Boyer Avenue matters, including Frog rock, on council agenda
Page 4 • Wednesday, October 2, 2019 • The Hammonton Gazette
COUNCIL, from Page 1
“We started last week, last tues-
day (september 17) i believe, at
Boyer avenue on our land app. We
began removing silt from trench
four. We anticipate this going on
probably this week and the early
part of next week. We’ve had some
great dry weather that’s working
out well for us. We’re going to de-
silt the trench, and we’re going to
stack it up, and then kind of build
up the sidewalls with the silt. if
there’s time, we’re going to also do
trench five this year. We’ve already
rototilled trenches two and three.
My goal is, over a three-year pe-
riod, we’ll have all the silt removed
from the trenches,” furgione said.
furgione also made mention of
the interceptor trench on the Boyer
avenue property, and the work as-
sociated with that.
“We have the supplies ordered
for our discharge pipe that is at the
end of our interceptor trench. that
project will go as soon as we’re
done with our silt removal in our
trenches,” furgione said.
town engineer Mark Her-
mann’s report featured four infor-
mation items regarding the Boyer
avenue area, which read as fol-
lows:
• Boyer avenue – 2019 addi-
tional survey Work (arH
p2019.0519): the survey and
right-of-way mark-out of sewell
avenue is complete; survey of
Boyer avenue and the interceptor
trench area for sanitary sewer ex-
tension will be completed by the
end of the week. as discussed at
the pWtC meeting, the 7th street
work will be held to a later date.
• relocation of interceptor
trench
discharge
(arH
#p2019.0239): soil analysis results
have been received and a prelimi-
nary relocation plan has been de-
veloped for review. this plan will
be discussed at the pWtC meeting
on september 19.
• Boyer avenue – 2018 opti-
mization phase i (arH #11-
50058): a draft version of this
report was sent out on March 29,
2019.
• frog rock Golf Course Legal
action (arH #11-01000): adams,
rehmann & Heggan developed a
cost estimate and summary of the
items that we believe frog rock
has not completed in contravention
to the 1999 Consent order and at-
tended a federal hearing in regard
to this matter on august 29. at this
time, the judge has given both par-
ties 30 days to review information
submitted by frog rock counsel.
We were not provided with a copy
of this document, but can review if
desired.
another item of interest in fur-
gione’s committee report regarded
the status of the water tower proj-
ects, which are moving along.
“the water tower on Lincoln
street has been drained. it was
empty as of last Wednesday (sep-
tember 18). Wells one and three are
also off. Wells one and three and
the water will not go back on serv-
ice until the water tower painting is
complete,” furgione said.
furgione noted that water pres-
sure is a concern during the project,
but a flow meter has been installed
on the fourth street tower to en-
sure consistent pressure is main-
tained throughout Hammonton.
“every day we’re manually
checking it. We’re making sure, if
we need to turn on additional wells
to support our pressure, we do it
prior to us running into a problem.
so far it’s been working,” furgione
said.
Council voted on a resolution to
approve a lease between the town
of Hammonton and Verizon Wire-
less for up to three telecommunica-
tions antennas to be raised on the
fourth street water tower. this
lease is for five years before an ad-
ditional five year extension, in the
amount of $39,600 per year, with a
three percent guaranteed per
annum increase.
the same terms and conditions
for the Lincoln street tower, with
one exception: Verizon has agreed
to reimburse the town any and all
costs associated with the welding
of the brackets to the bowl of the
Lincoln street tower necessary to
support their antennas. allied
painting inc. will do the welding,
and all associated costs will be paid
by Verizon.
“the initial design, that we all
said ‘no’ to at public Works, they
wanted to put the antenna on top of
what i call the witch’s hat, on top
of the point, which would have
been disastrous, and build some
sort of corral around it. then they
wanted to turn their antennas up,
which would block our logo. so,
instead, we’re just going to turn the
antennas down, and they’ll have
support from underneath,” fur-
gione said.
Hammonton public Works Man-
ager robert Vettese noted that talks
with allied painting inc. pointed to
a possible completion date.
“in scheduling with the contrac-
tor, we indicated that, as long as the
weather holds out... hopefully that
will be completed by early novem-
ber, and then we’ll be able to fill
the tank and turn on the water,”
Vettese said.
furgione commented on the
color of the tower, which should
not be any different after the paint-
ing is finished.
“the color will be very similar.
it’s called philadelphia Gray. and
they’ll do all the sandblasting and
painting underneath the tarp.
they’ll heat as needed. i think by
thanksgiving we’ll be in good
shape here,” furgione said.
road projects were a major topic
of discussion during the meeting.
the first one mentioned was Wash-
ington street, currently under con-
struction.
“right now, the majority of the
utilities are in the ground... the ma-
jority of the curb and sidewalk has
been constructed. We’re waiting
for the trenches to settle a little bit
before we do final paving,” Her-
mann said.
the work on 14th street is also
proceeding according to plan,
which is to tie in the work being
done by Hammonton with the
work being done by folsom.
“We did the first section in 2015,
but we ran short. We were 550 feet
short of folsom,” Hermann said.
Hermann noted, however, that
this work will not cost Hammonton
residents any money.
“all of the construction costs, in-
spection costs... will all be covered
under the grant, with no additional
cost to the town,” Hermann said.
Vettese introduced a new proj-
ect, this one to take place on old
forks road, from the White Horse
pike to egg Harbor road, which
will require a joint agreement with
Winslow twp. this work will be
done under a state program provid-
ing local freight impact funds,
which requires that traffic on qual-
ifying roads musts be at least 10
percent heavy truck traffic. Vettese
has been working with town plan-
ner Kevin dixon on a traffic study
of that area.
“Between third street and egg
Harbor road is really where is
most of the truck traffic, and we
didn’t want to get confused with
the school traffic, because that gen-
erates a lot of traffic between third
street and the White Horse pike.
so we’re trying to isolate it to that
one section so we can maximize
the amount of truck traffic,”
Vettese said.
the application for the fund is
due by october 17, 2019. Vettese
asked the council to authorize
dixon to start the study, with a
monetary amount of $4,005.
“We had a joint meeting last
week, and the superintendent of
public works from Winslow town-
ship representing the mayor, and
they’re interested as long as the
traffic counts match the grant re-
quirements. We’ll have to move
very quickly if we do meet the traf-
fic counts. if not, we’ll have to wait
until probably the summer to do
those counts,” Vettese said.
Vettese also noted that the rail-
road bridge on old forks road is
not going to be widened, but, given
its precarious slope, some work
may be done to ease the ap-
proaches in either direction while
maintaining track elevation.
Vettese then gave an update on
the 2019 roads project, and dis-
cussed a preconstruction meeting
held with arawak paving Co.
“the first thing thus far was the
concrete work, probably the sec-
ond week or first week in october.
they’ll probably start on Grape
street and make their way over to
Chestnut, and then to orchard
street on the concrete work.
paving work will follow soon
thereafter. they might be able to do
Gatto road, and start that first, then
sindoni Lane; we’ll do that, also,
then sections of first road, so
we’ll have a couple of different
contractors working at the same
time. Hopefully everything will be
completed there by late novem-
ber,” Vettese said.
during the discussion with
council, Councilman Joseph Giralo
indicated concern regarding the
drainage work done on second
road.
“i’m not a roads guy, but i really
think you’ve got to tack that up
where there’s gutters so the water
See rOADS, Page 9