School Board Favors Heermance Parking Takeover
Ridgewood district also rescinds request to open parking for teachers on Beverly Road.
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Climbing student enrollment led school two top school officials to request that the council cede parking at Heermance Place to the district, and now Dan Fishbein and board president Sheila Brogan have the full support of the school board.
At the Monday school board meeting, Fishbein, the superintendent, told the board that the district has requested 23 public parking spots on Heermance Place be closed to the public. Some future classes are projected to near 500 students, necessitating greater staff levels, Fishbein said.
According to Fishbein, there's a current deficiency of about 30 spots.
Only Ridgewood High School staff members during school hours would be permitted to park at the spots, which traditionally have been taken by early-rising students. Between five and ten spots in the main parking lot would then open to visitor parking, Fishbein said.
No board members opposed the Heermance Place request Monday night.
The only real change was the district rescinding its request that staff be permitted to park on one side of Beverly Road.
School board member Jim Morgan had expressed concern over safety issues at the street (which he lives on) adjacent to the high school.
The previous Ridgewood village council in March had voted down the school board's request on Heermance Place. The current council, which has favored the proposal, is scheduled to further discuss the request in January.
jp1
9:35 am on Tuesday, December 18, 2012
This is a public street, parking is first come first served. Teachers should park at the Graydon lot just like the students and walk to the high school. Teachers are not a privileged class.
Boyd A. Loving
12:09 pm on Tuesday, December 18, 2012
Agreed. This is a public thoroughfare owned and maintained by the Village of Ridgewood.
The BOE has thus far offered no reasonable explanation as to why students and others should be "bumped" from parking on Heermance.
Have prospective job applicants rejected working at RHS due to parking difficulties? Has anyone resigned from RHS due to parking issues?
What makes staff & faculty better than the children of taxpayers with respect to use of on street parking? Still no answer to this key question.
Ron Verdicchio
9:35 am on Tuesday, December 18, 2012
Did Mr. Morgan formally vote to rescind the Parking on Beverly?
James Kleimann
9:43 am on Tuesday, December 18, 2012
There was no formal vote, just a discussion to continue with the request to the council. The district has decided not to further pursue the Beverly parking element of the request. Morgan would very likely have had to abstain from voting on anything concerning the parking on Beverly.
anonymous
11:49 am on Tuesday, December 18, 2012
How about allowing 2 hour parking on Beverly? That would allow visitors and part- time staff a convenient place to park. Also would provide village another ticketing opportunity.
Brian
10:37 am on Wednesday, December 19, 2012
Good idea.
Boyd A. Loving
1:02 pm on Tuesday, December 18, 2012
The Village Council should not move forward with any discussions on this topic until the BOE passes a formal resolution and forwards it to the Council for action.
maureen
5:10 pm on Tuesday, December 18, 2012
Duh , The School Board agrees to entitle the teachers
Anne LaGrange Loving
4:02 pm on Wednesday, December 19, 2012
I am pleased to note that Ms. Brogan and Dr. Fishbein have finally gone to the entire elected body of the BOE to discuss this matter, rather than "going rogue" as they did a couple of weeks ago at a Village Council meeting (where they made a request that had neither been discussed by nor sanctioned by the BOE).
Further, I am very pleased that the idea of allowing parking on Beverly has been put to bed, and especially that Beverly parking might be designated for teachers. That plan seemed both unsafe and unfair.
I am steadfast in my belief that those few teachers who do not find an open spot in the lot should simply drive over to the Graydon South lot and then walk for seven minutes to the RHS building. Designating spots on Heermance for the exclusive use of employees of the High School is completely unfair to the tax paying citizens who maintain that street with their tax dollars.
For the record, the previous Village Council discussed this matter at length during three meetings in February and March of this year, and decided unanimously to scrap it. Our current mayor, who was a member of that Council, was a full participant in those discussions and that decision. I remain baffled as to why he has done an about face on the matter. We shall see.
Marla Sherman
10:41 pm on Wednesday, December 19, 2012
The first thing they need to do at the intersection of Beverly and Heermance is create a place to turn around. If they cut a portion of the corner on the RHS side and make a circle, there wouldn't be the need to wait for everyone to make a 3-pt turn. Whoever designed two one-way streets that converge wasn't really thinking too clearly.