As expected, the Garden City Board of Trustees approved the assignment of a crossing guard at the intersection of Nassau Boulevard and Stratford Avenue at its December 17th meeting. A crossing guard will be reassigned from the Garden City High School to the busy intersection after the holiday recess.

“I really want to thank [School Board President] Colleen Foley and [Superintendent of Schools] Dr. Feirsen,” Mayor Robert J. Rothschild said. “I know it wasn’t easy. Sometimes it’s hard when two groups like the Board of Trustees and the school board try to get something accomplished. I think some people look at it and think we’re wasting time and we’re not doing it as efficiently as we should. But in this case, I think we really all worked together to get something done that I hope is at least satisfactory and will hopefully be taken care of very shortly that everybody will be happy with.”

The Mayor also thanked Garden City Police Commissioner Ernest J. Cipullo, Village Administrator Robert L. Schoelle, Jr., school board liaison and Trustee Laurence Quinn, as well as the residents who ultimately persevered in their three-month fight to get a crossing guard for the intersection. Parents Susan Sonner, Susan Walsh and Liz Galzerano formed the Nassau Boulevard Safe Passage Initiative to work toward that end.

“My personal opinion of the whole situation is that I can’t believe children in second, third and fourth grade would ever have to cross Nassau Boulevard because it is an intersection that requires adult supervision...I think we ultimately got it right,” Mayor Rothschild said.

The school district and Village went back and forth for months on whether or not the intersection qualified as a Child Safety Zone; the school district said it did not qualify and the Garden City Police Dept. argued that according to their calculations it did meet the requirements. These zones, which are explained in the Child Safety Transportation Act of 1992, provide the one exception to the district’s mileage-only criterion. A group of approximately 20 students were informed in late August that they would no longer receive busing because they lived less than one-half mile from the school.

School districts do not have to follow a mileage-only criterion if the area in question is designated a Child Safety Zone due to extremely hazardous conditions. Points are assigned to various types of hazards, which fall into three types: highways without sidewalks or adequate shoulders, highway intersections and highway-railroad grade crossings.

Twelve points are needed to qualify as a CSZ. The state dept. of transportation came up with nine points.

Mayor Rothschild blamed the discrepancy on the Child Safety Zone point-evaluation form provided by the New York State Dept. of Transportation and both the Village and school district looked at it incorrectly. “To be very honest, the application for the point system is as outdated as the horse and buggy that used to cross that intersection,” he said. “It really needs to be changed.”

Deputy Mayor Donald Brudie, who is also chairperson of the Village Traffic Commission, also blamed the form. The Traffic Commission, which met directly before the BOT meeting, unanimously recommended to the BOT to reassign the crossing guard. He said he read several e-mails which reveal the state DOT even found the form confusing as they attempted to arrive at a number.

Inspector Kenneth Jackson of the Garden City Police Dept. told The Garden City News that the state DOT initially got a high enough total for a CSZ, but upon closer evaluation found the number was three points lower.

“We’re very disappointed because we would have preferred seeing the children on the bus... The forms that we were using, the school district and the police department, were very confusing and out of date,” Brudie said. “They [the DOT] could see that if you used those forms you may not come up with the right formula. They are in the process right now of devising new forms for future use.”

Mayor Rothschild announced that beginning in 2010, the Board of Trustees will review the location of all crossing guards every year at the annual reorganization meeting held at the beginning of April. He said some locations may no longer need a crossing guard, and some may be reallocated to busier streets.

Superintendent of Schools Dr. Robert Feirsen and School Board President Colleen Foley did not respond to a request for comment.