School proposals trickle in to Greenway Commission
Three districts struggle for projects that meet criteria set in master plan
NIAGARA FALLS — The Niagara Falls, Lewiston-Porter and Niagara- Wheatfield school districts have been allotted a pile of Greenway money from the New York Power Authority during the past two years, but have yet to spend a penny of it.
Only the Lewiston-Porter district has tried — and ran into a hitch when the Niagara River Greenway Commission ruled its athletic field project on the school campus was inconsistent with the Greenway Master Plan.
The commission ruled that the project didn’t do enough to connect with the Niagara River and lacked the commitment to build pathways that establish connections to existing paths and trails.
That finding underlines the challenge all three districts have when it comes to pitching proposals for its Greenway cash: How do you spend money to improve the Niagara River environmental and recreational climate when many of your school grounds are miles from the shoreline?
Greenway money comes to the districts from the Niagara Power Coalition relicensing agreement with the Power Authority that allows the authority to run the Niagara Power Project in Lewiston for another half-century. It will amount to $40 million for the districts by 2057.
The districts also get another pocket of cash called Host Community funding that they can spend any way they want, as well as low-cost electricity as part of the deal.
The City of Niagara Falls, Niagara County and the towns of Lewiston and Niagara complete the coalition membership. They get compensation similar to the school districts.
But the boundaries of the municipalities all touch the Niagara River, whereas much school property does not — so the districts are pressing ahead with projects that they see as the most consistent they can be.
Spending power
When they started negotiating the relicensing agreement with the Power Authority, the pool of money now considered Greenway funds was considered recreation money. All three districts continue to see the pool of money that way, and helped guide the settlement process in a way that likely will allow them to spend the money on athletic improvements, including the ones in Lew-Port that the Greenway Commission found inconsistent with the Greenway plan.
“I don’t think they’ll have a problem,” Niagara Falls School Superintendent Carmen A. Granto said. “I think they have the votes [on a subcommittee that has the final say].”
The districts either are going through the Greenway approval process or are trying to make sure projects they come up with fall within the parameters set in place in the Greenway Master Plan.
Greenway Commission officials say the commission is a required stop in the Greenway process. The commission weighs in on whether its members feel projects are consistent with the master plan, but they do not have the last word on whether a project is funded.
The Host Community Greenway Standing Committee — made up of the seven coalition members plus the Power Authority — has the final say, said Greenway Commission Executive Director Rob A. Belue.
The standing committee has every right to approve a project, Belue said. He said the commission’s place is to keep communities focused on the vision of the master plan, which calls for projects to connect the area’s populations and communities with the Niagara River, its tributaries, natural areas, parks and recreational facilities.
Lewiston-Porter is the only district that has tried to dip its toes in the Greenway waters.
Last summer, the district proposed using its Greenway monies over 15 years to pay for a $4,894,810 development of athletic and recreational facilities on the district’s Creek Road campus.
The project includes the construction of six tennis courts, outdoor lighting, baseball and softball fields and site improvements. The site work includes paving and the installation of sanitary and storm sewers. Work began after Sept. 1, 2007, the date the relicensing agreement took effect. Some of the work is in progress, some has yet to begin.
The Greenway Commission wants the project to connect with the Niagara River and existing paths and trails, but the standing committee that decides funding doesn’t have to make that a requirement.
Assistant Superintendent Donald W. Rappold said the district intends to ask the Standing Committee for approval of the spending plan since recreation falls under the Greenway umbrella.
The Standing Committee gave the project tacit approval by a preliminary 6-1-1 vote earlier this year. Granto abstained on the vote and the Power Authority, which provides money as part of the settlement, voted no.
There are ways to make the project fit better into the Greenway parameters, said Julie Barrett O’Neill, executive director of Buffalo Niagara Riverkeeper.
“If they wanted to stick with recreation or athletic projects instead of the hard-core construction of athletic facilities, they could do things like starting up school-based kayaking or paddling club programs. . .,” Barrett O’Neill said. “Or they could do a sailing, windsurfing or any other water-based recreation activities — even fishing — that would connect students to the river.”
