Watkins will tear down old garage building

Watkins will tear down old garage building

WATKINS GLEN--Following the Tuesday, Dec. 1 board of trustees meeting, Mayor Luke Leszyk said newly elected board member Bob Carson has been working with the group and he is pleased with how things are going.
"Things are going good with the new board and it seems the transition is going well," Leszyk said. "You always hate to lose someone with the experience of [retired board member Tony Fraboni], but things are fitting into place and everyone is finding their roles and working together and that is the most important thing for a board; to work together."
The meeting itself had limited items to discuss beyond regular monthly maintenance and accounting.
"We decided that we don't need the garage behind the village hall and we are going to tear it down," Leszyk said.
The maintenance garage is currently only being used to house the building generator and not much else, Leszyk said.
"We don't really use it and since we are getting a new generator we figured the new one doesn't have to be housed inside the same building," Leszyk stated. "It's old and dilapidated."
Instead, the new generator will either go in the basement of the town hall or be free-standing.
"It doesn't have to be covered up... and maybe if everything works out we can expand parking behind town hall," Leszyk said.
The board also voted to put out to bid administrator services for three Downtown Revitalization Initiative grants.
"We had to put out bids for the three grants because we don't have anyone who is a grant administrator," Leszyk said.
In the past Leszyk said that grants were often administered by an engineering or contracting firm overseeing the project.
"The DRI projects are all going along at a normal pace, we just need to figure out who will administer (some) of the grants to ensure we have oversight and all criteria of the grants are being met," Leszyk said.