By Brett Yates
The town of Pittsfield is looking to improve the public basketball court behind the town hall, where it intends to add new blacktop, lights, and fencing.
During meetings this spring, the Pittsfield Rescue Plan Committee proposed using a portion of the municipality’s ARPA dollars to repave the court, but more recently, officials discovered an opportunity to obtain state funding for the work, which would allow the town to save the federal infusion for other projects.
On June 16, the Pittsfield Select Board engaged a grant writer to assemble a proposal for the Vermont Department of Buildings and General Services’ Recreational Facilities Grant Program, which could cover half the cost, with the rest coming out of the town’s recreation Reservefund. The board reviewed and agreed to send the application on July 21, in advance of the program’s Sept. 10 deadline.
“They’ve done a lot of basketball courts,” board chair Ann Kuendig noted.
The new basketball court would feature a drain and a curb around the perimeter, which would ease the court’s conversion into an ice skating rink in the winter. Volunteers led this transformation for the first time last December.
