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Mayor Skibitsky rallies Town Council members to pass a resolution supporting the current mid-block crossing despite Union County Freeholder's engineering report contradicting Mayor Skibitsky's "safest location" claim.
Who needs Ringling Brothers? The circus came to town last night and admission was free. Maybe that's why Mayor Skibitsky was able to stack the meeting. Campaign donors, Mayor appointed committee members, and others came out at the Mayor's request to show their support which was clearly staged. Where were all these people the past 15 months? Has the Mayor pulled out all the stops in light of the County's report released last week? Mayor Skibitsky has dug his heels in so deep that there is no turning back now.
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| Feb. 14th Town Council Meeting |
Skibitsky is a little dictator but the Skibitsky regime is going down! See you in two week's Fidel I mean Andrew.
ReplyDeleteObama has unemployment the health care package no one wants and Andy has the traffic light from hell......its amazing how stubborn/blind these political hacks can be.......perhaps someone should gather up all information from the last 15 months and take it to the States Attorney General office .....
ReplyDeleteThe solution to this dilemma is very simple, put it to a vote.
ReplyDeleteThe Mayor had the perfect opportunity to back out of the light issue gracefully. He could have said, he doesn't agree with union county but he had no choice but to move the light. This is how ignorant he really is, he had the chance and he didn't see it.
ReplyDeleteDespite the fact that TFoTM believes a public vote would yield a majority vote in favor of moving the light, this blog site does not endorse a public vote on public safety issues such as this one.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, Mayor Skibitsky allowed that to happen in 2005 during public outreach meetings and that is why the Town is in the dilemma it is in today.
Mayor Skibitsky and the Town Council's "Citizen's Traffic Safety Advisory Committee" allowed this pedestrian & traffic safety issue to be "voted" on during public meetings in 2005 instead of following the recommendations of a County Traffic Warrant Study and the Town's own expert report and recommendations.
Mayor Skibitsky and select members of hisd Town Council have repeatedly stated that they relied on experts when it has been proven the did not. What they have relied on is their own influence to have the light moved from it's original proposed location, where their own expert, AND NOW A SECOND EXPERT REPORT, had recommended the ligh be located.........at the corner.
Central avenue is a county road. The county should do the right thing and move the light.
ReplyDeleteI hope the Whitney Houston funeral procession can make it through without an accident ......
ReplyDeleteI live on the south side of town. I don't want another full time traffic light at Clover and Central. Traffic moves slow enough. I feel bad for AE and MC but the unfortunate thing is that they purchased homes on a main drag. It is for that reason alone I did not buy a house on Central many years ago. I bought off of a main street. That being said, this has been handled poorly by all parties. And two wrongs don't make a right. It's time to move past this. The mayor will have to live with this legacy and the folks on Central will have to live with the HAWK light. Town council meetings in Westfield should not bear resemblance to an episode of Jersey Shore!
ReplyDeleteNo one that purchases a house mid block no matter how busy a street would ever dream that a traffic light would be placed on their property, so your argument is flawed. A corner lot home buyer should beware unless you live in Andy's world. This man that is running (or ruining) our town is actually convinced that it's safer to cross a street in the middle of a road instead of at the corner. This makes about as much sense as diving into the shallow end of a pool instead of the deep end. The crosswalk is dangerous! The cars do not see nor anticipate the light or crossing in the middle of a road, especially a fast paced heavily traveled road like Central. What more evidence do we all need. An independent engineering firm determined what any half wit all ready knew, except our benevolent leader. Move the bleeping light before another pedestrian gets killed in Westfield. As a side note, what is with the Jersey Shore analogies? I've never seen an episode of that trash, but apparently a lot of you classy Westfield residents live vicariously through it. What a bunch of hypocrites.
DeleteTo Anonymous. If you watched the last Council meeting on Channel 36, you could see that the Pennoni experts recommended the relocation of the crosswalk with a no automatic standard light to the intersection of Central with Clover. The no-automatic standard traffic light (red-yellow green) is manually activated by the pedestrians only when a street crossing is needed. It will control the traffic at the intersection, and it will not disturb or reduce the flow of the traffic on Central. Even more important, the crosswalk will be SAFER for the pedestrians than a mid-block crosswalk as the drivers will not be confused any longer by the bizarre location of it. The number of accidents, 6 in 9 months is extremely troubling. Now, the large daily near-miss accidents are a source of constant worry. It will also be safer for my household at 1310 Central Avenue as nobody will have the tendency to turn in my driveway between the lights thinking it is a street. This never happened before but it has happened 6 times during last 14 months. None of the 3 expert reports recommended the midblock location as he repeatedly said. Neither the mayor nor the council members took in the consideration the will of the residents who live in the neighborhood. Mr.Sontz presented to them a petition asking for the relocation of the light and crosswalk exactly where the experts recommended. The petition was signed by 122 people, out of them 53 residents from immediate vicinity of the mid-bloc crosswalk. . Without any understandable reason the Mayor rushed the Council to vote against the experts recommendation The mayor, and 6 Council members who did not have access to the Pennoni report more than 10-15 minutes, voted the way he wanted, meaning to reject the experts recommendation. Councilman Haas was the only one who understood the experts point of view and had the courage to vote according to what is right not what the mayor wanted. Councilwoman Kimmins missed the meeting and the opportunity.
DeleteSpeaking about Jersey Shore, I’ve never seen this show but I was told that any comparison with that is a derogatory remark. Interesting enough that some people forgot how arrogantly and rude the mayor has treated each resident who expressed their negative opinion on the mid-block location of the lights and crosswalk, and asked them to be moved to the intersection. Mr. Skibitsky culminated on January 31st , when unprovoked, he tried to discredit Mr.Kasko who has provided documents and true data, and even more, insulting a resident in public, calling him “a buffoon” a jack ass” and “an idiot” telling him “if you don’t like it move!”. Is this civility? Very proudly the mayor did not deny it in the last meeting, by contrary, forgetting the witnesses, he invented an explanation just to excuse himself and discredit the resident. He put words in our mouth and ridiculed us. So, what can one expect from the people who had their property destroyed, their safety in jeopardy, who were mocked, lied about, ridiculed for such a long time? To praise Mr. Skibitsky? And what the people who praise the mayor would feel and would do if they were in our shoes? Would they praise him any longer?
I would like to know who is paying for all the cost that has been incurred as a result of
ReplyDeleteWhitney Houston being buried? Who is paying for all the police officers that are guarding her grave? I certainly hope that we will not
be absorbing this cost. Maybe the HAWK can be moved to East Broad Street to handle all the traffic entering Fairview.
The Hawk light should be moved to any one of the Westfield town council members' homes. Preferably Neylan's or Skibitsky's.
ReplyDelete