By:Nick Buglione
In a presentation last Wednesday, Nassau County Executive Thomas Suozzi unveiled a five-point plan aimed at cleaning up the parks, restructuring management, encouraging sound environmental policies and expanding family events and activities. I-m here to tell our parks employees, together with Nassau County residents and all of you gathered here today, that not only are the bad old days coming to an end, Suozzi said, but we are creating a framework to ensure they never return.
The county plans to pump $18 million into its 83 parks this year, $10 million of which was held over from last year-s budget, Suozzi said. Over the next three years, the county will invest an additional $18 million in the system.
Under the new initiative, the county's 6,000 acres of parks will be divided into five regions, each with a regional director. Eighteen park managers will be responsible for the daily operation of the facilities. The county has also put together a blitz crew of parks and public works employees who will be charged with cleaning all the parks and fixing broken equipment. If it-s broken, fix it, Suozzi said, explaining the crew-s mission. If it-s dirty, clean it. If it-s a hazard, remove it.
The work will include the renovation of 43 tennis courts, 20 basketball courts, 30 baseball fields and 74 restrooms. It will also feature improved landscaping, fresh paint jobs and the installation of new benches and barbecue pits. Suozzi said the county-s more heavily used parks will be revamped by Memorial Day.
There are also plans to put in place a system to ensure that the parks remain in good shape in the future, Suozzi said. This includes training all our park directors and managers in inspection techniques, and forming a unit that will make random park visits and send out regular report cards on every park, with notations on everything from general cleanliness to landscaping to safety, he said.
About $500,000 has been allocated for the planting of new trees and shrubs, and workers have already cleaned up 12 locations that were being used for dumping. In order to promote respect for the environment, the county has adopted a zero-tolerance policy for dumping under its the initiative.
Finally, the county plans to expand park events, including the summertime concerts at the Harry Chapin Lakeside Theater in Eisenhower Park and the Long Island Marathon. Suozzi hopes that 10,000 runners will take part in the marathon this May.
In three short years, we-ve managed to turn around the very negative perceptions about how things operate in Nassau County, Suozzi said. I am stating my commitment to a similarly ambitious objective for our parks system, and, working together, I believe we can make that vision a reality.
Some park advocates, however, are not that optimistic. Bruce Piel, chairman of the non-profit Park Advocacy and Recreation Council (PARC) of Nassau County, doesn-t believe the county-s $18 million in 2005 will be enough to turn the parks around and doubts it will follow through with its plan. What [he is] offering is a Band-Aid for a gaping wound, Piel said. The system has deteriorated so badly.
From the late 1970s to the mid-'80s, the parks were at their peak, with a full range of services, top-notch facilities and programs, and a large number of county workers to keep them up, according to Piel. But budget cuts and severe staff layoffs over the years -- the parks department currently has 270 employees, about one-third the number it did 15 years ago -- sent the golf courses, playgrounds, ball fields, museums, beaches, campgrounds and nature preserves on a downward spiral, Piel said. Grass and shrubs grew unchecked, bathrooms fell into disrepair, and parks were vandalized and littered with graffiti.
The decline began under County Executive Thomas Gulotta and continued under Suozzi, though Suozzi promised to make parks a top priority of his administration, Piel said. Suozzi promised to turn the parks around, not in his fourth year, but in his first year, Piel said. Suozzi argues that in his first three years, he focused mainly on stabilizing the financially strapped county.
Though the county plans to hire 20 new park employees in 2005, it won-t be enough to make any real impact, Piel said.
Nassau County Legislator Norma Gonsalves (R-East Meadow), who has been a strong supporter of park- and open-space preservation, echoed Piel. One of the major problems is that the park supervisors don-t have the work force to maintain parks at the level they were, she said. He has to hire the staff. More workers are needed.
Meanwhile, Bellmore civic activist Lisa Schary is concerned that the county-s new plan doesn-t seem to include improving park security. Nassau County has all of these facilities, and I can-t fathom [that they think] it-s not their responsibility to have park rangers around just so everyone feels safe, Schary said. While the county had some 130 rangers on staff over a decade ago, it has none today, and parks have become popular hangouts for vandals, according to Schary.
The kids wouldn-t be able to do this kind of damage if they realized someone was watching, she said.
Comments about this story? NBuglione@liherald.com or (516) 569-4000 ext. 236.
