Fleischmanns

By Jay Braman Jr.
Members of the Fleischmanns Village Board of Trustees appointed Wagner Avenue resident Kathleen Rostad to the board last week.

The appointment was made to fill the vacancy created in April when Trustee Todd Pascarella was appointed mayor following the resignation of Mayor Dave Morell, who resigned last winter.
In a telephone interview on Tuesday, Rostad said she was thrilled with the opportunity to be involved in local government.

By Jay Braman Jr.
The Fleischmanns Village Board passed a resolution Monday giving itself the authority to borrow up to $1.5 million to pay for repairs to the village park, which was destroyed last year by flooding.
But that doesn’t mean work on the park will begin anytime soon.
After the village board meeting, Mayor Todd Pascarella said that bonding was a necessary step towards getting the park repaired.

“It gets the necessary funds in place to go out to bid,” he said.

Fleischmanns — Congregation Bnai Israel will host a public performance of Jewish folk music by the klezmer band, Big Galut(e) on Sunday, July 1 at 3 p.m.

The ensemble is comprised of five nationally recognized professional musicians who specialize in a variety of Jewish musical styles including Yiddish, Sephardic and Middle Eastern/Levantine.

By Jay Braman Jr.
A lot can happen in a year.
Or not.

Sometimes fate can step in and even set things in backwards motion. Such is the case with the Fleischmanns Village Park.

Things were very different just one year ago at the village’s crown jewel, located along Wagner Avenue. Enthusiasm was high among residents as a trio of vintage baseball teams attempted to play the longest continuous baseball marathon ever played and collected pledges for every hour played.

Fleischmanns — This Memorial Day Weekend, Saturday May 26, Fleischmanns will once again host a village-wide celebration and street fair, with a full day of shopping, music, food and fun. Fleischmanns’ Main Street will be filled with sidewalk vendors and live music.
Grownups and kids alike can enjoy old-fashioned horse carriage rides, and children can also get a haircut and enjoy expert face painting.

By Jennifer Kabat
Mark Birman stands in a storefront across from the post office and grocery on Main Street in Fleischmanns. The walls have been stripped to the studs and insulation, and exposed I-beams cross the ceiling overhead. The floor is raw wood, and the room itself is raw, chilly this late April afternoon. Birman waves broadly, painting a picture of what he envisions for the space: a restaurant, a bakery café, a gallery, a destination.

Unique situation

Staff report
Fleischmanns will soon have a new village green, a place where people can meet, with food and phones, and a community bulletin board. 

This new public square will provide shelter and welcome to visitors, and parking for 70 cars. 
Funding for the renovation of the centrally located village parking lot into a new landscaped village square is to be provided by MARK’s Main Street Renewal Program.

By Jay Braman Jr.
After two months of being without a chief executive officer, Fleischmanns has a mayor again but its village board is now short one trustee.

In a reversal of their position last Thursday, village trustees Harriet Grossman and Fred Woller agreed to appoint Deputy Mayor Todd Pascarella to the top spot. The two trustees had previously blocked the appointment, insisting that the village could function just fine without a mayor until next year’s election.

Looking ahead

By Brian Sweeney
Portions of the Fleischmanns community are getting a facelift thanks to an ongoing funding assistance program.

To date, 11 buildings are scheduled or have received some level of rehabilitation as part of the New York Main Street Program, which was begun in 2010.

The program is being administered through the MARK Project, an Arkville-based community economic development and technical assistance organization.

By Pauline Liu
The 153 ballots cast in last Tuesday’s Fleischmanns village election for two trustee positions were recounted on Thursday at the request of one of the challengers. 

When it was all over, four ballots, which had been filled out incorrectly, were thrown out and the recount didn’t change the outcome of the four-way race.  The incumbents, Harriet Grossman and Fred Woller, were re-elected. They will begin their new two-year terms on April 1.  The final tally was; 48 votes for Grossman, 41 for Woller, 33 for Larry Reilly, and 25 for Martin Morales.