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Massena officials to use casino compact funds to tear down, replace wooden playground on Danforth Place

Posted 5/21/14

By ANDY GARNDER MASSENA -- The Massena Joint Recreation Commission, along with the village and town boards are planning to tear down the wooden playground on Danforth Place and replace it with new …

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Massena officials to use casino compact funds to tear down, replace wooden playground on Danforth Place

Posted

By ANDY GARNDER

MASSENA -- The Massena Joint Recreation Commission, along with the village and town boards are planning to tear down the wooden playground on Danforth Place and replace it with new equipment purchased with casino compact funds.

“It’s not a safe playground apparatus anymore,” Mayor James Hidy said. “We’ve been thinking about it for some time.

“We want a more transparent playground, similar to those at Alcoa and Springs” parks.

The new playground doesn’t yet have a dollar amount attached. It will be covered by casino compact money from the Town of Massena. Hidy said the casino funds are crucial because the Recreation Department made deep cuts to its 2014-2015 budget and doesn’t have anything to spare.

He has tasked Recreation Superintendent Richard Boprey with coming up with three new playground options. He said Boprey isn’t working under a specific deadline. He hopes everything will work out so a new facility can be built by year’s end.

Hidy said the playground, which was built in 1990, is “a hazard to youth.”

“The woodwork is old and decrepit and there are exposed screws and nails,” he said.

When viewed from the Clark Street side, the towers appear to be listing a few degrees to one side.

Hidy said he doesn’t know of any injuries linked to the shoddy equipment.

The new facility will have something commemorating the wooden playground.

“It certainly was, in its time, a labor of love by friends and members of the Rotary and we’ll do something to commemorate it,” Hidy said. “It’s a structure that’s outlived.”