Councilman:
Violations
schedule
needs work
By clare MARie celano
Staff Writer
FREEHOLD — Councilman Michael Toubin believes some of the borough’s municipal court violations are too low and he brought his concerns to the Borough Council’s workshop meeting on Oct. 15.
Toubin, who is the council’s liaison to the municipal court, said he had been researching the violations schedule in other towns. He told his fellow council members the borough seems to be at the lower end of the scale.
"Given the vast amount of time I spend in municipal court," Toubin said, "I can see that our $17 municipal court violation fine is probably putting us $5 in the hole every time."
Toubin listed a series of parking violations as examples of violations that carry a $40 fine in Manalapan, but only yield a $17 fine in the borough.
Toubin recommend to Borough Attorney Kerry Higgins that she review this matter and "put together revised numbers" that would be more in keeping with the municipal court violation fines in other towns.
"With what we’re charging, we’ll be running our court at a deficit," Toubin said. "We don’t want to make money, but we shouldn’t lose money every time we write a ticket."
In other business, Borough Administrator Joseph Bellina told council members more than $10,000 was collected in fines from the special session of municipal court addressing quality of life issues held on Sept. 24.
"The judge (Robert Blum) has taken our position on quality of life issues very seriously," Bellina said, noting that the remaining $8,000 in fines that was assessed that day will be collected in time payments.
During the public portion of the meeting, resident Ricky White, of Factory Street, asked for the council’s help in seeking a building to provide space for recreational facilities for borough teenagers.
White mentioned a building at Lloyd and McDermott streets as a possible location for what he considers something the borough desperately needs — a place for youths to meet and join in some physical activity and keep them "off the streets."
White, a member of the Freehold Borough Human Relations Committee, said he’d like to find space to build a gym, a racquetball court, and have some basketball hoops available.
He remarked that currently, the YMCA Community Center on Center Street is being used but said there really isn’t adequate space there to provide what he’d like to see done.
Mayor Michael Wilson said he thought the building on Lloyd Street that White mentioned had recently been sold, but suggested another location might be possible.
A building at the end of Marcy Street, currently vacant, was under discussion as an alternate site, as was the second floor of St. Rose of Lima’s Parish Center on Throckmorton Street, once the home of the Freehold YMCA.
Councilman Kevin Coyne suggested the parish center as a possible location, remarking that the basketball hoops had probably been removed, but noting that the original wood floor was still in place.
Higgins suggested that White contact borough school administrators, saying that she thought the schools had open gym nights.
White said he would be happy to look into that idea.
"I don’t want to reinvent the wheel you know? If there’s something here that we can use right now, that would be great," he said.
Higgins said it might not be affordable to convert some old buildings in town to the recreation uses White mentioned. She suggested that White meet with representatives from the recreation committee to try to work something out within the school district.
In a later conversation, White said he wanted to "keep the teens off the streets in the summer and offer them a safe haven in the winter." He also said he wanted to work on providing counseling services for teens, such as a mentor, someone they could go to for help and for advice as part of this recreational program.
"Jail is not the solution for kids," White said. "There has to be a better way to reach them."