MARS — Over the past year, borough leaders have been working on bettering communication between the borough and local business owners, an issue that one business owner said has been a problem for a few years.

According to Pam Erskine, unprofessionalism and communication with local business owners and borough administration has made local business owners hesitant to reach out to plan events or do anything in the borough outside of their store.

During the June 5 council meeting, Erskine addressed council on the lack of communication between business owners and borough administration regarding event planning.

“You can’t voice anything without them attacking you, and that shouldn’t be the case,” Erskine said. She described the experience as “unprofessional.”

According to Erskine, the communication issues boil down to two parts — lack of information and communication on planning community events, and when planned events shut down busy streets and the lack of professionalism with both borough secretaries, who Erskine describes as “unfriendly.”

Erskine, the owner of Rowdy Roots on Grand Avenue, said she was warned about the communication issues early by another business owner.

Erskine opened her salon in Mars two years ago and she said she has a good relationship with many other business owners nearby. According to her, multiple businesses have had communication and unprofessionalism issues with the borough.

According to Bonnie Forsythe, the borough secretary/treasurer, the borough has been working on bettering communication by building an email list with business owners’ contact information and releasing an event information packet.

“(The packet would) make it streamline and equal across the board when someone wants to hold an event,” Forsythe said.

According to Forsythe, the packet would include the entire process of holding an event in Mars, including insurance information, notifications needed to be given to businesses, public parking information and information for Mars Police for staffing and to shut down streets.

“We are trying to cover it from pretty much every angle because it is also for communication between the departments here at the borough as well,” Forsythe said.

The event information packet has not been finalized, but Forsythe expects it to be finished and distributed by the beginning of next year.

“The businesses in town have a valid point, we should have a better flow of communication both ways, but we are finally to the point where we are ready to start collecting that information,” Forsythe said.

To build an email list, forms to collect business owners’ information were dispersed a few weeks ago to open businesses.

Another change that Forsythe anticipates is returning to requiring signatures from business owners before approving events.

In the past, anyone interested in holding an outdoor event in Mars, regardless if it would result in street closures, signatures from business owners supporting or rejecting was required before the council would vote to approve or deny it.

“I’ve never seen somebody get denied the ability to hold an event regardless of the number (of signatures), whether they got zero or 100% of the signatures,” Forsythe said. “I do know that we don’t receive those lists from everyone. That’s why this event packet that we are working on is important, because I think then it would put everybody on an even playing field.”

While the signatures were not a part of borough policy, Forsythe describes it as an acknowledgment from business owners that they are aware of a future event that would close streets and affect customer parking, and they can make customers aware and make the proper changes.

While there was discussion by council members on requiring signatures, there was no action taken during the Monday meeting.

With these changes to borough administration policy, business owners aren’t convinced of the outcome.

“Everybody’s attitude is [that] nothing is going to change,” Erskine said.

Before the communication issues are resolved, Erskine believes that the first and “biggest hurdle” the council needs to work out is with secretaries Forsythe and Brown.

“I just want them to take a hard look at who is running the office because none of the businesses want to support anything they do because they don’t support us,” Erskine said. “That’s the point it’s at, and that’s not good for Mars.

“Everybody just wants better for Mars, it’s such a quaint little town, that’s why I came here.”