Playland Update: More Meetings Scheduled!

Written by Deirdre Curran

So, this week the first of three meetings/presentations regarding Playland was held. I’ve been having a hard time logging into Patch to do any postings since they switched formats, so let me bring everyone up to speed.

July 15, 2014: SPI sent a letter to the County Executive formally withdrawing from the Asset Management Agreement (AMA) for Playland. They are officially done. (Can I just take this opportunity to say a small but very relieved “yay!”?)

Early August 2014: Westchester County Legislator Ken Jenkins withdrew his lawsuit regarding the AMA.

Early September 2014: American Skating took over management of the Ice Rink at Playland. The details of this contract and how it was pushed through by the County Executive with no bidding process, public discussion or input/review process from the Board of Legislators is highly questionable and should not be glossed over. This should NOT have happened. The particulars of this contract should be under scrutiny.

Sometime over the summer of 2014 the Biederman group was contracted by the County Executive’s office (again with no input, review, discussion or approval from the BOL or the Public) to do an “evaluation” of Playland’s operations at an expense of either $80k or $100k, I’m not clear on the final amount. This evaluation is expected to be completed in late November of 2014 and submitted to the CE in early December. No decisions will be made on anything regarding Playland until sometime after that evaluation has been submitted and it’s not clear at this time what direction things will go in once that point has been reached.

After the withdrawal of SPI in July, that ostensibly left the other two companies who were finalists in the RFP process still on the table for consideration of management of the Park: Central Amusements Inc. (CAI) and Standard Amusements.

Sept. 4, 2014: The Westchester County Board Of Legislators (BOL) “Labor, Parks, Planning & Housing Committee” (LPPH) had a meeting wherein both CAI and Standard came and gave presentation updates to the committee. You can find video of that meeting here: http://westchestercountyny.iqm2.com/Citizens/SplitView.aspx?Mode=Video&MeetingID=3246&Format=Agenda

May 2014 – Labor Day Weekend 2014: Playland sees a marked increase in attendance and revenue – estimated to be up between 20% & 25% over 2013’s numbers, clearly dispelling the myth that “Nobody goes to Playland anymore”. Because, yes, yes they do. So here I get to interject another - but BIG - “YAY!!”.

Tuesday, October 14th, I already had personal knowledge through my grapevine for some time that there was a meeting regarding Playland planned for 10/20 at the Rye Library. After a couple of local people contacted me inquiring about it, I called the Rye Library to confirm and was told that Legislator Catherine Parker had indeed reserved the room for a presentation on Playland on Monday, October 20th from 7:00-9:00pm. Not having seen or heard of any local notices being posted, and not being able to confirm what my grapevine sources had told me, I went onto the Save Rye Playland FaceBook page to ask if anyone else had heard about it. A discussion thread ensued (no, no one knew about it) and a member emailed Parker around 4:25 that afternoon.

At 4:57 that day, Parker sent an email out to people on her email list letting them know about this presentation. No formal press release or notice was issued from her office via the County until late in the day on Friday, October 17th - a mere three days before the meeting was scheduled. Hardly enough time to reasonably expect that people can re-arrange busy schedules in order to be there. The result is that what should have been a packed room only had around thirty people in it (twenty of whom knew about it from me) and it was downright embarrassing that these folks had come all this way to offer their time for such a low turn-out crowd –including the President of Zamperla (the company that owns CAI) who had come all the way from Italy for business meetings and made sure he attended this important one with the Community. I hope she apologized to them and truthfully explained why so few people were in attendance.

So, the Cliff’s Notes version of the meeting is as follows and this is also based on feedback I got from attendees:

*Audience was satisfied and/or pleased with professionalism, candor, openness and friendliness of the CAI team presenting

*CAI gave a general over view of their approach to preserving the park, restoring it and improving it with new rides, concessions and food offerings

*CAI listened and responded to all questions and concerns raised, although not much in the way of specifics were offered at this time

*The room overwhelmingly communicated that residents want to see the pool remain a pool and not turned into any sort of water park or splash playground

*Edith Read Sanctuary had a contingent there to voice their concerns

*Concerns were expressed about maintaining the vitally important County staffers under County employment at the park so as not to interrupt or lose years of generationally handed down institutional knowledge about the park and the classic rides

You can watch the video of the meeting here. The actual presentation takes approximately the first half hour and then it moves into public discussion.

Central Amusements Presentation, Rye Library 10/20/14

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKIW_9ulmqo

I spoke at this week’s Rye City Council meeting on 10/22/14 to give them a short report on Monday night’s presentation and notify them and the community about the next two meetings scheduled. Video of that here:

Rye City Council meeting 10/22/14

http://ryeny.swagit.com/play/10222014-904

Agenda Item 10 minute marker 5:30 (right after Mr. Bob Zahm!)

The next meetings regarding Playland will be:

Monday, November 3, 2014, 7:00-9:00pm, Rye Library: Standard Amusements Presentation

Monday, November 17, 2014, 7:00-9:00pm, Rye Library: A discussion of Playland’s 2014 season and stats and presumably an update on where the process is at.