Downtown business, property owners offer Main Street wish list

A written suggestion (above) for Front Royal’s downtown historic district that received several dots (a.k.a. votes) from business and property owners attending a January 16 town forum. All photos by Kim Riley. Video by Mark Williams, Royal Examiner.

FRONT ROYAL — Historic Front Royal property and business owners on January 16 submitted their suggestions for what Town officials should consider in drafting policies and procedures for events held in specific public spaces in the historic district near and along Main Street.

Their ideas will help inform the Front Royal Town Council’s establishment of policies and procedures for use of the Village Commons area, parades and Main Street events and road closures, said Interim Town Manager Matthew Tederick, who helped lead the Thursday night meeting held at the Warren County Community Center.

“The Town Council for many years has been struggling to find the right policies and procedures for the utilization of the Village Commons area, various events and parking,” Tederick said during his opening remarks at the forum. “Over the last year, there’s been multiple business meetings and I think it’s culminated in this meeting tonight.”

Hopefully, at the end of the three scheduled meetings — the next two being held at the community center on January 30 and February 13, both at 6 p.m. — Tederick said the suggestions submitted by the property and business owners will become part of a draft he submits to the Town Council to consider as it sets policies and procedures for the historic district.

The area has become a hot spot among an array of business and property owners who remain challenged by road closures, parking lot shutdowns and other event-related consequences that have pitted them against one another over the years.

Tederick said he thinks the current framework “is too loose.”

“I’d like to see a better framework and a framework that would get majority buy in and consensus from the business and property owners in the historic district, but also from the citizens,” he said.

Interim Town Manager Matthew Tederick (center) mingled with historic district business & property owners during a January 16 forum held at the Warren County Community Center.

Local author Charles “Chips” Lickson facilitated the meeting, meaning he held court as a so-called forum cop tasked with setting the ground rules, managing the crowd, and keeping the process rolling. Similar formats will be used during the remaining two meetings.

A former practicing lawyer, federal judge’s law clerk, U.S. Army officer, mediator, and adjunct associate professor of political science at Shenandoah University, Lickson told forum attendees that he was hired “to run a tight ship,” which he said basically distinguishes regular meetings from facilitated meetings in that there’s a specific process established for participants to follow.

For instance, historic district property and business owners verbally participated in the Thursday meeting, while historic district residents were invited to submit their comments and contact information to Felicia Hart, the Town’s community development and tourism director.

And Lickson held the audience to the ground rules.

“We are soliciting your ideas with regard to the public spaces in the gazebo area — the historic area — and this includes closures of roads and closures of parking lots,” he said, instructing the property and business owners to not interrupt one another nor attack a speaker for his or her comments.

“This is not the place to make a speech about what your issue is,” said Lickson. “It is a space to make solid suggestions.”

Like Tederick, he called the current Town event process “flexible” and “less cumbersome” compared to some of Front Royal’s neighbors, a few of which charge organizers to hold downtown events to recoup the costs of providing associated town services.

But, Lickson noted, “the truth of the matter is, the Town has got to know what you need.”

Prior to collecting suggestions from the crowd, Tederick said the current process is that an application must be submitted for a special event under a section of chapter 7 of the Town Code, which outlines the related requirements. For example, for a full or partial closing of Main Street, the Town Code says such events may occur two times a month during one calendar year.

Tederick then shared data with forum attendees showing what it cost the Town to provide services during certain events held last year (Graph A); and a comparison of the numbers of events held from 2017 through 2019 in Front Royal’s historic downtown district (Graph B).

For example, he reviewed the total number of Main Street/Chester Street closures during 2017, 2018, and 2019 (top, Graph B) for the number of events held in each year, which totaled 16, 8, and 7, respectively.

“As Town Manager, what’s the right number?” he asked the crowd. “I don’t know what that number is. I’m hoping through this process that we can come up with what the right number is. Should it be 20 (each year)? Should it be five? I’m not here to provide input one way or the other.”

Graph A: The number of larger events held in the historic district of Front Royal during 2019 and the related costs to the Town for providing specific services. Source: Matthew Tederick, Front Royal Interim Town Manager.

Graph B: Comparison of the numbers of events held and related road closures from 2017 through 2019 in Front Royal’s historic downtown district. Source: Matthew Tederick, Front Royal Interim Town Manager.

Meeting organizers then distributed index cards for property and business owners to write down one suggestion per card about what they think is needed in public spaces in the historic downtown. The recollected cards then were tacked up so that each attendee could read the idea and vote only one time on each suggestion using a marker to place a dot or mark on the card. If a person didn’t like the idea written on a card, then no mark needed to be made.

Attendees then lined up at each board and began the voting process for each suggestion, which ran the gamut and included those such as:

 “Keep downtown events free from Town fees;”
 “Eat more ice cream;”
 “Limit Full Main Street Closures to One Per Month;”
 “Notify Main Street businesses when parking lot will be closed 2 days before event;” and
 “Street closures should be less.”

After voting, the forum organizers took down the cards, counted the marks on each, combined similar ideas, and then read the votes for each card having upwards of three votes.

Downtown Front Royal business and property owners lined up to vote on suggestions for Main Street.

The suggestions submitted by historic district property and business owners were varied. More suggestions will be collected during upcoming meetings on January 30 and February 13.

Ultimately, all the suggestions compiled from all of the meetings will be used by Lickson to write a report that he will submit to Tederick, who then will draft recommendations on policies and procedures to submit to the Town Council for possible action.

And the Town Council will be familiar with the process and the suggestions as several of them attended the meeting, including Front Royal Mayor Eugene Tewalt; Vice Mayor Bill Sealock; and Front Royal Town Council members Letasha Thompson and Gary Gillespie.

Some of the process items will be tweaked for the next two meetings, said Lickson, who thought the overall meeting was productive and informative.

Watch the Envisioning Town Commons meeting on this exclusive Royal Examiner video: