Dear Reader: I wanted to take a few moments and catch you up on the state of things here at the Metuchen Bureau.

I’m hoping to post more frequently, but my day job is making it tough to keep up with consistent posts on the blog. Part of that is because I do a good amount of reporting before posting, unlike other blogs with which you might be familiar, where the bloggers simply post every time something pops into their heads.

I could do that but by the time I get home my head is fairly empty. I blame that not on my day job but on New Jersey Transit, which seems to have trouble accomplishing its most basic job of getting people into the city in a timely manner.

Anyway, things are easing up at work which should free up some time for me to write more frequent posts. I’m also considering adding some coverage of school board meetings. I was thinking of finding someone to go cover school board meetings on a volunteer basis. Maybe a young, journo student or a retiree looking for some laughs. If you know anyone, hit me up!

Police stuff: On another note, we posted a story about a drug raid last month, which generated more clicks than I could have ever imagined this blog could generate. The story, based on a police report, included the names of the people arrested.

I kept that post up for a few days and then took it down. I decided to institute a policy whereby the blog will continue to cover significant police activities, leaving most police reports with names up for three days and then taking them down. This is enough time to give readers a chance to read the info, which is in the public interest.

My rationale for removing the posts is that I want to be fair to those whose names appear in a criminal context. In a regular newspaper, names of those charged are in front of eyeballs for a day, and then everyone moves on to the next edition. The internet, on the other hand, never forgets.

“What we say on the internet, echoes in eternity,” Russell Crowe said in Gladiator, probably.

Let me know what you think.

Landscaping equipment that growls and screeches all summer long has had a devastating effect on the ability of Sheera Stern, of Newman Street, to do her job.

Stern works from home, where she runs online educational courses. Even with windows shut and using noise-canceling headphones, the leaf blowers and riding mowers that scrape and shape her neighbors’ lawns is so loud it interferes with her ability to do her job.

Stern came before Borough Council in February to impart her tale and ask for relief. It’s possible she will get some after Council approved a noise ordinance that mirrors the noise regulations imposed by the state. By aligning the ordinance with the state’s rules, Metuchen now has grounds to enforce its own ordinance, which it didn’t have before, according to Borough Administrator Jennifer Maier.

“If someone complains, we then reach out to the county and have them come out and do the metering for us, because they’re trained to do that,” Maier said in an interview Friday. The plan is that Metuchen will eventually have its own employees, probably police officers, trained to measure noise levels.

The ordinance governs power tools, emergency work, home maintenance tools, landscaping and yard maintenance equipment used by property owners, commercial operators and public employees. Excluding emergency work, these devices can’t be used between 8 p.m. and 8 a.m. unless they meet noise limits set forth in the ordinance. They also have to be used with mufflers to reduce sound, the ordinance said.

Noise limits include sound levels of no more than 65 decibels from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m., and 50 decibels from 10 p.m. to 7 a.m., when measured outside a residential property, according to the ordinance. The level is 65 decibels all day and night outside a commercial facility.

Indoors, decibel levels fall to 55 from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. and 40 decibels from 10 p.m. and 7 a.m, according to the ordinance.

The rules also govern noise made by playing music and animals. For animals, violations will occur after than five minutes of noises like barking, howling or yelping without interruption, or making noise intermittently for 20 minutes, the ordinance said.

Stern told Council she used a noise measurement app on her iPhone to measure noise levels of landscaping equipment, which got as high as 104 decibels inside her house.

“Without limits, landscapers will use as much equipment as they possibly can at the same time in order to rush through a job,” Stern said. “That includes leaf blowers … lawn mowers large enough to mow a golf course.”

It’s not clear to me the borough could come out and dictate to a landscaper exactly how many machines he should use at once. Or have a police officer stand there measuring noise while the landscapers use their machines to make sure they don’t go over limit. I honestly don’t know how that would work or if that’s even a good idea. I mean, how long does it take for a landscaper to mow a lawn?

I have a pretty small yard and, because I have yet to buy a shed, I employ a landscaping firm. They are in and out in about 20 minutes. And yes it’s pretty loud, so if I’m working from home I generally use that time to take a break, have a coffee and talk to my wife. They also get to one of my neighbor’s homes every Thursday morning (in the warm months) around 7 a.m. and bang it out in about 20 minutes.

We’ll see how this plays out. The borough will deal with complaints on a case by case basis, so it’ll be interesting to see what happens when a landscaper gets called out for being too loud.

Photo courtesy of Wikimedia

Feb. 17, 2016: Bad drivers – like those who ignore flashing crosswalks – and bad walkers – like people who don’t use crosswalks to cross the street – should clean up their acts in March, because Metuchen police will be watching.

