PENNINGTON COUNCIL UPDATE
By John Tredrea
Echoing a presentation he made to the Hopewell Borough Council recently, Hopewell Valley Recreation Department Director Michael Hritz asked the Pennington Borough Council Monday night to consider paying part of the department’s annual budget.
The Recreation Department was formed four years ago. Hopewell Township has paid all its budgetary expenses to date. Those expenses were $150,000 in 2003, Mr. Hritz said. He said that Pennington, which has 13 percent of the Valley’s population, accounted for 20 percent of the Valley-wide registrations for individual Recreation Department activities, such as day trips, last year.
Hopewell Township, which has 77 percent of the Valley’s total population of just under 21,000, accounted for 72 percent of those registrations, he said. Hopewell Borough, which has 10 percent of the Valley’s population, accounted for 8 percent of the registration for recreation offerings.
"Hopewell Township will formally request by letter soon that both boroughs consider making some type of financial contribution" to the recreation commission’s budget "that fits with the level of participation with your (the boroughs’) residents, Mr. Hritz said. He noted Monday night that it is too soon to estimate, or speculate on, what a fitting contribution from either borough might be.
IN OTHER BUSINESS, the council voted 3-0 to permit James and Emily Matticoli to put a grease interceptor for a restaurant they want to open at 13 N. Main St. in the public right-of-way in front of 15 N. Main St. Both properties are owned by the Kriegner family, who have leased restaurant space to the Matticolis. Dick Kriegner told the HVN that putting the grease interceptor in front of 15 N. Main is fine with him.
The borough’s 3-0 vote took the form of a suspension of a borough ordinance requiring that the interceptor not be indoors and that it be on the lot it serves. Compliance with the ordinance is impossible for the Matticolis, since the building in which Emily’s Café is to be housed completely covers the lot on which it is located. Hence the request to put it in the public right-of-way.
Public opinion was split on whether the Borough Council should pass a measure needed to put the interceptor in the public right-of-way. Some residents objected, saying smoke and noise from the restaurant’s exhaust fan would lower their property values. The fan already has been approved by the borough Planning Board. About an equal number of residents backed the Matticolis, saying the business would be a benefit to a town that already has several vacant storefronts.
Asked after the council voted if putting the grease interceptor in the public right-of-way in front of 15 N. Main was acceptable to his clients, attorney Gordon Strauss, who represents the Matticolis, would not comment.

