It was standing room only at the Great Neck Park District Board of Commissioners’ heated meeting on Monday, Dec. 22, with residents filling the room to voice their opposition to the proposed alienation of 2.48 acres of Kings Point Park.
The proposed alienation was not on the meeting’s agenda, and the board had little leverage over the matter. However, before any item on the agenda was addressed, for the first two hours of the meeting, residents expressed their disappointment and anger with the board.
Earlier this year, the village of Kings Point proposed to the park district and state Sen. Jack Martins a plan to alienate parts of the park in order to allow the United Mashadi Jewish Community of America to build a parking lot for their community center, which is currently being built adjacent to the park.
It has been a contentious issue in the Great Neck community ever since.
Jean Pierce, a longtime resident of the Village of Great Neck and an active community member, regularly attends the park district meetings and said she is often the only resident there.
Monday night was an obvious exception.
More than 20 residents spoke at the meeting, and more than 30 residents attended.
Joanne Goldstein was the first resident to speak. Goldstein told the board about her appreciation for the park and invoked the Joni Mitchell lyrics, “They paved paradise and put up a parking lot,” to sum up her feelings on the proposed alienation.
Resident Ronald Brinn said, “It disturbs me to learn that the park, our state legislature, private entities, development companies, and others are engaging in a partnership that is occult.”
Brinn closed his remarks with a poem, “The land swaps and lease deals are all hung up in the air, and the public is standing against this despair.”
Ivan Xu, a lifelong resident of Great Neck and recent graduate of Great Neck South High School, told the board, “You have betrayed the public trust, wasting our taxpayer dollars, and caving to private interests.”
After several residents spoke, the park district’s general counsel, attorney Chris Prior, addressed the shouting crowd.
“The obvious confusion in our community continues,” Prior said. “You do not own Kings Point Park. You cannot alienate Kings Point Park.”
Nancy Sherman, a trustee for the Village of Thomaston, addressed the board and passed around a letter by Commissioner Vanessa Tamari to Mayor Kouros Torkan of Kings Point that was supportive of the alienation.
The crowd let out audible gasps and tsks of disapproval.
In the letter, Tamari requests that the village of Kings Point alienate 2.48 acres of parkland to facilitate a swap for 13.48 acres of land, some of which is owned by UMJCA and some by Kings Point.
There were a few notable voices that were not opposed to the proposed alienation, but they were few and far between.
Rebecca Rosenblatt Gilliar asked residents to consider the alternative if no parking lot were built and what problems might ensue, including worse traffic problems on Steamboat Road or Kings Point no longer leasing to the park district, making the park solely for village residents.
“The park district is not the bad guy in this,” Rosenblatt Gilliar said, “The park district is stuck because Kings Point owns the park.”
Emil Hakimi, who is on the central board of the UMJCA, spoke next, saying, “We’re here in peace. We’re not your enemies.”
Hakimi invited residents to visit UMJCA’s 5.76-acre Wildwood property, one of the parcels of land proposed for a swap. “When we saw what we were giving up, we really thought that we were getting, actually, the short end of the stick.”
Resident Adam Cohen also had a positive comment unrelated to alienation, thanking the board for the hockey program in which his son is involved. “He now gets up on his own to get to the rink at 6 o’clock in the morning,” Cohen said.
Commissioner Jason Mara then decided to give an impromptu presentation on the proposed swap. Mara also noted that if the swap went through, the board would look into gaining additional land from Nassau County that is contiguous with the Wildwood property and the Kings Point-owned property.
If the park district were able to negotiate with Nassau County, it would gain an additional 30 acres of land along with the other two properties.
Mara said that this land swap would be a rare opportunity for the park district. It has been 23 years since the district added parkland and 34 years since it added an additional park.
“This is something we should be working together on,” Mara said.
But soon enough, tensions boiled over when Jay Chagrin, a trustee for the Village of Thomaston, stood up from his seat, wagging a finger, and shouting at the board, “I can do whatever I want! This is a free country!”
Chagrin was removed from the meeting, and the board went into recess.
When the board reconvened, five residents remained in the audience, and it was time to review the agenda.
The $850,000 capital improvement project for Memorial Field Park is scheduled to begin on Monday. The park will have its natural grass turf replaced and a new irrigation system installed.
The operator that the district has leased for concessions for over 10 years is downsizing and ending its lease with the district at the end of this year.
One of the operator’s employees formed a company, CJK Refreshments, to take over operations. The board unanimously approved the new lease for $950,000.
The board unanimously voted to revert to the Public Employer Risk Management Association’s workers’ compensation plan, as PERMA had offered a two-year contract that promised savings in the second year.
The board also unanimously voted to change its asset management software to OpenGov after reviewing the offerings of four companies. The district will pay an initial fee of $36,200 to retrain staff on the software and then pay an annual fee of $21,630.
Lastly, the board unanimously approved a renovation of Cuttermill Park Playground, which will include the installation of two new play areas, a swing set, and a rope swing. The renovated area will be ADA accessible and will cost $313,449 for the whole project.
After a long and contentious meeting, the board adjourned.
