City Council meeting this Thursday 4/5 @ 7PM

[Alexander Dupuy]

Last Friday night at TNO "Kids Night Out" a group of downtown parents
mobilized in Monument Square to demonstrate the need for a playground in
downtown Troy - the dozens of kids playing on the monument as they often
do during the summer market were the most eloquent example. We talked
to people from Troy and elsewhere who came to this great event, and
collected even more signatures for our petition for a playground in
downtown Troy.

Now we need to take the next step of presenting our petition to the Troy
City Council and demanding that the city take action to make downtown
Troy a kid-friendly place more than just once a year. We actually have
support on the council - three of the council members attended the first
Downtown Troy Playgrounds Initiative meeting at the Boys & Girls Club;
but action by the city will come only slowly, if at all, if we do not
mobilize to demand it.

The next regular (monthly) City Council meeting is this Thursday at 7 PM
at Christ Church on State Street - there will also be some public
hearings on other matters at 5:45 and 6:30 at which some, but probably
not all, of the council members will be present. The monthly meeting
includes a "Public Forum" - "during which citizens of the City shall be
permitted to address the Council on ... any subject appropriate to the
conduct of Troy City government" for up to 10 minutes each.

I realize that with Good Friday and the first night Passover seder the
following day, that Thursday night isn't the ideal time for parents to
go to a City Council meeting - but the ideal time may never come. The
next monthly council meeting is Thursday May 3. If many more people
indicate that they would attend in May but not in April, we might wait
until then, but I would rather do it now, and speak again in May if
there has still been no action by the city.

If you can attend this meeting on Thursday, please reply to this message
and let us know. If you are willing to speak during the Public Forum
(even just briefly - the 10 minutes is a maximum, not a minimum) please
mention this in your reply. I hope that we will be able to gather a
critical mass of citizens, parents (and kids - they are very effective
in convincing council members to let us speak as soon as possible so
that the rest of the meeting is not disrupted by their fidgeting or
worse!) to come to this meeting.

If we can't collectively commit to doing this, the city might put an old
swing-set in at Barker Park anyhow, but realistically we will just get
in our cars and drive to the playgrounds at Frear Park, Menands, and
even farther away. Downtown parents have been trying for five years to
get a playground we can walk to - our babies then are now riding bikes
and going to kindergarten. In the past few months we have had more
activity and interest among parents, and a more receptive city
administration, than ever before in the past five years. It would be a
terrible shame if once again, we let our busy schedules prevent us from
mobilizing, sacrificing the long term benefit for our children and
future children in Troy to short term pressures, and losing the momentum
we have recently gained.

@alex

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[Sylva Menard]

I will be there. It is on my calendar. I will bring Ezra, but Avi only if he is feeling better. Not quite sure what/how to speak, but could potentially.

See you there!
Sylva

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> Send e-mail to downtown-tro...@googlegroups.com
> Discuss: http://groups.google.com/group/downtown-troy-playground
> Participate: http://projects.kaboom.org/projects/4720-downtown-troy-playground

[Robert Hirsch]

I guess I dont understand why barker park is a second tier location. Don't put in an old swing set, put in a decent playground. There is space. Take out the benches outside of the playground.

Make a rule like every other city: if you are playing in the playground there must be a parent. If you are an adult in the playground you must have a kid. Big consequences for disobeying this.

That would solve many problems at once while not tipping the boat on progress of riverfront park.

I'm not against a playground in riverfront I just don't see it as an all or nothing choice.

Sent from my iPhone

On Apr 3, 2012, at 11:56 AM, Alexander Dupuy <alex....@mac.com> wrote:

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> Troy Kids archives at http://groups.google.com/group/troykids (classic)
> or https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/troykids (new interface)

[V Owen Bush]

I can attend if feeling better, (we are all quite ill at the moment).  I plant to make the case as a small business owner in Troy, that investing in Troy's children is the best possible way to improve Troy's economy by retaining RPI & Sage grads, and making Troy an attractive destination for professionals escaping NYC and other urban areas.  It's such a no-brainer, I can't believe any mobilization is even needed.

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www.glowingpictures.com

+ 1 (917) 653-0593

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[Alexander Dupuy]

Robert Hirsch wrote:

> I guess I dont understand why barker park is a second tier location. Don't put in an old swing set, put in a decent playground. There is space. Take out the benches outside of the playground.
>

My comment about "the city might put an old swing-set in at Barker Park
anyhow" was not meant to suggest that it is a second tier location; but
if we don't speak up to demand something more, a second-tier playground
in Barker Park is the most we will get.

Will you be able to come this Thursday night? The people on these
e-mail lists are not the ones who need to hear your suggestions and
ideas about the kind of playground we need in Barker Park - the City
Council (and the rest of city government) are the ones who need to hear
your voice.

On the subject of benches, Robert, perhaps you have not noticed that the
benches in Barker Park were all removed over the winter. My
understanding is that they plan to put them back in (someday?), but I
have not heard this definitely from anybody in the city government or
Friends of Barker Park.

