For those of you not familiar with the Wollman Skating Rink in New York City, let me introduce you to how Donald Trump got his introduction to fixing broken, inefficient, ineffectual governance.
When then-Mayor Ed Koch closed the iconic rink in 1980, it was a broken-down mess, a shell of the famous sheet of ice that featured in numerous movies, including “Love Story.”
“The city promised to reopen it by 1985. But Koch’s incompetent commissioners and contractors let the job run $12 million over its original $4.7 million budget, and by 1986, the finish line was nowhere in sight,” the New York Post’s Steve Cuozzo wrote just days after Trump’s 2017 inauguration as president.
In June 1986, Trump said he’d have Wollman opened by Christmas if Koch just let him do his magic.
“If Koch doesn’t like this offer,” Trump said, “then let him have the same people who have built it for the last six years do it for the next six years.”
Koch relented, Trump delivered — early. The rink was open on Nov. 1, a little over four months after the announcement.
I’m just saying that, while I know the president has more important things to attend to, maybe he should look into what the heck is going on at Crater Lake National Park in Oregon, where work on a one-mile trail is expected to take three years.
According to a news release from the National Park Service last month, the Cleetwood Cove Trail is currently undergoing some rehabilitation — and will be for the foreseeable future.
Should the people involved with this project be fired and replaced with Trump-style people who will get it done in weeks?
“Every year, thousands of park visitors hike this trail to gain access to lakeshore,” the release read.
“The Cleetwood Cove Marina is the launch point for the concession-provided boat tours of Crater Lake and the park’s boats. This project proposes to rehabilitate the trail and related infrastructure to ensure safe access to the lake, provide needed visitor services, and to protect the environment.”
The work will encompass rehabilitation of the trail — “including improvements to trail tread and retaining walls” — reducing the possibility of rock-fall in “identified high risk zones,” replacing “the failed bulkhead/dock with a structurally stable marina,” and updating “the outdated and undersized composting toilets located near the marina.”
“The planning, design, and compliance are completed for this project. The next step is solicitation of the construction contract,” the media release said.
Expect a leisurely process.
“The park is planning on starting construction in 2026. Due to the extent [of] work to be completed and short construction seasons, trail closures will be required and are expected during the duration of the 2027 and 2028 summer seasons,” the release explained.
“During this time, no boat tours will be provided and the trail will be closed due to construction and rockfall hazards. If construction goes as planned, the renovated trail will reopen in summer 2029.”
This means that all access to Crater Lake will be curtailed for all but scientists. And, keep in mind, this three-year timetable is just including the projected construction time. Delays, if they happen anywhere during the process — and, spoiler alert, the park is already hinting that they will — would limit access to for even longer.
“The significant annual snowfall at the Crater Rim limits access to the site and construction work to a few summer months,” park public information officer Marsha McCabe said via email to SFGATE in an article published March 31.
And here’s a surprise from SFGATE: “[P]ark officials say its completion might not happen on schedule either.” Quelle surprise.
“The parks service did not respond directly to questions about the cause of the project’s delay,” the outlet reported. (Quelle surprise)².
One understands that there are certain exigencies at play at Crater Lake that aren’t in play in Central Park, but a four-year project with three years of construction that might not finish on time is the height of governmental laziness, and it’ll likely end up being a case study in government spend-thriftiness, as well. If Trump wants an object lesson in why he’s so popular, he should get a protege to Wollman Rink this sucker pronto.
Do it for old-time’s sake, Mr. President.
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