March will be traffic enforcement blitz month in Metuchen, according to Metuchen Police Traffic Safety Officer Ken Bauer. Police will be working in partnership with the New Jersey Transportation Planning Authority for a combined education and enforcement campaign to focus on pedestrian safety in Metuchen.

The point is to change the behavior both of drivers and of pedestrians, according to Jeffrey Perlman, manager, environmental planning and mobility programs at the NJTPA. Perlman gave a presentation before Borough Council Tuesday. The campaign is the result of Metuchen being named one of 12 municipalities chosen for the second phase of NJTPA’s pilot Street Smart New Jersey program, which launched in 2013.

“Our goal is to change pedestrian and motorist behaviors and reduce the number and incidence of pedestrian injury and death,” Perlman said.

The enforcement component of the campaign will include plain clothes, decoy police officers at “hot spot” intersections around the borough being observed by other police officers looking for both pedestrian and motorist violators. Metuchen police received a $4,000 grant that will allow the department to provide extra enforcement focused on pedestrian safety, Bauer said.

Pedestrian safety goes beyond drivers. Pedestrians who don’t cross at crosswalks or fail to heed signals could be slapped with a $54 citation, Bauer said.

“Just giving a head’s up and a warning, it’s going to be a very strict enforcement the month of March,” Bauer said. Metuchen Mayor Pete Cammarano replied: “You can’t enforce this enough for us. Strict is how people unfortunately are going to learn.”

The other part of the campaign is education. That will come through various means, including pedestrian safety signs at the train station and on the sides of buses running through the borough, Perlman said. It will include physical materials like posters and tip cards distributed to businesses and borough facilities, he said.

The campaign will have a new component — social media through Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, Perlman said. Facebook users from Metuchen will start to see pedestrian safety reminders in their news feed in March, Perlman said.

NJTPA also will work with a consultant who will have people on the streets handing out safety literature to pedestrians, as well as filming particular intersections. The filming, which will take place this month and in April, will help the group figure out if pedestrian and motorist behavior actually changes as a result of the campaign. NJTPA will hand over its final report to the borough over the summer, Perlman said.

Borough Councilwoman Dorothy Rasmussen said the education campaign should go beyond just Metuchen residents, and try and reach people who work in surrounding towns. Those are the people who drive through the borough, she said.

“If you are just targeting Metuchen residents, I think you’re missing the boat on who you should be targeting,” Rasmussen said. “If you go to a big place like that and try and get some of their employees engaged and realizing they’re part of the problem but also a part of the solution, maybe we can get some real change.”

Metuchen will kick-off the campaign with a public event. Jason Delia of the borough Traffic and Transportation Committee said the plan is to hold the event Friday, March 4 at 5 p.m. at Borough Hall. The event would include, weather permitting, a walk down Main Street during rush hour to see how pedestrians and motorists behave at certain intersections.

NJTPA is known as a Metropolitan Planning Organization, which are meant to oversee federally funded transportation projects and provide a forum for local and state officials to plan a region’s transit future. Middlesex County’s NJTPA representative is County Freeholder Charles Tomaro, according to the NJTPA website.

Jan. 29, 2016: An important meeting is coming up in March that could very well determine the future direction of the downtown district.

Will the future of Main Street be more empty store fronts, or will it be a thriving, busy area full of people with an unlimited number of options for food, drink and entertainment?

With perhaps some poetic license, that is what this comes down to.

A group of volunteers who have worked for many months to research and put together a plan for downtown improvement will make a presentation before borough council in March. Borough Council ultimately must approve the plan.

The plan is to form a downtown management organization, run by an executive director and a board of directors. The annual budget for this organization is estimated at $275,000 a year. The organization would be funded through borough contributions from the sale of the Pearl Street lot, and a funding vehicle called a Business Improvement District (BID). The plan would not require a tax increase, according to the volunteer group. Read here for more info on how this works, and the proposed boundaries of the district.

A big chunk of the budget would pay for salary and administrative costs of the management organization, as well as capital improvements, maintenance, plantings and marketing, among other things.

For the record, I think this is a great idea, at least from what I’ve heard so far. As Councilwoman Allison Inserro said at an informational meeting Tuesday, if we do nothing, nothing will change, and 10 years from now we’ll still be talking about the same thing.

Metuchen’s downtown, at least from my New Resident perspective, seems on the cusp of realizing its full potential that would mean far fewer empty storefronts and a better mix of businesses. And this is the right moment to make a big move, with major developments in the works and an influx of new residents who will be looking for stuff to do downtown.

However, the plan needs to be wrung through public hearings to give every interested resident a voice. Because this plan is one of the more important things we’ll talk about.

The money is my big question. The volunteer group arrived at the $275,000 number after discussions with other communities that have BIDs. Anything less, according to one of the volunteers, would cover overhead and not much else.

A resident at the informational meeting this week brought up an important question: could the proceeds from the sale of the Pearl Street lot be used for something else?

