(Photo provided by Cortland County).
Cortland County legislators at Tuesday’s Buildings and Grounds committee meeting voted to recommend the whole legislature approve an elevator replacement at Dwyer Memorial Park.
The legislature will vote on the recommendation later this month, seeking to address infrastructure that county buildings and grounds director Chuck Miller said is “troublesome at best.”
Replacing the elevator is estimated to cost between $70,000 to 75,000.
“It is a unit where the parts are no longer available,” Miller said. “We searched for weeks just to try and find the control board and never found one. It only acted a couple times, thank god, through the theater season. But it certainly needs to be replaced.”
Legislators unanimously approved to spend up to $100,000 stashed in a reserve account to fully replace the elevator, which Miller said has been at the park for 20+ years. If the county moves quickly, Miller said, the elevator could be installed by the start of next March.
The Cortland Repertory Theatre leases the space for seasonal productions, which prompted legislators to wonder if the theater company could pitch in to help with costs.
Legislator Paul Heider (R-LD-16) said the company is already financially limited every year.
“We can check with CRT if they get any grants that could be used for it,” he said. “But I know that when they start their season they are already $250,000 in the hole. Everything they make, they have a bank that loans them and then they pay it back right away.”
County legislature chair Kevin Fitch (R-LD-8) said the county could also look into fixing the bathrooms at CRT.
“One of the multiple comments that we do receive from the patrons of that area is that it's a great venue, they love it, but the bathrooms are terrible,” Fitch said. “I'm just putting it out to the committee that I think that this is something that we should be looking at and trying to improve.”
The county legislative session this month is scheduled for 6 p.m. Sept. 28.
