By Scott Brinton
The map is different than most. It provides only an overview of the county's parks; that is, its open green spaces.
Mr. Schary, a retired New York City school teacher turned volunteer environmentalist, notes the absence of any green mark in North Bellmore. His hand hovers above nearby communities Freeport and Wantagh, which boast an abundance of green blotches. North Bellmore, however, features nothing but white paper.
"North Bellmore does not have one square inch of park," said Mr. Schary. "It is the only community in the Town of Hempstead without any open space. We have the [Jerusalem Avenue BOCES] school, but that's it."
North Bellmore will likely never get a park to call its own. Full of houses and businesses, the community has no free land left for one.
Mr. Schary, though, has an idea for a hiking/biking path that would run from the North Bellmore/Wantagh border south through Bellmore, all the way to the end of Cedar Creek County Park in Seaford.
He is proposing to connect state-owned land in North Bellmore that now only serves as a dumping ground for nearby residents, with the Town of Hempstead's Twin Lakes Nature Preserve in Wantagh, Nassau County's Mill Pond Park in Bellmore, and finally the county's Cedar Creek Park. In this way, Mr. Schary hopes to create one larger dirt -- and possibly paved -- trail that would be open to all.
Currently, only roads, including major thoroughfares Sunrise Highway and Merrick Road, separate the green spaces that Mr. Schary would join. "This is a matter of opening some gates," he said. "It's something that can be done in one day. You're not talking a grand plan here."
Mr. Schary, Long Island Sierra Club Environmentalist of the Year for 1998, also said that his plan could incorporate a county proposal to carve out a 7.3-mile bike path in Seaford with state land that was purchased for construction of the Seaford-Oyster Bay Expressway but never developed.
Including that tract in his plan would mean laying a trail from Bellmore in the green corridor beside the Sunrise Highway railroad trestle east to the Seaford path, which would extend from Cedar Creek Park to the Sunrise through residential streets.
No one, though, is certain what will become of the 7.3 acres for the Seaford trail. The State Department of Transportation had planned to auction off that undeveloped land to the highest bidder last spring. When the Wantagh-Seaford Homeowners Association and State Senator Charles Fuschillo Jr. (R-Merrick) protested, however, the state called off the auction.
Mr. Schary, who has served on numerous government citizens committees, said his proposal for the extended trail fits well with the 2000 Nassau County Open Space Plan, which reads in part: "The County and State agencies should find a way to address the issues so that the public can benefit from additional trails and bike paths for commuting and recreation."
Subhead: Vandalism deterrent
Vicky Rosenberg, president of the Wantagh-Seaford Homeowners Association, said that Mr. Schary's proposal "makes a great deal of sense" as a vandalism deterrent. Teenagers are trashing parts of Mill Pond Park and Twin Lakes Preserve, she said. At Mill Pond, young people hold keg parties and set bonfires on an island. At Twin Lakes, they are breaking into and destroying the pump house, which is needed to prevent water from stagnating at the lakes. "If people are using something," said Ms. Rosenberg, "and the areas are being maintained because they are of use, there is less likelihood of this kind of thing going on."
Nassau County Legislator David Denenberg (D-Merrick), who supports Mr. Schary's plan, said vandalism has increased at area preserves owing to a security breakdown. "The problem with the county," he said, "is that the number of park rangers is down" because of Nassau's continued financial woes. Since 1992, the number of rangers has dropped from 39 to 14.
Among the rangers' primary duties was to look out for preserves such as Mill Pond Park. However, Bruce Piel, chairman of the 185,000-member Nassau Park Advisory and Recreation Council, said that today, "They use park rangers to carry park mail around."
That is why, Mr. Denenberg said, Democrats included a $600,000 line item in the county budget to hire part-time security guards at Nassau's parks and preserves in 2001.
Subhead: Project challenges
While gaining local favor, Mr. Schary's plan for an extended trail does raise liability questions, with hikers and bikers crossing congested roads such as Sunrise Highway to get from one section of the proposed trail to another.
Pointing to a street map of the area, Mr. Schary says, "Your big problem is right here, crossing Merrick Road. Hopefully, they would put a crosswalk, lighting, green space. The same up here where you cross Sunrise.
"So long as [the trail] is signed properly," Mr. Schary said that he sees "no liability."
Also, getting the three levels of government -- state, county and town -- to agree to and act upon a unified plan poses a challenge.
Mr. Schary's proposal has attracted the attention of State Assemblywoman Kathleen Murray (R-Levittown). "The idea of an [extended] bike path is tremendous," she said. "All we have to do is look to the Wantagh State Parkway bikeway on weekends. It's packed. It really has a broad appeal."
Ms. Murray met with Mr. Schary in her Levittown office the week after she won reelection in November. "I had indicated to him preliminarily that I was very interested in the proposal and, as a general proposition, was very supportive of it," said Ms. Murray. "This is a bold, ambitious project. It involves several levels of government and several different communities. It really has a lot of logistics attached to it."
She added, "What I said to him was that I would be delighted to be the point person for the state."
Nassau County Legislator Norma Gonsalves (R-East Meadow) said of the trail: "It's something positive. It's something that will be useful not only in North Bellmore, but also to all people in that corridor."
Negotiations among the different levels of government could get sticky at times, though. Part of Mr. Schary's plan involves giving over jurisdiction of the state property in North Wantagh to the Town of Hempstead. The town already oversees at least part of the land, Mr. Schary said. "My proposal is to extend the Town of Hempstead's management over a state property," he said.
Hempstead spokesman Michael McConnell said town officials could not comment about Mr. Schary's proposal because they had not yet seen plans for it. Town officials were aware of it, however, and did plan to meet with him about it.
Ms. Gonsalves said the trail "is something that can be done with the cooperation of all the officials."
Ms. Murray also said that, at points between sections of the trail, Mr. Schary's path would weave through local neighborhoods, which could cause consternation among residents. "People like to have the sanctity of their neighborhoods remain intact," the assemblywoman said.
Mr. Schary said the project's positives would outweigh the negatives for local residents, however. North Wantagh residents, for example, would have the constant dumping on state-owned/town-managed land cleaned up. "Right now, no one is maintaining it," he said. "They're dumping industrial waste there."
He also said that, with the extended trail, "You now have a whole new recreation system, which will make this county a thousand times more livable."
