NEWS UPDATE!!

Long-sought removal of Rotterdam trail entrance will take place soon

By Justin Mason (Contact) Gazette Reporter

ROTTERDAM — When Marjorie Schmid learned Rotterdam is planning to dismantle the former entrance to the Great Flats Nature Trail, she immediately called the town supervisor to try to postpone the project for a few days. It wasn’t because the longtime critic of the old trail head had any change of heart over the winding wood walkway to nowhere. Instead, Schmid found herself hospitalized after knee surgery and didn’t want to miss the chance to see the demise of the pathway that has been a thorn in her side for more than two decades. “I’ve got film in my camera and I’m waiting,” she said from her Schermerhorn Road home. Supervisor Steve Tommasone said the original plan was to have a volunteer group do the work this summer, where the town would oversee the deconstruction. But when the plan stalled, he asked the town’s Public Works Department to add the project to its list of park improvements this fall.

Tommasone said the department is now completing improvements to Kiwanis Park off Route 5S and Eunice Esposito Park off Curry Road. He anticipates the workers will begin dismantling the long-dormant walkway next week. The walkway’s removal will bring to an end the project first opened by Wilmorite in 1987 and later deeded to the town as a concession to opponents of Rotterdam Square mall. At the time, officials from both the town and the Rochester-based Wilmorite described the boardwalk as an educational resource that would allow school groups to study the Great Flats wetlands.

The walkway zig-zagging down an embankment to the Great Flats preserve never lived up to the design plans. Instead, it became a haven for underage drinking parties and other illicit behavior. Schmid, an ardent opponent of the mall’s construction, has long maintained the walkway was built to spite her. The structure was built less than 20 feet from her home and even incorporated a sliver of her land. “It was built primarily to drive me crazy,” she said.

About a decade after the walkway opened, former Supervisor Joe Signore ordered it closed. Town officials ordered the trail’s parking lot blocked off but stopped short of dismantling the walkway because it purportedly offered handicap access to the 18th century-era Teller family burial plot.

Then in 2003 vandals torched the walkway on three separate occasions. The fires prompted the town to build a dirt berm in front of the walkway; county workers also installed a guardrail by the berm, further discouraging access to the boardwalk.

The town officially moved the entrance to the Great Flats to a vacant lot off Campbell Road where a Mobil station once stood. Today, the path that once connected to Wilmorite’s boardwalk is overgrown and impassable. “It serves no useful purpose,” Tommasone said.

The hope is to remove the walkway and recycle the wood elsewhere among Rotterdam’s parks. Tommasone said some of the wood may be used for building bridges and walkways near the trail’s new entrance. Tommasone said the town will also discuss an arrangement with the Schenectady County Historical Society so that the historic grave site will be maintained. Last spring, the historical society agreed to accept Schmid’s 19th century home to ensure the preservation of her 2.34 acres near the Teller plot, abutting the Great Flats. “We’re going to try to return that property to the way it was,” he said.

Meanwhile, the town is completing improvements to Kiwanis Park funded through a $40,000 state grant. Town workers have already installed new grills, put up additional railings and reconditioned the picnic tables; they are now preparing to build a spot for portable toilets and reconstruct the dock on the Mohawk River.

In Esposito Park, the town is expected to remove the fencing that once surrounded the skate park, which was shut down in June 2007. Tommasone said the park’s equipment will be sold and the paved area will be turned into additional parking.

“I want to get these projects done before the weather hits,” he said.

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