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The Watertown City Council voted to fund the Downtown Watertown Collective in the amount of $90,000 at its regular meeting on Monday, February 2, at City Hall.
That sum will be distributed to the collective over three years, and by 2029, according to Megan Olson, one of the board members of the group, it will be financially stable enough to fund itself.
The group’s goal is to “support downtown revitalization efforts through coordinated marketing, signature events, business collaboration, and — beginning in quarter one — the establishment of a downtown coordinator position.
The hiring of a coordinator, according to Olson, will help the collective accomplish its goal.
Elicia Holien, one of the owners of Juniper+Jade photography on North Broadway, spoke first among the long list of proponents the council heard from. She pointed out that downtowns in many cities serve as community gathering spaces which both increase property values and the tax base while spurring economic activity.
“Locally owned downtown businesses recirculate up to three (times) more money in the local economy,” she said during her presentation. “They also generate more activity per square foot than any other commercial area.”
Holien then told the council the Downtown Watertown Collective came from the H2O-50 strategic plan, which is a long-term plan to improve Watertown in all areas. One of those areas in particular is downtown.
H2O-50, however, isn’t the piloting entity behind the Downtown Watertown Collective, which is a separate nonprofit entity, recently incorporated in December 2025, that will be steered by a board of directors and run by the downtown coordinator.
Regarding that position, Holien said it was needed because towns that have hired people into similar positions have seen consistent outperformance over simply using volunteer efforts for community events and sales tax revenue.
She also said the position can help promote downtown foot traffic which will support small business, which in turn, attracts private investment.
“For every one dollar invested publicly, it often leverages $10 to $15 dollars in private investment,” said Holien.
Something that seemed to turn into a point of contention for Councilmen Lynn Jurrens and Brent Mohrmann began with a simple question that Olson herself asked and answered during her portion of the presentation.
Olson asked, “Why does the downtown (area) get a special organization vs. other areas of town?”
Her response was: “Because we’re early adapters, we’re here today, and we hope that we’re turning over a new leaf and down the road these other (areas) will come together and do the same thing because that’s what comes out of strong collaboration.”
She rounded out her answer by adding: “It’s not why one or the other, it’s why not everybody working with the same model.”
For the most part, council was in favor of funding the collective. One hang-up for three councilmen in particular, Mohrmann, Jurrens, and Dan Schutte, was the lack of notice they, and importantly, those opposed to the potential funding of the collective received. For the most part, council said the first time they’d even heard of the collective was last Thursday.
This lack of notice and time for questions to be properly answered, according to Jurrens, led him to make a motion to defer action on the funding for at least two weeks.
“This decision comes way too quick, in my world,” said Jurrens who then spoke on what he thought could happen to the city’s budget if other organizations arose that sought money to support local business in Watertown. “Where does this stop? … If they formed a group, would we have to jump in for another $30,000 (a year)?”
Watertown Mayor Ried Holien, while in support of funding the collective, proposed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to help keep both the city and the collective accountable for how the city’s money was being spent. Another purpose for the MOU, he said, was so the city could see any return on their investment in the future.
The MOU lays out in great detail what the money received from the city can be used for. Things like marketing, events, recruitment and retentions efforts, small business support, programming and more appear on the list.
In return, the MOU asks the collective to be responsible for four things. Namely, the coordination and implementation of four “signature” downtown events per calendar year, supporting and promoting downtown businesses, maintaining financial records related to the use of all funds, and finally to provide an impact report to the City Council.
On a larger scale, Mayor Holien said the MOU wasn’t singling out the collective, it was simply the beginning of a new routine for the city when they enter funding agreements.
“This is just an agreement,” said Mayor Holien. “I highly doubt this is going to be necessary. … It’s something that it’s better to set forward at the beginning than wish you had it later on.”
While the requirements for both the city and the collective were laid out in detail, by Mayor Holien and the MOU, Mohrman still had issues with funding the collective. Namely, that there wasn’t enough notice, there weren’t enough restrictions on the money, and that if the council chose to fund this collective, more collectives may arise with goals to support Watertown, then ask for money and the city would then have an obligation to fund them as well.
“This is a hot-button issue. … I wish it wasn’t something that was sprung on us” said Mohrmann who then went into some of the opposition he received during the meeting on his cellphone. “… The question the people are asking is ‘at what point (is) this animal that we continue to give money to going to be satisfied?’”
Schutte said, after some brief discussion, that he was opposed to deferment, and that he thought that, as with any new organization, things would be ironed out with time. The other two councilmen, Jurrens and Mohrmann spoke on the opposition they had received, which, according to Jurrens was much larger than what was represented during open forum, where no opposition was heard.
“What most of you have not seen is the amount of opposition that I have received by text messages, phone calls, and emails,” Jurrens said, he followed that up by saying, however, he believed in the collective regardless of the opposition.
Councilman Michael Heuer, also a board member for the collective, refuted Jurrens’ comment on the opposition.
“I am your Watertown City Council member at-large,” he said. “I represent all of you. I got two ‘nos’ in my email. … If there were other voices out there that were loud, they sure weren’t using my email.”
Heuer’s frustration at the lack of communication by those opposed is something that was echoed by Councilman Doug Allen, who took it a step further and brought up previous communication from a survey H2O-50 performed previously.
“I keep coming back to the fact that (H2O)-50 surveyed 3,500 citizens in this community and (the results) said ‘this is what we want to do, this is where our priorities are,’” he said about the community’s desire for a thriving Downtown. “Now that we have a memorandum of understanding that outlines pretty clearly what the accountability is and how this group is going to meet this accountability guideline, I think I feel pretty comfortable (with it).”
Next Allen spoke about how placing restrictions on how money is spent could be prohibitive in the long run.
“We could put up a lot of barriers,” he said. “The city has for many years given $200,000 to the Watertown Development Corporation, $90,000 to the Chamber, and we’ve never said, ‘here’s what we expect for that (money) and you can only spend it on this.’”
Many downtown business owners spoke on behalf of the collective. They were Josh Weyh of Watertown Mercantile Co., Kay Solberg of Classroom Connection, Olivia Orthaus of Gather Coffee, Amanda and Liam Culhane of H2O-50, Anjelica Uthe of Visit Watertown, Jill Makepeace of Makepeace Jewelers, Donus Roberts of DDR Books, Jamie Mack of the Goss Opera House, Michelle Wadsworth of AMJ Style and Darren Shelton of Bulldog Branding.
Mohrmann was the sole dissenting vote. Councilman Kyle Peters was absent.
