Your Guide to Five Towns Bagels Page B7
Vol. I No. III
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APRIL 1-7, 2011
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Hewlett-Woodmere School Budget Balloons to $103.4 Million Cost Per Student Averages $34,000
District 15 Board Elections Set for May 17th
By JC Chan STANDARD STAFF REPORTER
By Susan Varghese STANDARD ASSISTANT EDITOR
To say that School District 15 elections are controversial is an understatement. The school district, which has been entangled in racial and religious tensions for years, is preparing for their annual Board of Education elections. On May 17, 2011, residents of District 15 will be able to voice their opinions and vote for the trustee slots on the Board of Education. Murray Forman and Asher Mansdorf are the two incumbents on the Board this year, who are up for re-election as their three-year terms end. There’s a position available ev-
“Cherry Blossoms” from local painter and art teacher, Brocha Teichman. This piece can be found at The Art Studio of The Five Towns on 48 Frost Lane in Lawrence.
By Susan Varghese
Asher Mansdorf, current Vice President of Lawrence School Board of Education ery year, and it depends on the re-election cycle, explained Mansdorf. The cycle is two positions one year, two positions the next, and three the year after. This year, there are two open slots for trustee positions, and once the trustees are elected, the board chooses the vice president and president positions in July. Mansdorf is in his third term on the school board, and noted that there’s still a lot of hatred in the district. “It’s Orthodox Jews versus non-Orthodox Jews, and non-Jews,” he explained. Mansdorf recalled when residents directed “prejudicial statements” towards the Orthodox Jewish members of the board, voicing things like, “You don’t want your kids swimming with our black kids…your blood is too thick,” or that a reason why special education in the district was so expensive was because “Orthodox Jews marry other Orthodox Jews and as a result they
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11 Red Light Cameras are Watching You STANDARD ASSISTANT EDITOR
Gwynn Campbell, one of the candidates running
The cost of educating children in The Five Towns is not a cheap proposition, but that cost has been getting steeper year after year. From the 2008-2009 budget to the proposed budget upcoming for 2011-2012, that cost has risen by 9.14 percent. The proposed budget for the Hewlett-Woodmere District 14 in the upcoming school year is $103,388,325 or approximately $34,000 per student with an enrollment of 3,038. The District has set a high bar for education, including taking its high school band on a concert tour in Puerto Rico and bringing high ability learners to study together in its middle school discovery enrichment program, but
how much does the local resident pay? Taxpayers will bear most of the burden for $91.9 million of the budget through property taxes. The rest of the budget is supplemented with an additional $6.2 million from state aid and the remainder in general revenues, investment income, library revenues, and others. This year’s proposed budget is a 2.52 percent increase over last year’s budget, which was just over $100 million. In the years between 2008 and now, the School District’s budget has increased every year. Between 2008-2009, the School District’s budget was $94,479,458 which increased 5.80 percent from the prior year. In 2009-2010, the bud-
You’re late for work. You’ve got to pick up the kids. You think you can make the light. Whatever the reason may be, if you blow through a red light, one of the 11 traffic cameras nestled all over The Five Towns will likely spot you. Nassau County’s red light cameras, which issue $65 tickets, collected $14,936,814 of revenue for the County in 2010, according to a county official. There are three red light cameras on Mill Road at Peninsula Boulevard in Hewlett, two on the Nassau Expressway at Rockaway Turnpike in Inwood/Lawrence, four on Burnside Avenue at Nassau Expressway (Route 878) in Inwood/Lawrence, and two on Peninsula Boulevard at Woodmere Boulevard in Woodmere. If the legislature approves additional cameras, there may
be some more installed this year, Minstron said. According to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS), revenue isn’t the main reason for the red light cameras. “Revenue generated from fines paid by drivers who continue to run red lights, but this is a fundamental component of all traffic enforcement programs. Ideally, ticket revenue should decline over time as the cameras succeed in deterring would-be red light runners.” The IIHS also noted that having red light cameras in 14 large cities reduced the rate of “fatal red light running crashes” by 24 percent. The red light camera program began around 2000 to help change people’s driving behavior, said Christopher Mistron, the traffic safety educator for Nassau County. “I know there’s talk about revenue, but…if we were only doing it for revenue,
we’d choose places where we would have higher volume rather than where there are crashes,” Mistron said. “Most people here don’t have any idea about the red light cameras, even with the signs post-
ed” said Phil Berkowitz of the Allstate Insurance Agency in Hewlett. “The good thing is that it doesn’t effect their insurance anyway because we can’t tell who was driving the car. I think it’s a great idea, because after you get a ticket in the mail, you might think twice about running the light,” Berkowitz said. The program was created not just for the accidents that occurred when people were stuck in the middle of an intersection, Mistron said, but for the third and fourth car behind them that
also went through the red light. The cameras are programmed to consider the average speed traveled and the length of the intersection before changing from yellow to red, Mistron explained. “But, people were even going faster than the anticipated speed, and treating yellow signals like they were an extended green. We’re trying to go back and get people to drive like they were taught in drivers education,” noted Mistron. One Five Towns resident and driver, Herbert Grunberg, said that in general the lights are “okay,” but noted two instances when he believed he received two tickets in error. Grunberg noted that when going east on Sheridan, and about to go north on 878, the green light arrow is on, but he received tickets anyway. “ I’m 80 and I follow all
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New Census Data Showing Increased Diversity for Five Towns By Susan Varghese STANDARD ASSOCIATE EDITOR
790 people. Cedarhurst had a 51.8 percent increase in their African Ameri-
can population, and 20 percent increase in Asians. Hewlett went from 58 African
Americans to 159, resulting in a 63.6 percent increase. Lawrence had a 20.5 percent
decrease in Hispanics, and a 15
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The Five Towns is becoming a bit more colorful, according to the 2010 census. For the years 2000 to 2010, in Inwood alone, there was a 58 percent increase in the Hispanic population, and that ethnic group increased the most out of all the groups in The Five Towns. Atlantic Beach is the least diverse out of all The Five Towns, with only 5.4 percent of the 1,891 residents being Hispanic, African American, or Asian. However, it still had a 20.3 percent increase in Hispanics. In Woodmere, the population of African Americans increased by 62.2 percent, while a slight increase resulted in Asians and Hispanics having coincidentally,
C l a s s i f i e d s B 6 • E d i t o r i a l s A 8 • E v e n t s B 2 • M o v i e s B 2 • S p o r t s B 4 • We a t h e r A 2