Donated Chair Honors Memory of Stottler’s Mother

Stottler with the chair honoring her mother. Photo by Stephanie Tolan

The memory of Sarah Frances Wheeler Waters was recently honored when a new chair was donated in her name to Mendon Public Library. Waters passed away a little over a year ago, and a collection was taken up to support the chair’s purchase. Waters’ daughter, Shari Stottler, was on hand for the presentation.

“My mom was a huge book sale lady,” Stottler said. “She would really appreciate this. I really appreciate this.”

A longtime library supporter, Stottler served as the president of the library board of trustees and a member of the Mendon Town Board. Together with her husband, Gary, Stottler is a benefactor-level donor to the Heart of our Town capital campaign. In addition, she is an honorary lifetime member of The Friends of the Mendon Public Library.

Donated Table Honors Memory of Paul S. Tichenor

Mary Tichenor at the table she donated to the library in honor of her late husband, Paul.

Many people have sat at the “Tichenor table”–adults wanting to read, teens wanting to study, the library trustees, the capital campaign committee, and Jerry Lewis’s son, Gary. Made of solid mahogany, the table looks beautiful in Mendon Public Library’s main reading room, in front of the fireplace.

Look on the base of the south end of the table to see the plaque honoring Paul S. Tichenor. Click to enlarge the image.

Mary Tichenor donated the table in honor of her husband, Paul Stillwell Tichenor, who passed away in 2009. In addition to the table by the fireplace, Mary also donated the wooden table and chairs now in the children’s area.

“Paul would’ve done something for the library” at the time the new building opened, Mary says. “I could have given financially, but I was glad to give gifts that would be used by the community and be a lasting memorial to Paul.”

Paul S. Tichenor (Click photo to enlarge it.)

For many years Mary and Paul together ran Tichenor Furniture Services, which Paul started 58 years ago. The business has been at 47 N. Main St., Honeoye Falls, since 1965. After Paul’s death in 2009, Mary continued to operate the business, which restores antique furniture.

A college graduate, Paul started the company because he didn’t want to be “ivory tower,” Mary says. Over the years, Tichenor Furniture Services has had some star-studded clients, including Marilyn Monroe, the White House, the Eastman Theater, the Henry Ford Museum, and the Granger Homestead in Canandaigua.

Another client–a Kodak executive who lived in Hong Kong–hired Paul to restore a 14th century Boulle table with inlaid brass tortoise shell and brass etchings, a project that took three years. In recent times, Tichenor Furniture restored the conference table in village hall, and 42 chairs in the town of Mendon court.

Mary Tichenor sits at the table she donated for the children's are with Ann (7, in purple) and Katie (4).

The son of a cabinetmaker, Paul learned his art at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Mich., and at Wintethur in Philadelphia. Paul was known for doing the fine work of restoring metal and wood details on the furniture pieces in the shop. The room in the Tichenor Furniture building where he did this part of the restorations is still called “Paul’s Room.”

“A lot of clients miss Paul,” Mary says. “He always joked with them.”

They also liked his work. He used to say, “We do it right or we don’t do it at all,” she explains.

The library board of trustees at work at the Tichenor table in November 2011.

Paul was a member of the Mendon Town Board for nine years and the town board’s liaison to the library for four. Mary served on the steering committee for the new building, and says having the library in the four corners of the village is important to her.

In all, Mary couldn’t be more pleased to see the new library finally completed. “Good things take a while,” she says.

End-of-Year Giving Summary — and Encouragement

It’s the season of gifts and taking stock in the year that’s ending. So it seems fitting that last night Ron Knight gave a summary report on the Friends of the Mendon Public Library’s capital campaign to the town board.

Activity on the library construction site continued today despite the snow. (Click the photo to enlarge it.)

As of Dec. 7, about 10 months into the effort, the campaign has contacted more than 1,100 people; raised almost $250,000 in gifts, commitments and pledges; and has more than 45 proposals outstanding, reported Knight, chairman of the campaign. He noted that the campaign is in its quiet, leadership gift phase and that a public fund-raising campaign will follow this summer or early fall.

A key goal of the campaign is to ensure that the new library construction has no impact on taxes other than the increase associated with the $1.35 million bond that residents approved 3-1 in a 2008 referendum. The town also has the ability to borrow an additional $660,000 for the project from a bond that was put in place this spring to allow phase 1 (the new building now underway) to go out to bid.

The town is working on how much of that $660,000 will need to be drawn to complete phase 1. Early projections suggest that the amount borrowed may be less than the total amount possible, and that the campaign will be able to cover the first payment on the bond by budget time this coming September. This would mean no tax increase would result from this borrowing in the first year.

As part of its outreach, the campaign recently sent an end-of-year giving reminder postcard, which has generated some wonderful gifts and five-year pledges before the Dec. 31 tax deadline. Thanks! It’s not too late to send yours in. Find a pledge card here.

‘Super News’ and Construction Site Photos

I want to encourage everyone to read the “Super News” column by Town Supervisor John Moffitt on p. 2 of today’s Sentinel. John does a great job of summarizing the recent history and near future of the project.

