The Hudson County freeholders voted on Feb. 9 on a $25 million capital improvement bond to continue the expansion of Hudson County Community College in the Journal Square area of Jersey City, and to construct a campus in Union City.
This is the first part of a three-year $73 million capital improvement plan that will allow the college to move out of the leased spaces it currently occupies in Jersey City.
Construction of the Union City facility was contingent upon completing an extension of the Bergen-Hudson Light Rail station located near 48th Street in the city. The station is due to open on Feb. 25. The 85,000 square-foot building is being constructed just above the station. Recently, college officials toured 2 Enos Place and 100 Newkirk St. in Jersey City, properties currently housing county operations, but which will be vacated once the county sets up its central offices at the Block Drug site off Baldwin and Montgomery avenues sometime later this year or early in 2007.
In January, Freeholder William O’Dea asked the freeholders to pass a resolution requiring the community college to keep county and municipal officials informed of their construction progress. The resolution was presented last week to the college, but O’Dea said he initially requested stronger language for it.
“I’ll support this resolution, but I think the resolution I wanted had more teeth,” he said.
O’Dea was concerned that the college had plans for a large parking deck near Enos Place but had not given a presentation to freeholder or municipal officials – and most residents in the area are unaware of the impact that the 400-car facility would have on traffic patterns.
“Residents in the area should be told about what will have an impact on their lives,” O’Dea saidClosing of Catholic school could be a safety problem
In another matter, O’Dea asked the freeholders to pass a resolution asking the Archdiocese of Newark to delay closing St. Aidan’s Elementary School on Bergen Avenue in Jersey City for a year so the county could deal with the potential impacts the closing would have on other schools, as well as the traffic patterns around St. Anne’s School, another Kennedy Boulevard Catholic school to which many of the students will relocate.
Church officials at St. Aidan’s announced late last month that the school would close at the conclusion of this school year.
O’Dea said the Kennedy Boulevard area already has numerous traffic problems with the dropping off and picking up of students, and this would likely be compounded by the increase in students at St. Anne’s School next year.
Freeholder Jeff Dublin, in supporting the resolution, said school closings do not occur overnight and parents and others should have had more notice.
Freeholder Chairman Sal Vega agreed the resolution was necessary.
“While I know that we have separation of church and state,” he said. “This has an impact on the public safety.” Bayonne tennis courts dropped
To move on with a contract to upgrade tennis courts in Jersey City and elsewhere in the county, officials have temporarily dropped the renovation of tennis courts at Stephen Gregg County Park in Bayonne.
The project had run into several snags that prevented it from moving ahead. The previous bids came in too high overall and there were objections to the number of trees to be cut down in order to change the direction of the tennis courts in Bayonne.
In some ways, the county has been boxed in by requests. On one hand, the county has been asked to reconfigure the tennis courts by turning them from an east-west configuration to north-south. When the county’s designs indicated the need to cut down almost 80 trees, the Bayonne Historic Preservation Commission objected, since these trees make up part of the historic corridor over which they have authority.
The commission, which enforces view corridors and the symmetry of tree borders, conditionally approved the county plans, urging the county to save as many trees as possible and eventually replace those taken down. The commission, however, said the county should keep trees around all four sides of the courts and replace those that cannot be saved.
While the county had hoped to start work recently, the situation hasn’t yet been resolved and the county will likely move on with work elsewhere.
“We’ve temporarily taken that portion out of the project at the request of [Bayonne] Mayor [Joseph] Doria,” County Engineer Bob Jasek said.
Jasek reported that the last bid would come close to the county’s estimate of the cost if the Bayonne portion were removed.
The freeholders are expected to vote to approve the amended project shortly, suspending the Bayonne portion until the issues surrounding it are resolved. Secaucus gets refund for Katrina response
Secaucus received $15,327 from the county as a result of flooding conditions along County Road due to Hurricane Katrina last October. In what local officials called “horrendous flooding conditions,” Secaucus acted to alleviate the situation by hiring Bayonne-based Nacirema Inc. to remove approximately 13 tons of debris that restricted drainage along the roadway normally maintained by the county.
Secaucus officials acted to prevent property damage to residences and businesses along the roadway. As a result, the county agreed to reimburse Secaucus for the cost of remedying the situation.
The freeholders also approved two contracts with Secaucus firms, a $30,000 contract for automobile tires with Custom Bandag Inc. and one for $50,000 with WB Mason for office supplies.
The freeholders voted to confirm the reappointments of Gerald Spike of Guttenberg, Doreen Gynn of Secaucus, and Richard Evans of Hoboken to the Hudson County Ethics Board. Their terms of office will expire Dec. 31, 2010.