Schoharie Mural Pushed Off Again

By Joshua Walther

SCHOHARIE - Another month passes by, and that means another round of complications for the Schoharie Town Board in regards to the proposed mural for the side of the town office building.

The suggestion was first brought forth last year by Darlene Patterson of the Schoharie Promotional Association, who said that she was in contact with a local artist that could paint a mural to promote tourism and welcome people into the Town.

However, as time has gone by, the Board has run into numerous problems, including a crumbling facade that won’t hold paint, issues with their scope of work for repairs, and more.

Last month, they hired Lamont Engineers to design their scope of work to stabilize the wall for the mural, and now that thirty days of advertising the project has gone by, members are staggered by the bid amounts they’ve received.

The lowest bid came out to be $58,900 to repair the one wall, and Supervisor Ben Oevering explained that the price came on a sliding scale. If the project demanded less, they would pay less, and vice versa.

Yet even with that reassurance, that was a price point the Town could not meet. “This is way higher than we first thought,” said member Clinton Manchester, a sentiment shared by the rest of the Board.

Breaking down their available finances, Supervisor Oevering said that they had $10,000 stashed away in a building reserve fund, and they had a small amount more that’s unallocated, but the Town is already over-budget on several items like highway for this year.

He noted that the Town had the ability to reject all bids and send them back out for another thirty days, which may garner different companies with different prices. However, the delay would set the project back until spring of next year.

Member Marion Jaqueway held her own concerns with delaying the bids. “If we do that, then the cost is going to be way higher than $60,000,” she said.

And yet, the decision was practically made for the Board. “We gotta wait because we just don’t have the money,” Mr. Manchester explained.

With everyone in reluctant agreement, the Board moved to allocate $60,000 to this project for the next budget cycle and pushed the bids off until the new year.