| Author | Message | ||
     Joan Supporter Username: Joancrystal Post Number: 4732 Registered: 5-2001 |
When I was in the Village yesterday, one of the TC members, who frequently reads MOL, asked me where I thought the town could improve in the coming year. Naturally, all thoughts of township issues immediately flew out of the conscious portion of my brain. Now, having had some time to reflect, I realize there are a number of relatively small and relatively large ways in which the Town could improve in the coming year. My thoughts follow. Please feel free to jump in where ever you disagree or seek clarification. | ||
| Joan Supporter Username: Joancrystal Post Number: 4733 Registered: 5-2001 |
Accessibility: The TC members are to be highly praised for their accessibility and responsiveness to the citizens of Maplewood. Their caring and dedication are deeply appreciated by all of us. Unfortunately, the same cannot always be said for the township's employees. Restricting office hours in Town Hall to a time period when large numbers of Maplewood citizens are out-of-town at work in other communities (especially NYC), having limited phone access during the day and even less on weekends, when the Police Department is virtually the only agency taking calls, and not always getting back in a timely fashion to people who do manage to get through with their questions and concerns is not acceptable. Cynicalgirl's battle for better street ligthing by the train underpass at Baker Street should not have been as hassle-filled as it was. Why did it take over two months for the town administrator to get back to Cynicalgirl with a message that there was a problem following through on Cynicalgirls complaint but it would be gotten to? Why did the Mayor have to get involved before even this much of a response was provided? I would be willing to have our township offices open only four weekdays a week in exchange for regular evening hours or weekend hours. This would make our town officials and operations more accessible to the general population they serve. The meet the TC program in the Village and/or on Springfield Avenue once a month is a nice touch but why can't we have a meet the township department heads program once a month when the heads of some of our key departments can make themselves available to speak with our citizenry about their concerns? | ||
| Joan Supporter Username: Joancrystal Post Number: 4734 Registered: 5-2001 |
Encouraging Volunteering: I often think that a set number of hours of community service should be required of every man, woman and child of middle school age and up who live in our town. There is so much work to be done and there are so few people who have made the move to help out. While this is one proposal that is not likely to be adopted, the town could benefit from having a volunteer coordinator (ideally a volunteer him/herself) who could serve as a clearinghouse, bringing together persons who wanted to volunteer in the community with organizations and individuals in need of volunteer assistance. The volunteer coordinator could also help to publicize volunteer opportunities and work to make volunteering the in-thing to do in town. | ||
| Joan Supporter Username: Joancrystal Post Number: 4736 Registered: 5-2001 |
Off-leash Dogs: I worry about the safety of dogs who run off-leash in our town and I worry about the well-being of young children and others who are discouraged from using public spaces when dogs are running loose there. One only has to look at the erosion of grass along the base of the hill in Memorial Park to see that the dogs are running loose again in larger numbers than the ground cover in that part of the park can sustain. A great deal of time and expense was required several years ago to restore that part of the park after it suffered from excessive overuse. The leash law, which exists for reasons of health and safety as well as environmental conservation, should be enforced before this situation gets out of hand again. Several years ago two then candidates for the TC mentioned during their campaign that they were in the process of meeting with the county to establish a dog park which would have the proper size, ecology and facilities needed to support a growing demand for a dog park in our area. To date, there has been no evidence of any positive result of this inquiry. A rehashing of the very messy dog contraversy of several years ago could be avoided if the off leash dog ordinace was enforced and the provision of a proper site for running dogs off leash were to be established. | ||
| Joan Supporter Username: Joancrystal Post Number: 4738 Registered: 5-2001 |
Economic Development (Part 1 - The Village): Prior to reading the recent proposal for redevelopment and participating in discussions regarding the reasons for the proliferation of nail salons in the Village, I thought that the biggest problem facing our town in the economic development area was finding, attracting and keeping the right kinds of business for SA. I realize now that I was wrong. With all the attention that has been given to SA in recent years, it seems in much better shape now than the Village does. A major problem with the Village (sorry Aquaman for ignoring your Festus plea) is that commercial properties are now priced beyond the ability of most merchants to pay and remain in business. The basic businesses that a Village needs food stores, clothing and shoe stores, a hardware store, a pharmacy, an all purpose dry goods store, etc. have already left or are in the process of leaving. We are losing our first growth commercial forest. Much of our second growth commericial forest: the restaurants and some of the specialty shops are also in trouble. One restaurant just closed. Two more are rumored to be going out of business in the immediate future. There are just so many nail-salon type businesses to replace them. Once the nail salons are gone, will we have empty store fronts? The Village is one of our town's greatest assets. Something has to be done now to address the probelms being faced by businesses in the Village before we lose the Village entirely. High real property taxes have been cited as one of the primary reasons for this trend. The redevelopment report also sites the hidden location of the Village, lack of signage pointing to its location, lack of advertizing outside of town, etc. The Village Alliance seems unwilling or unable to deal adequately with the problem. Something needs to be done at the Town-wide level. |
