'Jersey Girls' show their stuff ~ 17-year-old painter leads all-female art
exhibit 10/31/05
Buena resident Kandice Fields a high school student, is the
featured artist at the African American Heritage Museum of Southern New Jersey.
For complete details go to:
www.thedailyjournal.com
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ATV park proposal stirs debate
10/26/05
The state purchased the Sahara Sand Inc. property off Jackson
Road in Monroe Township quietly for $1.2 million. Buena Vista Township
officials fear it would bring noise, traffic and ecological damage.
Concerned citizens are circulating several petitions to protest
this ATV park from coming to Jackson Road.
For complete details go to:
www.thedailyjournal.com
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DOT
contributes $250,000 toward Richland project 10/25/05
BUENA VISTA TOWNSHIP-Two recent grants have helped fund
redevelopment projects in the township's Richland area.
Both grants, totaling about $250,000, were received separately from the New
Jersey Department of Transportation.
A $100,000 "centers of place" grant will go toward extending the streetscape
project West past the Cape May Seashore Line railroad tracks and East past
Greenbriar Avenue. The extensions will last for as long as the money permits,
said Mayor Chuck Chiarello.
"It'll go toward the street lighting, trash receptacles and other new things
people have begun to see in the area," he said Monday. "It'll also be for those
things some people don't commonly think about - like sewage lines and curbs."
The $3 million redevelopment project will give the area an economic boost by
hopefully making Richland a southern New Jersey destination. Plans include
running and extending the revitalized Cape May Seashore Line, and bringing shops
and restaurants into the area. About 90 percent of the township has Pinelands
restrictions, which prohibit development to protect the environment.
Chiarello said he initially asked for around $250,000 from the "centers of
place" grant. "We're still enthusiastic about the funds," he said. "It all
helps."
The township also recently received $150,000 in state road aid from the DOT for
the area between Route 40 and old Landis Road.
In September, the township received $500,000 from the Casino Reinvestment
Development Authority toward the project.
About $225,000 is going toward the construction of a passenger platform and
development of the train station; $175,000 will go toward laying tracks to allow
trains to pass those stopped at the station; and the rest will go toward
converting a factory into a new home for the Patcong Valley Society of Model
Railroaders, which used to be in Egg Harbor Township.
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ATV park plan in for bumpy
ride 10/22/05
State officials want to avoid dirt bike damage, such as
these tracks in the Pine Barrens.
RELATED STORIES
LAWRENCE HAJNA/Courier-Post
Fred Akers of the Great Egg Harbor Watershed Association stands in the
area of the former Sahara Sand mine, which the state has targeted for an
off-road vehicle park.
MONROE
The state has quietly purchased a sand mine off Jackson Road, hoping to open an
off-road vehicle park and reduce damage that all-terrain vehicles and dirt bikes
are doing to ecologically sensitive land across South Jersey.
But the plan, resulting from the state's purchase of the Sahara Sand Inc.
property five months ago, could become a major environmental battle, pitting
those who enjoy the outdoors by jumping sand moguls against those who prefer
nature as seen through a pair of binoculars.
Environmentalists argue dirt bikes and ATVs will damage an area that mining
operations inadvertently turned into relatively unique wildlife habitats on the
edge of the Pinelands National Reserve.
Moreover, they insist they won't support the plan without tougher measures to
register and issue license plates for ATVs to help law enforcement officers
catch illegal riders.
But off-road vehicle enthusiasts argue a park is desperately needed because of a
lack of places to ride legally. Without one, they say, more riders will take to
the woods and do more damage.
Tom Pannone Sr. is owner of Goodfellows Motor Sports, a Black Horse Pike
off-road vehicle dealer. He said he believes a park will relieve damage to other
state lands while cutting down on injuries and fatalities from uncontrolled
riding.
"It's a much safer environment for people to have a place to go to and ride,
rather than the renegade way," said Pannone, who alerted state officials to the
availability of the Sahara Sand property.
The Department of Environmental Protection acquired the sand mine in May for
$1.2 million, using funds from the Green Acres program.
The 213-acre property includes a large sandy area surrounding a deep lake formed
by mining operations. Pannone compares the area to dunes and deserts of Southern
California that are popular with ATV riders.
But residents have a different view. Ed Caffee, who lives on Jackson Road,
across from the sand mine's lake, worries about noise.
