COBLESKILL - On Tuesday afternoon, the Cobleskill Village Board listened to remarks from Anna Marie Collins, who has been working on securing a grant to spruce up Veteran’s Park. 

Standing before the Board, she was excited to tell the members that she’s finally been successful in writing for the Lee Hodge Grant.

Administered by Cobleskill Partnership, Inc., the Lee Hodge Grant is an annual prize pool of $5,000 that eligible projects are able to take a portion of and use to strengthen the community within the Village and Town.

Mrs. Collins shared that she plans to install about fifteen giant perennials along the waterway in Veteran’s Park, adding a splash of color to the already well-used space.

She further noted that she’s reached out to SUNY Cobleskill, and the college plans to send out a volunteer team of horticulturalists to determine the best spots and to help plant the flowers.

There are also future plans to add more flowers to diversify the color palette, but that will only be considered after this first trial run to see how well the perennials take to the soil.

In an adjacent topic, Mrs. Collins stated that she and the December to Remember Committee with CPI would like to hang lights about the park to better illuminate the space.

She said that there’s already an interested investor willing to purchase and help hang the lights, but she’d only go through with it pending Village approval.

Once her brief presentation concluded, the Board was more than willing to back her, with Mayor R.J. Freitag saying “I think you’ve done a wonderful job, it’s great. Thank you for caring about your village.”

In other news, the Board accepted the resignation of long-time trustee Lance Rotolo, with Mayor Freitag stating that he had stepped away from his office due to health reasons.

While the table held an empty seat that night, Mayor Freitag used the opportunity to read from Village law about temporary appointments falling to his approval and not the Board’s, and went on to say that he plans to fill the seat soon.

Finally, the Board received correspondence from the Cobble Springs housing development project about supporting them with their grant application process.

Member Howard Burt explained that supporting them does not place the Village on the hook for any kind of spending or other transaction, and so they saw no reason to deny the request, approving the motion soon after.