FARMINGTON — Selectmen Tuesday night, May 24, unanimously accepted several donations on behalf of the Parks and Recreation Department and authorized transferring funds among that department’s reserve accounts.
Director Matthew Foster said $500 had been donated by Franklin County Babe Ruth and $300 from the Mt. Blue High School baseball team to help offset infield mix for the Major League Baseball field at Hippach Field.
“The infield mix has already been delivered and paid for by our [department], but I would request that the board accept the donation of $800 and have it put into the Parks and Recreation account “50-7400″,” Foster wrote in an email to Town Manager Christian Waller and the board.
“Twenty yards were put on, we need at least another 20 yards,” Foster said in the meeting. The mix was applied before the season opened, he added.
Sharon Cullinberg donated $100 for plants in the weight room, Foster said. The room in the back of the Community Center which has been having work done on it for six years has free weights, treadmills and other equipment, he noted.
“It’s kind of finally ready to go,” Foster said. “It’s not a very attractive spot because there aren’t any plants. We were kind of discussing it one day and she pulled out a one hundred dollar bill, said ‘I’d like to donate some money to get some plants in here, make it more interesting.’ We thanked her, said we would bring it before the board.”
The department also received a $250 donation from Mickey Amlotte at Sports Projects Inc. Foster said he would like it to go towards purchasing a new dome for the dome hockey table downstairs at the Community Center.
“[Amlotte]’s been doing a $500-ish donation to the Parks and Recreation Department for well before I’ve been at the department,” Foster said. He does games of chance at the fair, things like that as one of his ways to give back, finds a local youth-serving organization like the department, he noted.
Amlotte provided a list a couple of years ago showing his donations to the department, Foster said. “I don’t know the amount off the top of my head, but over the last 15-20 years it ended up being quite a bit of money,” he added. “A lot of things we’ve started – lacrosse, field hockey programs. This is the kind of money we can start a program with that we don’t usually have in our budget.”
Foster requested $139.14 from the “Bowen Ice Skate Propane” reserve account be moved to the “Hippach Field” reserve account that currently had $13,911.91 in it.
“We typically have all these little reserve accounts with not a lot of money in them,” he noted. Dead River has donated the propane for the rink, so the account hasn’t been needed, Foster said. It is time to start consolidating all these reserve accounts, put them into the Hippach Field account to be able to use the money, he added.
Foster also requested $5,888.72 from the “Walton Dam” reserve account be moved to the “Walton Mill Park” reserve account that has a $2,809.20 balance.
“We are not going to have a dam after this year,” he said. Moving the money to the park account would ensure that money is set aside for the future care of the park, he noted.
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