A request to probe the city’s legal agreement with a foundation run by a celebrity skater to build a skate complex on a Brooklyn park was hand-delivered to Comptroller Mark Levine’s office on Tuesday morning, according to the Brooklyn Daily Eagle.
In the request, copied to the city’s top lawyer and New York City Parks Commissioner, the nonprofit group Friends of Mount Prospect Park urges investigation of potential violations of city law requiring that Adopt-a-Park agreements safeguard the “integrity” of the sponsored park and indemnify the city for associated injuries or deaths, the paper reported.
Local skaters and concerned residents in Crown Heights and Prospect Heights have been clashing for two years after the city announced it inked a plan with the foundation run by celebrity skater Tony Hawk for the Brooklyn Skate Garden in Mount Prospect Park.
If built, the 40,000-square-foot skatepark would be one of the largest on the east coast. Many in the Brooklyn skating community love the plan, but some local residents are concerned that the transformation will take away a needed green space for residents.
Friends of Mount Prospect Park’s investigation seeks financial probing, asking whether the New York City Administrative Code’s fiscal requirements for sponsorship have actually been met by asserted “in-kind” contribution to the publicly bankrolled construction and whether indemnification provisions in the law and the Adams Administration’s agreement could pose problems for the city, the paper said.
