RTM Cuts $900 from Budget for Design Work for Hamill Rink at Eugene Morlot Park

“…the (P&Z) commission notes that the Parks& Rec director has agreed that there not be any future further encroachment onto the grassed area of the dedicated parkland…the Byram vets dedicated tree area will be left undisturbed, and therefore the expansion of the parking lot area does not significantly impact the parkland or its functional use for local residents…”

1991 memo from then Assistant Town Planner Diane Fox to then Parks & Rec director Frank Keegan with conditions on approval of parking lot expansion at Eugene Morlot Park

Further, the veterans said the minutes of a June 29, 2015 Selectmen meeting documented discussion of building a new New Lebanon School at the former Byram School. Then First Selectman Peter Tesei said the open space was parkland, and to build on it would require the town to replace the parkland elsewhere in the community.

Wold and Sylvester noted the park had numerous stakeholders beyond rink users. The Byram community uses the park for passive recreation. The Housing Authority operate elderly housing at McKinney Terrace at the former Byram School. Strazza ball field has numerous user groups.

And the Byram Veterans are stewards of the memorial grove where 13 mature trees are each anchored by a plaque with the name of a Byram resident who gave his life for his country. In fact, Wold and Sylvester see themselves as stewards of the park.

“It’s not just to reach the ice hockey building. It’s an exit for the whole park,” Mr. Sylvester said of an access road, adding that the parking lit is not just for the rink, but for field users, veterans and HATG’s McKinney Terrace.

The veterans wondered if perhaps, given recent pressure to add affordable housing and the possibility of expanding McKinney Terrace for that purpose, that might contribute to the push for a new access road.

“The BVA and the BNA – nobody in Byram knew about this,” Mr.Sylvester said. ‘We knew there was a renovation being planned, not a relocation.”

“They’ve said all along, ‘We will not allow a building in the Veterans Memorial Grove,'” Sylvester said. “Now they’re talking about the grove. They’re going to put a Walmart size building right in there.”

Wold and Sylvester noted that in FY 2019-2020, the amount requested for a new rink was $4.5 million.

“If they are so adamant to spend $17 million, we have no objection to that enhancement of the Byram neighborhood, but let’s see a concrete proposal at the current location,” Mr. Sylvester said, adding that the funding approved by RTM to date did not include designs that include an access road.

“It’s not Dorothy Hamill Park,” Sylvester said. “It’s the Eugene Morlot Park.”