Goose Speaks Out on Dyster's Jayne Park Plan

The Geese are mystified at Jayne Park, I mean, how you can spend so much and get so little, A drawing of the small and inexpensive overlook designed by Clark Patterson Lee. When it comes to spending the administration of Mayor Paul Dyster is tops. This fabulous bench was included in the $300,000 park "improvement" plan. The design is by Dyster's Buffalo Consultants, Clark Patterson Lee. It shows Jayne Park getting, among other things it did not need, an asphalt pathway, a small (10-20) overlook, a bench, and some items that would normally be done by most cities as seasonal maintenance such as playground upgrades, and plantings along the shoreline of native weeds and removing non native weeds - all for $300,000. Clark Patterson Lee did the design.

The Niagara Falls Reporter opposed the Jayne Park "improvement" project for years and tried to rouse the residents into action to oppose the poor and needless design and the obvious agenda to blow off money and help out consultants who would do the expensive design work.

But Niagara Falls Mayor Paul Dyster and Senior Planner Thomas DeSantis fought harder and, with the council majority's approval, were able to spend more than $300,000- half of it taxpayer's money and half from a grant to do about $150,000 worth of work, none of it needed, most of it unwanted and of course to pay consulting fees for the design to Clark Patterson Lee, the Buffalo engineering firm that Dyster uses in lieu of hiring a city engineer.

But the work is done and the Reporter made a recent visit to Jayne Park, site of the Dyster-DeSantis park project, to speak to a Canada goose regarding the park plan.

We think our readers will find the bird's remarks to be surprisingly insightful.

Reporter: People are complaining that you geese are messing on Dyster's new asphalt walking path.

Goose: You poop in your house. A bear poops in the woods. We poop in the park. Case closed.

Reporter: How has the Jayne Park Plan affected the lives of the geese?

Goose: You mean in addition to having our sanitary habits held up to public ridicule?

Reporter: Have your lifestyle and habitat been impinged upon?

Goose: Of course! That asphalt path was put down directly between our feeding area and the river. What did the mayor and his planner think would happen?

Reporter: It was poor planning?

Goose: Dyster's planning is for the birds, but in the wrong way. Isn't that ironic?

Reporter: We've written in the past about the critical role that the Little River plays in the life of the Niagara River flyway.

Goose: I know about the Niagara River Flyway. Serious bird watchers know about the Niagara River Flyway and ornithologists know about the Niagara River Flyway. Paul Dyster and Tom DeSantis don't know and don't care about the Niagara River Flyway.

Reporter: I've noticed that some of your fellow geese are, uh, mating.

Goose: I can't speak for the bees but what your mother told you about the birds is true. However, unlike the Saturday night patrons in a Third Street bar we actually mate for life, not for ten minutes in the parking lot.

Reporter: So your nesting habitat has also been impacted?

Goose: Certainly! We're trying to hatch eggs and raise young but dogs are chasing us. A pleasant walk for Fido and his owner is now a matter of life and death for a goose. It didn't have to be this way.

Reporter: And now?

Goose: Now the waterfowl population has been threatened. There's a pointless asphalt path. The kids' playground got a quick and dirty twelve inches of rough cut woodchips instead of a rubber mat or shredded tires and there's a Little River wooden "overlook" that looks like a do it yourself project from Home Depot.

Reporter: The overlook is handicapped accessible?

Goose: As a waterfowl I don't know much about human things but the railing of the overlook seems too high for a person in a wheelchair to see over.

Reporter: It appears there's been damage to the park grounds during the "redesign."

Goose: Sure, there was. The staging area for the heavy equipment was all roughed up. There was rushed, sloppy work the length of the walking path with grass seed putdown in December and then covered with straw that now smells. The seeded areas should be smoothed. I could say a lot more, but who's gonna listen to a goose, certainly not the mayor.

Reporter: So, as a Canada goose, you'd have handled the work differently?

Goose: Darn right. I'd have never built the path along the water or the ridiculous overlook…it's a path to nowhere and an overlook without a look. I'd have made the eastern end of the park a birding area. I would have encouraged local birders to respectfully view us birds, especially during migration. I would have put up housing for our smaller relatives, the songbirds. I would have put in a large area with plantings that welcome butterflies and enhanced the south marsh and catalogued the vegetation on the shore by reaching out to local university botanists. I would have launched an intensive program to have all the trees attended to…some are sick and may be lost soon. The playground, the basketball court and the sledding hill are all very necessary elements of the park. I may be a bird, but I'm no birdbrain. What the mayor and his planner did was inexcusable, a ploy to put cash in their friends pockets with uncalled for "make work" for campaign supporters. It was shameful. And those taxpayer dollars disappeared like – excuse me – poop through a goose.

Reporter: And it was done over the wishes of the residents.

Goose: Yeah, hundreds of taxpayers in a well-maintained neighborhood producing lots of property tax dollars for the city and not an ounce of respect from the mayor. Go figure.

Reporter: Any final remarks?

Goose: The mayor now has his name on a large wooden sign along Joliet Avenue, taking credit for the park work. So he got what he wanted from the start, his name in lights, as it were. As a goose, I'm pretty honked off about the whole thing.