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Vol. 5 – No. 44 ♦
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FR EE
August 7 - August 13, 2021
Homeowner Recounts Sudden Stillness in Air Replaced By Sound of Plane, Breaking Glass as Tornado Hits Home
AN UNDONE DEAL
Twister That Crossed Rt. 72 July 29 Part of Historic Tornado Outbreak By Douglas D. Melegari Staff Writer
A view from Jackson Road shows empty bleachers at Atco Dragway (with its sign overlaid).
Photos By Tribune Staffer
After Months of Wrangling Over a Proposal to Replace Atco Dragway with a Holding Pen for Damaged and Disabled Vehicles, 7 Members of the Municipal Land-Use Board Give It a Unanimous Thumbs Down
By Bill Bonvie Staff Writer
WATERFORD—You might call it an undone deal. After months of marathon meetings, reams of engineering, environmental and traffic studies, opinions from attorneys and expert witnesses on both sides, and ardent appeals from alarmed residents and angry drag racing enthusiasts, a much-revised application to convert the six-decadeold Atco Dragway into a holding pen for thousands of damaged and disabled autos slated to be auctioned online has been decisively rejected by a unanimous vote of the Waterford Township Joint Land Use Board.
However, the board’s unceremonious denial of a “conditional use” application, which occurred at a special meeting July 29, only covered the matter of whether the applicant, Illinois-based Insurance Auto Auctions (IAA), had complied with all the conditions in the township’s land-use code – something the board apparently believed it had failed in the end to do, according to its solicitor, Stephen Boraske. The rejection, Boraske said, rendered moot another key question of whether a waiver requested by IAA would suffice or the company would need a zoning variance to get around a requirement (in provision 176-52 on “Buffers, Screenings
and Scenic setbacks”) that vehicles kept on the site have their fuel tanks emptied. In concluding a lengthy review of the legalities involved that preceded the board’s decision, and after noting that it was his opinion that “the applicant could not comply with those conditions (related to the fuel tanks) and would require a use variance,” Boraske said that issue should be included in a second vote on the site-plan aspect of the application “if necessary”— but which, in fact, proved not to be. The proposed new use for the property on which the dragway is located was the See DRAGWAY/ Page 11
WOODLAND —A historic tor nado outbreak across New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Ohio and Indiana on July 29 spawned at least 26 tornadoes, including one that touched down in the extreme southeastern part of Woodland Township (in Burlington County), before moving into the Cedar Bridge section of neighboring Barnegat Township (Ocean County) and crossing Route 72, near mile marker 15. The tornado eventually lifted after causing extensive tree damage in Wells Mills County Park, some 6.6 miles away from where it initially touched down, according to the National Weather Service (NWS), which rated it an EF1 tornado. The same supercell thunderstorm that produced the tornado in the Pine Barrens, the NWS concluded, then “cycled” and produced another tornado in the far eastern part of Barnegat, which then crossed over the Barnegat Bay as a waterspout, before ramming into the High Bar Harbor area of Long Beach Island, causing extensive property damage. The second tornado was on the ground for about 4.4 miles and resulted in minor injuries. It was the third time in recent weeks that thunderstorms resulted in tornadic activity in the general vicinity of this newspaper’s coverage area (with a tornado otherwise a highly unusual occurrence in these parts). See TORNADO/ Page 6
INDEX Business Directory... 12
Marketplace.................11
Local News................. 2
Worship Guide............ 8
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