Click here for Citizen’s Budget Review and Advisory Committee Report

The Garden City Estates Property Owners Association will have its next monthly meeting on Wednesday, June 13, 2012 at 8:00 p.m. at the Stratford School.  

Please vote on the School Budget which is set for May 15, 2012.  The polling will be at the High School and voting takes place from 6:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m.

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Our Trustees Brian Daughney and John DeMaro have asked us to post the update on their work concerning the concept of a recreation and community facility at the St. Paul’s site.  Their update is reprinted below:  

Update on the concept of a Recreation and Community Facility  

Trustee DeMaro and I were authorized to gather information and obtain input from the community, including the 4 POA groups, other groups, outside entities and individuals to gauge interest in whether the Village should proceed with formalizing the concept of building a recreation/community center at the St. Paul’s site.  

Our approach has been to start with the consideration of using some or all of the buildings at St Paul’s.  Notwithstanding, any information we gather, we believe, will be useful if it were decided to build a recreation/community center somewhere else in the Village, such as at Community Park.

To be clear, we are not asking this Board to approve spending any amount of money on any center without obtaining a broad and specific consensus, probably through a Village wide referendum or survey to build any such facility. The exact nature of such input will have to be worked through this board, the recreation commission and legal counsel.  

We believe that whether or not some portion, all or none of the St Paul’s main building is utilized will be a function of cost and the feasibility of turning some part of the building into a facility that people want.  Just by way of example, if residents believe we need 4 more basketball courts, you cannot build them within the footprint of the existing building.  That is just a fact of the physical footprint of the existing building.  We cannot put an indoor running track into the existing footprint.  So, do we add on, do we knock down part?  We do not know the answers to these types of questions at this stage.    

Anything we might propose will be fully vetted with respect to function and cost.  We have no intention of asking residents to approve a center without full knowledge of what facilities would be included in the center and what the costs of constructing it would be.  We also would want to include operational costs as well. Perhaps an outside firm with expertise in operating these centers should run it. We are going to get that information.

We do not view this center as just a sports center.  The center should, we believe, address needs with cultural and community groups in general.  For example, in any discussions we have had, we have stated that we envision there to be more general type space for community use, such as theatre or performance space and general flex space.     

We have discussed the concept with 3 of the 4 POA groups.  We expect to meet with the 4^th POA group this month or next month.  

We have discussed the concept with members of the executive staff of The Men’s Association and Garden City Basketball.  We intend to meet with other cultural and community and sports groups as well.  We have had some informal discussions with members of the seniors group that is centralized out of Golf Club lane, and they seem to be more interested at this time in obtaining improvements at the Golf Club Lane facility.  We would of course continue to speak to the senior affiliated groups.  

As liaison to the Recreation and Cultural Affairs Committee, I can report that we have had discussions in the committee about the concept and how to proceed.  The Committee is considering, no formal vote have been taken, whether we should undertake a formal survey through a third party, of all residents which would be designed to solicit interest in the concept.  We envision, based on our conversations with one of the third party consultants, that the survey would include questions to solicit interest in the concept, what facilities would be included in any such facility and how much residents would be willing to spend in tax dollars.     

To date we have had discussions with 3 architectural firms about the concept.  We toured the building with 2 of those firms – one firm with Mr. Phillipon and Mr. Ocker and the other group with Mr. Ocker.  All of the firms have experience in building community centers and recreation facilities, and historical renovations.  We are planning on meeting, through the efforts of Kevin Ocker and Bob Schoelle, with a firm that operates sports recreation centers.  

We have also met with the Adelphi facility managers.  I think we both can say that those individuals were very helpful.  If you want to get an idea of the type of facilities that are possible – go take a look over at the Adelphi Center.  It is much bigger than we probably need, but the different types of spaces and facilities can really help you envision what might be done.  We were told that a cost figure of approximately $25 million is a good starting point if we were to copy what they have done.  These figures do not include any costs associated with any renovation or demolition of the St Pauls building.  They walked us through their facilities, gave us recommendations on construction and architectural firms and suggested ideas about the concept.  For example, the folks at Adelphi thought that a formal survey about needs and desires was very important part of the process.  I might add that 2 of the architect firms we have spoken with also believed a formal survey was a necessity.  We are going to visit other centers as well.  

Click Here for the proposal from the Committee to Save St. Paul’s  

Appendix M: ELB Architectural/Engineering review of St Paul's Repairs & Costs

Nominating Committee Nominates Directors  

The Estates POA Nominating Committee recently nominated the following Estates Residents to serve as directors of the Estates POA:  

                                                John Skramko, 176 Wellington Road
                                                Vinny Fusco, 2 Merillon Avenue
                                                Sue Eigl, 81 Wellington Road
                                                Courtney Rosenblatt, 77 Roxbury Avenue
                                                Kristina Russo, 156 Kensington Road