The village of Panama is at a standstill for multiple projects that they have been working on, specifically the state champions sign and the sidewalks. P-J photo by Sara Holthouse

PANAMA — State championship banners are still a priority for the Panama Village Board – but how the village wants to proceed with the project is still up in the air.

Previous discussion began after village residents approached the board, and the original idea was to put the sign underneath each village welcome sign, but last month it was discussed only having one sign in front of the school, with the possibility of having the school help out with some of it.

Mayor William Schneider, who called in to the latest board meeting, said discussion on the sign will be tabled until October.

“I’m trying to rethink that, and I’ll get that sent out to everybody to do a rethink on that,” Schneider said. “We’ll take a look at that again in October after we’ve had some fresh ideas. The school doesn’t want anything to do with it, bottom line, so we’re not going to worry about that or talk about it again until October.”

Village Trustee Kim Davis said she did not think it was necessarily a matter of the school not wanting anything to do with it, but more deciding if it was a village project or not.

“We need to figure out, if it’s our project then it’s our project and I don’t think we’ve collectively decided, so let’s decide collectively, with the school if need be, but we also don’t need to involve the school until it’s time to make that decision,” Davis said. “If that’s what we land on, because it might not involve that, it might be our own sign.”

Schneider said he would throw some things out to the board over the next month and have a formal discussion at the next meeting.

New banners to hang on streetlights in the village are currently being worked on, which was another project that has been discussed in the last few months by the village. The village also discussed the plan to order shelves to store the banners and where that will go, to help with storage that is meant to help the banners last a little bit longer.

One other project that has been in the works in the village is the sidewalks, which at the last meeting were discussed as the village was going to ask DirtWorx to return to fix some of the shoulders. Nothing has been done with the sidewalks since then, and Schneider said he had heard nothing from them and would be reaching out again.

The paving and other undergoing road work on Wesleyan Street has been completed as far as the village knew, and they also briefly discussed the Christmas in Panama event which is set for Nov 23. A Facebook post will be put out on the village’s Facebook page, which will also begin reminding people about the annual Christmas light contest, and a notice will be hung in the post office.