GUILDERLAND — It’s taken nearly three years for the town to complete the laborious process that will allow it to spend $250,000 in state funds secured by Assemblywoman Patricia Fahy.
A week ago, Supervisor Peter Barber said, he got the grant disbursement agreement from the state’s Dormitory Authority and the town is now checking back with vendors to verify costs quoted three years ago.

The funds will be spent on two ambulance stretchers, upkeep at the historic Mynderse-Frederick House in Guilderland Center, and upgrades at the Abele Park in McKownville.

The 1802 Mynderse-Frederick House, with a new coat of paint, will continue to have white clapboards and green shutters, Barber said. Two former Guilderland supervisors lived in the house.

Nicholas V. Mynderse, Guilderland’s first supervisor, built the 15-room Federal style building as a store and later ran a tavern there on what was the Schoharie Road, now labeled Route 146.

Mynderse sold the house to Michael Frederick, and three generations of the Frederick family ran a tavern and inn there until it became their private home. Stephen Frederick became a Guilderland supervisor.

Guilderland’s historical society and garden club both meet at the house and hold events there.

The house was last painted in 2002 by Bob Ertelt who scraped the house down to its bare wood and discovered the original paint color was brown — made from the sand or dirt in area fields, mixed with water, typical of the late 1700s and early 1800s.

The historic house will also get a new roof and energy-efficient windows, Barber said. The roof will be asphalt shingles and the windows, although modern, will look like the original windows, with six over six panes, he said, noting the town is working with the state’s Historic Places unit on the design of the project.

The work at the Mynderse-Frederick is slated to cost $50,000.

The town is also spending $90,000 of the grant money to purchase two powerlift stretchers for Guilderland ambulances. The squad already has a bariatric ambulance, which can transport “extremely heavy people, over 400 pounds,” Barber said.

The bariatric ambulance was purchased in 2018 when the town set up its own rescue service.

The new stretchers will be used in the town’s other four ambulances, which rotate in and out, he said. “Two-hundred pounds is the average weight of a male,” Barber said, which can cause back strain for medics and emergency medical technicians.

The largest share of the grant — $110,000 — will be spent on improvements at Abele Park. 

The portable park bathroom will be replaced with a permanent one, Barber said, and the children’s playground will be upgraded because of “constantly changing safety concerns.”

The softball field will get a new backstop and the basketball court will be resurfaced. New picnic tables will be added as will a kiosk with a new entrance sign.

The path that goes from the kisk into the park is broken up now, Barber said, and will be replaced with crusher run — a combination of crushed stone and stone dust — which is a more sustainable material, he said.

Barber credited the town’s grant writer, Donald Csaposs, for his persistence. “You can’t always get what you want,” he said.

“We’re hoping to get all these projects started this year,” said Barber.

Noting a pandemic-induced shortage of building materials, he said, however, that all of the projects may not be finished this year.