Owen Bush wrote:
> ... investing in Troy's children is the best possible way to improve

> Troy's economy by retaining RPI & Sage grads, and making Troy an
> attractive destination for professionals escaping NYC and other urban
> areas. It's such a no-brainer, I can't believe any mobilization is
> even needed.

"Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will."
- Frederick Douglass
(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Frederick_Douglass#An_address_on_West_India_Emancipation_.2808-04-1857.29)

After five years of making small noises and hoping that something would
happen about building a playground downtown, I can assure you that some
kind of mobilization is needed.

@alex

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[Tracy Kennedy]

Hey guys...unfortunately I can't make it to this Thursday's meeting.  You may have already known this but the councilman from District 4 (where Barker Park is located) is out of the country right now and won't be at Thursday's meeting.  Apparently there are several council people that will be missing (not exactly sure who).  I hate to suggest this but maybe we should postpone until May?  I'm not a fan of losing the momentum though.  Also, it sounds like Barker Park is a done deal with regards to actually getting the equipment installed ...so we could also use the meeting in May to thank the council if it's actually installed by then.  It almost sounds as though we don't need to lobby as hard for the playground because we got it...which brings us back to...what is our ultimate goal?  If people do show up on Thursday to speak, please make sure you remember to publicly thank Nina Nichols and Lynn Kopka (and the other members that have made an effort to attend our meetings - Richard/George?) during the public comments period.

 

Best regards,

Tracy

On Tue, Apr 3, 2012 at 9:21 PM, Erika Groff <laurena...@hotmail.com> wrote:

I will be there with my kids, after all.

I'll bring petitions.

Erika

> Date: Tue, 3 Apr 2012 11:56:53 -0400
> From: alex....@mac.com
> To: downtown-tro...@googlegroups.com; troy...@googlegroups.com
> Subject: City Council meeting this Thursday 4/5 @ 7PM

> --

> Troy Kids archives at http://groups.google.com/group/troykids (classic)
> or https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/troykids (new interface)

[Erika Groff]

I will be there with my kids, after all.

I'll bring petitions.

Erika

> Date: Tue, 3 Apr 2012 11:56:53 -0400
> From: alex....@mac.com
> To: downtown-tro...@googlegroups.com; troy...@googlegroups.com
> Subject: City Council meeting this Thursday 4/5 @ 7PM
>

[Alexander Dupuy]

Tracy Kennedy wrote:

You may have already known this but the councilman from District 4 (where Barker Park is located) is out of the country right now and won't be at Thursday's meeting.  Apparently there are several council people that will be missing (not exactly sure who).  I hate to suggest this but maybe we should postpone until May?  I'm not a fan of losing the momentum though.

Bob Doherty is our councilmember for the 4th district  He was present at the first playgrounds initiative on March 3rd, but not at the second one on March 24th.  Lynn mentioned to me that that he is out of town, and that Bill Chamberlain, Director of Operations, had a death in his family and will not attend (I don't know if he regularly attends these meetings in any case - according to Lynn, Bill Chamberlain is the person who will "move the playground" along with Parks Commissioner George Rogers).  I am not aware of other council members who will be absent for the regularly scheduled monthly meeting; it is possible there may be another one or two, but presumably a quorum is required.

I'm feeling that postponing to May would be a strategic error, and that we need to be present tomorrow and again in May - if something has actually happened, we can thank them, if not, we can continue to demand action.  If we don't show up tomorrow, we will show up in May without anything much more to say than we have now, the city may have done something, and we will be expected to be thankful for whatever little that is.  Some of us aren't able to be there tomorrow, others of us won't be able to attend in May - no doubt this will be true of the councilmembers and city officials as well.  All of us who can make it tomorrow should attend, and if willing, speak.  All of us who can do so on May 3rd should attend then as well.

Also, it sounds like Barker Park is a done deal with regards to actually getting the equipment installed ...so we could also use the meeting in May to thank the council if it's actually installed by then.  It almost sounds as though we don't need to lobby as hard for the playground because we got it

I suspect that the only thing that is a "done deal" is that something will happen in Barker Park at some time this year.  Absent other demands from us, I don't expect anything much more than an (old?) toddler swing and another piece of equipment (that is, more or less what used to be in Barker Park six years ago).  I would love to be shown wrong about that, but I'm not expecting miracles.  I plan to ask that Mr. Chamberlain and/or Mr. Rogers meet with interested local parents and neighbors to present the city's plan for Barker Park so that we have a chance to provide some feedback, and to indicate our interest in seeking out more private and/or grant funding to improve it further.

...which brings us back to...what is our ultimate goal?

A playground in downtown Troy that our kids would actually want to go to.  With Riverfront Park under construction until the fall, Barker Park is pretty much all there is for this spring and summer.  But if all we get is what was in Barker Park six years ago, it will fall quite dramatically short of that goal.  It's not a very large space, and we certainly won't be able to fit a "destination playground" in there, but we should be able to do better.  If the space is used, and we demonstrate that there are kids living downtown (many people in city government seem to believe otherwise) who will use it, then we can look at other spaces that might be (or become) available in future years and fight to get something even better there.

@alex

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