Main Street Director Holly McPherson Monday night unveiled two big physical changes to downtown Wayland to the City Council.
McPherson, who’s been earning a lot of praise for her enthusiastic work since coming on board last year, announced that the location for the Farmers Market will return to the City Park this year and the 15-year-old Christmas tree at the mini-park next to McDuff’s will have to come down and be replaced.
The Farmers Market used to be conducted Tuesdays and Saturdays at the City Park, but the site was moved to a location immediately south of the Henika Library on South Main Street. The thinking then was that the downtown needed more traffic and potential consumers.
However, the market sometimes is in conflict with library activities and there are some problems with parking, especially with senior citizens.
McPherson told the council that the City Park, which will welcome the Farmers Market on the northwest corner, offers the advantages of the immensely popular splash pad and it has two restrooms that eliminate the need for a portable toilet on site.
The Main Street director also promised that a market manager will be hired part time with pay and customers can use EBT cards to earn discounted and even free food through the SNAP program.
McPherson indicated the Christmas tree at the mini-park has grown too tall and has attracted too many bird droppings, making the annual lighting ceremony less desirable. It also has been determined that putting up lights on the huge pine is beyond possible any longer.
Therefore, an arborist will oversee installation of a new tree after the old one is cut down. The move will occur after gaining final approval from the special Tree Board, so action won’t be taken on the proposal until next month.
Also sought is approval to have the tree periodically replaced before it gets too big and unwieldy.
In other business at Monday night’s meeting, the council:
- Received another glowing report on city finances from auditor Dan Veldhuis of Siegfried Crandall. He praised city officials for having an almost 25% fine balance. However, Councilman Rick Mathis cautioned, “This doesn’t take into account the capital improvement fund, which has been underfunded.”
- Told the auditor the budget reported $444,000 in American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), but it has been spent already on a new fire truck.
- Authorized City Manager Josh Eggleston to dispose of all surplus items worth less than $200. Eggleston acknowledged that some of the items are “dumpster worthy.”
- Went into closed session to evaluable the job performance of Eggleston and discuss negotiation strategy with employee groups.
Seriously, they’re going to remove this tree and setup a plan for removal of future trees when they reach a certain height? Let me guess, this is going to cost about five or six thousand dollars to do so? Another waste of tax payers dollars. Why don’t they just replace it with a artificial tree one that already has lights on it and set it up every year?
If they acted now, Balsam Hill has got a 12-foot on sale for half off, then at the end of the season they can take it down and spray any bird doodoo off if put in storage and start all over again next season.
But then again, that would make too much sense.
Parking was a pain a lot of times. I did not stop, no place to park. This will be a lot better. When they get their left turn lane there will even less parking.