Page 26 - Town of Brighton 2024 Annual Report

Economic Development Report

by Michael Strait, Director of Recreation & Economic Development

Our economic development efforts over the past few years reached a pinnacle in 2024 as the town currently has no available
commercial space in town. This is a feat that few towns can claim, especially in our region. The year-round series of events
produced as a partnership between the town and the Brighton Community Forum has been the primary driver of our enduring
recovery. The Forum secured $155,000 in grants during 2024 to cover the costs for event production and advertising. This
funding is invaluable to producing the kinds of events that people have come to expect from Island Pond. The Forum has
raised over $1 million dollars for our revitalization efforts over the past 8 years.

The 2024 Solar Eclipse turned out to be a huge event for town during a time of
the year when we are normally pretty quiet. We hosted people from as far away
as Seattle that flew to the area and chose Island Pond as their place to view the
eclipse. The town was well-prepared for the event, although a few more port-o-
lets in the park would have been handy given that we had nearly three times the
number of expected visitors! Happily, there were no complaints and everyone had
a phenomenal time and expressed how welcoming the town had been to them.

The Town-wide Yard sale was another great success and quickly followed up
by our biggest event ever, the 2024 July 4 Celebration. We had all our normal
th
events including the parade, chicken barbecue and scavenger hunt and due to
how the holiday fell in 2024, three nights of concerts. The Saturday night concert
and fireworks drew a record-setting crowd to Island Pond. Sheriff department
estimates put it in the neighborhood of 6,000 people, which for a town of 1,200
people is incredible. Our businesses faced a whole new problem, they sold out of everything! Aside from some scrambling to
restock, some very tired staff and heavier than normal traffic, there were no problems or incidents reported.

Mother nature delivered us some setbacks after the holiday with not one, but two major flooding events. This flooding wreaked
havoc with what was supposed to be a new race weekend across the Kingdom Heritage Trail, causing it and all the weekend
events to ultimately be cancelled. The Vermont Symphony Orchestra convinced mother nature to smile upon us for their
annual concert in the park. Mother Nature wasn’t finished playing with us though as our Saturday night concert of Labor Day
weekend which had a prediction of a passing shower, turned into a 3-hour torrential downpour. The band played on though
and performed for the crowd huddled under canopies, umbrellas and the pavilion and we live-streamed the event through our
Facebook page. They are being rewarded for their perseverance in 2025 as they will be our headlining act for the Friday night
concert of July 4 Weekend. Luckily the weather cooperated for Sunday
th
of Labor Day weekend as we hosted Pondathon in conjunction with
Brighton Recreation.
The fall kicked off with the NEK Marathon Weekend and hosted a record
number of participants. Unfortunately, this event will be taking a break
in 2025 due to a lack of volunteers. There are only a handful of people
that run all these events and when the race founder and director needed
to step back this year, we simply didn’t have the capacity to take on this
race in time for 2025. We certainly encourage anyone that would like
to help to please reach out to Mike Strait, Heather McElroy or Jeanne
Gervais and they will get you connected.
We ended the year with two reinvigorated events, Halloween in Island Pond and Holiday Magic. Both events attracted some
new volunteers that wanted to ensure these events didn’t die due to neglect.

While events are a big part of the Director of Recreation and Economic Development’s job, it’s definitely not the only part. I
have served as the town’s representative to our Communication Union District, NEK Broadband since before its founding. I
also serve on the Executive Committee and am chair of the Finance Committee. This commitment to bringing high-quality
affordable broadband will benefit all the residents of Brighton. But an unexpected benefit has been NEK Broadband leasing
the long vacant Woodworker’s building on Meadow Street and with it we have brought 3 new full-time career positions that
went to local residents. I expect that we will see more openings as the network gets built out in our region.

Another project completed this year was renewal of our Village Center Designation from the State of Vermont. This
designation affords the town a multitude of grant opportunities it would not have otherwise. It also allows our businesses in
the downtown business corridor to qualify for tax credits based on improvements they make to their buildings.
26 Town of Brighton, VT