The following is a letter written to Mayor Pucci of Monroe Township regarding plans to construct a ballpark off Route 33 in the southern end of their town:
I am writing you with grave concern for your potential move toward a minor league baseball stadium off Route 33 in the lower section of your township.
Several considerations bear review:
The statement in a recent Examiner article that "[Millstone residents] are not going to see as much of the traffic as our side of the highway" is problematic. Individuals coming off the New Jersey Turnpike exit 8 to reach your stadium would be in far higher volume than people coming off exit 8A. In order to reach the stadium, that traffic would need to travel along jughandles in Millstone Township. Further, traffic coming to the stadium from Route 195 would quickly learn the cut-through routes coming up Millstone Road and on to Prodelin Way. The traffic will surge beyond our town’s capacity and stress our town’s municipal resources as well as the nerves of our people who came to this township for its peaceful landscape.
The Trenton Thunder plays approximately 72 home games, as you delineated will be played in your stadium. Following the schedule of the Thunder, 50 of those 72 would be played on weeknights at rush hour in the spring and summer. Route 33 currently swells during rush hour all year, and with summer vacation traffic looking for other shore routes, it is compounded. To exit off Route 33 at Prodelin Way or Millstone Road will likely take considerable time once your stadium arrives. I know I would not appreciate that 50 nights I have to worry about getting to my children’s after-school or after-camp arrangements because you built a stadium.
In an article about stadium plans for a major league team in Washington, D.C., the local nbc4.com Web site writer noted: "The chant of beer vendors is almost as magical as baseball itself." This leads me to the potential road safety issues we can expect to bear on the Route 33 corridor. A surge of increase in intoxicated drivers is a grave concern.
In your newsletters of this year on the town’s Web site, I note that new home sales in 2003 were 550. It was noted that Monroe draws people as it has been noted as "one of the premier residential communities in Middlesex County, primarily due to our beautiful landscape." You will dramatically change your landscape and very likely reduce property values and property sales for both Monroe and Millstone with your proposal.
Your goals in your newsletters to your constituency speak to continuing "aggressive efforts to obtain open space and preserve farmland." A stadium would seem to me to be not in concert with such goals whatsoever.
In short, I strongly oppose your plan for building a stadium in the Route 33 corridor.
This is definitely not what people who have moved to your township or ours were looking for when they decided to move here.
Kathleen Russell-Babin
Robert J. Babin Sr.
Millstone