09/09/11 Students Trying To Get Around Parking Restrictions At GHS By Parking At The Middle School The Town Has A Clear Message For Them: "NO!!!"

At the request of the Board of Education, the Board of Selectman unanimously approved temporary parking restrictions for Central Middle School to prevent students from nearby GHS from parking there and then walking the rest of the way.

Under the new restrictions, all Central Middle School faculty and staff will receive temporary permits. This will allow the district to create a spreadsheet with license numbers, permit numbers and staff names that police will use to make sure no one is parking improperly at the school.

The town’s Parking Enforcement Officers will then patrol the area with assistance from Greenwich High School security.

Senior parking at GHS has been temporarily suspended while work continues in removing contaminated soil from the school grounds. The soil was first discovered during work on a new parking lot for the school’s music instructional space and auditorium (MISA) project earlier this summer, forcing the work on the western parking lot to be immediately ceased and rescheduled for summer 2012. Thousands of tons of contaminated soil and fill are now being removed from the area with dozens of trucks operating daily.

Currently parking is only allowed for faculty and administration. Students who previously were able to drive to school face the prospect of now taking the school bus.

BOE Officials say, that the PCB tainted lot will be back in use for students by the end of September.

More than 3,000 tons of soil had been removed so far in approximately 100 truck loads.

By last Friday, most of the pile of soil was gone and Mr. Ross said he was hopeful the other materials could also be removed by the end of this week or the start of next week.

However simply removing the piles is not the end of the work since there have to be clearances given that the current soil conditions pose no health risk to students.

There were extra police officers on the scene along with school security to help direct traffic.

There supposedly were two school buses, one on each end of town, ready to respond if there is not enough room on the existing routes to accommodate the extra students.

The selectmen quickly approved the restrictions without debate at their September 1st meeting.

The restrictions on Central Middle School can be lifted at the discretion of Superintendent of Schools Roger Lulow and it is expected they will be ended once the GHS lot is open for student use again.

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