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Emmitsburg Business Groups Recharges
Ingrid Mezo
The Emmitsburg Business and Professional Association (EBPA), a group that was founded several years
ago but has lain dormant until the last few months, is now gearing up to revitalize the town’s business community.
The need for such a group in town was apparent at the EBPA’s last meeting several weeks ago, which over 50 residents attended, many of them business
owners, said Bo Cadle, group member and part of the group’s temporary board of directors. The town of Emmitsburg does not have a chamber of commerce.
"We’re sort of positioning ourselves as facilitators for community development," he said.
Among the group’s current projects are designing a brochure of businesses that tourists can pick up at the nearby rest stop, and a map of where those
businesses are located throughout the town. In addition, the group has a scholarship fund, and helps businesses like The Carriage House Inn fund their annual Christmas at The
Carriage
House event, which the restaurant pays for almost entirely on its own, group member Bob Rosensteel said.
"We’re a support unit," Rosensteel said. "[The] Christmas at The Carriage House [effort] was made independently by one business, so they don’t get a
whole lot of monetary support from the community. They had around 1,000 people there, and we thought as this organization that we could at least sponsor the $600 carriage ride."
"We sponsor everything from Little League, to youth organizations," Rosensteel continued. "We [the business community] support the fire company in
large dollars… We are there to support the business community, but also there to support the community itself, and this group has the input if all of those businesses."
The group got started several years ago by modeling themselves on Benjamin Franklin’s junta, Cadle said.
"There were 12 guys back in Pennsylvania that got together to talk, eat and drink, and we thought we would take some of the ideas from that group,
how we could grow, what the community needed, and the idea just caught on," he said.
But, now several years after it originally got started, the group has re-energized with the help of the community.
"We see it as a place where hopefully people’s voices can get heard," Cadle said. "We have sort of organized in committees."
Some of those committees are more interested in political and governance issues, and some people are more interested in civic issues, he said.
Business owners and residents came to the EBPA and worked with them to develop ideas for how to revitalize business in the town, Cadle said. For
example, the business owners came to the group and asked for their help to put out a map to help people find their businesses.
"That’s the activity coming out of the community, not being imposed on the community," he said. "It seems more neighborly that way."
Group member Bee Connolly, owner of Antiques Folly in town said she moved to Emmitsburg from New Market on March 17 last year. She has been in the
antiques business for 50 years, and her family used to own an antique shop in Gettysburg.
Coming to Emmitsburg after being in New Market for 15 years was like coming home for Connolly, she said.
The problem is people cannot find businesses in town, she said.
"You know 75 percent of the people that come into my shop don’t know [the town’s antique mall] is there," Connolly said.
So, Connolly has become the town’s unofficial information center, who directs tourists that come to Emmitsburg to visit the Grotto, Mount Saint
Mary’s and other local attractions to local downtown businesses.
Connolly is now part of the EBPA’s workshop for a brochure to direct visitors to the town’s businesses that is based on a New Market business
brochure that indicated what a business sold, and what they did, she said.
She also would like the town to have some directional signs out for town attractions like The Carriage House Inn, the Emmitsburg Antique Mall, and
the Ott House.
"One of my goals is to bring about the Renaissance of the EBPA," Connolly said. "There’s so much [tourism traffic] through here with the Grotto and
Saint Mary’s, but we’re not getting them on Main Street."
The EBPA has already starting working with town officials on the sign ordinance, and town officials are listening, she said.
"So they’ve already had a big achievement just in that," Connolly said. "…[Businesses] can all work together as a unit."
In addition to getting business owners to provide input to town officials on the sign ordinance, Connolly said she would like the town to post its
agenda on the community bulletin board by her business for the people in town who cannot afford cable television service, and for some members of the elderly community who do not use
the internet.
"I think people would check it out if they knew it was going to be there, and [the town] would get more input if people knew it was there," Connolly
added.
Rosensteel said the group is restructuring now "to become a vibrant part of things like the government. Our input into town government is very
crucial because we want them to recognize us as a body, to have a voice in what’s going on as far as their decision making, and we’re starting to get results from that."
"Ordinances need to be business friendly, because if they’re not, businesses tend to go elsewhere," he added.
Mayor James Hoover said that the while the EBPA’s input into the sign ordinance was helpful, they came into the process late, just as town officials
were about to vote on an ordinance that has taken nearly four years to get worked out. He said that he agrees with the EBPA and would like to see the 5foot setback requirement for
signs done away with.
The town’s planning and zoning committee is continuing to work on the ordinance which originally came came under fire from the American Civil
Liberties Union as an impediment to free speech during political campaigns.
"If there’s any more latecomers, speak now, or forever hold your peace," Hoover said.
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