Updated, 3:53 p.m., comment from Elsa Peterson Obuchowski; clarification regarding attempt to response on trees.
NORWALK, Conn. – Tempers flared at Thursday’s Oak Hills Park Authority meeting, both sides of the dispute say.
Paul Cantor said that comments made by his wife, Yvonne Myška Lopaur, drew derision from Ad Hoc Driving Range Committee Chairman Ernie DesRochers, an account confirmed by an off-the-record source. OHPA Chairman Clyde Mount later expressed unhappiness with Lopaur, Cantor said. Mount and Diane Cece, who attended that part of the meeting, confirmed that account. Mount said Lopaur had made personal attacks.
“Ernie Desrochers laughed contemptuously while Myška was making the following remarks during the public comment segment at tonight’s OHPA meeting and then got up and walked out of the room,” Cantor said in a Thursday night email. “On return he said her remarks made him sick. Then toward the end of the meeting Clyde Mount seconded Desrochers’ comments and also attacked Myška for her remarks.”
Cantor forwarded Lopaur’s written statement:
“In preparation for a multi-million dollar driving range you hope to construct at taxpayer expense you have been cutting down trees right and left.
“Of course from the point of view of Mr. Desrochers who heads your driving range committee that is not a concern. As he noted in the past he doesn’t give a hoot about the trees. Now, however, because it serves his purpose of diverting attention from the driving range he attends meetings of the Nature Advisory Committee that OHPA member Elsa Obuchowski has set up.
“Indeed, from Mr. Desrochers point of view the primary purpose of Ms. Obuchowski’s Nature Advisory Committee is to divert attention from his effort to construct the driving range. Hence perhaps the Committee should be renamed The Driving Range At Whatever the Cost to the Environment Nature Advisory Committee.
“And since Ms. Obuchowski has made it clear in a variety of ways that she is not going to let anyone question the damage construction of the proposed driving range will have on the environment that name would seem more appropriate. Just consider, for example, these two facts: First: Ms. Obuchowski made it clear that her committee’s would not focus on matters having to do with the golf course or the driving range. Second: Ms. Obuchowski kept Scott Kimmich, a resident of Norwalk with a long history of defending the woodlands in the Park, from serving on her committee. And in addition, Ms. Obuchowski who fancies herself as a champion of the environment, defends the use of environmentally damaging chemicals on the golf course, resists pressure on the Authority to seek Audubon certification and now remains silent as you cut down more and more trees in Oak Hills Park.
“A genuine Nature Advisory Committee would be concerned about the impact the golf course and driving range will have on Nature and the Environment. So I am here tonight to do what your Nature Advisory Committee should be but is being prevented from doing due to its chair: i.e. to voice my opposition to the manner your drive for the driving range is leading you to strip the park of scores of trees that add to its natural beauty. No one genuinely concerned with the nature in Oak Hills Park would sit back quietly while (Oak Hills Golf Course superintendent Jim Schell) strips the Park of so many healthy trees to make room for a driving range or cart paths.”
OHPA member Elsa Peterson Obuchowski confirmed the accuracy of Lopaur’s reported remarks. The scope of the Nature Advisory Committee was determined by the Common Council, she said; the committee voted on Kimmich, she said.
“I have no comment to anything specific the Cantors have to say,” DesRochers said in an email. “However, we do not agree on our vision of Oak Hills or its future. His opinions have been well known for years. We have tried to address those and the opinions of others in our Master Plan through the creation of our Nature Center and our request of the city to designate two large city owned parcels of land adjacent to Oak Hills as permanently designated parkland. Those would be part of our proposed nature center and be designated as passive recreation area. They feel that our actions regarding this matter are unacceptable. Feelings noted!”
“I reacted to Mr. Cantor because he yelled out in the meeting during my thanking and commending of Elsa’s work,” Mount said in an email. “He was out of order at the time I reacted. And I as chairman will no longer allow the personal attacks the Cantors make at almost every meeting.”
“This is the first I am hearing of any incivility at the OHPA meeting,” Mayor Harry Rilling said in an email. “I have always said that persons who come forward to speak at public meetings should be treated with civility and respect. However, having said that, I expect members of the public to also conduct themselves properly. Speaking out of turn and other disruptions cannot be allowed to occur unchecked. That is how I run the Common Council meetings and that is how I expect all meetings to be conducted.
