School Bond Delayed For Building Repairs & Fields

by Joan R. Simon

(August 14, 2008) After deliberating for nearly a year, the Mamaroneck School Board gave preliminary approval to a $40.6 million bond in June, to be put before the voters in October. (See: Mam'k School Board Okays $40.6 Million Bond for Fall.) Linnet Tse, who was elected board president in early July, recently informed the Larchmont Gazette that the original timetable has been postponed. “It’s probably delayed until the new year,” she said.

The bond includes major capital improvement projects; four artificial turf fields and a new track; and resurfacing of the Chatsworth and Murray playgrounds.

The delay is being caused by the environmental review process, known as SEQRA (State Environmental Quality Review Act). Because the bond covers projects in all three local municipalities, it must get approval from two coastal zone management commissions (CZMC), one that oversees development in the Village of Mamaroneck and the other that covers the Village of Larchmont and Mamaroneck Town.

Ms. Tse explained that “normally when projects come to them it’s not through a school district,” but through private business. By the time corporations present their plans, they have full engineering drawings. “Our engineering and design costs are expensive,” she noted, “We’re not allowed to expend the money until the bond has passed. So to work with us is more difficult. The current commissions have not been through it before.”

Superintendent Dr. Paul Fried pointed out that this is all part of an extended SEQRA process that is "probably more complicated than anyone anticipated." Because the district is located next to coastal waters, “their concerns are about run-off – that’s their charge,” Ms. Tse said. “So it’s all about how we’re handling the run-off.”

Dr. Fried noted that the Murray playground is of particular concern due to “the extreme flooding that area has experienced in a number of situations." He added that "whatever we do with the Murray playground, we need to take into consideration what the County is doing at Murray," referring to the road work being done this summer to improve drainage on Murray Avenue near the school.

One Bond Versus Two

School district officials have talked with their engineering consultants, LAN Associates, and the director of facilities, George McNally, about the Hommocks boiler and other badly-needed projects, all of which would be delayed. The “strong recommendation” was to “keep everything together,” said Ms. Tse. In particular, “George and the mechanics feel pretty comfortable that they can keep the boilers running.”

Ms. Tse explained that the reason for not breaking out individual items, such as the ailing boiler at the Hommocks, is because 80% of the bond expenditures are for essential building repairs. The recommendation was that because “all the building work is so critical” it would be preferable “to delay three months and have it all approved at that point.”

The unspoken risk is that an initial bond might pass, but a second bond could fail.

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