About our group

Together Including Every Student (TIES)

SAVE GREECE CANAL PARK FROM THE SOCCER COMPLEX

We are a group of about 30 who people have met several times to mobilize our efforts to save Greece Canal Park from the proposed Soccer Complex. Some of us met each other for the first time at one of the two information meetings the County held regarding the soccer complex. Dave Ridley and Dick Spade then called a meeting of interested folks. We are feisty, concerned and have channeled much money, time and effort into a common mission.

Our aim is to leave Greece Canal Park as it is - CLEAN, GREEN, and QUIET, which has become our motto. We are as grass roots as they come. In fact, I have a new appreciation for the term, grass roots, and its meaning is clearer because of our determined participation. We go door-to-door or approach our friends and fellow churchgoers with our petition that states we are not against a few soccer fields but want to keep the soccer complex from decimating our park, which is one of few parks in Greece. Dave Ridley, who has spearheaded much of these efforts formed a group called Citizens for the Integrity of Greece Canal Park with two of his neighbors, Muriel Albright and Al Gallo. Dave, his neighbors Ed Przybycien and Muriel Albright, and Dick Spade of Friends of Greece Green Space had already saved some Greece Canal parkland from sprawl housing in 1999.

If you drive along Manitou Rd. and Elmgrove Rd. near the Erie Canal, you will see a concerted effort and spunk displayed on the lawns of many of the homes. Everywhere are signs, some professionally made and some homemade, that bear the slogans, NO SOCCER COMPLEX or SAVE GREECE CANAL PARK. The folks who show up at meetings are many of those neighbors as well as other Greece residents from the Kodak area, some city residents who walk the canal path, and people who have a genuine and strong love for wildlife and birds.

It's important to note that at the same time that the soccer complex is being railroaded into Greece, the Greece Town Board is expected to vote for the Master Plan which has no provisions for the preservation of farmland or green space. Instead the plan is to "build out" what little green space is left. Two enterprising individuals, Barbara Pierce along with June Summers of the Audubon Society, have drawn up a statement for implementing new strategies for the preservation of open space. This plan was presented to the Town Board at the August meeting. Then we attended the County Legislature meeting on September 13, and five of us voiced our concerns regarding the soccer complex. We will also be present at the Greece Town Board meeting on September 18 to address the inappropriate location for the soccer complex and to encourage the board to consider a plan that preserves migratory bird habitats and farmland rather than the master plan.

Our aim is to stay vigilant and to show that we in Greece have a genuine concern for our quality of life and that we care deeply about our parks and green, open space.