I disagree with a number of items in Mr. Tedesco’s article and Ms. Ramos’ editorial from the April 1 The Williston Times.
The issue is not the leasing of Cross Street or who it is being leased to, but the way the lease process has been handled by Dr. Nagler and the school board.
The lease was announced in December and I and all the other Williston Park residents I spoke with were fine with the lease since as a parent with a child in CYO and Little League, Dr. Nagler had committed to ensuring that the town would still have access to the fields.
It was not until March that issues with the field access and transportation were revealed to the residents. I hope you now understand why there was such a vocal reaction to the proposed lease. Dr. Nagler continues to refuse to reveal the details of the lease to the residents.
The day school is planning to have at least 36 buses (Dr. Nagler was the one who original thought it was 53 buses) transporting the high school students. The Cross Street is designed to handle about six buses.
Thirty-six buses (large or small) are way too many for the small streets surrounding Cross Street. This is trying to fit a square peg in a round hole.
Despite the ridiculous volume of buses the day school is proposing to use, Dr. Nagler never had a traffic study performed. It was not until the Williston Park Board forced him to do it. Nassau County Legislator Nicolello in a March 22 letter to Dr. Nagler said he was “strongly opposed to any use of the school that will overwhelm the community …”.
There is a question of whether Solomon Schecter is planning to get permission to close a busy state road (Hillside Avenue) during rush hour to allow the buses to enter and leave the school. Solomon Schecter originally said they were and after If they need to close the road (and they are already doing this), then they are essentially admitting that the bus volume is too much for the area.
Solomon Schecter has indicated that they want to be “good neighbors” but they are already causing issues, refusing to follow the same start times as Cross Street has currently.
Solomon Schecter has been pressuring St. Aidan’s to change their start time, forcing young students to start around 7 a.m. and restricting bus access to St Aidain’s upper school so young children will have to cross a busy street (Willis Avenue) while their tax-paying parents could be sitting in traffic on Hillside Avenue while Solomon Schecter’s high school age students are delivered to the entrance of their school.
There are a lot of serious issues with this lease and the way Dr. Nagler and the board have handled it. Pushing this lease forward without a proper due diligence and withholding information from the residents makes me wonder if Dr. Nagler and the board are not qualified to be handling the lease process or are there some ethical issues here.
Dr. Nagler and the board have a chance to fix the issues. If they can get Solomon Schecter to provide the town reasonable access to the fields, change their school start time to the current Cross Street time and finally come up with a way to reduce the amount of bus traffic to the school.
The bus issue will require some creative thinking.
For example using the Mineola transportation center a central area where all the buses could go and students can change to six buses to shuttle to the school.
If the Solomon Schecter school or any other potential lessee refuses to agree to all three of these conditions then they should be looking for another site to lease.
Frank Holbrook
Williston Park
