Back on February 13, 2013 at the urging of Rye City Councilwoman Catherine Parker, I attended the Westchester County BOL’s presentation to County-wide residents on all the various proposals under consideration for Playland. Up until that time I was under the impression that SPI was the best way to save Playland from Real Estate Developers chopping it up and building for-profit entities there. I thought Sustainable Playland was a grass roots citizens organization made up of local Rye residents who knew, understood and loved the park. Without knowing any of the particulars of their plan, that sounded good to me.
I left that informational presentation enlightened and with a very different impression, thus starting my research. It was the first time I’d heard that there were at least two other proposals on the table that wanted to focus on restoring and revitalizing the Amusement Park (Standard Amusements and Central Amusements) and the first time I’d heard that SPI wanted to eliminate almost all of it.
To see the full video of this BOL presentation, see this link:
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5GzyvqddiI
My subsequent research over the next few weeks led me to a group on FaceBook titled ‘Save Rye Playland’. Upon joining up with these folks I found an invaluable resource of info on the park, its history, the RFP process and the pros and cons of each of the plans. I learned far more about Playland than I already knew, and I thought I knew a good amount.This group now has over 1100 members and it's growing by the day.
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For a link to the “Save Rye Playland” FaceBook page click here:
We shortly started an online petition towards the end of February asking to keep the Amusement Park intact and leave the footprint alone, calling for a change in the SPI proposal that planned to eliminate approximately 50% of the rides (possibly more) and requesting that the County choose a proposal from one of the other two more experienced and more well-financed entities, Standard Amusement or Central Amusements to operate the park.
View the original “Save Playland” petition here:
http://www.change.org/petitions/save-playland-amusement-park
Within about a week, that petition had 1000 signatures. We made the front page of the Journal News on March 5, 2013 (main headline, above the fold!)
http://www.lohud.com/article/20130305/NEWS02/303050062/
By the end of April that signature total had more than doubled to over 2000. (As of December 2013 it stands at over 2,500 and continues to grow.)
The original Petition to Save Playland Amusement Park garnered enough attention that on April 30th, the Save Playland group attended a Board Of Legislators Government Ops Committee meeting and made our own presentation.
View the written minutes of that meeting here:
On the video of the April 30th Gov. Ops meeting, the Save Playland presentation starts approx. minute 6:40. Extensive discussion about the park ensues between us and the Legislators in attendance. Further discussion between the Legislators and the Lawyers regarding the SPI plan and their financing follows the Save Playland presentation and is worth watching. Many of the issues being discussed back in April are still flapping in the wind today.
View the video of that meeting here:
Subsequently, in July of 2013, it was announced that SPI had decided to alter their plan and leave the footprint of the Amusement Park and the rides intact, while bringing on board one of their competitors in the RFP process – Central Amusements – to be their more experienced Operator for that zone.
That sounded great at the time, but the Save Playland group remained skeptical and cautiously optimistic while we waited for the PIP (Playland Improvement Plan) - essentially a revised, updated version of their plan - that was due out by the end of the summer. We knew that while we’d managed to facilitate a change in the plan to now include the Amusement Park, with SPI’s insistence on forging ahead with the proposed Field Zone taking over a significant portion of the parking lot ,that was a hollow victory. The Amusement Park cannot survive let alone thrive with such drastically reduced parking.
The PIP is now out. It was made publicly available on September 6, 2013. Not only has the Field House remained in the plan, it has grown even larger, now to 95,000 sq. feet. And after SPI pays rent to the County for the space, according to their presentation on Weds. December 11th, 2013, all profits after that go back into the pockets of Playland Sports. Not the County. Not Playland. Just Playland Sports. A privately owned company. No one has been able to explain to me how that financially benefits Playland, Westchester County taxpayers or the residents of Rye. It pretty much just seems to financially benefit the principals of Playland Sports. Here's the link to the Playland Sports web site "about us" page:
http://www.playlandsports.com/about-us
It seems that we’ve come full circle and are back to trying to save Playland from Real Estate Developers chopping it up and building for-profit entities there on public park land.
If you don’t want to see that happen, sign the NEW petition (and feel free to sign the original one too!) which can be found here:
To view video of SPI’s 12/11/13 “Field Zone” presentation, click here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ju6vWyx3A2I&feature=youtu.be
To read the SPI “Playland Improvement Plan” from September 2013 click here:
