GREAT VALLEY — Plans for a multi-use basketball court at the Great Valley Town Hall are one step closer to a reality thanks to support from a local family.
At the Monday meeting of the Great Valley Town Board, the local Eddy family was recognized for their recent donation of $25,000 to the town for a 2020 project to build a multi-use court at the end of the town’s highway barn.
Marlene Eddy, her son Lynn Eddy and her daughter Marilyn Eddy Siperek were in attendance to present a ceremonial check to the town board.
“I make a motion that we hold this meeting in their honor for what they’re doing with our town with this donation,” said Town Supervisor Dan Brown in the meeting.
The town board also passed a resolution securing the donated funds only for use in building the court.
“If something happens to one of us or me or whoever, I don’t want anybody using that money for anything but that purpose,” Brown said.
In the coming months, the town plan to form a committee to help plan for the project this spring.
“As we go through this process of doing this, I asked Lynn and anyone else who wants to be a part of it just to offer different ideas,” Brown said. “We talked about how to make it more multi-use, different court options, we talked about blacktop, the grid, all those ideas.”
The town hopes to begin construction by putting a ditch in for a conduit, which would be the first step. Brown said they want the plan in place by April 1, 2020, so weather permitting they can start as soon as possible
“With this donation, and what we as a town board put in, $7,000, we should certainly be able to cover it,” he added.
IN OTHER BUSINESS, the town board approved its budget for 2020, noting the town tax rate will return to normalcy after a two-year transition.
“This completes the cycle of collecting the sale tax directly from the county,” Brown said.
The town’s tax rate for 2020 will be $2.22 per $1,000 of assessed value, which Brown said is less than half of what the tax rate was prior to taking the sales tax back.
“We all know we had the screw-up with the county and the accountants and everything,” he said. “That’s why in 2019 you see no town tax, but starting in 2020 that will come back online and we’ll be at $2.22 per thousand.”
In preparation for the holidays, the town recently had help from Charles Westfall, who trimmed the pine trees and put up the Christmas lights at the memorial park at the corner of County Road 18 and Route 98.
“(Westfall) trimmed them all up and hung the lights and that’s ready to go,” Brown said. “He didn’t take any money. He wouldn’t charge anything for that.”
Brown said the town is planning a tree-lighting ceremony on the Friday after Thanksgiving. He said the board is open to ideas for the event and to contact the town hall to share them.
In addition to the Christmas lights on the big trees, Brown requested the board approve purchasing new white lights to hang in the small trees on the side “to boarder it in and back to the big ones,” which the board authorized.
(Contact managing editor Kellen Quigley at kquigleysp@gmail.com)
