By Angela Marshall
Questions posed by residents on index cards and asked by a moderator from the League of Women Voters concerned growth, specifically parking, planning and the village's fiscal stability. Mayor Eugene Murray, running unopposed for a fourth four-year term, opened the debate by stressing the Home Rule Party's platform of progress through planning and praising his running mates, Deputy Mayor Wayne Lipton and newcomer Jim Sutton.
Parking
When it comes to parking, candidates have mixed opinions as to whether there is, in fact, a problem in the village. Concerned Citizens candidates Robert Weaver and Liz Krol both called it a manageable difficulty caused by a good thing, a vibrant business district. Krol suggested providing a daily parking permit for people who want to park near the train station once in a while but aren't commuters. She would not like to see a parking garage built. Weaver posed the idea of designating certain areas for per-diem parking and extending the time on some meters.
Lipton stressed the importance of managing the turnover of spots by limiting meter time. He talked about some of the ways the village has increased parking in the last few years, including the leasing of part of the St. Agnes Cathedral lot for commuters, opening a lot on Long Beach Road and restriping some areas to create more spaces.
Sutton said he'd like to see the money raised from parking meters stay in the parking fields to help maintain them and pay for the upgrading of equipment. He said the village should always be looking for new parking spaces, but agreed that part of the parking issue stems from having a vibrant village that people want to visit.
John Mirando, who is running with Jeanne Mulry on the newly created Residents' Voice Party ticket, said he stopped working out at an area gym because he kept getting parking tickets. He said the board should not rule out a parking garage without really considering it, pointing out that the former Wolf Sport Shop on Sunrise Highway would have made a good site for one.
Mulry also believes there is a major parking problem in Rockville Centre and criticized the current board for making code changes that allow apartment development. She is worried that if the two currently proposed apartment projects go forward, they will bring too much congestion.
Development
New legislation to allow the development of apartment buildings in the village's business areas was supported and adopted by all members of the current board. So it was no surprise when candidates for both Home Rule and Concerned Citizens said they support such development. Candidates for Residents' Voice, however, blasted the new law. Mirando said there are already enough apartments in the village.
But Lipton defended the law, saying the restrictions are so severe [that] very few apartments can be developed. Developers are required to supply 1.5 parking spaces per apartment, and complexes with a business on the ground floor or larger than 10,000 square feet must undergo a review before the village's Planning Board. Sutton agreed with Lipton, saying each project is reviewed on its own merits.
Residents' Voice's Mulry said there are no restrictions at all, pointing out that the first apartment developer went to the Rockville Centre Zoning Board of Appeals requesting a 30 percent parking variance. (The case is still pending.)
Krol and Weaver used their time to call for the completion of the village's recodification project, which they say should have been completed years ago. They feel that once the whole code has been revised, pieces Ñ like allowing new apartment development Ñ will fall into place. They pledged to have recodification completed in the next two years. However, Lipton said recodification is organic and, therefore, always in process.
Taxes
With taxes increasing on all levels, from schools to state, residents are worried that the village's budget will begin to creep up as well. They asked candidates to explain what tough choices they would make to control or reduce the budget. Lipton pointed out that Rockville Centre's increase, 5.9 percent, is lower than many surrounding village's. He called keeping budgets low a sacred trust, but he also said there was a balance that must be considered. He said he pushed the board to go forward with the purchase of a fire truck this year because it is important to give the volunteer firefighters the equipment they need.
Mulry and Mirando said they feel the village needs to do more preventive maintenance to keep costs down overall. Both pointed to last year's sewer line collapse on Lincoln Avenue. Mirando, who previously headed the Garden City Department of Public Works, described techniques that he believes could have been used to find and stop the collapse before it happened.
Sutton, who has held many financial positions and is the chief operating officer of VodaDigitec Corp., joined the village's Citizens Budget Advisory Committee this year. He said the budget is very tight and that planning is the key to keeping it that way. He believes financial concerns will be the biggest problem facing the village in the next few years.
Weaver, who worked on the New York State Banking Department's multi-million-dollar budget, said trustees must keep in mind the impact any changes in the budget will have on residents. He proposed privatizing parts of the budget, pointing out a current agreement with Rockville Centre Girl Scouts to plant flowers at the Village Green. The girls get their badges, the village is beautified and no money is spent from the budget.
Krol, who began a banking career before deciding to be a stay-at-home mom, said she feels she has been dealing with budgets for a long time. As a 10-year member of the Rockville Centre Library Board, she said she has always looked to hit a balance by keeping budget increases as low as possible while still providing more services.
Schools
The moderator was surprised by the number of questions referring to nursery schools and whether they should be allowed in residential areas. Combining them into one, she said that she hoped it wasn't a loaded question. The audience roared with laughter when it realized the question was going to Mulry first, as she has led the charge to keep day-care centers out of residential areas.
With her usual line, I have to pull out my case law, Mulry berated the current board for not making the school definition it adopted last year strong enough, saying the board could have limited the amount of acreage required to build a school. She also felt the board was negligent in failing to define what a nursery school is.
Mirando agreed, saying surrounding communities have much stronger laws. He said the village will become an easy target for day care center development and that more and more centers will pop up.
The other candidates acknowledged some residents' strong emotional responses to this issue, but supported the need for the legislation. Lipton said New York state requires that schools, libraries and houses of worship be allowed to build in all zoning areas. He said the board passed a definition that it felt would stand scrutiny if challenged in court. But he also called the Rosa Lee Young Childhood Center's plan to build in Residence A zone a bad business decision that he believes will never come to fruition because of extended court battles.
One village?
A question meant to highlight the need for villagers to feel that they are equal instead further exacerbated one section's feelings of neglect. What about South Side? a group of residents yelled out after a question was posed about how trustees would address the differing needs of the village's sections, North Side, Middle Village and West End, but neglected to mention the South Side.
Mirando said he wants to see a balance of power on the board and suggested dividing the village into districts, with each having a civic association representative on the board. (A version of this idea is currently used in Garden City).
Sutton, Krol, Weaver and Lipton rejected this idea, each saying Rockville Centre is one village. We are all Rockville Centre residents, said Lipton. The moment we break into bits and pieces is the moment that we are going to start to fail.
Weaver suggested the creation of town meetings to bring village government down to where the residents live.
Mulry said there is much more traffic on the South Side, where she and Mirando live than on the North Side, which she called much more suburban. She also talked about the tension faced by residents who live near business districts.
Redrawing the lines
Concerned Citizens candidates were quick to criticize Lipton for a plan he broached when he was first in office. A few years ago, Lipton held a town meeting to see what it would take to make the village and school district lines the same and whether residents liked the idea. The candidates were asked if they would support such a plan.
Weaver, who is against the idea because of its cost and potential impact on services, said Lipton owed it to the residents to keep them informed, and that once he decided it wasn't going to work, he should have told them why. Krol called the plan a bad idea.
Lipton said he first looked into it because he thought it would be a great idea for everyone to go to the same schools and all be part of the village. But once he started to investigate, he discovered a number of problems, including the potential for a tremendous increase in taxes. He polled the people and said there wasn't enough support, and put the idea aside because it was only worth doing if it would be a benefit to everyone.
Sutton said it was not a decision that could be made in 10 minutes but would require analysis, in which his financial background would give him the edge. Similarly, Mulry, an attorney, said she would use her legal expertise to check into the idea. Mirando said that he bought his house because it was in the Oceanside School District, and that now that his kids were grown, he was at a loss about whether it was a good idea. He also thought it would need a lot of study.
The candidates were expected to participate in a second debate on June 10, after the Herald went to press. The election will be held on Tuesday, June 17.
