>School board issues statement on request for environmental impact study
Friday, June 11, 2010
BY MICHAEL SEDON
The Ridgewood News
STAFF WRITER
RIDGEWOOD — The Ridgewood Board of Education (BOE) issued a statement Friday regarding a petition sent to school officials urging the BOE to ask the village’s Planning Board to commission an environmental impact study.
The study, the petition states, should be conducted before the Planning Board votes on a Master Plan amendment required for Valley Hospital’s “Renewal” plans to move forward.
At a Planning Board meeting on Monday night, at least four residents pleaded with the board to hire a specialist to conduct the environmental impact study. The residents believe the study will help predict the future effects of any construction at the site and the surrounding area.
A group of parents with children in the Ridgewood Public Schools made a last-ditch effort to request the study and crafted a petition June 3. The petition, which began circulating June 4, asked the superintendent of schools and the Board of Education to press the Planning Board for the study.
Ridgewood Board of Education President Michele Lenhard and Superintendent of Schools Dr. Daniel Fishbein issued the following statement Friday:
“In keeping with the Board and superintendent’s responsibility to ensure the safety, health and education of the district’s students, we respect the concerns of the community members who signed the petition and we appreciate their request for more information via an environmental health impact study prior to the Planning Board’s vote.
“We agree that an independent environmental study is important. Such a study is typically completed as part of a full site review, once the Planning Board has examined detailed engineering and architectural plans and approved construction. Whether that timetable should be altered and an environmental impact study conducted prior to the vote to amend the Master Plan cannot be determined by the Ridgewood Board of Education. We trust the Village Planning Board, as the body responsible to ensuring our community’s interests and protecting the health of all residents, to make such determinations as they see necessary.
“Safeguarding the health and safety of our students is the number one priority of the Ridgewood Board of Education and school administration. In testimony submitted to the Planning Board on June 17, 2009, we voiced specific health, safety, and educational concerns that may arise should the Master Plan be amended and the Valley Hospital expansion go forward. If an amendment is approved, it will be important to clarify how acceptable levels of air quality can be maintained for the duration of the Valley Hospital Renewal Project. Should the Valley Renewal project proceed to construction, we will work closely with the Village Engineer and Valley Hospital administration to make sure that the Ridgewood Public Schools students and staff are fully safeguarded.”
Although nearly 700 people signed the petition in four days, the Planning Board could not officially accept it into the record since its attorney, Gail Price, said the signatures could not be verified. She did, however, accept the petition as part of an unofficial file on the proceedings.
“Petitions are not admissible in evidence in proceedings such as the Planning Board area unless everyone who signed the petition is present,” Price said. “It certainly can be accepted into the file that’s being kept on behalf of this matter, and I recommend that that happen.”
