 This week was busy keeping up with our daily services for Downtown Bend, planning to gear up for summer, our EID Ordinance reading at City Council, preparing our largest fundraiser of the year (Bend Oktoberfest), planning to increase the Fall, Winter & Holiday experience in Downtown Bend, interviewing and hiring for summer help, and tons of meetings to engage stakeholders and community members in the upcoming DBBA Board elections. Whew! We have a ton of wonderful things going on in Downtown Bend.  The first reading of the Economic Improvement District (EID) ordinance was Wednesday 5/5 at City Council. The EID is the mechanism that provides the primary funding for the Downtown Bend Business Association, which provides the services listed HERE. The renewal of this ordinance is required for these services to continue. To learn more about the DBBA, watch this short video. For more information: 6 IS EID Ordinance 2021 6 EID Ordinance 6 EID Notice Letter 2021 Final 6 Proposed Downtown Economic Improvement District Map 2021  Our mission is to improve the economic vitality of Downtown Bend by enhancing the experience, image, and lifestyle of the Economic Improvement District (EID). Our largest fundraiser of the year is Bend Oktoberfest. For over a decade, One hundred percent of the fundraising proceeds from Bend Oktoberfest have gone into Downtown Bend beautification. This year, we’ve redesigned Bend Oktoberfest with the following intentions: #1 - To create a win/win for local businesses and Downtown Bend. Our intention is to create an event model that will help local businesses recover from COVID19, (with the dream of someday becoming one of their biggest revenue-generating days of the year). While at the same time, raising much-needed funds for the beautification and growth of Downtown Bend. In fact, we want to raise more funds than we ever have before & put more money into the dreams and visions for our Downtown. Bend Oktoberfest is a grassroots campaign to flood money into our local community. #2 - To create the most community-centered, goofy, and outrageously fun event in Bend. Our intention is to create an event that will show the colors of our community - featuring local talent, local beer, local foods… the best that our Bend community has to offer. Plus, we want to invite our Bend community to get silly with us, because we know that when we allow ourselves to be silly together – this is when our true colors shine, and laughter and acceptance flourishes. We invite you to join us in being ridiculous for this event… wear your costumes, sing songs about your love of beer, yodel to the mountains, and participate in our outrageous feats of strength. #3 - To grow Bend strong. Our intention is to create a model where we work together with you, and other community partners, to grow our community into the strongest, truest version of itself. Thrive and help thrive, it really is the way of the future! The Downtown Bend Business Association is a small nonprofit dedicated to increasing the vitality of Downtown Bend by enhancing the experience, image, and lifestyle of the Downtown Bend Economic Improvement District.
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 It was a wonderful week in Downtown Bend! This week we welcomed a new business and a new mural in Downtown Bend. Check out the images below. The new space on the corner of Newport and Brooks is almost finished, and we are so grateful to the family who developed this space for creating such a beautiful addition to Downtown Bend. We are excited about our flowers growing, and we appreciate all of the care that Landsystems gives to them before they are installed in Downtown Bend. Flowers will be planted in Downtown containers and baskets will be hung on or around Memorial Day weekend.
 We are accepting applications for new directors from now until May 15th. Directors are made up of the following groups: Downtown Bend Business Owners Downtown Bend Building Owners Downtown Bend Community Members Anyone with an interest in contributing to Downtown is encouraged to run for an elected position on the Board of Directors. Directors serve two-year terms and oversee staff, policy, direction, and budget of the organization. Click here for more information. The Downtown Bend Business Association is a small nonprofit dedicated to increasing the vitality of Downtown Bend by enhancing the experience, image, and lifestyle of the Downtown Bend Economic Improvement District.
 Most of our efforts this week went into four main projects:
Updating our Bylaws was really important because we made changes to allow for more specific expertise in on the DBBA board. By changing the bylaws to allow for community members outside of the EID to serve on our board, we can now participate in board recruitment for specific needs that our organization has. Creating Downtown Bend as THE Central Oregon holiday experience is one of our goals, so we are getting bids from professional decorating companies and brainstorming ways to fund a large-scale project. Selling directory kiosks ads is important because not only does it help direct traffic into our local businesses, but it also allows us to create the revenue to continue to invest in Downtown Bend's economic vitality. .. and (of course!) we continued all of daily services with excellence and pride! The DBBA is a small non-profit dedicated to increasing the vitality of Downtown Bend.
This week was filled with community meetings filled with wonderful people who love Downtown! How can we find more funding for Downtown? What does the future of Downtown streets and parklets look like? How can we communicate better about parking in Downtown? What changes need to be made to DBBA bylaws to allow for the organizations growth? Who would need to be on a future of Downtown visioning committee? .... and so much more! People working very hard to answer these questions, solve problems, and bring the future vision into focus. If you are interested in being a part of these conversations, or have feedback that you'd like us to take to these conversations on your behalf, please contact us.
 It was a fabulous week in Downtown Bend!
This week we once again took a look at our alleys and invested in some deep cleaning, and some vendor management. Downtown Bend is in desperate need of more full community care in regards to alleyways in downtown. While the DBBA continues to put in every effort to keep alleyways clean, we can not do it alone. We need the support of the businesses, the vendors, and the City of Bend to bring our alleyways up to a higher standard. We also worked this week on getting ready for flowers and flower baskets! Whoohooo! Last year, COVID19 reduced our budget by ~50%, making it impossible for us to provide the usual flowers for our community. This year, even with our budget that continues to be reduced by the impact of COVID19, we are committed to finding the funding for flower baskets. We did, however, notice several flower hangers that are no longer useable, and flower planters that need a bit of refreshing. We are hoping to find ways to fix these assets before May. We are also looking at ways to redistribute our flower assets more uniformly throughout the EID. One of the really fun things that we did this week was begin to plan Oktoberfest 2021. We are reimagining Oktoberfest this year, and planning a 3-week long event. If you are interested in volunteering this year, please let us know. The DBBA is a small nonprofit dedicated to increasing the vitality of Downtown Bend.  It was a week filled with accomplishments at the DBBA! As we've mentioned before, since the onset of the global pandemic, we've seen an increase in trash, litter, graffiti and stickers in the downtown core. Our team is meticulous in making sure that all of these unwanted items are removed/cleaned up before guest come into downtown and our stores open for the day. We are also looking at ways to add more flowers downtown this summer. We've been evaluating the best way to do this, including looking at redistributing our current 50 flower planters in downtown, adding additional planters, or adding additional hooks for baskets. We are currently in the R&D phase of this project, and should have more information on costs and options soon. We do want to celebrate, however, that we have placed our order for the 100 downtown flower baskets that will be installed in Downtown Bend for the summer of 2021. Due to the fact that we are still suffering a reduced budget due to COVID19, we are not sure at this time how we are going to pay for these assets, if you are interested in donating to our nonprofit that this dedicated to increasing the vitality of Downtown Bend, click here. If you are interested in volunteering to help us fundraiser, click here. (Thanks!) After the summer of 2020 when we were unable to have flower baskets due to COVID19, the board hear the feedback from our community on the importance of these assets and is now working to find new ways to fund this important piece of our downtown beautification. This week, we our new Sales and Marketing director started. Developing this position will allow us to grow in several ways.
This week we also held a merchant meeting regarding parking changes in Downtown Bend, and held several meetings with stakeholders to gather all of the information and support needed to roll out the merchant validation program. The scope of the DBBA is vast, and this just touches on a few tiny pieces of the work we did this week, if you like to know more, please contact us. The DBBA is a small nonprofit dedicated to increasing the vitality of Downtown Bend.
