by Tiffany Razzano
Six weeks ago, the Rockville Centre Police Department implemented a six-month pilot program designed by Police Commissioner Jack McKeon, which combined resident and employee parking in the village, rather than having separate spots for each. While commuters seem to be happy about this decision, many of the village's business owners, many of whom also happen to be village residents, as are their employees, are up in arms about it. Their main argument is that commuters come to the parking fields much earlier in the day, sometimes as early as 6:45 a.m., while employees in the village don't arrive at work until 9 a.m. or after. This means when employees come to work, they often can only find parking in the lots furthest from their jobs.
"I motion that we roll back the plan for the purpose of designing and implementing a new plan," Lipton said at the Nov. 6 board meeting, "and to properly assess the impact, both negative and positive." Earlier in the evening, he said that the program was designed with good intentions, but perhaps was implemented too rapidly, without any consideration of the possible negative effect on businesses.
Mulry, Sullivan and Karamouzis all agreed changes do need to be made to the new plan, but didn't think removing the plan was the answer. "We need to get back with the experts," Karamouzis said. "We do need to adjust it, but we shouldn't play to the crowd [at the meeting by removing it.]"
"In order to keep a viable business, employees need to be parked in reasonable walking distances to their offices," said Steve Ruchman, a business owner in the village, and past president of the Chamber of Commerce.
"We need a parking solution that works for the majority of parking sticker holders," said Joe Thrapp, a member of the Parking Committee. Though he believes that McKeon's plan should be given the full six months to test it out, he believes a long-term solution needs to be found, either by building a parking garage, buying more parking fields and even exploring the use of shuttle buses between parking fields and the train station and eliminating meters.
Glen Edwards, a business owner in the village for three years, said two of his employees are senior citizens who have to park in the lots furthest away from his shop. He said one of them has already said she can't make the walk once the weather gets colder. He feels the employers and employees need to be considered more as a permanent parking solution is sought. "We all shop in the village. We go to your drugstores, supermarkets and restaurants," he said. "We're probably some of the best customers these stores have."
Current Chamber of Commerce president, Michael Shenker, who owns a business that rents space in 53 N. Park Ave., said since the new plan was implemented he's seen prospective tenants walk away from taking space in the building because of the lack of available parking for employees at the times they would come to work.
Greg Schaefer, director of finance at Better Home Healthcare, the second largest employer in Rockville Centre, said at this point he even has employees not coming in on Fridays to accept assignments. "There's no metered parking," he said. "Morale is down in the office. We can't continue to remain in a building where we can't serve our clients to the best of our ability. We have to find somewhere else to do that. If we can't park in Rockville Centre, what are we going to do?"
