The Panama Village Board recently discussed items that needed improvement in the village, including Wesleyan Street, sidewalks and new banners. P-J photo by Sara Holthouse

PANAMA — Future projects for the village of Panama include redoing Wesleyan Street, fixing more sidewalks, and replacing banners for flag poles.

The village board is currently working with Highway Superintendent Brian Manwaring to fix up Wesleyan Street. Current options for the street that the board needs to consider is the cost for blacktopping, milling or novachipping. The last figures that the board had from the last meeting are $40,000 for the blacktop, $5,000 a day for the machine to mill the road. Novachipping without dealing with the milling machine is $43,350, as Manwaring would have the ability to borrow the machine from a neighboring municipality.

“So basically we’re looking at the difference between blacktop and novachip,” Mayor William Schneider said.

Village Trustee Todd Eddy, who has been working on the figures with Manwaring, said he is most interested in what will last the longest and do the best job. Overall the cost for Wesleyan Street for the village would be somewhere around $45,000, depending on the method chosen and any other additional needs. The board has around $92,000 to be able to work with to allow for the Wesleyan Street project and some sidewalks. Some money may also have to go into drainage in the future.

For the village sidewalk issues, the board discussed using the same company that they used previously again this year because they liked the work that they did. The board will be reaching out to the company for an estimate to see what it would cost for about 20 feet of sidewalk.

When it comes to the banners on flagpoles in the village, the board will be having Manwaring switch them out in the spring. Discussion was held as to whether the village would just use the banners they already have or order some new ones.

Cloth canvas banners versus more plastic type banners seem to last longer, so the discussion centered on how many banners the board would order and what type. The village currently has five banners for each direction out of the village. The question was also raised about designs of new ones.

“Do we need to simplify the program and just get a couple of designs?” Schneider said.

The board agreed that fewer designs and a uniformed look would look best, as that is also something that they have tried to do before. Village Trustee Kim Davis said she would also reach out to Chautauqua Signs to see if they would be willing to work with them, as opposed to the magazine the village has ordered from before, with a focus on the uniformed look.

“I like the uniformed look,” Davis said. “We did too much. We had a Panama Rocks logo, we had the nature festival … It was too many. It didn’t look like a uniformed look.”

Past Christmas banners have also existed in a variety of types and colors, but Schneider said they have managed to get it down to two types.

“I think we were hodge podging what we had and making what looked the best work, and it looked like a hodge podge,” Davis said.

There is also the possibility of the board ordering new winter banners this year and summer banners next year as the summer ones should last for the year.