OBSERVER Photo by M.J. Stafford A person talking on a cell phone Monday morning walks by a fountain in Barker Common that is missing its cherub on top. A new cherub is set to go on top soon, and a separate but related project to beautify the area surrounding the common will also be getting underway.

Fredonia’s renovation of its downtown landscape, or “streetscape,” is about to resume, and village officials want the public’s input today.

The work on Barker Common is done for now — although, in a separate project, one of the fountains is about to get its cherub back.

The streetscape work “will be starting very shortly,” Fredonia Mayor Doug Essek wrote Sunday in response to an inquiry by email. The work includes paving, landscaping, storm drain work and additional lighting around the perimeter of the common, as well as nearby businesses.

“As part of the Village of Fredonia’s Smart Growth Grant, the Downtown Placemaking Project will begin soon and plan to be complete by the end of October 2021,” the mayor explained. “This project will re-imagine the streetscape surrounding Barker Commons as well as businesses on Main Street and Park Place, creating a more walkable and pedestrian friendly experience that harkens to some of Fredonia’s oldest and most prominent historical elements, while creating a thriving 21st century experience.”

That quote also appears on the Village of Fredonia’s website. Directly below it on the site, the public is invited to “a Public Conversation meeting to review the project scope, schedule and what you can expect during the coming months of construction. We will be in the Gazebo in Barker Common on Tuesday August 10th at 1:30 p.m.” Village officials, and representatives from the design and construction teams, are set to attend today’s meeting.

The Fredonia Village Board awarded two contracts on July 14 for the project. Lakeshore Paving of Jamestown will be doing the construction work, with a winning bid of $1,298,122. Buffalo Construction Consultants, Inc. of Cheektowaga also got a contract, worth $71,160, for consultation services.

Joy Kuebler, an architect retained by the village to oversee the downtown streetscspe project, told the board July 12 that if they awarded the contracts immediately, she anticipated work could be done by mid-October.

She said Buffalo Construction Consultants would serve as her landscape architecture company’s “in field daily operator, so they will be the on site monitoring for the project.”

Trustee EvaDawn Bashaw asked about the need for a consultant. Explaining that they were part of her team on this project from the beginning, Kuebler said, “They become your eyes and ears and your advocate on the project site every single day. They make sure the traffic control system is being followed. They make sure materials are being delivered on time … (and) are the correct materials, of the right quantity, on the right day.” Additionally, they coordinate shutdowns of utilities for project work, and report anything out of compliance both to village officials and to her.

Responding to a subsequent Bashaw question, Kuebler said Fredonia officials told her, when she started on this project in 2019, that the village’s Department of Public Works didn’t have the manpower to do what Buffalo Construction Consultants will be doing.

The project work — or, at least, anticipation of it — forced Fredonia’s summer festivals to move for this year. The biggest and oldest of them all, the Farm Festival, will be at the Chautauqua County Fairgrounds for the first time ever later this month.

As far as the cherub, which was stolen off the fountain in the western side of the common in November 2019, Trustee Roger Britz said during a July meeting that a Buffalo-area sculptor is finishing a replacement. He said he has seen the new cherub and it looks fantastic, but isn’t sure when the new sculpture will be going on the fountain.