Dirty Little Secret Remains
By Dan Murphy
Ernie Davis, Clinton Young, Richard Thomas and Andre Wallace. These four democrats have presided over the City of Mt. Vernon as mayor and all four have also presided over one of the city’s greenspaces, Memorial Field, closed and locked down to the public use.
The problem is now more than 10 years old, with no apparent end in sight, due to illegal dumping of 50 tons of unsafe debris sitting on the field, which needs to be removed and the field retested before any hopes of playing another game or walking around the track can reoccur.
If you are a resident of a Westchester town or city outside of Mt. Vernon and you think that your tax dollars have not been wasted at Memorial Field – think again. A recent audit of the $3.4 million that Westchester County paid for to try and reopen the field in 2009 found that only $69,000 remained, with the rest wasted or spent on different visions of the field’s re-opening.
Westchester County Executive George Latimer, who was not involved in county government during the troubles at Memorial Field, wants to try and fix the fiasco and reopen it for the people of Mt. Vernon – a city that Latimer grew up in and once called home.
Latimer called the recent audit a starting-off point to analyze what went wrong, but more important, how to fix the situation and get the field open.
The only positive that comes from the audit is that while $12.7 million was allocated toward Memorial Field by county government, only $3.4 million was spent. The money spigot that comes from the Westchester County taxpayer was turned off and that is positive. The story of the audit could have easily found all $12.7 million wasted away. Kudos to Latimer and the County Board of Legislators for conducting and releasing the audit in an attempt to acknowledge the problems and move on.
The audit came from an agreement reached last year between Latimer and the county, and then Mayor Richard Thomas, in which the City of Mt. Vernon agreed to the environmental cleanup of debris, at an estimated cost of $2 million, in exchange for the county paying for and overseeing the reconstruction of Memorial Field.
The cleanup was supposed to have already begun, but hasn’t. Former Mayor Richard Thomas could never get the cleanup off the ground, nor could he agree to a way to pay for the cleanup costs with the City Council. The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation is on the cusp of fining the City of Mt. Vernon thousands of dollars for every day it doesn’t start the cleanup.
The DEC has held off on the fines in the hopes that the city will finally do the right thing.
With a new Acting Mayor Andre Wallace, will the city and City Council be able to agree on an immediately commencement of the cleanup and a way to pay for it? Wallace said he was hopeful that the cleanup can begin and be completed by November, the same month that a new mayor will be elected.
That mayor, in all certainty, will be Shawyn Patterson-Howard, who won the democratic primary in June.
Former city Mayor Clinton Young finalized plans with Westchester in 2008 that would build a new 4,000-seat grandstand, new fields, and an eight-lane run track. The county promised $9.7 million in total out of its legacy fund, which had been used to redo parks elsewhere in the county.
But Young was ousted by Ernie Davis, a former mayor who reclaimed his seat in 2012 and decided to renovate rather than knock down the grandstand. Davis also decided to build a tennis center that wasn’t part of the original plan, which took up space intended for the track. Westchester held back more than $6 million of the money it committed due to the changes.
“Memorial Field is not necessarily the most important issue in Mount Vernon, but it may be the biggest symbolic issue,” said Latimer. “When you see an iconic field that’s lay fallow for a decade or more, people lose faith. They lose hope.”
Important dates in Memorial Field History-
Nov. 26, 2008: Mount Vernon signs an Inter-Municipal Agreement with Westchester County to renovate Memorial Field. The deal calls for Westchester County to lease the field for 15 years in exchange for $9.7 million to renovate it, with $3.4 million advanced to the city. Mount Vernon is required to contribute an additional $3 million in city money, to be paid, in large part, through three municipal bonds. The city would also be responsible for taking over about four miles of county owned roads. The plan calls for renovation or replacement of most of the stadium. That includes a new synthetic turf football and soccer field, a natural turf soccer field, both with lighting, a 4,000-seat grandstand, an all-weather running track, illuminated basketball courts, and new bathrooms, ticket booths and entrance plaza off Sandford Boulevard.
Jan. 5, 2009: The Westchester County Board of Legislators approves a $1.3 million bond for the design phase of the Memorial Field project. The money is part of the $9.7 million the county committed.
April 14, 2015: Anthony Bove, the city water commissioner in charge of the Memorial Field renovations, arranges to meet an unidentified city employee at Memorial Field, where he asks for a $10,000 bribe. The employee needs Bove to sign off on his request for a promotion and Bove said he would only do so if he was bribed. He asks for $5,000 in advance, then for installments. Although he was never paid, the incident is eventually brought to the attention of federal law enforcement officials, who interview Bove. He pleads guilty to attempted bribery and serves 15 months in prison.
If you are a Westcherster County Taxpayer, your tax dollars have been wasted. If you are a Mt. Vernon taxpayer, millons of your tax dollars have been wasted.
