Deteriorating buildings, drainage issues, plague Carmel Rec Dept.

MAHOPAC, N.Y.—As the Carmel Recreation and Parks Department faces ongoing understaffing issues that could force it to cancel programs, the deterioration of buildings and ballfields at Sycamore and McDonough Parks—some of which pose safety concerns—has emerged as a potentially even bigger problem.

At the Town Board’s May 14 meeting, Recreation Supervisor Amanda Farina and Carl Stone, a project manager from Poughkeepsie-based Weston and Sampson Engineering, gave a presentation on the scope of the problems.

The town initially sought to make some cosmetic improvements to the buildings at both parks, using American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) money it received several years ago (federal stimulus funds targeted to aid public health and economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic). But further inspection of the buildings discovered the problems run much deeper, and it would likely take more than ARPA money to fix them.

Sycamore Park Rec Building

“[The idea] was basically to give it a facelift,” Gold told the board. “It’s in rough shape in some areas. A lot of it is painting and siding repair. However, during the course of looking at this work, the contractor and I have identified some unforeseen conditions.”

Gold said the biggest problem is with the deck at the rear of the building.

“[This deck] provides access to the bathrooms after hours,” he said. “There is about 80 feet of siding that needs to be replaced. Unfortunately, the deterioration here is more than the scope we anticipated. In some areas the shingles are gone. I took a screwdriver and put it through this material; it is spongy and in really bad shape. So, taking a few shingles off, replacing them and adding some paint is frankly a fool’s errand. It will just continue to deteriorate and be a problem.”

Gold said he believes the main support beam for the joists that hold up the deck could suffer from rot as well.

“In order to do the repair work properly, it makes the most sense to take the deck down. That was not part of the [original] scope,” he said. “That’s a significant effort, obviously.

“Another thing I want to point out is that the tar paper, which is probably original to the building, has been tested for asbestos and shown to contain it,” he continued. “So, the minute you touch it and do any work, you have to do an abatement, which escalates costs and issues further.”

Gold said the contractors are unsure how far the damage has gone.

“If the header on that joist is rotten, that floor may be compromised,” he cautioned.

David Furfaro, chair of the Recreation Advisory Committee, said the Recreation Department’s original plan was to put together a “Band-Aid approach.”

“Our only goal was to dress things up and make it pretty,” he told the board. “We really didn’t want to get into a whole structural thing. Because if you start with this building, it is just the tip of the iceberg. You could really go a long way. It has some serious neglect issues. So, our goal was really to just clean the place up. You could spend every bit of your ARPA money on this building and still need more. But at some point, we are going to have to deal with that back door because it is nearly falling off its hinges.”

Furfaro said depending on how much work is completed, it could trigger a cost threshold and require the building to become ADA compliant, which means ramps would have to be installed.

Furfaro said he thinks, for now, the town should not go beyond the initial budget for the repairs and should issue a change order.

“I would keep what we have as best that we can,” he said. “I do think that at some point we will have to replace the door. I don’t know if we will be able to do it in time for camp or not. Let the contractor do what he can, and the rest we will have to deal with internally. We are not asking for any action from the Town Board right now—just want to bring you up to speed.”

Gold laid out some of the possible actions that the board could eventually take.

“We have what I call the ‘do-nothing approach’… maybe take off a few shingles, maybe not because of the asbestos. Put some flashing under the shingles, then they could paint that. That won’t stop the rot, but it will reduce the amount of water that can get to those locations.

“The other thought is this deck doesn’t need to be that big,” he continued. “Demo the deck but don’t bring it back the way it is—make it smaller. Demo the deck and then do the repairs that you need to do.”

It was discussed whether the town was obligated to provide after-hours bathroom facilities, but noted it could use porta-johns until the deck and back door are repaired.

“We will have [Rec Director] Nina [Kallmeyer] come back with numbers on what this is all going to cost, and then we will have to make some decisions,” Supervisor Mike Cazzari said.

McDonough Park Fieldhouse, Ballfield

At McDonough Park, it was discovered that the columns and porch at the fieldhouse have settled, significantly affecting the building’s structural integrity.

Again, the original plan was to paint the building, replace the front porch railing, and change out an old door and some siding by the eaves.

“The soil has eroded, and that porch has probably settled 2 inches or more,” Gold told the board. “I’ve had my structural people look at it and come up with solutions, but we are not sure yet what that might be. The other issue is because those columns are on that porch, they, too, have settled. If you get a good snow load there, I couldn’t vouch for what would or would not happen. This has got to be addressed.”

Furfaro said the building isn’t ADA compliant, so ADA grant funding could be available, and they could redo the entire front porch.

Also of concern is a basement door, which has been blocked by a slope due to the building’s settling.

“We might need a retaining wall there—a change order not designed yet—to help keep the soil back and unblock that door,” Furfaro said.

Gold said getting ADA funding will take time—something they don’t really have.

“You can’t leave [the building] in that condition,” he said. “We need to find out if those columns [on the front of the building] are embedded in the concrete [porch].”

If they are, it could determine how they proceed with the repairs.

Besides the fieldhouse, the ballfield and dugouts at McDonough are suffering from poor drainage. Gold said the newly discovered issues have prompted a change order for $25,000 to $30,000.

“The original order was to put concrete floors in all four dugouts. It called for 4 feet of concrete [in each dugout], leaving the rest as clay,” Gold said. “But now we think the concrete has to come to the front of the dugout, the full 8 feet, basically doubling the amount of concrete we need.”

One set of bleachers also needs to be addressed.

“Soil is eroding under the bleachers due to drainage issues,” Gold said. “These aren’t frequently used. We were there yesterday, there was a game, and most people brought their chairs and put them inside the fence line and took their chances.

“So, the idea is to remove the concrete blocks around [the bleachers], grade it and seed it, and have the park folks bring in the two-tier low-height bleachers that are already at the park and bring them to the third base side where there’s grass and no erosion,” he added. “The bleachers on the other side don’t have this issue because the water isn’t undermining it.”

Gold said the field suffers from drainage issues because it is sloped in the wrong direction.

“It used to pitch from home plate to centerfield, but over the years we’ve added clay and added clay, and now it is pitched in the other direction,” Furfaro said. “I think at one point, we have to regrade the field and get that pitch pointed in the right direction and put the drain back in and get that thing running the other way.”

Councilwoman Suzy McDonough said the Recreation Department has a plan to renovate the entire park and ballfield and town officials need to meet with them and go over it.

“What I don’t want to do is take a whole lot of money and sink it into something and then in four or five years redo the fields,” she said. “So I think we need to put together a timeline—a feasible one—not just one that’s thrown up in the air. We need to put everything on the table and make the correct decisions for the residents instead of running after the ball—put a Band-Aid over here and a Band-Aid over there.”

Councilman Frank Lombardi noted there is money available that no one is talking about.

“We do have parkland trust money that is supposed to be for these fields and these parks,” he said. “Let’s come up with a plan. The money is just sitting there. If we need to dedicate it toward this, then that’s what we will do.”

Whatever the town and the Recreation and Parks Department decide to do, Cazzari said they need to start doing it.

“We are going to lose the ARPA money if we don’t use it for what it is intended for,” he said.

Gold said he and the contractors would meet with Recreation officials and come up with some proposals and costs and come back to the Town Board with them.