The Ralph Wilson Park Conservancy is in a tough spot right now. Its top leadership resigned all at once over the past few weeks, leaving the organization with no staff and just an acting chairman holding things together — and this is happening with just months to go before the $250 million waterfront park is expected to start welcoming visitors on Buffalo's Lower West Side.
The shake-up has put a spotlight on how the Conservancy and the City of Buffalo will need to work together going forward to keep the project on track. The whole vision for the park is to turn the former LaSalle Park into a landmark destination for the whole region — a transformation that's been years in the making.
For residents on the Lower West Side who've been living with construction noise and road closures through all of this, the news landed like a gut punch. Nobody wants to see a leadership void slow down what's supposed to be a landmark summer opening.