Daily News from New York, New York • 81

DAI LI News Bureau (718) 793-3328 Fax (718) 793-2910 Home Delivery 1-800-692 -NEWS NEW: fiw tar pfEs pan Group opposes rail linEi Group: Let us hire someone to run 'em By KATHLEEN McOOWAN 5- Special to The News Environmental activists in northeast Queens want to merge a group of parks under a single administrator, saying it would enable the city to raise more money to keep the parks in better shape. If the request is granted, a 1, 4 i) SMANMOH ST APLETOM 2t -a Tr i ini rei -w JAMAICA The Queens Civic Congress has come out against a proposal to construct a light-rail system between Kennedy Airport and downtown Jamaica. The congress, an umbrella organization of more than 55 Queens civic groups, said plans for the rail link have serious flaws. The system would connect the airport with the Long Island Rail Road station in Jamaica by a link stretching along the center meridan of the Van Wyck Expressway. 2 "It will be incompatible with other transit systems, and its inability to provide a convenient ride to Manhattan will severely limit its attracting sufficient ridership," said Seymour Schwartz, the chairman of the group's transportation committee.

Corona An admitted courier of drug sale proceeds from Corona was sentenced recently to a 37-month jail term. Nestor Jairo Zambrano, 28, of 48th Ave. in Corona pleaded guilty in July to a charge of conspiracy to launder narcotics proceeds. He has been in jail since his arrest in March. In February, Zambrano, a Colombian citizen, delivered some $282,000 from cocaine sales to a hotel in Romulus, said Internal Revenue Service spokesman Robert Kobel.

Middle Village Parks Commissioner Henry Stem has inspected the controversial site of a proposed roller hockey rink in Juniper Valley Park. In June, Community Board 5 voted 30 to 15 in favor of a site just north of Brennan Field in the park, but Stem said there was too much "division in the community" to go forward. He visited the park last week because the community remains split on the proposal. Stem intends to discuss his opinion with community leaders before making any decisions, said Parks Department spokesman Ed Skyler. SHAMMM ST APUTON WINDMILL anchors Alley Pond Park, which is part of cluster of northeast Queens parks that activists say needs one overseer.

local parks group will receive city funding to hire its own salaried administrator, who then could work full time to attract funding from private sources and coordinate Parks Department-sponsored upkeep and improvements. The administrator lines up city resources and enhances them with community support, volunteers and donations from private citizens, public officials and businesses, said Parks Department spokesman Ed Skyler. Alley Pond Environmental Center Board President Bill Nieter and executive director Irene Scheid made the pitch recently to Parks Commissioner Henry Stern. A similar arrangement giving specific parks so-called flagship status is in place in large parks around the city, in-cluding Forest Park and Flushing Meadows-Corona Park in Queens. As Flushing Meadows-Corona Park's administrator Es-telle Cooper explained: "I raise the money here myself, oversee all the operations and make sure the park is taken care of." Alley Pond, a 657-acre woodlands at the base of Little Neck Bay, is the largest of the cluster of parks in the current proposal.

It was purchased in 1925 by the city from three families that had owned the land since the 1700s. Also in the proposal are Cunningham Park, Crocheron Park, Udall's Cove, Douglas-ton Golf Course and parkland on the Little Neck Bay shoreline and in Fort Totten in Bay-side. The parks make up more than 1,000 acres of land but, said Scheid, there is only one overseer for all the parks of northeastern Queens. Volunteer civilian warden Dan Donohue said maintenance and upkeep of Alley Pond Park is done mostly by some 100 APEC volunteers, who also raise funds and secure materials for the park. "Because of the benefits we provided," said Donohue, "we've basically become unpaid city workers." Stern said he thinks the change is a great idea but that it would cost at least $150,000 a 'year jaaoney the depart- LITTLE pkLAMiekpi CROSS BiltaiHBRfVHljpHHHpBjJ VOLUNTEER Dan Donohue helps out at Alley Pond Park.

ment doesn't have. The money would be needed to hire an administrator, create an office and pay staffers. "Calling it a flagship park without making provisions for increased activities would be an empty gesture' Stern said. "Hopefully, the people of northeast Queens will take up the cause, and their elected officials will help as well." But Donohue insisted that community volunteers already do more than their share. They've put up barrier rails to fend off vandals, planted 4,000 trees and gotten Con Edison to donate wood chips to restore 2V4 miles of trails.

They're also fighting to protect a stand of tulip trees from a proposed Long Island Expressway expansion that would put a cloverleaf interchange right through Alley Pond Park. And, according to Donohue, the volunteers have saved the city money. For example, he said, a few years ago cars were abandoned and burned in the park every week but tnis year, with the new barriers, there have been only two incidents. "Why do we need to raise the money?" asked Donohue. "We're taxpayers why do we need a Parks Department that doesn't maintain its parks?" APEC officials acknowledged that Parks Department capital projects have improved the park.

The problem, said Nieter, is that the improvements aren't protected or maintained. Said Donohue, "All we want is for the city to recognize that natural areas require some maintenance as 1 1.