Submitted by New York City Parent, Jan 22, 2008 20:18

The schoolyards at most NYC public schools are abysmal, much more abysmal than the Randalls Island fields. To sell rights to 44 fields for essentially all of the after-school-hours playing time for the next 20 years to a group of 20 exclusive private schools is absurd, and the price they're paying is even more absurd. $52,000,000 over 20 years works out to $2.6 MM/year, or $59,000/field/year. Since the schools have use of each field for 3 hours/day, 5 days/week, that's about $75/hour! Let's do the math another way: $52MM over 20 years is $2.6MM/year. Each of the 8,000,000 New Yorkers would have to pay 32 cents a year to make that contribution: can you imagine a single New Yorker objecting if his/her taxes were raised by 32 cents PER YEAR to avoid giving away such a precious resource as 44 ballfields on Randalls Island for the next 20 years?

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