By Jeff Lipton
Priority-1, also known as Yeshiva Zichron Aryeh and Torah Academy of Lawrence-Cedarhurst, occupies a private home at 26 Columbia Avenue and is a school for at risk high school age students whose needs were not being met by mainstream yeshivas. But neighbors say some of the students at the school are out of control, parking their cars wherever they want, littering and creating a disturbance and nuisance for area residents.
Village officials have recently met with Rabbi Shaya Cohen, head administrator at the Yeshiva, and warned him that the quality of life issues have to be corrected.
You just can't alienate the neighbors like that, said Ronald Lanzilotta, a village trustee. We will not tolerate things like that. We are a small village and we will not tolerate these things being done to neighbors. We want to stop it before it gets out of hand.
Village trustee Benjamin Weinstock spoke with Rabbi Cohen and received certain promises that conditions will improve.
We gave him fair warning. It's mostly about the parking and that they are parking all over the place. The next time this is done, we will come down hard on them.
The village would not say what actions it would take if the conditions did not improve.
In a recent move, Priority-1 officials told the village they have been given permission to use the Young Israel of Lawrence-Cedarhurst parking lot on Spruce Street to help solve the parking woes. Village trustees said the yeshiva also must keep their yard and the rest of the Priority-1 property clean.
Recently, we have been getting complaints that the kids are being rough. They gave us all assurances and we warned them if this was not done, we would immediately follow up on it, Lanzilotta said. We don't want to put it out of business if they are helping kids.
Village officials said the yeshiva was four years in arrears in their back taxes, amounting to about $8,000, and the village has had trouble collecting this money from the school. Options by the village include foreclosing on the property and issuing summonses, but they have elected to try to work things out with the rabbi.
Neighbors say since the school opened about four years ago, quality of life problems have sprung up, but over the last several months the conditions have gotten progressively worse.
They don't obey the rules, said one neighbor, who did not want to be identified. In my opinion there shouldn't be a school there in the first place. There's not adequate space for it here. They have bothered most of the neighbors by double-parking and parking in the driveway. They are disturbing the whole area.
Cedarhurst Mayor Andrew Parise said some of the complaints he has received lately are that cars are parked by students, blocking driveways on Columbia Avenue. In addition, he said students at the school were parking their vehicles more than two hours at a time, in violation of village code, and when they received tickets from the meter maid, they gave her a problem. We spoke with the rabbi and that seems to have been settled, Parise said.
Rabbi Cohen did not return phone calls. But in a school newsletter, Cohen reaffirmed the importance of creating Priority-1. The kids are transformed from young people hanging on the edge to motivated successful yeshiva boys, he said.
The curriculum of the school includes a full torah and secular studies curriculum and counseling is included. The success of the program is a red light for the yeshiva world about the enormity of the needs that are not addressed for so many students, Cohen said in the newsletter.
Cohen also has operated another Torah Academy of Lawrence-Cedar-hurst on West Merrick Road in Valley Stream since 1999. Village officials there said that yeshiva for troubled youths has been operating without a certificate of occupancy and in defiance of village codes. Since December 1999, the school has been issued 37 summonses.
On March 18 the village board in Valley Stream passed a resolution authorizing the mayor to institute a civil action for a permanent injunction against the owner of the premises, Rabbi Cohen, at the mayor s discretion, if the situation cannot be resolved. If the Nassau County Supreme Court grants the injunction, the village would be able to close the Valley Stream school, village officials said.
