Please plan an event for Duckworth, and start now!

Many excluded businesses fought very hard this past spring to try to make the public and city council realize that the Water Street Mall inadvertently, but directly, harmed Duckworth businesses (which rebounded substantially right after the mall closed). However, many people (on city council and in the general public) still falsely believe that the Water Street Mall benefits all of downtown. It has been very easy for the city to ignore the suffering their mall event caused excluded businesses, because the event was so well received by the public. However, Duckworth area businesses are not being effectively supported by this summer event, and may have actually been harmed by it, and by the Duckworth “road blocks” set up this year. The two one-block closures of Duckworth, though a nice gesture that we require support too, are neither a mall, promenade, nor an event, and almost all businesses in/near these road blocks have suffered because of these visually arbitrary road closures. This year one of the very few other things the city offered the Duckworth area as consolation for exclusion was "increased signage". The signs they put up only say "restaurants" "retail" with arrows that point nearly every direction. The city has demonstrated it does not have the skill to create signage, or any events, for Duckworth Street to level the inequality they created with the Water Street Mall. But they also showed they have $180,000 to spend to support Duckworth, and that support is necessary going forward. However it is clear that a professional third-party in required to decide how to spend this money, to plan a unique Duckworth event for July and August 2022, and return the prosperity and public interest to our street that we enjoyed prior to the first annual Water Street Mall.