Village of Lewiston, Beautification Committee debate next phase of volunteer group

By Joshua Maloni

GM/Managing Editor

The Beautification Committee has become a double-edged sword for the Village of Lewiston Board of Trustees.

On one side, the all-volunteer group has enhanced the municipality’s business districts by tending to and upgrading plants, gardens, fencing and seating. But on the other side, the nearly two-dozen-member unit spends funds without public input or official title, causing auditing concerns.

Mayor Dan Cota recently proposed the committee become an official board, with members appointed in a manner similar to what’s done with the Historical Preservation and Planning commissions and Zoning Board of Appeals. That would resolve the financial query, while allowing the group to continue its work on behalf of Lewiston.

That idea was met with pushback Monday, during the Village Board’s regular monthly meeting, as Beautification Committee members expressed concern over who would be selected to lead the group moving forward.

“We wanted to give some positive thoughts to the village on ways we think that could maybe work slightly differently than what is maybe being presented,” Tasia Fitzpatrick said.

Susan Hofert shared, “We don’t have formal meetings, but we do meet; we plan; we put a lot of time and effort into the village – as I know most of you know – how beautiful it looks, and how we get so many great responses – from the merchants, whose businesses we enhance, and it increases their business; to the residents who walk their dogs.”

She said, “Most of what you have proposed, we feel that we pretty much do that now, and we're on board with,” except for membership. “We're kind of proposing that we don't have a five-member committee that's appointed by you, mayor. We'd love to see that eliminated. It's sort of like a middleman to our group. I'm sure you have an explanation for it, but we know that you appointed two great liaisons. We have (Deputy Mayor) Tina (Coppins) and (Trustee) Leandra (Collesano), who we're happy to work with. We'd love for them to come to our meetings and our group, and report back to the board with any projects that we're thinking of before we do it, that you would approve.”

Hofert added, “Having the five people appointed eliminates what we do right now. What we do right now is we get together as a group – whoever wants to be part of our team – and we talk about projects that we might want to do, plantings; we've redone entire gardens. We maintain 54 gardens in the village. We plant all the pots. We spend a lot of time seeing what works, what doesn't; we go through each year and we talk about colors and what would enhance this business' front, and we spend a great deal of time doing that – and we do it as a group of 20-plus people; and we vote on it, and majority rules. That's, to us, a very democratic system. It has worked beautifully, and we would love to continue that.

“Having five people appointed takes that privilege away from us, and honestly, that's part of our joy: is talking about it and deciding. …

“We don't want to lose that aspect and be rather dictated to or mandated by a group of five people. Maybe some of us would be appointed by you, but maybe we wouldn't. We don't know.”

Having a formal board “means coming to a meeting. It means there's something in there about keeping minutes, appointing a secretary, a chairperson,” Hofert said. “To be honest – I don't know about everyone here – but a lot of us are not interested in doing that. We've done that. We're retired. We've served on boards.”

The current committee asked to have a slush fund of $500 or less to use in emergency situations and when unexpected sales arise.

Cota said, “Based upon the fact that the way the budgeting currently works, and the checks being written to the Village of Lewiston, there are public meeting laws that are required to be adhered to. In the absence of a board being there to answer those public meeting (requirements) from Beautification, every decision – as far as pots, plants, anything like that – would have to come to the liaisons and to the full board. That's why we're trying to create this board, is that Beautification does have the ability to make those decisions, and still maintain the public meeting’s laws basis, because the money is coming to us.”

Treasurer Stephanie Longwell said the issue is “because you are not a village commission. You are requesting donations on behalf of the Village of Lewiston, but you are determining where those donations are being used. So, say money comes in for a pot for a specific restaurant, but you've used it somewhere else, that makes the village liable that you are spending money you should not be spending.”

Cota said the problem “is we can't create a budget for you if you're not (an official) committee.”

Longwell said that, if the Beautification Committee became a sanctioned board, it could appoint a purchaser to allocate funds, within a certain threshold, without specific Village Board approval.

Following almost an hour of back-and-forth dialogue between the Village Board and the Beautification Committee, a decision was made to take just under 30 days to review what other communities do and see if better options exist.

A public hearing was scheduled for 6 p.m. Monday, Oct. 19, to discuss the adoption of 2026 local laws No. 1 (to establish the Lewiston Beautification Committee) and No. 2 (Beautification Committee bylaws).

Cota said that, while the Village Board doesn’t intend to weigh in on every detail – red or purple flowers, for example – “as far as organization goes, there needs to be a layer that is responsible to the residents, and to the board. There has to be that layer. Now, whether we call that a committee or a board, I'm open to figuring out what's the best form that that takes, so long as it still meets the meeting laws, and still meets our auditor's requirements.”