The borough’s new parking regulations concern the staff of the Community Action Service Center.
By: Scott Morgan
HIGHTSTOWN Looking right and out her window, Lydia Santoni-Lawrence can see the Main Street parking lot beside Peddie Lake. The front door of her office at the Community Action Service Center, at 116 N. Main St., is less than 50 feet from the lot, directly across the street. It is here that she and her staff at CASC park their cars.
For now.
Under the borough’s newly mandated parking restrictions, which will limit public parking to two hours and strictly regulate permit parking to the Stockton Street lot, that will change. Ms. Santoni-Lawrence and staff will be asked to park their cars in the municipal hall parking lot, farther up North Main Street, or the Stockton Street parking lot around the corner. While it may not seem a big deal to some, Ms. Santoni-Lawrence said she has a major concern safety.
Safety is on her mind because of the nature of her organization community service, often to the dispossessed, the desperate or the mentally unwell. She said such a position is unique to CASC in that the center deals with people with nowhere else to turn. When their last place for help cannot help them, usually due to the center’s lack of financial resources, some people lash out, she said.
"Unfortunately, the work we do elevates the risks somewhat," she said.
Citing these unique safety concerns, Ms. Santoni-Lawrence is asking the borough’s permission to allow her and her staff to remain in the Main Street lot, via permit parking.
This includes only the staff members’ personal cars and not the CASC van, which Ms. Santoni-Lawrence said she is willing to have parked anywhere else.
In a letter to the Borough Council, read into the public record by Councilman Richard Pratt on Monday night, Ms. Santoni-Lawrence outlined her concerns for her well-being and that of her staff.
"While we strive to help people that come to us for assistance, there are times when we are unable to help. That decision sometimes erupts into a threatening scenario for staff members," the letter stated.
This, for Ms. Santoni-Lawrence, is no idle worry. Staff members have been approached by angry people in the past, she said. Some of these incidents have occurred in the Main Street lot, she said. Though there has been no violence, and though such incidents are uncommon, what is at the heart of Ms. Santoni-Lawrence’s argument is the reduction of risk.
Borough officials have said the new regulations will not be strictly enforced until after the downtown revitalization project is completed.
As outlined, CASC workers (whose cars take up five of the 40 spaces in the Main Street lot) would have to park either in the borough hall lot or the Stockton Street lot. Starting from the front door of the CASC offices, a moderate-speed walk takes nearly 150 paces and nearly two full minutes to reach the borough hall lot; reaching the Stockton Street lot takes almost 120 paces and about a minute.
"That’s a long walk at night by yourself," she said.
What troubles Ms. Santoni-Lawrence is that the extra time it takes to walk to a car provides just that much more for a situation to build or erupt. Situations, she said, happen very quickly, and it is better to lower the risks, if not eliminate them.
Putting the cars farther away, she said, just compounds the risks, especially in the dark. Ms. Santoni-Lawrence said that in the colder months, it is common for some CASC workers to work until nightfall, when most everyone else is off the streets. In her letter, she described the lot across the street as "menacing during the evening hours."
The parking ordinance, which passed Monday, allows no permit parking in the Main Street lot. Borough Council briefly discussed Ms. Santoni-Lawrence’s request to allow CASC staff permit parking there, but concluded it was more a "police matter" than one for council. Council President Mike Vanderbeck said in an interview Wednesday that there are no plans to grant CASC permits to park in the Main Street lot.
Mr. Vanderbeck said he does not see how permit parking would really help CASC, partly in light of the fact CASC workers who have been approached have been approached in the Main Street lot. He said the ordinance to regulate parking was put together with the primary goal of cleaning up a messy situation.
Mr. Vanderbeck also said he believes Ms. Santoni-Lawrence’s argument is lacking.
"You can’t really cure that problem other than law enforcement," he said, referring to being accosted by a determined aggressor. He added the CASC staff would be safer in the other lots for two reasons. First, parking in the borough hall lot is, effectively, parking in the Police Department lot. Second, walking to the Stockton Street lot would require using crosswalks, rather than crossing Main Street close to Route 33 in order to get to the lot.
"You’d be more apt to be harmed by a vehicle than by another person in Hightstown," he said.
While Ms. Santoni-Lawrence said there is cause for concern, she said she also understands the borough is not a high-crime area. She said Hightstown is like any other town in that good and bad happens. She would just like to keep the opportunities for the bad to a minimum, and she said she feels allowing her small staff to park across the street is a nonintrusive common-sense approach to prevention.
"Hightstown is not a scary place at night, but you should be prudent about safety," she said.