Cajoling conservancies: Mayor Bill de Blasio announcement Tuesday on park funding got spun differently depending on which daily paper — or, more specifically, which paper’s headline — you read. At issue was just how hard the mayor would push the city’s larger park conservancies to help out underfunded small parks. Of course, the idea for the big conservancies — like the Central Park Conservancy and Prospect Park Alliance — to help out smaller parks was originally proposed by state Senator Daniel Squadron. Doing a preview article on Tuesday, The New York Times reported that de Blasio’s new “park equity plan” would see the city pour $130 million into 35 “tattered parks and playgrounds” in low-income neighborhoods across the city. That amount represents $80 million that former Mayor Mike Bloomberg added on top of the Parks Department’s capital budget, plus an additional $50 million now tossed in by de Blasio. Squadron’s bill would have seen conservancies with operating budgets of $5 million or more be forced to dedicate 20 percent of their budget to neighborhood parks. But some feared that mandate would “scare off” the conservancies’ big-bucks donors. The Daily News’s article on Wednesday basically reported the same thing as the Times — that the city would be kicking in the extra $130K in taxpayer funds for beleaguered parks, but added that de Blasio “expects the conservancies to voluntarily donate money toward helping the whole system.” The article’s headline, though, was a bit more forceful: “Bill to parks: Share the green.” The Times article meanwhile lumped the Lower East Side’s Luther Gulick Park in among the “tattered parks” that would stand to gain some of the extra green. Hmm…as we reported earlier this year, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver netted $2.5 million for the park, which is one of 63 green spots statewide that will share $67 million in state Department of Transportation funds earmarked for park enhancements. Oh well, bring it on!
Gardeners’ hoped-for guest: On another green-space issue, we heard that Elizabeth St. Garden advocates were eagerly hoping that park advocate Squadron would attend their swank fundraiser a few weeks ago atop the Nolitan Hotel, on Kenmare St. David Gruber, Community Board 2 chairperson, had tipped us off beforehand that word was that Squadron might well show up. Jeannine Kiely, a leading member of the garden, told us they were indeed hoping Squadron would be there — but, in the end, he was a no-show. “I think he wanted to come,” Gruber told us this week. “I mean, these guys are scheduled up. He’s running for re-election. He’s in campaign mode.” A Squadron staffer basically told us the story was pretty simple, that Squadron didn’t go to the garden fundraiser. Period. O.K.? … But, we asked, does Squadron support preserving the entire Elizabeth St. Garden as permanent open space — as C.B. 2 emphatically does — or does he back Councilmember Margaret Chin and the city’s plan to fill much of the garden with affordable housing, in an effort to make up for the failure to achieve 100 percent affordable housing at the Seward Park Urban Renewal Area project, which is located all the way over on the Lower East Side — in another community board district, no less? Again, the staffer said, Squadron didn’t attend the garden group’s benefit. … In case anyone has forgotten, two years ago, as we reported, Squadron earned a rating of 81 from Albany-based nonprofit E.P.L. / Environmental Advocates, the highest score of any state senator, for environmental bills he had introduced. As for the Nolitan garden benefit, Kiely said, it was a tremendous success, exceeding their fundraising goal of $10,000 by nearly 50 percent, with more than 100 supporters enjoying a beautiful first night of fall on the hotel’s rooftop. The garden’s next big event is its Second Annual Harvest Festival, on Sat., Oct. 25 (rain date Sun., Oct. 26).
