Insurance Inspections at Parks, RiverWinds Lead to Controversy

Amid news of one park being razed, Deputy Mayor Sean Kilpatrick raised concerns Thursday night over potential knee-jerk reactions to an insurance report that detailed problems in a number of parks around West Deptford, as well as a separate inspection of .

The report from Statewide Insurance Fund, the earlier this year, cited issues in at least seven parks, and Kilpatrick called it a rash decision to take out any parks or playgrounds ahead of a 60-day deadline for a response to those problems.

With one park behind the old Thorofare school already razed—a basketball court has been reduced to a few scraps of blacktop in a dirt field—Kilpatrick said nothing should be done until the report’s been reviewed.

“All I’m asking is for a discussion on the playgrounds so we can have a game plan,” he said.

Rumors of the decision to raze the parks sprung up in mid-August, with anonymous comments posted online pointing the finger for the decision at Mayor Ray Chintall, a charge the mayor angrily denied.

While he said he was at a department head meeting where the insurance report was discussed, Chintall said he didn’t order any demolition.

“I resent that categorically,” he said, shaking a finger in Kilpatrick’s face.

At the same time, Chintall said the problems cited in the insurance report need to be addressed in the near term.

“When there’s issues of safety…any one of us cannot overlook it,” he said.

The RiverWinds controversy likewise stemmed from Statewide’s report and a subsequent unofficial inspection by Committeeman Sam Cianfarini and Republican Joe Rando, who had previously raised concerns over conditions at the community center.

“What we found was not, in my opinion, minor,” Rando said.

Their unofficial inspection, before the annual maintenance on the building took place at the end of August, came after the insurance company did a walk-through of the entire building—recreation director Greg Ley said the inspectors went over “almost every inch of the facility”—and reported no problems. Cianfarini and Rando, however, came up with a laundry list.

“I found safety issues—or at least what I consider safety issues,” Cianfarini said, claiming he’d seen doors rusting off their hinges and easy public access to restricted areas, such as a mechanical room.

“I had to act, and I had to act quickly for the safety of the community,” he said.

But Democratic Committeewoman Denice DiCarlo questioned why Cianfarini would find problems when licensed inspectors didn’t, and suggested the township committee might need to review the insurance company in light of that.

“Something just doesn’t add up to me,” she said.

Kilpatrick also criticized Cianfarini for what he were unnecessary attacks on RiverWinds staff along with that inspection, and said he wouldn’t stand for township employees being berated publicly.

“We need to conduct ourselves with the utmost professionalism,” Kilpatrick said.

Ultimately, township administrator Eric Campo said the safety and maintenance issues Cianfarini cited can be dealt with without having to have Statewide re-inspect the building.

“I’m not going to ask them to find more problems,” Campo said. “There’s no reason we can’t deal with both.”