Fulton Community Votes On DRI Projects

by Kassadee Bradshaw | January 10, 2020 12:36 pm

FULTON – Members of the Fulton community met last night, Thursday, Jan. 9, in the community room of the municipal building to vote on their favorite potential projects for the Downtown Revitalization Initiative.

For its second public input session, the Local Planning Committee placed information boards around the walls of the room about the progress of the DRI and the submitted projects they will be considering. 

Each attendee received 10 tokens upon signing in. They then placed the tokens in slots in the project boards they favored and would have the most positive impact on the city’s downtown area. The dropboxes for the tokens were not visible to the voters.

Third Ward Councilor and LPC Co-Chair Don Patrick Jr. said the community’s input is valuable to the LPC as they make their decisions on which projects to recommend to the state to receive funding from the $10 million award.

“It’s really an exciting time for Fulton,” Mayor Deana Michaels said. “I look forward to what happens next with these bingo chips as I call them.”

Sarah Oral part of the Cameron Engineering consultant team hired by the state, gave the audience a brief presentation to summarize the progress and decisions that have been made by the LPC so far. 

Oral said the LPC’s goals for the DRI are to create a desirable downtown, attract new businesses, enhance public spaces, attract a diverse population, grow local properties’ tax base, and provide amenities that support and enhance the downtown quality of life. 

She gave an overview of the proposed projects. There are currently 23 private projects, four non-profit projects and 10 municipal projects. 

“We want to get a good feel for what projects the public supports,” Oral said. 

Following the presentation, attendees went around the room to drop their tokens in the slots of their choice. 

These votes are to help the LPC members see what the community would like, but are not guaranteed to be the projects that get chosen. The results of the votes have not been released.

Community members may also provide input on the online comment form[1].

To see what the LPC discussed at their last meeting, click here[2].

The next LPC meeting will be held Thursday, Jan. 23 from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. in the community room of the Fulton municipal building. The next public input session will be March 5 from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m., also in the community room.

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Source URL: https://oswegocountytoday.com/news/fulton/fulton-community-votes-on-dri-projects/

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