Duane Hicks
With the possibility of parking meters on Scott Street being a hot topic, the Fort Frances Chamber of Commerce will be surveying its members on how they feel about the matter starting Monday (May 2).
The Chamber will meet with the town about the issue in the near future.
As such, it wanted an efficient means to gather feedback from its members and then be able to present those responses to the town before any decisions are made.
“We felt that we have a wide reach to do a survey, and with a survey, you get a much broader and concrete response,” noted Chamber president Jennifer Greenhalgh.
“We have maybe 170 members and they’re taxpayers wherever they are—maybe not necessarily on Scott Street—but I’m sure they probably deal on Scott Street to some degree,” she said.
“So to me, it makes sense to get a much broader opinion than just people that work and live on Scott Street.
“We all end up on Scott Street sometime, don’t we?” she mused.
Some Chamber members have talked about parking meters at recent meetings and opinions have varied.
Greenhalgh said she’s heard from many people who don’t feel that tourism will be well-served by parking meters, and alternatives such as improved signage for public parking might be preferable.
Everybody is concerned about the cost of buying and installing parking meters, as well, she added.
“These are some of the questions we’re going to put in our survey,” Greenhalgh said.
“It’s not going to be a long survey but we’re going to ask for other ideas,” she noted.
“People have lots of great ideas.”
The Chamber will launch an online survey Monday afternoon, at which time it will notify Chamber members and urge them to fill it out.
Those who cannot do the online survey can call the Chamber office at 274-5773.
