Merchants want to attract more visitors

MILLERTON — The Millerton Business Alliance (MBA) continued its discussion on the village’s main transformative goals as well as how to best promote Millerton to visitors and residents at its meeting on Thursday, June 10.

The MBA’s monthly meeting was held via Zoom at 5:30 p.m. To get the conversation rolling, members talked about the town of North East’s new Economic Development Committee (EDC). Thorunn Kristjansdottir explained the committee is “trying to come up with a bigger picture of what we feel is important to Millerton next year going forward as well as the next five to 10 years.” By mentioning this to the MBA, Kristjansdottir said she wanted to see if there was anything the group felt was important for the EDC to work toward.

Speaking as an EDC member, Jeanne Vanecko told her fellow MBA members the committee’s first meeting was not very structured. For its next committee meeting, Vanecko said she and village merchant Dick Hermans plan to have a list of priorities. Tackling Millerton’s water system, sewer system, housing situation and need for a grocery store topped the four most important items that could transform the community as well as the completion of Eddie Collins Memorial Field’s revitalization, noted Vanecko.

“My feeling is we don’t need to spend a lot of time talking about what’s important,” she said. “We’ve done that year after year after year. We just need to say, ‘These are the things and they’re all important.’ We really can’t have one without the other — we need every single one of them and there’s no reason why an Economic Development Committee can’t address all of those.”

MBA member Jennifer Dowley advised they add to the list “the sense we have to create an easier way for people to access the village.” 

With more people visiting Millerton as a result of the Harlem Valley Rail Trail’s northward expansion, Dowley suggested creating a map of the village and its shops along with information about Eddie Collins Memorial Field. 

Additionally, she said the trail’s northern section could perhaps benefit from the installation of a water fountain so visitors could fill their water bottles. She also suggested bike racks so cyclists could park their bikes while they explore the village. 

Vanecko agreed that, in previous years, the village spent time trying to figure out how to get more people into Millerton. Now that more people are coming, she admitted “there’s no organized way of getting information or making it easy [for them] to access what we have here.” 

She also considered how the installation of a hoped-for wastewater treatment facility could potentially increase future businesses in the village.

That being said, Vanecko said it’s important to find a way to get information about local resources out to those visiting the village as well as to the people who are already in the vicinity.

At this time, Vanecko said the best source of information is the village of Millerton website, www.villageofmillerton.net. In addition to bringing the website up-to-date, she said it’d be a good idea if the MBA married the website to a QR code that could be featured in store windows for people to scan on their cell phones. Vanecko also suggested putting a link on the code to the North East Historical Society’s walking tour of the village.

Using the Millerton Farmers Market as an example, MBA members discussed how people are looking for spaces to socialize with one another in-person. Another example given was the Community Conversations series that was recently organized by the NorthEast-Millerton Library; MBA members engaged with Library Director Rhiannon Leo-Jameson to learn more about what topics were discussed and if the series was well-attended.

Recalling past Millerton Community Day celebrations, Hermans raised the idea of holding a future community-wide weekend celebration “that everyone could contribute to from the Eddie Collins Memorial Field out to the state lines.” 

Speaking of village-wide events, Vanecko brought up the groundbreaking planned at the currently-under-renovation Eddie Collins Memorial Field later this summer (the park is expected to be finished in 2022), which she said will be celebrated with an ice cream social. As soon as the date is known, she said the village will be inundated with signs announcing the event.