By Scott Brinton
North Bellmore resident Richard Schary has a dream to see the string of Nassau County, Town of Hempstead and New York State park- and wetlands that run from Seaford through Bellmore and Wantagh connected with one 10-mile hiking/biking trail. He proposed the idea to elected officials last year. Those officials are apparently taking him seriously.
Schary recently met with state Assemblywoman Kathleen Murray (R-Levittown) and a cadre of state, county and town officials at Murray's Levittown district office. The officials agreed to consider his proposal. This spring, they plan to take a walking tour through the parks that he proposes to connect.
"[The trail] was received favorably," said Schary. "People said we needed to proceed."
Officials also agreed to look into the Wantagh wetlands to the north, which would become part of the larger parks system Schary envisions. In recent years, the wetlands have fallen prey to vandals, who destroy property, dump garbage and set fire on lands there. Oversight is the trouble, Schary said. Right now, no one is looking out for the wetlands. Authorites are even unsure who owns them, he said.
Officials at the meeting agreed to figure out who should take charge of the wetlands -- New York State or the Town of Hempstead -- and clean them up and care for them regularly.
Vandalism is so bad in this natural habitat that Town of Hempstead authorities recently bulldozed down an intricate, booby-trapped "fort" there, which was reported to be a hangout for drug dealers.
County Legis. David Denenberg (D-Merrick) said he would see about having a crosswalk installed across Merrick Road to connect the Wantagh and Mill Pond County Parks. "He's working on that. David's very interested in this [the trail]," said Schary.
For the trail, the North Bellmorite is proposing to connect state-owned land in North Bellmore with the Wantagh wetlands, the Town of Hempstead's Twin Lakes Nature Preserve in Wantagh, Nassau County's Mill Pond Park in Bellmore and finally the county's Wantagh and Cedar Creek Parks to the south.
"My goal is to get this entire portion of open space declared a new state/town park that would be managed by the Town of Hempstead. The county would, of course, continue to manage the three parks it owns: Mill Pond, Cedar Creek and Wantagh."
Schary, Long Island Sierra Club Evnironmentalist of the Year for 1998, also said that his plan could incorporate a county proposal to carve out a bike path that would connect 7.3 acres of state land in Seaford that was purchased for construction of the Seaford-Oyster Bay Expressway but never developed.
The state has proposed auctioning off the 7.3 acres for development. Schary and the Wantagh-Seaford Homeowners Associaiton, headed by Vicky Rosenberg, vehemently oppose the sale, however. At the meeting, Schary said, "I was emphatic about that. We need to make a big issue of it. There's so little open space left in the Town of Hempstead that any sales of open space by the government for development would be looked on unfavorably by residents."
Schary said the trail could become an asset to Bellmore-Merrick, particularly North Bellmore, which has no park to call its own. "We have an untapped resource very close to the Bellmores," he said.
Murray, who is spearheading the governmental effort to create the trail, said, "The idea of an [extended] trail is tremendous. All we have to do is look to the Wantagh State Parkway bikeway on weekends. It's packed. It really has broad appeal."
County Legis. Norma Gonsalves (R-East Meadow) said, "It's something positive. It's something that will be useful not only in North Bellmore, but also to all people in that corridor."
