Building a sidewalk to a gas station is proving to be a good investment for the Town of Hamlet, despite some initial skepticism from local residents. That’s according to Town Council President Dave Kesvormas.
He discussed the recent Starke Street project during Wednesday’s council meeting. “I see people walking on it all the time,” he said. “There was the handful of the naysayers that said we should spend our money elsewhere and it’s a waste of money and nobody will use it. I see people on it all the time. I saw people walking when I drove in today and this morning when I left for the office.”
The town recently rebuilt Starke Street from Plymouth Street north to U.S. 30, with funding from the state’s Community Crossings program. But the project also included a new sidewalk, connecting the gas station and trailer park on the north end to the rest of the town to the south.
Kesvormas said it’s a major improvement when it comes to safety. “The only thing that I can say on that is that they’re not in the street. I don’t see ladies pushing baby strollers in the middle of the street and you can’t see them until you’re right up on them. That was my biggest fear, of either being on this town board or on that fire department, to go down there and have to go on an accident scene down there for whatever reason.”
During Wednesday’s meeting, Engineer Lee Nagai reported that all the Starke Street work is done. As it currently stands, the town would have to reimburse $2,800 in grant funds, since the work came in under budget. However, town officials plan to check and see if that money could be used to cover the costs of preliminary culvert work and engineering fees.
Kesvormas felt that the town has accomplished a lot in the past few years. “We’ve done a great job,” he said. “Everybody here has, in terms of being stewards of the town’s money and moving forward. We’ve done a lot, and it really shows. I mean, over the weekend, I stayed in the area Saturday, and driving around, there’s a tremendous amount of work that’s being done. There’s people that are doing a lot of stuff to their homes on top of what we do. Town Hall was lit up. It looks beautiful, compared to what it did eight years ago.”
His comments came during a discussion of a potential future Community Crossings project on Railroad Street.
