NARROWSBURG, NY — The Tusten Town Board met at a special meeting on the morning of Wednesday, March 30 to discuss how to proceed with the Main Street deck. Chazen Companies designed a new deck at the cost of $300,000, however no bids were received.

The board first announced at the meeting that Chazen recommended that they go to re-bid, but the board was not in favor of that. Councilwoman Jane Luchsinger also wanted to state first, “The grant is not in jeopardy provided we spend the money on construction only, any other design work is our responsibility.” They then opened up the discussion to come up with a plan.

They all agreed that the new design should reduce the complexity and reduce the cost while still being aesthetically pleasing and presentable to the town. “It should represent our town,” Luchsinger said.

“Let’s work from the budget backwards,” said Councilman Ned Lang. He says the budget should be $100,000, with $25,000 from in-kind work, $25,000 from the Narrowsburg Beautification Grant, and the rest from the $106,000 state grant, which is a matching grant. He said a lot of money shouldn’t be spent on it, “remember, it’s just a deck,” he said. Luchsinger replied, “It’s not just a deck, it’s a showpiece of our town.” She added, “I don’t want to minimize what we can do when we have an opportunity.”

Councilman Tony Ritter asked if the board is in favor of using the same design and footprint as the existing deck. They all said yes, with Luchsinger adding that a small lookout could be added for the telescope. They think the deck should be the same design and size, and use natural materials that are durable.

Ritter then asked if they are in favor of using the same engineer, town engineer Wes Iling. Lang said they should put out a Request for Proposal (RFP) for an engineer. The rest of the board agreed, and they needed to make a motion. “We need an engineer to move on with this thing,” Ritter said. They came up with some requirements, such as the budget limit of $100,000, using the existing design plus a lookout and adding bluestone to the sidewalk to give the affect of it blending in with the deck. “They’ll come back to use with an outline,” Lang said. They made a motion to send out the RFP and all were in favor. The deadline to receive proposals is May 10, the next town board meeting.