Freeholder’s objections should have been voiced sooner

At the Middlesex County freeholder meeting of July 13 it was reported that Freeholder Director David B. Crabiel, speaking in regard to the North Brunswick proposal to build 600,000 square feet of retail space near the intersection of routes 1 and 130, offered the following politically motivated blurb, "I believe that’s a disaster" and would lead to more traffic congestion.

Crabiel has got to be kidding. For most of the past 30 years, he has been an elected official holding various public offices that include mayor of Milltown and Middlesex County freeholder, which have had varying degrees of influence on how U.S. Route 1 was developed while running its course through the heart of Middlesex County. Yet for over 30 years as Route 1 was overdeveloped with cheesy strip malls and greasy fast food burger joints from the tip of Woodbridge to the edge of Plainsboro, Crabiel never once saw fit to raise any objection to the traffic congestion that resulted with each parcel of bone-headed planning that was added to the growing quagmire.

Well, after Dave Crabiel allowed 30 years of poor planning to take place on Route 1 in Middlesex County, the taxpayers of North Brunswick certainly do not need any of his opinions on the township’s desire to add ratables to its tax rolls. Or, to be blunt on the matter, we really don’t care one iota what Dave Crabiel has to say on North Brunswick rezoning issues.

Nonetheless, if David B. Crabiel has suddenly awakened from a 30-year snooze and is now genuinely interested in development issues in Middlesex County, then it would be righteous of him to gather up some of his freeholder buddies and head out to Edison where a group of noble citizens are currently engaged in a struggle to prevent a Walgreen’s drugstore from being built on the Revolutionary War site of the Battle of Oak Tree.

Certainly we, the taxpayers in North Brunswick, would all be most thankful and have hats off to Dave Crabiel for attempting to preserve our national heritage in Edison, rather than for attempting to preserve the legacy of local planning lunacy that we in North Brunswick were subjected to for much too long by the former township administration.

William A. Cook

Former Councilman

North Brunswick