Larry Dollar and daughter Robin look through the remains of Larry’s outbuilding where he stored his boats behind Robin’s house in the Simcoe/Fairview area. An EF-1 tornado hit the area Wednesday night.

For the town of Fairview, the year began with the town council looking to its residents for feedback on ways to improve the town.

While the council had already solidified a larger 20-year improvement plan, they were looking for ways to meet the needs of their resident’s more immediately with smaller one to five year goals.

“For me, that’s the missing piece. They may have totally different priorities than we do, and we need to know that,” said Councilwoman Julie Grimes at the March 2021 council meeting.

After a mid-March EF-1 tornado that caused extensive damage to the town, the council continued these discussions of improvement at their next meeting in April. Addressing the fact that the storms had caused more damage to the already dilapidated Craft building located near the Hwy. 69 and Wesley Avenue intersection.

The council reported back on their requests received from the community in regards to short term improvement projects. These requests included pickleball courts and a splash pad to be added to the town park, as well as the wooded walking trails needing improvements.

The council chose to address the drainage issues of the walking trails as well as discussed the possibility of converting an unused tennis court located at the park into four pickleball courts.

In July a massive landscaping overhaul was greenlit to bring improvements to Bill Andrews Park. The project not only included wire-protected dugouts for the players, but also a sidewalk and retaining wall along the backside of the fields to provide easy access and to solve drainage issues from water runoff of the hill located behind the park.

As the summer heat dwindled and the daylight hours shortened, the restrooms located at Fairview park fell victim to a TikTok inspired trend known as “devious licks.” The trend which involves students committing minor acts of vandalism and uploading the videos to the site, inspired four teenagers to vandalize the restrooms. The participants were quickly identified and assigned community service. The event brought about unplanned, but much needed further improvement to the facilities with Mayor Keith Henry stating that the stalls were “pretty shabby to start with.”