The Post-Standard News
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Post-Standard,
The (Syracuse, NY) May 10, 2001 John Mariani Staff writer Hanging the bronze honor
roll of Spafford war veterans inside town hall was quite a
feat.
The event three years ago capped months of research to But something was missing - an outdoor memorial.
"It's something that'd been done all over the world. If you
haven't done it, you feel like something's lacking," said Walter
"Woody" Woodmansee, the World War II vet who compiled the
honor roll.
Spafford is about to correct the omission.
On Tuesday, the town officially took possession of a 90-by-130-foot
vacant parcel on the southwest corner of Route 41 and Nunnery Road in
the hamlet of Borodino.
The land in hand, a citizens committee assembled by Supervisor Gordon
Ireland and chaired by Fred Chappell now will try to raise money to
erect a monument to the town's veterans on the site.
A pancake breakfast to be put on by the Borodino Fire Department this
summer is the first formal fund-raiser planned by the committee, said
Woodmansee, the panel's treasurer.
Town officials meanwhile plan to seek state and federal grants to
help foot the bill.
"We're looking for about $30,000," Ireland said.
The monument hasn't been designed yet and officials don't have a
target date to build it, but Woodmansee said it should take less time to
produce. Each member had to be identified and then contacted
individually before they could be listed on the honor roll.
"This will be one memorial that honors all the veterans,
period," he said.
The parcel, catty-corner from the Borodino Community Park, used to be
occupied by a combination house and gas station.
Some time ago, it was acquired by the federal Department of Housing
and Urban Development, which had backed a mortgage loan on the property,
said Marie Shattuck, a community builder in the agency's Buffalo office.
Ireland wrote HUD's Philadelphia office last May to say the town was
interested in taking over the property, Shattuck said.
After checking the building for asbestos and lead paint, removing old
gasoline and septic tanks and tearing down the structure, HUD sold the
property to Spafford for $1, said James J. Murphy, a HUD
community builder in Syracuse.
The transfer was finalized Tuesday. Stephen T. Banko III, HUD's
senior community builder in Buffalo and a prolific writer about the
Vietnam War, was to be on hand to help town officials celebrate the
purchase.
"Any veterans issue, and certainly a veterans
park, is very near and dear to his heart," Shattuck said.
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