The proposed lease of the Cross Street School could turn into a case of dueling traffic studies, and at least one Mineola school board trustee thinks Cross Street School issues will produce a lawsuit.
The Village of Williston Park Board of Trustees agreed this week to hire its own consultant at a cost of $4,500 to evaluate the impact of the 36 buses that would be used to transport Solomon Schechter Day School students to the Williston Park school. A proposed five-year lease between the Mineola School District and Schechter is set to start this fall as part of the Mineola School District’s consolidation plan.
The Mineola School District recently commissioned a $15,000 traffic study from a traffic consultant recommended by the Williston Park Village Board following a Williston Park board meeting in which residents said the lease to Solomon Schechter could create traffic and safety problems.
“We did suggest a company and we do believe the company is reputable and wouldn’t skew the results,” Williston Park Mayor Paul Ehrbar said. “Even so, our board did want to have oversight to make sure our concerns are addressed.”
Ehrbar said it retained Wayne Muller at RMS Engineering to review the traffic study the Mineola School Board commissioned on Cross Street “to alleviate any concerns our public might have.”
Ehrbar said he expected that there would be no “major conflicts” between the two studies, and stood by his recent assertion in a Williston Times column that, “the village is not in a position, in any way, to become involved in the leasing/operation of the Cross Street facility.”
The mayor said the results of its traffic study would be presented in a public forum, as the Mineola School Board will do with its study.
The Mineola board retained VHB and its engineer, Bob Essenbacher.
In an e-mail earlier this week, Mineola Superintendent of Schools Michael Nagler sounded puzzled about the village retaining a second company.
“I understand the Village has hired another company. I do not know why since we hired the company the village gave us,” Nagler wrote.
Nagler, who has pronounced the Schechter contract a “done deal,” declined to estimate when the results of the traffic study would be available.
Meanwhile, Mineola school board member John McGrath said he doubts that the school board will be voting on approving the Cross Street School lease during its April 27 meeting, even if it has the report in hand.
McGrath, who is a lawyer, said he’s convinced that whatever the traffic study reveals, and whether Cross Street is leased to Schechter or not, he expects the board to be in court about it.
“I personally think whatever happens here, the school board’s getting sued by somebody,” McGrath said.
A meeting held to discuss the possibility of converting the Cross Street School into a Williston Park community center drew more than 100 people last week on Wednesday night, but produced few answers on how to move ahead.
Leaders of the Cross Street Alliance, a group of residents that organized the meeting, said they are not trying to interfere with the deal that the Mineola School District has in place with Schechter.
But they wanted to be ready with an alternative in case the Schechter pact falls through, said former Williston Park Trustee Crista Mills, a member of the group.
“We’re seeking a consensus. First of all, it is a plan B,” Mills said at the meeting in the Williston Park American Legion Hall. “If the Schechter deal falls through because of the traffic study, we should be ready with a plan B.”
Critics said they believe the traffic study will show that the 36 buses the Schechter School expects to employ to transport 250 or more students daily will cause unacceptable traffic tie-ups on Hillside Avenue and present safety hazards for students at the nearby St. Aidan School. They also said the buses could impede emergency vehicles on Hillside Avenue.
“To permit proper traffic flow, you need a loop,” said Fred Otto, a former bus driver who has volunteered for many advisory boards to the Mineola School Board.
Residents at the meetings also voiced concern about access to the Cross Street School’s playing fields, which the Mineola School Board has granted to local little league and CYO teams over the years.
“I grew up playing on those fields. I don’t want to see them go,” one resident said.
Mills said the Cross Street Alliance will organize residents who expressed interest in helping the cause into committees to explore viable options for establishing a community center at Cross Street.
Mills said Nagler seemed open to a proposal from the group when he met with them recently.
Some residents said they believed Nagler would not consider the option of leasing Cross Street School for a community center unless Mayor Ehrbar supported the idea.
After last week’s village board meeting, Trustee Teresa Thomann, who previously had said she wanted time for the board to be able to “explore options” about Cross Street, said she supported the concept of a community center, but didn’t see an opening for the village.
“I do believe in the community center. But it’s not our property and we can’t negotiate,” Thomann said.
Sports activist Terrence Kennedy, who co-chaired the meeting, reported by e-mail this week that of 163 residents surveyed, 138 are willing to pay $25 more annually in taxes to support a community center. That was out of 200 residents who returned the hand-delivered surveys, according to Kennedy, who called for more volunteers to canvass the neighborhood.
“There are 5,000 other people in this village who we need to reach,” Kennedy said.
Both Mills and Kennedy exhorted residents at the meeting to contact their elected officials.
Mills said he does see a possible need for public funds to get the community center started, and said the issue should be put to a vote if the property could be leased.
“I believe the community has the right, if the building becomes available, to make it a referendum,” she said.
Resident Tom Granger said the group should push the case for a community center, despite the pending deal between the Mineola School Board and the Schechter School.
“I think we should make a plan. And I think we should never give up,” Granger shouted.
Williston Park resident Umberto Magnardi made his case for the community’s senior citizens.
“I am thinking of people who are sitting in their homes who built this village. They have a right to get something back,” Magnardi said to enthusiastic applause.
Former mayor and village justice Alan Reardon, who is advising the Cross Street Alliance, was present but didn’t speak during the meeting. He maintains that the village should condemn the property by right of eminent domain.
“It could be done. Williston Park would have to pay for it. They would have to pay the appraisal value,” Reardon said.
He dismissed concerns some residents have raised about an undercurrent of anti-Semitism fueling the community center proposal as a way of preventing a private Jewish religious school from establishing itself in Williston Park. A flyer incorrectly describing the Schechter School as a “yeshiva” was distributed in bulletins at a recent Sunday mass in St. Aidan Church urging residents to attend the village board meeting on the lease plan.
“If it was anybody coming in, if it was Episcopal or Catholic, I don’t think it’s about that,” Reardon said.
Reardon said he thinks the community center could sustain itself by renting space for meetings and receiving fees to permit sports teams from outside the village to use the playing fields.
