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By Linda Lemmon
Town Crier Editor
PUTNAM --- Some tweaking is on the horizon for the downtown area.
Highway Superintendent Travis Sirrine said the newly redone downtown roads and municipal parking lot will get some finishing touches. A couple months ago the town reorganized the municipal lot between the Post Office and the Congregational Church of Putnam, gaining three or four more parking spaces and it was paved and lined. In addition, the streets in downtown area, including Main, Lee, Bundy and Canal were ground down and repaved with improvements made to drainage.
Since Putnam has a fresh budget, Sirrine said the town can now move forward with some tweaking. He, Police Chief Christopher Ferace and Mayor Barney Seney have had preliminary walks considering changes in parking.
The trio are reevaluating the parking time limits in the municipal parking lot. Sirrine said that Chief Ferace is the town's Traffic Control Authority. Any changes must meet state and federal requirements.
Sirrine said that parts of the lot may not necessarily be time constrained. "It may be adjusted in certain places," he said. The trio will be taking another walk to determine what would be best.
Sirrine said that the town would be restriping the hill near Putnam Bank, on both sides, to add spaces that way. Signs would be changed. The town would be adding lines to Canal Street.
Sirrine said signs will be replaced. Many signs and poles are defaced with graffiti and stickers and some are redundant. He said that the area in front of the Courthouse Bar and Grille would get some striping on the outside curb and the multiple "no parking" signs there would be replaced with one sign that says "no parking here to corner." It will be more aesthetically pleasing," he said.
Once decisions on new signs are made it will take only a couple weeks for the signs to come in.
The next road project, before the end of the month, will be Park Road between Danco and just past the Black Dog Bar and Grille. It will involve repaving and replacement of a guard rail. The project was delayed somewhat by all the rain lately. "It's a heavily traveled road. It needs it," Sirrine said.
He added that the town is looking at Smith Street and a couple roads in the north end of town. He said drainage work on Aspinock Road is continuing.
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