I have to thank my good buddies from Sustainable Playland. I’m a pretty busy woman these days and I don’t have much free time for the little things. I go to an awful lot of meetings that can be pretty time consuming (and often mind numbing). This week I actually took a rare two days off: Monday and Tuesday. Monday I was off to attend to some personal family stuff and today, Tuesday, I gave myself off from work so that I could dedicate it to attending the BOL Labor Parks Planning & Housing Committee meeting on Playland in the morning and then other Playland –related meetings/discussions in the afternoon. Well, hot-diggity, this morning not only can I sleep late (except that I’m already up early penning this), I can do a couple of loads of laundry, give my dog a badly needed bath and go get a long over-due and well deserved pedicure. I might even have time to clean my bathroom!
“Deirdre”, you ask, “why on Earth do you suddenly have so much free time on your hands this morning?!” Well, folks, I have all this free time this morning because I found out late Monday afternoon that once again, this morning, Tuesday June 3rd, 2014 Sustainble Playland will be bucking the review meeting schedule they eagerly agreed to back in January and THEY WILL NOT BE SHOWING UP FOR TODAY’S COMMITTEE REVIEW MEETING.
Yup, you read that right. SPI is going to be a No-Show today. AGAIN. So...the meeting has been canceled altogether.
Find out what's happening in Ryewith free, real-time updates from Patch.
“WHY??!” I hear you asking, incredulously. Well, from what I’ve been told Sustainable Playland isn’t coming to today’s meeting – which was supposed to be the SECOND meeting on Parking & Traffic (necessary because their presentation at the first one was so dismally inept and uninformative) - because their Parking & Traffic Consultant cannot make it. And they didn’t even let the BOL Committee know this until the day before the scheduled meeting. No advance notice so that the BOL members could potentially change the agenda to another issue (like, ohhhh, I dunno, the FINANCIALS that are due to be discussed next week) and still manage to essentially stay on-schedule with the review process. No “Well, we’ll just have to wing it without our Consultant, but we’ve got such a solid plan we can do that”. Just a last minute “we’re not coming”. Speculation from several different sources tell me it’s a strong possibility that the Consultant ain’t coming because the funds to pay the Consultant ain’t flowing anymore.
But, apparently, they still want the contract to run Playland.
Find out what's happening in Ryewith free, real-time updates from Patch.
Never mind that last week Rye Mayor Joe Sack and various Rye City Council members (thank you Laura Brett, Richard Slack, Julie Killian and Kirsten Bucci) made a well coordinated and very solid, informed and detailed case on behalf of the city of Rye that resulted in them basically saying that if Rye is granted Lead Agency status by the NYS DEC Commissoner later this week the City *WILL* indeed pursue a full environmental review with a long form SEQR filing and an Environmental Impact Statement (things SPI is trying to avoid – hmmmm, wonder why?). And bless his heart, Joe Sack told the BOL Committee members that if the COUNTY is awarded Lead Agency status he expects THEM to do the same. Pete Harckham from the County seemed pretty down with that, so it doesn’t look like SPI is going to be able to squirm out of that one.
May 27, 2014 BOL LLPH Committee Review Meeting with Rye City Leaders (My favorite minute marker starts at 4:00 –where Mayor Sack details just how arrogant the SPI group is - but when you have time DO watch the first hour and 15 minutes to see the Mayor’s presentation; it’s a masterful example of brilliant political theatre on Joe's part - *this* particular meeting was NOT mind numbing, it was great!)
Never mind that the week before at the May 21, 2014 meeting on SEQRA (State Environmental Quality Review Act) , the only representative from SPI was one representative from their Traffic and Parking Study Consulting firm, no Board Members.
At the May 13, 2014 meeting they had one rep from their team in attendance for the Legal Issues meeting: SPI Counsel and Board Member Joe Carlucci. The rest of them couldn’t make it because they had inexplicably (do you find I use that word a lot when writing about Sustainable Playland?) scheduled a Board meeting for exactly the same day and time they already knew there was a meeting scheduled with the Review Committee. Go figure. This was the meeting where they were supposed to explain that letter Morque wrote stating that they were coming back to the review table because it was his understanding the County had made an offer to indemnify SPI from all current AND FUTURE law suits. Watch the Legislators go semi-ballistic over that one here (the fun starts early around minute marker 5:00).
Talk on the streets is that not only are many of the Legislators reaching ‘fed up’ with this dog and pony show, but that there may even be hints of exasperation coming down from the County Executive’s perch on the 9th floor now too. Uh oh!
SPI continues to consistently prove that they are too disorganized, inept, incompetent, unprepared and let’s face it, they are just too darned arrogant, to be the ones who receive the keys to Playland. They prove this every chance they get. Over and over. And over and over and over and over again…
It’s long past due time that the County Executive’s office works with the BOL to put an end to this nonsense. It’s even longer past due time that the SPI Principles dig deep and find the good grace to face reality, fold up their Three-Card-Monty table and go home. Time’s a wastin’. Rob Astorino is running for Governor and his continued support for this group at this stage only serves to make him look like a Monkey’s Uncle. Dragging this out is wasting his time, the BOL members’ time, TAXPAYER MONEY, and most crucially of all, it’s wasting PLAYLAND’S time. We are now a month into the 2014 season. Before you know it, God help us, we’ll all be shoveling snow again (aarrrrgh!) and the 2015 season will be upon us. Are we going to have yet ANOTHER year in limbo for that park with no investment, no improvements and further deterioration? Even if they scrapped SPI TODAY they have to figure out what to do next…and most of us presume that move would be to turn to one of the other finalist operators with bids still on the table - Central or Standard . But that too will take time. The County needs to get moving on that pronto in order to secure a plan for next year.
They need to put this Sustainable Playland nag out of its misery. It’s like they’ve all taken the beast out to the field and now they are all standing around in a circle staring at each other– SPI, the CE and the BOL – and no one wants to be the one to pull the trigger and finish it off. SPI doesn’t want to pull the plug on itself, the BOL doesn’t want to be the bad guys and kick them to the curb, and Astorino is worried about looking bad by scrapping them after the way he’s painted himself into the corner by continuing to support them at this late juncture. (Hint to Rob: They're *already* making you look really really bad - cut 'em LOOSE!)
Somebody, PLEASE, just shoot the darned thing and put us ALL out of its misery.
Please contact the CE’s office and Legislators Pete Harckham, Mike Kaplowitz & Jim Maisano to let them know you want an end to this Boondoggle. Their contact info can be found here:
Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got a Malti-Poo to bathe.
