Mayor Finizio campaigns on park plan he had no part in devising
Now that the new Thames River Heritage Park is coming into focus -- the state has committed $200,000 in its new budget for a park water taxi connecting attractions on the river -- New London Mayor Daryl Finizio has stepped in to claim the park as a plank in his campaign platform.
I was surprised to hear the mayor describe the new park as a major future economic development engine for New London at a recent campaign rally.
Not that it isn't great to have any public official on board for the development of this exciting project. What is startling to me about the mayor's new broad public embrace of the park is that the person who gets all the credit for resuscitating the long-dormant park plan is Penny Parsekian, the former head of New London Main Street, whom Finizio more or less ran out of town at the beginning of his inaugural term.
Finizio, in what appeared to be pure political retribution against Parsekian, who had once supported his opponent for mayor, immediately proposed sharp funding cuts for Main Street, the nonprofit that Parsekian had run for a decade.
The mayor even tried to pull the plug on city public works support for the agency's annual fundraiser, selling decorative light pole banners meant to beautify and promote the city. The City Council in the end insisted the city help with the banners, which, under the mayor's edict, would otherwise been left in boxes on the eve of the downtown mega-event Operation Sail.
After reluctantly leaving the financially decimated Main Street, Parsekian ended up as a consultant for the Avery-Copp House in Groton, which hired her to develop new ideas to better integrate the museum with regional attractions and lure more visitors.
Parsekian decided to look into reviving the decades-old and long-dormant Thames River Heritage Park, originally conceived as a unique new tourism destination, a no-boundaries park that would link existing attractions on the Thames River by water taxi.
Stops on the route will include the unusual Revolutionary War battlefield at Fort Griswold in Groton, the 1777 Fort Trumbull in New London, the Avery-Copp House, the Submarine Force Museum and the proposed National Coast Guard Museum.
On Parsekian's recommendation, The Copp family, major donors of the Avery-Copp House, underwrote the cost of a new park proposal by the Yale Urban Design Workshop.
And the planning was off to a fast start, with the development of a test run last summer of the water taxi. With successful prodding by the eastern Connecticut legislative delegation, $200,000 was added to the two-year state budget to develop the Thames River taxi.
Groton City Mayor Marian Galbraith, who is helping lead the development of the transition to a nonprofit that will direct a public/private partnership in running the new park, told me this week they have secured two boats for the taxi service.
A volunteer helped find surplus Navy launches, Galbraith said, and they could be available, at no cost, other than a mechanical recommissioning, by next season. There is also some thoughts about developing a trial run with leased boats late this summer or early fall.
"We are not sure yet about this year yet," the Groton mayor said. "We know we need to do it right."
Meanwhile, the transition team is scheduled to meet today and will continue planning for the creation of the nonprofit that will also be able to do private fundraising for the development of the park.
Mayor Finizio is right when he says in his campaign literature that the new park has the potential to become an economic driver in his city.
"This park can become Groton/New London's own Freedom Trail," he wrote.
It's too bad he put the squeeze on Parsekian's nonprofit right here in New London, back at the start of his new administration, when she was already at work on developing economic drivers.
This is the opinion of David Collins
d.collins@theday.com
Twitter: @DavidCollinsct
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