Supervisor Wicks: ‘The risk is too high’
By Ashley M. Casey
Associate Editor
While much of New York state has reopened, the Lysander spray park will remain closed because of the coronavirus pandemic.
At the work session preceding its June 18 meeting, the Lysander Town Board discussed whether the facility should open. Recreation Supervisor Tony Burkinshaw said similar facilities in the town of Camillus and the cities of Oswego and Fulton will not be opening this summer.
“It’s a flat-out no. They’re not going to entertain the idea. It is closed for the season,” Burkinshaw said of the Camillus splash pad.
However, the town of Sweden’s splash pad in Brockport is opening, Burkinshaw said, adding that Sweden’s splash pad is not fenced in like Lysander’s.
“They’re basically doing nothing. They’re just asking people to social distance,” he said. “It’s not good practice to do nothing. You should do something as far as disinfecting and cleaning.”
The village of North Syracuse is opening its pool to village residents only and the city of Syracuse is still weighing whether it will allow public pool access.
“The governor has given [the authority to open] parks, pools, spray parks up to local government to make the decision if it best fits their community and their needs but they have guidelines to follow,” Burkinshaw said.
Deputy Supervisor Bob Geraci spoke in favor of opening the spray park since Gov. Andrew Cuomo is allowing beaches, parks and pools to open up.
“This governor has been pretty strict and stringent about the controls and the protocols that have to be followed. I guess I would take it that if his office has basically said to the recreation community of New York state, ‘Go ahead, open up your facilities,’ … I would entertain the idea of absolutely opening this park,” Geraci said.
Geraci said Lysander can limit the number of people inside the spray park.
“I’m not afraid of opening it up and there’s no way I think anybody can say, ‘Oh, my kid got sick at the spray park.’ Really? Prove it,” he said.
Geraci said children are “almost impervious” to COVID-19.
“They may be able to carry it and spread it to adults, but they are certainly impervious to getting hurt or ill themselves with certain rare exceptions. I’m tired of being afraid,” he said.
Supervisor Bob Wicks pushed back on Geraci’s views.
“If they’re impervious to it, why did schools shut down?” he asked, adding that children who have had COVID-19 can experience pulmonary complications and even a rare inflammatory syndrome.
Wicks said COVID-19 cases could easily be traced back to the spray park through contact tracing.
“I’ve done investigations before and I think this would be an easy one to determine that it was kids [at the spray park] because you’re probably going to to have 3-, 4-, 5-year-olds and where they’re going is limited,” Wicks said.
Wicks said he and Burkinshaw have been discussing how Lysander can mitigate the risks of opening the spray park.
“I think that’s way, way too much of a risk to those kids that we can’t take,” he said. “I would like to open it up just as much as anybody but I’ll tell you right now: if that was open, I wouldn’t bring my grandkids in, and I couldn’t be in support of anything that I wouldn’t myself go to or bring my kids in. I just think the risks far outweigh the benefits in this instance.”
Wicks referenced a gathering in Washington state that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention deemed a “superspreader” event for COVID-19. The Skagit Valley Chorale’s March 10 choir practice had 61 attendees, 53 of whom developed symptoms of COVID-19. Thirty-three singers tested positive for the virus and 20 more were suspected to have it.
Councilors Peter Moore and Roman Diamond both expressed skepticism about the seriousness of the Skagit County cases.
“How ill were they? What is the risk really?” Moore asked.
“The media puts out a story, it presents an image to us, and then we never really hear what turns out,” Diamond said. “I keep hearing about everybody that has gotten this virus and there’s casualties to it but a lot of people recover and a lot of people are asymptomatic.”
The May 15 edition of the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report detailed the Skagit County outbreak. The CDC reported that three of the sick choir singers were hospitalized and two died.
“It’s really important that people realize that by meeting, by gathering, 86% of them could become ill and the results and aftermath of that is hard to fathom,” Skagit County Health Officer Dr. Howard Leibrand told KING 5 News, a Seattle NBC affiliate.
Councilor Jeff Kudarauskas said the impact of an outbreak could affect more than just the people who fell ill.
“They might not have gotten ill, but they pass it onto someone else who could have really gotten ill or could have died from it,” he said.
Kudarauskas also pointed out that the Lysander spray park drew 1,000 visitors on its opening day in August 2019.
“People aren’t traveling. They’re not going on vacation. Imagine the crowd now that you would get,” he said.
Wicks said the town cannot afford additional parks staff to monitor spray park attendance and disinfect the bathrooms and other facilities at Lysander Park.
“I think you’d get some pretty angry parents if they drove any type of distance — now we’re not letting their kids go in there,” Wicks said. “I think somebody that votes yes on this is going to have to take the lead on that because I’m not going to vote yes on something like that.”
Diamond said while he is frustrated with the media’s portrayal of the coronavirus pandemic, Lysander should “show a united front” with Onondaga County and other local governments by not opening the spray park.
“It doesn’t make sense to me to open at this point,” he said. “If most of the towns are not going to open, if Camillus is not going to open, I think we’d want to hold off as well.”
Also on the agenda
While the town board opted not to take action on the spray park, the board took action on the following items at the June 18 meeting:
• Lamson Road speed study: The board voted to request the New York State Department of Transportation perform a speed study of Lamson Road from a half-mile west of Route 48 to the beginning of the bridge in Phoenix. A resident requested the study because he has seen traffic increase exponentially in the 13 years he has lived there.
• Summer hours: The board approved modified hours for Lysander Town Hall, effective June 22 through Sept. 4. Town offices will be open from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Wicks said walk-in traffic is slower in the summertime, making town hall a “ghost town” in the late afternoons.
