I hope that everyone had a blessed Holiday and I am very excited to start a new year. 

My interns and I were very busy over break making our first attempts to contact local businesses in order to gauge the amount of participants we will have for our project in the fall.  We only asked businesses if they were interested, we have not yet made our list final.  We are continuing with that this week in hopes that by next week we will have a complete list of prospective businesses.  On Friday I will be meeting with Ray Hazlett to discuss other concerns I may run into with closing the street, such as added expenses, a need for security, parking for venders, etc.

During the break I also sat in on a conference call with Commissioner Tim Vonville and President Morgan Allen, as well as Councilwomen Amy Flowers and Carol Patterson.  The objective was to discuss the option of fencing off Court Street in Athens for Halloween, and charging a fee for students to enter.  Councilwoman Patterson simply presented her information or ideas that she had, and we were open to ask her any questions and it was also an opportunity to express our concerns and issues.  While City Council plans to meet on February 5^th 2007 to vote on this issue, my interns and I plan to attend Monday night meetings leading up to that date to keep Student Senate updated on further readings and details.

Our final project of this quarter will be to assist Councilwoman Amy Flowers in her campaign for bike safety.  Although it probably will not be of concern until the spring, we are keeping our eyes and ears open incase it begins to take shape.

End of Report