As for on-campus projects, she said districts could do things to reduce a campus’ impact on the river. For example, she said districts could set up an environmental project that would involve students treating the runoff water from campus roofs, roadways and parking lots so it is purified before it is released into a storm drainage system. That way, she said, it has less of a negative impact on the health of the river.
“That could serve as a learning laboratory for students so that they learn about water conservation and about how their project impacts water quality and improves the health of the river over time,” Barrett O’Neill said.
Tied up with other issues, the Niagara Falls School Board has yet to discuss how it might use its Greenway funds.
Granto, who will leave his superintendent’s post at the end of next month, said the money could be used to help develop community recreational facilities on the grounds of its schools, especially Niagara Falls High School. The school is connected to Hyde Park and its waterways, Hyde Park Lake and Gill Creek, a tributary of the Niagara River.
The district has looked at plans to develop athletic facilities behind the high school, but has not considered them to date in terms of a Greenway project.
The district also could work on joint projects with the City of Niagara Falls or other coalition members, Granto said.
He said it could exchange some if its Greenway money for the city’s Host Community money — which has fewer strings attached — if the city has a Greenway-related project it wants to fund while the district had a non-Greenway project it needs to take on.
Niagara Falls Mayor Paul A. Dyster said the exchange probably would not work out because former Mayor Vince Anello committed the city’s Host Community money to the general fund budget.
“I would have to raise taxes to do that,” said Dyster, a Greenway Commission member.
Joint Falls projects?
Dyster said there are projects the city and school district could work on together, in which the School Board could finance the Greenway-related aspects and the city the non- Greenway aspects. He said that could be done to upgrade the 1970s-era Hyde Park Ice Pavilion, which the school district’s varsity hockey program could make good use of.
Granto said the School Board could open Greenway funds up to outside projects.
For example, he said, if the Aquarium of Niagara wanted to do a Greenway project at its Whirlpool Street facility, the school district could help financially in exchange for having the schools benefit from the aquarium’s educational programs at no charge to district students and staff.
Niagara-Wheatfield Business Executive Kerin M. Dumphrey said the district hasn’t pitched anything yet.
“We want to see the criteria clarified as to what school districts can use the Greenway money for,” Dumphrey said. “Lew-Port did a wonderful job presenting their plans and we are waiting to see how that works out before we go ahead and spend any money developing a project.”
All three districts are thinking of ways to use Greenway money.
“We want to do some recreational projects for the whole community,” Dumphrey said. “We have a large secondary schools campus which is not just used by the schools but by the local version of Little Loop Football and the Niagara- Wheatfield Athletic Association, a volunteer group that serves some 600 young kids who play sports like football and soccer, and do wrestling. So we would want to enhance and improve our facilities.
“We’ve even talked about the possibilities of creating hiking and bike trails there. We’ve also talked about putting up an indoor lacrosse facility. It would be an all-weather, enclosed facility. It would be expensive but there’s a desire for that in the community and a lot of our Native American students go on to Syracuse and other schools to play lacrosse.”
Lewiston-Porter also is tossing around the idea of building on-campus field houses.
“We have been looking at some generalized ideas,” Lew- Port Superintendent R. Christopher Roser said, “like having a field house that could include an ice hockey rink, a basketball court or even a swimming pool.
“We could include a fitness room and possibly an indoor fitness track, which would be a place our students and people from the community can go to to do fitness activities.”
Rappold, the Lew-Port assistant superintendent, said, “We’d like a center for any activities which will not only engage our schools but also engage the greater community, which includes Ontario, Canada.”
Rappold said the field house, which currently is just in the conceptual stage, also “could be the terminus for a bike path that would connect the Lew- Port campus to the current bike path along the Robert Moses Parkway.”
That bike path runs from the Town of Lewiston to the Town of Porter — and is the kind of connection Greenway commissioners said they had in mind, too, when they voted the district’s initial plan was inconsistent with the master plan.
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