A PPP supporter posted a photo to shut us up. Instead she handed us Exhibit A. Now ask yourself: why would a borough promise a playground to another park, then leave it rotting behind a maintenance building?

Opinion | Analysis

This article contains clearly labeled opinion and speculation alongside documented facts. Facts are sourced from River Reporter coverage, Honesdale Borough records, published Pocono Review reporting, and public records. Where we speculate, we say so.

The Gotcha That Wasn’t

Catherine Troop Wilson posted a photo in the comments of our “Have You Seen Me” post. She was mocking us. She said the equipment “still exists and is exactly where they said it was.” She said the borough “even hired a local deer to guard it.”

Look at the photo.

That’s the Central Park playground. Blue panels, red frame, stacked behind the borough maintenance building next to PVC pipe, drain pipe, a brick pile, and a dead transformer. There is, in fact, a deer.

That is not a park. That is not “relocated.” That is where you put things you’re done with.

And it is not where they said it was.

Where They Said It Was

October 26, 2025. The River Reporter asks what’s next for Central Park. Interim Borough Manager Kevin Kundratic, quoted directly: “The current plan is to relocate the park equipment to Apple Grove or Veterans Park, and to work on putting in new equipment in Central Park.”

That’s not a rumor. Not a Facebook comment. That’s the borough’s top administrator, on the record, in the local paper, the same week the equipment came out.

Nobody said “maintenance building.” Nobody said “junk pile.” Nobody said “we’ll leave it in the weeds and see what happens.”

So when a supporter says it’s “exactly where they said it was” — who told her that? Because it wasn’t Kevin Kundratic. And it wasn’t the River Reporter.

The Narrative Doesn’t Match the Record

This is the part worth sitting with. She didn’t just post a photo. She repeated a story with total confidence — a story that flatly contradicts what the borough manager told the press. She acted like the relocation promise never happened. Like nobody in this town remembers being told their kids would still have a playground, just somewhere else.

Somewhere along the line, “we’re moving it to Apple Grove” turned into “it’s in storage, obviously, what did you expect.” And the people who made the first promise let the second version spread without correcting a word of it.

That’s not a misunderstanding. That’s the story being rewritten in real time, and the people who could set it straight choosing not to.

An Entire Summer

The playground came out in October 2025. It is September 2026. That’s a full summer — the only season a playground exists for — with no public play space in Honesdale. Not Central Park. Not Apple Grove. Not Veterans Park. Zero.

Meanwhile $50,000 in equipment bought with federal block grant money and local donations sat outside through spring rain, summer heat, and whatever gets tossed on a pile next to it. Every week it sits there it’s worth less. Every week it sits there, the story we’ve been telling since April gets harder to argue with.

Still Waiting

In July, PPP said a bench swing and swing bank were ordered, installation expected within three months. That’s October. It’s September. Anyone seen a swing at Central Park?

PPP is still taking donations. As of today, People’s Playground Project still does not appear in the Pennsylvania Bureau of Charitable Organizations database. We’ve been saying that since May. Nothing has changed.

Why Promise Apple Grove at All?

[SPECULATION] What follows is opinion. It’s rooted in the facts above and in plain logic. You can decide whether it holds.

Think about the moment the playground came down. That was the only moment the public had any leverage. Parents could have shown up. They could have demanded the report, demanded a vote, demanded to know why a bookstore owner’s unfinished soil test was enough to gut a park. That was the fight.

Then Kundratic said: don’t worry, it’s going to Apple Grove.

And the fight was over. Because what are you going to do — stand up at a council meeting and argue against your kids getting the same playground at a different park? You’d look unhinged. You’d look like you were fighting for the sake of fighting. The promise didn’t just calm people down. It made objecting look crazy.

So the equipment came out. Quietly. No vote. No pushback. Because everyone believed it was coming back.

And then it didn’t.

Now step back and look at what the town has: no playground anywhere, a pile of equipment nobody will touch, and a fundraising group asking for $400,000 to fix the exact problem the broken promise created. The pitch practically writes itself. Look at the empty park. Look at your kids. Don’t you want to help?

Of course you do. That’s the point.

But that urgency only exists because the promise was broken. If the equipment had gone to Apple Grove — if there were kids on swings anywhere in Honesdale right now — the $400,000 ask has no teeth. Nobody donates to replace a playground that already exists. A working park doesn’t need a rescue fund. An empty town does.

We’ve written about the playbook before. Remove the thing. Promise it back so nobody fights. Let the promise die. Then sell the solution to the people you just took it from. Every step is on the record. The only thing that isn’t is whether anyone meant it that way.

Look at the photo again and decide for yourself.

Exhibit A

Catherine Troop Wilson set out to prove Pocono Review wrong. What she proved is that the equipment exists, it was never relocated, and it’s been sitting behind a building all summer while the people who put it there ask you for money.

The deer’s doing a better job guarding it than the borough did.

Thanks for the photo, Catherine. We mean that.

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