"I don't like the sneaky way they're doing this," the 74-year-old retired police
lieutenant said of the state's handling of the purchase. "It's like they don't
want people screaming and hollering about it."
Jay Watson, an assistant DEP commissioner, said the department will hold public
hearings once park plans are further along. But he could not explain why the DEP
did not formally announce the acquisition other than to say "we buy a lot of
land all the time and this probably didn't rise to the level of putting out a
news release."
The property encompasses forests of young pine trees, grasslands and wetlands
that likely provide habitat for pine snakes, rattlesnakes, Pine Barrens tree
frogs and grassland bird species, environmentalists say.
"This would be a great habitat restoration project," Jeff Tittel of the New
Jersey Sierra Club said of the Sahara Sand property.
He argues that attempts to control riding have backfired in California, where
ATV riders leave designated riding areas and have scarred delicate desert
habitats.
Tittel further argues that state money should not be used to fund a private
interest.
"I'm a skier," he said. "Does that mean the state should build me a ski slope in
the Highlands?"
Watson said the state is trying to make the best of a bad situation. The DEP
hopes to keep riders out of state forests, parks and wildlife management areas.
"They're wreaking havoc on all the places we're trying to protect," Watson said.
Riders blaze trails through wetlands, tear up boggy areas that provide frog
breeding habitat, and chew up mats of rare plants, environmentalists say.
The DEP initiated tougher enforcement in 2002, but Watson concedes enforcement
alone is not working. This is why the department also launched a process to
identify areas that could become regional off-road vehicle parks, he said.
If the Monroe park clears local and state regulatory hurdles, it could be the
first in a state system of regional off-road vehicle parks.
One of the few major parks already existing in the state is the New Jersey Off
Road Vehicle Park in eastern Burlington County. The nonprofit New Jersey Off
Road Vehicle Park Inc. will lose its lease to the land in 2008.
"You'd have thousands of riders without a place to ride; they're pretty much
stuck riding illegally, I guess," the group's president, Kenny Montanaro, said
of the prospects of the park closing without a replacement. His group hopes to
manage the new park.
A decade ago, the group signed an agreement with the New Jersey Conservation
Foundation, which owns the land off Savoy Boulevard in Woodland, to bring
control to lawlessness.
Bonfires, shooting of firearms, stripping and torching of stolen cars were
common, Mantanaro said.
Things were so bad, the state Pinelands Commission bent its own rules by
allowing the park in a core preservation area, said Emile DeVito, science and
stewardship manager for the Conservation Foundation.
"It was a mess," he said.
The park now attracts ATV and dirt bike riders from all over the region,
Mantanaro said.
"They're all responsible people. It's not people just ripping it up, drinking.
It's a good family atmosphere," he said.
But the Conservation Foundation plans to hand the land over to the state in 2008
as an addition to Brendan Byrne State Forest.
The Sahara Sand property is on the national reserve's edge, which the state
considers more compatible for an off-road vehicle park.
"Honestly, we would have preferred the park being outside the Pinelands, but the
opportunity availed itself," Watson said.
He insists riding will be focused on the disturbed areas around the lake, and
that steps will be taken to control dust and noise.
DeVito believes off-road vehicle riders need a place to call their own. But he
said environmentalists initially supported the state's regional park concept
with the understanding that the Legislature would enact laws requiring ATV
registration and related fees to support more enforcement.
This never happened because of lobbying by companies that manufacture and sell
ATVs, he said.
"It's all illegal, but there's no way to catch anyone," DeVito said. "When
nobody can catch you or know who you are, you just keep your helmet down and
go."
Monroe Administrator Kevin Heydel said it's too early for the township to take a
position because the state has not even submitted an application to the planning
board. But he said the park could bring economic development to the township.
Buena Vista Township Mayor Chuck Chiarello, however, fears riders will
eventually get bored of the park and will spill into woods near residential
neighborhoods in his township.
He argues the money spent on buying the sand mine could have been better spent
on enforcement.
"We already have a horrible problem with the sand mines," he said. "Hundreds of
riders come through with no enforcement of the law."
Reach Lawrence Hajna at (856) 486-2466 or lhajna@courierposton line.com
(Return To Top Of Page)
ATV FACTS 10/22/05
From 1982 through 2004, at least 48 people died in ATV-related accidents in
New Jersey, according to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission. Those most
likely to be involved are under the age of 16.
