I appreciate the strong desire on the part of the town and many of its community members to ‘acquire’ and ‘preserve’ the park portion of the Roslyn Country Club.
However, I wish the town’s desire to preserve and improve upon the parks and land it currently owns was just as strong.
Granted, Manorhaven and Tully just underwent major renovation – but those are just two of the many parks that the town owns. What about North Hempstead Beach Park? It is one of the largest of the towns’ parks, it (like the Roslyn Country Club) has the potential to generate significant revenue, but it is in woeful disrepair.
I have fond childhood memories of visiting Bar Beach in the 1990s.
Now, as a parent, I visit the same beach with my children. Even though about 20 years have passed between then and now, much of the park’s equipment and facilities remain exactly the same. Actually, I am hard-pressed to find any improvements that have been made to the park, especially the section that used to be Hempstead Harbor.
If the town continues in its failure to maintain North Hempstead Beach Park, it will slowly deteriorate and its condition may become even worse than the current state of the Roslyn Country Club, costing the town more money than it would have cost to properly maintain it through the years.
Therefore, I strongly urge the town to reconsider its plans to acquire the park portion of the Roslyn Country Club – the town needs to ‘invest’ in the parks it currently owns before ‘investing’ in a new one and should be more concerned with planning to make that happen instead.
Alicia Kelly
Williston Park
