By John Tredrea, Special Writer
LAMBERTVILLE — The city is in the process of buying generators that will be used to power City Hall and the town library during power outages.
”We’re going to need two or three generators,” Mayor David Del Vecchio said.
”We have the mechanical engineer of our engineering consulting firm working on a plan for this now. The idea is to have City Hall become an Office of Emergency Management (OEM) center during power outages. Having a generator at the library would enable people to go there and recharge their phones and I-pads and the like during outages,” the mayor said.
The mayor noted that the city’s police headquarters and fire stations already have generators that can supply them with electricity during outages. He said the city would pay for the generators by postponing putting a new roof on the city jail, a project that was approved recently by the City Council.
At its Dec. 17 meeting, council amended a bond ordinance for the jail roof by reappropriating $21,281. This will be spent on the generators instead of the roof and brings the total that will be spent on the generators to $37,733.
”The jail roof is a worthwhile project, and we’ll get to it, but we feel it’s more important now to ensure we’re functioning and responsive during any power outages we have,” the mayor said.
The city and the New Hope-Lambertville First Aid Squad have decided to go back to the drawing board on a 9/11 Memorial in town, the mayor said. Defeated at the Dec. 17 city council meeting was a bond ordinance that included funding for a 9/11 Memorial in the pocket park at Bridge and Union streets.
First Aid Squad member, Pat Pittore, said the squad is working on architectural plans for a memorial at another location, which he declined to name. “We’ll have to get approval from the city’s Recreation Commission before we can proceed,” he said.
”We’re planning what we think will be a very nice memorial with some nice architectural features. It’ll be scaled back somewhat from the memorial that would have gone in the pocket park at Bridge and Union. We hope to have it completed next year.”
Adopted at the Dec. 17 meeting was a bond ordinance that will pay for $20,000 in computers and office equipment for City Hall.

