The Plattsburgh Common Council has approved a management plan for the city’s parks.
The City Parks Renewal Master Plan, prepared by the consulting firm Barton & Loguidice, is an outline for revitalization of Plattsburgh’s five parks. It notes that the city plans to invest $2.6 million to improve the parks as a complement to the recently adopted Comprehensive Master Plan that outlines an overall vision for future development.
Meeting Thursday, Ward 3 Democrat Elizabeth Gibbs noted that the council had received a report last year, they voted on a plan and then contracted with a different consultant on a second design. She questioned the spending for the plan.
“We don't have a lot of money to dedicate to parks," noted Gibbs. "We have earmarked $1.6 million in American Rescue money that we haven't spent yet, still sitting in our cash in the General Fund. We hoped that we would spend a total of $2.6 million. So when you subtract the $1.6 million out of the cash total from December 31st, we are left with about $1.3 million in cash. So I don't understand why we're doing it this way. And why we're not creating a design based on $1.6 million and probably the answer is $1.6 isn't going to get us very much. So I just don't understand why we're doing it this way. And like I said, we've spent about $400,000 in design fees and we could have bought playground equipment with that money by now.”
Director of Community Development Courtney Meisenheimer explained to Gibbs what the two consultants were hired to do.
“So Barton & Loguidice were paid to create a more general concept plan that involves like site surveying, public engagement, writing the Master Plan, which is high level," said Meisenheimer. "And then in order to get us to be able to put projects to work and put shovels into the ground, we brought on a ADBA to actually do the more detailed engineering design concept work. But Barton & Loguidice never was paid to actually bring that to the level of engineer design work. And so now ADBA is taking that for the projects that we're hoping to implement in his first phase, brought it down to that level so that now we can take those contracts out to bid.”
“Okay," said Gibbs. "I don't agree with it, but it clarifies it.”
Meisenheimer responded, “OK.”
The consultant’s report lists each park’s available facilities and ranks their existing conditions from great, decent, needing work to hazardous. It outlines needed changes at each park and potential new uses.
Ward 6 Democrat Jeff Moore questioned the usefulness of master plans in general.
“What are we getting for our money’s worth, realistically?" asked Moore. "A project like this, we can do maybe 10% and we end up with a big folio of all these potential things you could do. But realistically, we cannot come anywhere near the scope of what these plans are. I think we need to focus closer to what we can really do. I mean, it's great to dream. I get that. I'm not saying we shouldn't do what we're doing. It’s a great idea. But we are kind of getting ahead of ourselves by dreaming this big dream. And realistically, we're somewhere else. How much do we want to spend on the big grand plan that we can only finance a very small piece of?”
Meisenheimer replied by noting that such studies and plans are a valuable resource in developing long-term strategies.
“In order to look at our parks and our recreation and our community holistically, we have to have that really high level picture of like where do we see this park looking in 10 years?" said Meisenheimer. "And now as a department, it's good for me to have so I can say, okay, what's the first phase that we need to start working on? How do we coordinate the funding, the grants, the community support, just this first phase? And now once we accomplish that, what's the next phase. They're also valuable tools when we go to funding agencies or state agencies.”
“Well, I guess, I question some of the quality of it," Moore said. "I saw some things that were really fanciful.”
The City Parks Renewal Master Plan focuses on South Acres, South Platt Street, US Oval, Peter S. Blumette and Melissa Penfield parks.
Councilors voted 4 to 2 to accept the plan with Gibbs and Moore objecting.
