New parking signs!
We think City Manager Tom Aspell may be trying to kill us – with excitement. Last week, as avid readers will remember, Tom provided us with three magnificent pages of his weekly memo. Our giddiness could only be contained by a paper bag, which we breathed into for well over an hour to calm down. This week, we opened our inbox to find four pages ready to devour. After fainting from sheer joy, here’s what we learned:
The first batch of snazzy new parking kiosk signs arrived in the downtown last week, nearly completing the arduous journey of bringing Concord into the world of 21st-century parking. The signs are up, but don’t shove your credit cards into the kiosks just yet:
“We will begin to install the signs on street, although they will be covered so as to not confuse customers before we begin to utilize the kiosks,” Tom writes. “Ultimately, when the meters are removed, there will be less visual ‘clutter’ than there is now. We will be meeting with the sign vendor later this week and hope to get a solid timeframe for installation of the garage sign package.”
New life for the ol’ tannery site
In Penacook news, a public informational meeting on the city’s proposed cleanup plan for old tannery site will be held Thursday at 6:30 p.m. in the city council chambers. The city’s environmental engineer and a representative from the state Department of Environmental Services will be on hand to answer questions, Tom tells us.
“Cleanup activities are tentatively scheduled to begin in mid-September and should be completed in early October. The city is undertaking cleanup activities in order to prepare the property for a new medical office building to be occupied by Concord Hospital’s Penacook Family Physicians practice,” he writes.
Slam dunk
If you’ve walked through White Park in the last week, you may have noticed something new: The paths are now paved. Tom tells us that the city made upgrades there and to the basketball court at Kimball Park. According to our illustrious city manager, over 600 feet of old stone dust paths in White Park were paved last week. Staff will now clean up the edges with loam and seed the areas. And, at Kimball, over an inch of new pavement was laid on the court. It’ll take about two weeks for the pavement to cure, then it will be colored and painted. We’ll practice our free throws in the meantime so we can challenge Tom to a serious game of horse.