Rye City Councilman Richard Mecca contributed a great piece this week to the Rye City Review’s Council Corner column titled, “Playland, we had an agreement”.
He starts out with this:
“Those of us who live in the vicinity of Playland have always had an unspoken agreement with our neighbor. We will put up with the noise, traffic and litter of the summer season and, in return, we enjoy the remaining seasons with the sleeping park. We know, come late spring, the weekend noise will begin.”
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He further explains:
“We all understand our neighbor has been in financial trouble for quite a while and that we are all, as taxpayers, “chipping in” to keep it afloat. But proposing facilities offering athletic space for extended hours of the day without consulting the people who would be impacted was not very neighborly”
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He finishes with this:
“While Playland has forgotten it had an agreement with its neighbors, the City Council and our land use boards have not.”
For the full piece click here:
Rich Mecca's pretty well got it right. As I read through most of this piece I wanted to give him a big hug. But the one thing I take exception to is his labeling of PLAYLAND as the Perp here. Let's lay the blame where it squarely belongs. This cockamamie notion that it's not ALREADY a year-round-use park (helllooooo, passive park and ICE RINK!) was fabricated and propagated by County Executive Rob Astorino and his cronies at Sustainable Playland -and ONLY them. THEY'RE the ones that kept insisting the park needed to be busier *year round* than it already is. Of course, SPI's gang stood to make a lot of money off of that new model with its for-private-profit pay-to-play high end sports facility on public parkland, in a deal arranged by a bunch of commercial real estate developers. But slap a 501c3 label on that puppy and it makes it altruistic and noble, right?
KA-CHING!
Read their mission statement now and laugh:
“Sustainable Playland Inc. (SPI) is a 501c3 non-profit organization whose mission is to provide a Westchester community-based solution that will restore the historical and environmental integrity of Playland Park and propose a plan for its EVOLUTION into a SUSTAINABLE PARK that is fully in the public domain with increased open green spaces and access to the shoreline.”
Playland’s original design was for it to specifically BE a year-round-use destination: Amusement Park, Beach & Pool in the warmer months/Ice Skating in the winter with the element of an open, walk-able waterfront passive park throughout year round. Its uniqueness, location, design and historical importance would sustain it just fine if the County would only run it properly. It’s not Playland that can’t make a buck, it’s the County Government.
Mr. Mecca does a great job in summing up the intricate, unique and sometimes love/hate relationship that the tiny City of Rye has with this beloved bustling County Park in its midst and the delicate dance the two entities do around each other. (For 86 years now they’ve been pretty good dance partners.) But I would adjust his excellent summary in this beautifully written piece by just saying this:
Don't blame PLAYLAND...blame SUSTAINABLE Playland.
And of course, the man who wanted so badly to push their deal through with no environmental reviews or Park Land Alienation (and may not yet be done trying), he who would be your next NYS Governor, current Westchester County Executive Rob Astorino.
NONE of this is Playland’s fault. If there’s any victim in all of this mess, it surely is the Park itself.
