Newbury Veterans Park Project Receives $25,000 Grant

March 27, 2014 by

Newbury Township Trustees’ proposed veterans park has received a boost from a $25,000 state grant arranged through state Sen. John Eklund’s office, Trustee Jan Blair said Thursday.

Although it wasn’t the $92,000 the trustees had hoped for, the grant will serve as “seed money” for the project, Trustee Glen Quigley said.

“It’s like Christmas to us,” he added. “With the state recognition, it becomes a little more legitimate.”

“We’re really happy about it, because it recognizes that honoring our veterans is very important to people,” Blair said.

She said Newbury was lucky to receive the grant, because many other applicants were turned down.

Since 2006, trustees have talked about constructing a veterans park on township land at the southwest corner of Kinsman and Auburn roads, in a partially cleared area often used by neighboring Newbury United Community Church. The 3.3 acre parcel eventually will house an historic war vehicle promised to Newbury American Legion Post 633.

Quigley explained that plans to restore an existing silo on the property, to symbolize what he deemed “swords into plowshares,” will not be feasible because a recent inspection showed the structure is not sound enough to renovate.

“It’s gotta come down, which will be additional cost,” he said.

Blair said the township will apply for Community Dev-elopment Block Grant funding for Americans with Disabilities Act accessibility to the park.

Quigley said he will meet next week with landscape designers, who will plan a memorial around the tank (or track vehicle) and make sure the park is designed for minimum maintenance.

“We’ll still need to cut the grass and maybe trim some flowers or bushes,” he said, adding the township will work with Geauga Soil and Water Conservation District to install rain gardens.

“We’re thinking outside the box,” said Quigley.

Quigley said he wasn’t sure where the rest of the money will come from, but it won’t be from the township’s tight general fund.

“We’ll raise the money in the community and I believe we can do it,” he said. “We’re doing everything we can to make this a reality and be self-sustaining, with donations and maybe some legacies from some of our veterans.”

Added Quigley, “We’ll find a way to make it work; it’s a project we’ve dreamed about since 2006.”

Blair said the park will give residents a focus for a defined downtown area.

“As of right now, our plan is to break ground on Memorial Day, with a formal dedication on Veterans’ Day this year,” Quigley said. “Are we crazy? Maybe. So we have a lot of work to do.”

In other business, trustees and fire officials signed the annual contract with the Newbury Volunteer Fire Department. Trustees agreed to pay the department $50,000 from the general fund and $230,000 from the fire levy.

Quigley said trustees reduced the general fund contribution by $20,000, which will be made up by billing residents’ insurance companies for ambulance runs, a program trustees approved in October.

Road Department Superintenent Doug Zimperman gave trustees his tentative paving schedule for the next five years:

Wake Robin and Hillview drives will be resurfaced this year at a cost of about $220,000.

Neil and Dora drives will be resurfaced in 2015 for about $250,000; sections of Pekin Road in 2016 for $250,000; and Munn, Portlew and Cross Creek in 2017 for $450,000, if funds are available.

Zimperman listed Elm, View, Shore, Beachwood and Zenith in the Kiwanis Lake community for 2018.

“It’s good that you’re planning ahead,” Quigley said.

Trustees are considering other ways to save general fund money, possibly charging more for cemetery plots or establishing areas of Munn and Center cemeteries that would have no above-ground stones, to cut maintenance costs, he said.

“It’s just something we’re looking at over time,” Quigley said.