School board inks agreement with village

Possibly signaling the beginning of an end to tensions between two municipal entities, the Rockville Centre Board of Education signed an agreement with the Village of Rockville Centre to share services and govern use of Fireman’s Memorial Field at South Side High School at its Preliminary Budget Hearing on April 20.

The two agreements — a general cooperative agreement and one specifically for the use of Fireman’s Field — outline how the school district and village will share services with the hope of keeping costs down for taxpayers. The new municipal cooperation agreement replaces a previous agreement, forged about 20 years ago, that won the village an award as a paradigm of municipal cooperation.

Directly addressing concerns that have arisen over the months during which the two boards spent trying to come to terms, the municipal agreement mainly outlines facilities usage between the district and the village. It appears to be mutually beneficial, as the village’s use of school facilities in the summer and the district’s use of village playing fields had both become bargaining chips, as each side threatened prohibiting use of the facilities in an effort to persuade the other side to reach an agreement.

The biggest change comes in the form of the new document that outlines the use of parking at Fireman’s Field. Under the new agreement, students would be prohibited from parking on Fireman’s Field, making it specifically a lot for teachers, staff and adult visitors. The field will be open from 7 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. on weekdays. The agreement also says that the school district will be continue to be responsible for the cleaning and general maintenance of Fireman’s Field.

Both agreements expire in June 2011, at which point the school district and village will once again have to sit down and forge a new cooperative agreement — or extend the one they've just agreed on.

“We’re embarking a new era of cooperation with the village that I hope will last many, many years,” said Mark Masin, school board president, as he signed the papers.

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