Quarterly Mayor's Message
Mayor’s Message
June 2022
Hello everyone, I hope this letter finds everyone in good health despite what seems to be a never-ending battle against the COVID virus. We should continue to get our vaccination shots and the respective booster shots in hopes of reducing the virus impacts in the coming months. Please note that the Vermont Health Department is no longer offering vaccination clinics, if you are interested, please contact your healthcare provider, a local pharmacy or any other location where vaccines are available. To find a location near you please log on to www.vaccines.gov
I would like to thank the more than 100 individuals who participated in the City’s Green Up Day activities on Saturday, May 7th. We had a great turn-out from the Girl Scouts, the Congregational Church, Viatris and Subaru of New England in addition to a number of families and high school and elementary students. I think it is important to regularly keep our City clean, not just on Green Up Day but every day of the year. A big thank you goes out to the City Public Works crew who picked up more than 50 Green Up bags that were left along City streets. In addition to the trash bags PW picked up more than 30 tires that day and disposed of them properly.
Speaking of May 7th, Kingman Fest was a huge success!! The weather was perfect, the crowd was huge vendors were great and the band was excellent. Kingman St. had been torn up for more than seven months in 2021 as water and sewer infrastructure was being updated and a new streetscape was being constructed to match that of Main St. A big thank you needs to go out to both Shannon Smith, owner of Nelly’s and Lauren Warshofsky. No one will ever know how much time and effort went into this event except for the two of them; finding sponsors, coordinating vendors, addressing logistics and the list goes on. So, Lauren and Shannon on behalf of the City of St. Albans thank you for all of the work you did to make for another great community event. As the event was wrapping up, I had countless number of people come up to me and tell me how great it was and asked if it would be a yearly event…….I guess time will tell. I would like to say that events like this would not be made possible without all of the financial sponsors, thank you.
The Northwest Farmer’s Market opened up on Saturday, May 14th and they have had two great weekends as the weather was almost perfect. The number of vendors will continue to grow as gardens start to produce more flowers, fruits and vegetables. The Market is a great attraction for our Downtown and I would like to thank all of the vendors for making their products available to all of us.
The Taylor Park Concert Series will get underway on June 22nd with a full slate of entertainment beginning with the Citizens Band. All of the bands will start at 5:30 PM Wednesday evenings with the exception of the Citizens Band as they will begin at 7:00 PM. The Summer Concert Series is being brought to you by the City of St. Albans in collaboration with our Downtown merchants. Here is the first half of the summer schedule:
- June 22nd The Citizen’s Band with a 7:00 PM start
- June 29th Nobby Reed Project
- July 6th Rushmore
- July 13th Still Kicken
- July 20th Inca Hoots
Please note that the El Guado Food Truck and 14th Star will be on site to sell food and drinks. I hope you can join your neighbors at one or all of these concerts.
The City of St. Albans in conjunction with its many volunteers work hard to bring year-round community events to Downtown St. Albans in hopes to bring local residents together and to attract tourist and regional visitors to our community. By attracting visitors, our hope is they will dine, shop and recreate not just that day but they will continue to return time and time again. We have seen over the last two plus years that local residents have made the effort to shop local and to support our businesses that struggled during the pandemic. Our Downtown is vibrant, much more so than a lot of Downtown America. There are hundreds and hundreds of small towns in the northeast that would trade places with our community in a heartbeat. The City is vibrant, in part, because of the commitment we have made to attract new businesses and to assist existing businesses. When visitors finally find us, they like what they found. I think our local businesses will experience one of their best summers in quite some time.
Recently, I learned that the St. Albans Museum will be open free of charge to all visitors this year until the day they close on October 15th.. This was made possible by a very generous contribution from Handy Toyota, a big thank you to the Handy team. For those who have not had the opportunity to visit the Museum I strongly encourage everyone to take advantage of this very generous offer. The Museum staff and all of their volunteers work hard to provide a topnotch historical experience for all of their visitors; young and old. The displays are of top quality and give a great prospective of life in Franklin County over the last 100 plus years. Thank you once again to Handy Toyota for all they do in our community. Now that I think of it I observed a car show at the Downtown Handy Dealership on Friday, May 20th, just one more community event to bring people together and at no cost.
Speaking of car shows, The Klassic Car Show is back again this year and the date is Saturday, July 16th. A few years back the show moved to Main St./Taylor Park from Kingman St and the new location has been spectacular. I would like to thank Kathy Manahan and her team for all of their efforts to make this event a huge attraction for the Downtown. This no cost event is made possible by yet another volunteer, Kathy has been doing this event for 13 years. It is commitments, like this, to make our community better that makes St. Albans special. Thank you Kathy.
As always please leave a porch light on at night, plant some flowers and/or a tree and be kind to your neighbors.
Sincerely,
Tim Smith