The popular summer music series sponsored by the Morgan Hill Chamber of Commerce will remain in the heart of downtown and local merchants who had worked hard in the past three weeks to raise money to keep the event at its historic location are claiming victory.
The music series is currently located on West Second Street and is scheduled this year for every Friday night beginning in May 30 and stretching through August.
The chamber board was considering moving the concerts to the amphitheater at the Community and Cultural Center at the corner of Monterey Road and Dunne Avenue. Chamber Interim President Chris Bryant said the move would make set-up easier and eliminate the need to rent port-a-potties. He said the center is still a part of the downtown, despite comments from advocates for keeping the series on Second Street.
Bill Quenneville, a spokesman for the Downtown Association subcommittee created to keep the popular summer concerts downtown, said the merchants had reached an agreement with the Chamber's Board of Directors Wednesday morning to keep the event downtown.
"It's very good news," he said. "The merchants really wanted the concerts to remain downtown. The participants of the previous series have always felt that it was better downtown.
"We're going to be doing some fundraising events coming up," said an excited Quenneville, who owns the Hot Java coffee shop at the corner of Second Street and Monterey Road in downtown. "We will be letting people know about these fundraising opportunities." During the past three weeks the group has already raised $2,200 of the $6,000 the chamber has asked the merchants to gather to keep the event downtown. Quenneville said the group is also signing up volunteers for all the different events, one of the conditions chamber representatives said had to be met in order to keep the series in its traditional location.
"We are hoping to raise an additional funds and possible keep the series going an additional three weeks out to the Taste of Morgan Hill," he said.
"We worked really hard to get this together and we really appreciate working with the chamber and actually getting the downtown group and the chamber to work together for the first time." The merchants will have benchmarks to gather all the funds with payments made to the chamber at the beginning of July and beginning of August.
Jorge Briones, the new executive director of the Morgan Hill Downtown Association, sent an e-mail Thursday announcing the agreement and inviting merchants and Downtown Music Series supporters to a celebration at Hot Java at 7 p.m. Friday.
Marilyn Dubil Marilyn Dubil covered education and law enforcement for The Times.
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