The village of Panama will have a focus on getting sidewalk projects done in the upcoming year, following multiple road blocks last year. P-J photo by Sara Holthouse

PANAMA — Looking ahead into 2026, the village of Panama is working on setting their goals for the year, with a main goal being working on sidewalk projects that were unable to get done last year for multiple reasons.

During the January meeting of the Village Board, Mayor William Schneider brought up the idea of the village’s goals for the year and that the board should be thinking of things they would like to get done this year. As far as the sidewalks go, that will be one of the main focuses of the village this year due to unknown factors coming up last year.

“We basically contract with the town for their highway department services, so we’re kind of at their mercy when they’re doing projects and then they have projects and Brian Manwaring puts us on the schedule,” Schneider said. “But, their whole schedule was shifted this year because of the fact that they’ve changed employees twice and then we had major road work all over the place and they got pulled and didn’t have enough time to get everything quite done.”

School Street is one spot the village still needs sidewalks done, along with Wesleyan Street and the overall continuation of their sidewalk replacement program. Schneider said they always try to keep some money budgeted for sidewalk improvement. Things will then be brought up to code, and one other big issue the village has been seeing with the bridge on Main Street can also be dealt with.

Specifically, the problem area is at the end of the bridge, which is making it so village residents with motorized scooters need to get off of the sidewalk and go around. Manwaring, the town of Harmony’s highway superintendent has been in contact with the state, and the state has been saying it is not a state issue but one that belongs to the village. The bridge has been temporarily fixed with a patch of blacktop, though there has been no more information from the state yet as to who’s problem and responsibility it is for sure. Schneider said if it belongs to the village, they will get that fixed right off the bat.

There is one specific company the village does their sidewalk work with, DirtWorx, and Schneider said they have been doing decent work for them and other local municipalities, but that company also got pulled away by the state last year as well.

“A lot of people got pulled in many directions for all of these roadway projects they decided to do at once,” Schneider said.

DirtWorx also lost a finisher employee last year too. Schneider said last year he believed had the most amount of road blocks for the highway department to finish projects that he had seen. He emphasized that the village is not in bad condition, but that they liked to keep up with sidewalk and road projects, and another concern with the amount of kids in the village that walk to school is to keep it so they do not have to walk in the road.