County had pledged to open dock and parking by this weekend
By Joanne Degnan, Managing Editor
ALLENTOWN — Although Monmouth County officials had promised borough residents at a public hearing last month that Sensi Park would be useable again by this weekend, that deadline will not be met.
”It’s going to take more time,” William Heine, the county spokesman, said Tuesday. He estimated the work might take “another week or two.”
At the June 26 Borough Council meeting, which was moved to the First Aid Squad building on Waker Avenue to accommodate a large crowd, Monmouth County Engineer Joe Ettore had estimated it would take four weeks to reopen the small park adjacent to the millpond for fishing and recreational use.
Mr. Ettore said the final landscaping work would be completed in the fall when the weather was cooler, but visitors would be able to “park and use the dock” by this weekend, four weeks from the date of the meeting.
Mr. Heine said Tuesday the county is being responsive to Allentown residents’ complaints last month about stone construction debris from the South Main Street Bridge project that is still at the bottom of Conines Millpond (also called Allentown Lake). Meetings have been held with the state Department of Environmental Protection, which had to sign off on dredging plans.
When the new South Main Street bridge was under construction, a temporary bypass road was built alongside the existing bridge. The bypass road was demolished after the new bridge opened in August 2011, but some of the crushed stone from the berm beneath the bypass is still in the millpond.
”We have asked the contractor to go out and pull out more stones from the water,” Mr. Heine said. “We can’t open the park until that work’s been done.”
The park is the access point and staging area for the contractor’s dredging equipment, just as it was during the bridge construction project.
Allentown residents expressed frustration at last month’s meeting that the new South Main Bridge was opened to traffic almost a year ago, yet the park at the bridge’s southern end was never restored and reopened.
Mr. Ettore said at the June 26 meeting a disagreement between the county and the borough over the details of the restoration plan was responsible for the delay. The borough, Mr. Ettore said, had been asking for items that were “enhancements” and outside the scope of the original contract.
Six days before the June 26 meeting, the county and the borough’s engineer reached a new agreement, allowing the park restoration plans to finally move forward.

