Third Friday is a free downtown art market that showcases fine artists in our area. Artists line Madison street, downtown businesses stay open late, local bands play, Open Space hosts free children's crafts, restaurants are involved by creating specialty drinks. We have even had axe throwing and tie dye stations! This event has become a staple of our downtown and is continuing to grow with each event. Happening every April-September on the third Friday of the month from 6-9pm.

For two years Open Space Art Gallery has been hosting this downtown wide street market on Madison Street in downtown Ottawa,Illinois. This year, when I filled out the yearly paperwork to reserve the street, I was asked to come in for a meeting. I was told that there was some concern about closing off the street this year because of emergency vehicles being blocked. The city officials and police chief said they were willing to work together and we all decided to talk to our people and come back a week later with ideas. In that time I spoke with numerous downtown businesses and artists that participate in the event. Everyone expressed how much they would like the event to stay where it is. It’s at the center of town promoting guests to travel to the other businesses. It’s on a side street and the businesses rarely get event traffic in their stores, this event brings in 75-100 new guests into the businesses each event! If we put it in the park, where the city is suggesting, it doesn’t separate our event from any others. 
The next week I went back for meeting number two. I prepared all the comments about keeping it on Madison street but instead of a discussion I was told that Madison street is no longer an option because there is one stop sign on that street making it too busy to shut down. No working with me, no listening, just no. When Idot provided a map of average cars that use the streets daily we found that Madison is not the busiest street. So I reached out to the businesses and artists again and we asked for a meeting we could all attend. After a month, we were again told no. They will not even give us the chance to speak. This final time I was told that now the city is not allowing anyone to close the streets for the events unless it is a city sponsored event. 
They are offering two parks where all other events are being held. Here are the reasons those parks will not be ideal for our event. 
1. The event will no longer be in front of Open Space-the organizer of the event. This will make the event not worth the organization time and cost. 
2. Changing locations on a growing event will confuse guests and essentially be like starting from the beginning. We will not have the attendance as we have had in the past. 
3. The parks are on either side of downtown, if we choose one or the other, it will not promote guests to walk through downtown to visit all the stores staying open late like being in the center of downtown does. 
4. It is a street fair, having it in the park changes the entire feeling of the event.
 5. Having all events in the same two spaces will make all the events seem the same to onlookers and guests. 

We feel like we are not being heard. No one is willing to work with us. So I’m forming this petition to gather all the people supporting Third Friday staying on Madison street in an attempt to show the city officials how important this event is to our community.