What else can we spend this money on?

The pavement plan adopted by the city includes many features besides the main excavation and paving, including 48 benches, right-of-way signs, ornamental elements (one ornamental trash bin costs $1,300 according to the design document), and a plaza-like resting area. In addition, a sum of nearly $200,000 is budgeted for a side-project which includes a crushed stone path and a restoration of the Grand Central stone pylons (what the $65, 000 budgeted for the 'restoration' process would be used for is a mystery- the stones have recently been painted over to cover graffiti and a short dirt path takes you right up to them if you want to take a closer look- nothing seems to be in need of major restoration).

This project is funded largely with federal money- $1,450,000 of federal money (Department of Transportation- Highway Administration). During the 4/9/13 meeting, the community board insisted that this design plan was chosen out of cost considerations- to save city and federal money while maintaining ADA requirements. Does the ADA require ornamental trash cans? I browsed ADA requirement documents but found no mention of trash can beauty standards. The Highway Administration should not be wasting money on unnecessary elements and side projects when it can be better spent on an environmentally sustainable design plan. In addition, this project is supposed to conserve as much green space as possible. If the 48 benches mentioned above are to be installed along the trail- extra space must be cleared for them, fragmenting and destroying even more of the valuable wetland tree canopy. And if these 48 benches are to be installed elsewhere in the park- well, why is federal Highway Administration money being spent on this installation? (Incidentally, the $9,600 budgeted for these benches is enough to cover maintenance costs for my proposed limestone design plan for at least two years.)

It seems that for all this talk of saving money, a lot of taxpayer dollars are actually being drained on side projects which have no place being funded by federal highway money. In addition, Van Cortlandt has a slew of unresolved environmental issues which the city would do very well to ask for federal help to resolve. Already mentioned in the Wetlands Protection section are a number of issues in and around the wetlands which are a result of years of construction damage and poor maintenance practices. These are issues which need to be resolved urgently. Another ongoing issue is trash throughout the park. The park suffers from extremely poor maintenance practices. A big part of it is lack of trash cans. There are staff who clear litter early in the mornings, but they mostly cover the parade grounds. Other parts of the park- including the Putnam Trail- suffer from chronic neglect. The staff (when they are actually cleaning the park and not disappearing for hours or wandering about talking on the phone) leave the portable trash cans huddled in a bunch on one edge of the parade grounds. If you are on the other end of the parade grounds, you'd have to walk at least 3/4 of a mile to get to the nearest trash can (in Central Park- a trash can every 100 feet and what seems like three staff members picking up for every person who litters). Other parts of Van Cortlandt are even worse- there are usually no trash cans anywhere around the lake and never any along the trail. Actually, there was one trash can on the stone bridge on the Putnam Trail at one point, but it was emptied maybe once a month- so instead of a trash can, it was usually just a mountain of trash in the middle of the bridge. Then this trash can was thrown into the lake, where it stayed partly submerged for months. (This was around the same time that I received a response to my wetland inquiries- something about the park staff 'closely monitoring the water quality'.)

Trash isn't just an aesthetic nuisance- it is a real environmental threat- a threat which the park has not made its mission to address. Yes- I do think that we all need to be pointing at ourselves on this one. It's the park users who litter. However, the park administrators aren't helping to remediate the littering either. You don't have to go very deep into the woods to see deposits of trash that have not been cleaned out for years. Lift up a layer of leaves and mulch just off the trail and you'll see bottles, condoms, paint cans, surgical masks, plastic bags, tires, furniture covering, mattresses, rubber gloves and in Tibbett's Brook- plastic chairs and the occasional hypodermic needle. The trash floating in the water is covered with a layer of orange and brown algae that have been choking the wetlands since the parade ground construction began. These items are found close to the surface but also under many layers of mulch - highlighting the lack of environmental awareness of the maintenance staff who clear and mulch trails. Insects and small animals get trapped and die in discarded plastic containers. Plastic bags are left on the ground for years and decades. The plastic disintegrates, the pieces become part of the soil and fall apart upon contact into tiny flaky shreds. All of this is seeping into the soil and groundwater. To address this major trash issue, the park needs to re-evaluate its maintenance practices, to create a plan for more efficient placement of trash cans, and to hire qualified conservation experts. In my opinion, it is absolutely bizarre that the park's administration has not addressed the decades-old trash problem- which can be addressed very economically by the existing staff and also with the help of volunteer days which are organized several times a year- and yet is requesting $1.5 million of federal money for asphalt toxins and $1,300 trash cans. I say let's start with regular old trash cans and empty them out a little more often and see where we go from there.

One last issue which, in my opinion, is more urgent than getting the feds to sponsor diamond-encrusted trash cans is the issue of animal abuse in the park. A voodoo cult has used parts of the park for its animal-slaughtering practices for years. Farm animals and birds in various stages of dismemberment are sometimes found throughout the park, especially in the summer. I've reported several chickens which appeared tortured but still alive, a number of small non-farm birds with signs of torture and a charred cottontail rabbit that I found close to the parade grounds. Each time the park rangers seemed disinterested and told me to call 311. I did. Nothing happened. The city doesn't care about a couple of headless chickens. It's up to the park to bring it up with the city. Rabbits and wild birds are species which belong to the park and need to be protected. The cult has a gathering site in the park which is known to the park staff- there are stones arranged in a circle and marked with some kind of symbols. The park rangers who know the terrain well and have had many opportunities to learn about the cult's practices, should work with the police and animal rights groups to catch these people in the act and to see if it leads to a larger network of animal abusers- maybe invest in some surveillance cameras for the area. Individuals trying to combat this cult's practices alone do not have the necessary resources. I attempted to wait around in a secluded spot close to this gathering site to see if I could gather some evidence about who gathers there and what they do. Apparently I was being watched without knowing it. They wouldn't gather until I left- or else I didn't wait long enough. I saw movement behind trees on my way back to the trail and the next day I went back and found puddles of fresh blood on the stones.

Can we please address this animal abuse issue before bringing in unicorn-fur lined trash cans?

Some pictures I took on a short walk covering less than 1% of the Van Cortlandt Park area: