HONESDALE, WAYNE COUNTY, PA — Two months after toxic soil forced the sudden removal of Central Park’s playground in downtown Honesdale—and weeks after the fallout led to a Wayne County borough councilor’s censure—residents of this northeastern Pennsylvania community are taking the rebuild into their own hands.

The People’s Playground Project, a grassroots placemaking effort based in Honesdale, is partnering with borough officials to design and construct a replacement that organizers say will finally give Wayne County families a voice in shaping one of the area’s most visible public spaces.

“Our mission is to involve as many neighbors as possible in making the best possible playground for Honesdale,” Lisa Glover, a placemaking specialist for rural communities and founding member of the project, told the Honesdale Borough Council on November 24.

The group aims to have initial equipment installed by July 2026, with full completion targeted for late 2027. Between now and summer, organizers plan two to three community surveys and multiple public meetings across the Honesdale area to gather input on what Wayne County residents actually want.

Honesdale Borough has also applied for a $92,558 Local Share Account grant from the state to fund ADA-accessible equipment—addressing longstanding concerns that the old Central Park playground fell short on accessibility for Wayne County families with disabilities.

How a Honesdale playground became a political flashpoint

The need for community-driven planning became painfully clear this fall, when the playground’s abrupt removal sparked a Honesdale Borough Council meltdown that culminated in the formal censure of Councilor James Hamill.

Soil testing by Keenan Gruver of Known Grove Sacred Land Stewardship, a Wayne County-based environmental organization, revealed zinc concentrations of nearly 798 parts per million beneath the Central Park play structure—more than 11 times the safe threshold for ecological use. The contamination, leaching from tire mulch used as ground cover, had already killed two sugar maple trees in the historic Honesdale park.

The borough pulled the equipment the week of October 19. The only public notice to Honesdale residents: a Facebook post announcing the playground would close “until further notice for necessary repairs.”

What happened next tore the Wayne County borough council apart.

On October 26, Hamill—then chair of the Honesdale parks and recreation committee—posted a video to the official Honesdale Parks and Rec Facebook page claiming the committee had only learned of the removal on October 21 and was still waiting for Gruver’s report.

Fellow Honesdale committee member Tiffany Rogers called that account false at the next council meeting, reading from October 7 committee minutes showing Gruver had already presented his findings and Interim Honesdale Borough Manager Kevin Kundratic had announced the mulch removal timeline.

“For the public to have to digest a sensationalized account of allegedly not knowing about this particular report and just having it dropped on our laps is not an accurate representation of what occurred,” Rogers said. “To try and erode the public’s trust in the borough and in our councilors and in our community is underhanded at best.”

Honesdale Borough Council President James Brennan immediately stripped Hamill of all committee assignments. A month later, on November 24, the Wayne County borough council voted 5-1 to formally censure him—Hamill casting the lone dissenting vote.

Embattled Honesdale councilor holds on by 12 votes

The censure capped a bruising fall for the longtime Honesdale resident, who also lost a mayoral bid to incumbent Derek Williams in the November 4 Wayne County municipal election and kept his council seat by just 12 votes over challenger James Cordaro.

Cordaro, who was appointed to the Honesdale Borough Council earlier this year after Noelle Mundy resigned, didn’t mince words at the November 24 meeting.

“It’s amazing how you can sit here and try to influence all these people on how great you really are,” he said. “You’re very disrespectful to the members of council as well as to the stakeholders of Honesdale.”

Hamill acknowledged taking “a little bit of license” with his opinion in the video but pointed to the Honesdale voters who reelected him.

“I put a lot of weight in how much those individuals who voted for me and the rest of us—perhaps more so at times than the folks who sit around this dais,” he said.

The friction isn’t new. The Honesdale Borough Council voted to remove Hamill as council president in March 2023 after months of internal conflict over his leadership style.

A fresh start for Honesdale’s Central Park

For organizers of the People’s Playground Project, the drama underscores why resident input matters in Wayne County municipal decisions.

The old Central Park equipment had accessibility problems that went unaddressed for years. Parks committee chair Jim Hamill acknowledged the structure “was done without much thought back in the day.” Now the Wayne County borough has a chance to get it right—with the community, not just council, driving the vision.

Plans call for relocating the removed equipment to Apple Grove or Veterans Park in Honesdale while the new ADA-compliant playground takes shape in Central Park, Kundratic told the River Reporter on October 26.

Rogers, despite her sharp criticism of Hamill, struck a forward-looking note at the censure vote.

“I look forward to the future of the borough and to us moving past this behavior,” she said. “This council only works when we can all have a dialogue with each other, partnering up to implement solutions to issues that the borough faces on a daily basis.”

Wayne County residents interested in the Honesdale playground project can visit peoplesplaygroundproject.com.

The Pocono Review covers Wayne County, Monroe County, Pike County, and surrounding northeastern Pennsylvania communities including Honesdale, Hawley, Milford, Stroudsburg, and the Pocono Mountains region.

Correction, September 2, 2026: An earlier version of this article attributed the quote “was done without much thought back in the day” to Interim Borough Manager Kevin Kundratic. It was said by Councilor Jim Hamill. This version also adds the source for the plan to relocate the removed equipment: Kundratic’s October 26, 2025 statement to the River Reporter. That plan was not stated in council minutes.