By DONALD WITTKOWSKI
New safety improvements are planned at the intersection of 20th Street and Bay Avenue to protect students at the Ocean City Intermediate School when they cross the road in a heavily traveled section of town, Mayor Jay Gillian announced Thursday night.
Speaking at a City Council meeting, Gillian said one student was nearly hit by traffic recently and another was struck last year, underscoring the need for safety upgrades next to the school.
“It’s a high-volume area down there, so it’s something we need to keep our eyes on,” he said while giving a report to Council.
Bay Avenue is a county road, so the city will work with Cape May County officials to make the safety improvements. City spokesman Doug Bergen said the county will pay the cost.
The improvements will include adding a new crosswalk at the intersection of 20th and Bay, new reflector strips to improve visibility, a second “pedestrian crossing” sign and two new flashing yellow lights, Police Chief Jay Prettyman said.
Yellow flashing lights will be installed on both sides of Bay Avenue at 20th Street. They will be programmed to flash automatically when students are going to school in the morning and leaving in the afternoon. The rest of the time, pedestrians will be able to activate the lights to help them safely cross the road, Prettyman said.
“I think the more visible we can make the crosswalk, the safer it will be. I think this will give motorists a better indication that someone is in the crosswalk,” he said in an interview after the Council meeting.
Plans for the safety improvements follow a “near-miss” involving a student who was crossing the street last week while participating in an after-school program. The student was not injured, Prettyman said.
Work is scheduled to begin on the intersection next week. The project is expected to take four to six weeks, according to Prettyman.
As an extra safety measure, Gillian said he is also in favor of building a new parking lot at the school for parents, teachers and visitors.
Hoping to improve safety in another section of town, Prettyman said the city is also talking to the county about upgrades to the busy intersection of 34th Street and Haven Avenue. Those improvements would help to protect bicyclists where the city’s bike path crosses over 34th Street, a county road.
“We are going to push for improvements at 34th and Haven before next summer,” Prettyman said.
In other business at Thursday’s meeting, Council approved a nearly $2.3 million contract for dredging work at bayfront lagoons where muddy sediment has been building up and making it difficult for boaters to navigate the waterways.
SumCo Eco-Contracting LLC, of Peabody, Mass., the low bidder for the project, is scheduled to dredge the lagoons beginning this fall through March 31, 2022.
The project is a continuation of the city’s multi-year dredging program for the shallow lagoons and channels along the back bays.
The areas scheduled for dredging this fall and winter include Snug Harbor, North Point Lagoon, Venetian Bayou, Carnival Bayou, South Harbor, Sunny Harbor and the approaches to the Bluefish and Clubhouse lagoons.
Also at the meeting, a few of the Council members called for the city to work with other municipalities to have the Legislature repeal a newly enacted state law that removes local oversight – known as “home rule” – for a wind energy farm proposed off the South Jersey coast.
The law allows wind farms to obtain easements, rights-of-way or other property rights from any level of government that are needed to build the project. The New Jersey Board of Public Utilities, or BPU, would make a final decision if local approvals are withheld by towns or counties.
The Council members said the law effectively strips Ocean City and other towns that would be affected by the wind farm of their home rule rights, a time-honored tradition in New Jersey.
“I think it’s highly inappropriate to take it away from us after a hundred years,” Council Vice President Tom Rotondi said.
Ocean City’s Council members have been among the strongest critics of the wind farm project – repeatedly expressing their concerns and opposition for the past year.
In June, Council voted 7-0 to approve a resolution that denounced state legislation that makes it easier for the wind farm’s development group to build the project by stripping away local control over transmission lines and other onshore infrastructure from municipalities and county government in an effort to fast-track the project.
Rotondi said Ocean City officials intend to speak with local, county and state lawmakers to try to have the law repealed. The lawmakers will include state Assemblyman Antwan McClellan, a former Ocean City councilman who has just been named to the second-highest ranking position among the Assembly Republicans following his re-election on Tuesday.
Ocean City should have some decision-making power over the wind farm because of its impact on the town, Rotondi said. The project will include massive wind turbines located 15 miles off the coast from Atlantic City to Stone Harbor, passing by Ocean City in the process.
Councilman Terry Crowley Jr., who was elected to the governing body in Tuesday’s election, agreed with Rotondi that Ocean City should have input in the wind farm’s construction.
“When we look at home rule, it’s one of the reasons I got involved,” Crowley said of his decision to run for elected office.
Crowley warned that although the new law removes home rule for construction of a wind energy farm, municipalities might also be denied local oversight for other types of projects in the future.
“It should be up to the citizens … taking home rule away was a mess,” Councilman Keith Hartzell added.
Council President Bob Barr insisted Council’s objections to losing home rule “has nothing to do” with the wind energy farm. He compared the loss of home rule to “Big Brother comes and takes your power away.”
“I think we should take a long, hard look,” Barr said of his desire to have Ocean City involved in overseeing the wind farm.
Orsted, the Danish energy company that wants to build the wind farm, will hold a public hearing about the project this Saturday at 10 a.m. at the Ocean City Music Pier.
Orsted has been talking to Ocean City about the possibility of running underground electric cables through town to connect the offshore turbines to a substation next to the decommissioned B.L. England Generating Station in Marmora. B.L. England is under consideration as one of the sites where Orsted would link the wind farm to the land-based power grid.
Among the major concerns raised by members of City Council and other opponents of the project are the wind farm’s possible negative impacts on tourism, the commercial fishing industry and the environment, including marine life and migratory birds.
Opponents say the towering wind turbines would create a visual blight when viewed from the Ocean City shoreline. They also fear that migratory birds would be killed by the spinning turbine blades.
