Sustainable Playland Inc., the nonprofit chosen to manage Playland park, will return to Westchester County’s legislative review process of its park improvement plan after four weeks spent sitting on the sidelines.
SPI told the county it was diving back into the process in a letter Wednesday, just one day before a May 1 deadline set by county Board of Legislators Chairman Michael Kaplowitz, a Somers Democrat.
In the letter, addressed to Westchester County Executive Rob Astorino, SPI President Kim Morque said the decision came after deliberation of the group”™s board members. Morque said he expected Astorino, who has already signed a management agreement with SPI, to take a more active role in the review process and completing operator agreements.
“We further understand that the county will represent us in any current and future lawsuits relating (to) the approval process and implementation of the (Playland Improvement Plan) should SPI be named as a respondent,” the letter stated.
SPI had removed itself from a county Board of Legislators review process amid legal uncertainties, including a question of whether Westchester or the city of Rye had approval authority over any proposed construction at the park. Playland is owned by the county but is within the city”™s borders, in a mostly residential neighborhood on the Long Island Sound coastline.
Rye asserted its authority over the implementation plan in a March 20 letter written by Michael B. Gerrard, an environmental law attorney with the New York City firm Arnold & Porter L.L.P.
In that letter, Gerrard said an 82,500-square-foot field house that SPI is proposing to build for year-round use was not compliant with city zoning codes.
“If the County would like to initiate the zoning amendment process, it can petition to the City Council for the necessary amendment,” Gerrard wrote. County officials met with Rye Mayor Joe Sack, a Republican, but neither side budged.
The county executive approached any peace meetings with the caveat that the county would not give up zoning approvals for Playland, for fear of setting a precedent that could affect other county-owned properties. Ned McCormack, a spokesman for Astorino, told the Business Journal in a previous interview that the county continuing to manage the park, which he said runs in the red by as much as $5 million a year, would not be an alternative to SPI.
“The status quo is not an option,” he said.
The stalemate continues.
Aside from the turf battle, there are also two lawsuits filed by Legislator Ken Jenkins, a Yonkers Democrat. Jenkins filed suit last year, saying the management deal, which was approved by the county”™s Board of Acquisitions and Contracts, was actually a lease. By law, a lease would need a full vote of the legislature. Jenkins lost that suit but is pursuing an appeal, while he also filed a civil lawsuit looking to invalidate the deal altogether.
Legislator Peter Harckham, a North Salem Democrat, is chairman of the county board”™s parks committee that was in the process of reviewing the implementation plan when SPI backed out. Harckham said that SPI”™s sitting out of the process may have “colored some legislators”™ perceptions,” but as chairman he was committed to making sure any ill will would not taint the review process.
SPI”™s assertion that the county would offer legal protection to the nonprofit was something Harckham said the board would have to discuss with the legislative legal counsel.
“We”™ll pick back up, we”™ll put the information back into the hopper,” he said. Harckham said there were still questions that needed to be answered, among them SPI”™s financials, the field house and parking concerns due to a proposed reduction of spaces at the site. Initially, the improvement plan was expected to pass through the parks committee for a vote of the entire board by the middle of May. The delay has derailed that.
“We”™re going to have to push that back now based on the delay they imposed on the process,” he said. “It”™s not like we just pick up immediately tomorrow. We”™ve got to hit the reset button and we need to reschedule things.”
In coming back to the process, SPI noted it had modified its plan since its initial proposal but was committed to the spirit of its original plan. That likely means continuing to pursue the athletic fields component.
“Our public-private partnership approach is to create multiple activities that would draw visitors to Playland year round,” Morque said in the letter. “The goal is to make the park less dependent on attendance at the amusement component that is weather dependent and has a limited season.”
IN this article we see SPI President Morque, after meeting with Mr. Astorino, declare that ““…We further understand that the county will represent us in any current and future lawsuits relating (to) the approval process and implementation of the (Playland Improvement Plan) should SPI be named as a respondent,â€
So, how does SPI sustain Playland if they cannot even sustain teir own contract review process by the county legislature?
As I see it, SPI has just become another mouth at the table to feed, and that much less, not more, sustenance that Playland and county taxpayers can ever see from this group. We see their true colors now; the colors of as bag of dry bones.
How can they assure us that their FIELD Zone and structure, with parking losses by Playland would not cost us even more, rather than less. Look at them, can’t even pay their own bills and right onto County welfare they go. Who needs this?
I suggest a Performance Bond, coupled with a Surity bond, to guarantee that SPI delivers the money that Mr. Astorino suggests Playland needs. The county executive’s spokesman said it was a $3 to 5 Million shortage, so a surity bond of $4 Million dollars does not seem unreasonable to me.
Of course, seeing that SPI cannot even pay its own bills, (and thank goodness they don’t have a payroll) and themselves have claimed to have only about $11,000 in the corporate treasury; I suggest that the bonds be backed by the personal assets and estates of each and every officer and board member of Sustainable Playland Inc. I think this is quite the least they can do. In order to move forward, they must be able to sustain Playland, as their name denotes. If their money can’t talk, let us let SPI walk.
A Surity bond guaranteeing $4 Million dollars/year; for 99 years, backed by the assets both of ststainable Playland and its officers would go a long way toward assuring me that SPI isn’t the most cockameme idea I’ve heard since Roger Spoto’s suggestion that New Rochelle cut the anchor lines and let Davids Island drift away, out to sea.