Friday, December 30, 2016
Vol. 93, No.17
FOUNDED 1923
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LOCALLY OWNED AND EDITED
The Year in Review PAGE 9 n This Week at the Rotary PAGE 20
Village of Garden City Year in Review 2016
GCHS: Six-Time National Blue Star School & Gold Star Teachers
BY RIKKI N. MASSAND As the New Year 2017 approaches, the Village of Garden City can reflect on a leap year of progress, transitions, and debates that stem from the very fabric of the established community. Keeping Garden City up to date with the changing times and running the village to optimal business performance have been balanced with community engagement and maintaining facility and staffing quality. But from its start, 2016 was not short on disputable circumstances.
Fence at Franklin Court
Business students at Garden City High School have, for the sixth consecutive year, achieved Blue Star status on the W!SE (Working in Support of Education) financial literacy exam. “Gold Star” teachers Reid Sclafani (right) and Dr. Erin McKinstry (left) are pictured with a few of the students whose proficiency earned the honor (left to right): juniors Kieran Paskewitz, Andrew Tang, Ryan George, Brennan Maggio, sophomore Chase Gladd, and juniors Kathy Bass and Julia Choi.
Garden City Public Schools Wrap-Up: 2016 BY RIKKI N. MASSAND
The calendar year 2016 overlaps with two academic years in schools such as the Garden City Union Free Public School district. But from start to finish the local schools made news headlines, especially to mark its students’ excellence with multiple
high notes for both academic and athletic performances. A number one ranking on Long Island for Garden City High School (in 2015) by U.S. News & World Report, and several student achievements from honors society, Siemens National Merit semifinalists
to county and state awards and more were detailed from one year ago and leading up to the annual school budget vote in the spring. The district’s $110.84 million annual budget for 2016-’17 passed easily, as did a faciliSee page 32
The controversy over the sale of the Franklin Court park property to a private group of residents, and its repurchase by the village for $50,000 than the original sale, and the issue of keeping up a fence that was never there before 2014 carried on into the first month of 2016. Talk of lawsuits have fizzled since action by the village government to make amends and decide the fate of the village property, whether or not popular opinion was in consensus. The last Board of Trustees’ meeting of 2015 (December 17, covered in the December 25, 2015 edition of the News) featured a vote to remove the interior fence at the Franklin Court property. But the new year didn’t bring any reason to celebrate to the dozens of outspoken residents frustrated about the village’s December 2013 sale of the parcel and private usage by the Franklin Mews group residents -- the Board followed with a 5-3 vote to keep up the large, six-foot-high exterior fence in January, prompting a departure from the subject and a hush from the Mews’ folks who had said little about the original purchase other than their safety considerations. Citing the security benefit and saying the fence serves a tangible purpose, Mayor Nicholas Episcopia summed up the decision in an interview on Tuesday, January 19. “I’ve had all kinds of people telling me that it makes no sense to take the fence down. I’ve had plenty of people tell me that from the get-go, when we first (repurchased) the property in June 2015. There were a whole bunch of people that were happy we repurchased the thing and that the property was open space again. But nobody wants to go there or needs to go there at night,” the mayor said.
Crown Castle Creeps Up
Crown Castle and the expansion of telecommunications’ structures and networks in and around Garden City became a topic that stirred residents from February 2016 throughout the summer, as units installed in the backyards of Garden City homes were targeted for upgrades and alterations. What is being done by the telecomm companies, how many units and what levels of radiofrequency being emitted by the units were all questions residents have sought answers to. The village soon took heed and the Board of Trustees adopted an ordinance this year reguSee page 36
Swim & Dive Team defeats Farmingdale PAGE 46 Chanukah Party at the Garden City Jewish Center PAGE 24 Christmas program at Church Nursery School PAGE 28