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Vol. 4 – No. 48 ♦
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FR EE
August 15, 2020 – August 21, 2020
Pemberton Limits Number of Vehicles That Can Be Parked in Residential Yards, Outside of Driveways
POWER OUTRAGE
Residents Also Now Limited to One Travel Trailer Per Lot By Douglas D. Melegari Staff Writer
Photo By Mary Ann Smith
Photo By Mary Ann Smith
Utility lines sag under the weight of a fallen pine tree on N. Firelane Road in Southampton Township.
Grass catches fire after coming into contact with a dangling live powerline.
When the Owners of a Southampton Tree Service Reported that a JCP&L Wire Just Outside Their Property Was on Fire, Trapping Them After Isaias Toppled a Tree, They Assumed the Utility Would Quickly Cut the Current. They Were Wrong. Mayor, OEM Coordinator Not Notified of Hazard, Despite Call Purportedly Placed to Municipality By Bill Bonvie Staff Writer
SOUTH A M PTON — For nearly 35 years, Mary Ann Smith and her husband, Cliff Smith, operating out of their house at 2447 N. Firelane Road under the name Cliff Smith Tree Service, have been tending to the emergency needs of residents of Southampton Township, its retirement community, LeisureTowne, and surrounding communities, removing fallen or perilously positioned trees and tree limbs—especially those that posed a threat to people’s homes following windstorms, hurricanes, blizzards, and the like. But in all that time, they never imagined that they themselves would be placed in as precarious a position as they were—one from which they were unable to extricate themselves for days, let alone come to the rescue of other families—following Tropical Storm Isaias on Aug. 4, which left more than 1.4 million New Jersey residents in the dark. A large pine tree was blown down on top of various wires in front of their nextdoor neighbors’ property, causing two
transformers to explode and severing an electrical line belonging to Jersey Central Power & Light (JCP&L), which caught fire just a few feet beyond their property line, but much closer to their house than their neighbors’, igniting the grass with which it came into contact. That downed wire, Mary Ann Smith told the Pine Barrens Tribune in a subsequent phone interview, was allowed to continue burning and sparking for more than 72 hours, despite her repeated calls (along with those placed by her neighbors) to the power company. She further claimed that the Hampton Lakes Volunteer Fire Department, which came out on two occasions after she called a 911 dispatcher, was unable to do anything beyond also notifying the electric utility precisely because the situation involved a live wire. “I just can’t believe it was OK to leave that wire doing what it was doing,” she said in recounting the difficulties she encountered in initially reaching anyone and how “no one could do anything about it” when she finally managed to.
“It made me very angry,” she added. It wasn’t that JCP&L was oblivious to the urgency of those requests or about the ongoing hazard posed by the burning wire—in fact, one of its representatives came out on Aug. 5, assessed the scene as “‘a disaster area’” and “‘a priority,’” according to Mary Ann Smith, but indicated it could take “days or weeks” for it to be addressed, then proceeded to put yellow caution tape around the area of the sparking cable. The company also posted two individuals, one of which was sitting in a rental car, (an expensive-looking sports car observed by a Pine Barrens Tribune reporter) on either side of the area of road to keep a 48-hour watch over it on Wednesday and Thursday. But for reasons having to do with the manner in which it characteristically responds to emergencies of this nature, according to a company spokesman, JCP&L was either unable or reluctant to immediately cut off the current to the line involved. Also complicating the response time were See OUTRAGE/ Page 7
PEM BERTON — Cit i ng a qu alit y of life issue, Pemberton Township Council, following a recommendation from Business Administrator Daniel Hornickel, has limited, through an ordinance, the number of vehicles that can be parked in residential yards—with a particular focus on reducing the number of vehicles that can be parked in front yards, and has also restricted the number of travel trailers one can park on a residential lot. Council arrived at its 3-0 decision to pass the measure during an Aug. 5 meeting held by telephone, with Councilwoman Norma Trueblood and Councilman Donovan Gardner absent from the meeting. Also absent was Mayor David Patriarca. “One thing I have noticed in my brief (11-month) tenure as the township’s business administrator is a lot of complaints that come through the Community Development Office along the lines of, “‘My neighbors park a lot of vehicles on their lawn, do something about it,’” Hornickel said. “This is a quality of life issue, especially in high density neighborhoods—and that shouldn’t be. People should not be able to park 10 cars on their lawn, in front of their home.” Hornickel, who contended that he has “gotten complaints from at least three different sets of residents in three different areas of our community saying that their neighborhood looks junky,” said that “you don’t see that” in the denser municipalities surrounding Pemberton Township and that he “did some homework” and “checked with some other towns” to see how they resolve such an issue. The business administrator asserted that while “being heavy-handed” was an option discussed by township administration, in which no vehicles would have been allowed to be parked in the yard of a residential parcel, except in a driveway, it was decided that “there shall be no more than three vehicles (not more than two operable, and one non-operable vehicles) allowed on any portion of a residential property, exclusive of vehicles in an approved driveway.” “It is per parcel,” said Hornickel, noting that no property is grandfathered. “They can just park them on the street … however many a street can hold, or they can request a permit to have a driveway built. They can park them in a driveway. If the vehicles parked on the street present an obstruction, then the police See PARKED/ Page 6
INDEX Business Directory... 12
Lenape Graduation...... 8
Marketplace.............. 15
Games..........................14
Local News................. 2
Worship Guide...........11
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