Debate Over Whether Or Not To Accept Playground Equipment
by Thaddeus Flint
New old playground equipment for Shatford Park, and what some people think other people who want to preserve the beauty of their own land forever should really do were the only major topics of discussion at the New Lebanon Town Board meeting last Tuesday, December 8.
[private]According to Town Clerk Colleen Teal and Conservation Advisory Council Cynthia Creech, the Berlin School Board has offered New Lebanon the playground equipment behind the closed Stephentown Elementary School. The offer was made by School Board President Frank Zwack with the contingency that the equipment be removed from the Stephentown site by December 31.
“Some are a little old,” conceded Creech, “but the price is right: free.” Several pieces are thought to be in “excellent condition” one of which is Barney, a purple dinosaur on springs.
Teal said she believed that cost for similar equipment for Shatford Park would be in the “tens of thousands of dollars.” At the moment the park’s account has about $11,500 in it but a portion of that is expected to go towards renovation of the Tennis Courts which might or might not happen next Spring.
The problems—nothing is simple in government—comes down to removal in time and whether or not the Town’s insurance will allow old playground equipment to be erected. Some of the playground pieces might have been built in the Sixties or Seventies, well before lawyers and insurance companies started covering purple dinosaurs on springs with Red Tape.
Teal said she would contact the Town’s insurance to see if they would approve the installation.
Town Highway Superintendent Jeff Winestock said he could help. “There is a lot of time there,” he said of the manpower needed to remove the items from Stephentown. Much of the equipment is thought to be anchored to concrete footings. Winestock also pointed out that the deadline was rather short. “We could have a blizzard next week,” he added, which would preempt anyone from the Highway Department going out to dig up a Barney on springs.
Creech pointed out that the Mountain School was interested in taking anything the Town did not want, or could not take. She thought that perhaps the Mountain School would offer to help with the removal.
Winestock seemed unsure that more hands would necessarily be helping hands. “There’s probably 652 billion screws and parts there,” he said. Not properly managed there might only be 326 billion in a box somewhere when it came time to put the stuff back together.
“If we don’t take it they are going to scrap it,” said Teal.
“Don’t kill Barney,” whispered somebody in the audience.
For the moment the life of Barney and the rest of the equipment is in limbo. The Board voted with all in favor (except Supervisor Mike Benson who was absent that night) of drafting a letter back to Zwack saying New Lebanon would take the equipment as long as the insurance company said they would allow it. A budget of $2,000 was allocated toward the removal, should that happen.
The Board also voted that night, with all present in favor, to authorize the Supervisor to execute a letter stating that the Town supports the Columbia County Land Conservancy’s application to the State for funding to purchase development rights at Artemis Farm, owned by Creech. The purpose of this project is to keep the farm a farm forever.
A similar project was recently undertaken with residents Larry and Barbara Benson and their Shaker View farm. And while the preservation of the beauty of the Town is actually a part of New Lebanon’s comprehensive plan, not everyone is all that supportive of taking so much land permanently out of the possibility of ever being developed.
“The Town is blessed with beautiful rural scenery and long vistas of hills and valleys. Almost half of the [residents surveyed] indicated the rural atmosphere of New Lebanon as the primary reason they decided to live here. Preservation of the Town’s scenic resources is critical to maintaining this rural identity and will be a benefit to residents and visitors alike,” reads the comprehensive plan, which almost nobody ever reads.
This of course leaves more than half of those survey responders who have other reasons for living there. One of them might be Mark Baumli who, in less than a month, will be sitting at the front of the room as one of the two new Councilmen elected in November.
“I just think you are stopping people from coming into Town,” said Baumli. A good sized portion of both of those farms have significant road frontage which Baumli feels should be developed. “Keep the land further back,” said Baumli, but allow the road frontage to be developed. Baumli cited Covenant Circle, built on the side of a hill with a road nobody wants to fix crumbling down the side of it, as an example of what happens when you can’t build on nice flat surfaces. “We are losing miles of developable land,” he said.
Creech pointed out that those flat surfaces, some of which have already been developed to mixed results, contain “some of the best soil in Columbia County.”
Her farm “will not ever be developed,” confirmed Creech, who said she is taking a “big hit” financially preserving the farm as a farm. “I think there is some beauty of land on which food can be raised.”
Resident Rocky Brown spoke out and said the Town was one day going to be just a “big land conservancy if we continue on.” Already it was difficult to find small parcels of land to build a new house. “How are we going to keep the next generation in this Town?” he asked.
“There may come a day when we are very grateful for so much conservancy,” said resident Judy Zimmer who felt that perhaps too much development has already happened.
Creech pointed out that maybe 18% of the houses in New Lebanon are currently for sale.
A drive down the “Miracle Mile” of the Routes 20 and 22 corridor finds all kinds of weed filled gaps, empty lots, and buildings doing nothing. An entire small town could almost be built in the dirt lot behind the Berkshire Bank.
However Baumli persisted that more development would be better. “I don’t appreciate as a taxpayer and a citizen of New Lebanon that we are not allowing people to build houses on the existing road frontages that we have,” he said.
“So there will be somebody in a house in front of me who will raise hell 24 hours a day because I have a cow?” said Creech who is actually the only taxpayer and citizen of New Lebanon to “have” that road frontage for the simple reason that she paid for it.
“These are all valid points,” observed Greg Hanna of the Planning Board. “What we are really looking for is balance.”
The night ended with Deputy Supervisor Dan Evans looking back at the “big changes” that 2015 brought to the Town. The loss of both Councilman Bruce Baldwin and Mark Sheline Sr. of the Fire Company and the Planning Board left New Lebanon with some “big shoes to fill”.
“So let’s just take a step back,” said Evans. “We all want to do better for our Town. That’s the common goal we share.”
The Special Year-End Meeting of the Town Board will be held Tuesday, December 29 at 7 pm at the Town Hall and the Organizational Meeting of the Town Board will held Monday, January 4, 2016 at 7 pm, also at the Town Hall.[/private]