Short shrift from Parks Dept.

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After reading many articles in The Riverdale Press concerning the Fort Independence Park construction project, and as a concerned citizen who values my community, I am writing this Point of view column to express my views on this project.

Approximately four years ago, a group of dog owners got together and formed a group known as Fort Independence Dog Owners (FIDO). We utilize the park on a daily basis, perhaps multiple times to walk our dogs, socialize and enjoy the benefits of nature that only a park can provide to apartment dwellers.  We appreciate the hard work of many of the Parks Department employees and have worked with them to clean and improve Fort Independence Park. We have met quarterly to clean the dog run with the shovels, rakes and wheelbarrows the Parks Department has given us.

With this as background information to the reader, here are some salient points concerning the construction:

1. The Park project was planned over five years ago, in 2009. I have lived here more than thirty years, and only once has Community Board (CB) 8 openly notified and asked for ‘community input,’ regarding the Cannon Place retaining wall. I am aware that ignorance is no excuse; however, if we didn’t read this newspaper to find out when and where the meetings were scheduled, we would never have found out where to go to express our concerns. Neither I, nor most of the people I know, knew anything about this project, so we were and are subsequently the disenfranchised masses.

2. When those of us who utilize the park on a daily basis for many years, FIDO members, decided to push back and have our voices heard and perhaps have some input by attending CB 8 meetings, we were either:  a) summarily dismissed as an annoyance,  b) lectured to, and/or c) had vain attempts made to pacify us. At the last meeting we attended, in May 2014, we specifically asked that a timetable be posted in prominent places with specific target dates to inform the community as to what is being done and when it will be finished. This, to date, has not happened.

3. Presently, the park-keeper is on leave due to illness, so minimal work is being done to keep the park clean. Many FIDO members each morning bring multiple bags, not only to pick up after their dogs, but to clean up the human refuse left behind.  The area open to the community is quite small and would only take a temporary worker less than an hour to maintain the park’s cleanliness. Yet, the Parks Department comes in each morning to open the bathrooms and leaves. The garbage cans overflow with refuse and is picked up, with luck, every third day. When we ask why this is so, the standard answer is that, “the Parks Department is short handed.” Yet Seton Park is immaculately maintained, as is the Classic Playground behind the Amalgamated.

4. We were recently told the Parks Department would be responsible for the entire jogging horseshoe — yes, it is a horseshoe.  We have seen, in the past how well the Parks Department took care of the jogging path inside Fort Independence Park. If past actions are any indicator of the future, the path will once again erode and transform itself into a sandbox for children to play upon. 

5. Neither the exercise area across the street from DeWitt High School nor the Park itself has working water fountains. Why?

6.  We were told the trees, which were cut down on the grassy slope by the Van Cortlandt Avenue West entrance to the Park, were threatening the integrity of the earthen dam. 

Presently, there are various pieces of heavy construction equipment  parked on the earthen dam which supports the reservoir. Does this not erode/challenge its structural integrity?

7. The construction crew had, at one point, ten men and was working quite diligently to finish Phase One of the plan and open up the park for the community to use, as shown in the construction specs. Has anyone looked into the cost overrun of the constant postponed opening of the park?

Roberta Strugger is a Kingsbridge Heights resident. Point of view is a column open to all.

Parks Department, Fort Independence Park, Roberta Strugger

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