Festival back downtown?

DUNKIRK — The Glass Days Festival will be moving back downtown as soon as possible.
Members of the Dunkirk City Council approved a motion by Chuck Rife to bring the festival back downtown this year, contingent on having enough time to secure the necessary state permits to close Ind. 167 (Main Street) for the June 1-4 event, as well as being able to get the necessary electrical wiring in place downtown once again at a reasonable cost.
If those conditions cannot be met in time for this year’s festival, plans call for holding it once again in the city park this spring and downtown next year, clerk-treasurer Jane Kesler reported.
Prior to the vote, council members conducted an hour-long public hearing on the topic with representatives from the volunteer Glass Days Committee present.
Councilman Eric Bowler said he strongly favored bringing the festival back downtown, noting that he had conducted an informal survey among vendors at last year’s event in Dunkirk City Park, showing they favored returning the annual festival to the city’s downtown area.
Also council member Judy Garr noted that one of the findings of a recent revitalization study for downtown Dunkirk called for returning the festival to the downtown area in order to promote that section of the city.
In other business Monday night, council members:
•Listened to a report from West Jay Optimist Club representative  Sandy Doyle, pointing out that persons should only bring items for recycling on the Saturday mornings when volunteers are present at the recycling trailer.
She said that recently there have been problems with recyclable goods being left in the Family Dollar Store parking lot area on Friday evenings and other times when none of the Optimist club members were present to monitor them.
Doyle said the club makes between $9,000 and $12,000 a year from the recycling project to help with youth activities in the community, and she did not want to see the program discontinued due to a littering problem.
•Approved an ordinance amending the speed limit to 35 mph on Highland Avenue from Haskell Road to the eastern city limits near the new fire station and EMS headquarters.
•Approved the purchase of ten 50-foot-long sections of fire hose for $1,350 from Tower Equipment of Freeburg, Ill.
•Discussed the idea of planting about 100 trees along the newly paved portion of Main Street (Ind. 167) in the city. These will be the type of trees that will not grow to be very tall, Garr said.
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