RED BANK: COMMISSION HOSTS EARTH DAY FAIR
Two days early, the Red Bank Environmental Commission hosts an Earth Day Green Fair at the borough middle school Thursday evening.
RED BANK: PARKING, EV CHARGING ON AGENDA
The council is eyeing requirements for electric vehicle charging in new multifamily projects and parking lots. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
See UPDATE below
By JOHN T. WARD
On the Red Bank mayor and council’s agenda for Wednesday night: rules requiring electric vehicle chargers at new developments, and a change in the parking law for a stretch of Spring Street.
Not on the agenda: the burning issue of how to rewrite the town’s cannabis law.
RED BANK: TESLA TRYOUT UPDATED
The borough-owned Tesla gets recharged at a station intended for public use. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Red Bank’s borough government is not yet ready to pull the plug on a donated Tesla sedan, even though keeping the vehicle charged up has been a challenge, interim Business Administrator Darren McConnell tells redbankgreen.
RED BANK: COUNCIL WRAPS UP 2021
The council meeting was the final one scheduled for 2021. (Screenshot from Zoom. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
The Red Bank council’s final regular meeting of 2021 included a new police contract, a plan to recombine workshop and regular sessions, a new used Tesla, and praise for a departing colleague.
Here’s an overview.
RED BANK: BOROUGH MAY GET USED TESLA
Nancy and Phil Blackwood with the car they’ve offered to the town. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
A fire-engine red Tesla sedan may become part of the Red Bank municipal fleet this week, pending the acceptance of a proposed donation by a borough couple.
RED BANK: LINE BREAK INTERRUPTS POWER
A power line that came down on Newman Springs Road caused hundreds of Red Bank residents to lose full or partial electrical service Tuesday night.
The incident also interrupted some Gabbagools hard at work across the street.
RED BANK: GAS SITE MAY GET ‘JET GROUTING’
The sewage pump station at the foot of Cooper’s Bridge was once used as a gas manufacturing plant. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
More than a century after it served as a gas works, a riverfront Red Bank property may get some 20th-century environmental remediation.
Coal tar and other toxic wastes beneath the town’s Bodman Place sewage pumping station overlooking the Navesink are slated to be immobilized by technology known as ‘jet grouting,’ according to borough officials.
FAIR HAVEN: PETERS BLASTS JCP&L ON LAMPS
An easterly view along River Road from Cedar Street earlier this week. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
[See UPDATES below]
By JOHN T. WARD
Electricity supplier JCP&L may be unplugging itself from an agreement to install low-energy streetlamps in Fair Haven, Environmental Commission Chairman Ralph Wyndrum said Wednesday night.
That prompted some choice words about the utility from commission member and former councilman Jon Peters. Among them: “They are the princes and princesses of darkness.”
RED BANK: COUNCIL AGENDA
Borough hall remains closed for public meetings to limit the spread of COVID-19, so the council will again meet via Zoom. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Missing, once again, from the agenda for the Red Bank council session Wednesday are dueling versions of a resolution calling for an investigation.
RED BANK: GRANT TO FUND SOLAR BOOST
Hot chocolate made with an assist from the sun? The concession stand at Count Basie Fields in Red Bank is set to get a juice boost, thanks to the borough Environmental Commission.
RED BANK: POWER OUT AFTER POLES SNAP
Jersey Central Power & Light’s outage map showed electricity out for up to 100 Red Bank customers Friday following an early-morning incident in which two utility poles on Maple Avenue snapped.
RED BANK: POWER SWITCH IN THE WORKS
Billing for service would continue to come from JCP&L even for those customers who participate in the aggregation plan. (Image by Concord. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
In an effort to head off shocks to residents about anticipated changes to their electricity bills, Red Bank official kicked off a public outreach effort Thursday.
Driving the effort: the borough’s planned entry into the “energy aggregation” marketplace, where the local government serves as a bundler of customers to obtain better rates than those offered by Jersey Central Power & Light.
RED BANK: ELECTRICITY DEAL IN THE WORKS
JCP&L’s power distribution facility adjoining Mohawk Pond in Red Bank. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Red Bank officials are considering passage of a law that would automatically turn Jersey Central Power & Light customers in the borough into customers of another electricity provider unless they opt out.
ON THE GREEN: PLUG PULLED ON JCP&L PLAN
An aerial view created by JCP&L shows the southern terminus of the line at a substation in Red Bank. (Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
New Jersey regulators have pulled the plug on a controversial plan for electricity provider Jersey Central Power & Light to construct a 10-mile long, high-voltage electricity transmission line that would end in Red Bank, the Asbury Park Press reported Friday.
