Mount Vernon Looks To Get Historic Football Field Back In The Game
MOUNT VERNON, N.Y. (CBSNewYork) -- A historic football field in Westchester County could finally reopen.
After years of delays and neglect, plans were unveiled Friday to start restoring Memorial Field in Mount Vernon.
As CBS2's Sonia Rincon reported, the overgrown field and crumbling bleachers are in poor shape but are rich with history. The hallway was in the iconic Super Bowl commercial for Coca-Cola in 1979 with "Mean Joe" Greene.
"This is sacred ground to me," said Mount Vernon High School football coach Bob Simino.
Simino said the field needs football again. It's been more than six years.
On Friday, Mayor Richard Thomas looked to make good on his campaign promise of bringing Memorial Field back, after plans to rebuild it ended up scrapped by his predecessor.
"The political football, that game is over," Thomas said. "And if we fail on fixing Memorial Field, Mount Vernon fails."
Thomas revealed three options, ranging from $14 million to more than $30 million, adding retail and parking, and preserving the exterior brick facade.
There's also a fourth option to let a developer or pro sports team decide what to do.
But the most urgent part of any plan is to comply with an order from the state to clean up the waste there.
"We face no choice but to pay millions of dollars or we face significant fines," Thomas said.
Most of the waste isn't toxic. It's construction debris dumped there illegally over the years. The state has told the City of Mount Vernon it's got to go, no matter what. The cleanup could take about a year and a half.
The mayor is hoping to get a $10 million bond issue to voters this fall to get the cleanup started. But that makes some officials and residents uneasy.
"I don't believe in raising taxes," said Dolores Mack, of Mount Vernon.
City Councilman Andre Wallace, who wrote a report on the mess, doesn't want to see taxpayers stuck with the bill, either.
"We need to make sure that we go after the people who put the stuff there," he said.
Thomas said he is exploring ways to hold the illegal dumpers accountable.
"That's a part of our strategy," he said. "But at the end of the day, we have to be realistic."
Westchester County has committed $7 million to the project, the same amount it promised before the last plan was scrapped.