Thumbs up to the City of Sanford for its decision to fund the demolition of the building at 37 River St., also known as the Bland Block. This deteriorating building at the intersection of Cottage and River streets is not only a terrible eyesore, it’s becoming a public safety hazard. Passersby have reported bricks falling from its exterior and motorists have their line of sight blocked by the building. It was even the site of a fatal accident a few years ago, when a bicyclist was struck by a vehicle.

The city purchased this building in 2012 due to these concerns, and it was an appropriate decision to follow through with the plans for demolition, even though the price tag is higher than expected due to the discovery of hazardous materials within. Even with the need for more money, with the price now set at nearly $82,000, this expenditure will not affect taxpayers directly, since the funds are being drawn largely from the sale of tax-acquired property. Removing this block will improve the image of downtown Sanford and make it safer for travelers of all sorts, so it’s an investment worth making.

Thumbs up to Rod Tetu and all of the other Lyman community members and businesses that came together to build and install a new sign for the Lyman Community Library. The letterboard sign, installed earlier this month, will allow the library to notify passersby of upcoming events, group meetings, raffles and new arrivals ”“ anything the board of directors or librarian want to promote. It’s a great new addition, one that would have been prohibitively expensive without the donation of time, money and labor from all involved. The new sign, along with the new website, lymanlibrary.org, should help increase patronage of the library, which has a new librarian in Leila Roy and offers a variety of reading options and activities. It’s wonderful to see a community effort like this come together with such a beneficial end result.

Thumbs up to the efforts of the Animal Welfare Society and area animal control officers, who are gathering feral cats for spay/neuter operations. AWS received $10,000 of grants for this purpose, from the Humane Society of the United States and the Belvedere Foundation, which is based in Maine. These cats are generally unadoptable, as they are not domesticated, so animal welfare experts have found that leaving them in their established habitats is best. By removing their ability to reproduce, this effort will not only limit the number of wild cats in the future, but will cut down on noisy mating behaviors that cause neighborhood disturbances.

Thumbs up to Richard Pickens and Marc Bolduc, as well as Pickens’ furnace serviceman, for honoring the memory of Revolutionary War veteran Sylvanus Knox, whose headstone was found in Pickens’ basement. It was the serviceman who noticed the headstone was that of a veteran, and that set in motion Pickens’ effort to locate the man’s burial site and restore the stone to its rightful place. He worked with Bolduc to do so, and found that Knox’s site is marked with a bigger stone, at Greenwood Cemetery. It’s unclear how the extra stone ended up in the basement, but thanks to the respect of these men, now it will be placed at the gravesite, marking Knox as a veteran, and one more veteran’s service will be recognized with a graveside flag every Memorial Day.

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Thumbnails is a Monday feature of the Journal Tribune’s opinion pages. If you want to respond, feel free to write to the Readers’ Forum via email at jtcommunity@journaltribune.com or by dropping your letter off at our Biddeford office.