Opposing views aired on Bishops Gate walkway

by Karen Keefe
Grand Island Dispatch, November 19, 2004

Would students from Bishops Gate Road have a safer route to class if a walkway were constructed to the High School? Or would a walkway be an attractive nuisance, creating a path to loitering, littering, property damage and drug activity that could further endanger kids and spoil the surrounding neighborhood?

It was the Town Board’s turn Monday night to hear public arguments for and against a walkway. On Nov. 8, the School Board approved building its portion of the sidewalk and a gate in the fence between the neighborhood and school property, at an estimated cost of $1,250. The town’s portion has been estimated between $7,000 and $10,000, depending on the design.

This is not a new issue for the town. It first came up in 1969, when the development was being planned. Now residents have settled in, but the issue is far from settled. Town and school district scheduled a meeting this week to try to resolve the matters of design and maintenance. The Town Board will be placing the issue on the agenda for its Dec. 6 meeting.

Linda Brozek lives at 94 Bishops Gate, on one side of the easement where the walkway would go through to the student parking lot behind the High School. She and her husband, Craig, oppose the walkway that other residents say would increase safety.

“My husband and I are here because safety is our No. 1 priority,” she said during the public comment section near the close of the Town Board meeting. “We feel we are good neighbors because we are concerned about the safety of the students as well as neighborhood children, property values, personal, school district and town liability, as well as criminal activity this walkway could bring to our neighborhood.”

Brozek said a study by school district insurance underwriters supports her concerns about constructing the sidewalk.

In a Sept. 15 inspection report, the insurance company, New York Schools Insurance Reciprocal, concluded, “This proposed location creates significant student safety hazard and increases the district’s and parents’ vulnerability to liability claims.” The report cited lack of lighting in the area, the excessive speed and inexperience of student drivers and the extremely isolated location, which “increases the potential for a student assault or other illicit activities to occur.”

Brozek endorses another sidewalk location proposed by the insurance company. Its report recommends: “Alternatively, this sidewalk should be located on Ransom Road and connect into the school’s sidewalk across the access drive to the student parking area.” The company said the area has good lighting and is a more appropriate and expected crossing, once Niagara Mohawk relocates guy wires that are in the way.

“The School Board appears to have been pressured to approve” the walkway, Brozek said. “Individual members of the board were contacted with a petition of signatures from only five households on Bishops Gate Road,” Brozek said.

Eric Boron of 120 Bishops Gate disagreed with the alternative site Brozek supports. His children are walkers to the High School and Middle School. “During rush hour time – approximately 7 to 7:20 in the morning, over 100 cars use the driveway” to the parking lot, he said. Boron pointed to heavy traffic exiting and entering Bishops Gate and Independence Drive and up and down Ransom Road during the morning rush hour. He said there is no traffic light there, “so when … my children walk down to the end of Bishops Gate and turn left onto Ransom, they have to look in about five different directions to know if it’s safe to proceed.”

School Board President David Goris said the debate between town and school boards has gone on way too long – since June of 2002. He said the School Board “requests that the Town Board move as quickly as possible to resolve this issue.”

Deputy Supervisor Richard Crawford, who chaired the meeting, said he would keep residents apprised of any developments on the walkway issue.

In other matters, the board:

•Approved the creation of a lighting district for Oakwood Estates at River Oaks.

•Approved the return of Veterans Drive to seasonal use because of significant snow drifting and poor visibility that requires extra snow removal resources. Supervisor Peter McMahon had noted in a memo to the Town Board that the road is not heavily traveled and serves mainly as a shortcut. The road will be closed to traffic from Dec. 1, or the first snow accumulation, to April 1, or when the snow melts.

•Approved a resolution calling on the county executive and the county Legislature to work together in a bipartisan effort to agree on short- and long-term solutions to the deep service cuts that are part of the executive’s worst-case budget proposal. McMahon noted to the Town Board on Monday that “A long-term or permanent solution involves Medicaid reform by New York state. That cannot be completed in time to prevent the proposed cuts.” He also pointed to a package of financial changes as a short-term solution, likely including increases in property and sales taxes, along with reasonable and appropriate reductions in services.

County Executive Joel Giambra’s so-called “red budget” would eliminate Sheriff’s road patrols, library services and human services in the county’s municipalities.

•Accepted with regret the resignation of Thomas Burke from the Grand Island Commission for the Conservation of the Environment.