The Ramapo Detective was distracted, his phone insistently ringing a familiar Pearl Jam dirge while he talked PAL. Dennis Procter started the Ramapo Police Athletic League a few years back in response to severe East Ramapo School District budget cuts. He knew many of the students and wanted them to have a place to work out after school, a safe place to go that would also provide some sort of competitive outlet.

The Torne Valley warehouse that housed The Ramapo Police Athletic League (PAL) will soon have a new and maybe permanent tenant.

Procter, a Ramapo Police Detective and former president of the Police Benevolent Association, has been working to build up PAL, especially since the non-profit found a home in its current location in a vacant Town of Ramapo-owned building in Torne Valley.

And therein was Procter’s most recent PAL challenge — he’d just received what he called his eviction notice.

PAL’s star attractions — ample space, a boxing ring and other equipment.

The Ramapo Town Council voted in January to give Countywide Carting of Monsey a licensing and sales agreement for the building in Torne Valley, which some refer to as the Shed, located directly across the street from the white athletic bubble at the Joseph T. St. Lawrence Community and Sports Center. With the remaking of the valley into an athletic and community activity destination, PAL appeared a perfect fit along the Torne Valley Road corridor,

Countywide Carting containers waiting to move into the warehouse in Torne Valley.

Now Procter and company are facing the logistics of where to move the boxing ring, batting cages, weights, ellipticals, and other donated workout equipment, with Countywide Carting‘s move-in date of March 15 already past. PAL was using the Town of Ramapo property rent free, though the organization’s volunteers contributed hours of elbow grease by cleaning and fixing up the warehouse —  recently used for town equipment storage.

One possible new location for the organization may be the Edwin Gould Academy in Chestnut Ridge.

Countywide representative Chaim Lebovits happened to stop by the warehouse for a brief inspection to see if PAL had moved out, and said he hoped to move into the warehouse by the end of March. The company’s containers were already piling up on the far side of the parking lot and he thought the valley was a good move. Countywide’s agreement with the town would not only pay guaranteed monthly rent but also contribute tax dollars to the local school district, he said. Lebovits called the agreement a big investment.

According to the town resolution passed via unanimous vote in January (with Councilman Patrick Withers absent), Countywide offered to purchase the property for $1.5 million which includes a non-refundable down payment of $150,000. The terms of the agreement were subject to a passive referendum at the time of the resolution’s adoption.

Arcadis began preparation for continuing paint sludge remediation work in Torne Valley at the site of a former sand quarry. Torne Mountain is seen in the distance. / Photo by Geoff Welch

Ramapo Supervisor Christopher St. Lawrence has helped reclaim Torne Valley from its days as the old town dump, putting his office’s muscle behind the located the county recycling center deep in the valley as well as pushing Ford Motor Co. to cleanup plots of paint sludge. With the success of the Torne Center,  the valley has become a vibrant community athletic center, drawing people from across Ramapo and Rockland County.

But there are still other properties along Torne Valley Road, along the road across from the Torne Center, used for commercial business.

The town’s assistance in putting PAL in the valley was a nice touch to consolidate the corridor as a unique community health, fitness and education destination, with the Rockland Recycling Center anchoring one end, along with the Ramapo Saltbox Environmental Research Center, and the Torne Center acting as an attraction along the Ramapo River on the south side — then there’s the Torne Valley Winery just next door through the woods to the north at the edge of Ramapo Hamlet.

In the distance, Torne Mountain watches over everything.

PAL volunteers drove to Connecticut to pick up donated pitching and batting cages for the organization’s programs.

Inside the PAL warehouse, the thwap of a softball smacking a catcher’s glove could be heard as a 12-year old Mahwah fastpitch Rage phenom was getting in a workout. In another part of the cavernous building, an RP Conner elementary school student worked on her cartwheels while her dad, a Ramapo Police officer who volunteers with PAL, got in a few miles on an elliptical machine.

The carefully cultivated warehouse vibe will soon change as Countywide moves its containers from the parking lot to the pine-scented warehouse floor. Ramapo faces similar issues that local villages and school districts do — how to prioritize expenses and revenue opportunities without offsetting the burden onto the taxpayer. A 22-month building rental at $4,500 per month would appear to help — but is there a long term downside to losing prime Torne Valley real estate to commercial interests?

Ramapo itself acquired the building from a former shipping company that had allowed the property to fall into disrepair, with old containers scattered about on the lot and surrounding hillside, some with animals living inside. Then the company stopping paying town taxes and the property fell into receivership.

After several tenants, the town agreed that PAL could use part of the building until it became a viable marketable space — the downside to fixing up a no rent property.

PAL provides a benefit to area school kids — the program is a collaboration between the three police departments in the Town of Ramapo, including the Ramapo Police, Suffern Police Department and Spring Valley Police Department, as well as the schools located in the Ramapo Central and East Ramapo Central School Districts. PAL’s programs and facility have offered low-cost sports and activities to Ramapo students and other organizations, such as Ramapo Rage, that pay a small membership fee.

Detective Procter believes PAL is just getting going, with sponsorships and programming picking up. His hope is that there’s another sponsor somewhere in the Ramapo community that will work with PAL, one that might not mind having a few Ramapo police officers around.