Norwood News

By Karen Argenti

 

The city’s Parks Department announced last week that it was setting up a Central Park-like Conservancy in Van Cortlandt Park.

This is a bad idea.

Up until now, the Friends of Van Cortlandt Park have acted as independent caretakers of the park responding to community concerns, helping to organize upkeep, maintaining trails, advocating for park interests, fundraising, providing important programming and maintaining ongoing communication with the Parks Department.

So why does the city feel the need to add on a Van Cortlandt Park Conservancy, right in the middle of the biggest economic downturn in a generation? One possible explanation is vengeance.

Mayor Bloomberg is mad at the Friends because they decided to oppose the siting of the Croton water filtration plant at Mosholu Golf Course. Unlike the mayor, they believe that the land use review process should be adhered to, that parks are not for sale, and that if land at Van Cortlandt Park can be alienated then it can happen elsewhere. 

The Friends were right! Within six months of City Council approval to take Van Cortlandt Park, they went after Macombs Dam Park to build the new Yankee Stadium. The last borough president, Adolfo Carrion, did not re-appoint community board members who voted against the project. He was punishing them for standing up for their community.

The Friends have already been punished. Soon after the filtration siting debacle, the Parks Department threw them out of their office space in the Golf House. The agency’s explanation that they needed to make way for renovations was clearly a lie because that area has been used for storage space for the past two years.   

We need the Friends, not a city-established conservancy. Recently, the Parks Department closed Shandler Recreation Area and Harris Park at the same time they removed Macombs Dam Park from use, putting a strain on Little Leagues and school teams. They flooded Sachkerah Woods and Classic Playground with incompetent contractors, which have resulted in the closing of facilities at the height of the season.

A public-private conservancy deciding to raise funds for city-owned projects at closed-door meetings ignores the principles of democracy and the transparency we voted to restore in last November’s election.  The Friends, precisely because of their independence, would be much more likely to advocate for the needs of the public in these cases than a rubber-stamp conservancy appointed and controlled by the city. 

At a time when funding for nonprofits is drying up, the city should support existing advocates, not establish more of them to compete for scarce resources. This proposal is a slap in the face to the Friends of Van Cortlandt Park board, its members, supporters and volunteers, and anyone in the public who uses Van Cortlandt Park.

Karen Argenti is a community and environmental activist and a former chair of Community Board 7. She has no affiliation with the Friends of Van Cortlandt Park, but an admirer of their work and accomplishments.