Forging an agreement?

At the Rockville Centre Village Board meeting on Feb. 9, Mayor Mary Bossart discussed details of a new proposal the village says it presented to the school district in an effort to solve the problem of parking at Fireman’s Field, adjacent to South Side High School.

Under the village’s proposal, Fireman’s Field would remain a free parking area. However, that would be on the condition that the school district not allow students to park there — making it a field for faculty, staff and visitors.

But as of Feb. 12, the village had not yet presented the school district with a formal proposal, meaning that the whole Fireman's Field solution is still just talk.

“I had heard that [the village] did not want students,” said Mark Masin, Rockville Centre's school board president. “At this point, because we had no concrete proposals from the village, we have no official comment on that yet. We were waiting for them to notify us as to what was decided by their board.”

According to Village Administrator Frank Quigley, the village thinks that its latest proposal for Fireman’s Field will be amenable to the school district. However, the village is less certain about the future of the lapsed Cooperative Agreement that was forged 20 years ago and offered a model blueprint to save money and avoid duplication of services.

“With respect to the general Cooperative Agreement, that’s a little more difficult right now,” said Quigley. “We’re not meshing right now on the cost of the garbage service. There’s a difference of opinion, and I think the village is trying to communicate with the school district and just explain the basis for our reasoning process here.”

The village recently started charging the school district for garbage removal—a service that it used to provide free. When the school district learned how much the village was going to charge, it decided to instead hire an outside company that would charge less to remove its garbage.

“We provide electricity, and people pay for that,” Quigley said. “We provide water, and people pay for that. We provide garbage service to non-profits, and they pay for that. So going through the history, I’m not sure why we’d provide free garbage service to the school district. This is where there’s not going to be a meeting of the minds between the village and the school district.”

The school district’s consternation comes from the village lumping it together with other not-for-profit entities, like places of worship.

“We are a taxing authority similar to the village and we had pointed that out to the mayor and the administrator,” said Masin. “We’re not a non-profit. We don’t make profits, but we are a taxing authority, whereas those non-profits are not.”

But according to Quigley, the fact that the school district is a taxing entity doesn’t mean that it shouldn't have to pay for garbage pickup.

“The school district is a taxing entity so they don’t have to pay for services? That’s ridiculous,” said Quigley. “The school district really should pay what it’s supposed to pay, and to say that they’re not supposed to pay something because they’re a fellow taxing entity is gobeldy gook.”

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