ORANGE — Fresh off a special town meeting to apply for a library renovation grant, Orange residents are preparing for another vote to discuss $50,000 in grant money to rehabilitate the Butterfield Park playground.
Voters opted on Dec. 10 to allow Wheeler Memorial Library Director Jessica Magelaner to apply for Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners money and will on Dec. 28 be asked to appropriate the cost of playground improvement. The special town meeting is slated for 7 p.m. in the Town Hall auditorium.
The Baker-Polito administration last week announced $7.2 million in park and recreation funding for 24 Massachusetts communities. Orange Town Administrator Diana Schindler said the $50,000 earmarked for Orange will come in the form of a reimbursement grant, with a required 30 percent match. Kathy Reinig, chairwoman of the Orange Board of Selectmen, said the town must appropriate the project’s cost before the end of 2016 to avoid forfeiting the grant. The project will not happen if the article does not pass or if the meeting fails to reach a 75-person quorum.
In a letter to The Recorder, Reinig acknowledged a special town meeting during a holiday week might be inconvenient to residents, but said it is necessary.
She also said the town intends to appoint a three-person committee that would either have final authority over decisions regarding the playground renovations or would make recommendations to the Board of Selectmen. Appointments to this committee would be made in January if the article is passed on Dec. 28.
“So we’ll be able to get over $71,000 of value for a town expenditure of under $22,000,” she said on Monday. “We encourage everyone to come out and speak for or against the project and then vote, again either for or against. Speaking for myself, I’ll be voting in favor.”
Last week, Schindler said she is unsure how much playground work the grant will fund, as safe and durable playground equipment is expensive.
“I don’t know if we’ll be wholly taking out the equipment and replacing it; I don’t know. I assume it’ll be a combination of probably taking what we have and making sure it’s safe,” she said in her office at Orange Town Hall. “If it’s salvageable, we’ll try to salvage it and bring it up to par and make it safe. And then adding a few pieces, smaller pieces.”
Schindler said the town had hoped to use money from a previous $450,000 regional grant for playground rehabilitation, but those funds quickly dried up. She said drainage work and other underground infrastructure for the Michael LaRoche Memorial Baseball Field at Butterfield Park came with a substantial pricetag. Bathrooms and a walkway were also installed and other smaller improvements were made.
You can reach Domenic Poli at: dpoli@recorder.com or 413-772-0261, ext. 258.
On Twitter: @DomenicPoli