CENTER CITY COMMITTEE
MEETING MINUTES
February 7, 2006

Present: Larry Field, Bill Lipchitz, Russ Smith and Terry Williams.

The meeting opened at 8:35 AM.

There was some discussion about the Annual Meeting and the Award process that included names of previously discussed potential recipients and whether or not to use a theme. The feeling is that we should have one major award and recognize others in a different way. There was also discussion of having the Small Business Assistance Center present its own awards for emerging business of the year as part of the CCC meeting.

There was also a discussion about officers to be elected at the Annual Meeting. Officers should be reflective of the new voting member structure. Bill will appoint a Nominating Committee at the next Stakeholder meeting on February 28th.

Russ Smith cited some statistics recently published by the Massachusetts Banking Council that detail the fall-off in the formation of small businesses statewide. For example, there is a noted reduction in middle- and low-income loan activity; and the ratio of small business starts to closures is 1.1 to 1. This indicates that there is only a 10% success rate statwide, and has implications for employment as well. Russ said there seems to be some capital restraint and that it is not a good sign, but that the problem is larger than just Lowell.

Don’t forget that WINTERFEST is this weekend, beginning Friday at 6:30 PM.

The meeting adjourned at 9:35 AM.