An Elmwood Avenue resident told the Common Council on Wednesday about the “disaster” he lives with as a neighbor of the neglected and mismanaged city parking lot that the city has promised to convert into a park.
In describing the problem and questioning the use of funds for the city’s stalled park plans, Roger Peace offered to work on the park committee. Without taking accountability for the neglect or answering questions, Mayor John Lombardi III responded that Peace was immediately on the committee.
Peace had calmly told the council, “We look out every day and we just see this parking lot as an absolute disaster.”
The city has allowed trash from fireworks, discarded drinks, and plastic to accumulate, and weeds to reach 4 feet for a second year. City workers sprayed the pavement this month without advance notice to neighbors or posting a spray warning.
“I went over and talked to the man and they were spraying the weeds,” Peace said. “Someone is spraying chemicals all over the parking lot. Young children walk through that parking lot on a regular basis, along with adults with their animals. We really don’t appreciate that the city would use chemicals instead of, in the past, they’ve always come through and weed-whacked the area down.”
Peace said neighbors were left wondering what kind of chemicals were used and how long they needed to avoid the area. He said the spraying presented additional hazards.
“That seems to be a favorite place for people to set off fireworks,” Peace said. “And if you kill all those weeds, you’re going to have dry weeds all over the entire parking lot. Now you’re going to have a chance of having a brush fire. How are you going to rectify this area that’s really been contaminated with all kinds of chemicals?”
Jon Wiley, 5th Ward alderman, had presented his constituents’ concerns about spray exposures to Lombardi during a work session last week. Visibly frustrated, Wiley said that residents were held accountable by code enforcement for mowing their lots, while the city allowed “eyesores” to go unaddressed.
“When you go around Lockport, do you really drive your city?” Wiley asked Lombardi. “It looks like (expletive). Point blank.”
When asked last week by the Union Sun & Journal if maintaining the Elmwood parking lot was a secondary matter for the city, Lombardi replied, “No. It’s city property and we maintain it.”
This week the weeds and trash remained, along with a plastic tarp that was photographed on the pavement between the weeds last September.
Last year, the Aaron Mossell Park Planning Committee hired a landscape architect, completed a site layout diagram and submitted it to the state. However, neither committee chairman Allan Jack nor Vicki Smith, president and CEO of the Greater Lockport Development Corporation (GLDC), which owns the property, could provide a working cost estimate for the project when asked in March.
In February, Jack told residents at a park forum organized by John Craig, 1st Ward alderman, that Smith was writing grant applications to secure additional funding. When asked what project costs were being included in those proposals and the required budget breakdowns, Smith said in an email, “We do not have a figure at this point.”
Mike Marino, CEO of Nussbaumer & Clarke Engineers and Surveyors, who has worked on grant proposals for Aaron Mossell Park, said he believes the current vision of the park with landscaped boundaries, a basketball court, sprinkler pool and walking paths would be “a multi-million dollar project.”
In the spring, Marino said that removing the asphalt at the park site could not begin for another year because there is no biddable set of plans and a contract would have to be put in place.
Peace told the council that he and his wife had participated in last year’s walk-through of the parking lot organized by the committee and he understood the project had received a grant.
“What has been done with the $450,000 over the last nine years, and how much money is actually left that the city can start doing something with instead of just leaving it?” he asked. “As I talk to my other neighbors, anything’s better than what we’re looking at over there … I don’t know how many people in that committee are actually living right there. … You just talk it to death. So my wife and I would volunteer to be on something like that and try to help and push things along and at least give the ideas of the neighbors. If you don’t live there, it’s not a very big concern.”
Flipping the roles of service provider and taxpayer, Lombardi eagerly said, “Mr. Pease, would you please make an appointment and come down and see me. I want to explain the money to you in detail.”