Also, thanks to Paula McIntyre, assistant library director, for sending me these photos of today’s activity on the construction site for the new, approximately 8,000-square-foot building. (Click on the photos to enlarge them.) Today when I was in the library, there were two construction trailers in place!

A longer view of the fence

The orange fence was added to the existing fence along the current library entrance drive, delineating the construction area.

Details, Details, Details…Producing Results!

Talk about dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s…

Upon my return from vacation last week, I had a great conversation with Town Supervisor John Moffitt. While I was at the beach, John, Mary Fletcher and others in town hall were busily attending to details to get new library construction underway in the next few weeks (Thank you all!). For example:

• Signed contracts are now in place from each of the four primes on the project. Plus, each contractor has provided proof of bonding, which protects the town (and us taxpayers) should one of the companies not complete its part of the project.
• The town board held a special meeting last Wednesday to approve purchasing construction insurance on the project. A very good news item: the town had budgeted $5,000 for this insurance and the actual cost, after getting four quotes through the town’s broker, was approximately $1,500.
• A report of approximately 40 pages about the town of Mendon (such as tax assessments) was prepared as a preliminary step in the process of securing a bond rating–and eventually an interest rate–on the bond that the town will take to help fund the project. Taxpayers approved a $1.35 million bond in September 2008. A successful private capital campaign will ensure that an additional bond of $660,000 would not need to be rolled into the $1.35 million bond.

Things to watch for…a few more construction trailers and a fence on the site are expected soon! Remember, it’s not safe to walk around an active construction site.

Heading for Construction!

Last night the four town board members present (Moe was out of town) voted unanimously to accept the low bids on the four primes for phase 1 of the new library. I want to thank them for their unified action to move the project forward! Bring on the shovels!

The town board voted with the recommendation of the library board of trustees that the signed contracts include four “alternates,” which the bidders priced out separately to help the town make a decision on whether to implement them. The approximately 8,000 sq. ft. building to be constructed in phase 1 will include:

• Eight operable sash windows: The would provide energy savings from opening windows instead of running the air conditioning at times.
• A fireplace: This feature was important to residents attending the public design forums. Plus, it may have the potential to draw in private sponsorship (It’s already part of the capital campaign “naming opportunities”–anyone interested in donating and putting their name on it?  I’m actually serious, e-mail me if you are.)
• Two study rooms: It is expected these rooms will be heavily used by patrons, including young people for school projects, adults studying for night school, people who come to the library to work using the free Wi-Fi, and small groups holding meetings.
• A stone faced exterior landscape wall facing Main Street. That’s the hip high wall in front of the building in this rendering.

Thanks also to the town staff who will follow through behind the scenes on making all this contract stuff happen!

Can a Library Charge Late Fees for a Building?

By Charlie Johnson

The title of this post seems to be the question here in Mendon as the new library faces yet another hurdle to the start of construction. The last two years have been filled with work by volunteers to shepherd and coordinate with the Town Board to bring this project to the cusp of starting construction. Our work has not been easy, nor free of missteps and delays, however we have all been deeply committed to the success of this project.

Rendering of entry of planned new Mendon Public Library (click to enlarge)

The library is the recipient of arguably the largest library construction grant amount from New York state ever in Western New York. This grant award was the birth of the new library, breathing new life into an old dream of a new library. As it now turns out, that same grant is the reason the project finds itself in its current predicament. The grant, while generous, does have a completion date for the library, which is next July 1. Our architects have calculated a 10-month construction period and, considering time for project bidding, bids must go out by June 1 to meet the completion deadline. (See a visual representation of what’s happening.)

Going out to bid also requires the Town to have the anticipated funds in hand before actually going out to bid. The money the Town has in hand is only a portion of the necessary funds.  The Town has recently authorized the issuance of an additional $660,000 in bonds to facilitate the project going out to bid. The capital campaign is off to a strong start already, raising $200,000, however the campaign started late. With only three months of actual time seeking donations, the campaign could not hope to meet the budget gap of $660,000 before the June 1 date. The Town Board approved this budget gap financing plan on the strong confidence of the capital campaign chairman with the knowledge that, as the campaign progresses, these funds would never be needed. In addition, once the actual construction of the library starts, the potential for private fund-raising increases.

Click to enlarge

Based on several Special Town Board meetings held over the last several months and an open dialogue with all members of the library project, the Town has had an opportunity to understand what is happening and find a way to solve this dilemma in the 11th hour. The Town Board has passed this bond resolution for the bid process until the delayed capital giving campaign can catch up to where it needs to be. The Town Board does not intend to levy this bond as a tax, but merely as a tool to keep the Library project from immediate failure.

Please examine the facts and then make your decision whether or not to sign the petition. Looking back over the last two years in hindsight, one can see where different decisions or actions could have been taken and this situation may not have developed.  However, hindsight is easy and everyone has attempted to do the best for the library project. This bond is the only solution to a difficult situation.

Charlie Johnson is chairman of the steering committee for the Mendon Public Library new building project.