Back events as city draw

Here’s what the Waynesboro City Council’s majority faction and at least one local merchant apparently cannot bear: the lure of people downtown. The product of this is that the city core retains the relative feel of a ghost town akin to those that once flickered on silver screens in spaghetti Westerns, only here lacking the occasional bustle of tumbleweeds, meaning that downtown is eminently bearable for the council majority and Bill Mikolay, and so it might well remain.

At the behest of Mikolay, the owner of one of downtown’s most successful businesses, the trio of Mayor Tim Williams, Vice Mayor Frank Lucente and Councilman Bruce Allen rejected Monday an initial request to close several city streets for two bike races that organizers estimate would draw 200 to 400 cyclists along with relatives and spectators on a pair of Sundays, one next month and another in August. The decision is not final. The council will reconsider it next week, but on the wall the writing appears.

Mikolay says the event would hurt his operation, Main Street Discount. It may be recalled that Mikolay is also an outspoken opponent of the popular soap box derby held downtown each spring. “Soapbox derbies tie up downtown so much that our business is crippled,” costing Main Street thousands of dollars in revenue, Mikolay complained in a letter to the editor last year. He lamented the failure of officials to involve merchants and organizers in events planning.

That beef sounds credible. In the case of the bike races, tourism Director Lianne Crookshanks and event organizer Tony Bilotta said they would seek a compromise with Mikolay. We’re hopeful that Crookshanks, Bilotta and Mikolay can fashion a deal that satisfies all.

What we fear is that the roiling aversion to downtown events on the part of Mikolay particularly and other merchants generally will prevail. Bike races, the soap box derby, the filming of movies and other events that draw people to Waynesboro ought to be viewed as opportunities to reel in visitors as future customers, rather than obstacles to business.

For Mikolay, the concern likely is not about people flowing into downtown – an indicator of good economic health – but about trucks flowing to his warehouse doors. His is an around-the-clock operation that depends on a stream of shipments to and from his West Main Street site. His worries are real. Accommodations should be made to ensure that Mikolay can maintain business at a steady hum. This also is true for other merchants.

But in Mikolay’s case, it’s worth noting that Main Street Discount does not need a downtown turnaround; in fact, if it ever happens, he’s not so sure he’d even maintain his operation there. If the downtown blooms, Mikolay recently told The News Virginian, “I’ll probably move.” In fact, most of Mikolay’s business, which entails the purchase and resale of damaged goods and items purchased from company bankruptcies, is electronic: he says he sees 10,000 customers online each day compared to 200 in his store.

In other words, Mikolay has little compelling interest in a revitalized downtown. The same thinking should apply neither to the City Council nor to other merchants. Some officials and business owners alike are afflicted with a myopia that blinds. A strain to peer beyond the passing inconvenience of an event that closes downtown streets for a weekend afternoon might reveal a chance to get people who’ve come once to come again, this time to enjoy the city rather than watch the cyclists go by.

For decades, Waynesboro has been troubled by an inability to see beyond the moment. The frequent response to events downtown – a succession of groans from selected corners – is emblematic. City officials have a duty to do their able best to safeguard downtown businesses, whom we back ardently. But all sides ought to be reaching for an answer to the question, if we get people here for a weekend event how might we get them to return and return often?

The current approach seems to say to those visitors: You’ve come, we wish you hadn’t, don’t come back. And so they do not.