UPPER FREEHOLD: Not all residents want road paved

By Jane Meggitt, Special Writer
   At last month’s Upper Freehold Township Committee meeting, Harmony Hill Road resident James Stephenson asked the governing body to pave the road, presenting a petition he said was signed by fellow residents of the unpaved road off of County Route 524.
   At the Aug. 7 meeting, one couple who read about Mr. Stephenson’s request in the Messenger Press told the committee they objected to the idea of paving the road. Arlene Johnson, a 35-year resident of Harmony Hill Road, quoted the lyrics of Joni Mitchell’s song “Big Yellow Taxi” and said, “They paved paradise and put up a parking lot.”
   Her husband, John, said he worked in construction for 40 years. He said there is nothing better than coming home from work to his home on a shaded, dirt road.
   ”I don’t want to see it change,” he said, adding that he graded the road periodically and that for the first seven or eight years they lived there, the township never touched it.
   ”I like the country. If you pave it, it’s gone forever,” he said.
   According to the Johnsons, of the six residences on the road, four owners are in favor of paving it and two are against it.
   ”Everyone who bought a house knew it was a dirt road, with mud when it rains and dust when it is dry,” he said.
   Committeeman Stan Moslowski Jr., who was not at the July 10 committee meeting at which Mr. Stephenson made his request, said Mr. Stephenson later called him and made it sound like everyone on the road was in agreement regarding the paving.
   ”I don’t see that here tonight,” he said.
   Committeeman Moslowski added that he explained that it could take a couple of years to get the road paving into the budget even if the committee did agree to pave it. If it were a through road, that would be different, but Committeeman Moslowski called Harmony Hill Road, “a nice, quiet section of town.”
   Committeeman Bob Faber noted that Mr. Stephenson had recently moved into the town.
   ”The people who have been there for years like it the way it is,” according to Committeeman Faber. “A newcomer wants to change it. That’s what we have to decide.”
   He said he would like to leave it the way it is, noting there is “nothing like rural character.”
   Deputy Mayor Robert Frascella, who ran the meeting in the absence of Mayor Lorisue Horsnall Mount, said that if the road could be maintained by the township’s Department of Public Works, he didn’t see why the township should spend the money to pave it.