Years of neglect at Riverhead’s parks has left them ‘falling apart,’ recreation supe wants to bond money for repairs

Riverhead’s parks are in such disrepair that portions of them are being shut down – but the town doesn’t have the money to fix them.

Every year, the recreation department’s lengthy list of repairs and improvements needed at the town’s 31 parks grows longer. Basketball and tennis courts are crumbling. Walking paths are buckling, creating dangerous conditions. There are parking lots where lighting was never installed, and others that are pock-marked with pot holes.

Last year, the skate park at Stotzky Park was in such poor condition that it had to be shut down indefinitely.

But every year, town board members have told recreation superintendent Ray Coyne the same thing: There simply isn’t any money.

Necessary repairs to town parks have fallen by the wayside as the town has scrambled to avoid a financial crisis. After borrowing $70 million in the early 2000s to finance open space preservation, the town’s open space reserve funds to pay that debt have nearly run out.

Riverhead and the other East End towns collect a transfer tax of 2 percent on the sale of real property, but after the market crash in 2008, the transfer tax revenues plummeted. Riverhead has not been collecting enough transfer tax money to cover the debt and has been paying it out of reserves, which are dwindling. When the reserves are depleted, the town will have to pay part of the open space debt service —more than $5 million each year – out of its general fund, which will raise property taxes.

As it is, the town is struggling under the burden of other debt incurred to close and cap its landfill — an effort that began as a reclamation project, which went over budget and added tens of millions to the town’s outstanding debt.

But with the sheer number of repairs needed at town parks, Coyne says the recreation department simply doesn’t have enough money in its budget to tackle them on its own. So for the third year in a row, the superintendent went to town board members last week to ask for help.

“It’s getting to the point where things are starting to age and fall apart,” he said. “The parks are just getting worse and worse, and the complaints are getting greater.”

Some portions of the town’s parks have needed to be shut down because they are in such a state of disrepair that they pose a danger to residents. The skate park, which was opened with much fanfare more than a decade ago, has been closed since last spring because it is no longer safe to skate in, he told them. One of Stotzky Park’s two multi-purpose fields is in such bad shape that it can no longer be used.

“The problem is if we don’t repair or fix our infrastructure, it’s going to get worse,” said Councilman John Dunleavy at the work session Thursday. “We’re going to start closing pocket parks down, because if someone gets injured because we didn’t repair something, we’re liable.”

Though the town might not have the money to make the repairs right now, Coyne said, the recreation department does have a bond authorization from almost 10 years ago that could cover many of the repairs needed to keep the parks in usable condition.

The authorization – which was approved by the town board to build the Calverton Veterans Memorial Park in 2006 – still has about $1.1 million left that was never borrowed. The town could still sell those bonds and use the money to repair its parks, including Veterans Memorial Park.

But the bond authorization will expire in April, meaning that the board has about a month to decide to sell those bonds before it would need to get a new bond authorization passed by voters.

“It’s the last opportunity we’re going to have,” Coyne told the town board Thursday. He said the town could pay the bond back through parks and recreation fees each year, while giving the department the money it needs right now to make the most urgently needed repairs.

“It’s not a large bond, and we could get a lot done with that,” he said.

But Town Supervisor Sean Walter expressed great reluctance to borrow any more money with the town’s looming debt crisis. “I can’t imagine going to Moody’s and saying, ‘Yeah, we’re selling a million dollars in bonds,’” he said. “If we do have to bond something, we need a couple new drinking water wells.”

“I know the situation you’re in,” Coyne said. “But I know the situation the parks are in too. They’re just getting worse.”

He said today that he is meeting with town board members individually this week to discuss the bond and see if he can get the board votes needed to approve it.

“If they vote it down, the decision has to be made with the skate park – and the other 31 parks – to figure out what would be in the best interest of the town,” Coyne said.

The skate park might not make it onto this year’s list of repairs if the town can’t bond the money, he said. Less than 1.1 percent of the town’s population use the skate park, he pointed out, and 75 percent of those using the park are not Riverhead residents.

“You’ve got to look at it from that point of view – what’s the park that’s going to satisfy the most residents?” he said.