July 28, 2014

To the Honorable Mayor and Village Trustees;

Over the past week, I, acting as President of the Lock 52 Historical Society, have been dealing with the issue of a upcoming fund raiser and where to locate it.

Two years ago, the Board of the Lock 52 Historical Society signed up with Doug’s Fish Fry to act as a host for the traveling food wagon. At that time, the wagon was a new idea and not too often seen in this area. This year, we have all been disheartened to see the number of times that this wagon has been in the area, especially when it comes to being the last in a long line of events this year. However, as a Board, we made the choice to move ahead with the event, if we could find a place the was suitable.

Last week, I was notified by Mentz Town Supervisor McBath that the Village had passed a resolution banning all outside food vendors on public property. This is a concern as we had asked the Town for permission to locate the truck on Town owned land next to their offices. After speaking with the Village Clerk, I was under the impression that the resolution only applied to Schasel Park, not all public property. I have passed this information along to Supervisor McBath and she has allowed us to move forward with this one event.

While I fully support the business owners of the village and town, I do have concerns over such reactionary responses to this perceived problem. Every organization has to fund raise. Every scout troop, ball team, school group, service group and historical society needs to make money in order to carry out it’s mission. How to make the money is a real issue for everyone. And fund raising is a thankless, time consuming task that no one likes to do.

I see any law or regulation that bans this type of fund raising as a slippery slope. Where do we set the limits of local volunteer organizations to fund raise? When someone supports the Girl Scouts by purchasing cookies, or the Boy Scouts by purchasing popcorn, they might not purchase cookies or popcorn at Ed and Jeans. Don’t church dinners or the Lock 52 spaghetti dinner steal patrons from local or even regional restaurants? Even when someone buys seasonal vegetables at the Farmers Market, they might be buying less from Ed and Jeans or the grocery in Weedsport. And banning food vendors and other sales from public spaces will not significantly ease the problem. As I understand it, the churches can set up in their lots, the school groups can set up in the school lot, even Lock 52 could set up on its property.

The real problem is traffic and that is generated by offering a product that people want to buy. We at the Lock 52 Historical Society struggle to offer a product that people want to “buy”. We need to convince enough people that what we do is worthy of supporting, either by memberships, donations, or through fund raisers. If we don’t, we will fade away. The Scouts, the Legion, the Little League; all need to “sell” themselves in order to stay in business. And all this “selling” will place us in conflict with the local traditional business owners.

However, it needs to be understood that local service and volunteer organizations can help the local business owners, and there should be a symbiotic relationship between the two sides. When people come to Port Byron to watch a ball game, visit the Historical Society, or even attend a church; the potential is there to have someone stop at the local gas station or restaurant. But it goes much further that this.

Let me speak directly about Lock 52 for a moment. If you search the Internet for Port Byron, you are likely to see the work of the Lock 52 Historical Society, not posts or ads from the local restaurants. As I said before, my goal is to put out a product that attracts people to the work of Lock 52 and see it as worthy of support. And, I will put forth that this outreach helps to sell all of us in the village and town. My goal is to inform the people of the world about the town and village, and as a result, draw people to visit. I know this works as I have emails and letters from people that who that people have found us on the Internet and have arranged to come see something in the area.Certainly, there may not be streams of people visiting Lock 52 and then flowing into the restaurants, but I am willing to bet there are some that do.

This outreach doesn’t cost the business owners a dime, and we need to be finding ways to encourage all the local organizations to expand this outreach, not restrict their ability to do it. It really is that simple. When someone comes to Port Byron, Montezuma, or Weedsport to see a historical bit of canal, or see their family burial plot, hike or bike, or play ball; we all have the potential to benefit.

I am sorry that some local businesses feel that the many fund raisers are harming their businesses. I wish there was a way to acquire the funds necessary to keep the doors open and not fund raise. If the business owners have ways that we can all achieve our goals and not fund raise, I would be very happy. Personally I hate fund raising. But until then, I will argue that Port Byron is stronger with us all here and all of us being active, even if that puts us into competition with local businesses on occasion.

As the president of a local volunteer organization, I feel it only proper that if such a resolution were to be passed, it would be nice to be given some sort of time frame before implementation, such as 30, 60 or 90 days, so that current and future plans could be adjusted.

I thank you for your time,

Michael Riley

President- Lock 52 Historical Society