President’s Message
A quality that makes Beaumont-Wilshire one of the most desirable neighborhoods in the city is its natural beauty, and there’s no better time of the year to take it all in than early spring. Within the mini-forest that is Wilshire Park and throughout our eclectic array of residential gardens, buds burst into color and lawns billow green, while nesting birds serenade the ever-increasing number of strollers, runners, bicyclists, dog-walkers, and baby-buggy pushers crisscrossing the neighborhood amid the crisp, refreshing air— a veritable urban renewal on parade…
But it’s not only the natural environment that’s blossoming in our neighborhood this spring. The bloom is on Beaumont-Wilshire’s business associations as well. Both the Beaumont Business Association (BBA) and the NE 42nd Avenue Business Association (42nd BA) greet the season anew with increased membership, energized leadership, and productive innovations. BBA has grown from a handful of Fremont Street businesses just a couple of years ago to one of the most robust business associations around. With over 60 members on its roster, August’s Fremont Fest and December’s Festival of Lights attract thousands to the neighborhood. Meanwhile just down the street, 42nd BA has embarked on an ambitious grant-funded initiative aimed at galvanizing community support for a revitalization of 42nd Avenue, both as a business destination and as a community nexus for three neighborhoods (Beaumont-Wilshire, Cully, and Concordia). Its boundary lines converge at the corner of 42nd Avenue and Alberta Court.
At the heart of this transformational activity are revitalized symbiotic relationships among the member businesses themselves as well as with community organizations like BWNA and Central Northeast Neighbors (“CNN”—the neighborhood association coalition of which BWNA is a part). Mutual interdependence is the name of the game and collaborative teamwork the core driver. Case in point: BWNA helped facilitate procurement of a grant for the purchase and installment of 42nd Avenue business district street signs, assisted BBA in getting permission from the city to display large banners over Fremont Street to promote festivals, spearheaded the project to put diagonal parking spaces adjacent to Fremont businesses, and has regularly featured Newsletter articles about neighborhood business owners and their enterprises. In return, businesses have promoted and participated in BWNA meetings and events such as Taste of Beaumont, National Night Out Picnic in Wilshire Park, Movies in the Park, December Winter Holiday General Meeting, and graffiti cleanups. And in the area of community issues, 42nd BA allied itself with BWNA in the endorsement of a neighborhood resolution opposing construction of a residential cell tower. Such ties have elevated communication and cooperation between BWNA and its business association partners, resulting in BWNA regularly represented at business association meetings and business association activities routinely promoted by BWNA. I would also point out that it doesn’t hurt to have former BWNA Treasurer and Newsletter Editor Dan Johnson as BBA’s President!
Given this rosy outlook for the neighborhood, it’s only fitting that BWNA’s most popular general meeting of the year— Taste of Beaumont— is held on the second Monday in April, with spring flora on full display and local business participation front and center. It’s also a new beginning of sorts for BWNA’s Board members and officers, with annual elections taking place. But mostly it’s a celebration of a neighborhood in bloom.