That's a pass for the happy to see the South Public Road streetcake streetscape improvements and out the transition from a former Lafayette River Renewal Authority to you all downtown Development Authority.

My humble opinion is resident has been seamless.

Maybe behind the scenes that I looked at seam, and I know Bridget and y'all.

And uh it's it's been fantastic.

And what's so good for being here 14 years and seeing the vision that was uh put up for South Public Road is coming to fruition, and I'm really uh you know see you know with the clear grill and even uh Mangay putting some stuff up around the liquor store and and uh and daily grains bread and all that coming in.

And when I was at the planning commission meeting for the Daily Grains Bread, uh one of my comments comments was the back alley and on on the on the uh on the black that showed to be done by others, and uh I wasn't paying attention to much to things, but that's all part of the streetscape, it's all gonna be done, which would be great access back there.

So I just wanted to say uh I'm techno quick as a resident, you know, to see what's going on.

I'm glad to see the money's approved, and uh and this committee is great for your business owners and city councilmen.

I'm not trying to brand as anybody, but it's really a good group.

And Ty, I hope you get the permit to open up a new restaurant.

So thank you all very much.

Fantastic or new through.

Anyone else?

Um okay, we'll now move on to approval of the got the date right, October 16th meeting minutes.

Are there any corrections?

Someone like to make a motion.

I will move to approve the meeting minutes as written.

Is there a second?

Second.

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

Okay, that passes.

Moving on to regular business.

The first agenda item is Second Friday's partnership discussion with Suzanne Connolly House.

Um, I'll turn it over to Executive Director Heating.

Great.

And thank you for Suzanne for being here.

Um tonight we're gonna be talking about potential partnership um that Suzanne has come up with and see whether the DA would like to um forward with helping with some marketing.

So um, I'll kick us off.

Um and then uh I'm gonna turn it right over to Zan, and then she'll talk about our night out, um, her idea of the second Friday's concept, um, the organizers and the roles, and then I'll jump back in to talk about the potential of DDA partnership, what's the next steps could be, and then just open it for questions and discussion.

And I think that this can be super casual, so feel free to um jump in throughout if that works for you.

Absolutely great.

All right, so I'm gonna turn it over to you.

Well, thank you so much for letting me come here and talk about this.

Um I'm one of the co-owners of particulars, um, our gallery teaching studio.

So we were in the ground in the whole art night out concept and getting that started, and we continue to support it and love it and think it's one of the best things the city has.

Wouldn't it be lovely if we did something that kept that energy of the idea that Second Friday is something that is there's something happening in the city?

I'm always looking for ways to find maneuver, work with others to make something bigger.

And so my whole the the basis of it is just how can we bring different businesses that have a footprint here in Lafayette already, or ones that are just getting started, and find a way to make a collaborative effort where on the Second Fridays people start looking on the web and on the city pages and in businesses themselves as to what's going on.

Can we build a buzz that people always think about Second Fridays as something's gonna be happening?

So that's the basic idea.

Um we have done it since we started.

We have had a reception every second Friday.

There's one coming up this second Friday, in fact, and we will have one in December.

The only one that we find we struggle with is January, because too often the weather's just a little too cold, people have had a little bit too much holiday, they've spent a little too much, maybe they're not interested in January.

Doesn't mean that something couldn't happen, though.

For instance, the Red Queen having game night where they're not actually having to spend any money, as say, you know, it's they're not looking at a thing that they're expected to spend money, they're looking at a thing to come in and have some cozy time and play.

And we would love to find something that could collaborate in that regard as well.

I mean, it would be really fun if every second January there was game night in six different businesses, and we did different kinds of games, you know, that kind of idea.

Um the other idea that I also have is collaborating in the way of maybe um we collaborate with wow, in we do some kind of art festival where your group does things and then we show it and you show it.

And you know, they could come to us to get the materials, they could come to us to do it, or we could come to you and lead it, and then we have a showing.

Um, same with any kind of there's so many different groups in this town that are committed to art and are committed to um play, creativity, um, and um teaching.

There's a lot of teaching opportunities that I think we could find ways to bridge and work together to create a buzz on Second Friday.

That's the basic idea of it.

Um I guess it's just to echo that, you know, there we see that a lot of businesses have a great economic impact during Art Night Out, and there is just a regular cadence of I know it's the second Friday, I'm gonna go see what's going on our night out and listen to music, and that's a really big production, and you know, this concept is really a grassroots-led business-led um uh idea that just builds off of that momentum and tries to just think, all right, there's an already a cadence.

How can we just do something that is more organic, not a big production where there's different offerings in the downtown on the second Friday?

Yeah, and even um like with the music groups that are here, I could see um having somebody play music while there's a wine tasting, or play music while there's an art show, or play um I don't know, just that's another just different ways to cross-pollinate what's happening here.

Do you want to talk a little bit about what you um your role would be and then I can dive into what we think maybe the DDA partnership could look like for the board to think about?

So, my role, um, Lynn Wooten, I'm sure a lot of you know her, um, loves this idea with me, so she would be my comrade in arms with it.