The Holbrook City Council held a meeting Thursday, June 23, during which they received the annual report on the Holbrook Chamber of Commerce from its Director Cindy Tafoya.
Tafoya stated that the chamber had a prosperous year, with thanks to other local organizations taking on certain events that allowed the chamber to focus on larger projects such as Old West Fest and Parade of Lights.
“We are grateful for the Coalition of Churches that took on the Festival of Trees,” stated Tafoya. She also added that the Kiwanis Club took over Light Up Holbrook, the contest for light display decorations during the Christmas season. “With that support we had more chamber time to focus on the Shop Local campaign for the holidays,” said Tafoya. “It was more successful this year. We had a lot more businesses participating than we ever had in the last several years.”
The chamber also had a successful job fair in May. “We had over 25 employers and between the 25 they had over 200 jobs that they needed to fill within Holbrook and the surrounding area.” Tafoya believes the success of the job fair was due to partnering with other local entities, such as Arizona@Work, Grow Arizona and Northland Pioneer College. Tafoya added the Chamber plans to host two more events, a career fair in the upcoming fall and another job fair in the spring.
Tafoya also noted that the chamber was able to utilize a $50,000 grant from the Arizona Chamber of Commerce. The grant, called the Holbrook Revitalization and Recovery Project, allowed the chamber to provide 13 mini grants to local businesses impacted by COVID-19.
“As we move forward, I just wanted to let you know that we have met several of our goals and objectives in our 2019 strategic plan, and so what we will be doing when we bring on our new board members next month is revisiting the strategic plan and closing that out.” Tafoya also mentioned the Chamber will begin working on their upcoming strategic plan for the next three years.
The chamber will be hosting events for business owners to convene and speak with the chamber. “Through that we want participants to express ideas, their needs, their concerns with us so that we can use that information to help guide us in planning our next strategic plan.”
Tafoya also mentioned that the chamber is looking forward to being a part of the RealAZ committee as well as the Brownfield Assessment Advisory Committee. The chamber is also excited to be part of a Local Arizona First Community Profile Grant coming in 2023. “They’ve selected rural areas in Arizona to work with them to profile how they can help promote some of the sites like the Petrified Forest and (O’Dell) Petroglyph Park or some of our businesses that are different.” The grant will work to create a program that tourists can use to create an itinerary for their visit.
Tafoya also gave a summary of current events for the Chamber. “We are currently working with others to host a kick-off night before (Old West Fest) as we did last year with sake tasting and a Bucket of Blood reenactment over on the Bucket of Blood Street.” Tafoya also discussed the Parade of Lights, which will have the theme “Christmas Around the World,” as well as the Chamber’s Movie Under the Stars events. “It is an opportunity for us to help showcase some of our local food trucks, also businesses who are sponsoring the movie to be shown.”
The event has become a large success, with food trucks running out of food due to high demand. The next Movie Under the Stars will be July 27.
Tafoya continued stating, “We did well on this year’s budget, we earned more on the events we held this year and had brought in more membership dues than projected. The amount over our projected income was $4,966, that includes a $1,000 grant from APS (Arizona Public Service) for some of the events.” Tafoya stated that some of the money earned will be used to replace the banners around town with a more weather resistant material and was also used to purchase QuickBooks to help with the Chamber’s financials.
“Our total budget expended to date is $49,858.” Although the Chamber budgeted for $52,250, Tafoya did state that there were more expected expenditures coming up.
Tafoya explained that the advertising budget did exceed due to remaking and reprinting the Holbrook brochures.
During the meeting the council approved a special event liquor license application for a Chamber of Commerce event to be held from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 22, at the Historic Courthouse, located at 100 E. Arizona St.
The council approved levying a primary property tax based upon the assessed valuation of property located within the city subject to taxation for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2023.
During the summary of current events, City Manager Ted Soltis mentioned the delays with trash pick-up are due to Waste Management not having enough vehicles for the area and are currently training new drivers to help prevent future delays. He also discussed the city is renting a post hole digger to install the new baseball field dug out as well as repairing popped sidewalks.
Soltis addressed his interactions with the Apache Railroad as well. “They are installing a new curved section on their rail line just over by our transfer site. This will allow them to accommodate the longer wind turbine blades for the West Camp Wind Farm that will be located in the area.” He explained the rail realignment will take place on Apache Railroad property, with minor impact on Holbrook’s transfer site.
