NY Forward selects the Village of Wellsville for massive grant
Developing Story, stay tuned for updates
Pictured: M K Kellog, Dr. Craig Clark, Village Treasurer Melissa Mullen, Mayor Randy Shayler, Allison Green, and Mike Raptis
By Andrew Harris, photos A. Glanzman
The news is just arriving that have many in a state of joyful shock. After months of waiting and wondering, New York State’s “NY Forward” grant has been awarded to the village of Wellsville for downtown revitialization.
This is a big surprise for Wellsville, Mayor Randy Shayler, said “we are stunned. This is a huge amount of money, maybe double what we could have ever hoped for.”
Wellsville residents and champions Allison Green, MK Kellogg, and Mike Raptis all worked together with Village of Wellsville Treasurer Melissa Mullen to submit this now famous grant applicaiton.
Green, also the director of Alfred Housing Inc, explained that it was a challenging grant to write:
“We started the process in November of 2021 starting with public meetings and then in 2022 we met regularly several times a week and towards the end we met almost daily leading up to the submission deadline on October 28th 2022. The final proposal required endless hours of writing and editing.”
Mayor Shayler praised the group for this historic success:
“We very much appreciate these volunteer citizens for the hard work behind the scenes. Those are the people who made this happen.”
“The timing couldn’t be better. ” Dr. Craig Clark noted, clearly beaming from the news which brings years of his work in economic development to the forefront. We expect to hear much more from Dr. Clark in the coming days.
