Hi Crappy, it was three years ago when I sent
you an expose on Frank Charles Park and the lousy jog the National Park
Service(NPS} does there . I also wrote to NPS and the local papers and
contacted the local politicians about the conditions there.Well nothing
has changed, we see the same dead trees and dead branches directly above
where people walk and sit. The bathroom only takes one man and one
woman at a time in a park that has a playground, tennis courts, ball
fields, picnic tables and a beach. The beach accumulates trash everyday
from the tides and from some beach goers and needs to be cleaned on a
regular basis. The beach has serious erosion and picnic tables there are
unusable.
Why have these conditions been allowed to
continue for so long? The NPS says they are underfunded and
understaffed. The politicians say they know there are problems and will
see what they can do. Why can't obvious safety problems like dead trees
be at least addressed? If someone is killed or injured and sues for
millions of dollars where is the money going to come from ,us the people
who pay taxes. Howard Beach is a nice community and I'm sure people pay
plenty of taxes and this is New York the biggest city in the USA so why
are we not getting treated better by our government?
The National Park Service has shown they cannot operate a community park at the standards the NYC Parks can and should turn over control of the park to the city.NYC Parks are usually well maintained and they are have more experience with operating a park and have created many beautiful parks within the city.
Hope it doesn't take someone dying before something is done but sadly that seems to be.
