COLCHESTER – Four committees of the Colchester City Council met this past Tuesday to discuss portions of the Labor Day Festival attractions, pedestrian sidewalk and walkways at the railroad crossings, informational signage for the city hall building façade and fruition of a long-standing plan to publish city ordinances online.
The Labor Day extravaganza kicks off this year August 28 through August 31. Festivities for the annual Labor Day weekend are still in the planning stage, including the potential return of outdoor inflatables, a petting zoo, fireworks for the weekend, and carnival amusement rides provided by Alabama-based C&M Southern Midways.
City Official Catherine Louderman, who chairs the Labor Day committee, fielded questions around which carnival rides and amusements are going to be making an appearance this year, and then other amusements, like the outdoor inflatables and the petting zoo, can they be allocated to an appropriate amount of operating space on hard surfaces to support the weight of the rides, and also provide easier access for motor vehicle as well as pedestrian traffic on city roads and sidewalks.
Responding to requests from area residents and citizens to expand the amount of time the festivities might be available and the positive reception towards the rides available last year, city officials seemed to agree for a Saturday-Sunday focus. There will be no water slides this year.
There will also be a call for volunteers, like last year when some of the local churches worked towards providing volunteers for staffing of the various rides and amusements. The search for volunteers might begin as early as mid-June, city officials said.
Ticket pricing has yet to be determined, and the schedule for advanced tickets will be available through the clerk’s office located at the City Hall.
The City Tax Increment Financing district (TIF) committee met to discuss possible repairs to the crumbling brick pedestrian walkway located at the railroad crossing from Depot St. to Market St. at the Elizabeth St. intersection, that was built sometime in the early last century. Due to its age and the effects of nature and human foot traffic, the walkway needs to be repaired.
During the discussion, city officials reported that there has been some communications between the city, area residents and the railroad, and that the railroad would be willing to fully replace the rubber surface covering the railroad crossing as to improve pedestrian traffic and safety, so long as city workers are willing to do the work, the railroad would provide support personnel.
New concrete surfaces would need to be poured, and the rubber surface would then provide a smooth connecting surface with the concrete, and projections for the amount of time needed to complete the work is estimated to be two to three days.
The Building and Grounds Committee met to discuss possible new signing or lettering for the City Hall building itself to improve communicating messages and information effectively to visitors.
City Officials discussed contracting La Grange Sign and Lighting to install lettering to the east side of the City Hall building where there is a solid wall. The sign would be roughly 14’ long and 14” tall for the word “Colchester” and then the second line, “City Hall,” would be slightly shorter.
A packet was distributed to city officials by Alderman Louderman, and the packet contained a variety of font types, colors, and finishing types for the letters. Recommendations were made to use the same color for the letters to aesthetically match the color brown trim of the building, using brushed aluminum for the letters.
A $250 down payment would be required with no refunds, and the city budgeted $3,000 for building maintenance this coming year.
The Ordinance Book for the City of Colchester may soon be published online. This has been a long-standing effort by Alderman Kim Linkeman, and recently elected Mayor Mark Clark, to begin modernizing communications and improvising the city’s transparency with the area residents by making the city ordinance book available to the public.
For many years now, the city ordinance book has been kept in a three ring binders which often sits on a desk inside someone’s office, and the need for accessibility to the city ordinance information has become so important, the Colchester Police Department officers reported that they upload portions of the ordinance book onto their own devices, and can then use a search function to look up information.
The Building and Grounds committee is going to recommend to the full city council that the entire ordinance book should be re-examined chapter-by-chapter with an emphasis on liquor and gaming ordinances to familiarize city officials with the contents of the book, organize it, and then upload the book to an online storage site where it would be made available through a website.
The next meeting of the Colchester Committee of the Whole is on the fourth or last Monday of each month at 6 pm in City Hall. No vote has been taken; further discussion and careful examination will be held before recommendations are made prior to the next meeting of the City Council on the first Monday of each new month at 6 pm in the same location.
