By Brandon T. Bisceglia
As the work of the ad hoc committee created to plan improvements to Fred Wolfe Park in Orange came before the Board of Selectmen with its first formal request on March 1, long-simmering tensions over the future of the park continued to boil over.
The main park-related item on the agenda was a request by the park committee asking if it could retain a consultant to do a traffic and safety study. Even that otherwise fairly routine request, however, brought fraught dialog.
The tone of the meeting was set early on, with two residents using their opportunity for public participation to chide First Selectman Jim Zeoli for comments he had made to another resident during the previous BOS meeting.
Tom Pisano, who leads the Orange Soccer Association and has long battled with Zeoli over Fred Wolfe Park, said Zeoli improperly asked his wife, Peggy Pisano, not to speak during the public participation period at the previous meeting. The other speaker, DeeDee Lebov, was even more blunt in her assessment of the incident.
“I need to admonish Mr. Zeoli for his disgraceful and insulting conduct in refusing to allow Peggy Pisano to speak during the allotted time for public comments,” Lebov said, adding that she thought Zeoli owed Pisano a public apology.
When the agenda item for the traffic safety study came up later in the meeting, things again became contentious.
Selectman John Carangelo, who also serves as the chair of the park committee, said that although the committee expects to bring many future ideas and proposals forward, studying the park’s current safety needed to happen sooner rather than later.
“Because the park is being used by a lot of people, we felt it imperative that a consultant be retained for traffic and safety for the people that use it right now,” he said.
There was some confusion, both from the ad hoc committee and the Board of Selectmen, over how much authority the committee had to request quotes and how they should interact with the selectmen on each piece of the various plans they might come up with.
Selectman Mitch Goldblatt, who said he was generally in favor of a traffic study, did note that it was something of a “blank check” for the board to approve the committee’s request without having a price attached to it.
“Eventually, this committee is going to come back to us with an overall plan, such as the one that was done 10 years ago,” Goldblatt said.
“I think they would need some direction from us,” he added, “as to whether they do it this way, or whether they have the authority as a committee to go out and get some proposals, get some pricing, and then come to the board and say, ‘Hey, we’ve done this and we want the board to approve XYZ company for x thousands of dollars to do an overall study.’”
Zeoli, however, felt the selectmen should know who the committee would retain and what the cost would be. He suggested having the committee identify someone, get a price and then come let the Board of Selectmen know so that they could set up a short special meeting to approve the cost.
Resident Jomo Nichols pointed out that conducting a traffic study after having already decided the location of the playscape currently under construction seemed like doing things backwards.
“This is exactly what happens when you mishmash something,” he said. “It seemed to me we kind of said, ‘We’re putting a playscape here and it’s a nonstarter in terms of moving it.’ And now we want to do a traffic study,” he argued. “You don’t decide you’re going to put it here, and then say, ‘We want to do a traffic study to see if it’s safe.’”
“My understanding is there was a plan,” Carangelo noted. “Orange Park and Rec had a plan. Part of that plan was implemented. Now we have additional things going on that we need to address.”
Tom Pisano took a second turn to speak, questioning whether the recommendations of an eventual traffic study would actually be followed.
“The question I have is, if a traffic study is done right now, would you do something?” he asked. “You would have to do it, because they would tell you that it’s unsafe.”
Carangelo took exception to Pisano’s questioning of the board’s intent.
“Anything this board does, anything the committee does, I assure you is for the best interest of the town,” he said. “So if we’re going to vote on something, we’re going to implement it to the best of our ability. We’re all concerned about the safety. You and I have butted heads about this. I’ve had kids that played on those fields. I understand the concerns you have. But it’s no different than any other field. There also has to be some parent accountability of watching your kids. It can’t fall all upon us. We’re going to do the best that we can, I assure you that.”
Selectwoman Judy Williams also pushed back against some of the skeptical public comments.
“If we’ve gone down the road the wrong way, well, at least we’re going to try to see if we can fix it,” she said. “So let’s not be negative about it until we see what we’ve got to deal with. And then you know that this board is going to move forward and do the very best for everybody in town – not just the soccer group, but for everybody.”