seek to include the various programs. She noted that the Lincoln
Community High School has a great program, Community Action
Partnership of Central Illinois also has a program. The committee is
also reaching out to local manufacturers as well as Lincoln
Community High School and Heartland College. Downtown Business Group
The Downtown Business Group has been formed through the
Lincoln/Logan County Chamber and is meeting monthly. Hake said that
in surveying those businesses, they too have the same issue as the
larger businesses, a lack of quality employees.
She said the group was working on drawing new customer’s downtown,
and promoting tourism in the downtown area.
Retail Strategies
Hake said she continues to stay in contact with Retail Strategies.
This is a firm hired by the city to promote Lincoln as a viable
location for new retail establishments including eateries. Hake said
that recently the firm has indicated that they would prefer not give
monthly reports on their work, but would rather like to switch to
quarterly reporting.
Hake asked City Administrator Clay Johnson if he would review the
city’s contract with Retail Strategies. She also asked that the city
council give her guidance on what they want from Retail Strategies
regarding reporting.
One small business owner going through SCORE
There is one home based business in Lincoln that would like to have
a brick and mortar store in the downtown area. Hake said that for
this person to succeed, some extra help and training has been
required. SCORE is a nationwide program implemented by the Small
Business Administration to help small and upstart businesses get off
the ground and grow by offering education and mentoring. The program
utilizes retired business people as mentors to the new business
owner and is offered free of charge to the trainee. Hake added that
there is a local business person who is involved in the Springfield
Chapter, so it is going to work out well.
New business potential
Hake said in addition to the business mentioned earlier, there is a
second business interested in coming into the downtown area. She has
also talked to two firms that are interested in starting larger
businesses in Lincoln.
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Other activities promoting Lincoln
Hake said that the banners were up in the windows of vacant downtown
businesses promoting the area as a good place to start a new
business. The next step is a radio campaign along the same order
talking about Lincoln as a good place to open a business.
The Downtown Committee and the Chamber Ambassadors will be working
together on some downtown promotions including the annual Christmas
Parade and the Small Business Saturday shopping event.
Another new idea that is formulating is to create a “Downtown Dollars”
promotion. She said this would be something similar to ‘Kohl’s Cash” in that
shoppers on a specific day of the month could earn downtown dollars through
their purchases. Those dollars would then be good for a return shopping trip to
the downtown area. She said the dollars would be good for a limited time, such
as 30 days, or to be used at a specific event. Hake stressed that the details of
the Downtown Dollars have not been completely worked out, so what she gave as an
example may not be the end result.
Budgeted dollars for marketing
Hake said she had money in her budget for marketing. A portion of that money has
been set aside and is on hold to be used for marketing projects as recommended
by DCC Marketing for the city. DCC Marketing has been hired to conduct a study
of Lincoln and present to the city council recommendations for branding and
marketing. To date, DCC has finished their study, but recent events within the
city, including the loss of two mayors this year, have put the project on hold.
At a future date, the city will hear from DCC Marketing, and will make a
determination as to whether or not to move forward with any proposals that firm
may present.
In addition to the money set aside, Hake said she also has money in the
marketing budget for marketing of local properties. Hake said when she gets site
availability requests, businesses often want multiple locations they could
choose from. She said the marketing of properties would focus multiple
offerings.
Fifth Street Grant Application
Hake and Johnson recently attended a meeting in Peoria regarding the grant
application for the city’s portion of the Fifth Street Road project. She said
the people she and Johnson met with were impressed with the grant application,
but she is still waiting with the hope of hearing from them.
Enterprise Zone
Hake has been working with Opportunity Alliance LLC to gather information for
the new Enterprise Zone application. Hake said one of the big projects had been
gathering information about employees. She said for the EZ, the state wants to
know where Logan County employees come from, are they living in the county or
commuting from other towns such as Decatur.
Property marketing web pages
The Alliance is working to create a web page that will list available commercial
properties. Hake said the process was ending up to be more complex than she
originally expected. The goal had been for property owners to submit their
information about buildings for sale or lease, but that isn’t coming together.
Hake said she was anticipating that she would have to start going door-to-door
and talking to people face to face to gather the needed information.
Changes in business ownership
The Econo Lodge on the west side of town has sold. Hake said it was purchased by
someone locally.
The Crossroads Motel has also sold. She has not been able to gather much
information on that, but will continue working on it.
Other accomplishments
Hake said she was honored to have recently received the Jim Anderson
Professional Torch Award. The award recognizes chamber professionals who work
passionately for their chambers, which help advance the chamber, and demonstrate
excellence in leadership. Part of the perk of the award is a free membership in
the American Chamber of Commerce Executive Association, which Hake said would
give the local chamber a number of great resources in the future.
Chamber director Nicole Cox is also getting attention for the Chamber’s new tier
membership structure. Hake said no one is offering free memberships to their
chambers, and many are very interested in seeing how that works out here. She
said Cox is getting lots of requests to talk to other chambers about the
program.
The Logan County Alliance is required to deliver quarterly reports to the city
of Lincoln as a term of their financial support agreement with the city. The
presentation given on Tuesday night was originally scheduled for August 17th but
was rescheduled due to the death of Mayor Scott Cooper.
[Nila Smith]
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