VILLAGE OF FAYETTEVILLE — Greeted at her last meeting with a bouquet of spring flowers, Pam Ashby ended her term on the Fayetteville Village Board this week already knowing that she would dearly miss her role as trustee.
Ashby ran for the board initially ignited by an interest in what would happen to the property at 547 E. Genesee St., an address right by her neighborhood.
“I was participating with members of the community to hand out information and I was going to the meetings, but I wanted to get a little more into it,” she said. “Getting involved to that extent felt like the right thing to do.”
Upon her election, she helped to lead the push in refusing Morgan Management’s apartment complex proposal for that former site of the O’Brien & Gere industrial building.
In the time after, she points to her work with the zoning board of appeals, the planning board and the codes department as noteworthy, particularly with regard to how they solved various issues together while making sure the processes were completed “transparently” and “by the book.”
She also made mention of her part in organizing celebrations like the Easter Egg hunt and the Memorial Day parade as well as her contributions heading the Village’s newly formed communication committee, which so far has selected a replacement design for the fayettevilleny.gov website.
In addition, Ashby said the collaboration among the board of trustees over the four years has resembled a “well-oiled machine” due to their chemistry and progress.
A lover of the “extra something special” that Fayetteville has, an attribute she sees in the way residents regularly wave hello to one another, Ashby said she has enjoyed speaking with villagers at their kitchen tables as a “difference-making” trustee. At the same time, her employment as a hairdresser at Miracles Hair Studio on Brooklea Drive had given clients someone to confide in over 36 years.
Though she views these final days on the board as bittersweet, Ashby said she believes the “congenial” trustee-elect Mark Matt has proved himself ready to take the helm.
She added that she may take another crack at the board in the future, but for the present, she looks forward to an increased amount of quality time with her husband of 28 years, Nathan, as well as their son in high school, their college-aged daughter and their eldest son.
