WESTOVER — The Westwood Middle School Parent/Teacher Organization, Inc. (PTO) brought a list of potential partnership opportunities to the city of Westover for review — opportunities that focused more on time than money.
Westwood PTO representative Heather Wolfe presented the list of opportunities to the Westover city council at its Monday meeting.
“Last week we were going to provide you this week with educational opportunities for our partnership,” she said. “These are just some opportunities that don’t have any monetary value at all to them.”
Wolfe first mentioned the opportunity to help the PTO hang banners along the walkway, purchased as a fundraiser for the PTO from local businesses.
At the last council meeting, held June 4, Wolfe and fellow representative Karen Angelozzi asked the council to hang the banners for the PTO in exchange for a banner of their choice for the city of Westover.
“We have an opportunity that we would like to present and see if you guys would be interested in. [It] would be coming up with a city council member to present the City of Westover citizenship award to a sixth grader, a seventh grader and an eighth grader at the end of the year based on some remarkable efforts they might do within our community and or at school,” she said. “This could be behavioral improvements or any opportunities like that.
“Those would be presented to you, a list of each grade and their accomplishments for you guys to then vote and see who you would present those to, and then somebody would come to the school at the end of the year and present those.”
Wolfe said, “Each grade level has a presentation, and I think the students would like that as well.”
Wolfe said another opportunity for the students could include using the city building for display purposes.
“Another opportunity we’d like to present is displaying at the city hall here some of the student’s art work, poetry, some of their writings,” she said. “Then, during the meetings, if we have accomplishments they have done, then we would present them to you to kind of announce to any (residents) who might come out to the city hall meetings.
“We also would have Westwood provide the city of Westover council members with an invitation to all of our events and calendar things we have — band concerts, choir concerts, PTO meetings and sporting events. You guys can attend any of those.”
Wolfe said another opportunity would be assisting with a new work-based pilot program.
“We have helping in various capabilities with our Empowerment Academy pilot project,” she said. “That will be starting this year. It’s basically a work-simulated program that we are piloting. We can get you more details as we are provided with them as well. It’s fresh. Teachers just went for training in the past month.”
Wolfe said Westover would have a space dedicated to its logo on the Westwood PTO’s website where visitors and partners could find the city URL and the names of the council members.
“The last opportunity we’d like to present is the City of Westover being invited to set up a table at Westwood’s after-school functions,” she said. “At the beginning of the year, we have a kick-off. All the parents come in. If we have anybody that would like to come in at that time — the PTO has a table set up, and you can introduce yourself to some of our local residents that might not know who you are.”
Westover Mayor David Johnson said he appreciated the presentation, and he said the council would review the information.
“What we will do is — this council has got to look at it, the explanation that you brought,” he said. “We will probably put this on the agenda for the first meeting in July and then make it official that we can become partners if council so desires.”
In other business:
Westover city council elected long-time resident Steve Andryzcik to fill the vacant po-sition of councilmember-at-large.
Westover Police Chief Richard Panico said the department answered 470 calls in the last two weeks. The department had 36 traffic stops.
Mayor David Johnson said the city was going to start patching potholes and building some new speed bumps. He said the city had received several requests for speed bumps, and there were several needing replaced. He said this hopefully would happen by the end of the week.
Johnson said he had requested a fence around the bocce ball court to keep animals, especially deer, out of it.
Second Ward councilmember Ralph Mullins asked Johnson if there were any updates on the Holland Wall repairs. Johnson said he had spoken to some people, and he hoped to have an update by the first of July.
In old business, council members unanimously voted to adopt the third and final reading of the ordi-nance for the city employee raise, which would give a $0.50 raise to employees for the 2018-’19 fiscal year.
The Westwood Middle School PTO representative Heather Wolfe spoke in citizen comments, and she brought a list of non-financial ways the city of Westover could partner with the school to help the students. Johnson said the council members would look over the ideas and probably put this on the agenda for the next meeting.
Johnson recognized Eagle Merit Scout badge candidate Hunter Tomago-Blosser of the East Grafton Road Troop 64. Tomago-Blosser came to the city council meeting as one of the requirements for his badge.
Tomago-Blosser said, “I am working on an Eagle Merit Badge for Scouts, and I also have to get community service. (The council meeting) was really interesting.”
Andryzcik will be sworn in for his position, along with the three re-elected ward council members Janice Goodwin, Ralph Mullins and Leonard Smith, before the next Westover city council meeting, held at 6 p.m. July 2 at the Westover City Building.