It is illegal to ride ATVs anywhere but on privately owned land with the owner's
permission. Local fines vary; fines for riding on state-owned land, including
state forests and wildlife management areas, can be as high as $1,000. The state
issues special permits allowing limited use of state land for motorcycle "enduro'
events.
State conservation and parks officers issued 1,613 summonses for illegal
off-road vehicle riding between October 2002 and September 2005.
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Photo
Gallery Richland/Tuckahoe Train opens to public 10/20/05
Ralph Quidone III is a self-proclaimed expert in locomotives.
He said this while he mashed his forehead against the train window, watching
chestnut-colored horses whiz by. Ralph is 9.
"This train rules," he said, referring to the Cape May Seashore Line, which has
just resurrected a small section after 24 years of dormancy. "I want it to go
further, so we can ride the Cape May-Lewes Ferry."
The other part of "we" is his father, Buena Vista resident Ralph Quidone Jr.,
who said his son is the only child he knows that searches for maps in toy
stores.
"We'll end up between routes 49 and 50, at county road 557," Ralph III said. For
any nonexperts, that's the Tuckahoe Train Station.
A passenger car carrying people like the Quidones hasn't lumbered down this
15-mile stretch of track between Richland in Atlantic County and Tuckahoe in
Cape May County since the Pennsylvania Railroad Seashore Line closed in 1981.
Many of the 98 passengers on board Saturday's 11 a.m. train remember the line as
quick access to Philadelphia and the shore points.
Now, people like Buena Vista Mayor Chuck Chiarello are trying to resurrect the
train for both its convenience and economic possibilities.
But to pull this railroad out of extinction, two things must happen. First is
developing some areas around the stations. Second, as Ralph III hopes, is to
extend the train's service deep into Cape May and possibly link it to NJ
Transit's Atlantic City Line. The latter would cost about $10 million, according
to rail line owner Tony Macrie, for repairs to the wooden planks that support
the metal rails.
Walking through the train during its 30-mile round trip, most children were
staring out the windows as adults became acquainted in the face-to-face seats.
Lynda Patrick, 29, owns Tea by the Sea in Cape May. She said the line would
match up nicely with the shops in Cape May and the new Atlantic Cape Community
College extension.
"I'd be fine with having rail lines of people dropped off close to the shop,"
she said.
Business incentives like these are also sparking development in the Richland
area. Chiarello is planning for new restaurants and shops to be built that would
make the area not only an old-country-themed destination but would also bring
more tax ratables to the area.
But for some passengers, business and economics didn't matter compared with the
nostalgia.
Grace Garrity, of Petersburg, Upper Township, stood by the tracks at Tuckahoe.
Her father used to operate the train tower at a time when the area was full of
railroad workers.
"It's amazing to see this line running again, even in part," she said. "It's a
thrill for those of us who can remember that time."
According to Macrie, anyone who rode the Pennsylvania Seashore Line before it
closed probably sat in one of the two cars used Saturday. He conducted the
train, settling the speed in at 35 mph and pulling the horn with his greasy
right hand.
"We gave this up for a less perfect form of transport, the car," he said. "Now
people don't like to drive anymore. Gas, insurance prices are too high. We're
getting back on track again."
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Automobiles take
center stage at local event 10/17/05
Corvettes Unlimited Corvette Club of Vineland held their
American Wheels Car Show at the Michael Debbi Park in Richland on Sunday,
October 16th.
For complete details go to:
www.thedailyjournal.com
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Mayor OKs help
for emergency medical service 10/17/05
Mayor Chuck Chiarello will allow two Public Works employees who
are trained as emergency medical technicians to go out on ambulance runs.
For complete details go to:
www.thedailyjournal.com
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Hammonton man's railroad dreams on roll to reality with Seashore Lines 10/12/05
Tony Macrie, President of the Cape May Seashore Lines started his railroad
dream in 1984. On Saturday Richland was added to the service route.
For complete details go to:
www.thedailyjournal.com
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Good things happening in
Buena Vista 10/14/05
The Richland Village Project will bring restoration to
the town.
For complete details go to:
www.thedailyjournal.com
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WELCOME TO RICHLAND! Village's tourist train officially unveiled 10/10/05
Tony Macrie, President of the Cape May Seashore Lines
will be providing tourist passenger service between Richland Village and
Tuckahoe.
