By ALEX COSTELLO
The village board held the meeting, the second to explore the parking problem at SSHS, as a follow-up to a tour of the school campus and a discussion in late June between the village and the Board of Education. No public comment was allowed at that meeting, but this time community members had a chance to sound off.
At the June meeting, the school district proposed paving two corners of the South Side High School property, and portions of the adjacent Fireman's Field, to create more parking.
"The school district obviously is aware of the lack of available parking in and around the high school campus," school board President Mark Masin told the village board last week. "With the proliferation of 'No Parking' signs restricting parking on neighborhood streets and the new set of parking restrictions on Fireman's Field, we have a problem. This is a community problem. Our desire is to be able to remove the cars from the neighborhood streets and to bring them onto the South Side campus and adjoining Fireman's Field."
Firefighters, and others associated with the department, expressed opposition to the district's proposal. Fireman's Field is a memorial for firemen, they said. Others complained about the parking habits of SSHS students.
The comments began with Masin who, along with Jeanette Meoli, co-president of the SSHS PTA, were the only school representatives to speak. School board Trustee Steve Kriss, Superintendent Dr. William Johnson and District Clerk Cynthia Geones also attended.
Masin was followed by residents from both sides of the debate. "Fireman's Field is not only for training, it's also a memorial for firefighters," said former Fire Chief Peter Stuyvesant, who said he had graduated from SSHS. While the school's student body and staff have grown over the years, Stuyvesant said, it has never increased its parking capacity. He asked school representatives how, with the tight budget and the current economic climate, they could, "in good conscience," use school taxes to expand student parking.
"Our tax dollars are being paid to educate our children," he said. "How does student parking educate our children?"
The next speaker was Fred Finley, who had researched the history of the property. The school district purchased the property in 1952, and built a school designed to hold grades 10 through 12. In 1981 the administration decided to move the ninth grade into the building, which meant that more teachers and administrators were parking on the campus, displacing students' cars.
"Suddenly, residents found their homes fenced in by cars, loud radios and litter," Finley said, pointing out the similarities between the problems in the 1980s and today. "And, suddenly, the school administrators said that they needed more campus parking and access by roads which were never intended nor ever used for that purpose. To this day, we're still in discussion about what to do about the problem created by the school administration."
Finley summarized the June meeting, at which Johnson said that the parking dilemma could be solved if the district added 150 spaces - for about 450 in total - by paving over parts of Fireman's Field and one section of the SSHS campus.
Finley suggested a different solution. First, he said, the administration could be moved from its current headquarters on campus to the village's business district. "There they would be centrally located to all schools," he said. "And there could not be a more opportune time to purchase or lease a very comfortable property than at present." Moving the administration, Finley concluded, would free up as many as 50 parking spaces.
Next, he said, the administration building could be converted into classrooms, and the temporary buildings on campus could be removed, adding another 75 spaces. Third, the metal structure at the campus's southeast corner could be torn down - a proposal made by Johnson at the June meeting - creating an additional 35 spaces.
Finally, Finley suggested, 18 more spaces could be added by expanding the parking lot in the northwest corner of the campus. Combined, these changes would add as many as 178 spaces - more than the 150 that Johnson said would solve the problem - and would not require any paving of Fireman's Field.
After Finley spoke, one resident after another complained about how the parking situation affected them - cars parked in front of their homes, litter in the streets, students being rude to them. "I can't park in front of my own house," Al Donofrio said of the signs regulating parking that have appeared on his block, Shepherd Street. "I left Queens 15 years ago because I didn't like the traffic and signs. What do I see here? Traffic and signs."
One of the few people to speak on behalf of the school was Meoli. She decried the signs that the village is placing on streets around the school, saying that they have only exacerbated the problem. "It doesn't solve the overflow problem," she said. "It just moves it further from the school gates and into areas that never expected to have school parking."
Other speakers groused about the school administration. Harry Balz, an ex-Rockville Centre fire chief and a member of the department for 57 years, said, "The administration, although they're very good educators, they're bad planners."
Another resident, Dorothy Hines, made a plea for a solution. "I implore the Fire Department and school district to come to a conclusion," she said. "Because we all live in Rockville Centre, and we all deserve a piece of it."
Comments about this story? ACostello@liherald.com or (516) 569-4000 ext. 207.
