DENNISVILLE – At its April 11 meeting, Dennis Township Committee heard a presentation by the project manager of Atlantic City Electric (ACE) on the company’s transmission line project. It will traverse Route 9 from Sea Isle City to Swainton to connect ACE stations.
“We are very interested in improving the reliability of our service to Dennis Township. We’ve had bursts of unusual weather increasing since 2010, and we want to make sure we keep up,” David Hardin said.
“This 69-kilowatt project is a critical backbone for the service we provide to the county and its design standard is to withstand winds of up to 120 mph. It will start at Gleeson’s Liquor Store at the corner of Route 9 and continue for about four miles along the Department of Transportation’s right-of-way along that highway.
“So, two-thirds of the line will be in Dennis Township, and the other one-third will be in Middle Township,” he continued.
“This is a big investment for us, and it will reinforce reliability. We’ve done a number of surveys already and property owner meetings as well as having sent out three letters to each affected property owner.
“We’re going to be very careful with tree and vegetation trimming, traffic control, lines of sight and private driveways.
“The project will begin in November and finish before the first week of May 2018,” he concluded.
Committee member Donald Tozer asked Hardin if using a previous project staging area at Route 83 was envisioned this time and that “It’s got to be better than last time.”
Hardin said ACE was aware of issues during that previous project and would strive to avoid any issue for this project.
Tozer later told the committee that the earlier project had created huge mud piles, trash, workers urinating in the woods and related residents’ complaints.
Committee pledged not to let these types of problems reoccur.
VFW Club License
Committee approved an amendment to its code to accommodate the Belleplain Veterans of Foreign Wars post to serve alcohol.
Per state law, a club license cannot be free, i.e. no waiver is permitted.
Thus committee agreed to assess the VFW $63 for the annual license. That amount represents no increase of the township’s license fees which have remained level for some years although committee could have raised them by the permissible 20 percent.
FEMA Maps
Committee approved accepting the new FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) map as currently drafted.
According to Township Engineer John Gibson, “In the next six months, FEMA will help us draft the appropriate ordinances to accept their maps. It’s a good thing we’re doing so because I believe any new FEMA mapping will be more radical than these.
“That’s because New York City successfully appealed FEMA’s study and there will be a new study that will result in higher insurance premiums for homeowners. In Dennis, we require that homeowners have a two feet higher elevation than FEMA mapping which also helps with flood insurance premiums.”
2017 Municipal Budget
Committee approved its 2017 municipal budget with no discussion or comments from the public. The 2017 total appropriations budget is $4.6 million compared to the 2016 budget of $ 4.5 million.
Township Bike Path
Committee member Lisa Salimbene made an update about the township’s efforts to get a bike path through the municipality.
“ACE has indicated that they were happy at their internal first-level review with the information we’ve provided them. Now they have to do a study to see if any of their utility poles need to be moved. We’ve also briefed county freeholders, and they are very supportive since the bike path helps with economic development and ecotourism,” she said.
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Do you think it's appropriate for BLM to call for "Burning down the city" and "Black Vigilantes" because…
