Vicki Baker has a vision for Jamesville.
The former DeWitt Town Board member hopes to share that vision with the community, and hear what others have to say, at a Jamesville Main Street Visioning Workshop from 1 to 4 p.m. Sunday, July 22, at the old Jamesville firehouse on East Seneca Turnpike.
The event is being hosted by the Jamesville Community Task Force, which includes representatives from the Jamesville Fire District, the Jamesville Chamber of Commerce, the Jamesville Community Museum, the Jamesville Ecumenical Food Pantry, Fiddlers Green Park Association and the Jamesville Positive Action Committee, and other hamlet residents.
“It’s really a collaboration of all the groups in Jamesville, and it came about [last year] when the fire commissioners decided to allow the food pantry [to operate out of the old firehouse] for a while,” Baker said. “But I think we need to look at long-term solutions.”
“It is such a large parcel, we believe that additional uses could benefit the community and allow it to pay for itself,” she added.
The task force will look at ways to improve the entire main street area, which spans from Jamesville Elementary School (west) to the Route 173 bridge (east) and from Siawassia Street (north) to the Rush Creek bridge (south).
So what would Baker like to see come to Jamesville?
“I’m still looking for my ice cream stand,” she said. “That’s my vision wish, is to get an ice cream place located here.”
But she’s more interested in helping to create a shared vision for the community.
“We want to take a look at downtown Jamesville, the beautiful downtown hamlet of Jamesville, and say, ‘What would you like to see improved, or what services would you like more of? Where can we, as a community, advance?”
Baker said the residents of Jamesville have a history of coming together to make the hamlet better. She cited 1955, when the Jamesville High School land was transferred to the fire department; the bicentennial celebration in 1976; 1986, when the old train station was dedicated as a community center; and 2007, when the coal plant proposed for Jamesville was defeated.
“I think we’re at that point again,” Baker said.
The event will be catered by Gannon’s Isle Ice Cream of Syracuse, which will create a special flavor to recognize the day.
Ned Campbell can be reached at [email protected].
