Babylon Town bonds nearly $15 million for road and park upgrades, drone purchase and more

Skateboard Park at Tanner Park. Community profile on Copiague, showing the businesses, notable areas and neighborhoods of the area. Copiague October 17, 2023 Credit: Rick Kopstein
The Town of Babylon is bonding for nearly $15 million to pay for a host of projects, from park improvements to security upgrades, as well as the purchase of a drone.
The town board voted last week to approve its annual bonding in amounts ranging from $36,000 to $9 million, although the town may not end up borrowing all of the $14.7 million that it authorized.
Babylon Deputy Supervisor Tony Martinez said the amount of bonding falls in line with the town’s approach to debt.
“We’re continuing our policy of retiring more debt than we’re incurring while maintaining our infrastructure,” he said.
The town is dedicating $9 million toward road reconstruction. The work is part of a 10-year plan launched in 2019 to spend $100 million to fix the town’s road network. The rest of the bonding includes money for security improvements, information technology upgrades, and heavy machinery and equipment. Part of the latter includes the purchase of a drone that will be used by the town’s environmental, parks and public safety departments and the fire marshal's office.
The town is bonding for $2.2 million for parks improvements, including the possible addition of a pickleball court at State Trooper Fabio Buttitta Memorial Park in Deer Park. The town has nine pickleball courts, but Martinez said the sport’s popularity is still high and the town is assessing where to put additional courts.
Valerie St. Bernard, president of the Deer Park Community Association, said it is “awesome” the town is considering her community for a pickleball court.
“Sometimes you have a park in the community but it doesn’t offer anything anyone is interested in, so it’s great to have something people are interested in and the craze right now is pickleball,” she said.
One of the park improvements the town is determined to get done was originally supposed to be bonded for in 2023. At the time, the town hoped to use $650,000 to renovate 20-year-old Dr. Pasquale and Marcia Ann Curcio Skateboard Park, at Tanner Park in Copiague. But when bids for the work came in at double that price, the work was put on hold. Now the town is bonding for $1.3 million for it.
“This year, we really want to get the skatepark finished,” Martinez said.
The news was music to the ears of East Farmingdale resident and skateboarder Chad Caruso, 37, who petitioned the town for the skatepark's creation when he was a teenager and is still a regular there.
When he noticed the park’s surfaces corroding from the nearby Great South Bay’s salty air several years ago, he began pushing the town for an overhaul.
“The asphalt is kind of sinking into the ground, some of the rails are starting to pop up, the ramps are sinking into the concrete, so it’s getting very rough,” Caruso said. “For 20 years it’s gotten great use and I think it’s really served the community, but it’s due for a renovation,” Caruso said.
Martinez said the town has struggled to find a balance between spending and meeting the needs of residents since the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We’re still paying about 40% more than we were pre-COVID,” he said. “So we’re doing less with the same amount of dollars. I wish we could do more, but we are prioritizing our capital improvement plan to make sure residents keep getting the services that they deserve and pay for.”
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