08/02/2023
From Rosemary Mondo:
Not sure if interested in posting about Austin Park...meeting this Thursday. Please share this information and petition if Austin Park is important to you: - This person put together the petition to keep Austin Park a park. Please read below and if this is something you support, sign and submit the petition.
To whom it may concern -
As a resident at 101 Jordan Street, I along with my family and neighbors strongly oppose the relocation of the Town's Maintenance Facilities into the Austin Park Pavilion in any capacity or configuration. The commercial / municipal maintenance is not the ideal location for that type of use.
A public park where kids play, ride their bikes throughout the park's green and paved spaces, walkers and bicyclists use the park - there is never a time throughout the week and seasons where the park is not being used by the community in some capacity. I see this daily living across the street. Additionally, the entrance from Jordan Street to Austin Park Pavilion (essentially the same entrance that would be used by the maintenance equipment) is frequently used as one of the main entrances into the park. We constantly see walkers, runners, parents with strollers, bikers, kids, cross Jordan Street about where we live into Austin Park. An access point potentially to be shared with a maintenance facility.
To have a maintenance facility occupy that space would be absolutely unacceptable, dangerous, and unfitting for a public park.
I"m attaching a few documents and a link.
The petition - we ran a petition on change.org. A leading social cause organization. We have nearly 400 supporters voting against the relocation of the Maintenance Building into the Austin Park Pavilion. Signatures attached. Link to the online petition https://www.change.org/AustinParkSkaneateles
A few things to note on the signatures:
The location (city, state) stamp for some people is shown outside of our community. Couple explanations... 1) Some people filled it out on mobile devices, and sometimes the mobile / cell tower is associated with a completely different location. For example, my daughter signed it, and her location is shown as Poughkeepsie, but she's in San. 2) If someone travels, there could be legacy geo information from where they were traveling to, and that will show as their location.
There's a good number of Skan people on here.
Those that are truly not from this area.... Keep in mind, the petition somehow found them, I'm led to believe they traveled to Skaneateles at some point perhaps. The argument can be made that although they are not residents, they are still impacted by the project and stand against it.
FOIL attached - (this may have been circulated before, sorry if I'm repeating). Looks like these are all the correspondences the Town provided to us regarding the project. Mostly letters written by residents to the Town.
Social Media - in the beginning we launched on social media to bring attention to the project and share it with the community. We took a pause after the Town shared that they were willing to listen and make adjustments to their projects. Which, for the record, they have not listened to the concerns of the community at all.
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/people/Save-Austin-Park-Skaneateles/100087752947934/
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/save.austin.park.skaneateles/
A a few comments:
We don't believe the community is fully aware of what's happening with the project. Our goal is push the information, details, correspondences beyond the controlled and structured Town meetings into an open public space, on social media. I think the Town has strategically managed the project through a series of controlled meetings, and information hasn't been effectively shared by the Town outside the meetings.
We believe there are "grey areas" about the project that have been skirted around or strategically managed.
We have a thorough social media campaign outlined and ready to deploy not only on Facebook and Instagram, but across other public channels in an effort to elevate the project to the greater community, including the Town's handling of the project and the management of the neighbors concerns by the Town.
We believe our community and neighbors need to know every detail and the truthful nature of the project and how the project has been handled. For example, to launch a $14million dollar project based on the votes of 15 people is unacceptable. Statistically speaking, 15 is nowhere near to a critical mass needed to make a well-informed and educated decision.
Alternative Location Proposal - we put this together to show an intelligent thought-process evaluating other possible locations for the Maintenance building. Something we feel the Town has not done. Dismissing what could be a viable location nested in the wooded area south of the Rec Center, hidden from view, and could easily be built using a less-expensive turn-key building option instead of a more aesthetically pleasing and expensive design and construction. From what I understand, the Town's only argument against that location was the amount of trees they would need to remove. We took measurements, and the amount of trees that would need to be removed is minimal. Additionally, in their latest set of renderings, they showed a robustly planted buffer area around the pavilion. Which I know would not be cheap to plan what they're proposing. So, why not re-invest that money and rebuffer the wooded area south of the Rec center. Seems like there's room. Feel free to share this link with the Village. Additionally, placing the maintenance building into the wooded area south of the Y would require an inexpensive turn-key building, without the expense of an aesthetically, thought-out design and construction. https://app.box.com/s/ts8au1ktmnj3j7k0l0cawzzjcndfrmik
Lastly, and for the record, we don't believe the Town has listened to the neighbor's concerns and made any changes. Our opposition has always been against the TYPE OF USE relocating to a publicly and centrally located Austin Park Pavilion. Not just the physical building.
We ask, and plead, PLEASE DO NOT ALLOW THE TOWN TO RELOCATE their maintenance facility to the Austin Park Pavilion or any other publically-facing space.
Please confirm receipt of my email and attachments. And please share the Village board and members.
Thank you for your consideration.
André Ivanchuk
(315) 657-5691 text / call
Thank you!
Rosemary
