Old Pound Road Committee seeks a voice in grant’s use for the property

By NEAL RENTZ

The Old Pound Road Committee came to a consensus April 7 to seek a role in the process of determining how a grant will be used for the property.

Committee Co-chair Alison Boak, who is a town board member, will speak with Supervisor Kevin Hansan about ways to provide input.

One of the ideas the committee agreed upon at a meeting Monday, April 7, was to have an ad hoc committee created by the board that would include some members of the Old Pound Road Committee, the Energy Action Committee and the Recreation Commission. 

The Old Pound Road Committee was told at its Jan. 6 meeting that the Energy Action Committee’s trail subcommittee has a plan to use a state grant to create two trail extensions.

Nicole Shaffer, co-chair of the Energy Action Committee, said at the January meeting that one of the trail extensions would run along Westchester Avenue to the area of the Town Park entrance to the Pound Ridge hamlet and such sites as the library and elementary school. 

The second proposed extension would be a nature trail that would continue a town path and connect the town-owned Old Pound Road property to the back of the Town Park. 

The grant requires that the multi-use path to Old Pound Road must be six feet wide and compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act. The grant needs to be matched by the same amount of funding from the town.

Boak said previously the proposals for the new trail extensions would be subject to a town board public hearing.

The grant was obtained by the Energy Action Committee’s trails subcommittee last year with the assistance of the nonprofit New York-New Jersey Trail Conference.

At Monday’s meeting, Boak said the Town Board has the power to appoint ad hoc committees. The Old Pound Road Committee should be part of an ad hoc committee and she would speak with Hansan about the subject if her colleagues agreed, Boak said. 

Old Pound Road Committee Co-chair Joseph Virgilio said he also felt the committee should help determine how the grant will be used.

“We’re looking to have a voice,” he said. 

Committee member Robert Rauch said that he and his colleagues should have the opportunity to express what they feel should be done with the grant.

Committee member Mark Mosolino said there should be a plan to have access to the Old Pound Road property that would be handicapped accessible.

“We need to focus on this,” he said. 

One suggestion Mosolino had was to provide a few parking spaces in the area between 5 and 7 Westchester Ave. for those with disabilities. 

Pollinator gardens grants

Also at the meeting, the committee came to a consensus to seek private and federal grants to create pollinator gardens in the areas of Old Pound Road property’s three ponds.

Pollinator gardens are created to attract birds, bees and other insects that are beneficial.

“We should clean up these ponds,” Mosolino said.