By JOSEPH KELLARD
During that time, many parents either park their cars in No Standing zones or double- and triple-park as they wait for their children to be dismissed from class. And as hundreds of students file out of school, many of them weaving through the cars to cross Skillman on their way home, some parents compound the chaos by making U-turns.
Police periodically issue tickets to some of the parking and traffic-law violators, but the daily after-school pick-up routine has become so entrenched at OHS that some parents become incensed when police do their jobs.
David Grossman¹s wife was slapped with a $110 ticket for double-parking outside the high school while waiting to pick up their daughter last November. In a letter to 4th Precinct Inspector Richard McCarrick days later, Grossman noted the No Standing Anytime signs posted on Skillman, but wrote, ³I fail to see how ticketing parents picking up their children will alleviate the situation. There is simply no other place for parents to wait.²
But the school district disagrees. By way of letters and meetings, OHS Principal Dorie Ciulla, backed by Superintendent Dr. Herb Brown and the Board of Education, has offered parents and students various suggestions. In addition to carpooling, they have been advised to meet a block or more away from the school, or plan their pick-ups at 3 p.m., when most of the after-school traffic has dispersed.
³Some kids will walk six blocks to Farmer Joel¹s for lunch, but they can¹t walk a block or two after school to meet their parents?² Brown said when the traffic issue was raised at the Oceanside Civic Association meeting at School 8 last week. Brown added that he and his wife used to pick up one of their children on nearby Alvin Court. ³And there was no one there, and we¹d get right out of there ...² he said. ³People don¹t realize if you park a block or two away, it¹s much faster.²
But Grossman, who has raised this issue at both school board and Town of Hempstead meetings, said that the district¹s suggestions fail to fix the congestion problem. ³To say, ŒPark somewhere else¹ ‹ where?² he told the Herald. ³These are one-lane roads in residential areas, and there¹s a lot of no-stopping all over the area. There¹s no place for all these cars to go and wait.²
Grossman added that many students attend extracurricular activities after school and can¹t wait until 3 p.m. to be picked up.
At last week¹s meeting, in which two officers from the 4th Precinct talked about policing in Oceanside, school board Trustee Sandi Schoell asked them for suggestions about this ongoing issue. Schoell fears that a child may get seriously injured walking through the cars on Skillman, and then the district will end up being merely reactive.
³We¹re trying hard to work this out Š but we¹re at a loss,² Schoell told Kevin Black, commander of the 4th Precinct¹s Problem Oriented Policing unit. ³We just don¹t know what to do.²
Black told Schoell that he had sent five police officers to OHS after school to write tickets one day last November. ³I spent the next six days fielding complaints from people about our Œoverzealous enforcement,¹ and how Œmen in uniform let a little power go to their heads,¹² Black said.
He explained that when officers tell parents who are parked illegally that they must move, many of them say matter-of-factly, ³Yeah, OK,² or ³I¹m waiting for somebody,² and that they complain of selective enforcement, since not every law-breaking motorist gets a ticket.
Grossman¹s letter to McCarrick confirmed Black¹s claim: ³My wife politely explained that she was just waiting for another student who would be out momentarily,² Grossman wrote. ³She was inside the car, double-parked; cars were lined up double-parked in front of her as well as behind her.²
Black guaranteed that officers could issue tickets at OHS every day for a week and then no one would double-park. ³But I can also guarantee you that the day I stop doing that, within another week or two, they¹d all be back,² he said. Once again, Grossman¹s letter underscored Black¹s words: ³My wife paid her ticket, and was back along with dozens of other residents ‹ doing the same thing the very next day.²
Asked by the Herald to offer a solution, Grossman said that there is no easy answer, in part because OHS is surrounded by residences. He did say that police should relax their enforcement of parking and traffic laws for 15 minutes when school lets out, so long as parents leave lanes open for emergency vehicles to pass. ³As long as the road is navigable, the police can monitor the situation for 10 minutes and not give out tickets just for the sake of giving out tickets,² Grossman said.
But Black said that police cannot be at OHS every day at dismissal, that it is a waste of the county¹s resources to have officers on traffic duty at any school, and that financial cutbacks prevent more crossing guards from being hired.
Meanwhile, Ciulla, who said she calls police whenever the traffic gets particularly heavy, explained that the district continues to work with the county¹s traffic engineer in the search for possible solutions. ³They are doing a study on the traffic patterns now, and we¹re in the process of talking with him to get ideas and suggestions,² Ciulla said.
One measure the county took was to time the traffic light at the corner of Skillman and Brower avenues differently in the morning and afternoon, in an effort to create better traffic flow. A few years ago, however, the Town of Hempstead, at the request of residents of nearby Marlborough Road, turned their narrow street into a one-way, Ciulla said, which contributed to an increase in traffic in front of the school.
Comments about this story? JKellard@liherald.com or (516) 569-4000 ext. 287.
