MONTICELLO – The Village Board of Monticello approved a resolution to hold the village’s first-ever solo Mural Festival for the date of July 21. Last year, the Catskill ReVibe Mural, Arts and Culture Festival was held in conjunction with the Bagel Festival on Broadway in Monticello.

Among the public present at the meeting on February 7 was Josh Deitchman, the founder of Catskills REVIBE and Malik Bridges, a Monticello native and an artist-in-residence for their Black Library. Deitchman requested approval to hold the stand-alone festival.

Deitchman said that he had planned to hold the festival as a solo event last year, and explained to the board that he is in the process of forming a committee to assist in guiding the future of the festival, which include Lori Kilgore and Toby Magnetico.

“I think that, as [the board] saw, it was a great soft opener of what it could be,” said Deitchman. “There’s a lot of potential with bringing a Mural Arts and Culture Festival to Monticello.”

He said that he spoke with Village Mayor George Nikolados, who reportedly said the Village was willing to also back it. Deitchman explained that this would mean helping with insurance, barricade the road, and doing cleanup of the road, especially after the event.

He also explained to the board that he understood that the request for approval was ‘kind of’ last minute, as he has four months. However, he noted that they were able to successfully pull off the event last year, and they will yet again pull through this time around.

It was mentioned that unlike with the Bagel Festival, the event was not taking place throughout the entire stretch of Broadway, but it would span just a few blocks, starting from the Black Library, located at 418 Broadway.

While it was mentioned to be like last year’s festival, it was noted that the vendors would be artistically themed and feature local artists that range from sculptors, to painters, to fashion. He also said that the festival would feature local DJ Kevin Watson to curate all the music for the day.

“Everyone this year is focused on locals,” Deitchman said. “Last year I brought in outside artists and some locals. This year is just local everything.”

Apple Ice Project Plans

Village Trustee Michael Banks, who was standing in for Mayor Nikolados in his absence, deferred to Mr. Richard Baum who was present seeking a resolution to approve authorizing the mayor to sign a Developer’s Agreement between the Village of Monticello and Apple Ice.

Baum stated that Apple Ice has a project down by Apollo to install ice-making machines. It was said that a requirement of the Planning Board for approval is that they contribute to the water system to ensure it is servicing capacity.

He also noted that they are at a point where, at times, they are approaching capacity of the system.

“We are asking all of the developers who are using a significant amount of water to contribute to the water system as determined by our engineers,” said Baum.

Because only three of the Village Board members were present, Banks and Baum agreed that the matter be further discussed at a potential Emergency Meeting in the near future.