Cross Street School lease plan draws fire from Williston Park

Richard Tedesco

In an emotionally charged meeting Monday, Village of Williston Park residents and officials expressed concerns about an agreement by the Mineola School Board to lease the Cross Street School to the Solomon Schecter School of Glen Cove, a private religious school.

Village board members and residents said they were troubled by the potential impact of Solomon Schecter’s plan to use 38 buses to transport 250 or more students and the continued use of the athletic fields there by children in the community.

“The field use is a concern for us, but the main issue is traffic safety,” Williston Park Mayor Paul Ehrbar said.

Ehrbar said that village representatives have held meetings with Mineola Superintendent of Schools Michael Nagler and representatives of the Solomon Schechter School to address these concerns, and requested a traffic study which he said has not yet been conducted.

“It is not our intention to tell the Mineola School District what to do. This is solely about the property,” Deputy Mayor Teresa Thomann said, adding, “We don’t want to go into court.”

Responding to concerns about the potential impact on emergency vehicles in the area, Nagler said the school buses would not present a hindrance to traffic on Hillside Avenue.

Nagler was repeatedly interrupted by verbal and non-verbal vocalizations by the audience.

At one point, Nagler told the audience he was invited to the meeting as a guest and pointedly noted that “if you were at a Mineola School Board meeting you wouldn’t be treated as rudely as you are treating me.”

Ehrbar struggled throughout the meeting to stop the spontaneous outbursts, repeatedly using his gavel to silence the crowd that filled the third floor meeting room in Williston Park Village Hall. He threatened more than once to eject residents who were out of order or to adjourn the meeting if the outbursts didn’t cease.

The public hearing in Williston Park came on the heels of contentious Mineola School Board meeting last Thursday where questions about the Cross Street lease were also raised.

The decision to lease Cross Street School is the first step in a consolidation plan the Mineola School Board has developed over the past year.

A long line of residents assembled to vent their feelings or pose questions, primarily about what many called “quality of life” issues.

Village of Williston Park Justice Kevin Kiley asked Nagler if the Solomon Schechter lease was a “done deal,” and Nagler said it was.

“In principle, it’s a done deal,” Nagler said, later adding that the school board was settling lease details.

When Kiley then expressed surprise that no traffic study had been done, Nagler said the school board was in the process of consulting an expert to have a study done.

Village board attorney Chris Prior said Williston Park’s code permits a site plan review for the property because the village views the prospective lease agreement as a change of use not solely under the Mineola School District’s jurisdiction.

“We believe the village board has site-plan oversight,” Prior said, adding that the village board also has the right to consult its own traffic expert on that issue.

Thomann again weighed in by stating that, from her board’s perspective, no deal was yet consummated.

“It’s not a done deal. The Mineola School Board did not vote and approve a lease,” she said, reiterating the village board’s right for a site review and its own traffic study.

After the meeting, Thomann said the village board wants time to put together some kind of counter offer to the Schechter lease.

“What we want is some time to explore some options,” she said. “I’m suggesting that it’s not a done deal and there’s time for alternate concepts to suit everybody’s needs.”

Pressed to reveal the terms of the agreement, Nagler said, “Until it is negotiated why in the world would I put it out in public to tip my hand?”

Nagler did value the lease at approximately $250,000 in each of the first two years, and $225,000 for the third year. The first two years included costs of installing a new basketball court in the school, Nagler said. He said he considered the value of the lease deal to be “average in the county” for a school lease in the current market.

Lease documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Law indicate that annual pro rata costs of materials and support for the facilities and grounds, water, telecommunications, maintenance and insurance would total $231,522.

When one resident asked the superintendent what a good offer would be, Nagler said he would have to sit down with the school board to consider any other offers.

“There has to be some kind of offer made to the Mineola School Board,” said Terrence Kennedy, a self-described Williston Board athletics activist.

Mayor Ehrbar noted that any deal the village board might make would impact taxes.

When he asked the assembled residents how they would feel about paying higher taxes to retain control of the property, they applauded.

On the issue of the athletic fields, Nagler said more than once that the Schechter School teams would be using the fields daily, but would stop practices early two days a week through April and May to permit little league use, which would also be permitted on Saturdays.

“We’ve been using those field for 75 years. It’s definitely going to have an impact on this village,” Trustee Kevin Rynne had said early on.

The Solomon Schechter School head of school, Rabbi Lev Herrnson, said the school was relocating because it considered Williston Park a more attractive, central location that it hoped would continue to make the school “viable” in the face of decreasing enrollment.

“If we come here and we’re going to come here, we want to be good neighbors and we want to be good friends. We want to talk things out,” Herrnson said.

The Mineola School Board set a Thursday night meeting to discuss a Cross Street traffic study.

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