Page 6 THE VILLADOM TIMES II • December 11, 2013 Ridgewood Residents present opinions on Schedler ball field by John Koster A supporter of the Open Space Committee’s tentative plan to lay out a 60 by 90 foot baseball field on the Schedler Property said he already had 460 signatures on a petition supporting this position, but most of the people who spoke at last week’s Ridgewood Council meeting were strongly opposed to that project. “I won’t take too much of your time and I won’t parade people in here to say the same thing,” said Jim Albano, who Scout’s Habernickel project approved Kenneth Marshall, an Eagle Scout candidate, received the approval of the Ridgewood Village Council to organize the installation of a flagpole and associated garden near the baseball diamond at Habernickel Park. The park, developed from the old Habernickel Horse Farm property, is under continuous development with a mixture of athletic and natural recreational opportunities. Deputy Mayor Albert Pucciarelli spoke with Marshall, a sophomore at Ridgewood High School and a member of Boy Scout Troop 7, before the brief formal presentation at the Dec. 4 work session of the council. “He’s a very bright, articulate young man,” Pucciarelli told the council. Marshall spoke briefly about his pro- posal. The project has the full approval of the Ridgewood Parks and Recreation Department. Ridgewood Village Engineer Christopher Rutishauser will stand by as technical consul- tant. Former Deputy Mayor Thomas Riche joined in the unanimous approval of the service project and noted that only four percent of all enrolled Boy Scouts achieve the rank of Eagle Scout. J. KOSTER Kenneth Marshall and Deputy Mayor Albert Pucciarelli Board appoints disabilities teacher-consultant The Ridgewood Board of Education has appointed Eileen Devaney as a learning disabilities specialist and teacher at the Willard School effective Feb. 1, 2014 (or sooner) through the end of the year at a salary of $89,484. The salary reflects a master’s degree plus 30 extra credits and Step 13 of the salary guide. Student workers in the information technology program were approved for wages at $7.25 per hour. The four stu- dents -- Ahn Hyong Gun, Augustine Kelly, William Lucca, and Griffin Splinker -- are slated to each earn $181 for the month of December for a maximum of 25 hours of work. In January, March, May, and June, the four students will each earn a maximum of $429, and in February and in April, the same four students will each earn $528 for a maximum of 64 hours as the minimum wage will increase from $7.25 to (continued on page 16) said he liked the teen-style baseball field and plans to save the tree line and the existing house on the land. However, he predicted that his petition would have far more than the 460 resident approval signatures that he already had as of the first week of December. Richard Bennett had also supported the Open Space Committee suggestion for a single field and retention of the house and many of the trees. Other residents who spoke -- most of them neighbors of the park site -- raised substantial objections in terms of per- sonal safety, property values, and potential traffic if a ball field that drew older teen who sometimes drove their own cars were constructed on the Schedler property, which is located on the far side of Route 17 from most of commercial and administrative Ridgewood. “Think about Route 17 -- I’m worried about that,” one Schedler area neighbor said. “I’m really worried that some- thing is going to happen.” Former mayor Keith Killion, a retired police captain and lifetime Ridgewood resident, had pledged when he was in office that no sports fields would be built on the Schedler property if it were acquired until a method of traversing Route 17 was worked out that precluded pedestrians from attempting to run across the state highway on foot, with possibly fatal consequences. Mayor Paul Aronsohn, who succeeded Killion, agreed that safety had to be taken very seriously. So did most of the people who spoke from the audience. When the objectors were asked to stand, about half the people in the council chambers did so. This left the council with the dilemma of balancing the established need for more sports fields against the safety and nuisance factors of putting a base- ball field in a section of Ridgewood near Ho-Ho-Kus with narrow roads. One speaker from the audience noted that, with a 41- foot-wide two-way thoroughfare, a car parked on either side at the same time could prevent even a single car from driving on West Saddle River Road. “I think it will be impacting our community and our children in a very dangerous way,” he said. Donald Henke, another Schedler neighbor, said he had played baseball in high school and college and that a 30- foot fence to stop fly balls would be inadequate for players (continued on page 16)