Politics & Government

Despite Questions of Ownership, Council Introduces RHS Parking Plan

Council likely to vote on Feb. 13 agreeing to the school district's request that teachers should kick students out of spaces on Heermance Place.

Despite unanswered questions over who actually owns the land, the Ridgewood Village Council on Wednesday agreed to introduce an ordinance that will allow the school district to provide teacher parking at the expense of students.

The council majority – Councilwoman Gwenn Hauck, Deputy Mayor Albert Pucciarelli and Mayor Paul Aronsohn – have expressed support for an ordinance that will allow the district to issue permits for 23 parking spaces on Heermance Place. Students at the high school would see the boot as a result.

Prompted by questions from resident Boyd Loving, the village attorney said the fact that the school district might already own the parking spots is immaterial to introducing the ordinance.

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"Issues that remain outstanding would not affect the introduction of the ordinance in authorizing them to have permits to control those spaces," Matt Rogers said. "We did research with the village surveyer to determine who owns the property. I would say it's probably not clear at this point and would take some funds to do an actual survey."

Rogers said legal issues of ownership would need to be discussed in closed session.

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The council by a 3-2 vote (with Bernadette Walsh and Tom Riche not in favor) introduced Ordinance 3369. Walsh and Riche have expressed concern with issues of precedent.

Other concerns also came to the surface on Wednesday night.

The village could replicate its normal notification process by alerting residents within 200 feet of the property. But really, Loving said, the people most impacted are the high school students. How many of them will be reading the back pages of The Ridgewood News and The Record for legal notices? How would they be provided notice action was likely to be taken on Feb. 13?

It was a good point, Mayor Aronsohn noted. The village will look into other notification options, he said.


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