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Battery Park City is saying goodbye to its city park patrol for good, as the contract for the neighborhood’s enforcement officers expired on Sunday.
A spokesman for the Parks Dept. said on Friday that the Battery Park City Authority is not renewing its contract with the patrol past Jan. 31 — meaning the neighborhood will now have to rely exclusively on the “safety ambassadors” provided by private security firm AlliedBarton.
“Although NYC Parks was hopeful that the Battery Park City Authority would extend their relationship with the Parks Enforcement Patrol, B.P.C.A. has unfortunately decided not to extend the P.E.P. contract,” Parks Dept. spokesman Sam Biederman told Downtown Express on Friday.
He added that parks enforcement would continue to patrol the nearby Battery, and that all 45 P.E.P. officers currently serving in Battery Park City would be redeployed throughout the rest of the city.
The B.P.C.A., the state agency that runs the neighborhood, provoked an outcry among residents in November when it announced the patrol officers would be replaced by a private security firm through a $2.1 million contract.
Benjamin Jones, the authority’s vice president of administration, said at a B.P.C.A. board meeting in December that bringing in the company would extend security patrols beyond the neighborhood’s green spaces — where P.E.P. have exclusively operated since 1992 — and put 30 percent more boots on the ground in the neighborhood at roughly the same cost.
B.P.C.A. board chairman Dennis Mehiel addressed the AlliedBarton contract and the expiration of the P.E.P. contract in an open letter posted to the B.P.C.A. website on Saturday.
“This agreement is the product of a public bidding process informed in large part by feedback from and communication with our residents, who expressed their desire to seek a more effective alternative to the service provided by the Parks Enforcement Patrol (PEP). As such, the Battery Park City Authority has elected not to renew the contract with PEP, which expires January 31, 2016,” he wrote.
But residents and elected officials — including Borough President Gale Brewer and Congressman Jerrold Nadler — have criticized the decision because the parks patrol officers have actual enforcement powers, whereas AlliedBarton’s guards can only call the police.
“For a panel who are not elected, to make a decision that puts [the community] in harm’s way is outrageous,” Joe Puleo, president of the P.E.P.’s union, said last month.
P.E.P. officers can issue summonses, make arrests, and use force to stop a crime. They don’t have guns, but carry handcuffs, batons and mace.
At a rare public town hall meeting last month, B.P.C.A. board members confirmed that the P.E.P. contract would run out at the end of January, but didn’t say whether there were any plans to renew it.
Board chairman Dennis Mehiel told residents that he couldn’t respond because of ongoing negotiations with the Parks Dept. about the future of the contract, raising hopes that it might be renewed.
The two parties had indeed been discussing a potential extension, but the authority gave its last minute “no” on Friday, according to a source familiar with the talks.
A BPCA spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
