Letters to the Rockville Centre Herald May 24, 2012

Residents of Broadway ask for help

To the Editor:

I have lived in Rockville Centre my entire adult life since college and think it is a great town. I live on Broadway, one of the nicest blocks in the village. Over the years I have watched as both traffic and parking problems on this block have become terrible. There seem to be many reasons for this — all of which can be solved.

On the corner of Broadway and Lakeview Avenue is a doctor’s office that had been in use by a single practitioner. Recently, the doctor’s two sons have joined him in the practice, increasing both staff and the number of patients and pharmaceutical representatives who visit the office.

In doing research to find out how many doctors actually practice there, neighbors of the office discovered that two of the doctors in the practice have listed it as a drug rehab center, prescribing suboxone to treat opiate addiction. While I do think it is important to offer this type of service to recovering addicts, I think such an office should not be diagonally across from the main entrance to Watson Elementary School, on a residential block. There are many medical office buildings in Rockville Centre that would be more appropriate for the amount of traffic and the type of medicine that is being practiced in this office.

My neighbors and I find ourselves picking up all kinds of medical waste from our lawns and the street, things such as blood-stained gauze and old Band-Aids. It is very disturbing. We wish the doctors much success in their practice; we’d just like them to move to a more appropriate location. That is part of the problem, but not all of it. Many years ago, Watson Elementary School closed a large section of its parking lot in an attempt to increase the size of its field. That forced more cars onto surrounding streets. In addition, parking along Lake-view and North Village avenues, adjacent to the school’s property, was eliminated, forcing the cars up Broadway. During the day, Broadway now feels more like a block in Queens rather than the beautiful suburban block it had been. Cars are parked bumper-to-bumper in an attempt to squeeze into spots they clearly shouldn’t be in. It’s not uncommon to have cars block the entrance to our driveways or to be so close that backing out becomes a difficult task, especially with the amount of traffic on Broadway.

That brings us to the last issue — the amount of traffic that comes down this small two-block street. It seems that many cars make a left turn from Lakeview onto Broadway to beat the light at the corner of Lake-view and North Village avenues. They make fast left turns and then speed up Broadway to avoid the traffic light. The Police Department did a study of the traffic and found that one car was doing 60 down our street! This is a residential block with many young children, and that is its charm, but it has now become a bypass highway around a traffic light.

All of the residents of Broadway, from Lakeview to Judson Place, signed a petition to have the block marked as a no-parking zone from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. on school days. We also suggested that the village make the corner of Lakeview and Broadway a no-left-turn (from Lakeview) from 8 a.m. to 10 a.m. and from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m., the times when traffic is most disturbing. Another approach would be to make Broadway a one-way street, like Lakeside Drive. To date, we have not had any changes in our favor. We need help for safety, for our quality of life and to protect the values of our homes.

Joseph L. Torrraca

Rockville Centre

School budget passes; problem not solved

To the Editor: The state’s 2 percent tax-levy cap, while well-intentioned, has been an overall toothless approach to a very real and pertinent issue in our community. Our taxes are too high and our schools need to become more efficient. To politicians, the tax-levy cap has been a successful piece of legislation with widespread popularity. To school districts, it has been an overall harmful restriction that has forced many into the unenviable position of compelling teachers to take pay freezes and inevitably having to make classroom cuts. To taxpayers like me, the cap is a welcome change and a step in the right direction — but it is not a solution. The only assurance it gives me is that my taxes will increase by at least 2 percent every year, while it does nothing to address the fact that my taxes were too high to begin with!

The teachers, administrators and staff of the Rockville Centre school district deserve commendations for doing their part to help keep the budget in compliance with the new legislation. Renegotiating pre-existing contracts, offering new retirement incentives and freezing pay to ensure the schools would keep all existing programs and stay in compliance with the tax cap limit were very noble. It is important however, that we not forget that this is a Band-Aid, not a long-term solution. We cannot, and should not expect teachers to continue to take payfreezes indefinitely into the future to keep us under the cap. We cannot keep kicking the can down the road.

Our high school is ranked first on Long Island and 22nd in the nation, and the teaching staff at all levels deserve credit for that. If we want our children to be well educated and our property values to remain high, we want our schools to continue to thrive — but the writing is on the wall. The tax cap, in its current form, will not put anybody’s feet to the fire, and will only cause damaging cuts to be made to our schools. Our district will remain top-heavy — laden with administrative costs — and the cost of living will continue to spiral out of control. Our classrooms, and by proxy our property values, will ultimately suffer.