I immediately thought of the firehouse. The borough desperately needs a new one, and plans are in place to find a location. Maybe the proceeds from the Pearl Street lot sale should be used to help fund a new firehouse to help defray the costs.

This is the kind of question that needs to be — and will be — hashed out at upcoming public hearings. Why is the borough’s money better used to launch and operate the BID, rather than something else?

My thought is, funding the BID is an investment in the future of this town, because as the business district rises, so do property values (presumably); as Metuchen’s profile rises, as new businesses come into town, as more people spend money here, as prosperity expands, we all, as residents, benefit.

And the evidence is clear, this has worked in other towns. At the informational meeting, the volunteer group showed a video about Montclair, which launched its BID in 2002 and has now become a destination for people all over the area. One of the keys to Montclair’s evolution was the establishment of a downtown management organization to oversee the district. Other towns that have successfully implemented this process include Cranford, Somerville and Red Bank.

The path forward is open, we just need to make sure everyone gets their say.

Editor’s Note: Usually we here at Triple B try and stay as neutral and objective as possible in our articles. Occasionally we’ll write up an opinion piece, like the above, which is full of ranting and pontificating. Feel free to object, disagree, call me an idiot or verbally applaud. Triple B is all about feedback so make your voice heard. 

Jan. 27, 2016: The borough is in trouble. (Bear with me).

Residents and business owners at Borough Hall Tuesday night shouted out a litany of problems they believe the borough’s downtown district is facing, including empty store fronts, parking woes, lack of maintenance and cleanliness, redundant selection of businesses and high rents for merchants.

They gathered to hear a possible solution to these problems.

That solution, proposed by a group of volunteers Tuesday, is to form a non-profit downtown management organization.

The downtown organization would be called Metuchen Downtown Alliance and would be led by an executive director and a board of directors.

The volunteer stakeholder group estimated the organization would require an annual budget of $275,000. The bulk of the money would be for salary and administrative costs. It would also be used for capital improvements, plantings, marketing, recruitment and retention of businesses.

The main functions of the organization seem to be around marketing and selling the business district, helping to attract in new businesses, keeping the district clean and even directing capital improvements. The organization would work alongside the Chamber of Commerce. It would not have powers of condemnation nor could it change zoning.

Before we get into the particulars, this is important: nothing, as of now, is set in stone. The proposal would need to be approved by borough council and would be subject to a public hearing. The group plans to make a presentation before Borough Council in March.

So this is a proposal now, though one with high level support in the borough, including from Councilwoman Allison Inserro, who helped lead the discussion Tuesday. New Mayor Pete Cammarano was present at the beginning of the meeting though he didn’t make any comments.

“If we do nothing, we’ll be in the same place 10 years from now that we are today, and complaining,” Inserro said.

The downtown management organization would be funded through municipal contributions from the sale of the Pearl Street lot and a funding vehicle called a business improvement district (BID). A BID is a pre-defined area within which property owners pay an annual fee on real estate. Other funding sources could include grants, fundraisers and sponsorships.

Residents would not be responsible for funding, said Jan Margolis, a member of the volunteer stakeholder group. Inserro stressed taxes would not be raised as part of this plan.

“If you’re thinking the council is going to pass a tax increase on your home values to cover this, that is not the case. And, in fact, residents usually see in these types of towns … their home values rise as the business sector improves,” Inserro said.

The $275,000 annual budget would be funded, starting in the summer of 2016, with $150,000 from proceeds of the sale of the Pearl Street lot, according to the presentation. Future municipal contributions would come from Parking Authority proceeds, according to Eric Berger, a member of the volunteer stakeholders group and a landlord in the borough.

The goal would be to flip the funding burden from the municipality to the BID over several years, Berger said. The plan is by 2020 the borough would pay $75,000 and the BID would raise $200,000, he said. Annual fees on real estate in the BID would hit 5 percent by 2020, starting at around 3.2 percent in 2017.

For example, property in the district with a $5,000 tax payment in 2017 would pay an additional $160 as part of the BID fee, according to materials provided at the meeting.

The proposed BID would include properties fronting Main Street from Durham to Amboy avenues; from the train tracks to properties fronting Middlesex Avenue; the Sportsplex; the Whole Foods development; the Woodmont redevelopment; and the Forum Theater. The BID can be adjusted to fit the needs of the community, according to Berger.

One resident asked if there were alternative uses of the proceeds of the sale of the Pearl Street lot. He said he wanted to see more transparency around the money and how it will be used.

“This proposal might be more credible if we have a bit more transparency about the money involved,” the resident said.

This process started in 2014 when Metuchen joined the Main Street New Jersey program, which is part of the National Main Street Program of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, according to a fact sheet from the volunteer group. Municipalities who join the Main Street program must commit to hiring a full-time downtown manager who focuses on revitalization, according to the fact sheet.

