The Garretson Commercial Club met for their regular monthly meeting on Feb. 10, 2021 at noon at the Sports Cabin.
In attendance were President John Brinkman, Rob Meyer, Kris Johnson, Guy Johnson, Laurie Bennett, Jessica Fueston, Anna Uhl, Garrick Moritz and Carrie Moritz.
President Brinkman asked Vice-president G. Moritz to record the meetings minutes as the club does not have anyone in the secretary’s role at present.
In Old Business they reviewed Hometown Christmas events and Brinkman said that he would be authorizing the transfer of funds to pay out the cash price of $100 to Robert and Misten Long who were the holiday house lighting contest winners. He also informed the board that he was also going to authorize transfer of funds to cover an expired $5 gift certificate that was more than 5 years old that was recently cashed.
Next they briefly reviewed the budget that was approved for presentation at the annual meeting.
Moving on to New Business Brinkman gave an update about the cost of placing conduit to support the downtown sound system. Jason Greenhoff gave Brinkmann some firm cost estimates. The boring beneath city streets will cost approximability $9,000 with tax, and will stretch from the City Hall to Omar’s and from Don’s to the Legion. Brinkman said that the Commercial Club can hopefully cost share the cost of the project with the City of Garretson.
Membership dues were still being collected and Brinkman said that he would delegate calling the last few potential members and that hopefully final memberships, and phone book ads would be collected by the end of March. As soon as they were finished, Performance Press would print the new phone books.
Brinkman said he had spoken with Oran Sorenson about placing new signage at the proposed new Palisade State Park entrance before that new entrance is completed. He noted that it would be some time yet before that new construction could begin. He also noted that the City of Garretson had passed a resolution of support to leave the old entrance open to the public, as traditionally it is a gateway between the city and the park. Brinkman also spoke about the creation of new maps later this year in conjunction with Grow Garretson.
Next they discussed the Annual Meeting scheduled for April 26. It will be an RSVP event, catered by Garretson Food Center. The Commercial Club needs nominees for three positions on the board, Vice-President, Secretary, and a board member position. Ron Luke is currently filling out the term formerly held by Linda Hoefert. Guy Johnson and Laurie Bennett are willing to re-up for their seats, but the commercial club needs a new secretary and vice-president.
Brinkman and those present spitballed potential candidates and everyone agreed to try to actively recruit candidates to fill these seats. These seats must be filled during the annual meeting.
During the other business section of the meeting, Carrie Moritz brought up an idea. With the City of Garretson getting a new website, the old domain name of, www.visitGarretson.com will become available. Moritz proposed that the Commercial Club could use the domain, a promotional website be constructed and that each Commercial Club member could be given an account and access and posting privileges to promote their individual business on said site. This is early days, but the general consensus was that this could be very beneficial to the commercial club and its members.
At that time, the meeting adjourned.
