The $25 fee residents and commercial property owners pay annually to re-register their alarms — which went into effect in January, 2007 — may no longer be a burden come January, 2009, if Council President Will Anklowitz can garner enough council support.##M:[more]##
Anklowitz has placed the item up for discussion on Monday, June 9, and he says he hopes other council members will support his idea to get rid of the fee.
“There are at least hundreds of residents who have paid those fees,” he says. “While that is a form of revenue to the township, the frustration at being nickeled-and-dimed is just not worth it.”
Even though the policy went into effect in 2007, it was not enforced until this year, and residents began to complain about the fee. Police Chief Joe Pica said discussions about the new policy began at the end of 2006, when it was proposed that the department create an annual registration instead of a one-time registration for alarm systems. This was because under the old system, residents were only required to register when they initially moved to town or got an alarm system, for a one-time fee of $25. Thus, residents who moved out, and those who moved in, sometimes did not alert the police department, which therefore had no updated information, Pica said. There was no way police knew whether some alarms still existed, and didn’t have any way to track down who to reach if an alarm went off. The fee was a way to get residents and commercial property owners to update such contact information form.
Last year the police department responded to 2,”200 burglar alarms. While some were legitimate, most of them were false alarms.
While Anklowitz proposes getting rid of the fee, “we will still ask folks to register their alarms because we want the police department to be able to deliver the service the alarms are supposed to illicit.”
In order to get rid of the fee, the council must do so by ordinance, and since there are only two meetings in June before the reorganization meeting, Anklowitz says the council might have to introduce the ordinance on June 9, with a public hearing on Monday, June 23.
If the ordinance is adopted, it would go into effect on January 1, 2009, to avoid complications mid-year.
In other business during the council’s meeting on Monday, June 9, Anklowitz is also proposing a resolution asking the county to create a left-turn lane onto Bentley Drive into the Grovers Mill Estates from Princeton-Hightstown Road, upon request of residents. Anklowitz says that at the end of 2000, council asked the county to put in a no left-turn sign at the intersection because there had been a number of accidents caused by people stopped in the left-turn lane and getting rear-ended.
However, residents of the development that are coming from Route 571 “have to go all the way around through Slayback Drive,” Anklowitz says. “It becomes quite inconvenient to do short trips around that area of town.”
Anklowitz says he certainly doesn’t want to risk public safety, but points out that at some point, Route 571, like all roads, will begin to be worn out and will need to be re-striped, and perhaps at that time, the county could consider striping a left-turn lane. He said the solution could include a number of possibilities, including allowing left-turns only at non-peak hours. A solution like this would give residents “some convenience without sacrificing their safety.”
Other items to be discussed during the agenda session include an ordinance suggested by Councilman George Borek regarding tree-cutting. Anklowitz says there was an incident in town in which a resident cut down what was considered to be a small patch of woods. Because the resident didn’t need a permit to do so, there was nothing to bar the resident from cutting down the trees because it was private property. Anklowitz says the concern is that people could cut trees down in neighborhoods like Berrien City, which has many wooded areas, and characters of whole neighborhoods could change. He said the ordinance would look to balance property owners’ rights with the township’s goal of preserving the character of various neighborhoods.
Also on the agenda are a few zoning issues regarding impervious coverage and signage requirements in the downtown area.