Eds – Sorry so long! Visit the Metuchen Downtown Alliance website for more information.

Jan. 22, 2016: Borough officials will meet soon with state officials to kick off the first phase of a project to install blinking crosswalks at five borough intersections.

Blinking crosswalks are set to be installed at the intersections of Main Street and High Street, Main Street and Brunswick Avenue, Central Avenue and Liberty Street, Grove Avenue and Christol Street and Grove Avenue and Mason Drive.

Update: A blinking crosswalk also will be installed at Route 27 and Oak Avenue, borough administrator Jennifer Maier said Monday.

Borough officials will meet with representatives of the state Department of Transportation on Feb. 4 to discuss the first steps of the project, including engineering drawings and bid specs, Maier said.

The borough will work with engineering firm Parsons Brinckerhoff on the engineering work. The state DOT is paying for the engineering portion of the project, Maier said.

Metuchen will be responsible for about $25,000 for the blinking crosswalk at the intersection of Grove Avenue and Mason Drive, Maier said. That intersection was not included in the original grant request. Overall, the borough received a $192,000 grant in 2014 for the work through the New Jersey Safe Routes to School program.

More recently, the state DOT created a fund to help municipalities pay for the engineering portion of the work, Maier said. This helped the borough move the project forward.

It’s not clear when the project will be completed. Maier said she will know more about timing after the Feb. 4 meeting with DOT officials.

Metuchen police confirmed no one was attacked at the train station over the weekend, contradicting a social media post that circulated on borough-related sites.

“We have fielded hundreds of calls about the post,” said Metuchen Sgt. Arthur Flaherty. “It is absolutely not true.”

According to the post, which appears to have been deleted, a man named Daniel Bonet was beaten and robbed by three people in masks.

No further info was available. We’ll keep you updated if we learn anything new.

Dec. 29, 2015: The Metuchen Police Department is asking residents to make sure their vehicles are locked.

Police are investigating at least 22 car burglaries that occurred over a two-week period, Sgt. Arthur Flaherty said Dec. 24. Also, two vehicles were stolen in the borough and recovered in Newark, Flaherty said.

There is no distinct pattern to the break-ins — they have occurred all over the borough and don’t involved particular types of vehicles, he said.

“The MO is to find unlocked cars,” Flaherty said.

The borough put out an emergency communication to residents earlier in December asking to make sure to lock vehicles.

Dec. 23, 2015: Former Metuchen Councilman Rick Dyas believes safety on Grove Avenue goes far beyond simply lowering the speed limit to 25 mph.

Dyas spoke at the Borough Council meeting Monday earning the unique designation of being the lone voice of dissent in a movement with strong public support to lower the speed limit along all of Grove Avenue.

“I don’t believe changing the speed limit is going to change anything,” Dyas said. “You’ll make it unsafe if you slow traffic down in a thing that has a norm of 35 mph.”

Dyas has lived on Grove for almost 25 years and said he hasn’t noticed a speeding problem. The big problems, he said, involve large trucks using the road and emergency vehicles speeding to the emergency room at JFK Medical Center.

Alas, Dyas’ lone voice in the wilderness was not heeded, and Council authorized lowering the speed limit along the 1.05 miles of Grove Avenue that runs through Metuchen to 25 mph.

However, certain points Dyas raised at the meeting were acknowledged by council members as important steps in making Grove Avenue safe for pedestrians.

“The ordinance to lower the speed to 25 mph is really a piece of a solution … there are more than just issues of speed on Grove Avenue and we will explore those and investigate them and if appropriate, take action,” said Council President Ronald Grayzel.

Change will be hard for people, said Councilwoman Allison Inserro, acknowledging Dyas’ anecdote about driving at 25 mph on Grove recently and getting tailgated by angry drivers. Resident Angela Sielski told a similar story about collecting tailgaters while driving 25 mph.

“We’ve already made clear to our police chief and his department that pedestrian safety is our number one concern, so I would expect them to have increased eyes and enforcement on Grove Avenue while this change is taking place,” Inserro said.

Lowering the speed limit on Grove Avenue, which runs through the borough from Woodbridge Avenue to around Mason Drive and the border of Edison, has become a big issue in town, garnering support from volunteers groups and concerned residents.

Supporters came out in force to a meeting at Metuchen High School in October to hear from police, the high school principal and an engineer on why the speed limit should be lowered.

Grove Avenue has the “feel” of a 35 mph road but gets heavy use from bikers and pedestrians, including high school students walking to and from school and student athletes like cross-country runners.

In October, the borough applied for a $300,000 state Department of Transportation grant to add a roughly 8-foot-wide bike lane along the section of Grove Avenue that runs through the borough.