A survey has gone out to about 250 downtown Frederick businesses. It was transmitted electronically from the Downtown Frederick Partnership. "The survey is supposed to look at their economic performance, or their revenue performance in 2012, as well as their view of the future and what they think is going to happen in 2013. We also ask them what they think of the Partnership as an organization, our performance in downtown Frederick," says Kara Norman, Executive Director of the Downtown Frederick Partnership.

She says the survey results will be presented to the Board of Aldermen during a February 27th Workshop at City Hall.

Norman says this is the first time such a survey has been done among downtown retailers. "We've been talking a lot about how to show results and how to show performance, and we felt like the survey was a good mechanism to achieve that so that we would have something quantifiable to share," she says.

And Norman hopes to conduct the survey each year. "This year, we'll create the baseline, and from the future, we'll be able to judge progress and see where we're headed as a downtown," she says.

The survey itself is expected to take about 10-minutes to complete. Norman notes that many merchants may say they're too busy running their own businesses to answer questions in a poll. "The more data we have on downtown Frederick, the better we are able to serve them as a business," she says. "10-minutes, one, that's not a terribly long amount of time, and, two, the information we gain will help us serve them better, which should help their business be more successful."

Downtown retailers who didn't receive a survey electronically and would like to participate, can contact the Downtown Frederick Partnership at 301-698-8118, and get the computer link to the poll.