By Angela Marshall
The hearing that preceded the vote rarely touched on the finer points of the legislation, as speaker after speaker debated how the five bills would apply to the Rosa Lee Young Childhood Center's bid to build a new facility on property in a Residence A zone.
However, passing the legislation does not give the childhood center a free pass to build on its Woods Avenue property, as some South Siders fear. Under the new legislation, Rosa Lee Young will have to go to the Planning Board for Site Plan Review and a Special Use Permit, at which time neighbors will have the ability to raise their safety, traffic, noise and property value concerns.
But, before the childhood center can even contemplate moving forward, a judge will have to rule on Rosa Lee Young's suit against the village.
The childhood center sued the village after Building Department Superintendent Steve DeClue denied its building permit application in January, saying the village code allows only public schools in Residence A zone. Rosa Lee Young based its suit on New York State case law showing courts have found in favor of private schools requesting similar zoning treatment to public schools.
The village board agreed that its code did not meet state laws and, by adopting the school-related legislation on Tuesday, believes it has corrected that flaw.
But, the suit will not automatically go away because the village is still challenging Rosa Lee Young's contention that it is a school and should be treated as such for zoning purposes. While the board did refuse to include nursery schools in its list of institutions not considered schools allowed in residential zones, it has not said the childhood center meets all of its criteria. In its legal argument, the board has cited Rosa Lee Young's tax return, in which it allegedly refers to itself as providing day care or child care, as evidence that it is not a school.
Administrators of the childhood center say children from infancy to kindergarten would be cared for and educated at the new facility. Older children would participate in an after-school program.
During the hearing, opponents of the legislation accused the board of giving the childhood center assurances of being allowed to build on Woods Avenue before they bought the property and of writing the bills to make that possible.
The process that brings us here tonight has been fundamentally compromised, said Frank Schroeder.
Most of the board members denied giving any such assurances. I never met with anyone beforehand, said Trustee Mary Bossart. I don't know who they spoke to if they spoke to anyone.
Others also said the board had made up its mind before the hearing started and were unwilling to make any changes.
We've not just brushed off public comment. We've incorporated it time and time again, said Deputy Mayor Wayne Lipton.
Bossart went point by point through the board's reasons for not making specific changes requested by the opponents.
She said she was unwilling to increase the plot-size requirement from one and a half acres to three because she doesn't feel the board has the right to be more restrictive than New York State is with public schools in the village. She said the state waives the plot-size requirements all the time. The board set the plot-size requirement at that of the smallest public school in Rockville Centre, Riverside School.
Opponents also requested the board require school teachers to be certified. The board declined, Bossart said, because many schools throughout the state have trouble finding certified teachers. Instead, the school definition requires teachers to be qualified, which Bossart said is usually decided by a school principal or superintendent.
As for why some parts of the legislation are loose, Lipton said, the board did that to give the Planning Board some leeway to protect and benefit residents when considering Site Plan Review and Special Use Permits.
If a judge had ruled that Rosa Lee Young was a school before the school-related legislation passed, the childhood center would not have been required to go before the Planing Board, said Gary Fishberg, attorney for the village in this matter. He said by adopting the legislation, the board had increased residents' protection.
No racist motivations
Many opponents of the legislation also defended themselves from what they saw as charges of racism, which appeared in a Rosa Lee Young ad in the Herald's Sept. 26 edition. One man, Paul Travers, threatened to straighten [the] teeth of those responsible for the ad. Trustee Jack Matthews quickly told him the board would not hear threats of violence. Travers pounded the podium he was standing at and said he would be heard.
The opponents called for the removal of the village's public relations officer, Jeff Kluewer, who is also co-president of the childhood center and helped put the ad together. The opponents said Kluewer used his influence as a village spokesperson to talk local clergy into participating in the ad. They say Kluewer used a village E-mail account to send some of the letters.
Mayor Eugene Murray said he and the village administrator, Ronald Wasson, would meet with the opponents to discuss this allegation.
After the meeting, Kluewer denied any wrongdoing, saying he has no village equipment or E-mail. Whatever I've done for Rosa Lee Young, I have never involved the village's name.
Dr. Roger Dick Johns, minister of St. Mark's United Methodist Church, defended the motives of the religious leaders who allowed their names to be used on the ad. He said they never meant to call anyone a racist but merely to point out that the words of some of the legislation's opponents could be interpreted that way and to say let's not go there.
Our intention was never to label people, Johns said. Nor did we think we did. If we have, I apologize.
