Featured Story

Jay Card: At last, a bathroom for Volunteer Park

JULIE LANE PHOTO Volunteer Park on Bridge Street.
JULIE LANE PHOTO Volunteer Park on Bridge Street.

When the musicians arrive to play Volunteer Park this summer, will spectators finally have a convenient bathroom so they won’t have to depend on the kindness of Bridge Street merchants?

Public Works Commissioner Jay Card Jr. is optimistic that messages to the Suffolk County Department of Health Services to approve a bathroom are being heard.

Mr. Card credits the intervention from County Legislator Bridget Fleming (D-Sag Harbor) for getting the project close to being greenlighted. Ms. Fleming read in the Reporter about the county providing a grant for the new bathroom, but the health department refusing to allow its installation.

After her contact with the health department, Mr. Card and Town Engineer John Cronin met recently with a county official who was able to offer advice about how to cut the red tape. The men returned optimistic that it won’t be long now before they get the necessary clearance.

It’s been a 13-month delay by the health department, Mr. Card said.

A grant for the project was announced in November 2015 for a unisex bathroom that now sits at the Recycling Center waiting to be installed.

The county laid out $67,700 in a grant to the town after reviewing plans for the unit; the Chamber of Commerce added $30,000; and the town allocated $20,000.

Plans for the bathroom had been spelled out in the application that resulted in the grant, so Mr. Cronin believed after an initial meeting with health department official that installation would be automatic.

Instead, the officials asked was for installation of a “full blown system for a four-bedroom house,” Mr. Card said. It would leech into Dering Harbor and Chase Creek, he said.

The flush unit purchased would be pumped out similar to a Port-A-Potty with waste being taken off-Island for proper disposal.