REEDSPORT — Reedsport welcomed a former resident back to the city, as she begins a new job as the city’s Main Street Coordinator.
A “meet-and-greet” was held at the Umpqua Discovery Center on Sept. 15.
Katie Lockard will take over Main Street duties from Emesha Jackson, who completed her 11-month role as an Americorps RARE (Resource Assistance for Rural Environments) employee. Lockard is also with the RARE program.
The evening also gave the city a chance to tout the Main Street effort.
“We sat down and got some ideas,” City Manager Jonathan Wright said of the year-old project. “Those ideas were we wanted to identify ways to enhance business. That was a priority.”
Some of the programs include a facade improvement for the city’s businesses.
“We looked at our main street as a whole,” he explained. “(Highway) 38 and 101. We looked at them and said, ‘We need to do something to help with the businesses that are out there become more attractive.’ So, when people drive into town they say, ‘What a neat little community.’ They want to stop. This is a neat little community.”
The city has also purchased banners to go in downtown and other areas of the city.
The city is in the process of modifying those banners so they will fit on the already-placed brackets. Two of the banners are already up.
“We wanted to create a sense of self,” Wright said. “We took the districts, which were the downtown, mid-town and uptown, and we created different banner designs.”
The city is also hoping to become bike friendly through a state program designed to provide services to bike tourists.
Wright spoke highly of the city’s newest employee.
“I’m impressed,” he said of Lockard. “I think we’re headed in the right direction and I think she’s the person to take this project and this program to the next level.”
For her part, Lockard demonstrated changes in the Main Street website.
“It’s a work in progress,” she said. “What I would like to do, eventually, is to make this website a real tool in the program, particularly to reach outside the community, because I know our community is not very online, nor does it need to be.”
That website is available at http://reedsportmainstreet.weebly.com.
Originally Published in The Umpqua Post
2741 Frontage Road
Reedsport, Oregon 97467
Phone: 541-271-7474