And the Grass Don't Pay No Mind... Tall grass in Jayne Park no 'high' for Island residents

As of press time the grass is about a foot high at Jayne Park. Gus, the Goose's Artistic representation entitled: "Jayne Park in September".

As my faithful readers know I'm a resident goose of Jayne Park on Cayuga Island that was forced to go into hiding shortly after I criticized Mayor Dyster's Jayne Park "restoration plan."

My fellow fowl sources informed me last week that the Jayne Park grass, while not as "high as an elephant's eye" like the corn crop sung about in the legendary musical, "Oklahoma," is higher than a goose hindquarters.

In other words the park greenery now reaches above 12 inches and in some areas along the "asphalt trail" the plentiful weeds and sparse grass reaches skyward for close to 16 inches. When grass reaches a height that even hinders the walkabout of your average goose, well, you know that it's become uncomfortably high for your average human out for a stroll and a little fresh air.

While Mayor Dyster and his chief pyramid builder, Tom DeSantis, designed the park work - work that the city residents paid for (a matching grant means half [$145,000] paid by the city) and work that the Cayuga Island neighborhood never wanted - the mayor and planner couldn't have cared less as to whether the park was maintained with even minimal grass cutting.

The fact is that long before the park "restoration" was done, going back to 2009 as Dyster and DeSantis talked up their park plans, Cayuga Island residents asked that the work be called off and that the mayor work harder to simply keep the park routinely maintained: grass cut; litter picked up; and, trees trimmed. That's all they asked for. They didn't get the minimal maintenance then and they aren't getting it now.

And that's because the Dyster plan for Jayne Park was never about making the park more natural or more inviting and user friendly. It was about spending Greenway grant money and taxpayer money to satisfy friendly construction contracts and political egos at the expense of the residents...and the current condition of the park is proof of that assertion.

My contacts along the city hall "goose vine" tell me that park grass across the city is now going uncut. In fact the city is falling so far behind in its routine grass maintenance that overtime is being paid for what was, just last year, regular workday grass cutting maintenance.

It's all a shame and so unnecessary; the damage to Jayne Park, the waste of taxpayer funds, the lies from city hall and the devaluing of the Cayuga Island neighborhood. If I were still a Cayuga Island resident I'd be plenty honked off...but then again I'm a goose and most city residents are sheep.