After City Council gave him the go-ahead, Martins Ferry Mayor John Davis is trying to fill up Fodor Memorial Park this summer.
Fill it with people, with events, with the sound of music—restrictions are gone, and Mayor John Davies wants the residents in his town to enjoy themselves this summer and with as many opportunities as possible.
The mayor put out a call on his Mayor Davies Facebook page for any bands, solo artists, or people in contact with bands or solo artists looking for a place to play this summer.
The park does have a nice, covered stage with access to electric, and a seating area complete with multiple rows of benches so those in attendance don’t have to worry about bringing their own lawn chairs if they so choose.
“What we’re trying to do is utilize the park as much as we can,” Davies said. “We’d like to have something going on every week if we could, whether that’s a band, or flea market, or farmers’ market, chili cook-off—whatever we can come up with.”
Davies is working to come up with ideas and plans, and he invites all Martins Ferry residents, or non-residents with ideas about what they’d like to see at the park, particularly if someone has an event they want to put on, to contact him via his mayoral Facebook page.
He’s open to any and all ideas.
“We were down cutting the park, and you look around, and I thought, ‘This really is a nice park, and we don’t utilize it,’” Davis admitted. “I started looking around at places that hold movie nights, musicians can come in, we can have a basketball tournament, cornhole, whiffle ball, all different kinds of things.
“Now we just have to make it come to fruition.”
Making its Return
Starting Wednesday, Aug. 4, and running through Saturday, Aug. 7, the park will once again be filled with the sounds of laughter, excitement, mechanical rounds, and a whole host of fun.
That’s because the annual Betty Zane Days festival, put on by the Martins Ferry Fire Department, is making its return to the park.
Another yearly looked-forward to event canceled in 2020 by COVID, the MFFD is bringing it back after a year’s hiatus.
Davies is also scrambling to bring back another yearly event the town’s residents and those from outside Martins Ferry enjoy, the annual Fourth of July Sky Show celebration.
Usually put on by the Martins Ferry Chamber of Commerce, the Chamber informed the mayor recently it would not have the financial wherewithal this year to put on the show.
The pandemic has negatively affected the Chamber’s ability the generate funding during the last year, so it wasn’t able to foot the $15k for the annual fireworks display.
Without much time, Davies is working to see some type of fireworks show returns to the city. Last minute availability obviously is an issue.
The city thought it got a date worked out for July 1. The fireworks were to be set off down by the river with the city potentially cordoning off a portion of downtown, similar to the strawberry festival. But that location would allow the majority of Ferry residents to watch, without leaving their homes.
The school property was also an option like in previous years, and the mayor was in talks Tuesday about that before he was alerted to a potential issue in the application process. He’ll know more by Thursday, and LedeNews will update this story with those updates.
“I didn’t want Martins Ferry to go without anything. We won’t be able to have the $15,000 display they are used to having. But there’s a minimum of $4,000 to have an event, so we will start there and work our way up, depending on how much we can generate between now and then.
“We’ll put out a call to see if we can raise some funding to help put this on.”
Contacting the Mayor
Davies like to take advantage of using social media when talking with and getting information to city residents. He has his Mayor Davies page that he’s happy to converse with residents on and listen to their problems.
Sure, as he says, he will get “pounded” on there by some people, but it’s also come in handy. For one, it’s a great way he can learn about when an area in town needs a quick pothole patch.
“They pound me all the time” Davis said with a laugh. “But I don’t have a problem with that because I work for them. If there’s something wrong that they’re mad about, and it needs fixing, that’s the quickest way for me to find out and to get someone out to fix it.
“We can do it quickly and then get back at it. We get more work information (on Facebook) than anywhere.”
He admits he also tries to make time to check out and interact with the various citizens’ groups on social media for the town, to get a read on what’s going on and what’s needed.
He doesn’t shy away from answering even the tough questions, and if he doesn’t have an answer, he finds out and responds.
He’s hoping he’ll get a similar response back with people teeming with ideas about what events to hold at the park.
