A referendum ballot allowing Town of Lancaster residents the opportunity to vote and decide whether the town wanted another park and were willing to bond $7.5 million to begin the project was voted down last night. 12,918 (53%) ‘no’ ballots were cast, 11,437 (47%) ‘yes’ ballots were cast.
The town will discontinue project pursuit.
People didn't even know what it was, or where it would be.
I don't know how this could even be put out for a vote without more information. It's no wonder it was shot down. The town should have hired the marketing team that the LCSD Superintendent did, to convince the taxpayer to waste thousands per household.
Originally Posted by yaksplat
Spot on, Yak!
We were told by the town, “Tell us what you want and what you want to spend.” At the informational meeting nothing was revealed on park location or what the 20-30 acre proposed park would consist of, or estimation of final cost.
What kind of park could be constructed on a 20–30-acre site to accommodate the community? The community, not only those seeking more athletic playing fields.
An all-inclusive park with accessibility, parking, shelters, picnic tables, playground, walking path, restrooms? The community kept hearing more fields were needed and not enough on what the park would offer it!
Yes, all that information would come later, but for some too late when making their decision - a decision on paying for something that has no personal benefit.
Given the lack of information and the town officials not publicly expressing their opinions on this project, the prop was doomed from the beginning. I have a theory on why the the town decided to send this out to vote but it doesn't really matter and we're not likely to see a new park built in Lancaster for another generation. So that's that. The issues of the past remain unresolved, additional green space will be gobbled up by developers, but hey, the people have spoken.
Although good reasons and comments were made at the new park Informational Meeting, where the town declared residents had the opportunity to tell the board whether they wanted a new park and what were they willing to spend, too many meeting attendees walked away uncertain on what they were going to vote on.
Arguably, on paper the Town of Lancaster is underserved in parks and greenspace to accommodate present and future growth. Especially if you discount Erie County’s Como Lake Park that serves the town, has 64 shelters, playgrounds, hiking trails, et al to recreate in.
The new ADA compliant playground at Westwood Park is scheduled to open in Spring 2025!
Improvements and additions have been made to Lancaster’s existing parks.
Lancaster is only 34 square miles in size. A park serving a walkable community is non-realistic in today’s world – especially in Lancaster with its overburdened two-lane roads.
Most importantly, what kind of park can be constructed on the 20-30-acre site being considered? What have we heard for years from residents and Parks Department administrators: ‘WE NEED MORE ATHLETIC PLAYING FIELDS.”
Honestly, we do need more playing fields. The town has spoken on that in at least the past 15 years, promised that land would be donated to the town, which never happened. The town was remiss in purchasing greenspace and today should be thanked for putting the park dilemma to the public by referendum.
If playing fields, residents are apt to resist because of the exorbitant amount of money being spent on turf fields, dugouts, backstops, drainage, etc.
That does not absolve the town of its responsibility to at least purchase greenspace for future park development. Available land has and is being gobbled up developers whose sole interest is profit and will be reticent in surrendering any developable greenspace for community best interests.
This proposal should be revisited but not before the community honestly learns what kind of park will be built and how it serves the interest of the entire community.
The problem with Como Park is that it's maintained by the county. They've decided to stop mowing huge areas of the park as a regenerative space. They've torn down baseball backstops. We're not allowed to hold baseball practices there. You can't have a balloon in there.
It's great if your plan is to do laps around the park in a creepy Winnebago, or if you're into sitting in a shelter smoking weed all day.
The reason I say the proposal was doomed/flawed from the get-go is because of the "chicken or the egg" dilemma. The proposal was not designed to be a 'survey' to measure the residents overall interest level in a new park, even though it may have been misconstrued that way. Park interest level is a forgone conclusion. It's high, but it's concentrated in a certain area, why else would this have been put up for a vote in the first place and why else would this continue to be a perennial topic of discussion? Instead, the proposal was permission/authorization to borrow and spend a seemingly unsubstantiated amount without knowing anything else about where that money was going and what the people were going to get out of it. I imagine that presented a problem for at least some of the people who voted 'no'.
Obviously, spending money (how much, from where, and on what) is always going to be part of any project discussion, but it matters when the "spending money" part of the discussion happens. It has to be appropriately timed and it has to take place with sufficient information for people to reach conclusions and make decisions. By putting this proposal up for a vote as written, it bypasses a number of key steps in the project planning process and sets itself up for failure because it doesn't allow any specifics to be presented or considered, nor does it take into account what the ultimate project cost may end up being, inclusive of any offsets from state/federal funding sources and other grants that are likely available. That's very important information that's missing. So what we ended up with is a flawed proposal and some people not truly understanding what they were voting for or against, others reading the proposal and unequivocally voting no because of personal beliefs that any borrowing/spending is bad, and others reading it and reaching their own conclusions. Some likely concluded a park is simply not needed. Others probably concluded that they were not going to vote 'yes' on something without enough information, especially when the town can't even tell them anything specific on location, total cost, features, etc. Some people saw this as a blank check with no guardrails. Was this thing purposefully designed to give the town an excuse and the ability to shift blame to voters no matter which way it played out? I do wonder.