 It was an exciting week in Downtown Bend as we managed the first real snowstorm of the year. We hired extra seasonal help to make sure that we were able to keep downtown cleared and accessible. The City, DBBA, and downtown businesses worked together to keep downtown looking it's best! We worked with the Chamber of Commerce to learn about new legislation and weigh in on how those might impact small businesses. From issues big and small, the DBBA works hard to advocate for our small business community. We met with the City of Bend and Brooks Resources to further evolve the vision for the development, expansion and modernization of the business district. The DBBA board & staff is planning and preparing for the future of Downtown, that would love to hear from you! Click here if you'd like to share your thoughts. The EID proposal for 2021 was fully decided, and will go to City Council on 3/17. If you have any questions, please reach out to us. Additionally, we worked hard to develop the new merchant validation program, talked to a lot of folks about parking and worked with the COB and DPAC to further parking management in the downtown corridor.
The DBBA is a small non-profit dedicated to improving the economic vitality of Downtown Bend. What a wonderful week! It was announced this week that Deschutes County was set to move from "Extreme Risk" to "High Risk", allowing restaurants to open for indoor dining up to 25% capacity. Whoohoo! It's so great to begin to see a light at the end of the COVID tunnel.  This week the DBBA hired a new Sales and Marketing Director, and began the process of training a this individual to further the DBBA's mission of increasing the vitality of Downtown Bend. We also hired several temporary staff to make sure that we are able to handle the winter storm at our front door. We are confident that we can continue to offer excellent snow removal service to our stakeholders.
This week was also a lot of back-end work. Researching CRM's for nonprofits, QuickBooks features, setting up new computers, getting Microsoft 365 ready, and instituting to practices and procedures to increase efficiency in the organization. We also began our stakeholder audit using the GIS website tool and Deschutes DIAL to verify all properties in the district. We had several meetings to further our plan to develop a committee to develop a long-term plan for Downtown Bend that will serve to hold the vision for the DBBA, COB and other organizations as our city continues to grow. It was fun to promote downtown for the Valentine's day season. We have such great businesses, that promoting them is easy and fun!  It was another beautiful week in Bend, Oregon and a terrific week in Downtown Bend. Our on-the-street crews did a bit of extra deep cleaning, continued to keep snow and ice removed from Downtown walkways and began documents some much-needed repairs in the district. We'll be working with the City of Bend and building owners to get these items fixed this spring. We also applied for the PPP loan and the Travel Oregon grant. Any and all opportunities that we have to infuse money into Downtown Bend is a top priority to us. Fingers crossed that we'll be awarded both, and it will allow us to do more promotion & beautification of our beloved district. We worked with the Bend Chamber and Chamber Advisory Board going new legislature , and learning where we can lend our support to help our small business community. We also continued to work with the Downtown Bend Parking Advisory Committee on fixing up the garage and preparing to roll out a merchant validation program. Finally, we held over a dozen interview looking for the best candidate for our new Sales and Marketing position. We'll be excited to announce our candidate later this month!  Downtown Bend, Oregon | Photo Credit: Miguel Edwards Photography Wow! It was a busy week in Downtown Bend! First of all,... SNOW! The first significant snow of the season. Yea! In Downtown Bend, the DBBA is responsible for clearing a 6 foot path on all of the sidewalks, keeping the ADA parking stalls cleared, and clearing the areas connected to the crosswalks The City of Bend clears the streets, alleys (including Brooks Promenade) and the parking lots, and the business owners clear the area from their front door to the side (their "front porch" if you will). By working together, we all keep downtown vibrant and ready for shoppers and diners! This week the DBBA interviewed over a dozen candidates for a Sales and Marketing position in the organization. This is an important position that will have an incredible impact on the organization & downtown Bend. We'll be excited to announce our new hire in the next week or two! DBBA Board President and the Executive Director met with the City of Bend Economic Development Department to discuss the option of modernizing the downtown business district, with a possible expanding of the EID boundaries. The DBBA Executive Committee will be meeting further to discuss these options and the impact on the DBBA.
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