By Jason Klaiber
At its Sept. 28 meeting, the Fayetteville board of trustees approved a plan for renovations at Coulter Park and announced annual appointments for its village officials.
An informational meeting held at Coulter Park on Aug. 31 and attended by neighboring residents centered around the proposed plans put together by the Fayetteville Parks Commission. Plans for the park include the replacement of multiple benches, fencing repairs, the replacement of previous play equipment with “state-of-the-art” slides and swings and the introduction of handicap accessible features like ramps, Mayor Mark Olson said.
The play area will be accommodated with additional parking spots, Olson said. An observation area with seating overlooking Bishop’s Brook will also be installed.
The upgrades to the park, located in the Brookside neighborhood, have been estimated to cost about $35,000.
Following up on this year’s delayed election, the village board also spent a portion of its most recent meeting making its annual appointments, a process that normally would have taken place in early April.
A total of 801 voters turned out in mid-September for the pushed-back election.
Olson was re-elected as mayor with 590 votes, while Deputy Mayor Dan Kinsella earned 459 votes and trustee Dennis Duggleby earned 405 votes to reclaim the two open trustee spots on the village board. Write-in candidate Casey Cleary earned 282 votes.
Village Justice James Hughes was re-elected as well, receiving 505 votes.
These appointments will last for the remainder of the 2020-2021 term, which concludes in late March.
“Village elections are not about party,” Olson said. “It’s about policies and things that happen in the village, and we were very pleased to see that many people vote and glad that that many people showed interest.”
The board also announced that vacated associate positions in both the Village of Fayetteville Historic Preservation Commission and the Fayetteville Tree Commission need to be filled by interested volunteers.
Additional Notes
3 The village board approved the use of BoxCast as the new live streaming service for its meetings. The service will be installed on Oct. 22, in time for the board of trustees’ Oct. 26 meeting.
“I think that’s one way we can do a better job of communicating to the residents,” Olson said. “The ones that don’t have time to come to the meetings can see it afterwards.”
Olson said BoxCast offers “much better” audiovisual quality than the current Zoom setup.
3Construction on the Fayetteville Senior Center is set to wrap at the end of October or the beginning of November. Crews have worked to put in place a new activity room, relocate the kitchen, build new porches, add new bathrooms with showers, construct a new deck, create a sunroom, install new roofing material and repaint sections of the senior center.
“It’s gone through quite a transformation,” Olson said. “We’re really trying to maintain the history of the building but also add some nice features to it for our seniors.”
3At the Sept. 28 meeting, a resident’s request for a permit to own ducks—the first such request made to the village board, according to Olson—was granted.
3It was noted that, last week, the village reinstalled a “Local Traffic Only” sign on South Burdick Street.
The board’s next meeting has been scheduled for Oct. 13 at 6 p.m.