It did come out during the info session that park specifics would be figured out, presented to, and decided on by the town board, along with public input, at a later date, provided the proposal was approved. That's the exact dilemma though, what should come first? Authorization to borrow money for a general idea? Or a decision to proceed and spend money on a fully developed project with a known final cost, so those footing the bill can understand exactly what they are getting? Hence, the chicken or the egg. I'd bet that a good portion of 'no' voters would have voted 'yes' had specific information been presented. The proposal was not to approve the actual construction of a specific park with all the nitty-gritty details completely hammered out. How could it have been if a parcel hasn't even been purchased and a park hasn't been designed yet? I get some of the complaints around the lack of specifics but how can specifics be identified if they don't yet exist? For these reasons and more, this was a fatally flawed proposal.
Tommy Sweeney had a very valid point during the info session, maybe it would be worthwhile for the town to fork over some cash for a full professional park study/inventory that includes details on potential sites, costs, community interest levels in various specific amenities, etc. Present that to the public as a final report with 5 park options, including doing "none of the above". That's a little bit easier for the general public to understand and vote on. Doing this would at least give me some confidence that the town is putting forth a good faith effort in responding to residents needs vs. just appearing to go through the motions and putting out this crappy proposal that even I myself didn't feel fully comfortable voting yes on, and I've wanted the damn park for years! Many people don't deal in the abstract very well. They need to see, feel, or read something to fully understand it.
Lee - Athletic fields is one of the issues that remains unaddressed and it's great that improvements are planned for Westwood and other parks. I wholeheartedly support that and I'm happy for those who will be able to take advantage of those upgrades, even though I don't stand to directly benefit from them. I wish others had a similar mindset. However, the other unaddressed issue that improvements to existing parks do not measurably help or satisfy, are the requests made repeatedly on behalf of approximately 5,000 town residents who live roughly within the boundaries of William, Lake, Clinton, and Transit and don't have a park in their neighborhoods or within a reasonable walking distance. I agree that Lancaster is poorly serviced by a few overburden two-lane country roads with no sidewalks or shoulders. That may be rectified at some point in the future, but it's also exactly why walk-ability is the concern here and precisely why neighborhood parks are needed which are accessible from, and connected to, the very neighborhoods they serve. From a sampling of 5 locations within these boundaries, any walk between a residence and the William Street entrance to Como Park requires perilous travel on busy streets with no sidewalks and will vary in travel time from around 30 minutes to well over an hour, the average being about 55 minutes. No responsible parent is going to let their kids walk this given the hazards and risks. Kids have been killed on the side of the road it's just not worth it.
I guess no matter the size and location of a potential park, and the amenities it would offer, you're likely to always have a sizeable group of people who will not stand to directly benefit from it and therefore will not support it. I understand that to some extent. For example, if lived up off Pleasant View, don't have kids that play team sports, and I hear a new park is going in 5 miles away from me off Lake or Bowen, I would ask myself: why would I support a park I will never use, is not located anywhere near me, and still get stuck with a higher property tax bill? It might as well be a park in a different state. You could explain to those people that we all technically pay for NYS and national parks hundreds of miles away that we'll probably never visit, but that argument will probably fall flat.
In the end, I'm not sure there's any interest in the town revisiting this any time soon or any realistic path forward for this to be reconsidered or re-framed in a way that would capture more support. I certainly don't see one, so I repeat my earlier comment, that's that. The great south Lancaster park saga comes to an end.
Humans beings are inherently selfish creatures. That's not an insult, it's our nature and our instinct for self-preservation and self-interest that has kept us safe and alive throughout human history, but in modern society it manifests itself in some unfortunate ways. Eh, what are gonna do?
An excellent assessment Chad:
Kudos to the town for putting the park project to referendum and holding an informational meeting that was intended to allow the public to question and/or comment on the board’s invite to come and tell the board what it wants and what it is willing to spend for a park. The town should have purchased land years ago when residents started clamoring for more playgrounds and playing fields. Developers ruled this town for too long!
As an informational meeting it went poorly as the questions asked did not ferret out definitive park design, and the board’s responses were guarded.
Why did the referendum fail? You wrote: “Human beings are inherently selfish creatures. That's not an insult, it's our nature and our instinct for self-preservation and self-interest that has kept us safe and alive throughout human history, but in modern society it manifests itself in some unfortunate ways. The proposal was not designed to be a 'survey' to measure the residents overall interest level in a new park, even though it may have been misconstrued that way. Park interest level is a forgone conclusion.”
Looking at the following demographics it is not difficult to determine why the proposal was turned down when so many factors are in play and the project so poorly defined.
The Town of Lancaster has a 2024 population of 45,028. Lancaster is currently declining at a rate of -0.07% annually and its population has decreased by -0.02% since the most recent census, which recorded a population of 45,036 in 2020.
The average household income in Lancaster is $107,279 with a poverty rate of 4.37%. The villages not as prosperous and not as apt to care about a park in the south of Town.
The median age in Lancaster town is 46.1 years: 43.9 years for males, and 47.9 years for females.
There are 36,559 adults, 9,297 of whom are seniors (25.4%) in Lancaster.
12,918 (53%) ‘no’ ballots were cast, 11,437 (47%) ‘yes’ ballots were cast.
Bonding $7.5 million for 30 years would cost taxpayers an estimated $14 per $100,000 of assessed property the first year – and less there on as the debt and interest is paid down.
What is unfortunate is that considering that the town overall has a high wealth ratio, not everyone is well off, there is a high percentage of seniors who vote at a high percentage and those voters were left wondering what they were voting for. What were they expected to spend their money on and what the benefit to the entire community is.
We should at least be buying land to ensure the town has greenspace for future park development.
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