RED BANK: JUDGE NIXES POWER LINE PLAN
Homeowners living along the line and other objectors packed a public hearing on the JCP&L proposal held at Brookdale Community College last March. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Electrical utility JCP&L has failed to prove it needs a to build a controversial 10-mile long, high-voltage electricity transmission line that would end in Red Bank, a judge has ruled.
The decision, handed down Thursday, represents at least an interim victory for a grassroots effort led by homeowners to thwart the proposed $111 million project.
RED BANK: POLE DOWNED ON BROAD STREET
A pedestrian suffered minor injuries when she was hit by falling debris as a FedEx truck exiting the Red Bank Post Office caught overhead wires and pulled a utility pole down on Broad Street at about 4:40 p.m. Thursday, according to police Chief Darren McConnell.
LINCROFT: RESIDENTS ZAP JCP&L LINE PLAN
Many in the crowd came with signs and wore stickers indicating the distance of their homes from the proposed power line. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
Thwarted from speaking two months ago, hundreds of opponents of a proposed high-voltage electricity transmission line from Aberdeen to Red Bank came electrified with anger Tuesday night.
The occasion was a public comment session at Brookdale Community College on the Jersey Central Power & Light Company proposal, which calls for support poles as tall as 210 feet running for 10 miles along the North Jersey Coast Line railroad, ending at a substation in Red Bank.
LINCROFT: SECOND JCP&L HEARING SLATED
Two months after an overflow crowd jammed a first hearing, opponents of a proposed high-voltage electricity transmission line from Aberdeen to Red Bank are expected to gather at Brookdale Community College in Lincroft Wednesday evening.
ON THE GREEN: BECK, KYRILLOS OPPOSE LINE
A view north along the North Jersey Coast Line from the Red Bank train station. The proposed JCP&L power line would be strong alongside the railroad right-of-way on poles as tall as 140 feet. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
A controversial 10-mile long, high-voltage electricity transmission line that would end in Red Bank is no more welcome today than it was when it was shelved more than two decades ago, two local legislators said Thursday.
State Senators Jen Beck, of Red Bank, and Joe Kyrillos, of Middletown, jointly introduced a trio of resolutions in Trenton aimed at blocking electricity provider JCP&L from building the line.
FAIR HAVEN: INVESTORS BANK PLAN STALLS
The Investors Bank proposed for River Road would be identical to this branch in Woodbridge, the developer said. (Photo by M&M Realty Partners. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
A proposed drive-thru bank on the site of a former filling station in Fair Haven ran out of gas Tuesday night.
The Investors Bank project encountered continuing objections to a traffic-flow plan that would put two driveways — for an entry and an exit — on River Road, which planning board members said raised child-safety concerns.
Also an issue: the brand-specific look of the one-story building, which called for a shallow glass atrium dome that one resident likened to a “blister.”
FAIR HAVEN: BANK PLAN HEARINGS TO RESUME
Four months of official silence on a proposed bank with drive-thru windows at the long-vacant former site of a Sunoco station on River Road in Fair Haven are expected to end Tuesday night.
RUMSON MAN SENTENCED FOR MARKET CRIMES
A Rumson commodities trader who owned and managed a Red Bank firm was sentenced to three years in federal prison last month for market manipulation, the Federal Bureau of Investigation announced Friday.
Michael Coscia, owner of Panther Energy Trading, was convicted in Chicago last November in the first-ever federal prosecution for “spoofing” under the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial reform law, the FBI said.
ON THE GREEN: JCP&L LINE PLAN FILED
An aerial view created by JCP&L shows the southern terminus of the line at a substation in Red Bank. (Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Setting the stage for a faceoff with residents living alongside it, electricity provider JCP&L on Tuesday filed its formal request to build a controversial 10-mile long, high-voltage electricity transmission line that would end in Red Bank.
FAIR HAVEN: BANK HEARING DELAYED AGAIN
For the second time since it began in May, a hearing on a proposed Investors Savings Bank branch on the former site of a Sunoco station on River Road in Fair Haven has been postponed at the applicant’s request. The matter, scheduled for Monday night, is now slated for July 28.
Meantime, the board is expected to continue its review of the town’s Master Plan, among other matters.
For redbankgreen’s prior coverage of the bank plan, click here. (Photos by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
FAIR HAVEN: LUCARELLI BACKS JCP&L PLAN
Fair Haven Mayor Ben Lucarelli says the controversial transmission line may help his town avoid a repeat of the long outage experienced after Hurricane Sandy. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Fair Haven Mayor Ben Lucarelli stepped onto a political third rail Tuesday, proclaiming his support for a controversial 10-mile long, high-voltage electricity transmission line that would end in Red Bank.