2008-01-14 Regular Meeting and Workshop of La Porte City Council

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Letter of Agreement - 2008 La Porte - Page 2 the Main Street listserv and can help the local Main Street Advisory Board and city in maintaining the program during the transition. II. Responsibilities of the city of La Porte: A. The city of La Porte is, in turn, expected to commit to and adopt the Main Street strategy, as developed by the Texas Main Street Center of the THC and the National Main Street Center, which consists of the following ten criteria: 1. Broad-based public support for the commercial district revitalization process, with strong support from both public and private sectors. By involving a broad range of interests and perspectives in the revitalization process, the Main Street Program leverages the community's collective skills and resources to maximum advantage. The goal is for all sectors to understand and be philosophically committed to the revitalization process and commit maximum resources possible to achieve commercial district revitalization. 2. Vision and mission statements relevant to community conditions and to the local Main Street program's organizational stage. A mission statement crystallizes the program's sense of purpose and overall direction. A vision statement communicates the organization's long-term hopes and intentions for the commercial district. 3. Comprehensive Main Street work plan. Provides detailed blueprint for activities, reinforcing program's accountability and providing measurable objectives by which program can track progress. 4. Historic preservation ethic. Historic preservation involves not only the process of rehabilitating, restoring or renovating older commercial buildings, but also the process of adopting planning and land use policies which encourage full use of existing commercial centers before new development takes place, and removing the regulatory and other barriers which sometimes make it difficult to attract investment to historic commercial districts. 5. Active board of directors and committees. The direct involvement of an active board of directors and committees is key to changing the community's attitude about its commercial district. The Main Street manager is responsible for facilitating volunteers, not for single- handedly revitalizing the commercial district. 6. Adequate operating budget. To be successful and achieve sustainability, a Main Street Program must have the financial resources necessary to carry out its work plan. The size of a program's budget will change as the program matures, and is likely to vary according to regional economic differences and community size. 7. Paid, professional program manager. Coordinating a successful program requires a trained, professional full-time staff person. The most successful program managers are those who are good communicators, good volunteer motivators and possess good organizational and management skills, which keep the program's many activities moving forward on schedule and within budget. The local program should move forward in a reasonable amount of time to fill a manager vacancy so the program does not lose momentum. Should there be any significant change in the program (manager vacancy, split of job etc.), the state coordinator should be notified as soon as possible. 8. Program of ongoing training for staff and volunteers. Training requirements are outlined in section LA. 9. Reporting of key statistics. Tracking statistics, such as reinvestment, job and business creation, provides a tangible measurement of the local Main Street program's progress and is crucial to garnering financial and programmatic support for the effort. Statistics must be collected on a regular, ongoing basis. The Main Street manager for the city of La Porte will submit monthly reports by the 10th of the following month. Quarterly reinvestment figures will be submitted by the 10th of the month following the end of each quarter. A Ten Criteria report submitted to the Texas Main Street Center will also be required annually. The report is evaluated by the TMSP to measure success of the local program on an annual basis. An official Main Street community can be placed on probation for any of the following reasons: