Lights, Cameras … Action! Eyed For Parks

New Haven basketball players can look forward to smoother surfaces and clearer three-point lines at courts throughout the city. Wooster Square will be better lit at night. And more security cameras may pop up in city parks.

City parks director Becky Bombero outlined those and other planned improvements during a presentation at a hearing held by the Board of Alders Finance Committee at City Hall on Thursday night on the Harp Administration’s proposed $554.5 million operating budget and $68.7 million capital budget for the coming fiscal year.

Bombero, joined by Deputy Director of Parks & Squares Bill Carone and Deputy Director of Recreation Bill Dixon, went through nearly each item of her department’s propsed $4.29 million city capital budget for fiscal year 2017 – 2018, zeroing in on the various improvement projects, both big and small, that are already or are about to be under way. The parks department’s proposed city capital budget marks a $1.395 million increase over this year’s; its proposed general fund budget is flat at $5,293,300.

Bombero said the department plans to upgrade all 29 of the city’s basketball courts, which will fall under its $600,000 line item for long-lasting infrastructure improvements.

“We closed a bid yesterday on one of the projects on existing capital,” Bombero said. ​“We will be doing surface repair on cracked sealing and painting on almost every court in the city, with the exception of the two worst courts. This weekend we’re going to put out a bid for the complete reconstruction of the court at Winslow Augustine, which is in the worst shape of any court in the city. Then with future capital funds we will look to rebuild the court at East Shore, which is the second worst court in the city. We’ll take a look at not only the court itself, but we may also be able to squeeze in a volleyball court out there as well.”

Bombero said that the resurfacing and resealing project for all but two of the city’s basketball courts this year will constitute over $100,000 in upgrades. The courts at Winslow Augustine and East Shore will subsequently see complete rebuilds that will cost somewhere between $75,000 and $100,000 each, according to a budget pamphlet that Bombero passed to the alders before her presentation.

Turning to the $200,000 line item for Lighting, Bombero said that the city is looking to upgrade lighting heads at Wooster Square Park this year, and at Trowbridge Square park and the Quinnipiac River seawall in upcoming years.

“Every light head in Wooster Square park is getting replaced,” she explained. ​“These are LED heads, the same that you see on the New Haven Green, which provide increased lumens and better safety, and which also reduce our electrical use.” According to Carone, the new light heads shipped on Wednesday.

Several other highlights from the presentation include:

• The department’s preparations to put out a bid for the design build of the Coogan Pavilion skatepark. They expect the design build, as opposed to the actual build, to cost around $70,000.

The department’s progress on the planned upgrading of the Ralph Walker Skating Rink at 1080 State St. The proposed capital budget for the rink improvements is $1.5 million, which, according to the Parks department’s budget pamphlet, ​“will complement the current $750,000 in FY2017 Parks Infrastructure improvement that is funding the engineering, design and early structural work.” Bombero announced that her department had set up a working group with two alders, members of the community, and city staff to discuss the skate rink repairs; that they had onboarded a refrigeration design consultant based out of Minnesota that has worked on 300 ice rinks throughout the country; that they have started the process towards creating an RFP for a new operator of the rink; and that her team had met with colleagues in Norwich, Connecticut to discuss that city’s recent upgrade to their own local skating rink.

A $180,000 requested increase to the part of the capital budget dedicated to planting, trimming, and removing street trees.

A $20,000 requested increase to the Computers & Technology portion of the capital budget, with an emphasis on expanding the department’s camera capability in city parks.

The city currently has one camera that it periodically moves around East Rock Park with the aim of documenting illegal behavior like tire dumping. The camera has been up since November, but it has not yet helped the city catch anybody committing a crime.

“It’s a pretty small footprint that the camera can see,” Bombero said. ​“But we move it around, and hopefully it will act as a deterrent.”