CITY TRAFFIC STUDY DOES NOT SUPPORT FASNY RELOCATION TO WHITE PLAINS

Dear White Plains Board of Education members,

EcoNeighbors is a White Plains environmental group active around a number of issues, including FASNY.  Some of our members attended FASNY's presentation to you Sept. 23, and we're very pleased you're becoming involved in the public response to them.

As you are undoubtedly aware, Council voted 5-2 on Sept. 16 to accept FASNY's DFEIS as complete.  This was despite two years of activity by many, many White Plains residents who oppose the project for a whole host of reasons.

In mid-October, only a few short weeks from now, Council will be voting on whether to give FASNY their permits to build.  EcoNeighbors believes that the Board of Ed, the PTA, and White Plains public school families in general are perhaps the single constituency in our city whose well-being and safety no Common Council member would vote to undermine.  
You are in a unique position in this fight, and EcoNeighbors urges you to fully inhabit it.  

We urge you to present an organized, forceful position to Council and the Mayor of the various ways our public schools will be undermined should FASNY build its seven large buildings, scattered sports facilities, and long entrance roads for a student body of 1200 students and staff of 250.

FASNY's presentation to you Sept. 23 addressed only traffic issues for one proposed entrance, and only in a very narrow way.  We urge you to avail yourselves of all the information available on the range of impacts FASNY's huge educational complex would have on our community. 
Two days ago, the Gedney Association was finally able, after a number of requests were ignored, to get from the city the supposedly publicly-available TRC Technical Review of FASNY's DFEIS traffic report. FASNY has been claiming the report is favorable to them, but in fact its traffic conclusions read (p. 31-2):

It is the opinion of TRC, based upon our experience with schools,... that the proposed pick-up and drop-off procedures will not operate appropriately as currently proposed, especially under "real life" conditions.  As illustrated in the VISSIM simulations, significant back-ups will occur.

We believe that FASNY will promise the moon to our public schools until they get their building permits.  Beyond that, it's like paying a contractor entirely up front before work begins on your home.  Once the contractor has all the money in hand - and once FASNY has their permits in hand - they will no longer have any incentive whatsoever to deliver on the myriad promises made for e. g. mandatory busing, student access to nature trails, paying for safer student pedestrian crossings, and so on.  And White Plains residents will have absolutely no way to enforce those promises.

Many of the members of EcoNeighbors chose to live in White Plains because of the excellence and diversity of our public educational system.  Some of us have children still in our schools.  Others have children who went all through White Plains public schools and, based on the excellent educational and social foundation here, have gone on to successful adult careers with positive impacts on society,

We all have a stake in maintaining the health of our public school system.  But only our Board of Education is officially mandated to protect it.  Please take every action necessary to do so.

Sincerely,
Carry Kyzivat, Holly Flieger, Deborah von Glahn, Naomi Klein, Marie McCann, Anne Bobroff-Hajal, Yvonne Gumowitzfor EcoNeighbors