Council: Speeding near schools will lead to tickets; County bldg. for sale?
Wednesday, March 6, 2019 • The Hammonton Gazette • Page 3
COUNCIL, from Page 1
Roos during the second public
comment portion of the meeting.
Roos, who resides on Walnut
Street, claimed that he often wit-
nesses motorists driving signifi-
cantly above the speed limit on his
street, as well as on North Third
Street and Old Forks Road.
“I am growing wary of the lack
of regard for that area, for the
speed and for the people in that
area. There are 17 children, if not
more, between Old Forks Road
and Third [Street] on Walnut, and
I will not continue to tolerate the
behavior of the people in this
town, and around this town and
around that area any longer. It has
been noted by outsiders ... from
this town by way of letters to the
newspaper as to the issues of the
speed. So, I would ask town coun-
cil: what can be done to address
that concern?” Roos said.
Mayor Stephen DiDonato told
Roos that he would discuss in-
creasing police enforcement in the
area with Hammonton Police
Chief Robert Jones. In the mean-
time, DiDonato said the town’s
residents need to be more cog-
nizant of their speed while driv-
ing.
“We’re going to have to get the
chief out there and let him run
some patrols, put signage out
there so people realize their speed.
That is a cut-through—I’m not
going to tell you it’s not—a lot of
people cut through ... Everybody
just has to slow down a little bit;
we all have to just slow down …
We’ll talk to the Chief, and I’m
sure he hears you as you’re speak-
ing,” DiDonato said.
In addition to excessive speed-
ing in the areas mentioned by
Roos, Councilman Thomas Grib-
bin said that he also noticed that
motorists will often make U-turns
after turning right onto Fourth
Street when exiting the Warren E.
Sooy Jr. Elementary School park-
ing lot via the Road to Excellence
in order to bypass the restriction
of left turns onto Fourth Street.
“I have noticed, because I drop
my girls off at school there, that it
is not being enforced. I believe
there was a traffic study done by
the school board a number of
years ago and that was one of the
recommendations. I think we need
to go back to the Chief and remind
him that there is an [ordinance] …
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in place prohibiting left-hand
turns during those hours, school
hours specifically, and I would
hope that it would start to be more
strictly enforced,” Gribbin said.
Councilwoman Brooke Sacco
said Jones told her he would begin
issuing traffic tickets on Fourth
Street once it was requested by
council’s law and order commit-
tee.
Sacco suggested the speeding
issues that Roos spoke about
could be directly correlated with
motorists being prohibited from
making left turns onto Fourth
Street.
“I think they’re then speeding
on Walnut and Old Forks because
they thought they’re missing two
minutes of their day by not being
able to make that left on to the
Fourth Street. So, I think it is a big
issue; this is the safety of our chil-
dren and we’ll just have to slow
down,” Sacco said.
DiDonato said that although the
town does not want to freely issue
traffic tickets just for the sake of
doing so, Fourth Street and the
roads nearby will have an height-
ened police presence going for-
ward due to the complaints
council has heard about the unsafe
driving conditions in the area.
“We’re going to be writing tick-
ets and I know we’re going to
upset a lot of people. We’re going
to put extra patrols, and if we have
to write 20 tickets a day, we do
what we got to do. And I guess
after day two or day three, it’ll all
be over. But in the interim, it’s
going to cost a lot of people a lot
of money—their hard-earned dol-
lars—that we really don’t want,”
DiDonato said.
In other news, DiDonato re-
ported that the town received a let-
ter from Atlantic County officials,
seeking council’s consideration of
alternate properties in Hammon-
ton where it could potentially re-
locate the services currently
provided at the county-owned
building located at 310 Bellevue
Ave., which the county would like
to sell to a private investor, ac-
cording to DiDonato.
DiDonato said the letter insinu-
ated that the Hammonton Canoe
Club was a potential location
where the town could relocate the
building’s services.
“The ask is basically that the
way you’re currently using the
Canoe Club, or a building like
that, if you have another one, then
they’ll use it. But the way you’re
currently using the Canoe Club,
they would like to rearrange how
they’re doing it and have some of
their services work out of that
building in conjunction with
yours,” DiDonato said.
Some members of council ques-
tioned whether the Canoe Club, or
any other property in Hammon-
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