Officials assure basketball court revitalization project is “moving forward” despite opposition

An effort to thwart the progress of the Downtown Park Revitalization Project, which includes an overhaul to the existing basketball court in Cow Harbor Park, fell flat at Tuesday evening’s board of trustees meeting.

A petition, entitled “Save Cow Harbor Park,” circulated the room in the minutes before the meeting began and, according to sources, was presented to people by local resident Kevin Kavanaugh in the harborside park this past weekend. The main issue with the project, according to Kavanaugh, is the size of the new basketball court.

The current plan, however, includes compromises made between project leaders and Northport Village Mayor Donna Koch over one year ago to both reduce the size of the court and the overall scale of the project as originally presented to Village officials in 2021, prior to Koch’s election. Current board members voted unanimously to push the revised plan forward in July 2022 and sent it out to bid in January 2023.

“The project is moving forward”
At the Tuesday, August 22 meeting, longtime Northport resident Jim Ruck voiced concern about opposition to the revitalization project despite it garnering unanimous approval from the board. “This whole project was about giving back, by kids from Northport, to the Village,” Ruck said, referencing the grassroots fundraising campaign spearheaded by the Northport High School 1995 Long Island Champion Boys Basketball team to update the basketball court. “It was a way of making a facility equitable for young kids today without putting the burden on the Village.”

“I just get concerned and I know there’s a lot of people concerned who thought this thing was put to bed, but now there seems to be some people saying ‘Oh, this is going to create a problem,’” Ruck continued. He pointed out a rigorous process that preceded the project going out to bid, from multiple project presentations at Village Hall, to meetings between the project organizers and mayor, a public hearing at which residents were able to speak for or against the plan, and ultimately a compromise that led to new plans.

“This was a joint venture and I’m just concerned that politically now there seems to be some thought that “Hey, can we blow this thing up?” Ruck told the board.

“The project is moving forward,” Mayor Koch responded. “This is something this board unanimously voted for.”

The basketball court as approved is 22% bigger than the existing court, Koch explained at Tuesday’s Village board meeting. Dimensions of the full paved area of the court will expand from its current size of 53x40 feet to 66x50 feet, with the hardscape around the court “greatly reduced” from the plan presented to the former Village administration, led by then-Mayor Damon McMullen.

Koch noted in January 2023, when the board voted unanimously to send the project out to bid, that the proposed court was much larger when she took office. The board, under the leadership of Mayor Koch, voted unanimously again at the July 12, 2022 public hearing to hire an engineering firm to produce new plans for the compromised court. So far, over $143,000 has been raised to support the project; donations made by over 230 unique donors to the project’s GoFundMe campaign have brought in $68,075 to date. In December 2021, then-New York State Senator James Gaughran announced the procurement of a $75,000 State and Municipal Facilities (SAM) grant for the project.

Bids for the Downtown Park Revitalization Project were publicly opened on January 31; cost proposals far exceeded the $140,000-plus raised for the initiative, with the lowest coming in at $336,700. It was then that Trustee and Commissioner of Parks Meghan Dolan, who has been spearheading the project and working closely with the 1995 basketball team, made moves to secure additional funding for the court and landscape improvements. On February 9, she and Trustee Dave Weber met with the Environmental Open Safe and Park Fund Advisory Committee (EOSPA) to discuss the project. Doug Trani, a member of the 1995 NHS basketball team and project organizer, presented the plan to the committee at that time.

At the July 6 Village board meeting, Trustee Dolan explained that between donated funds, the state grant and potential contributions by EOSPA, the project would be “pieced out” in order to get it done. The plan, Dolan said, is to use the raised funds to complete the court, fencing and drainage, and work with EOSPA to cover the remaining parts of the plan, which include the rain garden and masonry.

“We made a presentation to the EOSPA committee on behalf of the Village to extremely positive reception,” Trustee Dolan told the Journal. “At that meeting it was determined between EOSPA, the Village and the town supervisor’s office that as a better approach and to keep costs down, we should get quotes through the Town of Huntington and then come back to EOSPA with more precise numbers under those quotes and that is what we are still in the process of doing.”

As one of its many tasks, EOSPA recommends to the town board neighborhood and green energy improvement projects that enhance, beautify and improve the quality of life for Town of Huntington (TOH) residents. Because Cow Harbor Park is owned by the TOH, the board must approve the use of funds to complete the Downtown Park Revitalization Project.

