By KENNY WALTER
Staff Writer
LONG BRANCH — Residents of Vine Court, a small cul-de-sac off of Ocean Avenue, want the city to reverse the decision to eliminate several parking spaces on the street.
During the June 28 City Council meeting, several residents of the street requested the city add more parking to the street, saying parking has become an issue during the early part of the summer.
“It has created some hardship for the homeowners in that area,” resident Frank Schwartz said.
This summer the city eliminated some parking spaces on Vine Court, largely because since the construction of the boardwalk changed some of the road patterns, various spaces needed to be removed to accommodate emergency vehicles.
However, several residents said the reduction in parking has created issues for many of the seniors living on the street.
Mayor Adam Schneider said many of the city’s traffic and parking patterns are going to be evaluated after the first summer of the new and larger boardwalk.
“I’ll go as far as saying we will look at it again,” he said. “My position is everything we do down there this summer is temporary in the sense that when we opened the boardwalk, we found things that have been different from [what] they were for a generation.
“We will review it throughout this summer to see what works. It’s an evolving process.”
However, one change that is unlikely for Vine Court is permit parking, which was suggested by a resident.
Currently, the city only has permit parking on Arthur Avenue, and Schneider called the practice an “administrative nightmare” and said it was difficult to enforce.
“I could tell you my cops hate the idea of permit parking, but we will look at it,” Schneider said.
Also during the workshop meeting Public Safety Director Jason Roebuck said after soliciting public opinion on social media about lifting parking restrictions on several city streets, the overwhelming majority of residents requested the city hold off on any changes to the majority of roads.
“It was a pretty overwhelming ‘no,’ so the only one we put up that they wanted to remove was Woolley [Avenue] and Hollywood Avenue,” Roebuck said.
Also during the meeting the council was updated on a plan to replace the HVAC system in City Hall, which currently dates back to 1976.
Travis Alderson, Alderson Engineering, said the project will save the city 50 percent on energy consumption and the six-month project is expected to begin in September of 2017.
During the regular council meeting, the council unanimously adopted a $1.8 million bond to fund police radio equipment.
Prior to the vote, resident Vincent LePore requested a ‘no’ vote on the ordinance, saying the city should have built the cost of the radios into the annual budget.
“This budget could have been cut better to accommodate the new radio system,” LePore said.