At a January meeting, Medford Town Council awarded a bid to a company to paint the town’s water town white.
This subject arose again earlier this month and has become a topic of discussion among the group.
The engineer of the company awarded the bid notified council there would be discretionary money left based on how much the project cost and how much the township funded.
He asked the township if it would be interested in having something painted on the water tower to identify that it is in Medford.
This project would cost up to $6,000 but it would be covered by funds the township has already allocated.
Township manager Kathy Berger approached council with three options — having the township logo painted on the tower, having “Medford” painted on it or both. She also said most of Medford’s neighboring towns have done similar projects.
“I don’t know, six grand? Maybe if it was a thousand bucks,” Councilman Frank Czekay said. “I’m just not a fan of spending money on stuff like that, I know where I live.”
Czekay compared it to having your name tattooed on yourself.
However, Councilman Bradley Denn disagreed, arguing it would be beneficial to the Medford Business Association and good advertising for Main Street.
“I don’t see it as a negative,” Denn said.
Denn felt that since it would be getting painted anyway, this would be a prime time to do this seeing it would likely not be done at any other time down the road.
Czekay agreed with this take but didn’t feel it would be worth $6,000.
Mayor Jeffrey Beenstock said this would not be a frequent project it would have constantly shell out money for. After the initial painting it would not likely need to be redone for another 15 years or so.
Councilman Christopher Buoni led the charge on bargaining with the engineer by suggesting the idea of talking him down with the proposal of a smaller painting on the tower instead of the name accompanied by the logo.
Berger entertained the idea and stated she would report back with an exact price.
