Old Town Report (11/10/16 Issue)

-Courtesy Photo

By Pam Fitzpatrick

I just met up with the location manager for the upcoming Disney filming in Old Town. This is exciting stuff – the movie is called “Magic Camp” and it’s about kid’s going to a magic camp who venture out to local shops to practice what they’ve learned.  It looks like the locations will be the 400 and 500 blocks of S. Myrtle with filming most likely on a Monday and Tuesday in mid-January when business has slowed a bit. We just can’t afford to buy this kind of advertising for our town, so I’m totally excited about this one!

Also, Tuesday morning we had some breaking news (works for CNN…… why not us?) at the MOTAB meeting. Not only will we have Sunday Holiday Carriage Rides in Old Town during the month of December, we will have Thursday evening rides as well.  And to make this all affordable, I hear the charge for each rider will be minimal ($2).  The Sunday carriage will be a traditional 4-seater, old fashioned carriage, and the Thursday carriage will be a wagon-type which holds more riders.  Thank you MOTAB for approving this and City staff for all of your research!  Rumor has it that we will have one or two sponsors to be announced next week.

And more community cooperation to report: this last Monday I attended the monthly meeting of our Monrovia Community Coordinating Council, and was once again reminded about how the concept of “working together” actual works.  It’s really pretty simple:  get folks together in one room around a big table and then take turns talking and listening.  Anyone who is curious about how all the entities in town manage to schedule events without tripping over each other, drop by the Fireside Room of the First Presbyterian Church up at Foothill and Myrtle (just outside of Old Town) on the first Monday of the month at 7:30 a.m. and watch the community in action. Very impressive…

Last week we had one of our Merchant Co-op meetings at Rudy’s. That’s where we merchants just get together and brainstorm, gripe, and ultimately work together for the good of all.   We had a Q & A with Raw Inspirations, our new street fair contractors.  As a result of that very intense meeting you may notice a change or two to the show, specifically the location of the Kid’s Zone which now has a more linear layout allowing for better visibility and less interruption to some of the restaurants’ outside dining areas.  Thank you to Melissa and Katie, our Raw reps – great job!  And thanks to the City of Monrovia for attending and helping us fine tune our show.  I love it when a plan comes together…

The Holiday Candy Canes are going up all over town on Saturday Nov. 19 (thank you to our volunteer crew!), and the street decorations should be starting to go up soon so we can be all lit up by Black Friday. I have to remind the folks who complain every year about the early appearance of holiday decs that Public Works does not employ elves who come out Thanksgiving night and make the town bright, so go easy on me and them, please…

Now on to Small Business Saturday – the Monrovia Chamber will be set up at Myrtle and Lemon (NE corner), and If you remember past years, that’s where you get free stuff and show your Old Town receipts to enter a raffle. And I can’t forget that The Elves will appear at 11 a.m. that day. You can’t miss The Elves (it’s the law).

And, yes, the inside of “Frost My Cake” (used to be Monrovia Bakery) is a beautiful blue and that’s all I know for now.

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