West River Parkway ‘is a catastrophe’

Grand Island Dispatch, September 25, 2009

Jim Mazza holds a photo of what the West River Parkway used to look like in 1965: a park. He and about 60 others told State Sen. Antoine Thompson Saturday that the parkway ain’t what it used to be. (photo by Larry Austin)

State Sen. Antoine Thompson and a representative of the Department of Transportation got an earful from about 60 residents near the West River who were upset that the state has reduced its mowing near the parkway.

At a community stakeholders meeting Saturday at the Knights of Columbus picnic shelter on Whitehaven Road, residents called the overgrown median between the parkway and their homes “a catastrophe” and “a disgrace.” Jim Mazza of West River Road said that if the state was a neighbor in the city, it would be hauled into court for code violations.

The state budget crisis has manifested itself in the state’s grass, however. “This year, we’re under budget constraints,” said Ramsey Kahi of the Department of Transportation, which maintains the parkway. He explained that a statewide guideline issued in 2008 requires mowing only for safety reasons, at intersections, and drainage ditches. “Basically what is absolutely necessary.”

What is absolutely necessary does not include most of the parkway grass, which has now grown to approximately three feet in some areas.

Marilyn Mazza, treasurer of the West River Homeowners Association, told Thompson, “We’re not asking for a super cut. We’re not asking for every day or every week, we’re asking for it just to be kept in a decent state where we can walk across to the river.”

Thompson agreed to tackle the matter, if not the mowing itself.

“We will get a resolution and we will meet until we bring this to a conclusion,” Thompson said. “We’ll fix it one way or the other. This is not rocket science, cutting grass.”

Ray Dlugokinski, highway superintendent alluded

“The people who live on county roads have yet to see a grass mower yet this year,” he said.