With new school construction comes growing pains and one major pain, according to Roosevelt School teacher Ann Barney, is the parking situation for the South End school. She presented her concerns to the City Council Monday night.
I come before you tonight as a collective voice for the Roosevelt Family. I ask that you please listen to our concerns regarding the parking at the new Roosevelt School. There is NOT enough safe, secure parking.
Currently, our building has 62 identified parking spots. This is not enough. We have approximately 80 people who work at Roosevelt. Our parking lot is filled with illegally parked cars, and teachers have to park on the surrounding side streets.
The new school calls for 30 onsite spots and 20 offsite; of the 30 onsite spaces, three will be reserved for Administration and three will be handicapped. This leaves 24 parking spots for teachers.
The offsite parking lot will accommodate 20 cars. This gives a total of 44 parking spots for teachers. Like I said, we now have 62 spots that are not enough and you want to provide us with 44?
Also, the offsite parking lot is far from the front door. It is a .4 of a mile walk. To get to the school, teachers will have to cross two streets. The parking lot is also across the street from a liquor store, and part of a walk we have to pass a drug and alcohol treatment center. Not exactly the safest area. During the winter, who will be in charge of snow and ice removal? Will custodians now have to shovel to our offsite lot?
It is often dark before and after school and the parking lot is very dark and isolated. Certainly the offsite lot is not a place that you would want your mother, wife or daughter walking to.
The teacher’s contract under article 7 Working Conditions specifically state:
7.7 Teacher Facilities 7.7b adequate parking at every school through; purchase of adjacent land, if possible, and agreement with the Police Department concerning parking procedures.Clearly this article in the teacher’s contract is being violated. There is not adequate parking, and the offsite parking lot is not adjacent to school rather almost a half mile away.
Getting rid of the soccer field would solve the parking problem for teachers, staff, parents and visitors. But the Mayor wants a leasable, artificial turf soccer field that does not belong to Roosevelt School. Great! So now let’s work together and find an answer to the parking. We could look at the four houses still on Myrtle Ave. But since they were not included in the original scope of the project, I doubt the city is willing to pick up the tab for eminent domain.
The Roosevelt School Community is asking you for help in resolving this parking and safety issue.
As I listened to the comments on the Roosevelt School project last night, I remember learning about a “revision” from the original plan that caused added expense to this school project (How much? From what source?) and requested by Mayor Finch to include a special soccer field.
I am not sure under whose auspices the field will operate after listening to both sides. Is it school property and school field? Or is it something else owned and operated by a City side Department? And what about the land used?
Were it not for the changes in the original Roosevelt School design necessary to accommodate the soccer field, this controversy would not be present. Is there an open space that would take a dedicated soccer field and allow teachers, parents and visitors to Roosevelt to have safe and convenient parking? Probably. What to do? In the meantime, perhaps someone will look to the minutes of the School Building Committee when the changes were made and see what deliberations were considered by Council members Holloway, Martinez and Banta who sit on that group. Time will tell.
John, the change that added the soccer field to the school grounds was ordered by Mayor Finch and the cost of this soccer field added $900,000 to the cost of the school.
Teachers should not be forced to walk almost 1/2 mile to get to the school in all kinds of bad weather, can someone tell me about any other city employee who has to walk almost 1/2 mile to work?
After the presentation was made by Ann Barney, one of the mayor’s flunkies George Garcia spoke before the council on the parking situation at Roosevelt. Garcia stated there were at least 40 parking spaces under the thruway, having walked that lot I disagree. Garcia went on to say the city would furnish an electric cart and a security person to shuttle back and forth from the school to the lot. My question is where is the cart going to be parked after school and how is it going to work in snow and ice. It will only take six teachers at a time so if you are the seventh teacher you can walk the almost 1/2 mile or wait in the freezing weather for the cart.
The attitude of Garcia and the administration is always cavalier because they are dealing with mostly women. This administrati0on is anti-women and anti-teacher.
Andrew C Fardy, are you trying to be a comedian and the new Jerry Seinfeld with that story about, the city would furnish an electric cart and a security person to shuttle back and forth from the school to the lot, now that’s funny.
Andy was correct in what he posted. The plans for the new school were out. They were out for a very long time. Then Finch decided on the artificial $900,000 field.
Jorge Garcia also spoke Monday night and gave the mayor’s facts and figures. He/they claim between the onsite lot and offsite lot there will be 109 parking spaces. Bullshit! There are 30 parking spots onsite, the head construction guy said they may be able to squeak out three more spots for 33 spots. The offsite site cannot fit more than 20 cars. It really is just a math problem to figure it out.
Mr. Garcia did offer to ask for a third security guard who would start at 7am. He did also suggest an electric car/cart to shuttle people back and forth.
I can also ask for a gold Bentley to drive to work and a raise! You don’t get something just because you ask. Mr. Garcia knows this and so do I. Finch is just saying anything so we go away.
Those offers were from George Garcia representing the administration.
There should be a rule–if you suggest something that asinine, you have to go through it yourself.
Perhaps George can park his car 1/4 mile away from his office for the next nine months and get a golf cart to truck him over to his office, rain, sleet, snow.
Perhaps George can park at the Greene Housing project and get a golf cart shuttle to city hall.
Maybe all high-ranking officials in Bridgeport should try this and see how it works Maybe next time they would think twice about making these “decisions.”
I would add every elected official to your list.
Public speaking sessions before the City Council meetings allow issues, large and small, to be raised by City people in front of the elected representatives of the people of Bridgeport.
To the extent Council persons care about issues like the safety of educators, and to the extent they are adequately informed by their Committee system and the administration, they may be responsive. For the most part relating to fiscal issues, they remain mute and unresponsive continuing to take their voting cues from the administration.
As I have suggested above, there was an old school on the property, Roosevelt School. As a formal, State supported and financed project, the subject of control of the land, before and after the demolition and rebuild of the school, should be easy to determine. If the land used for soccer at the new Roosevelt is under BOE domain, there is a real question as to how Mayor Finch’s desire for a dedicated soccer field in that place came to be approved. Perhaps there was a “royal edict” but I think that might have gotten too much publicity. So the likely way may be in minutes of School Building Committee or may not, but the questions raised by Holloway, Banta and Martinez (or the lack of them) will go a distance to explain why Council representation is perceived at such a low ebb. How did the Mayor score a goal, but only now is a foul called? Time will tell.