7,677 residents from 5,001 in the prior census? Did they forget to include the Waterford or something?
$7.9M school plan gets final airing in Edgewater
Wednesday, January 15, 2003
By LAURA FASBACH
Staff Writer
EDGEWATER - If development along the Hudson River has brought more students to the borough, Gertrude Hanusek has a simple solution: Get developers to pay for the $7.9 million expansion of the district's only school.
Hanusek, a borough native, former teacher, and former school board member, was one of 20 people to attend a hearing Tuesday night on the project - the last such meeting before a Jan. 28 referendum.
The state has offered to pay $2.1 million toward expansion at the Eleanor Van Gelder School, and residents will decide whether they want to cover the remaining $5.8 million for new classrooms, a new gym, and an upgraded cafeteria.
A yes vote would cost taxpayers about $93 a year on a home assessed at $200,000, the borough's average.
The aid from the state Education Department would pay about 27 percent of the project's cost.
Hanusek asked the board whether it asked developers to help defray the cost.
"I wish we had the power to ask the developers," school board President Nadia Massuda responded. "There's no law."
Board member Peter DePaul added: "Developers claim since there's no law, there's no responsibility."
Hanusek said she plans to vote against the referendum, calling the district's proposal a piecemeal solution.
The expansion project is the school board's answer to growing enrollment at the kindergarten through sixth-grade school on Undercliff Avenue. Edgewater students in grades seven through 12 attend Leonia schools.
Several people at the hearing suggested that the district reopen the George Washington School at the northern end of town. But Superintendent Ted Blumstein said that would cost more than $10 million.
"Expanding the school is the most cost-effective way to go," he said.
The proposal also had some supporters in the audience.
Jane Roberti, whose daughter will graduate from Leonia High School this year, supported the district's plan.
"It translates into people's property values, whether or not you have a child in the school," she said.
For more than 10 years, Edgewater's growth has strained the school's capacity.
According to Census Bureau figures, the borough was Bergen County's fastest-growing community from 1990 to 2000, with its population increasing to 7,677 residents from 5,001.
The elementary school enrollment grew to 365 students this year from 232 in 1991 - a 57 percent jump. Demographic studies funded by the district show that in three years, enrollment could increase to more than 420.