For complete details go to:
www.thedailyjournal.com
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Emergency
service units work to fill day shift 10/10/05
East Vineland Fire Company told the Township Committee it is
hard to find qualified personnel to cover 6 am to 4 pm weekday shifts. Two
trained emergency medical technicians work in the township's Department of
Public Works. The township will have to figure a way to make those two
public works employees available on certain days.
For complete details go to:
www.thedailyjournal.com
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Railroad ties:
Richland-Tuckahoe run opens 10/9/05
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All aboard from Richland
to Tuckahoe 10/8/05
UPPER TOWNSHIP-If you go:
The Richland-to-Tuckahoe excursion will begin Oct. 17 with three round-trip
rides every Saturday through Dec. 17. The train departs Tuckahoe at 10 a.m., 1
p.m. and 4 p.m. It departs Richland at 11:30 a.m., 2:30 p.m. and 5 p.m.
A round-trip ticket is $10 for adults and $5 for children. For more
information, call Cape May Seashore Lines at 609-884-2675.
-Passenger-rail service will return to Tuckahoe this month for the first time
in a generation when Cape May Seashore Lines launches a new tourist attraction.
Trains will ferry passengers to and from Richland every Saturday beginning
Oct. 15.
Cape May Seashore Lines already has a tourist line from Cape May Court House
to Cape May. The new Saturday excursions will boast themes such as the Santa
Express or wine tasting, Buena Vista Township Mayor Chuck Chiarello said.
"We're planning all sorts of wonderful trips," Chiarello said.
Cape May Seashore Lines will give public officials a sneak peek of the
15-mile-long excursion today.
Tuckahoe is a former railroad town. But the only rail cars it sees now carry
West Virginia coal to the B.L. England power plant in Beesleys Point.
The Upper Township Committee spent $250,000 in labor and materials to
painstakingly restore Tuckahoe's original 1894 train station. The township's
Historical Society and local Eagle Scouts spent countless hours restoring
outbuildings and landscaping the sprawling grounds.
This might have seemed like a boondoggle at the time given that no trains
ever stopped at this ghost junction. But the decision to save and restore the
station was a wise one, Mayor Richard Palombo said.
"It's always been our hope to have that rail service restored. It's been 25
years now," Palombo said of the last train service through this old river town.
"I think Tuckahoe is very comfortable keeping the past history in the village."
Merchants in both Richland and Tuckahoe will benefit from the restored train
service, Chiarello said.
"It's a work in progress," Chiarello said. "It's going to get better as
people find out about it. I think it's going to be a fantastic boon. Something
new and different in the region."
Chiarello said having rail service in Richland will lend support for the rail
company's bid to get state or federal money to repair the 15 miles of track
between Woodbine and Cape May Court House. If repairs were made, passengers
conceivably could take the train to Cape May.
"Most rail lines around the country are subsidized," Chiarello said. "If it
gets people off the highways, we're paying for the highways, too. I look at it
as a public-private partnership that helps everybody."
Palombo said the rail line could be used to evacuate Cape May County
residents who have no other means of transportation before an emergency such as
a hurricane.
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ROUND TRIP TICKET: Village prepares for train's
first visit 10/5/05
Buena Vista Township employees put final
touches on a ticket booth and guard house next to the railroad tracks in
Richland Village.
For complete details go to:
www.thedailyjournal.com
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Township again
delays hearing sex offender law 10/4/05
Buena Vista Township Committee acting on
the advice of Solicitor Joseph Gindhart, agreed to take up the idea of passing a
sex offender ordinance proposal sometime next month.
For complete details go to:
www.thedailyjournal.com
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More residents
should enjoy the good music 10/4/05
Mr. John Quinesso extends thanks to
Vineland, Minotola and Richland for providing weekly entertainment at their
various parks.
For complete details go to:
www.thedailyjournal.com
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Crash
interrupts family campout; daughter calls 9-1-1 10/3/05
Oak Road accident sends people to the
hospital with serious injuries....
For complete details go to:
www.thedailyjournal.com
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A train to run in Richland starting soon ~
Ride the rails starting Oct 15 10/1/05
The Cape May Seashore Line's arrival in Richland will be next weekend with a
ribbon-cutting ceremony. Service between Richland Village and Tuckahoe
will begin on Saturdays through December 17th.
For complete details go to:
www.thedailyjournal.com
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