The City Council has advanced an agreement allowing the Hoboken Dual Language Charter School (HoLa) to lease 1,183 square feet in the Multi-Service Center for its incoming seventh grade class.
If fully adopted at the next council meeting on Aug. 5, the lease could help answer the crucial question of where the new 21-student class, approved by the state Department of Education last year, will be housed.
The school currently rents out most of the Jerry Molloy Youth Center, another community building, from the Boys and Girls Club of Hudson County, but is already at capacity in that space.
A lawsuit filed by the Hoboken Board of Education seeking to halt HoLa’s expansion still awaits a hearing in state appellate court, though it will not be able to prevent the seventh graders from matriculating in September.
Expanding up, or out?
For the past year and a half, supporters of HoLa and the traditional public school district have carried on a lively and sometimes contentious debate over the implications of the school’s expansion to seventh and eighth grade, often wading into the minutiae of population trends and funding algorithms. Precious little of that discussion has dwelled on the actual logistics of absorbing as many as 113 additional students into HoLa by 2018.
Last September, the City Council passed a resolution allowing HoLa and the Boys and Girls Club to seek an expansion of the Molloy Center before the Zoning Board. But according to Vijay Chaudhuri, the chief of staff to Mayor Dawn Zimmer, the school and the club have been delayed in filing an application.
Barbara Martinez, the president of the HoLa Board of Trustees, declined to comment on the status of HoLa’s plan to expand the Molloy Center. At least for the time being, the option appears to have been abandoned. Because the facility was built using state Green Acres funding, renovation would have required an extensive diversion process in addition to the Zoning Board application.
“First I’d have to come to you with a request to buy a boat.” – John Morgan
____________
Architectural plans released last fall called for a new third floor and two rear additions accommodating 13 classrooms. With the building already so full that classes were held in temporary trailers this past school year, the rear additions would address only extant student population growth in grades K through 6.
The Multi-Service Center lease advanced on Monday would provide HoLa with 1,183 square feet of classroom space in what is currently a rec room filled with ping pong tables, plus additional office space. Rent would amount to $1,100 a month.
Scrounging for space
In light of its significant long-term space requirements, HoLa said the Multi-Service Center lease was a secondary option, with other temporary and long-term solutions still on the table.
“HoLa has been working toward securing a permanent middle school site and hopes to announce a plan very shortly,” said Martinez. “In the meantime, we are grateful that the city is working with us to ensure that the Multi-Service Center could serve as a contingency plan to the permanent site we have been pursuing.”
Hoboken’s under-20 population increased by 2,400 between 2000 and 2010, according to the U.S. Census, and HoLa is not the only local public school currently scrounging for more classroom space.
At the most recent Hoboken school board meeting in late June, Trustee Peter Biancamano noted that four Pre-K classrooms at Wallace Elementary School will be moved into trailers on the school grounds in the coming year due to lack of space in the building.
The trailers will be fully outfitted with security cameras and bathrooms, and were previously used as daycare space after Hurricane Sandy.
Hoboken boaters get reprieve for now
At the last regular City Council meeting on July 8, city transportation director John Morgan assured mariners that a new law requiring a $25,000 surety bond for each vessel moored in Hoboken waters would not immediately be enforced, though he stood by the law’s purpose as written.
At the behest of Council President Ravi Bhalla and Councilman James Doyle, Morgan said he would wait until the council had reached a final decision on possibly amending the law before seeking to remove boats or penalize their owners. The ordinance was passed in June and went into effect on July 7.
The law is intended to answer the question of who is responsible for a collection of sailboats abandoned on the Hoboken side of Weehawken Cove over the past four years. The U.S. Coast Guard and New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection both say the boats are outside their jurisdiction.
Morgan said the surety bond rule would ensure that the city is not forced to bear the full cost of removing any boats abandoned in the future. The provision applies to all vessels moored in Hoboken, even those in the private Shipyard Marina at 13th Street.
The New York City Community Sailing Association moors four sailboats in Weehawken Cove, and its chairman, Bob Roistacher, has argued that he has the right to do so under federal law.
According to Morgan, Roistacher offered to list Hoboken as a co-insurer on the boats it stores in the cove, but Morgan insisted that the sailing club must eventually pay surety bonds, unless the law changes.
As it stands, Morgan has little ability to actually remove vessels from the water. “First I’d have to come to you with a request to buy a boat so I could go out there,” he said. “I don’t think we’re doing that anytime soon.”
However, at least one of the boats abandoned in Hoboken is expected to be removed imminently. The city has already removed the mast and sails from a boat resting on a beach just east of the Hudson Tea Building, and was scheduled to remove the vessel via crane on Saturday.
Because it is on land, the vessel is governed by different rules than those sunk in the cove. The city had to seek out the boat’s owner first, but Morgan said he found that the man had been deported to Italy, allowing the boat’s removal without permission.
Bonds for Washington Street and more
Also on July 8, the City Council approved $12.1 million in new bonds that will fund improvements to Washington Street, the renovation of two city firehouses, and new equipment for the Police and Fire Departments.
The first bond ordinance covers $10 million to replace the decrepit water mains beneath Washington Street, along with green infrastructure, drainage improvements, and new pedestrian safety features on the street surface.
The water main replacements will be funded by a $7.36 million loan from the New Jersey Environmental Infrastructure Trust, and $6.2 million of the bonds will be sold directly to the state as part of the loan process.
The water mains must be dealt with before the rest of Washington Street because repaving the thoroughfare could trigger major leaks in the current pipe.
Mayor Zimmer is pursuing an ambitious plan for the redesign of Washington Street, but the concept has been criticized for narrowing the crucial commercial corridor to make way for a protected bike lane, among other things.
Administration officials stressed that passing the bond ordinance would not lock the city into any of the proposed changes regarding the layout of Washington Street contained in the redesign plan.
The second bond ordinance approved on July 8 devotes $2.15 million to repairs to the midtown and uptown firehouses, the latter of which has a persistent roof leak, the purchase of a new ladder truck, and new radios for the Police Department.
The original version of this article incorrectly stated the annual rent paid by the Hoboken Dual Language Charter School to the Boys and Girls Club of Hudson County for use of the Molloy Center. The figure is $109,000, not $338,608.
Carlo Davis may be reached at cdavis@hudsonreporter.com.