Jefferson Parents Want Their Crossing Guard Back

A group of concerned parents asked the  Town Council  to return a crossing guard to the intersection of Central Avenue and Sycamore Street.

The guard was one of  nine crossing guard posts cut as a result of the town's budget shortfall. The parents of Jefferson School elementary-school students are particularly upset, saying that the children crossing from the Manor Park neighborhood to Jefferson are too young to cross Central Avenue without supervision.

"It is the topic of the neighborhood right now," Michael Endy said.

Jefferson parent Mike DeBenedetto and other parents said they've witnessed near accidents at the Central-Sycamore intersection, caused by drivers who either stop in the middle of the intersection or try to make left turns from Central Avenue. Ciarrocca stressed he is familiar with the intersection since his son, Jack, bikes across the intersection to attend Edison Intermediate School.

Town officials said the intersection should become safer due to the current traffic safety improvements that the county is doing on Central Avenue. These include new lights at the intersection and better signage regarding prohibited turns on Central Avenue. 

DeBenedetto suggested the town work to have the new lights programmed to allow for a four way stop, when a button is pressed, during peak pedestrian crossing periods to safely allow students to cross. The new lights have been programmed to allow fire department officials to implement a four way stop when fire trucks are exiting from fire house two.

Council members said they support the idea and Town Administrator Jim Gildea plans to study if the idea is feasible. There is also talk in the neighborhood of implementing more walking school bus routes and other parent backed safety campaigns.

Gildea said that the public-safety committee decided to cut the guard's patrol when a light was installed at that intersection. He said that the first guard cuts were made at other intersections with lights. Gildea added that town officials discussed the plan with outside groups, such as Westfield Police Department, the BRAKES pedestrian-safety advocacy group, the spokesman for the crossing guards and the Board of Education.

"Every group we talked to believed they should be the first to go," Gildea said of the crossing guard posts with traffic lights in place.

Mayor Andy Skibitsky, who lives in the Jefferson School neighborhood, said he supported the decision based on the recommendations of the town's traffic-safety professionals. Fifty crossing guards remain on duty.

In addition to Central and Sycamore, guards were removed from the intersections of Central and Grove, Central and Clifton and South and Westfield – all of which have traffic lights.

The crossing-guard cuts are part of the town's attempt to cover a $2 million budget shortfall. The nine cuts were down from a projected high of 20 jobs eliminated. But  Gildea says that it still leave Westfield with the most crossing guards of any town in the county.

Councilman Mark Ciarrocca said the Central-Sycamore guard has been moved to the intersection of Boulevard and Clover, since it is closer to Jefferson School and has a higher volume of students.

Ciarrocca said that the town's financial difficulties won't get better in the immediate future and recommended that parents volunteer to help kids cross at the intersection.

"What we will see more and more with the two-percent budget cap is that more and more people in the community will need to volunteer to fill the gaps," he said.