A borough plow works Monmouth Street at the height of Saturday’s blizzard. (Click to enlarge)
With a second major winter storm in three days expected to wallop the region starting tonight, Red Bank officials have amped up their enforcement of street-parking rules and snow-removal laws, they say.
More than at any time in the past two decades, the public works and police departments are coordinating their efforts to clear borough streets and parking lots of snow, officials say. And that could mean more tickets, they warn.
“We really don’t bother people about parking on the streets” when it snows, says Councilwoman Sharon Lee. “But it’s gotten to the point where it has not paid for us to be pliable.”
At issue, officials say, are safety concerns and the ire of residents who clear their driveways, only to have them buried anew because of re-plowing necessitated by others who leave their vehicles on the street during storms.
But the whopper concern is cost, driven by overtime pay for borough employees having to repeat their efforts to accommodate motorists who leave their cars on the street during storms, says public uilities director Gary Watson.
“We’re talking money,” he says.
He says the breaking point was reached with the storm of December 19-20, which dumped about 15 inches of snow overnight starting on a Saturday night, when restaurants and bars were open downtown. Many patrons left their cars in the English Plaza municipal lot for several days, requiring repeated trips by snowplows to clear the hard-to-navigate facility.
“That was the one that kind of made us all say, ‘enough,’” Watson tells redbankgreen. “It took us three days to clear that lot.”
After meetings between Watson, a retired police officer, and police Chief Steve McCarthy, McCarthy drew up an action plan to coordinate the efforts of the two agencies to target problematic streets and lots.
This weekend’s storm was the first test of that plan. It included the posting of signs on meters in English Plaza warning that the lot would be closed, barricading the lot to new entrants Friday night, and then ticketing cars left there during the storm. Fewer than five cars were ticketed and one was towed out, officials said.
In addition, notices were posted on the borough website advising residents that on some streets, parking during snowfalls constitutes a violation, but also asking all residents to remove their cars from streets if possible.
The police department also has the authority to declare certain streets as off-limits to cars during emergencies, and has availed itself of that power, McCarthy says.
Notices were posted on signs and car windshields in advance of the storm alerting motorists that parking would be prohibited, though few were ticketed in the most recent storm.
“The last option we want to use is to ticket and tow people’s cars,” McCarthy says. Still, tonight, “I think we’ll have to do some ticketing,” he says.
Separately, code enforcement personnel issued 90 citations related to trash violations over the weekend, and another 60 for failure to remove snow from sidewalks, according to municipal court clerk Fran Pastoriza. Garbage violations cost $53, and snow removal violations, $100.
Town officials are also exploring the possibility of a ordinance that would impose a blanket, townwide ban on street parking, McCarthy says, and are looking at bans in other towns for guidance. But significant questions remain unanswered, including how to accommodate residents who don’t have driveways and at what point in a storm to allow them to store their cars in municipal lots.
Meanwhile, for tonight’s storm, cars are being leafletted with warnings on blocks that were problematic during the weekend blizzard, including South Street between East Bergen Place and Pinckney Road.
Watson asks that residents “give us a couple of hours” after the end of a storm to finish plowing the streets before putting cars out, and says that shoveling into the street “is never permitted.”
In anticipation of the storm, DPW has canceled tomorrow’s planned recycling pickup west of Broad Street. Watson says he doesn’t plan to issue summonses to residents who don’t get the word.
SNOWMAGEDON AND SNOWPOCOLYPS!
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Ads are looking great!
AMEN! It’s about time the town got these cars out of the street when it snows. It’s a hazard. The drive lanes get narrower when they’re filled with snow. It’s rude when someone with a driveway leaves their car or pickup in the street when it snows.
I know it’s hard if you don’t have a driveway, but everyone knows they have to make arrangements when it snows.
Don’t get me started about the garbage citations. It’s selective enforcement for sure. Take a ride down Broad Street any day and see the piles of bags at the curb.
So I own a home without a driveway. What are my options? I’ve been calling the Central Parking garage on West Front all morning to get rates but no one picks up.
Does anyone ever park there? The people going to the Count Basie do not, they park on the residential streets.
Can we please make sure to get this memo over to the various Police Officers and State Trooper that seem to be above the law and leave their cars on Morford Place during a snow storm?
While I agree with certain ordinances, they are never fairly enforced. I walked through town and they had still not cleared its sidewalks particularly around eastside park. If I am expected to have them clean 24hrs of day light after the last flake, then why are they not accountable? of course, the code says 24 hrs of daylight. So the snow stopped Saturday at 3pm which left 2.5 hrs of days light Saturday (sunset at 521pm), then there was 10.5 hours of daylight on Sunday (7am - 522pm) and then 10.5hrs of daylight on Monday, so basically you had till 8am this morning to have your snow removed if I interpret the code correctly…am I wrong? Code 13.5-1…where are my lawyers out there? so only the tickets written today have to be paid.
Last time they handed out fines, several of our councilman hadn’t had their’s shoveled either, is there a record if they were fined like most of my neighbors who were over 80y.o.? Also the river road sidewalks by the quickie mart weren’t done until at least 4 days after the snow, who fines the county?
I think you should get a warning or at least a reminder to inform you of the rules because if you move in after the newsletter goes out, you dont know the town rules. I know ignorance is no excuse but honestly when moving into a house, the snow removal rule and garbage rule are the last things you think of.
just two cents…please RBG experts legal folks let me know if I interpreted the code correct…either way the town violates their own codes regularly but those that make the rules dont need to follow right???
Many thanks to RBDPW for plowing right up to the curb (not always the case), which will make parking again so much easier on my tricky one-way st. Thank you to RBPD for allowing us to park in the muni lots. However, the only spots that were plowed are rented by the brokerage firms. I didn’t have many options between the two storms this week.
OK, so when you leave cars out, it costs us overtime. So ticket, fine.
Exactly how much overtime is incurred because of the need to drive around a car, though? I know some guys who run plows, some honest about the “30+” hours they say they were actually working, most not. We need accountability at all levels here, people. Not sure how to fix this, but most states are already many millions in the hole from this snow. How many millions were paid for these guys to sleep in their trucks, or have equipment on the job idling?
Any chance Buno Sera gets ticketed for plowing their snow into the street with the quad they are using? I’m guessing not.