An Albany County town is celebrating state grant funding to support parks and playgrounds.
Surrounded by soccer fields, New York state Assemblyman Phil Steck announced $375,000 in state funding for the Town of Guilderland Monday.
The money, from the State and Municipal Funding program, will support upgrades at Fort Hunter and DiCaprio Parks.
Speaking at DiCaprio Park, where a new playground will be built, Steck pointed to a backhoe that was purchased with a portion of the funding.
“This is a piece of equipment that will go to great use here in Guilderland and save money,” Steck said.
The Democrat from the 110th District said the $125,000 in funding for the heavy equipment follows a campaign to pave Route 158 between Rotterdam and Guilderland Center with state support.
Guilderland Highway Superintendent Bob Haver says the backhoe will keep his crews safe.
“If I put somebody out on guiderail crews to clean up the brush overhanging a guiderail, every guiderail system, every guiderail out there, has poison ivy, and then my guys are out for two weeks,” Haver said. “So that machine has a brush hog unit on the end of it, you can clean up all that stuff and get the guide rails exposed again,” Haver said.
Haver hopes for a new tractor for roadside mowing next.
“My stuff's getting old, and those new tractors are $140,000. That’s under state contract too,” he said. “So it's probably more like $180,000,” Haver said.
Town Supervisor Peter Barber, a Democrat like Steck, says a quarter million for the town's parks will bolster recreational opportunities in Guilderland.
“We want to add playgrounds, particularly in a place like this. We've got a lot of older kids playing lacrosse and soccer, and you got younger kids, and now you have an attractive distraction, a safe distraction for kids to enjoy,” Barber said.
Fort Hunter Park, just down the road from DiCaprio Park, will see new playground equipment: a climbable cone-shaped cargo net. The grants will also support a new pavilion for picnics and community events.
Steck says funding recreation is a special cause for him. His father was a longtime youth sports coach and athletic director at the Albany Academy.
“I was reminiscing about the first time I ever came to a park in Guilderland, when I was 15 years old was a different park, Tawasentha, because I was playing on the Latham Babe Ruth baseball team, and we had a Capital District tournament at Tawasentha,” Steck said.
