Executive Director for the Fenton History Center, Joni Blackman, gives the Fenton’s annual budget presentation to city council. P-J photo by Sara Holthouse

About one year back into the role as Fenton History Center executive director, Joni Blackman has returned to the City Council for the center’s annual budget presentation.

The biggest concern moving forward into 2026 remains the building itself, specifically the roof.

The Fenton organization itself is doing well, Blackman said, but added that is because they do not have to pay for the physical space themselves, though they help pay for things that go wrong in the building itself through grants when needed. A recent example is the need for heat tapes on the building, something that was also discussed by council later that night at the work session.

“The house needs a lot of work, to the point where the roof is just one of the problems,” Blackman said.

Blackman praised her partnership with Parks Manager Dan Stone, saying they work very well together to continue to take care of the Fenton building as best they can and keep it standing. She added that she would appreciate anything the city could do as Stone is constrained to $2,500 a year to pay for the 162-year-old building that also needs an architect to be able to do almost anything with it, though she acknowledged that might be a lot for the city to deal with everything else going on. Blackman also thanked the city for paying for utilities for them.

Blackman noted that their members and members of the community love the building, and when she gets plans set for the roof within the next few days she thought they would be able to get donations from the community towards it.

Blackman then reported on a new collaboration project with Patricia Graves that the Fenton is working on, the Chadakoin Valley project.

“I think that’s going to be a big project down the line,” Blackman said. “That is helping our bottom line but it is also helping the city because it is creating a new barrel report for you.”

A barrel report is an architecturally based report on the city of Jamestown that includes sections on the different populations of Jamestown. The last report Blackman said was done in 1992 and basically had about three sentences about the Black population of the city and almost nothing on the Puerto Rican population or other ethnicities.

“Swedes get a whole lot of room,” Blackman said. “Italians get a lot of space. Nobody else matters; well now they matter. She (Patricia Graves) has been contracted to put that together so she is going to take advantage of that and really do a lot of research, specifically on the Black population here in Jamestown and where they came from, where they moved, where they lived, all of it.”

Returning to the roof, Blackman said the Department of Public Works has selected a contractor and the roof at this point is probably up to $1.2 or $1.3 million. She added that the Parks Department staff has reported that all of the windows have issues as well, which will probably be another $8,000 to $9,000 if they need to be replaced. Blackman said her hope is that they will not have to be and that she thinks there are ways to work through it little by little to fix them up for a lot less money.

There are currently no “big pots of money” from the federal or state levels right now for the roof, Blackman said, due to “the federal government not smiling on New York state very much.”

Blackman has been going through the State Historic Preservation Office to get some money and grants but the most they can give is $75,000 with a 25% match. That amount itself is not hard to match, Blackman said, but it is only half of what the roof needs, meaning they would have to go through two rounds just to catch up to the right amount needed. Blackman is having a meeting with city officials this week to try and find a way for the match for the SHIPO grant, as she said she has no doubt the Fenton will be able to get that grant, she just does not know where the money will come from for the match. Blackman also has a meeting this week with members of the Department of Development as she has put in a request for the Fenton to be considered for a Downtown Revitalization Initiative project.

Another issue for the roof is that with it being a historical building it will also need to remain historically accurate when fixed.

“From what I understand, there’s a tin roof underneath and then in 1920 — the city bought it in 1919 — the city put an asbestos roof on it,” Blackman said. “Since then, two more rubber roofs have gone on top of that. I did talk to SHIPO about that since we know and it’s in the City Council minutes that there’s a tin roof there if we have to go back to the tin roof. It turns out the rubber roof has been there long enough we can go with another rubber roof.”

At the moment the situation underneath the tin roof is unknown, and there are a lot of breaks that have been reported by the Parks Department in the rubber roof seams, and even though no water is seen in the building there is a worry about leaks that are not being seen. Bids have been put out and awarded to Mayshark for architectural services for the roof and they are working with a roofing contractor near Buffalo who has done historic houses. Another reassessment is needed, and Blackman said these people and companies are now in place to be able to do that. The project will then go through the whole bid process again for the roof work, but Blackman said whoever the contractor will be for that will need to be able to deal with things like Yankee gutters.

“That’s our biggest issue,” Blackman said. “Our biggest collection piece is our biggest issue. But, we love it, we love the building. … It needs a lot of help.”