Will help with traffic law enforcement
By:John Tredrea
At the recommendation of Pennington Police Director William Meytrott, the Borough Council voted unanimously Monday night to buy, for a maximum price of $3,200, an electronic speed board.
The boards, in use in other towns around the state, including Hopewell Township, include a radar unit to measure the speed of the closest oncoming vehicle. That speed is then quickly posted on an electronic sign, visible at distances up to about 500 feet. The sign can be illuminated for night use.
Before council voted, Director Meytrott said the speed board, which weighs only 14 pounds and can be mounted on any horizontal surface, could be used every day of the week. It would be rotated to various streets each day, he said. He said use of the devices around the country has shown they control speeding "without tying up an officer." Since the radar unit in the board is state-certified, "it can be used for enforcement if an officer is there," the director added.
Councilman Jim Lytle asked if Hopewell Township might be interested in sharing a speed board it already has with the borough, under an interlocal services agreement. Councilwoman and Public Safety Director Susan Porcella replied that the township police, whose speed board is much larger than the board the borough will buy, already had been contacted on the matter and said it uses its own board too much to be able to share it.
The expenditure of the $3,200 for the board "is well worth it," Councilman Jim Loper said.
IN OTHER BUSINESS, the council thanked Bristol-Myers Squibb for its recent donation of defibrillator to the borough Police Department. The firm, which has a large research campus in the township about a mile east of the borough, gave 29 of the devices to 13 towns around the state.
"We were pleased to receive this," Councilwoman Porcella said. "We often have two police cars on the road. This will enable us to have an automated external defibrillator in both cars."
Also at Monday’s meeting, Mrs. Porcella reported that revenues collected by Pennington’s municipal court are, through the end of August, up $22,802 over last year, an increase of more than one-third. Fines and court costs collected by the court through the end of August total $61,426, as compared to $38,624 during the first eight months of 1999.
Borough police have been issuing more summonses this year. For example, they wrote 191 tickets this August, compared to 130 in August 1999. There were 242 summonses this July, an increase of more than one-fourth over the July, 1999 total of 142 tickets. Through the end of this August, borough police have issued 1,488 tickets in 2000, as compared to 1,974 during all of last year, Mrs. Porcella said.