Schoharie Chases Next Steps in DRI

By Joshua Walther

SCHOHARIE - On Tuesday evening, the Schoharie Village Board convened to explain what to do next in the DRI process.

After applying every year with the Town to one of New York State’s biggest grants, the Village was finally awarded the Downtown Revitalization Initiative to the tune of $10,000,000.

While it may be a hefty sum, the grant is reimbursable, meaning that the Village will only receive the funds upon completion of a project that seeks to improve quality of life, infrastructure, or economical growth of the community.

In order for those projects to proceed, Mayor Colleen Henry said that they first have to form a dedicated local committee, which would be made up of community members instead of elected or appointed officials.

She followed up by saying that fifteen names have already been recommended for the committee, and of those, nine will be selected as members.

After receiving training, the committee will start to hold monthly meetings to determine what projects should be worked on, as well as hold talks about engineering plans, costs, and more that’s associated with what they choose to do.

However, while the committee may hold these public meetings, the state will have the final say on which projects will ultimately be approved, as the DRI is a state grant.

In order to prepare for the incoming committee, Deputy Mayor Peter Johnson brought up the idea of funding the proposed pocket park in the old fire department lot with more state money.

He said that he’s seen “enormous community support” for that project, and for that reason, he was approached by a company named GPI to file for a new parks and recreation grant.

Citing their filing fee at $5,000, GPI told Deputy Mayor Johnson that the grant would “apparently not” conflict with the DRI reimbursement, potentially allowing them to fund up to $900,000 of the estimated $1,000,000 cost.

With the file deadline on May 2nd and the rest of the Board members not seeing any reason to disagree, a resolution was made to begin the process and see if they are eligible for the award.