Dear Editor,

Late last year a decision was made by the Oakdale Tourism & Visitors Bureau to do our part to help the town bring a little sparkle back. The group set aside some funding and started with the re-lighting of the downtown area, and although this project is not yet completed it is very much under way. Take a walk downtown and you will understand what a few lights in the trees adds to this area. Thanks go to Ace Hardware and Knickerbocker Electric, without these two companies this project would have been much more difficult to achieve.

Our goal with this first pass is to re-string all the trees that had lights before, in addition to re-strapping and fixing any electrical issues with them. This is a time consuming process and we hope to be finished with phase 1 by April. The exciting part is that we are replacing these lights with LED lights and a tree to operate now is about the cost of a 60W light bulb. They burn brighter, cooler and longer and are much easier to maintain. After phase 1 is complete, we will discuss where phase 2 will be and how much it will cost.

We have introduced an adopt a tree program. For a small yearly fee, you can help maintain a tree so that our downtown area will never go dark again. Please refer to our website for the details. You can download the form and mail it in if you wish. http://oakdale-tourism.com/programs/adopt-a-tree/

If anyone sees a tree that the lights have gone out, please drop us an email with the location and we will be happy to fix the issue (understanding that all the trees won’t be finished until April). Most of the time it is just a tripped GFI.

Regards,

Ramona Howard

Oakdale Tourism