No relief is in sight for park patrons

By sandi carpello
Staff Writer

No relief is
in sight for park patrons
By sandi carpello
Staff Writer

RED BANK — When you gotta go, you gotta go someplace other than Riverside Gardens Park.

That’s what borough park visitors were saying when they discovered that the bathroom complex at the park is closed for business.

"In Red Bank, you can’t park and you can’t pee. Otherwise, the town is great," said one man who works in the area who asked not to be identified.

"The council needs to do something about the bathrooms," Joyce Calabro of North Prospect Street told Mayor Ed McKenna at a July 8 municipal meeting.

While Marine Park and Eastside Park each have one handicap-accessible portable toilet, the bathrooms at Riverside Gardens Park are open only during borough-sponsored special events.

According to Mayor Edward McKenna, unlocked bathroom doors could bring some undesirable results.

"We want to make sure those bathrooms are in good condition. If you leave those bathrooms alone, they can get vandalized," McKenna said.

The borough can’t keep the facilities open "unless people volunteer to sit in the park and watch them," he said.

However, Councilman John Curley said keeping the bathrooms closed during regular park hours could cause a much bigger dilemma.

"Rather than people defecating publicly, they should have access to the bathrooms," he said.

"The Public Works Department and the Police Department could have walking patrols to make sure the bathrooms are in decent condition. It’s easy enough for the Public Works Department to go check on it a few times a day," Curley said.

"It’s a matter of members of the council telling employees what they want done because we are the board of directors. We really need to take the bull by the horns."

The park’s two handicap-accessible portable toilets cost the borough $225 a month. "That’s from April to October, and that includes pick-up and delivery," the borough’s Chief Financial Officer Bruce Loversidge said. "I don’t know why we don’t have one in Riverside Gardens Park. I am definitely not the one to make that decision."