There is a clear and present need for a children's playground in the Mary Jane Davies Park on Plandome Road. The Manhasset Press reported on Aug. 6 that the town board "appears ... ready to take action" after six months of inaction. The town board will now consider the project of a new playground within the context of a refurbishment project for 15 existing playgrounds. They intend to study and prioritize the need for upgrades or replacements and then, if justified and approved, place the improvement program within the overall capital projects to be approved for 1999 starts.

Clearly, this is simply bureaucratese for study and delay. Bureaucrats are famous for studying to death things they haven't invented, want to delay, or don't really want. Those of us who really want a new playground in Manhasset for the Town of North Hempstead children who live here should be on their guard. This new playground should not be lumped with 15 others to be prioritized. It will be lost, or placed near the bottom of the list, and will not happen when funds run out for the others.

But, "Where will the money come from?" to paraphrase some.

The Manhasset Public School District recently built four playgrounds for an average cost of about $100,000 each. Hopefully, this new playground we want so badly will be more sophisticated and thus will cost a bit more. In past years the town board built a gazebo at the Mary Jane Davies Park for about $275,000 without its having been in the budget for that year. For argument's sake, let's say we need $250,000.

The town board, I am told, makes no budget adjustments between line items until near the end of the year so as to cover all the over-expenditures from surpluses at once. This year the budget for snow removal was $233,000, of which, as of June 30, only $25,000 had been spent. Two-hundred thousand dollars is available for use in only this one line item. Yes, it is the operating budget and not the capital budget, but where there's a will, there's a way. After all, they found a way to build a beautiful and expensive golf course. If they could do that, they could break ground this fall with money in this year's budget to build our children a playground.

While the playground is delayed until the 1999 capital budget priorities are established, we will be in never-never land. It won't be until the spring of 1999, when we discover that construction doesn't start, that we will have to begin all over again. The story then will be "Higher priorities forced us ..." Now is the time to keep the heat on the town board to act this year with surplus budget monies presently available. They may be saving it for the golf course.

Paul Early