“Not having been at this meeting, I cannot comment on the tone or demeanor of any of the participants.”
Lopaur on Friday morning elaborated on her unhappiness with Peterson Obuchowski:
“I am disappointed by Elsa Obuchowski’s behavior in her divorcing the issue of the effort on behalf of saving the woodlands from the issue of the Environment and Nature of the entire Oak Hills Park.
“And, specifically:
“In her coming out in defense of the environmentally damaging chemical use on the golf course,
“In the way she runs the Nature Advisory Committee, preventing the membership of Scott Kimmich, and making it unwelcome to the public.
“In other words she volunteered herself to be used by the OHPA in their drive for the driving range… Diverting attention from the destruction of environment that is taking place as OHPA is moving to prepare construction of the driving range.”
Peterson Obuchowski had this to say:
“(1) Although it is true that OHPNAC is concerned with the nature areas in the park, not the golf course, this was not something I personally decided; it is in accord with the Common Council-approved Master Plan for Oak Hills Park.
“(2) Although it is true that I did not support Mr. Kimmich becoming a member of OHPNAC at the present time, I did not ‘keep’ him from serving; there was a vote. I refer you to the OHPNAC minutes of our February meeting, p. 2 (Mr. Kimmich isn’t named, but he is the one under discussion). http://www.norwalkct.org/ArchiveCenter/ViewFile/Item/9044
“(3) I wouldn’t say that I ‘fancy myself a champion of the environment’ but, more important, it is not within Ms. Lopaur’s rights to state what I do or don’t fancy myself as.
“(4) The questions of ‘environmentally damaging chemicals,’ Audubon Golf certification, and tree removal have already been dealt with on the record in OHPA meeting minutes going back to last summer. Oak Hills Park Superintendent Jim Schell stated during last night’s meeting that every tree removed or slated for removal has been appropriately marked and that the city’s tree warden, Paul Sotnik, can verify this.”
Neither Sotnik nor Department of Public Works Director Hal Alvord responded to a Friday afternoon email. Schell has said in previous meetings that the trees need to be removed because they have gotten too big for the golf course.
“There are trees that are getting so big they are getting in the way of the game of golf. It would cost far more to build new tees that have a new approach to the green then to remove the trees that have become overgrown,” Schell said in January. “There are also trees that are casting shade and competing with the grass where it would end up costing more inputs, meaning pesticides, water, etc. etc.”
Two cherry trees had just come down, and 35 percent of the limbs were dead, Schell said in January.
The Nature Advisory Committee in February rejected a vocal opponent of the driving range as a member, according to the minutes linked to by Peterson Obuchowski. While Peterson Obuchowski felt it would be good to have a Ledgewood Condominium resident on the committee, she said a conversation with this resident hadn’t gone well, as she tried to explain that it was a committee about the nature areas, not the golf course. It was suggested that the resident could be given a trial membership but that was voted down 4 to 3.
“In OHPA’s March meeting, Mr. Kimmich spoke during public comment (although his name is misspelled in the first draft of the minutes),” Peterson Obuchowski said in a Saturday email. “The gist of his comment was that ‘we expect’ that the $1.5 million grant work should not include messing with the tees or the cart barn or other things [that would prepare for driving range, although he didn’t mention driving range]. Apparently ‘we’ was meant to refer to taxpayers, or those taxpayers who don’t like Oak Hills having an 18-hole golf course.
“Clyde Mount responded that the work to be done on the golf course is heavily detailed in the state grant, and that work will be performed,” she continued. “It includes the tees, etc. as approved by the state. It has been vetted and detailed extensively with the state.”
Lopaur released a letter to the editor last summer attacking the use of pesticides at the park. Norwalk Fire Marshall Broderick Sawyer then inspected the chemical storage at the park, finding what Norwalk Fire Chief Denis McCarthy termed as “minor violations.”
In July, Schell said pesticide use at the park was down, and that he is certified in pesticide application, as is his assistant. Oak Hills follows industry best practices, he said. He ticked off a list of procedures and said, “Most of these are directly from a list that Audubon Cooperative Sanctuaries require golf courses to do. I think almost all of the chemical use reduction and safety items are on our list, things that we already do. There are some other wildlife-type of things that we haven’t really participated in, but that is a different story and that is something we will shoot for some day. It usually takes one to three years to get certified by Audubon.”
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