Dolan also explained at the July meeting that the Northport Village Highway Department would be handling some of the demolition and site preparation work, shouldering that financial responsibility in order to get the project to completion. It has since been estimated that the Village contribution, via taxpayer money, would be approximately one to two days of demolition work.

“Confusing as it is wrong”
Both Kevin Kavanaugh, who spoke at Tuesday’s board meeting, and Trustee Joe Sabia confirmed having gotten in touch with EOSPA officials prior to the Village meeting. Kavanaugh attended the August 10 EOSPA meeting, at which time he told the committee that there is “a lot of opposition” to the court, and Sabia more recently called EOSPA chair Mark McAteer to “get to the head man” and “find out how the system works.” Sabia told the Journal in an email earlier this week that he is in favor of the project “if we have all the money in our bank account.”

The interactions with EOSPA, which left Dolan out of the picture despite her being the one leading the project, did not sit well with the trustee. “I know how the system works, I’ve been dealing with EOSPA for months and months,” Dolan said at the meeting. “For a sitting member of this board, and a member of the public, to go and speak and tell the EOSPA committee ‘The Village doesn’t want this’ is as confusing as it is wrong.”

“I would ask sitting board members and members of the public to come speak to me; I’m spearheading this project,” Dolan added. “Trustee Sabia could’ve easily spoken to me about it instead of calling the EOSPA committee, and I’m asking you to stop standing in the way or attempting to sabotage the project.”

Kavanaugh responded that he’s not trying to sabotage the project, but the expansion of the basketball court. “It’s the gateway to Northport, so when you come into Northport, you see these trees on the left, now you’re going to see this basketball court sticking out like a sore thumb.” A certified arborist, Kavanaugh also spoke at the July public hearing, expressing concerns for the trees in the proposed area, stating that any type of construction near the existing trees could damage the root systems.

“You are right in saying that area of the park is an eyesore,” Dolan said. “This project is part of a larger revitalization and improvement. It includes drainage, it includes a rain garden, and it includes a new functional basketball court. This court was on the plans in 1978, that means it hasn’t been touched in over 45 years. There are tree roots growing under it, it’s a hazard. There are tree roots growing onto the electric lines over there, the fence is ugly, and the green space over there doesn’t function for us as a Village. We can make it more functionable, we have the opportunity and it’s baked into the plan to do that.”

A total of 12 trees will be removed for the entirety of the Downtown Park Revitalization Project, which incudes improvements to more than the basketball court. Six to eight trees will be removed due to basketball court construction, four because of hazardous conditions caused by the trees growing over power lines on Woodbine Avenue, while another tree is slated to be removed for an upcoming bathroom renovation in Cow Harbor Park (funded by the contributions of a private resident). Twenty mature trees will remain in the space surrounding the court, picnic benches and playground.

The project plan also includes the addition of new trees, shrubs and native plantings where the park meets Woodbine Avenue, with an infiltration rain garden and a row of emerald green arborvitae behind the court fencing.

Part of the community
Dolan challenged Kavanaugh and anyone else opposed to the court to expand their thinking on it. The existing basketball court is in a state of disrepair, she said, because for many years, people did not prioritize it or think it should be improved for local children. “But our kids deserve it,” Dolan said. “We had a choice when this project came. We had a choice to fund it fully ourselves, or we had a choice to accept the literal gift that was given to us.”

The new space will “benefit every single person in this community, whether it’s functionally, aesthetically or ecologically, everybody will benefit,” Dolan said.

“We live in a community. We spend thousands on things to upgrade infrastructure. To fix our sidewalks, to fix Lisa Drive – that is a needed project. It may not personally benefit you, it may not personally benefit me, it may not personally benefit many of the residents here, but we do that because we’re part of a community,” the trustee added.

“Think about not just yourself and your tax dollars, but everybody else here. Your kids, your grandkids who get to benefit from this when it’s done right. We are doing this at the lowest possible cost to the Village, but we are going to do it right. The record notes that you don’t agree with the project, but as the mayor stated, it is moving forward because it’s a benefit to the entire Village, not just to the kids and families who live here. And you know what, I’m sitting up here, 100%, because their interests have been overlooked for too long.”